Knowing One from the Other by Jonathan J. Dickau

Jonathan,

As always, you frame the physics in metaphysics, which is as appropriate for this specific topic as any we have seen. You also relate childhood learning to the topics (I believe you're the only one to do this.) I agree that the relevant perceptions occur before verbalization skills are acquired. You note that it is necessary to put aside preconceptions and see again with childlike eyes. Easier said than done, as this seems to be the purpose of Zen training and often takes years, when it succeeds. Other techniques include psychedelics and strokes as Jill Bolte Taylor relates. In my mind this distinction is between connectedness, or topology, and distance, or metric awareness, two entirely and fundamentally different ways of perceiving. I believe the Zen poem "an inch's difference and heaven and earth are separated" speaks to this reality. Either one has awareness of the unity or Oneness (Not-Two-ness) of the universe, or one perceives "objects" and "distances" between objects. You're the only essayist to focus is on these fundamental modes of awareness and how we begin with connectedness and evolve to separateness.

I like your metaphor of information, forces, and objects as a play. I also believe the day is already here when we can "learn by eating", as in Salvia and psilocybin, but there are both legal and mental risks associated with this and it is serious business. Alan Watts has written of "the Dance" for Westerners. As you note, this tends to be "built into" Eastern thinking. And as you so perceptively state:

"...there is a significant influence on our perceptions from habits of mind, apart from the nature of the universe itself."

Unfortunately these "habits of mind" are established over time as learned connections and "threshold settings", and are not easily "unlearned" or "reset", so the 'topological' view of the nature of the universe itself is truly a "hidden variable".

It's a very interesting question as to whether the "process languages" actually lead to a different perception of reality. I don't know the answer to that, although I suspect that all adults necessarily dwell in the 'metric' world, and have forgotten topological awareness as if it never existed. As related in my essay, I'm a realist and believe there is a single "substance" underlying reality, which, according to my theory, is most likely identified with gravity, a real field, not abstract geometry.

You note that "the part played by forces and energy in the universe is intermediate between information and objects." I tend to see the transfer of energy to an object as "informing" the object or local contextual structure when it crosses a threshold, becoming information at that point, (and simultaneously gaining semantic 'meaning' in terms of the context or codebook, which may be embedded in a hierarchically structured net of 'objects' such as dynamic neurons).

You also note that the hardware, software, necessary energy, of computers still require interactive direction of a human user; i.e. human consciousness.

As always, we agree on so much, yet still end up with different final interpretations. We'll simply have to agree that that's the nature of the Dance.

Best regards, good luck in the contest.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Jonathan

Congratulations for this well reasoned, sensitively expressed essay. Everything you said rings true - I admire your stamina in examining all the possibilities that the essay question invites and as it were answering them simultaneously with a koan-like wisdom.

As Edwin also stressed, you mention the focused and scientific way small children try to understand things. As we grow older we lose a lot of subtlety as our minds cling to one overriding theory or another. This is an important period for physics and an open-minded 'philosophy' of knowledge such as yours is very important if long held theories that do not quite work well are to be replaced by better ones.

Your thinking seems to be influenced by "The Tao of Physics" a marvelous book. Having lived in Japan for the past 42 years I can testify that religion and the language it is expressed in has a great influence on how we think, about science among many other things. This is a broad off-topic subject but it came to mind. You yourself quoted the Native American myth so I think you agree.

I expected but did not find a reference to a Yang-It-Yin-Bit!

With best wishes

Vladimir

Jonathan,

As of 7-6-13, 7:44 am EST, the rating function for your essay is not available. Sorry I can't help you out right now by rating your essay. NOTE: I have logged in using a PC and a MAC and different browsers but it appears to be a site function issue.

Manuel

Jonathan, It's good to see you make it in. This is a well reasoned essay and I like the analogy of the actors and dancers.

I think from a philosophical point of view thw best case to make is that IFB and BFI are both valid. My starting point is more pragmatic in that I want an idea that will lead to a theory. I think the IFB idea is better from that point of view. Of course information on its own is meaningless as you and others have rightfully argued. You need to add at least some structure such as an ordering of nits in a sequence. I prefer to add structure by adding the role of quantum uncertainty.

Hope they fix the rating system soon, the contest has gone into limbo at the most exciting moment!

Jonathan,

This is a well thought out exposition of the relationship of knowledge and information, but if I may, I would like to tug on a particular thread and see where it leads. Consider:

"Does life descend to play in or with form, bestowing consciousness and creativity? Or does form rise and evolve to acquire these attributes, so it may play in the heavens?"

The logical fallacy in theology is that the absolute is apex, when it is in fact basis. A spiritual absolute would be the most raw essence of awareness from which we rise, not an ideal form of knowledge and wisdom from which we fell. The more appropriate symbol for a spiritual absolute would be the new born babe, not an old man with flowing beard. It is only as this awareness grows, multiplies and interacts that it develops ever more complex form.

As for form, you assume it exists as a platonic realm, because it follows invariant patterns, but is this because these patterns exist in some pre- spatial/temporal state, or because identical cause yields identical effect? Which would best suit Ockham's razor, that there exist an infinite range of deterministic laws on some other realm, or that processes within this realm naturally generate them?

If you have nothing, the absolute state, do you need laws to govern it? And as this state divides/multiplies, are not the laws a function of the form of this growth, and both laws and form are in constant feedback loops, creating ever more complexity?

Isn't the guiding principle of science to explain the complex in terms of the simple and to peel away the layers? Requiring the pre-existence of every possibility seems to defeat that task.

What is nothing? It has no shape or position, energy or action. So it cannot be bound by any limiting factors and thus must be infinite. As well it cannot move or reflect and thus is inert, like a temperature of absolute zero. What it is, is the void. Filling this void is matter, which seems motivated by inertia and radiation, which seems intent on expanding to infinity.

Not to mention that element of consciousness motivating the tenacity of life on this "pale blue dot."

Jonathan,

If I may, I would like to post a small portion of my own entry, explaining why knowledge is inherently fragmentary:

" Bias is fundamental to the construct of knowledge, so it needs to be factored into the

model. Whether it is a particular perspective, or a generic model or pattern inductively

distilled from circumstance, knowledge is a focused distillation of a larger context. Much

as a telescope would give us much deeper depth of vision, but also limit the field of

view. Thus the very process of definition imposes limitations and introduces further

layers of context.

This factor is incorporated in physics as the Uncertainty Principle, though the full

consequences do not seem fully appreciated. Knowledge does not go to infinity,

because it is a function of distinctions and judgements. Measurements, if you prefer. So

combining multitudes of such bits of information cancels out detail, like colors running

together. They can be networked into a larger body of knowledge, much like various

colors can create a picture, if they remain separate and distinct.

What we think of as knowledge is that border between distinction and continuity, as the

making of connections and relations among and between the distinctions, we glean the

broader patterns. The consequence is that broader, generalized perspective does blur

the fine detail and loses some information, just as a detailed view limits the broad

perspective."

Jonathan,

I have to say one of my earlier influences was complexity theory, but lost track of it, as it became something of a business mantra, so I was quite excited to read Nature and Nonlinear Logic by William C. McHarris.

I think people like he, who have spent their careers on the subject, are better able to explain how the development of patterns really does depend on dynamic randomness. We logically assume the causal link of effect is effectively predetermined, but patterns create their own instability. They rise up and crumble. The belief in deterministic outcomes is in fact part of the pattern prevalent in human action, as stability leads to stagnation. So yes, in a linear sense, I can understand how bottom up dynamic processes follow all possibilities and top down ordering self selects sustainable patterns, but I know that thread will eventually fray and fade. The cone of prior cause is ultimately random, as is the cone of consequent effect.

An ideal form is still contextual.

That said, I do believe in emerging ideals. I think life on this planet is building a central nervous system, with humanity as the medium, but it will require a phase transition we care not to imagine.

Jonathan,

And that goes to the point I keep making about time; That it is the changing configuration of what is, rather than a vector of duration from past forms to future forms. This change being a thermodynamic, non-linear process, with the measure of duration is only an effect, like the scalar of temperature. The present doesn't move, only changes shape.

Regards,

John

"The butterfly emerges not by transforming, but by consuming its prior form."

Pushing the reset button. Part of the pattern is erasing pattern.