Beyond information: A bit of meaning. by Olaf Dreyer

Hi Olaf,

Thank you for your investigation into the nature of information. You wrote:

> How does layer 0 look like to someone who's lowest level meaningful objects are from layer 1?

One way to look at such layers is through the lens of software architecture. In such an architecture, each layer defines primitive operations and the processing environment. These are implemented by the lower layer and used by the upper layer. From the perspective of algorithms in the upper layer, the implementation of primitives is quite mysterious. Each such operation "just happens". Because of this, the lower layer can be hardware or a software simulation of hardware, without the upper layer being able to detect the difference. The implication of the "information hiding" aspect of architectural layers is that upper layers can know only what lower layers choose to reveal.

> If we have to decide between "It from bit" and "Bit from it" it is clear that we come down on the latter: Bit from it.

If we take "It" to mean the material level of reality, then "It from Bit" might mean only that there is a level below the material. How many levels there are, and of what kind, could still be open. "Bit from It" seems to assert than material reality is at Level 0, which seems open to debate.

> Naked bits require a dictionary that gives them meaning.

Yes, but a dictionary is just information, more bits. It does not have to contain (even pointers to) Its. Bits, for example, could represent numbers, and be involved in mathematical calculations that do not need direct referents to anything material (i.e. Its).

> One of the perennial problems in philosophy is the problem of consciousness. One reason consciousness is puzzling is that there seems to be an infinite regression present. It feels like there is someone observing the thoughts inside our head but then what about the thoughts of that someone?

There is a distinction between the Mind and the thought, and so what we feel when we feel conscious might be Mind which is holding thoughts. If the level of Mind is lower than the level of Matter, then it is a natural place for consciousness to observe the material world, without being constrained by physical laws.

> Our view of information suggests that there should be a new paradigm of computation that we might call emergent computation.

In my essay Software Cosmos I construct a computational model for the cosmos. While the focus was on the layers above the material level, the idea of treating the cosmos as a software simulation allows us to ask how it is layered. The result is that layers deeper than the level of Matter can have the attributes you describe. I hope you get a chance to take a look and let me know what you think.

Hugh

Dear Olaf,

interesting essay. You explain the role of information from first principles.

I thought about a concrete application containing all features of your ansatz.

If you like, please have a look into my essay.

Best wishes

Torsten

Olaf - nice essay highlighting the issue with information. I believe we met briefly at the Perimeter Institute a few years ago.

I'm not sure I like this essay as much as your previous work, but thank you for introducing me to the concept of generalized rigidity, which I was previously not aware of.

I wonder, how does that tie in with, say, an entangled system? Does entanglement create a physical rigidity in condensed matter?

As you will see, I have an interest in this topic as I explore the notion of entanglement in an argument that will at first seem quite absurd:

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1897

Good luck with the contest.

Kind regards, Paul

Dear Olaf

I'd like to report something that I have already said in my thread, answering to your post, about your nicely written and interesting essay. To be honest I should confess that I share essentially nothing of your essay, though I rated it high since it is pleasant to read, provocative, and complementary to mine as Giovanni Amelino-Camelia says.

What I do not share is the "linguistic" notion of information, i.e. with a "meaning". This may make sense for classical information, which is sharable. But what is the meaning of quantum information, which is not sharable, but is secret? If you don't thing that quantum information is technically a kind of information (and for you information is only classical), I strongly suggest you the Pavia axiomatics for QT (PRA A 84 012311 (2011) http://pra.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v84/i1/e012311). The difference between classical and quantum information, is that the quantum one is purifiable, namely is only apparently lost, it is always preserved as long as you have control of the environment.

I can accept your assertion that "meaning arises through interaction, it is dynamic, and it is internal". But you should be more specific about it. How do you qualify the meaning in terms of the interaction? You cannot deny that interaction is ultimately only quantum. What is the quantum meaning in terms of the unitary operator? Internal to what? You should be more specific. How I describe mathematically the meaning? In your post you say: "Think of the list of positions of the atoms and molecules that make up the river (or ship). What does this list of numbers mean? To give meaning to these numbers you have to give a procedure of how to position the atoms. This requires material objects (like the standard meter that used to be in Paris)." My answer is: There is no such a way of measuring position of atoms. There are only outcomes from an indirect inference of the atom position within a theoretical description. The only position measurement in your sense is the classical measurement: then the meter is emergent notion at the topmost level.

You say: "Without matter information is literally meaningless". Here we are really at the opposite sides. For me matter is emergent! You are talking of the usual linguistic information, with a semantic, the one that we are using here in the blog, Not the one made of bits or the qubits. What are the meanings of the bit values 0 and 1? Information is processed by a computer in a "meaningless" way as a binary code. It seems to me that you missed the meaning of the theme of the essay competition: "It from Bit or Bit from It?" Not information in usual semantic sense.

However, apart from our manifest disagreement, I liked your essay, and I rated it well.

Best wishes,

with friendship

Mauro

Dear All

A standard-issue big city all-glass high-rise stands across the street from my usual bus stop. When I look up the high-rise facade, I can see the reflections of the near-by buildings and the white clouds from the sky above. Even when everything else looks pretty much the same, the reflections of the clouds are different, hour to hour and day to day.

After I boarded the bus, I rushed to get a single seat facing four others on a slightly elevated platorm. From my vantage point, I can't help noticing the shoes of the four passengers across from my seat are not the same, by either the make , the design, or the style, and that is true even when the four passengers happen to be members of the same family.

I could change the objects of my fascination from shoes to something else, to buttons on the dresses for example, but I do not think the result would have been any different. Diversity or Uniqueness would still rule the day! (There is a delightful essay on the subject of uniqueness by Joe Fisher in this contest.)

I am pretty sure people are fascinated by the diversity and the uniqueness in the world, when the other side of it is the inevitable boredom of sameness every time.

However, we have a need to know where all this beautiful and enchanting diversity comes from. Borrowing Wheelerian phraseology of "How come the quantum?", I ask "How come the diversity?" A standard physics answer is "Entropy always increases." (I am not a physicist, and I don't know if that is the final answer.)

Whenever I'm out of my depth, I go back to my theory of everything (TOE), which is a mental brew of common sense, intuition, gut, analogy, judgement, etc. etc. , buttressed when I can with a little thought-experiment.

The thought-experiment is simple. Imagine cutting a circle into two precisely, identical, and equal parts. Practically, there is no way we can get the desired result, because one part will be bigger or smaller in some way.

Physics - especially quantum physics - says it don't matter, do the superposition!

But superposition is fictive, an invention like the Macarena dance, and it has given us a cat, alive and dead at the same time.

I have heard that angels can dance on the tip of the needle, and now I'm finding out some of us can too!

Cheers and Good Luck to All,

Than Tin