Dear Laurence,

You wrote an interesting survey of several important questions Wheeler put on the table. Below are a few comments.

You: If my world is computed, am I computed too?

Me: Very good question. I suspect many things are not computed as discussed in other essays of this contest (Szangolies, Crowell, Heinrich...)

You: the hypothesis that consciousness is a form of computation seems as implausible as ever.

Me: may be a kind of quantum computation, or a kind of neuronal computation like in the perceptron.

You: When we talk about "observer-participants", we are talking about conscious beings.

Me: I don't think so. Currently, quantum contextuality is a way to understand Wheeler's sentence. I does not need consciousness of the observer.

You: "How come existence?" So, I propose to look at consciousness alongside "it" and "bit".

Me: I agree, I also found the idea of self-awareness in some essays. But it seems to be non-physical despite Wheeler's viewpoint.

Even worse the "law without law", but you did not look at this Wheeler's concept.

Best wishes,

Michel

    Laurence

    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

    I found your essay very interesting on many points. I like the notion that time is a factor common to both It and Bit. In my view, this leads to the conclusion that It and Bit are correlated, whereas whatever other relationship they may have is more open to conjecture.

    As you say, the universe can't be all Bits, and we must reject 'computationalism'. However, the universe is a projection of our processes of cognition - or more accurately, it is the mind that takes continuous imprints (information processing in nature) of the physical world, and stores them, according to the complexity of the species, over the evolutionary time plane.

    I find that this is well illustrated by your metaphor of the DVD.

    In my essay, the concept of correlation is shown to be the defining relationship between information and the field of observation; otherwise, and I think this is an undercurrent in your work, we're caught up in a variety of problems that are usually founded upon subjectivity: The proposition that we, and the universe are synchronized computers, for instance, is either void of meaning (creating a universe that cannot be distinguished from ourselves), or it illustrates correlation.

    A more direct interaction between Bit and It is manifestly impossible.

    I think you'll find my Paradigm agrees with your thinking. It shows how the correlation between Bit and It occurs as a result of our Cosmic system's interaction with the General Field of Cosmae.

    I describe our four fundamental forces as being the 'splitting up' of a 'Gravitational-Magnetic Force' that comes from the energy field that envelops our Cosmos - a Force that simultaneously affects each of its Particles individually, and sub-divides them into the three groups that define our Inorganic, Organic, and Sensory-Cognitive entities.

    Both the Cosmos and the Observer are similarly affected by this Force, so that it maintains them in Correlation over billions of years.

    Thus, the 'single-field' Cosmos (consisting of the Observer viewing an environment (or universe) founded upon one field), is replaced by a three-field structure that includes the Observer and therefore accounts for our participatory Cosmos - and for the way the Cosmos 'stores information'.

    I'd love to hear what you think of this.

    Lastly, that consciousness is not information processing is absolutely correct. Is it not an imprint the mind takes of itself contiguously with its imprints of the biological and inorganic realms? And, further, is it not a contributing element to our evolution?

    You say: 'If there is a unified world picture, consciousness belongs to it in some other way.'

    Then, let's consider this: If the mind, the organism, and the inorganic elements of the universe are distinctly produced by a General Field of Cosmae, and held in a Correlated relation by this Field, is it not possible to speak of the General Field as exerting an Evolutionary Impulse upon all three spheres?

    In this case - please tell me if you agree - consciousness would be the correlating element between the General Field and the organic and inorganic components of the Cosmos.

    Many thanks for this serious work, and all the best!

    (Though my post is appearing as anonymous I am a contestant - John Selye, 'The Correlation of It and Bit in a Cosmic System' - I hope to fix this problem soon!)

    John.

      • [deleted]

      • Post #10

      Hello Dr Hitterdale

      I very much appreciate the care you took in teasing out the very complex, some might say unwieldy, synthesis of concepts Wheeler used in his talk. I too found the connections in that talk to be quite nebulous, perhaps even disconnected.

      I found the section on consciousness to be the most interesting, especially the allusion to the mind-body problem, in the recognition that the experience and the underlying computation cannot be the same thing. Unfortunately I was unable to address this issue in my essay due to a lack of space. I see what you mean about the illusion of the illusion of seeing, as an infinite regress, implying that conscious experience cannot be a type of information processing.

      Because of your connection to philosophy, I am keen you will consider my essay also. Feel free to challenge it.

      Best wishes

      Stephen Anastasi

      Bother!

      The last post was not intended to be anonymous; the system logged me out.

      Stephen James Anastasi

      What I meant to say is that the topic of observer-participants is not obviously related to a question about the relations of "it" and "bit". At a deeper level, however, there is a connection, because it (physical existence), bit (informational order, more comprehensively viewed as abstract mathematical order), and consciousness all three seem to be fundamental factors in reality. But to elaborate this guess about the nature of things is a difficult task.

      First, my thanks for the kind and generous over-all judgment. I much appreciate your comments.

      The subject of time is, it seems to me, fundamental to any understanding of how things are. I would distinguish two basic strategies for dealing with time. One is to accept all the apparent properties of time as fully real and objective in nature. The other is to consign some of time's properties to mere appearance. Passage or flow (i.e., the river of time) and asymmetry between past and future are two features that many thinkers have tried to explain away. As I understand the situation, time as experienced and normally understood is hard to reconcile with reality as presented in contemporary physics. On the other hand, features of time demoted from objective reality have to have their apparent reality explained somehow, and that is not easy to do.

      In particular, if the flow of time is not objectively real, the obvious explanation for the "illusion" of flow is to say that subjective consciousness projects a sense of passage onto the world. This proposed explanation is evidently inconsistent with the position that consciousness itself is not a fully real aspect of existence. Sweeping something under a rug is not a useful technique when the rug has already been sold as surplus.

      Finally, on information, I think the concept of information which is the basis for these essays is the minimal structural notion of distinguishable states. This is not information in an ordinary sense. Information in the very abstract sense of Shannon does not say what we are talking about. The compensating advantage of this concept of information is its comprehensive applicability. We can use it to measure the "bits" necessary to describe anything. The essay topic, as I interpret it, is about the relationship between such an abstract structural order and the more concrete existence that we think we find in nature.

      Laurence,

      You say, "The subject of time is, it seems to me, fundamental to any understanding of how things are." I fully agree. I would also point you to a current essay, Time is the denominator of existence, and bits come to be in it by Daryl Janzen. In this and his previous essay, he develops a 'presentist' view that is nevertheless consistent with General Relativity (his specialty).

      I also agree with you that: "I think the concept of information which is the basis for these essays is the minimal structural notion of distinguishable states. This is not information in an ordinary sense. Information in the very abstract sense of Shannon does not say what we are talking about."

      Thanks again for your excellent essay, and good luck in the contest.

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      I enjoy your appreciation that the problem of consciousness doesn't seem to reduce to bit, and your proposal that it doesn't reduce to "it" either. There's been some speculation that the "Something More" is perhaps quantum at some level in nature (in my paper I neglect much dealings with consciousness, but I talk about a similar issue of the problems of describing some aspects of reality). Your ideas are reminiscent of the ideas of Chalmers who I admire- I'm glad we have some philosophers in here as well as the usual physics/engineering crowd :)

      Have skimmed so far since I'm trying to take in a number of interesting essays, but wanted to let you know I appreciate what you're working on here. I'm not going to beg you to read or rate my essay but I would enjoy any discussion from a philosopher's perspective if you find my approach interesting or enjoyable :)

      Good luck !

      Cheers,

      Jennifer

        Thank you for your comments. I will try to read your essay, and will comment on it there.

        With respect to quantum approaches to consciousness, as for example, the ideas of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff, I would question whether such an hypothesis, if true, would of itself solve the problems of (1) what consciousness is and (2) how it is connected to the rest of things. It is not easy to see how quantum states could actually be conscious, particularly when other seemingly similar quantum states are not. The problems are not solved, but are merely transferred from neurons and neuronal assemblages to smaller and stranger constituents of nature.

        The second paragraph of this comment poses the mind/body problem. What is the relationship between "in the brain" and "in the mind"? I don't think we really have a definitive answer to this question yet. The third paragraph asks whether I believe information is sufficient to create matter from nothing. No, I do not. Information, in the abstract sense understood for these essays, is a type of abstract mathematical structure. Which mathematical structures apply to physical existence is a fact external to the mathematical structures themselves. It is a further fact, the fact of contingent existence. One way to see this is to notice that some mathematical structures are physically relevant, but others, which as pure mathematics are just as good, have no physical relevance at all. The only way to evade this conclusion, it seems to me, is to embrace modal realism. That doctrine has problems of its own.

        Responses to three items in this comment:

        (1) Whether consciousness is any kind of computation would seem to be an important question. So far it doesn't look as though the kind or location of the computation ("a kind of quantum computation, or a kind of neuronal computation") would make a difference.

        (2) I agree that some thinkers believe that non-conscious, strictly physical processes, reduce the quantum wave function. As I understand it, this view is often called an "objective reduction" interpretation. Hence, on objective reduction interpretations, conscious observer-participants are not needed for this important transition. I suppose it is a matter of semantics whether or not one chooses to call these reducing entities "observer-participants."

        (3) In his original article Wheeler did not talk about "law without law." You say that concept of his is "even worse." It does seem to me that the concept will not work as a foundation for the existence we see. I do not see how pure indeterminacy and indefiniteness can lead, either in time or in logic, to specific details. "Law without law" sounds too much like Hegel's attempt to derive everything from pure and empty being as such.

        This posting raises a number of issues, and it would not be possible to respond to all of them. However, to items can be discussed. First, I am not sure what proposal is being made about the relationship of the cognizing mind to the external world. "The universe is a projection of our processes of cognition" sounds like some sort of subjective idealism. However, this is immediately modified to something that sounds like representational realism. The latter view seems more plausible to me. Second, I agree that reality as we encounter it appears to contain diverse elements. We think these elements fit together in ways that we do not understand. There seems to be a proposal here to postulate a large "master field" which will hold all other things together. This raises such questions as the evidence for this field, the nature of its intrinsic properties, and an explanation for the capacity of the field to act upon the lesser entities immersed within it.

        Hi Laurence,

        I enjoyed your essay and thought that you brought up some valid points. Overall, though, I would have to classify myself as a "computationalist" and so will play devil's advocate to your position here. You wrote:

        1. "Clearly the cosmos could not contain the information describing such a small though intricate subpart of itself. Still less could the cosmos compute that description."

        Why would a virtual world have to contain the resources to compute itself? It seems possible (in theory) to stipulate any finite capacity for the computational substrate. For example, that substrate can take as "long" as it needs to compute each "timestep" of the virtual world, even perhaps starting and stopping while it does so. Within the virtual world it would appear that the clock ticked once regardless.

        2. What data types are used? What mode of representation for each type?

        I give one possible answer in my essay Software Cosmos. I also treat what I think Wheeler means by "participatory universe".

        3. "Another thing to say about computationalism is that, if it be true, computations do not merely supplement what we now take to be the workings of nature. Instead, the computations would operate instead of natural laws. Natural laws would not directly determine that electric lights work, that tables and chairs stay solid, and that food nourishes."

        I do not see why the computational model could not be understood as just the implementation of natural laws. We take macroscopic objects to be composed ultimately of sub-atomic particles that follow physical laws. If the compuational model of the lowest level particles causes them to behave as physics describes, why is this a worse explanation than some abstract mathematical description of the same thing? In the latter case we have an explanatory gap: how is it that an abstract mathematical equation is realized in the behavior of a part of nature?

        4. "If everything is really "it from bit", then we shall have to find some other and more specific way to differentiate between the "bits" of mind and the "bits" of everything else."

        I agree with you on that. The conclusion in my essay is "It from Bit and Bit from Us" and I offer an analogy for the conscious observer within a virtual world.

        Hugh

          Dear Laurence,

          I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments.

          Regards and good luck in the contest,

          Sreenath BN.

          http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

          Dear Professor Hitterdale,

          Congratulations on an intelligent and well written essay. I've added a few new words to my vocabulary! I really like that you've included consciousness, after all it is us human beings taking part in the contest!

          I think that you are dead right that we need to ask "How come existence?".

          Wishing you well in the contest. If time permits - please take a look at my essay.

          Best wishes,

          Antony

          Since points 2 and 4 could be better addressed with reference to the "Software Cosmos" essay, I do not reply to them here.

          On point 1: I agree with the comment insofar as it applies to a virtual world. When we consider computational universes, we need to draw distinctions and go into details. In my essay, I left out almost all of that. Specifically, we need to distinguish (1) a universe which uses computation as part of its normal mode of operation and (2) a universe which is a virtual product of some domain external to it. Seth Lloyd seems to regard our universe as a case of type (1). Nick Bostrom has discussed the possibility of type (2). For type (2), we would also want to distinguish between (2-a) a universe which is fully realized down to the unobserved details and (2-b) a universe which is sketched in just enough to convince creatures such as us who inhabit it. I think both Bostrom and David Chalmers have talked about these two varieties. Only for type (1) computationalism does the universe have to contain enough computational capacity for compute itself. For type (2) universes all the computation is done externally, and so the universe need not contain any computational capacity--or any actual powers of any sort. It might be argued that a virtual universe has few properties (or at least it does not have the properties it seems to have). It might be said that a virtual universe lacks even the kind of existence it seems to have. However, if we assume that a given universe (for example, our own) is a virtual construction, we might be able to estimate the computational capacity which would be required for it externally.

          On point 3: Once again, I can to some extent agree with the comment, but I think there still is an important issue here. Yes, the computational model can be understood as a way in which natural laws are implemented. I would emphasize that, before we can assess it as better or worse than some other model, we have to ask, What is the other model? How else might natural laws be implemented? This is something which Paul Davies talks about in his essay, "Universe from bit". It would seem that, on a computational view, the implementation of laws is more complicated than on a non-computational approach. On either view, there would still be an "explanatory gap". The "lowest level particles" just behave one way rather than another. On both the computational and non-computational views, natural laws and antecedent conditions jointly determine what happens next in a particular situation. But how does the world get from laws and antecedent conditions to what happens next? On the computational view, there is in nature some type of process of figuring out what to do. The process is at least somewhat analogous to what a human observer might do to figure out what will happen. (If our world is a virtual reality, then the figuring out is done outside the world so as to simulate the operation of laws which do not really apply.) On the non-computational view, the next step in the world process happens automatically. I think these two pictures are distinguishable, and I think we can at least explore the implications of each of them.

          Dear Professor,

          Your essay is written on properly/professionally level and honest polemical style. However I am afraid that I am understand it not well and fully. (Maybe because of my not so perfect English, and I am not philosopher) I need to read it more and to spend more time. However, I think that I find one important confirmation to my own conclusion. You says about important factor for the science: about dependence of its significance from initially accepted criterions of its construction. I.e. the science will too much depend from the brain constructing it. It is my point also. However, I come to confidence that there are other trivial factors also that we do not care usually. But those may have huge significance too. I have rated your work as a valuable for me (with nine point) And I hope get your opinion/impression on my work Essay, that will be valuable for me.

          Best Regards,

          George

          You wrote:

          > I think these two pictures [i.e. virtual/non virtual] are distinguishable, and I think we can at least explore the implications of each of them.

          How might we distinguish them? One possible model system (or analogy) that occurs to me comes from the computer industry: There are several situations in which we simulate the operation of a CPU: that is, we create a virtual operational model of a computer and run the model rather than the actual hardware.

          (1) During its development, before it is created as a hardware device, it is simulated in order to refine the design. (2) shortly after its heyday as a commercial product it is simulated so that new and cheaper hardware can provide seamless support for software originally designed for it, and (3) well after its commercial lifespan, it is simulated by nostalgic hobbyists.

          The simulated versions differ from the actual product. In case (1) the simulation is slow and will have glitches, some form of error monitoring, and frequent restarts. In case (2) the simulation runs at basically the same speed as the original but there will be a kind of "emulation layer" that takes one form of operational information and transforms it into something basically equivalent before executing it. In the case (3) the simulation is fast and the input/output environment will seem oddly arbitrary (because it is dummied up by the hobbyist who does not have the time to also simulate the whole environment it used to run in, and wants to tinker with it anyway).

          For this model system, the question is if any of these types of effects could be detected by software agents running on the CPU or its simulated counterpart. Case (1) might exhibit discontinuities in the clock that agents in different runs could find, if information from one run was used to initialize the next (as it often is in practice) Case (2) would show seemingly needless inefficiencies as information gets transformed before something happens with it. Case (3) would exhibit effects of powerful external forces with seemingly supernatural powers.

          Turning from this toy model system to our world, one might make the case that (2) applies to DNA in biological systems and that (3) is confirmed by Biblical scholars. Solid evidence that our world is virtual? Hardly, but food for thought, anyway. :)

          Hugh