Ah yes! But also...

You are absolutely correct, and definitive up to a point. But there is more to the story. Let me start my response by saying that people are biased to understand all things in terms of the behavior of fermionic matter, and this is endemic to living in a world made of protons, neutrons, and electrons - not just a matter of human perception. I'll accede that within that realm, your answer makes perfect sense.

But why only uniqueness and oneness? I understand there is a balance there, or something that is preserved, but there is more. The next level up from unique would be completeness; in Physics this is preserved by Electricity that only flows when the circuit goes all the way around, and in Geometry the simplest figure with this property is the circle. Of course; the circle contains space and thus represents the next property which one could call nothingness.

Taking this to logical conclusion; I'd make enoughness or sufficiency the next preserved quality, and then a property that could be called agreement or equality is needed - which bespeaks the connection of such a hierarchy with oneness, or the totality of being. I spell out some of this in Physics terms, in my essay from the FQXi contest on What is ultimately possible in Physics.

More later,

Jonathan

"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

    Gee whiz, oh scrupulous one..

    The Bhagavad Gita? I should have known that, but didn't quite have the realization surface. I knew there was something eerily familiar about the tone of your essay. And of course; I had the sense that it was all Siri's writing, after all. But I enjoyed your paper Don, and I gave you an uplifting score.

    Thank you for your appreciation. Have an enlightening day.

    All the Best,

    Jonathan

    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

      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

        Thank you Peter!

        I appreciate your kind words and your high regard. And yes; I understand the seriousness of Bell's experiments and related results. I am certain there is resolution of the paradox for EPR, but I am not convinced there is a (singular) resolution which explains the results handily and thereby locks out all explanations. That is one of the things I disliked about McGucken's paper and forum responses; it is as though he expects you to drop all the old dogma and accept his new dogma instead. That does not suit me.

        So I will re-read and comment, but I sense that you do not need my support, in order to get your point across effectively. And be aware; you may not ever win my agreement in toto, but that would not keep me from recommending your work to others.

        All the Best,

        Jonathan

        that should be; I'm not convinced a result that definitively explains EPR should be considered one that 'thereby locks out all other explanations.'

        Jonathan

        Thank you Colin,

        While I'm not sure I would call the universe static, I think the Big Bang/Inflationary scenario has some big problems and deficiencies. Just ask Steinhardt; he raked it through the coals in a lecture I attended and a Scientific American article. You may want to check out the FQXi Forum page for the paper "Dimensional reduction in the sky," which offers insight into (and my comments about) the theory of Rainbow Gravity, and a view of cosmology which decidedly DOES NOT favor Big Bang/Inflation, and may offer some useful insights.

        All the Best,

        Jonathan

        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

        Thanks greatly Sreenath..

        Your comments here are warmly appreciated. I'll see what I can find out about Thandava-Nruthya, through a web search, now that I know what to call it. Your insights complement my own, so I'm thinking I'd better read your essay through - so I may learn what other gems you have to share.

        All the Best,

        Jonathan

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        • Post #75

        Dear Jonathan as you think further on whether existence/non-existence being a binary condition, see a short piece below:

        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

          OK then Akinbo...

          I shall attempt to answer your question with all due brevity, but an honest answer precludes that only yes/no replies are considered valid. This caveat is necessitated in part by the nature of your query and by essential information not provided (only some of which is commonly available), but it is also dictated by the fact that my circumstances are unusual or unique. There are some basic facts to consider, in the set-up of the problem. The largest bills printed were $10000 notes, and a stack of 100 would easily fit in most people's pocket, and the smallest are $1 notes, but it is ludicrous to assume that anyone's pocket has space for one million of them. So there are natural limits, or boundary conditions to consider. One important feature of this problem is that all denominations of money have discrete values, but there are a number of ways a one million dollar sum might be constituted, and a limited subset of these that would actually fit in a pocket. I reason that a stack of 1000 $1000 notes would be mighty a tight fit, for a fairly large pocket. And since the $1000, $5000, and $10000 notes are no longer printed this makes it harder to obtain a stack of 'crisp notes' that total one million and will fit in a pocket.

          Assuming the above limits present no obstacle, we are then left with distinguishing and counting the notes found in our pocket. While the hand as detector might be able to reliably count the number of notes, and while someone with enhanced tactile skills might distinguish one bill from another in pocket; most people would pull the stack or wad of money from their pocket in order to count it, to visually inspect the bills for authenticity, and so on. I am like most people, Akinbo, and I would pull the notes from my pocket and count them. Then, even if I was urgently needed on the job; I would immediately go to the Bank or Credit Union - and make arrangements for them to authenticate and store or deposit my new found wealth - before I went about my business. Having done so; any later attempt to probe my pocket that comes up empty handed would convey no additional information beyond what was known - unless I had put the receipt in that same pocket. One might also have the earned expectation that more money would appear, because it already happened once, and in this case finding nothing would confirm or deny this expectation.

          Of course; if I found money in my pocket, then just left it there and went about my business (unlikely), I would have been surprised it was missing later - and this would be new information. It is also true that if I took it out and counted it, then slid it back into my pocket, it would be a shock later - and losing it after realizing you had one million dollars would definitely confer information, which would almost certainly be unwelcome. So yes; there are instances where an empty pocket conveys new information, but the loose definition of the problem does not allow me to say whether the scenario in the previous paragraph or this one plays out. As far as going to work goes; I am here in the very same studio where I recorded Pete Seeger, and where if I peek around the corner I can see my Grammy award on the shelf, but this is my home too and the bed I slept in last night is right behind me. So there is seldom a time I am 'on my way back from work' - unless I do a remote session as on "At 89." My guess is that I would likely stash the cash before showing up for a recording gig, so it is far fetched that I would leave a million dollars in my pocket, then go to work with it, but if I did I'd expect to find it there later.

          So ends part one,

          Jonathan

          As explained above;

          The answer is 'yes' for 1) above IFF one left the money in one's pocket (in which case an exact accounting is lacking) or counted it and then returned it to pocket (assuming no further action was taken), so there would be a reasonable expectation to find something there.

          The answer is 'no' for 1) above when one has removed the money from one's pocket, perhaps to count it, and subsequently acted to store the money elsewhere - leaving it out of one's pocket before going to work. An expectation more will magically appear does not justify being surprised by empty pockets, if one has deliberately set the money aside before work, though if a million appeared twice you would wonder.

          There are some scenarios allowable by the problem description where only a partial answer is possible, the correct answer is somewhere between 'yes' and 'no', or the result is indeterminate, and so on. I'll say that aThe great majority of cases fall into one of the two categories above, but... A funny thing happened on the way to work... Anything can happen. Unless some details of the day's activities are known, an exact answer eludes us.

          Regards,

          Jonathan

          Hello again Akinbo,

          I will still attempt to get to specific replies for 2) 3) and 4), and I think my initial answer explains any variance.

          All the Best,

          Jonathan

          Dear Jonathan. Hello, and apologies if this does not apply to you. I have read and rated your essay and about 50 others. If you have not read, or did not rate my essay The Cloud of Unknowing please consider doing so. With best wishes.

          Vladimir

          Greetings My Friends,

          This message was meant to be a reply to Akinbo (in his blog), but because it has more general relevance I am also posting it here.

          While I acknowledge that sometimes life reduces choices down to either/or decisions, the tendency to assume this applies more generally is a harmful logical flaw prevalent in modern society, because it fails to ask "Is there a middle path?" In more detail; sometimes the middle is excluded erroneously, in other cases the fact there are multiple choices is not considered, and in some cases there is a virtually continuous range of choices - where sometimes our choice among these cases is determined by how we interact with the system. According to an article in August's Scientific American by Meinard Kuhlmann; that sometimes applies for the choice of 'particles vs vacuum' which begs the question "Is there a particle or no particle?"

          I first read about the hierarchy of objects and spaces as a point made in passing by Alain Connes, in one of his papers about non-commutative geometry. Measurable is a subset of topological, which is a subset of smooth - in relating the categories of well-defined spaces. This point has more than passing importance, however, to people who study differential geometry and topology. In some cases; one can assert that the boundary between stable conditions or well-defined regions is a fractal. That is; there are interpenetrating regions of yes and no, or black and white, as in an M.C. Escher artwork. So while sometimes a simple yes or no will suffice; sometimes a more subtle answer is called for.

          More to follow..

          All the Best,

          Jonathan

            Here is the rest of the story.

            There seems to be an erosion of our natural perceptual ability to distinguish shades of gray, as an effect on the human populace over time. I've written about this in editorials, but few scholars have speculated on its cause. I suspect migration of a large segment of the populace to cities might be a factor.

            The studies begun at Tübingen, and run by the German Psychological Association for a number of years, showed a marked decline in perceptual acuity at discerning shades of gray and other colors, for people at the end of the study vs the beginning. Early on more than 200 shades were easily distinguished, and later participants could discern only half that - focusing mostly on bright colors. I would hate to imagine a world where everything must be reduced to yes or no, black or white.

            So let's celebrate the world's colors and shades of gray, while we still can.

            Have Fun!

            Jonathan