Hey Ken,

(Note: your essay is next on my list, by the way. Hope Cambridge is treating you well this summer!)

Thanks for the comments. Ignoring the entropy thing for a minute, I think the larger point is that contextuality tells us that there is a distinction between information and an information carrier. But I don't think that information is necessarily objectively encoded in anything. You're absolutely correct about the Schumacher and Westmoreland quote. It's precisely contextuality that *makes* it subjective in the first place. Classically, the fact that I, say, am 5'8" tall in my own reference frame is an objective fact. But on a quantum level, objective facts are few and far between.

So I guess it comes down to the fact that I don't really understand your objection. And I wouldn't say entropy "propagates." Entropy is really just a measure of possibility. In fact when we think of it that way, there is no difference between the various forms.

I disagree that orthodox QM says that unitary evolution tells us that fine-grained entropy never increases. That's only true if you ignore contextuality.

(Regarding spacetime and entropy, I personally think spacetime is emergent so I think there could be a relation there, but I'd have to think some more about it. The problem is that you fundamentally believe that we should be building our theories on top of relativity whereas I fundamentally believe that we should be building our theories on top of quantum physics. :D )

Professor Durham,

As I have modestly explained in my essay BITTERS, one real unique Universe is eternally occurring, once.

The questions Wheeler ought to have asked were:

Is the real Universe simple? Yes

Is the abstract universe simple? No

Is unique, once simple? Yes

Is quantum theory simple? No

Is unique, once the simplest? Yes

Could 0 and 1 be the simplest? No

Joe

Dear Ian,

Brilliant essay with fantastic examples illustrating contextuality in the spin 1/2 boxes. The jigsaw was a super way to show information content also. What I found remarkable was the conclusion that It must be more fundamental then Bit. Fantastic! I agree that information content increases over time, while matter/energy remains constant. This is a simple, yet excellent way to challenge Wheeler.

All the best for the contest - please take a look at my essay if you get the time.

Antony

    Hi Ian,

    1. I accepted Landauer's principle that information is physical. In KQID, bit = it, thus, idea, spirit, souls, God, and us are physical. Existence is bits and bits are physical. Everything including non-things because KQID postulates that everything is a thing, hence, everything is physical and physical is bit without any exception. This means also that there is no non-physical Existence, thus physics covers legitimately everything including religions, beliefs, ideas as well as bits-waves things.

    2. KQID prescribes a block Multiverse per absolute digital time T ≤ 10^-1000seconds in which information, energy and everything is conserved and no new information, energy or anything at all. Time is symmetry in this T-moment, everything can go backward or forward in time, or the time-past-present-future collapse into the NOW. Our Multiverse reboots, refreshes and resynchronizes itself. Time disappears. But time reemerges when our Multiverse jumps following Feynman's sum-over-histories per T following KQID relativity ψτ(iLx,y,z, Lm). This means every second, we have a new randomly minted ≥10^1000 qbits which is also ψI(CTE) as the bits-wave functions of consciousness(C), time(T) and energy(E). The energy content of these qbits have energy equivalent depends upon the temperature according to Landauer's equation KbΘLn2 where Kb is Boltzmann's constant, Θ is temperature and ln2 is log base 2.

    To me diversity of opinions are healthy and they are the symphony of ideas. We must not adopt conformity as healthy or wise. I don't agree with some of your opinions but I enjoyed and appreciated your idea tremendously. Diversity of ideas are beautiful. Thanks for participating in this forum and I believe all participants would agree.

    Best wishes,

    Leo KoGuan

    Dear Jan,

    my remark :

    Shannon and Other Structuralisms

    In comparison with Wheeler Structuralism ( 0-1 structure underpins all of our data and all our sciences ) and Category Structuralism ( by Roman Jakobson, Levi-Strauss, Burbaki, Abramsky and Coecke ) where the universals of human culture exist only at the level of structure,'culinary triangles' or other intuitive ordered things ; Shannon bits mathematics is pure mathematics. Shannon mathematical assumption is based on elementary algebra of common logarithm logax, where the logarithm of x to the base 2 is defined by the equation y = log2 x. This definition is of course applicable only when y is RATIONAL NUMBER. Beyond Shannon rational bits there exists new world of real, irrational, imaginary and complex bits, the world of Weierstrass theorem and the world of real lines contained infinitely many imaginary bits.

    Thus, it could be difficult to find real differences between Wheeler binarism and Alternative Gospel of structures , indeed. In fact, similarity between Wheeler and Topos Gospel by Doring & Isham philosophies are obvious.

    Dear Ian,

    You still haven't given an opinion on what if... Eddington is right on the second law and Wheeler is right on Bit from It, would the matter-energy of the universe still be a constant? Also, my essay may not meet the standard of professional physicists but please view. I will also want to know your take whether the Planck length can be of any physical significance. Your suggestion above of possible superposition of existence and inexistence is quite intriguing. Nevertheless...

    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

    *I have rated you already, so no matter. But glad to get your binary answer.

      4 days later

      Hi Akinbo,

      In answer to your question about Eddington and Wheeler, then no, I can't see how matter-energy would remain constant. In fact, disregarding Eddington entirely, I'm not sure how it could remain constant if Wheeler was correct since Wheeler implies that information creates "it" and we know that information (or the information content, which is the same thing really) in the universe is increasing.

      I will try to venture a look at your essay!

      Ian

      Thanks so much Antony! So glad you liked it! I will endeavor to grab a look at your essay if I can squeeze it in before the deadline.

      I think I sent you some stuff via e-mail, but at any rate, the zombie thing is just me pretending to be modern and hip. Zombies are presently trendy! ;)

      Dear Ian,

      I wish I'd reached your essay earlier. It's very relevant to mine, which is more ambitious (possibly overly).

      I like and agree with your explanations and propositions and think 'matter-energy' is a fair descriptor if it. Of course it may also be a fair descriptor of Bit, but importantly you point out;

      "the result of a quantum measurement will always produce a result that lies in the domain of classical quantity-value objects".

      So we assume 0 and 1 are JUST 0 and 1, which as von Neumann pointed out is inconsistent with QM. What if it were more? What if it had 'fractal' domains with a complete Bayesian/Godel distribution in each. So if we knew a different way to ask, we could ask not just; "up or down?", but exactly "How High?" or Low in each case.

      You hint at this then fall short, but do get closer than anybody. I hope you'll read mine as I construct that ontological road to the end, and find it appears that; "perhaps the key to understanding the universe IS lying right under our very noses".!

      If Honus's card tells us 1, there are infinitely higher orders where all the traits of Honus himself exists. Your essay has helped me rationalise this better but I hope you'll also try to falsify my apparently quite radical but realist finding.

      Well done for your own which should be much higher so hold tight for just a moment while I send a signal to cause a trigger to impart some significant motion. It's quite fun. I hope you'll try it too!

      Best wishes

      Peter

        Obviously; Peter enjoys playing the role of propagator.

        I'll return here soon, after reading for detail, and will likely wish to impart a bit of motion as well. Some keen insights Ian! I hope more people get around to reading this one, now that they have extended the deadline.

        Have Fun,

        Jonathan

        Dear Ian,

        I will appreciate a look-in on my amateur essay. I doubt you will enjoy it because not so technical with terms like entanglement, contextuality, etc. But purpose of this current post is to learn something from you...

        Is it being implied by the relational view of space and as suggested by Mach's principle that what decides whether a centrifugal force would act between two bodies in *constant relation*, would not be the bodies themselves, since they are at fixed distance to each other, nor the space in which they are located since it is a nothing, but by a distant sub-atomic particle light-years away in one of the fixed stars in whose reference frame the *constantly related* bodies are in circular motion?

        You can reply me here or on my blogmy blog. And please pardon my naive view of physics.

        Accept my best regards,

        Akinbo

        Thanks Peter. I'll see if I can squeeze in yours before the deadline. My comment about quantum measurement results always lying in the domain of classical measurements is intended to mean that we do not see mixed states in classical systems and, though we do see them in quantum systems, when we actually perform a single measurement the result is never mixed. It could be that in order to "register in our brain" it has to be classical (so-to-speak), but the point is that's what we ultimately get in the end.

        I enjoyed your essay greatly Ian..

        It was interesting, informative, and educational. You do an excellent job of explaining some highly technical subject matter in a way that is lucid for those not familiar with the concepts of topos or category theory. I really like the discussion about the meaning of orthogonality. But I am not certain about your final conclusion that there is an unending increase of information because of contextuality.

        That would depend on a rich environment of objects and spaces that permit interaction and provide new context. The cold dark end predicted in some cosmological models fairly mainstream, would rob isolated sub-atomic particles of any context after a while. The sheer distance would assure the possibility of interaction eventually becomes almost nil. Once all defining contextual information is stripped away; what then?

        I'll be reading this essay again, because I'll learn something. And again; your clarity of exposition makes some otherwise challenging material easy to understand. Good luck in the contest.

        Regards,

        Jonathan

          Hello Ian

          Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech

          (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html)

          said: "It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the relationship. And example of this is the Schrodinger equation and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum mechanics. I don't know why that is - it remains a mystery, but it was something I learned from experience. There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn't look at all like the way you said it before. I don't know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature."

          I too believe in the simplicity of nature, and I am glad that Richard Feynman, a Nobel-winning famous physicist, also believe in the same thing I do, but I had come to my belief long before I knew about that particular statement.

          The belief that "Nature is simple" is however being expressed differently in my essay "Analogical Engine" linked to http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1865 .

          Specifically though, I said "Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities" and I put it schematically as: wave-particle ~ quantum-classical ~ gene-protein ~ analogy- reasoning ~ linear-nonlinear ~ connected-notconnected ~ computable-notcomputable ~ mind-body ~ Bit-It ~ variation-selection ~ freedom-determinism ... and so on.

          Taken two at a time, it can be read as "what quantum is to classical" is similar to (~) "what wave is to particle." You can choose any two from among the multitudes that can be found in our discourses.

          I could have put Schrodinger wave ontology-Heisenberg particle ontology duality in the list had it comes to my mind!

          Since "Nature is Analogical", we are free to probe nature in so many different ways. And each of us surely must have touched some corners of it.

          Good luck and good cheers!

          Than Tin

          I wanted to comment briefly..

          The cornerstone of my essay is ultimately contextuality, in the broader or general sense. As you point out, context defines the arena in which events and measurements take place, and the range in which the important variables may be found. I especially like the observation that we can't know for sure if a unit quantity of information is a bit or a trit (does quit come next?) until a range of variation is determined.

          So as I point out in my essay, the concept of either/or choices arises in the context of learning about the larger subject of magnitude - and it is necessarily so. But the object-constancy perception is a key part of the way we characterize discrete units of things, be they 'it' (objects, particles, ...) or 'bit' (a binary digit). But it is subtle, and not binary. It is arguable that distant things are perceived as less tangible, for example, because they lack immanence.

          Key to figuring out if information actually sees an unending increase, due to contextuality, is the question whether it can be known that a 'reset' to an earlier state has occurred, without some necessarily contextual measurement that again disturbs that state, or adds new information because it has a slightly different measurement basis. While on the one hand a reset might hypothetically happen, the statement immediately following assures we can never verify that it is true.

          Comments?

          Jonathan

          Ian,

          Thanks, Yes, I understand, but think it's still a bit of a logical minefield, which I've been so bold as to offer a resolution to!

          If a bunch of Huygens wavelets, or Erwin's 'spherelets' are expanding and all heading to meet somewhere, like a football team, are they the powerful winning side when still all in bed? or just it's potential, which may then appear at home or away?

          Jonathan's right. Einstein said very pointedly in '52 after trying to make sense of interpretations; "The entire Special Theory of Relativity is contained within the postulates", which in both German and English specified; "...propagates" at a certain speed c'. With space now full of particle systems which can move realtively we don't even really need dark energy or a Higgs field with a local rest frame!, but it is allowed.

          I'll spread the word about yours a bit more, it seems it's been visited by the trolls! I do hope you'll get to mine.

          Best of luck.

          Peter

          Peter

          I wanted to add this;

          On further thought.. Maybe we never form a concept of the absence of a thing, in childhood, except as a subset of the property of distance - hence the word gone. So the abstract concept of being/not being is much more cerebral, and develops in the brain much later.

          Have Fun!

          Jonathan

          Jonathan,

          You make a good point about the cold, dark end predicted by most cosmological models. I will admit that my model does not do a perfect job explaining that. My hunch is that expansion has something to do with it though --- more room to expand provides for more possible microstates. In fact, maybe that's why the expansion is accelerating. It's got to keep up with the "loss" of possible microstates as the universe cools. Just a thought.

          Ian

          7 days later

          Dear All

          Let me go one more round with Richard Feynman.

          In the Character of Physical Law, he talked about the two-slit experiment like this "I will summarize, then, by saying that electrons arrive in lumps, like particles, but the probability of arrival of these lumps is determined as the intensity of waves would be. It is this sense that the electron behaves sometimes like a particle and sometimes like a wave. It behaves in two different ways at the same time.

          Further on, he advises the readers "Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it. 'But how can it be like that?' because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that."

          Did he says anything about Wheeler's "It from Bit" other than what he said above?

          Than Tin