Essay Abstract
The argument is made the "Bit" in "It from Bit" is the result of averaging and thus is not definite and fundamental uncertainty is rooted in set theory. The cosmological constant is also argued to be completely natural. An expansion of the Ricci-tensor over a finite number of terms is also provided.
Author Bio
Hal Swyers has a M.S. in Environmental Management from the University of Maryland University College and studies physics in his spare time as a hobby.
Harlan, this is an interesting and quite technical essay. The parts about axioms and provability remind me of points from a few of the other essays so hopefully you will find those and exchange ideas with the authors.
The part that is nearer to mine is the averaging and uncertainty about the bit. I hope you get some good feedback. I will probably read again once the rush of new essays is over
Phil,
Good advice, feel free to tear into the essay, the general points I believe are salient, the articulation can still be improved though. So comments can be either as kind or cruel as needed.
Dear Harlan,
Thank you for presenting a nice essay... General relativity can not answer every thing. Do you think a simple mental description can produce matter?
and...
I am requesting you to go through my essay also. 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.
Mr Gupta,
Thank you for the post. I am not sure you read my essay, since it does in fact rely heavily on experimental data, particular in the arguments about the cosmological constant. The key point of the essay is that one must average over observers in order to develop a true projection of reality.
As far as matter is concerned, one of the key discoveries of the LHC is that the Higgs boson serves to mediate the interactions of particles within the surrounding Higgs field, thereby reducing mass to an interaction strength. Relativity is a convenience, but is also relevant to mathematical analysis. As an analytical tool it is indispensable. Connecting classical analysis to modern quantum analysis is of fundamental interest in multiple fields.
I will read your paper, but request you do the courtesy of reading mine as well.
Hi Harlan,
I don't agree that all BITS, can be averaged, although arguments well presented.
RE: This means that the "bit" is an average bit, thereby denying "it" a definite existence
1. Are you talking of the excluded middle which Peter Jackson talks about in his essay? How can 0 and 1 be averaged to give a yes-or-no answer?
2. Are you talking of a composite IT or a fundamental IT. If composite, well you may argue about a definite existence since parts of it may go out of existence, but if fundamental, having no parts, averaging would not be possible. It either exists wholly or not. No averaging!
RE: The ultimate question is not whether it arises from bit, but which bit does it arise from?
The assignment then is to write out all the possible bits we can think of (e.g. spin up/spin down, dead/alive, opaque/transparent, etc - my favorite not included). Then, subsequently choose which bit would firstly, lie at the "very deep bottom" and secondly, which of them would make IT arise from "an immaterial source and explanation" according to Wheeler.
Good luck in the contest.
Akinbo
Akinbo,
Thank you for taking the time to read my essay. It might be helpful for you to review the differences between frequentist and Bayesian inference. One of the key differences between the two is that frequentists assume that there is some true but fixed values to unknown parameters, where as in Bayesian inference those parameters are updated. In this sense, one must accept that questions of whether something is true or false is always hinged on historical observation and not on whether there is some underlying fundamental reality. While I steel the idea of a confidence interval from frequentists, which isn't strictly Bayesian in any sense, the point is that the notion of a true mean is illusory at best.
The idea of averages is best understood by analogy to the statement of what an "average person" is. If one where to take all the statistics one can devise to measure a human trait and define what the "average person" is, one would be very hard pressed to find any person that actually met this statistical description. So the answer to whether a person is average must almost always be no, unless one is willing to accept error in the estimate. In order to avoid contradiction with frequentists, the "true value" in Bayesian statistics would be the value that is approached if one had more knowledge. This sort of recursive process is the type we see in nature almost everywhere.
As far as Peter Jackson's essay, I think the notion of the excluded middle is helpful in understanding fundamental issues. If can follow the following chain of links on Wikipedia (which I will leave to the reader to do):
Law of Excluded Middle > Autoepistemic Logic > Uncertain Inference > Probabilistic Logic Network > Markov Logic Networks
In essence, the law of the excluded middle has been abandoned in the face of modern thinking of networks. This fact should not be viewed as trivial. In any case, to quote the article on Autoepistemic Logic:
"In uncertain inference, the known/unknown duality of truth values is replaced by a degree of certainty of a fact or deduction; certainty may vary from 0 (completely uncertain/unknown) to 1 (certain/known). In probabilistic logic networks, truth values are also given a probabilistic interpretation (i.e. truth values may be uncertain, and, even if almost certain, they may still be "probably" true (or false).)"
In this sense, one can understand that there is an "average value" for truth that is indicates something is most true or mostly false.
In any case, the "It" is not fundamental, it is the developed based on the shared knowledge of all observers, or the networked knowledge of all observers. What is fundamental is the uncertainty or imprecision associated with whatever "It" is. "It" if it follows from "Bit" can not be definite, since the "privileged" frame of reference of the "average" bit is not tied to any single observer.
Thanks again for the comment.
Harlan,
"The result is our perceived shared reality is merely the product of averaging over knowledge gained through observations. This means that the bit is an average bit, thereby denying it a definite existence."
So 'how' do we obtain such knowledge? Please advise. Excellent essay by the way.
Regards,
Manuel
Manual,
The best I can think about it at the moment is the idea of is a piece of fabric made with an infinite number of infinitely long threads. An observer is asked to pull a piece of thread without breaking it and asked to read off the numbers. Before reading the thread the observer must assume that the section of the thread could have any set of numbers, after reading the numbers the observer has reduced the list of possibilities for the values of the thread for the section the pulled on. The log ratio of between what was known before vs after the observer read the numbers is the knowledge gained. However, what if a different observer pulled the same thread at the same location? Would the list of numbers be exactly the same? What about a third or the fourth? One would expect that if they are sufficient accurate, all observers will pull the thread in the same general location. However, their actual list of numbers will vary. When they compare their results they can all develop the same average, to within the same level of precision.
This process can be repeated indefinitely if one demands more and more precision. Quantum mechanics tells us there is a limit to our level of precision, which forces us to converge to some agreed upon average based on the shared knowledge of observers. However, there is a fundamental amount of information associated with uncertainty, where I am using the word information synonymously with uncertainty, it is this uncertainty that is preserved in the universe. However, since this is preserved, there is a limit to us from ever determining a "true value", we are only ever able to gain knowledge by comparing notes with other observers. This improves our level of precision about the world, but even with we polled all observers, we can only ever assume that our "truth" is approximate at best.
Will try to answer additional questions if you have any. Thanks again for reading my essay.
Apologies, I responded before logging in, the July 3 10:04 GMT post is mine.
Harlan
I am choosing to accept the definition of information in a general sense, which effectively associates information with uncertainty in the values in a sequence of variables. Quantum mechanics actually ensures there is always a level of uncertainty associated with any measurement. So the argument is that this fundamental uncertainty must be preserved in the universe. Although we can always consistently refine estimates to reach a very precise agreed on value, ultimately we are forced to accept a fundamental level of imprecision. This is sufficient for us to ultimately unravel the observations given enough time. So the essay actually embraces quantum mechanics in a very deep way.
Apologies, the July 2, 2013 @ 09:49 GMT is mine as well.
Harlan,
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
Dear Harlan,
Thanks for your detailed reply. Let me phrase things this way: there is a middle or average between 0 and 1 binary digits, i.e. different shades of grey between black and white. For a fundamental, non-composite IT, Can there be an average or middle between existence and non-existence states?
You may have critical comments to share on my essay.
Thanks,
Akinbo
Mr. Swyers,
I found your essay very interesting to read. As a decrepit old realist, may I politely point out a possible flaw in your conclusions?
I have mentioned in my essay BITTERS that each snowflake, each strand of DNA is unique. As one real Universe seems only to be occurring, once, everything in the Universe real or imagined must be unique, once. Each particle must be unique and each star must be unique. As they are both unique, they must always remain at a unique distance from every other particle and star that ever was, is, or will ever be in the future.
Unique cannot be averaged. Unique, once is not comparative or relative or associative or accumulative. Abstract observers see perfect repetitive abstract scenes. Each real observer sees unique, once.
Good luck in the contest.
Joe
Akinbo,
I think there are subtleties in how you interpret your question. One way to think about your question is to think about a qubit. In the case of a qubit, in traditional interpretations of QM, prior to measurement, the state can be in a superposition of 1 and 0, in which case there is a probability amplitude associated with the qubit that might have a mode somewhere between 1 and 0. The other way to think of the problem is in terms of sampling of similar ensembles. In which case, the samplers will find a 1 or 0 as a conclusion of their individual sampling, but when the samples are statistically analyzed, the will find a distribution biased in favor of one or the other (or possible neither) state. Although I would not use the words excluded middle, if there is an excluded middle a frequentist would say that there is a true state of the system and we can assign a confidence interval to whether our result reflects the true state. A person think bayesian would not be able to say there is a true state, only that our best assessment is that it is more likely to be one state vs the other. However, if one assumes that there is a value that one approaches when one considers the results of all observers, then one can consider the confidence one has that the current answer is close to what the future answer would be when on polled all future results. However the excluded middle would prevent there from being any state other than one or zero.
In any case, as soon as one considers answers statistically, there are shades to the answer, since one's own experience can always be completely different from what the statistical answer would suggest. This is akin to the ideas from the "Twilight Zone", where an observed experience deviates far from the norm.
Shades of grey, or the absence of an excluded middle, arise when one considers a multivariable system. Each variable, when considered independently, may have a bias toward one or the other answer, however, it must be viewed in terms of statistics. In which case there are cases where observers have completely "grey" experiences that defy explanation. Most people would believe that such things can not exist, because statistically they are very unlikely, but that doesn't exclude them from occurring. So in a round about way, the answer would be yes, there are shades of grey, depending on how you want to define the system you are analyzing.
Joe,
Thanks for the interest in my essay. I would describe the situation a little differently. No one is saying that an observer is not having a unique experience. In fact, to some extent, classical statistics relies up unique experiences. However, it is a false position to think that an observer's independent experience dictates reality for all other observer's. One must consider that additional observers experiences must be included in our understanding of the universe. The classical reality must be based on the collective experience of all observers, and not based solely on the experience of one of the observers. The averaging creates a common basis for observers to relate to each other.
Jim,
I find myself in a similar predicament, and will attempt to read all 120 in the coming month. However, will probably read yours more immediately since you posted here when so many others have not.
Respectfully Mr. Swyers,
There is no such thing as "classical reality." Mindlessly accumulating and averaging common information about observations is futile. Reality is not an aggregate or a congregate. Reality is unique, once.
Joe
Joe,
I agree with you that your reality is unique and it happens once. However, I disagree that your reality dictates the reality experienced by others.
