Matter and its Configuration States in the Making of Information by CS Unnikrishnan

Dear Unnikrishnan,

You have mentioned about Hawking's result in your essay. As we know, the quantization of the right hand side of Einstein's equations, in a given spacetime, has yielded the effects of the Hawking radiation. Though the role of back reaction has not been fully taken care of here, let's examine this result in another perspective. Recently it has been shown that the right hand side of Einstein's equations, i.e., the energy-stress tensor T^{ik}, has serious problems [arXiv:1204.1553]. Hence, the results obtained by using it also become doubtful. Would you like to comment on this issue?

Best Regards.

___Ram

Dear prof. Unnikrishnan,

In your highly intriguing article, you have clearly distinguished between matter and its physical states on one hand and also between bits and their information states on the other. You have substantiated it with your elegant logical arguments. According to you 'matter is more fundamental than information'. So we can know of matter only through its physical states but never directly. To substantiate this you have given the famous example of 'serpent and rope' which is illustrated in Advaita Vedanta. A confused observer sees 'serpent in the rope' as long as he is in that state, but once he realizes (Gnanodaya) that it is indeed a rope but not a serpent he acknowledges his mistake. But in your case it is not possible as one can never know matter (underlying reality) except in its physical states. In the words of Advaita, this is tantamount to saying that you can know of world as a 'phenomenon' but never as a 'noumenon', although Advaita allows one to know of reality (noumenon) in 'mystic experience' as it is. So your metaphor is valid in Kantian philosophy where he clearly distinguishes between noumenon and phenomenon and we can know of noumenon as phenomenon only but never as noumenon itself. That is we don't have direct access to noumenon.

The one question I want to ask is, when you say that "information is the physical state of the 'it', and in turn that of the 'bit'; we now see clearly that 'it' is indeed the 'bit'", how do you come to the conclusion that 'It' is indeed the 'Bit'? I need some clarification here. In my essay also I have come to more or less the same conclusion but in a different way as you have already seen.

In your essay, you have clearly elucidated the role played by information in different branches of physics. You logic, I feel, is flawless as conclusions follow from the premises inevitably. The role played by the observer is in physics as a whole and in QM in particular is clarified convincingly. Thanks for writing such an articulate essay and it is an eye opener for those who are puzzled by the role played by the observer in QM.

Best wishes,

Sreenath

Dear Sreenath,

Thanks for your kind message. First let me clarify my claim that It is Bit - it is in fact not a very deep statement. I am just saying that just as one should distinguish between Matter and its physical state one should distinguish between a bit and its information state (matter is one entity and states could be many - so the same material entity is capable of transformation within its states). If one says that a two state quantum system is a bit, in real terms one is just indentifying an ion or a quantum dot or something like that with the bit. To encode information onto that one needs to create a specific physical state, and even that is relative, since any information refers to a change from one configuration to another. So, at the lowest level there is some material entity capable of assuming different physical states (information potential) - it is this SAME entity that we call a bit. A bit is not yet information, unless endowed with a 'state' (like orientation of a spin), but that needs a reference orientation (another bit with a specific state, chosen by convention)! I have pointed this out to Carlo Rovelli as well, since he deals with relative information in his essay.

Now about the 'serpent and the rope'. Yes, what you say is correct as what is said in Advaita, but one should also recognize that the informational values of bot, in strict physical terms, could be the same whereas the fear goes away when one realizes that it is a rope precisely because ropes cannot bite and kill. They are sufficiently different in their MATERIAL properties to allow Gnaodaya. What if the difference was subtle? One will take more time and effort to realize the difference. Finally, it depends purely on whether there is knowable difference between the physical states of the two objects - that is all what counts. As long as there is knowable difference between physical states, the information is distinct, and the rope and the serpent are different. Otherwise, the difference is not knowable, even by mystic experience. Yes, that is my stand. (fear can go away by mystic practice, and one might not care whether it is a serpent or a rope, but that is a different matter.)

Unnikrishnan

Dear Professor Unnikrishnan,

I have now finished reviewing all 180 essays for the contest and appreciate your contribution to this competition.

I have been thoroughly impressed at the breadth, depth and quality of the ideas represented in this contest. In true academic spirit, if you have not yet reviewed my essay, I invite you to do so and leave your comments.

You can find the latest version of my essay here:

http://fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/Borrill-TimeOne-V1.1a.pdf

(sorry if the fqxi web site splits this url up, I haven't figured out a way to not make it do that).

May the best essays win!

Kind regards,

Paul Borrill

paul at borrill dot com