Deat Marina,

I noticed your last lovely message yesterday, and today it disappeared! By the way, I noticed also another message from you few weeks ago that disappeared (it was written before the one that is answered in my post). I read it in bed during the night, and the day after I thought that I had just dreamt it. Now I know that it was there. Two messages from you have been lost. Do you know what happened? Can you replace them?

I just arrived to Chicago from Italy yesterday. I will answer in my blog tomorrow.

My best regards

Mauro

    Caro bellissimo professore :)

    there was a move to a new server and, according to the FQXi Administrator Brendan Foster, there was "a temporary hole in spacetime" while they did that. Brendan wrote in his blog that he believed the data was "just passing behind the black hole but not fallen into it", but it seems that some messages did get lost. Maybe they will reappear on Monday? The new server seems quicker.

    Awaiting your answers in your blog :)

    Thank you,

    -Marina

    Dear Professor McHarris,

    thank you so much for your warm comments and your favorable evaluation of my essay. I cannot express how much it means to me, coming from a distinguished professor like you. I left a lengthy reply in your blog yesterday, but it is gone now. Perhaps it will reappear on Monday? (there was a move to a new server in the last few days). If not, I'll try and repost it (but it will not be as spontaneous and fresh as the original, alas).

    Thank you again,

    -Marina

    Marina,

    A straightforward approach where defining the components makes your perspective more accessible to the reader.

    I like to see the discussion of macro and micro denoting the difference in object behavior and attributes. Many essay don't do that. In "It's Good to be the King," I am critical of this tendency, especially making the suggestion that the macro and micro world are interchangeable in terms of behavior and obfuscating the differences.

    Your comment, "the anthropic principle, in the context of which Wheeler presented the idea, implies that a high level of consciousness, as exhibited by human, is required.." mentions this important attribute of the Wheeler concept, and the Anthropic Principle in general. I too discuss consciousness, especially in terms of it not being possible at the BB and only 1 billion years after, unless imposing supernatural or metaphysical elements, like consciousness embedded in space.

    I would like to see your thoughts on my essay.

    Jim

    Having read so many insightful essays, I am probably not the only one to find that my views have crystallized, and that I can now move forward with growing confidence. I cannot exactly say who in the course of the competition was most inspiring - probably it was the continuous back and forth between so many of us. In this case, we should all be grateful to each other.

    If I may, I'd like to express some of my newer conclusions - by themselves, so to speak, and independently of the logic that justifies them; the logic is, of course, outlined in my essay.

    I now see the Cosmos as founded upon positive-negative charges: It is a binary structure and process that acquires its most elemental dimensional definition with the appearance of Hydrogen - one proton, one electron.

    There is no other interaction so fundamental and all-pervasive as this binary phenomenon: Its continuance produces our elements - which are the array of all possible inorganic variants.

    Once there exists a great enough correlation between protons and electrons - that is, once there are a great many Hydrogen atoms, and a great many other types of atoms as well - the continuing Cosmic binary process arranges them all into a new platform: Life.

    This phenomenon is quite simply inherent to a Cosmos that has reached a certain volume of particles; and like the Cosmos from which it evolves, life behaves as a binary process.

    Life therefore evolves not only by the chance events of natural selection, but also by the chance interactions of its underlying binary elements.

    This means that ultimately, DNA behaves as does the atom - each is a particle defined by, and interacting within, its distinct Vortex - or 'platform'.

    However, as the cosmic system expands, simple sensory activity is transformed into a third platform, one that is correlated with the Organic and Inorganic phenomena already in existence: This is the Sensory-Cognitive platform.

    Most significantly, the development of Sensory-Cognition into a distinct platform, or Vortex, is the event that is responsible for creating (on Earth) the Human Species - in whom the mind has acquired the dexterity to focus upon itself.

    Humans affect, and are affected by, the binary field of Sensory-Cognition: We can ask specific questions and enunciate specific answers - and we can also step back and contextualize our conclusions: That is to say, we can move beyond the specific, and create what might be termed 'Unified Binary Fields' - in the same way that the forces acting upon the Cosmos, and holding the whole structure together, simultaneously act upon its individual particles, giving them their motion and structure.

    The mind mimics the Cosmos - or more exactly, it is correlated with it.

    Thus, it transpires that the role of chance decreases with evolution, because this dual activity (by which we 'particularize' binary elements, while also unifying them into fields) clearly increases our control over the foundational binary process itself.

    This in turn signifies that we are evolving, as life in general has always done, towards a new interaction with the Cosmos.

    Clearly, the Cosmos is participatory to a far greater degree than Wheeler imagined - with the evolution of the observer continuously re-defining the system.

    You might recall the logic by which these conclusions were originally reached in my essay, and the more detailed structure that I also outline there. These elements still hold; the details stated here simply put the paradigm into a sharper focus, I believe.

    With many thanks and best wishes,

    John

    jselye@gmail.com

    Vasilyeva,

    The importance you have given to It over Bit is reflected in your statement "It is more fundamental than Bit, the latter being just the reflection of the former". Thus you have given more importance to objectivity of reality (It) than to the subjectivity of information (Bit). Similar sort of conclusion is reached by me in my essay (http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827), where I have said 'Bit comes from It, but mind can know of It only through Bit". Thanks for writing such an elegantly argued article with many bright points. So this essay deserves excellent rating.

    Best of luck,

    Sreenath

      Thank you Sreenath for your kind comments on my essay. I have read and rated your essay a while ago and am planning to leave my feedback in your blog now.

      Hello Dr. Perez!

      Sorry for the delay in replying. You put doubts into my mind and now I have to review everything I know about QT, which, thankfully, is not much (joke!) and I also read carefully the essay by Angelo Bassi, Saikat Ghosh, & Tejinder Singh "Information and the foundations of quantum theory", which speaks just about this issue. I would like very much to hear your opinion on it.

      In the meantime, I am still chewing on your very informative comment --thank you again so much for it!-- and I have a question:

      You: " before the measurement, in theoretical terms, the quantum state of the system IS WELL DEFINED"

      I thought that it was 'well-defined' in terms of probabilities -?

      And you're right I use 'milieu' 'environment' 'medium' freely, without clear definitions of meaning, even in my own head. I will get to it later.

      How about that essay by 3 professors?

      Thank you again, very much for your feedback,

      -Marina

      Marina,

      It is a thoughtful and well reasoned entry. I would like to push for what has become my particular point of focus in the course of this contest, that the concepts of energy and information form a dichotomy.

      By energy, I simply describe it as dynamic and conserved, while information is the very essence of definition. Being definition, it must be static, for if it was dynamic, it would be constantly changing and so not definitive. These two concepts exist as a dichotomy because there cannot be one without the other. Any existence energy has, must express some form, action, or interaction, thus expressing information. While information cannot exist without the interactive momentum of energy, or there would be no connections, effects or activities. Without this action, the resulting stasis would amount to a void, a thermal state of absolute zero.

      So while I agree with your defense of information as a necessary reflection of an underlaying reality, I think the particular focus of this contest on the concept of information alone, requires us to both isolate that concept as best as possible, then equally clarify what is overlooked. To me that would be this medium of energy, to the message of information.

      Regards,

      John M

        Thank you John for reading my essay and for your kind comments!

        I read your essay a while ago and only wished it was longer :)

        I agree with you that energy and information are closely linked. Without information, energy is just dynamics. Information is what gives it direction, 'purpose' and form . And yes, by exchanging information, living things exchange energy, among themselves and with their environment. The same applies, in simpler form, to everything in existence. Energy and information are 2 integral aspects of being. That's what I think, anyway :)

        Best regards,

        -Marina

        • [deleted]

        • Post #70

        Hi Marina

        Thanks for the picture, I checked in my files and I have the article. If you look into the internet you'll watch a couple of two videos more, they are impressive.

        As you know, it's impossible to read all essays, I try to read as much as I can. I'm glad you recommended me to read that essay, it's interesting. In the first paragraphs they discuss what I just explained to you in my previous posts.

        With regards to your first question, I think that the essay of Bassi et al., answers it very well. I would like to add a few information just for your records. Quantum mechanics have several formulations. The first one was developed in 1925 by Werner Heisenberg and is known as the matrix formulation of QM. The next year Schrodinger came up with its famous wave equation and two years later he showed that both formulations are equivalent. There is third formulation with is a mixture of both I think is due to Dirac. Another version was developed by Louis de Broglie around 1927 and one more by David Bohm in 1952. These two seem to be complementary and are known as De Broglie-Bohm theory or simply Bohmian QM. By 1986 a new version was developed, named consistent QM. There are more modern versions that are aimed to derive or generalize the original versions, such as those developed by Adler, Besso, et al (CLS, Quantum dynamics, etc.). What we are taught at schools is the three first versions, they others are not widely known at the graduate or undergraduate level. However, those who study QM and its foundations know the other versions, Bohmian mechanics is relatively popular. I don't know the technical details of this theory but I understand its principles. As the Bassi's essays explains, the standard QM considers that the state of the system is well known before the measurement is made. Actually, the calculation of the energy for a given system is totally deterministic. One can calculate the possible outcomes of quantum system. The only problem is that we don't know which one we would measure. This is why we introduce theory of probability and statistics in QM. We never know what value the measuring instrument will display, but we can tell what would be the probability and by a series of measurements we corroborate those predictions.

        What they argue is that the randomness of the measurements does not necessarily come from the measurement itself. It could be that the initial conditions are not well defined (and therefore are also random) or the system does not evolve deterministically and linearly, as assumed in standard QM. Bohmian mechanics (BM) assumes that the initial conditions are not defined. The stochastic formulation assumes that the evolution of the system is nonlinear. In particular some experiments conducted at the mesoscopic scale (that is, experiments between the micro and the macroscale) can tell whether or not QM is nonlinear.

        What would be the implications of, for instance, BM? Well, at least this formulation seems to give a more clear picture of quantum phenomena that the standard QM. In BM, there are two fundamental equations, the pilot-wave equation and the known schrodinger equation. The pilot-wave equation is the equation that governs the nonlinearity of the system. The pilot wave is the wave that guides the particles in their evolution, it would be the analog of the pilot-wave that guides the walkers in the videos that I showed you.

        It seems that Bassi et al. are trying to develop a theory from which they can derive non-relativistic QM and at the same time a relativistic formulation but I need to read their papers in order to understand how they are going to do it.

        Cheers

        Israel

        Marina,

        The problem with agreement is it concludes the points of discussion. If you want a few more of my thoughts on physics, here are the last two contest entries:

        We Look at Time Backwards

        Comparing Apples to Inches

        One of the main reasons I made this so short is because it is quite difficult to really get into so many different concepts, that really giving any of these papers their full due is next to impossible. Generally many of the participants take a very broad and deep view that has developed from years of thought, distilled it down into the seven page (or is it nine?) limit and then get frustrated when others don't see what is obvious to them, when usually the others are at best able only to connect to what relates to their points of view and at worst, are only shamelessly plugging their entry. So I tried to focus on one particular point, that information is message to the medium of energy. If I had extended it, it would be to develop how I see the right brain as a form of thermostat and the left as a form of clock, but thought that might distract from the main point. I think I do go into that in one of those other papers though.

        Regards,

        John

        Hi Marina,

        Thank you for a delightful and insightful essay. You wrote:

        > This brings us to the provocative idea espoused by J. A. Wheeler in his celebrated thesis on quantum theory where he compares the workings of the universe with a computer... At first glance the idea strikes me as both limiting and impractical.

        But is it possible?

        > I find it comforting that this view is also in line with the ancient Buddhist definition of reality that states, The world emerges in the play of mind in emptiness.

        The Mind might be a lower layer in a computational cosmos, in which the physical world emerges at the top.

        > The recursive loop of the 'participatory scheme' suggests that information is continuously generated by the events, large and small, near and far; and that each event, or process, sees its own thread of causality; and together these threads weave the beads of events into the intricate tapestry of reality

        These threads of causality (could you call them observers?) each have their own "explicate" view of an "implicate" order in my essay Software Cosmos. I describe in detail how our physical world might be possible to simulate. I then conduct a test to determine whether we are in such a simulation.

        I think it may be close to the vision you describe. I hope you have a chance to take a look and let me know what you think.

        Hugh

          Dear Dr Vasilyeva,

          I like your idea that information is repeatedly re-absorbed by reality. It's a very logical argument and immediately made me think of fractals. So glad to see these mentioned.

          Original and one of my favourite essays so far!

          My essay based partly around the Fibonacci sequence will hopefully be of interest to you.

          Excellent work - well done! Top rating from me on 5th July! Please take a look at my essay if you have time.

          Antony

            Hi Marina

            Thanks for the picture, I checked in my files and I have the article. If you look into the internet you'll watch a couple of two videos more, they are impressive.

            As you know, it's impossible to read all essays, I try to read as much as I can. I'm glad you recommended me to read that essay, it's interesting. In the first paragraphs they discuss what I just explained to you in my previous posts.

            With regards to your first question, I think that the essay of Bassi et al., answers it very well. I would like to add a few information just for your records. Quantum mechanics have several formulations. The first one was developed in 1925 by Werner Heisenberg and is known as the matrix formulation of QM. The next year Schrodinger came up with its famous wave equation and two years later he showed that both formulations are equivalent. There is third formulation with is a mixture of both I think is due to Dirac. Another version was developed by Louis de Broglie around 1927 and one more by David Bohm in 1952. These two seem to be complementary and are known as De Broglie-Bohm theory or simply Bohmian QM. By 1986 a new version was developed, named consistent QM. There are more modern versions that are aimed to derive or generalize the original versions, such as those developed by Adler, Besso, et al (CLS, Quantum dynamics, etc.). What we are taught at schools is the three first versions, they others are not widely known at the graduate or undergraduate level. However, those who study QM and its foundations know the other versions, Bohmian mechanics is relatively popular. I don't know the technical details of this theory but I understand its principles. As the Bassi's essays explains, the standard QM considers that the state of the system is well known before the measurement is made. Actually, the calculation of the energy for a given system is totally deterministic. One can calculate the possible outcomes of quantum system. The only problem is that we don't know which one we would measure. This is why we introduce theory of probability and statistics in QM. We never know what value the measuring instrument will display, but we can tell what would be the probability and by a series of measurements we corroborate those predictions.

            What they argue is that the randomness of the measurements does not necessarily come from the measurement itself. It could be that the initial conditions are not well defined (and therefore are also random) or the system does not evolve deterministically and linearly, as assumed in standard QM. Bohmian mechanics (BM) assumes that the initial conditions are not defined. The stochastic formulation assumes that the evolution of the system is nonlinear. In particular some experiments conducted at the mesoscopic scale (that is, experiments between the micro and the macroscale) can tell whether or not QM is nonlinear.

            What would be the implications of, for instance, BM? Well, at least this formulation seems to give a more clear picture of quantum phenomena that the standard QM. In BM, there are two fundamental equations, the pilot-wave equation and the known schrodinger equation. The pilot-wave equation is the equation that governs the nonlinearity of the system. The pilot wave is the wave that guides the particles in their evolution, it would be the analog of the pilot-wave that guides the walkers in the videos that I showed you.

            It seems that Bassi et al. are trying to develop a theory from which they can derive non-relativistic QM and at the same time a relativistic formulation but I need to read their papers in order to understand how they are going to do it.

            Cheers

            Israel

            Hugh

            thank you for reading and commenting on my essay! I am reading yours and will comment in your blog shortly.

            You ask in the context of Wheeler comparing the workings of the universe with a computer (which struck me as limiting and impractical): "But is it possible?"

            Short answer: yes, but! Longer answer: I do see the universe as a computer, but I did not like Wheeler's idea of implementation in terms of binary yes-no questions, even though, having read many essays, now I think that perhaps he did not quite mean it that way. In your essay you offer a far more sophisticated version of such implementation. The problem I have with both is that either way implies a pre-existing extensive knowledge about the universe, which you then... well, implement. However, I believe the idea is invaluable in testing out our predictions and probing proposed models.

            I rather liked Wheeler's idea, which you quote, that a very simple principle lies at the heart of reality, waiting to be discovered. And so I envision the computer modeling of the universe based on cellular automata- like 'pixels', which, despite their inherent simplicity, can give rise to great complexity. This is the sort of computer I envision for the universe. In this regard, have you read the beautiful essay by Prof. D'Ariano? What is your opinion on it?

            .

            You ask: "These threads of causality (could you call them observers?)"

            No, they are not the 'observers' but the chains of events as seen from various 'observers' points of view (here the 'observers' are the later events). Say, *now* you have 2 events/processes about to interact with each other. Each is the output of a set of previous events/processes = a set of preceding events in a particular order. These 2 ordered sets are 'the threads of causality' for each of the 2 events in question.

            Now you can do a union of both sets and discover that the 2 processes in question share some of the past events. The 2 subsets that result from the Union operator may be ordered differently in each of the 2 'causality sets'.

            In a graphical representation, one can imagine a set of events like beads on a plane. In the above example of only 2 'threads of causality', imagine a wavy thread connecting some of the beads. Now, if the 2 events in question have the same thread of causality, say, red and green, then the two threads simply follow the same beads. But, if they differ, the 2 threads interweave in some localities -- it happens where the order is different. If you imagine lots of such threads of causality connecting beads/events, you get an intricate tapestry. That's a good analogy/graphical representation of spacetime on quantum level. no? :)

            I very much liked your essay and even saved a copy on my machine. The breaths of your knowledge in this area is astounding. Definitely, yours is a very interesting, stimulating and deserving a high rank essay.

            Off to your blog,

            -Marina

            Dear Vasilyeva,

            We are at the end of this essay contest.

            In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.

            Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.

            eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.

            And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.

            Good luck to the winners,

            And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.

            Amazigh H.

            I rated your essay.

            Please visit My essay.

            Very refreshing essay I must say. You are obviously very smart and open minded individual. I hope you find some time in a future and read my paper behind my essay ([link:toebi.com/documents/ToEbi.pdf]ToEbi[\link]).

            I'm more than sure you'll find it the most interesting. Feel free to contact and tell me what do think about it.

              Yes, Marina - I'm - we're - so late !!!!! Partly because being new to this whole 'thing' I just couldn't believe that we could discuss our entries with one another - I was literally in a state of denial. Well better late than never !!

              You queried my position on the geometry of space - well, my short answer is no - I do not believe that space possesses any properties including geometrical curving or warping in response to gravity. I have come to believe that light gets curved or lensed around large bodies for the same reason it bends in water. Einstein did not know of 'heliopauses' or 'magnetospheres' but which phenomena are more than capable of bending any light transitting them.

              So 'my' geometric objects exist only on solid bodies.

              Among several points I liked about your essay was where you discussed 'mediums' & I haven't noticed anyone else doing so. Mediums play a very pivotal role in my schema.

              I found it useful to recognise several different grades or levels of information (as the full set of geometrical objects present in our universe). Medium bourn information being of the second grade or 'order' as I call them. We ourselves as you noted have access to the world of information exclusively via some one or another medium, which means that all our information is 'second hand' - & of course as we all know much of the information has been transferred from medium, to medium to medium many, many times.

              But, according to my view, there are things that have access to information directly, literally face-to-face, specifically all of the inanimate objects here in our universe. I call these 'first order' information-users, and one of the things it is worth noting about these face-to-face informivores is that they read with near infinite accuracy as the information they encounter is 'first hand' - is raw, original, complete & pristine.

              Ours in some high contrast has been copied & recopied so often it is a wonder it has any informational value left within it. Which is why 'we see through a glass darkly'.

              Never mind, nature has made up for this inadequacy as it has provided most if not quite all of its 'higher order' informivores with an ever increasing number & variety of senses of differing sensory modes - & there are many more than just the classic five !!

              So while the rocks & stones beneath our feet & the atoms & molecules in the air get their information first hand - right from off of the surfaces of their fellow interactees - & once having got it, read it with near infinite accuracy they are only able to deal with one unit of information at any one sitting.

              There are other levels of information in 'my' scheme &, guess what ! they tend to parallel your own 8 step break down of the 'participation' process. But a particularly important distinction (of not a few !!) between our two viewpoints is that I am convinced that our brains are 'thinking machines' & not just computers, & that like all good thinking machines they operate analogue-ly not digitally.

              So yes ! My own investigations have led me to conclude that 'information' is NOT digits - no kind nor amount of them (including any that can be extracted from quantum phenomena!), nor how algorithmically-well they may be massaged & shunted through any device that uses them.

              Unequivocally they - digits - make for wonderful COUNTING & CALCULATING assistants, witness our own now many & various, most excellent, counting, calculating devices BUT according to my investigations real thinking is an entirely different phenomenon from mere counting, calculating & computing.

              For which phenomenon - real thinking - real information is required.

              My own investigations led me to discover what I have come to believe real information is & as it so transpires it turns out to be an especially innocuous - not to omit almost entirely overlooked & massively understudied - phenomenon, none other than the sum total of geometrical objects otherwise quite really & quite properly present here in our universe. Not digits.

              One grade (the secondary one) of geometrical-cum-informational objects lavishly present here in our cosmos, is comprised of all the countless trillions & trillions of left-over bump-marks still remaining on all previously impacted solid objects here in our universe - that is to say, all of the left-over dents, scratches, scars, vibrations & residues (just the shapes of residues - not their content!) (really) existing here in the universe.

              Examples of some real geometrical objects of this secondary class in their native state are all of the craters on the Moon. Note that these craters are - in & of themselves - just shapes - just geometrical objects. And the reason they are, also one & at the same time, informational objects too, can be seen by the fact that each 'tells a story' - each advertises (literally) some items of information on its back - each relates a tale of not only what created it but when, where & how fast & from what angle the impacting object descended onto the Moon's surface. Again, each literally carries some information on its back.

              (Note : Not a digit in sight !!)

              How we actually think - rather than just count, calculate & compute - with these strictly non-digital entities, specifically these geometrical-cum-informational objects, in precisely the way we do, please see my essay.

              I did not make the distinction between computing with digits & real thinking with real information, sufficiently strongly in my essay.

              This contest is such a wonderful 'sharing' - Wow - & open to amateurs like myself - Wow. How great is that !!! Thank you Foundational Questions Institute!!! What a great pleasure it has been to participate. What a joy to read, share & discuss with other entrants !!!

              Margriet O'Regan