Knowing One from the Other by Jonathan J. Dickau

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

Mr. Dickau,

I wish to congratulate you for writing such a fine essay. I have no criticism, however, I do wish to emphasize a point that has been overlooked in all of the essays except my own essay BITTERS.

Only unique is real, once. As the only real form Spirit could ever take on would be unique, once, Spirit would never have to rise up to resume a state of oneness. Oneness is the only real natural state.

Wheeler ought to have asked:

Is the real Universe simple? Yes

Is the abstract universe simple? No

Joe

Then, Joe, what is the answer to:

Is the abstract universe contained within the real universe?

Tom

Respectfully Jonathan, and Tom

The real eternal unique Universe could not arise. The real unique Universe does not have an inside or an outside. Insides and outsides are not unique. The quality of physical rising and falling is not unique. There is no seed of abstraction anywhere in the real Universe. There is nothing but an ocean of abstraction into which modern man is presently drowning. It is one thing for a man to admit that he may not know the truth about a certain condition. It is quite another matter for that man to invent and pretend to perfect an instrument that could accurately identify the supposed condition for him. Each real snowflake is unique, once. It follows that each unit of heat must be unique, once. Temperature is not a series of repeatable numbers.

Man may build a computer programmed matrix, but any active actor in the matrix would have to behave uniquely different from a real person in a real situation. This means that the temperature surrounding the actor in the matrix would have to be different than every other amount of temperature so far recorded anywhere on earth. This law applies to holographs as well.

Joe

The above comment was written by Joe Fisher

"There is no seed of abstraction anywhere in the real Universe."

Then these word symbols communicate nothing, and anything we say is pointless.

Hi Jonathan,

I liked your very readable essay. One of the best for staying on target and going right to information and form. As you show both do not mean much with taking into account that most slippery of all things "human context".

If my own work drives you a little crazy, please forgive me I was just doing my best to give the flavor of the Bhagavad Gita.

Don Limuti

Jonathen,

Your usual very intuitive and pertinent insights into learning, but I did notice why you felt the need comment on the unstructured approach. It would have been better for some organization. None the less that's the only and very small criticism as the content and prose were very valid and highly readable, which for me justified a good score. I particularly gelled with some very pertinent comments such as;

"...in many natural systems; the most interesting place to look is along the fringes, such as a shoreline or the boundary between forest and field, where the boundary is a fractal."

"seeing there is a similar interplay between form and information, which ensues from an exchange of "It from Bit" and "Bit from It" roles, allows us to make better sense of a complex reality"

"...it must be acknowledged that information can play a broader role, as architect of the theater that is space and time..". and..;

"It is presumed there can be no 'It' beyond the Planck density, but clearly the primal basis of information can and must still be well-defined - even in the matter free regime of the Planck era - for the universe to exist."

The critical concept of motion seems to be a subliminal coherent theme, or "-a Cosmic Dance." You also importantly identified up front that "the real challenge is to understand what plays the role of object, and what takes on the role of information, at a given point in the process." I'm also reminded of a couple of Einstein quotes: "Play Is The Highest Form Of Research." and; "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

Thanks for your kind comments on mine. I do hope you get to re read the 2nd half slowly as that's where the ontological construction all comes together. The resolution of the EPR paradox (Bells inequalities) is dead serious and a very important new finding, see also the blog comments and explanations.

Very best wishes.

Peter

Thomas

No doubt about it.

Joe

Hi Jonathan

The theme of your essay is quite in line with a point of view I hold which is that recycling between energy and matter is a general principle worthy of consideration, not only in terms of information. It is virtually a necessity for a static cosmology, which is at the extreme limit of the recycling premise and one of my current interests.

As for continuous information, I think that depends on whether energy is quantized. There is a natural quantum of energy, Hh, Hubble constant times Planck constant or about 10^-51 joule. This is the amount of energy that Hubble's law implies would be lost per cycle from all photons, no matter what their wavelength. The process of losing Hh in energy every cycle corresponds to exponential decay. That is about as close to a universal quantum as you are going to get. Hh is small enough that the difference bewteen discrete and continuous would be negligible.

Anyway that's my two bits. Best to you.

Colin

I found one of Steinhardt's lectures "Inflationary cosmology on trial" on youtube. Fortunately, he encouraged questions from the audience. Although the questions were inaudible, his answer to one presumably about the energy driving inflation in the big bang was revealing. He said (at 33:00-35:00) the source was [Newtonian] gravitational potential energy and that gravity is a unique form of energy which is bottomless. The notion that gravity is an infinite well of energy is dubious. I attempted to show how gravitational potential energy can be reformulated using special relativity in last year's essay. In its modernized form, the potential energy that is available through free-fall would be limited to the rest energy of the falling object. In other words the free-fall energy from a test mass, m, can be no greater than mc^2 no matter how strong the gravitational field. This reflects Mach's principle that rest energy of an object is potential energy due to its elevation from the rest of the matter in the universe, and kinetic energy can be no greater than potential energy.

In my opinion this gives an advantage to the cyclic hypothesis because the expansion mechanism is different. The upcoming experiments Steinhardt refers to ought to spark more interest.

Thanks for the leads. It is much appreciated.

Colin

Dear Jonathan,

In your enchanting essay you have clearly elucidated the relationship between It and Bit in as diverse fields as physics, mathematics, biology, sociology and human culture. This approach is somewhat similar to what I have done in my essay. Although you have given equal importance to both It and Bit as they are intertwined and hence need each other to survive by changing their roles often, you have also said that 'there can be no It beyond the Planck density' and 'so information reigns supreme, in the universe before matter appears', thereby giving primacy to Bit than to It. So in physics, in extreme cases, you are siding with the Bit and same is the case with mathematics as 'the principles and objects of mathematics are discovered rather than invented'; there by giving objective existence to mathematics. It is good to see that you have considered solving the epistemological problem existing between It and Bit by analyzing the psychology of human mind. Comparison of the interplay between It and Bit, on one hand, and creation and destruction of the universe, on the other, to 'Lila Rasa' or 'Cosmic Dance' is simply revelation of the sort of relationship existing between It and Bit. In Hindu mythology, Lord Shiva's 'Thandava- Nruthya' is called 'Cosmic Dance', which results in the destruction and creation of the universe.

Thanks for producing such an entertaining but thought provoking essay. Please go through my essay too and post your invaluable comments in my thread. I would like to rate your essay with a very high score.

All the best in the essay contest,

Sreenath