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

    Dear Than:

    Thanks for the wishes.

    All the best.

    Olaf

    P.S.: Have you looked at http://xkcd.com/1240/.

    Dear Paul:

    Thank you for your interest in my essay!

    Regarding the question of entanglement and rigidity it seems that there is no direct connection because standard examples of rigidity are not entangled (think of the product state of all spins up). This is an ongoing and hot research topic right now: How important is entanglement for the low energy properties of large quantum systems? (Papers by Verstraate should have answers)

    I'll have a look at your essay!

    All the best.

    Olaf

    Dear Torsten:

    Thank you for looking at my essay!

    An application sounds very interesting. I'll definitely have a look.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Hugh:

    Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply to my essay!

    I have actually thought about the similarities between the layers in my essay and the layers that appear when programming. I think though that there is a clear difference. Think of a subroutine in a computer program:

    procedure DoStuff( var1, var2, ... )

    begin

    ...

    return stuff;

    You can use this procedure from a higher level and you do not care how it looks on the inside. You can replace the whole thing and as long as the new routine accepts the same variables and returns the same kind of data you'll be fine.

    The important point is now that you have to know what kind of data to hand the procedure and what to expect back (c++ overloading is just a slight weakening of this). This part of the procedure is external to it. What I was describing is more internal. The meaning of a procedure becomes clear by kicking it.

    I think our real difference becomes clear when you say: "Yes, but a dictionary is just information, more bits. It does not have to contain (even pointers to) Its." You are pointing to an infinite regression here that I want to end. The way I do this is by having Its interact. That is the key part of my argument.

    Looking forward to reading your essay.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Charles:

    Thanks so much for reading my essay and the kind comment!

    I think the connection of emergence and randomness is important. In particular in connection with the measurement problem.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Jim:

    Thanks for reading my essay and commenting on it so kindly.

    Looking forward to your essay.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Amazigh:

    Thank you very much for the good wishes (and rating the essay)!

    I'll have a look at your essay.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Carlo:

    Thanks for the interest in the essay and acknowledging the point. It was important for me to capture enough of the a notion of information (and the shortcomings of the old notion) that it becomes apparent how it is related to the solution of a number of problems (like the measurement problem).

    A tighter definition will appear in a longer article.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    P.S.: I think emergence is a really important concept that has not been properly understood yet. I think it is also important in quantum gravity and allows for results like these (alternative to inflation):

    http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.6169

    Dear Vladimir:

    I think your quote is spot on! Thanks for the kind comments.

    I'll have a look at your essay (so many essays to read!).

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear John:

    Thanks for the interest in my essay. I am going to have a look at your essay and see if I can answer your question.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Yuri:

    I liked the quote from Wheeler. I am not sure I get the claim. It would really help if you could state the claim more clearly. What are the places where the angle of 18 appears? Are there exceptions? What works? What does not?

    The point with these kind of things is that they might signify something deep or they might just lead you astray. People have invested a lot of time on the fact that the fine structure constant is 1/137. Why 137? As far as I can tell no good reason has been given yet.

    It would really help if you'd work on the presentation.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Amos:

    Sorry if I wasn't clear. About the asymmetry:

    When the system reaches a ground state it has fewer symmetries than before. Think of a system of spins. Before the transition they point in all possible directions after the transition all spins point in one direction. Which direction is determined by random fluctuations. That is the connection between randomness and asymmetry.

    Thanks for the interest.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Olaf

    Thank you for constructional criticism of my essay. It benefits rather than complimenting from nonprofessionals.

    I will try to answer your questions.

    1.My observation 18 deg concerning only pseudoscalar mesons where spin=0 and two charged leptons(mu and tau) where spin=1/2.But 18 deg no so important than symmetry around proton.This is an amazing symmetry was not noticed until now.

    2.Puzzle of 137 is more sophisticate than 1836,because contains 3 components (c,e,h) whereas 1836 contains only one(m) component

    Cheers

    Yuri

    Dear Yutaka:

    Thank you for the interest in my essay. I have just read your essay and I very much like the operational point of view. I think I am not clear what you mean when you say

    Operational thinking has been formalized as information theory.

    Can you explain what you mean here?

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Yuri:

    I guess the number of different contributions to this essay contest attest to the difficulty of coming up with a good description of what we mean by information. I am not sure that this the greatest riddle though.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Joe:

    Thanks so much for the kind words. Can you explain a bit more what you mean when you use the word once? I am not sure I understand.

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Giovanni:

    Thanks for these remarks! I guess I have to read Lee's book now.

    The discussion with Mauro has just started (further down).

    Cheers

    Olaf

    Dear Antony:

    Thank you for the interest in my essay. I had a look at your essay and I must say that I am not at all sure what the role of the Fibonacci numbers is. It seems a bit too much numerology to me.

    Cheers

    Dear Israel:

    Thank you for having a look at my essay!

    You say:

    The reality emerges by the interaction of objects and evolution of objects,

    I agree. But then you say

    so definitely information is crucial.

    Can you explain this? I am not sure I understand.

    Cheers

    Olaf