This is IT - Information Theory by Ralph Waldo Walker III

As of 7-6-13, 2:16 am EST, the rating function for your essay is not available. Sorry I can't help you out right now by rating your essay.

Manuel

Ralph,

I have sent an email requesting that FQXi extend to those of you who entered this competition on July 5, 2013, be allowed additional days to compensate for the days of not being able to rate these essays.

My experience in conducting the online Tempt Destiny (TD) experiment from 2000 to 2012 gave me an understanding of the complexities involved in administrating an online competition which assures me that the competition will be back up and running soon. Ironically, the inability of not being able to rate the essays correlates with the TD experimental findings, as presented in my essay, which show how the acts of selection are fundamental to our physical existence.

Anyway, I hope that all entrants will be allocated the same opportunity to have their essay rated when they are posted, and if not possible due to technical difficulties, will have their opportunity adjusted accordingly. Best wishes to you with your entry.

Manuel

Hello Ralph

Nice writing style! I found this essay to be an interesting read. To me, while the essay considered information and matter as in some way fundamental, the core nature of these foundations was not really considered as specifics.

Arguably, the essay seems to require that the universe have humans in it; kind of Berkelian. The system proposed is a descriptive explanation of the universe, in that while there is cause and effect, the link between them--how the effect is brought by the cause, needs fleshing out.

The author talks about matter, light, energy (separate to light), intelligence and consciousness. The system suffers from the bundling problem (Google 'Bundle Theory') in that it requires something in the background that holds the disparate aspects together. I could find no indication as to what brings this action.

There were several aspects that could be further explored; two examples follow.

"Stars transform Information from Matter into Light and Energy, living things transform it into Intelligence, and human beings transform it into Consciousness." It is not clear what mechanism is being proposed for the action of transformation.

"A living thing has a unique internal decision-maker and an internal sense of separation from its environment; an inanimate object does not." Under an electron microscope we find that down there in the chemistry level things like amoeba have no physical apparatus that might suggest an internal sense of separation; especially if one is attributing some kind of intelligence, even at a rudimentary level. There are no decisions being made (in the sense that one might usually attribute to intelligence) other than chemical bias toward preferred actions such as movement of the phospholipid bilayer at the cell membrane .

The conclusion didn't seem to connect to the main topic very well, but overall the essay shows the thoughts of the author and was a nice read.

Best wishes, and I hope you find my essay interesting.

Ralph,

I was told that the this essay competition will not be extended as requested... sorry for that.

Anyway, I will be reading and rating your essay today. At first glance, I can assure you that you can expect a high rating from me. Since you have read my paper already, I was wondering how the "Information Field of Intelligence" relates to my findings? I am looking for correlations between the findings and your essay.

Thanks,

Manuel

PS - nice graphics BTW ;-)

Ralph,

Thanks for your friendly post on my essay, and I am delighted to read yours!

For future reference, you will note that most scientists are very skeptical of anything claiming to be a grand unified theory, but that shouldn't discourage people from actually examining your paper. :)

"Stars transform Information from Matter into Light and Energy, living things transform it into Intelligence, and human beings transform it into Consciousness" -- for some reason this conjured a quote from Prigogine in my mind, which I just dug up on goodreads: "We grow in direct proportion to the amount of chaos we can sustain and dissipate" -- Ilya Prigogine (Nobel prize winning chemist / chaos / complexity theorist) ; in a way, that sustained, dissipated chaos, perhaps, is the information of which you speak. You write well and I think are onto some deep philoosphical ideas which I promise to ponder more. Often as (hopefully) objective observers we forget that we are part and parcel of the universe ourselves... it's nice to see people recognize and remember that. I will read in more depth when I am less bordering on sleep :)

Cheers and good luck and again thanks for reading mine,

Jenny

Dear Walker

Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon. So you can produce matter from your thinking or from information description of that matter. . . . ?

I am requesting you to go through my essay also. And I take this opportunity to say, to come to reality and base your arguments on experimental results.

I failed mainly because I worked against the main stream. The main stream community people want magic from science instead of realty especially in the subject of cosmology. We all know well that cosmology is a subject where speculations rule.

Hope to get your comments even directly to my mail ID also. . . .

Best

=snp

snp.gupta@gmail.com

http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/

Pdf download:

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/essay-download/1607/__details/Gupta_Vak_FQXi_TABLE_REF_Fi.pdf

Part of abstract:

- -Material objects are more fundamental- - is being proposed in this paper; It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material. . . Similarly creation of matter from empty space as required in Steady State theory or in Bigbang is another such problem in the Cosmological counterpart. . . . In this paper we will see about CMB, how it is generated from stars and Galaxies around us. And here we show that NO Microwave background radiation was detected till now after excluding radiation from Stars and Galaxies. . . .

Some complements from FQXi community. . . . .

A

Anton Lorenz Vrba wrote on May. 4, 2013 @ 13:43 GMT

....... I do love your last two sentences - that is why I am coming back.

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 6, 2013 @ 09:24 GMT

. . . . We should use our minds to down to earth realistic thinking. There is no point in wasting our brains in total imagination which are never realities. It is something like showing, mixing of cartoon characters with normal people in movies or people entering into Game-space in virtual reality games or Firing antimatter into a black hole!!!. It is sheer a madness of such concepts going on in many fields like science, mathematics, computer IT etc. . . .

B.

Francis V wrote on May. 11, 2013 @ 02:05 GMT

Well-presented argument about the absence of any explosion for a relic frequency to occur and the detail on collection of temperature data......

C

Robert Bennett wrote on May. 14, 2013 @ 18:26 GMT

"Material objects are more fundamental"..... in other words "IT from Bit" is true.

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 14, 2013 @ 22:53 GMT

1. It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material.

2. John Wheeler did not produce material from information.

3. Information describes material properties. But a mere description of material properties does not produce material.

4. There are Gods, Wizards, and Magicians, allegedly produced material from nowhere. But will that be a scientific experiment?

D

Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jun. 16, 2013 @ 16:22 GMT

It from bit - where are bit come from?

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 17, 2013 @ 06:10 GMT

....And your question is like asking, -- which is first? Egg or Hen?-- in other words Matter is first or Information is first? Is that so? In reality there is no way that Matter comes from information.

Matter is another form of Energy. Matter cannot be created from nothing. Any type of vacuum cannot produce matter. Matter is another form of energy. Energy is having many forms: Mechanical, Electrical, Heat, Magnetic and so on..

E

Antony Ryan wrote on Jun. 23, 2013 @ 22:08 GMT

.....Either way your abstract argument based empirical evidence is strong given that "a mere description of material properties does not produce material". While of course materials do give information.

I think you deserve a place in the final based on this alone. Concise - simple - but undeniable.

===============

Please try Dynamic Universe Model with some numerical values, give initial values of velocities, take gravitation into consideration( because you can not experiment in ISOLATION). complete your numerical experiment.

later try changing values of masses and initial values of velocities....

Calculate with different setups and compare your results, if you have done a physical experiment.

I sincerely feel it is better to do experiment physically, or numerically instead of breaking your head on just logic. This way you will solve your problem faster.....

Best

=snp

Dear Ralph,

I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments.

Regards and good luck in the contest,

Sreenath BN.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

Ralph,

This is such an interesting perspective, certainly an out-of-the-box approach towards addressing the primary question. Though I do have many reservations, some of the unique aspects of your paper are quite intriguing. I've always argued that we have a woefully inadequate definition of life, and I like your approach towards that definition. While I don't necessarily agree in totality with its conclusions, it's an insightful viewpoint and speaks to the character of definitions themselves which can often mislead with random circularity. Thanks for posting this essay; I sincerely hope you continue developing and contributing such unique abstractions to the world.

Chris

Hello Ralph,

I am surprised I have not visited here! 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

Ralph,

Thanks! And certainly feel free to send a note anytime...

Chris

Ralph,

Great essay. You have a wonderful smooth writing style that I envy as it's a pleasure to read. I also found the essay original, relevant and interesting. I certainly think you deserve to be higher up the list and I'll oblige.

I totally agree you and Wheeler's basic premise, though I feel, and have found, that a rather more 'reality based' simple solution may be available to explain the current mysteries, an underlying mechanism unifying physics. That's the foundation of my essay, actually laid here 2 years ago and developed last year. I do hope you'll read (and score!) my essay this year that constructs an ontology to show the power of the model.

But well done for yours, an exceptional piece from a non professional, a camp in which I have a bit more than one foot. Congratulations and best of luck.

Peter

Hello, Ralph,

Your essay is excellent, in the spirit of Descartes.

You cite above are good words of John Wheeler: "Instead, attempt to build everything on the foundation of some 'grand unified field theory'. . . Hope to derive that theory by way of one or another plausible line of reasoning. "

Next, a great depth of thought and the eternal questions: «John Wheeler believed we live in a participatory universe. He wondered if one day we might discover that the universe is a self-synthesized information system.2 If he was right, then the discovery of how the universe is assembled and operates would reveal our role within the system. We could finally answer the greatest questions of all time - Who are we? Why are we here? What is our purpose? »

And further: «What if the key to understanding the universe was to see it as a whole rather than in parts?»

You're absolutely right: «If we wish to understand the central idea of the universe, then we must be willing to transform our thinking. In order to do this, we must think 'outside the box' - not just talk about it. We need to imagine as if we're outside of the universe looking in; not on the inside of the universe looking out. This perspective of the universe as a whole is what will provide us the opportunity we need in order to transform our thinking about what we see. If we're willing to keep our minds open to new possibilities, and have the intellectual courage to think in new and different ways, then an entirely new picture of the cosmos will emerge. »...

«An enlightenment experience can be described as an individual's 'oneness' experience with the universe as a whole.».

At the end of the essay you are doing a wonderful conclusion which I fully support: «The central idea of it all is simple, beautiful, and compelling. The universe is simple when seen as a whole, beautiful in its design, and compelling when understood. To discover the central idea of the universe is to also discover the purpose of human existence, and to be compelled by it. To know that each and every one of us matters to the universe should matter to each and every one of us. We should honor the role the universe has reserved for us by fully stepping into it. When we do, we will truly make ourselves, the world, and the universe as a whole, a better place. ».

Brilliant! Yes, the "Paradigm of the Part" and "Paradigm of Whole a" need to work on science together, helping each other. Picture of the world should be one - and physicists and lyrics. This requires information age/

See my essay, we are close to you in spirit and purpose of the research, but we have just a little bit different, but similar roads - to the vision of the world as a whole.

I'll bet you did not "five", which I love (I and a daughter were born 5 numbers), I put you "happy nine".

I wish you every success, with respect,

Vladimir

Hi Ralph,

At last a contribution that is not stuck in the general thinking.

We are both non-professionals but what does it mean to be a pro, only that you earn you money with science ? Or does it mean that pro's have to follow the rules that are set out by the majority ?

When reading how you let consciousness "surround" reality, Plato's "UNMOVED MOVER" came in my mind, and as a matter of fact my own "non-causal consciousness" is playing that kind of role.

You are adding two senses : happiness and pain, but I think that these two are "feelings" and not senses, because the 5 senses are the instrumentation of the human being to become aware and conscious.

It is a nice idea that you propose about dark matter, a new approach that needs attention and encouragement, so I rated your essay high.

I hope that you will take some time to read another non-conformist essay [link:fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1810] "THE QUEST FOOR THE PRIMAL SEQUENCE" and if you like give me a rating, but I am sure that you will be intrigued.

We are 100 essays away from each other (yours 1910, mine 1810) but our thinking is very close.

Best of luck and

respectfully

Wilhelmus