Essay Abstract

To decide the question "It from Bit or Bit from It?" we first describe a software simulation architecture for the cosmos. After refining the model using ideas from physics, we consider whether its operation is consistent with astronomical observation. A test is suggested, and carried out, for determining whether we now reside within such a system. The result will give us an opportunity to reflect on the insights available from ancient philosophies and finally to answer the question with another aphorism.

Author Bio

Hugh Matlock is a software architect and independent researcher. He became a programmer in high school and enjoyed simulating Conway's Game of Life in 1972 and Von Neumann's self-reproducing universal constructor the next year. He later managed the New Architecture Group at The Source designing and implementing online services. After over thirty years as a professional software developer and entrepreneur, he has been engaged in independent research for the last decade. He has a B.A. in Mathematics from Dartmouth College.

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Dear Matlock,

Your idea of software simulation of Cosmos is good. Did you formulate any model ? I also work on Dynamic universe Model, for which some details you can find in questions of this essay also.......

I am requesting you to go through my essay. And I take this opportunity to say, to come to reality and base your arguments on experimental results.

I failed mainly because I worked against the main stream. The main stream community people want magic from science instead of realty especially in the subject of cosmology. We all know well that cosmology is a subject where speculations rule.

Hope to get your comments even directly to my mail ID also. . . .

Best

=snp

snp.gupta@gmail.com

http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/

Pdf download:

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/essay-download/1607/__details/Gupta_Vak_FQXi_TABLE_REF_Fi.pdf

Part of abstract:

- -Material objects are more fundamental- - is being proposed in this paper; It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material. . . Similarly creation of matter from empty space as required in Steady State theory or in Bigbang is another such problem in the Cosmological counterpart. . . . In this paper we will see about CMB, how it is generated from stars and Galaxies around us. And here we show that NO Microwave background radiation was detected till now after excluding radiation from Stars and Galaxies. . . .

Some complements from FQXi community. . . . .

A

Anton Lorenz Vrba wrote on May. 4, 2013 @ 13:43 GMT

....... I do love your last two sentences - that is why I am coming back.

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 6, 2013 @ 09:24 GMT

. . . . We should use our minds to down to earth realistic thinking. There is no point in wasting our brains in total imagination which are never realities. It is something like showing, mixing of cartoon characters with normal people in movies or people entering into Game-space in virtual reality games or Firing antimatter into a black hole!!!. It is sheer a madness of such concepts going on in many fields like science, mathematics, computer IT etc. . . .

B.

Francis V wrote on May. 11, 2013 @ 02:05 GMT

Well-presented argument about the absence of any explosion for a relic frequency to occur and the detail on collection of temperature data......

C

Robert Bennett wrote on May. 14, 2013 @ 18:26 GMT

"Material objects are more fundamental"..... in other words "IT from Bit" is true.

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 14, 2013 @ 22:53 GMT

1. It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material.

2. John Wheeler did not produce material from information.

3. Information describes material properties. But a mere description of material properties does not produce material.

4. There are Gods, Wizards, and Magicians, allegedly produced material from nowhere. But will that be a scientific experiment?

D

Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jun. 16, 2013 @ 16:22 GMT

It from bit - where are bit come from?

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 17, 2013 @ 06:10 GMT

....And your question is like asking, -- which is first? Egg or Hen?-- in other words Matter is first or Information is first? Is that so? In reality there is no way that Matter comes from information.

Matter is another form of Energy. Matter cannot be created from nothing. Any type of vacuum cannot produce matter. Matter is another form of energy. Energy is having many forms: Mechanical, Electrical, Heat, Magnetic and so on..

E

Antony Ryan wrote on Jun. 23, 2013 @ 22:08 GMT

.....Either way your abstract argument based empirical evidence is strong given that "a mere description of material properties does not produce material". While of course materials do give information.

I think you deserve a place in the final based on this alone. Concise - simple - but undeniable.

    Hi Hugh,

    I liked your essay (I was in the IT industry but not a programmer).

    I have developped a theory of the Universe that you could easily reproduce with a program (there are only two rules to follow).

    You might want to take a look at my essay and if you like it (you never know !), you are welcome to try to simulate it with a program. You can also find the complete theory here: 3D Universe Theory.

    Cheers,

    Patrick

      Hi Satyavarapu,

      You wrote:

      > Your idea of software simulation of Cosmos is good. Did you formulate any model ?

      Thanks, I am glad you liked the idea. While I have not implemented the full software cosmos picture described in the body of the essay, I have calculated models of the grid structure described at the end.

      You also said:

      > And I take this opportunity to say, to come to reality and base your arguments on experimental results.

      When I started studying cosmology about 15 years ago I spent a couple of years just reading papers on arXiv.org and concluded that there were many lovely theories, and many excellent mathematicians, but a paucity of data to decide between them. To take gravity as an example, my citation database eventually included about 100 distinct theories of gravity, most of which are still actively investigated.

      So when I began my own research program in 2001, I resolved to start by gathering observational data rather than coming up with yet another theory, or even committing to one or another of the theoretical approaches then in fashion. Because of my professional background in software engineering, I had some idea of how the cosmos might appear if indeed it were all a simulation. The Landscape Test that I describe in the essay is a statistical test based on (conceptually) simple measurements; in other words, on direct observational evidence. While this evidence conflicts with a materialistic view, it is quite consistent with the software cosmos picture I describe in the essay.

      Aloha,

      Hugh

      Hi Patrick,

      Thanks, glad you liked the essay.

      I looked at your 3D Universe Theory paper, but I have to confess I did not understand it. One problem I had was with the formulae you give: while the numbers you compute are close to important physical quantities, most of those quantities are not pure numbers and so the formulae do not stand up to dimensional analysis.

      Your overall approach, however, reminds me of efforts to find cellular automata whose operation can account for the observed laws of physics. There is a nice theory by Edward Fredkin that he calls Digial Philosophy, which you can read about (including how he handles units consistently) here: Introduction to Digital Philosophy.

      Aloha,

      Hugh

      Hi Hoang,

      Thanks for your comment. I imagine that there will always be new questions that remain to be answered... but perhaps it does not have to result in headaches, as you say.

      Aloha,

      Hugh

      Hi Hugh,

      Thank you for your comments. If you downloaded my theory from viXra then you did not have the page explaining the way I redefined the dimensions, it is explained here.

      It is quite extraordinary at first but it makes sense if you follow my theory.

      Thank you for the link to DP, I will take a look.

      Cheers,

      Patrick

      Hugh,

      If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, "It's good to be the king," is serious about our subject.

      Jim

      Mr Matlock,

      I am deeply in your debt. Please allow me to respond to the John Wheeler quote: "Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful that when we grasp it - in a decade, a century, or a millennium - we will all say to each other, how could it have been otherwise? How could we have been so stupid?"

      The time has come. The only yes/no question Wheeler should have asked was:

      Is the real Universe simple? And the only sensible answer is "Yes"

      Reality cannot be simplified below the point of it being simple; therefore, any explanation of reality must be complicated and unrealistic.

      The real Universe only deals in absolutes. All information is abstract and all and every abstract part of information is excruciatingly difficult to understand. Information is always selective, subjective and sequential. Reality is not and cannot ever be selective subjective and sequential.

      One (1) real unique Universe can only be eternally occurring in one real here and now while perpetually traveling at one real "speed" of light through one real infinite dimension once. One is the absolute of everything. (1) is the absolute of number. Real is the absolute of being. Universe is the absolute of energy. Eternal is the absolute of duration. Occurring is the absolute of action. Here and now are absolutes of location and time. Perpetual is the absolute of ever. Traveling is the absolute of conveyance method. Light is the absolute of speed. Infinite dimension is the absolute of distance and once is the absolute of history.

      Life is the absolute of understanding. An real ant understands that it is a real ant existing in a real simple ant's universe. Man prefers to deal in complex abstract choices rather than reality.

      Joe

      Hi Patrick,

      You might want to look at how Peter Rowlands combines the different fundamental parameters (length, time, mass, and charge) in A Foundational Approach to Physics. Notice that he specifies scaling constants to combine them.

      I noticed that the infinite sum you use for some of your formulas can be expressed more simply (see geometric series for the derivation).

      Using ep = 8pi -1, then the sum is ep 1/(ep-1)

      Using p = 8pi, then the sum is (p (p-1)(p-3))/(p-2)

      Perhaps this will help you.

      It is sometimes hard to tell when a numerical relationship is more than a coincidence, and there have been others who have done searches to try to find new relationships.

      Aloha,

      Hugh

      7 days later

      Hello Hugh,

      Excellent essay, happy to read it. You brought a good quote John Wheeler "In any field find the strangest thing and then explore it." There is nothing more strange in the observable world than dialectic "coincidence of opposites." What kind of opposites? Basic contradictions of the Universe (rest and motion, continuity and discontinuity, symmetry and asymmetry ...) that need to find a simple mathematical model and signs. You are absolutely right drew attention to many of the many ancient traditions. And what ancient image of the foundation of the world: the three pillars ... three elephants ... which keeps terra firma ...

      Why do not you focused on the category "memory"? For «software paradigm» this is very important. Memory - is the center. You yourself say about her and "the key lies in your last sentence,« We can hope, as he surely would, that that inheritance, and the knowledge of the "sacred hoops" it holds, can help us come to "live together like one being "as Black Elk described so beautifully.» The direction of your research, your ideas are very interesting. But it is necessary to use a very sharp Occam's razor to drop the "essence" that prevent build the basic model of the world on the basis of the new paradigm. Excellent rating. See my essay, your opinion on the introduction of a picture of the world with the «ontological memory». I do not know physics, but programmers, information workers need to take «OntoMemory» - a bang ... With best wishes and regards, Vladimir ...

        A very interesting line of research: "Geocosmology at present may best be considered a philosophy or a proto-science rather than a science or religion. As it matures, perhaps it can form a bridge between these two great traditions." http://geocosmology.com/

        But I think that in the search for warping need to use all the accumulated knowledge of mankind ... And your opinion? My direction I called - Ontitopologiya ... Nowhere did he find your post ...

        Hi Vladimir,

        Thank you for your insightful comments. Regarding these:

        1. "There is nothing more strange in the observable world than dialectic "coincidence of opposites.""

        In the Software Cosmos, the explicate world and implicate world can be thought of as opposites, or better yet, as two opposite sides of the same coin. When conducting the transformation from implicate to explicate space, we use the antipode (i.e. opposite) of the point of observation as the point of projection. This point of projection itself is excluded from the projection, so we never see our antipode (opposite), but it may be thought of as the "horizon" beyond (and surrounding) everything we can see.

        2. "And what ancient image of the foundation of the world: the three pillars ... three elephants ... which keeps terra firma ..."

        The common image behind World Elephant, World Turtle and World Serpent is that of a curved surface supporting the Earth.

        ">Shesha](https:// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shesha

        ), the Hindu World Serpent, is said to hold all planets on its many hoods. I take this as a symbol of gravity, which is generated from the curvature of implicate space.

        3. the category "memory"

        Memory in the Software Cosmos is composed of quaternionic values. This type of memory is used both the representation of local state, and also for the global structure. The S3 hypersphere that turns up several times corresponds to the unit quaternions. So quaternionic values can be used to index structures that contain quaternionic information.

        Recent biological research is casting doubt on the idea that memory is based on some form of physical encoding in the brain. A quote from Pythagoras hints that quaternions may constitute our own memory systems: "I swear it by him who has transmitted into our souls the Sacred Quaternion, the source of nature, whose cause is eternal."

        4. drop the "essence"

        Not sure what you mean here.

        5. "But I think that in the search for warping need to use all the accumulated knowledge of mankind ... And your opinion?"

        Such a project would require much more that I could cover in the nine pages we had for the essay. Much of that "accumulated knowledge" is symbolic, which is open to multiple variant interpretations. It is difficult to travel this symbolic landscape without some kind of map... but I find that as I work on my mathematical map, many traditions become more clear and more coherent with each other. I hold out hope that Black Elk's epiphany will become just common sense.

        Aloha,

        Hugh

        Hi Hugh,

        1. I'm talking about the coincidence of opposites in the spirit of Nicholas of Cusa: «coincidentia oppositorum» - minimum and maximum.

        2. The ancient images of the "three elephants" and "three pillars" tells us about the idea of the trinity foundation of the world.

        3. The introduction of the category "memory" as central to the new paradigm requires the disclosure of its essence, which is a measure of being the world as a whole, ie, the most fundamental structure of the world. That is an ontological memory - a fundamental structural memory.

        4. I would like to say that phrase that for modeling of the fundamental structure of the world must enter at least the entity that is used not just a poignant and very "sharp" Occam's razor ..

        5. Here I fully agree with you, but I just wanted to focus on the fact that the synthesis of the knowledge necessary to use all the knowledge accumulated by mankind.

        My comments are not a criticism, just a friendly like-minded dialogue that go together in the same direction.

        Thank you for your comment on my forum. Hugh, you have already put my rating essay? Someone last night lowered my rating ... I appreciated your ideas happy a nine. Sincerely, Vladimir.

        Vladimir

        1. coincidence of opposites

        The Software Cosmos, being finite, probably corresponds to the Cusan concept of "contracted maximum". At first glance no finite system could correspond to his "absolute Maximum". However, software can simulate something similar to the infinite, using a recursive process that opens up more detail below or a larger enclosing space above whenever required. Thus, the fractal structure of implicate space might enable one to imagine an infinite "chain of being" that extends above and below the physical realms that we can observe. In this sense, we might be able to comprehend the infinite while only being able to observe some finite portion of it, in the spirit of a Cusan "coincidence of opposites".

        2. three elephants and three pillars

        On reflection, I am not sure that the elephants/pillars are the same as the turtles/snakes in the way they support the world. There are usually four turtles to support the world, one each in the four cardinal directions.

        With both the turtle shell and cobra's hood we have the image, not just of curvature, but of a hemisphere. This has an abstract relationship to the grid model. A grid model composed of nodes linked by great circle arcs has a dual representation (nodes along arcs are dual to arcs crossing at nodes).

        The set of arcs is indexed by a hemisphere and so the turtle may represent the grid. The geometric alignments of the grid are preserved over geologic time, so I think it is entirely possible that they can persist after the end of the phenomenal world, as it is said of the world serpent.

        3. rating

        I have not rated your essay yet, as I want to read it again first, but I can assure you that you will get a good rating from me. Few people attempt to bring such a wide philosophical and historical outlook to cosmological questions and I agree that it is important.

        Yesterday I took the time to read all 183 abstracts and select 20% for further study. My plan is to read a few more and then start rating them.

        Hugh

        Hugh, this essay presents a gerat combination of ideas.

        The concept of the universe as a computer has always intrigued me although I see it as an emergent process rather than an ontological principle. I like that you tackle so many unsolved cosmological problems as well as leaning on the work of Bohm, Finkelstein etc.

        Thanks, I am delighted that you liked it.

        It has been a surprise to me how few essays treat the issues in observational cosmology. I have found only about a dozen possibilities among the 183 essay abstracts.

        Hello Hugh,

        Thanks for your comments on my blog. I will certainly take a look at your essay and the links in the next few days and engage you in some dialectic. I will be rating all essays with a digital inclination high including yours as I feel thats the way to go. Before I come back here, can you take a look at the below 4 simple questions, which I will be asking a few others:

        "If you wake up one morning and dip your hand in your pocket and 'detect' a million dollars, then on your way back from work, you dip your hand again and find that there is nothing there...

        1) Have you 'elicited' an information in the latter case?

        2) If you did not 'participate' by putting your 'detector' hand in your pocket, can you 'elicit' information?

        3) If the information is provided by the presence of the crisp notes ('its') you found in your pocket, can the absence of the notes, being an 'immaterial source' convey information?

        Finally, leaving for the moment what the terms mean and whether or not they can be discretely expressed in the way spin information is discretely expressed, e.g. by electrons

        4) Can the existence/non-existence of an 'it' be a binary choice, representable by 0 and 1?"

        Answers can be in binary form for brevity, i.e. YES = 1, NO = 0, e.g. 0-1-0-1.

        Best regards,

        Akinbo

          Hugh,

          You talk about Dark Matter, as if we know what it is. Check MOND. First observation of spiral galaxies let to suggestion of MOND (slight change on gravity equations). Recently guys reported that observations of elliptical galaxies are in line with MOND.

          From a practical point, when doing simulation, it would be computationally cheeper to use MOND corrections, then adding new type of matter (like luminiferous aether). Unfortunately, MOND corrections are at scalar, or Newtonian gravity level, and there is no good tensor MOND, in the spirit of Einstein's equivalence principle.

          Do you think you have enough fingers to count all suggested candidates for dark matter that were supposed to show up at LHC, and DIDN'T show?

          By the way, Dark Energy is an addition of one constant in Einstein's equation. It is called cosmological constant. And its presence, like MOND, might be a sign that GR must be tweaked a tiny bit for he long-range (galaxies, universe).

          Cheers,

          Mikalai