Knowing One from the Other by Jonathan J. Dickau

Dear Jonathan,

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

I had a delightful excursion into your Mandelbrot slides. And then I surfed over to Joselle Kehoe's blog (my first exposure), where an archived article on Gregory Chaitin's new book (*Proving Darwin*) caught my eye. After noting Chaitin's wonderfully phrased philosophy: "Each time mathematics faces a significantly new challenge, it transforms itself." Joselle follows up with her view:

"The idea that life itself is creativity, and that our knowledge of it is always incomplete, is a view of things that I believe mathematics easily inspires. My own experience with mathematics has always led me in this direction, both within the confines of my very personal experience as well as when I explore ideas in science, philosophy and art. It's a provocative and optimistic view. Mathematics seems to be coming from us, yet it keeps giving us images of the larger thing of which we are a part, to the point of showing us that we can never fully know that larger thing. We are seeing something about us and the world."

I so agree. Some say the Mandelbrot set is the most complicated object in mathematics. Actually, my vote for that honor is Chaitin's Omega number. Both objects, though, inform us that everything we are certain about is history -- a history that continuously creates infinite bifurcating trajectories. Only the hidden patterns of self similarity gives us even a hint of the global reality.

All best,

Tom

Jonathan,

You provide a generalist's perspective to a bunch of specialists. As I like to rib Tom, Generals run armies. Specialists are somewhere between corporal and private.

Regards,

John

Jonathan,

I have received word that although it was unfortunate that there was a delay in conducting the ratings, no extensions to the final deadline will be made. I will keep this in mind when I get a chance to review your essay later this week.

Best wishes,

Manuel

Hi again Jonathan,

I hope I find time to read your essay thoroughly. I only had time to browse through it today, but it was very interesting and refreshing. The first words to really catch my attention were "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?" Therefore, it reminds me of William Shakespeare's lines -

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts.

Today, life has you and I playing a part on FQXi's stage.

Best wishes,

Rodney

Hello Jonathan,

A nice contribution. To distill some truths from your essay, I quote excerpts and follow with remarks.

RE: "it is reasonable to observe that an ongoing interplay between 'It from Bit' and 'Bit from It' is an essential part of the natural order, and that this exchange of modalities is more fundamental than either view is on its own"

Quite correct.

RE: "the notion of 'Bit' has been generalized to include a broader spectrum of information types, and I think this is wise - because information does not always fit into conveniently-sized packages"; "...if we allow a sufficiently broad definition for quantifiable information..."; "There is always an interplay between information becoming stuff, and stuff becoming information"; "While it is quite clear that information of some nature does give rise to the universe of form, thus fulfilling Wheeler's vision of 'It from Bit',"

From all these, would you consider 'existence'/'non-existence' as a binary choice? Many have conceded to including this as information on this FQXi forum. Then given that what exists must have extension, no matter how minute and what does not exist would not occupy space, your ideas may coincide with mine here.

RE: "In relation to 'It from Bit' Physics, time and space are both the stage and the place for the audience to watch from"

Suppose space and time are not just the stage and place, but also the actors as well, contrary to what Gerard 't Hooft told you? That is exactly what I too suggest in my essay so leave this option open till you read my essay.

A very nice essay to be well rated.

Regards,

Akinbo

Hi Jonathan,

I must say you do have a way with words, your essay is beautifully written. The words 'it' and 'bit' are sufficiently vague to allow bending things to actually have an argument on both sides, depending on how you define them and in what context they apply. I find this imprecision too often found in discussions between physicists and philosophers alike a major barrier to thought communication.

For me, 'bit' is implying information. It (bit: see what I mean) is entirely anthropogenic. Bit is a representation of reality in a form suitable for our minds (or computers for that matter) to register and apply connections of one form or another on, bit is not the substantive reality that has an existence quite independent of humanity. Diverging from this opens the door for silly philosophical questions like whether or not a tree falling in a forest makes any sound if there is nobody present to hear it, that mathematics is not simply a tool to aide human understanding but is reality itself, and even the fanciful notion of emergence so popular in physics discussions today.

'From' plays into this philosophy of emergence, placing far too much significance to rank ordering of fundamentality and worse implying a total lack of fundamental character to features of reality that for all we really know may have always existed. But emergence plays well in the arena of big bang cosmology, a subject that will never rise above a religion to verifiable science, so on it goes. For 'from' to imply a fundamental connection, it must be independent of us. Connecting 'it' and 'bit' here, whichever side one may think they appear on, can only reasonably be construed as 'observed from' which requires our conscious act. This is not to say observable facts do not exist in the nature of things if nobody makes an effort to observe them, they do. But nature does not create the information itself and compartmentalize it as such for our simple collection; information is the result of our efforts to make the observations of what actually exists whether or not we are looking. To see it any other way is to conflate 'it' and 'bit', and doing so renders the 'or' in the question posed for the essay moot. But such conflation is employing black hole theorists through their musing on conservation of information. It is all good since as I have said diversity of thought is an optimal process.

Rick

Jonathan,

This is what I did go into in my entry, about how knowledge is fragmentary and distinctions have to blur in the bigger picture. It is this contextuality of perception and information which goes to the heart of why "bits"(and information as emergent from distinction) are so fundamental to knowledge.

" 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.

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."

So, yes, this isn't a complete meeting of the minds, but there is some convergence. I view the situation dynamically.

Hi Johnathan,

I love your opening introduction below: "In an ancient tale (as once told to me); Spirit takes on the myriad forms to learn by becoming, and being, and doing, what it is to live in the world of form. Then after immersing itself in the universe of form and its living inhabitants, it begins the upward journey back to oneness, rising above the world of separate forms as it has learned all there is to know in that manner, and becomes unified again - so the cycle can repeat. Though told in this way it is an epic saga, at each step and every stage there is an exquisite interplay - a dance of information and form, where they take turns being creator and observer. 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?" This remains me of the great Carl Sagan: "The cosmos is also within us, we're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." i totally agree with him. However, rather than the Cosmos within us, it is our Ancestor FAPAMA is within us and within everything that is. Below you stated that it from bit is more fundamental than bit from it, if you must decide. I understand what you said and what you are struggling with. Nature is infinite, thus it must contain all including itself as an empty set that contains itself that Russell found to be inconsistent and contradictory from Aristotelian logic worldview although Russell struggling with whether or not Aristotelian A = A is true, and think this question does not exist. at the same time his thought was controlled by A = A as was Ayn Rand's Objectivism and as you pointed out, this logic controls scientific inquiries that have been brilliantly successful that we cannot live without such as electricity, computer, phone, airplane and Starbucks.You and I have the same worldview in the sense that nature encompasses everything and both and in between. I read and rated your essay. Wishing you the best in this contest, Leo KoGuan.

Dear Jonathan,

Your interesting philosophical essay reminds me of spirituality and the ancient Hindu wisdom that the universe is a cosmic play and the Observer and the Information are basically One! I agree with your view that the "It from Bit or ...?" question depends on how it is perceived and interpreted.

I rated your essay high and wish you best of luck in the contest.

___Ram