Hi Edwin

You cannot ever ignore energy and still do physics. Trying to bring consciousness into the picture before you've nailed down the relationship between energy and information is a mistake, and often leads to some sort of quantum mysticism about consciousness - i.e. leads nowhere. The notion of information I use is simply configuration entropy because it is the only opinion-independent concept of information there is. Your example is still the causation of "bit from it" - information from the distribution of energy - which is Object Physics, whereas the causal pattern of agency is the reverse - expending energy on the basis of information. You've also confused information with the "meaning" of information. This is where keeping the physics focus on energy and configuration entropy helps, because it provides the basis for the most minimal definition of "meaning" in physics:

The meaning of a stimulus s to an agent a is the energetic response r that the agent displays to the stimulus s: a(s, e) -> a', r

By this definition, the meaning of a stimulus is specific to the agent that has the energetic response, and since no object displays an energetic response - that's the definition of an agent - there is no "meaning" in Object Physics. Given sufficient grasp of agency, this definition can be traced to the common understanding of the word "meaning".

The "theory" underlying Agent Physics and the key incompleteness proof is simply Science - that you can DESCRIBE physical reality using maths - nothing more. In the last 400 years this "theory" has worked out rather well. Agent Physics can be deduced in standard classical physics without the addition of any new theoretical concepts of any kind - and the key definitions and proofs are at undergraduate level physics and maths. A firm understanding of these fundamentals of classical physics and maths (over the counting numbers!) is needed before tacking quantum theory.

My example of the coin-stack is directly relevant as the same sort of pattern occurs in QFT. The "it" of the coin stack did NOT exist before, it is a compound object made of sub-objects that are energetically arranged on the basis of the configuration entropy (information) of their current arrangement. In QFT there is a critical distinction between a "bare particle" - the fundamental object - and a "real particle" that is measured in any experiment - the 2 are not the same. A "real particle" is a compound object consisting of the "bare particle" surrounded by a network of interacting "virtual" particles and radiation. As I mentioned in last year's essay, "virtual" is a concept in Relativity at the level of classical physics - it's not strictly a QT concept. I reproduce this pattern in classical physics: the fundamental or "bare" particle is a topological defect in space which is surrounded by a "radiation field" and gives a "real particle" as a compound object, EXACTLY as in QFT. The information in question resides in the configuration of the vacuum, both in terms of energy conservation and topological conditions. This is EXACTLY what Wheeler was considering - the "it" of a "real particle" from the information "bits" of the vacuum state.

The "map" is the science theory of the "territory" of reality, and the dream of an exact 1 to 1 mathematical mapping between the 2 has been PROVEN impossible within science.

Best

Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your reply. I think we still have a terminology problem, but you've cleared up some aspects, for example, the coin stack as compound object. You've worked out a much more complete theory than most here, and that means that things are clear in your mind that others must grasp more slowly. I understand your QFT analogy, but it doesn't all fit together for me just yet.

I agree with you that consciousness in the picture often leads to 'quantum mysticism', but that's not where I'm trying to lead. Like you, I have a pretty thoroughly worked out theory that may not make sense without a good bit of study.

We do agree that you can *describe* physical reality using math, nothing more. I'll try to read your essay again with the above comments in mind.

Best,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Dr Goodband,

You caught my attention with Einstein's geometric unification of physics, as this is something I've made some progress on outside of the essay contest. Also the essay I feel is very well written and the coin example is excellent!

Please take a look at my essay if you get time. Either way I'd be interested to read more about "Agent Physics"!

Best wishes,

Antony

Dear Dr. Goodband,

Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon. So you can produce matter from your thinking or from information description of that matter. . . . ?

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.

===============

Please try Dynamic Universe Model with some numerical values, give initial values of velocities, take gravitation into consideration( because you can not experiment in ISOLATION). complete your numerical experiment.

later try changing values of masses and initial values of velocities....

Calculate with different setups and compare your results, if you have done a physical experiment.

I sincerely feel it is better to do experiment physically, or numerically instead of breaking your head on just logic. This way you will solve your problem faster.....

Best

=snp

Dear Dr Goodband,

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 Michael James Goodband:

I am an old physician, and I don't know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics, but after the common people your discipline is the one that uses more the so called "time" than any other.

I am sending you a practical summary, so you can easy decide if you read or not my essay "The deep nature of reality".

I am convince you would be interested in reading it. ( most people don't understand it, and is not just because of my bad English). Hawking, "A brief history of time" where he said , "Which is the nature of time?" yes he don't know what time is, and also continue saying............Some day this answer could seem to us "obvious", as much than that the earth rotate around the sun....." In fact the answer is "obvious", but how he could say that, if he didn't know what's time? In fact he is predicting that is going to be an answer, and that this one will be "obvious", I think that with this adjective, he is implying: simple and easy to understand. Maybe he felt it and couldn't explain it with words. We have anthropologic proves that man measure "time" since more than 30.000 years ago, much, much later came science, mathematics and physics that learn to measure "time" from primitive men, adopted the idea and the systems of measurement, but also acquired the incognita of the experimental "time" meaning. Out of common use physics is the science that needs and use more the measurement of what everybody calls "time" and the discipline came to believe it as their own. I always said that to understand the "time" experimental meaning there is not need to know mathematics or physics, as the "time" creators and users didn't. Instead of my opinion I would give Einstein's "Ideas and Opinions" pg. 354 "Space, time, and event, are free creations of human intelligence, tools of thought" he use to call them pre-scientific concepts from which mankind forgot its meanings, he never wrote a whole page about "time" he also use to evade the use of the word, in general relativity when he refer how gravitational force and speed affect "time", he does not use the word "time" instead he would say, speed and gravitational force slows clock movement or "motion", instead of saying that slows "time". FQXi member Andreas Albrecht said that. When asked the question, "What is time?", Einstein gave a pragmatic response: "Time," he said, "is what clocks measure and nothing more." He knew that "time" was a man creation, but he didn't know what man is measuring with the clock.

I insist, that for "measuring motion" we should always and only use a unique: "constant" or "uniform" "motion" to measure "no constant motions" "which integrates and form part of every change and transformation in every physical thing. Why? because is the only kind of "motion" whose characteristics allow it, to be divided in equal parts as Egyptians and Sumerians did it, giving born to "motion fractions", which I call "motion units" as hours, minutes and seconds. "Motion" which is the real thing, was always hide behind time, and covert by its shadow, it was hide in front everybody eyes, during at least two millenniums at hand of almost everybody. Which is the difference in physics between using the so-called time or using "motion"?, time just has been used to measure the "duration" of different phenomena, why only for that? Because it was impossible for physicists to relate a mysterious time with the rest of the physical elements of known characteristics, without knowing what time is and which its physical characteristics were. On the other hand "motion" is not something mysterious, it is a quality or physical property of all things, and can be related with all of them, this is a huge difference especially for theoretical physics I believe. I as a physician with this find I was able to do quite a few things. I imagine a physicist with this can make marvelous things.

With my best whishes

Héctor

Dr. Goodband,

I do beg your pardon. I am a decrepit old realist and I wish to make a comment about your essay. I am hesitant to do so for I fear that my criticism might offend your sensibilities. I mean no offense. I merely wish to inform you about reality.

You wrote: "Instead, the incompleteness proof gives yet another proof that there is no complete physically-real scientific theory that replaces quantum theory." As I have noted in my essay BITTERS:

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.

Wheeler ought to have asked:

Is the real Universe simple? Yes.

Is the abstract universe simple? No.

Is unique simple? Yes

Is quantum theory simple? No.

I wish you luck in the contest.

Joe

Hello Michael,

I am yet to rate your essay. Meanwhile...

As the contest in Wheeler's honor draws to a close, leaving for the moment considerations of rating and prize money, and knowing we cannot all agree on whether 'it' comes from 'bit' or otherwise or even what 'it' and 'bit' mean, and as we may not be able to read all essays, though we should try, I pose the following 4 simple questions and will rate you accordingly before July 31 when I will be revisiting your blog.

"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

    Dear Dr. Goodband,

    Beside "Objective Physics" & "Agent Physics" Equal to a Total proposition of Reality, I request you to read my essay which defines

    "Left Handedness" & "Right Handedness" equal to a Reality which is expressible only through some specific constants.

    I agree with the two halves of Reality.

    Thanks

    Dipak

    Hello Michael,

    I enjoyed your essay greatly and rated it highly (which you deserve). It is a convincing explanation of why Agent Physics is the root cause of "It from Bit." Very well done! I hope you will find the time to read my humble effort in this year's contest. I wish you the best of luck.

    Have Fun,

    Jonathan

      Regarding the smallest unit possessing agency..

      Particles in your formulation are topological deformations, unified on the 7-sphere at the extreme microscale, and due to the unique properties of S7 and the connection with the octonions, the question naturally arises. Do 'atoms of space' possess the property of agency (in some rudimentary form)? How about sub-atomic particles, photons, or physical atoms? The octonions and their algebra possess a kind of dynamism that is procedurally evolutive in requiring sequential operations performed in stages. Do topological deformations operating in octonionic space therefore possess agency?

      Alain Connes famously wrote "Noncommutative measure spaces evolve with time!" and goes on to say they have a 'God-given set of automorphisms,' in his NCG 2000 paper. But describing the octonions, which are non-associative as well as non-commutative; P.C. Kainen wrote that these two properties need not be seen as an impediment to proper usage in Physics - as they force progressive or sequential ordering in a way that allows ease of geometrization, and naturally models the dynamism observed in Physics. This would suggest that your STUFT theory and its variations - being connected with the natural properties of S3 and S7 - WOULD confer at least a minimal degree of agency to structure in the universe and make Object Physics a subset rather than a complement of Agent Physics. Do you concur?

      Have Fun,

      Jonathan

      As I note in my essay;

      When I asked Gerard 't Hooft, in a conversation at FFP10, 'what does the computing in your model? Are there perhaps atoms of space or 2-d patches at the Planck scale?' and his reply was that atoms of space are not needed, "because the laws of nature do the calculating for us."

      How would you answer the same question, Michael?

      Best Regards,

      Jonathan

      One further query..

      I see sub-atomic particles as knots or congruences in octonionic space, in your STUFT theory, and proposed variations working from S15. Is this essentially correct, in terms of a visualization or conceptual model?

      That's all for now..

      Good luck.

      Jonathan

      Hi Jonathan

      Yes, particles are topological defects in space in my geometric unification of physics (or Einstein's depending on your perspective as it's GR in 11D) but they are effectively bare particles, as in QT. Topology gives the boundary conditions ensuring the existence of these spatial defects, but finding a closed form solution is *proven* not to be possible. Adopting a perturbative approach starts with a bare topological defect of the form of a spinning Planck scale black hole. The combination of the topological conditions (from the S7) and the ergo-region of the rotating black hole (from space-time) gives the effect of the bare particle meeting the conditions of being an agent. This is conceptually just because the bare particle is effectively an unstable solution to the full 11D GR, but the combination of conditions prevents the full solution of a real particle working out in a straightforward fashion - all the weirdness of QT is the consequence.

      As all objects are fundamentally composed of these topological defect particles, which strangely possess agent characteristics in bare form, in a sense all of physics (and the rest of science for that matter) lies within the domain of Agent Physics. The clear division into Object Physics and Agent Physics simply follows from attempting to model the patterns of energy and information in physical dynamics, i.e. from doing physics.

      All the fundamental particles of the Standard Model, with correct charges (plus Weinberg angle and coupling constants), are produced by a topological mapping from S7 in the octonion space to a spatial S2, IF and ONLY IF the symmetry of the S7 has been broken so as to split the S7 into S3 fibre and S4 base-space. In extended GR the topological defects take the form of twists in the structure of the compactified S7 dimensions in going around the spatial S2 enclosing some point (or hole in space). In a pure geometric theory with only the structure of the fabric of space, a question like, "what does the computing (over the numbers of particles)?" can only have the fundamental answer, the fabric of space - which is synonymous with the laws of physics.

      Best

      Michael

      Thank you Michael!

      I appreciate the time taken for a detailed answer. And I am glad we are in agreement that Agent Physics is encompassing, or plays a dominant role in the structure of Physics as a whole. The best of luck!

      Have Fun,

      Jonathan

      Dear Michael,

      Re-reading your essay. I must confess very informative essay and very readable. Deserving of a very good rating. In your essay, you said: "The external input of energy into a subsystem of objects causes the configuration entropy to increase, giving a positive thermodynamic temperature". Given an input of energy into a sub-system of positive but abysmally low temperature, say 10-30oC, how will the resulting astronomical configuration entropy manifest?

      I agree that Object Physics can explain "bit from it" and Agent Physics "it from bit". In my essay I identify the 'it' as an extended point, but I have difficulty identifying the Agent. You may wish to comment.

      Best regards,

      Akinbo

      Hello Michael

      Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech

      (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html)

      said: "It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the relationship. And example of this is the Schrodinger equation and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum mechanics. I don't know why that is - it remains a mystery, but it was something I learned from experience. There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn't look at all like the way you said it before. I don't know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature."

      I too believe in the simplicity of nature, and I am glad that Richard Feynman, a Nobel-winning famous physicist, also believe in the same thing I do, but I had come to my belief long before I knew about that particular statement.

      The belief that "Nature is simple" is however being expressed differently in my essay "Analogical Engine" linked to http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1865 .

      Specifically though, I said "Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities" and I put it schematically as: wave-particle ~ quantum-classical ~ gene-protein ~ analogy- reasoning ~ linear-nonlinear ~ connected-notconnected ~ computable-notcomputable ~ mind-body ~ Bit-It ~ variation-selection ~ freedom-determinism ... and so on.

      Taken two at a time, it can be read as "what quantum is to classical" is similar to (~) "what wave is to particle." You can choose any two from among the multitudes that can be found in our discourses.

      I could have put Schrodinger wave ontology-Heisenberg particle ontology duality in the list had it comes to my mind!

      Since "Nature is Analogical", we are free to probe nature in so many different ways. And each of us surely must have touched some corners of it.

      Good luck and good cheers!

      Than Tin

        Michael,

        Jonathan pointed me here. I thank him. From a heavy start it built steadily to a great work and then brilliant crescendo. I punched the air in finding I really wasn't going insane. Your thesis describes and beautifully rationalises a central and key part of my own, just viewed from a different angle and aspect. I term is as the 'Dirac Line' discerning mathematical approximation and the layered higher order 'sample spaces' of physical entities and interactions, the evolution of which is described by continuous curves

        I hope I also go on to show not only that you are correct but the power of this new paradigm, including resolving the EPR paradox without FTL. We're not alone, many other essays probe the same theme; Matlock, Gaisin, Planat, Dreyer, Perez, McGuire, Mijatovic, McHarris, Rogozhin, Durham, Watson, Kadin, Baugher, Heckman, Bennett etc. etc. It just needs all pulling together. Are you the man? For me it's simply a leg of a greater unifying ontological construction.

        I pulled out a number of top quotes from your essay but won't repost them. Suffice to say very well done and certainly a top score earned. I think the heavy start may have put many off as I can't understand your poor rating.

        I hope I can prevail on you to read mine and give me your views on my quite different and slightly more radical essay. I hope you find it all pulls together.

        Very well done and thank you for yours.

        Peter

          Hi Peter,

          Thank you for your kind words.

          As I also described in last years essay contest, the crux to further progress is the *proof* of incompleteness for the "physically-real theories" that Einstein was after. There is no choice but to go through this result in one way or another, so others are *definitely* going to arrive at the same point - it is just a matter of time. The suprising thing is just how widespread this result is in science; finding the origin of QT is just the start of a far bigger paradigm shift in science. The scale of it means that many others will probe similar issues; I went for the heart of it in the most straightforward and generic way in physics.

          The "heavy" start is because I think that it is necessary to reframe Wheelers point otherwise you just end up going down the same old trail and coming up with nothing new. Paradigm shifts have never been popular in the entire history of intellectual thought, so it is no suprise that this one is turning out to be equally unpopular. But there is nowhere else to go, so the whole of science is going to have to face it eventualy. As with past paradigm shifts, this one has been found by someone not in academia - this seems to be the really unacceptible part.

          I have downloaded your essay and will download the essays you noted. I will be reading them later as I'm on vacation and can only get French internet access in tourist information offices.

          All the best

          Michael

          Hi Than Tin

          I discovered the truth of Feyman's words in last years essay contest, when I found that there exists an independent way of arriving at exactly the same topological conditions as in my geometric unification of physics. There was also a hint from other essays last year that there could be a third way as well.

          Michael