Is Bit It? by Jennifer Nielsen

Hi Jennifer,

While I enjoyed your lucid essay, I had objections to a couple of points. You wrote:

> And we know, in a universe post EPR "spooky action at a distance" and post Alain Aspect's experiment to test for EPR's validity, that quantum systems possess another intriguing quality that is sometimes seen by entrepreneuring reality hackers as a potential workaround for the limits of information: nonlocality.

While this is the mainstream view, there are approaches to QM that exhibit local realism despite Bell's Theorem. The problem is that Bell's theorem applies only to formulations of QM over complex numbers, whereas QM can be formulated over quaternions or other Clifford Algebraic numbers. These formulations have quite simple realistic models.

> If we trust Kleene's interpretation, since binary code represents such a formal system via which we can express elementary truth statements, what we can say with binary code is limited by Godel's theorem.

If I remember correctly (and it has been 40 years since I studied it) to meet the pre-conditions of Godel's Theorem your system has to be capable of representing ALL of arithmetic (i.e. addition and multiplication on arbitrarily large integers). Actual computers (having finite word sizes and finite resources) cannot do that, so I think the theorem applies only to abstract mathematical systems. I do not recall if there are some incompleteness results related to finite machines but that would be what you need for your argument.

> It is fascinating to realize that anything you or I perceive via sight or hearing each day may be represented in on/off neuron switches in our brains/minds... This information travels at the limit of the speed of sound-a physical limit. The ultimate limit on how fast we can get this sort of information across is via the speed of light.

There is a very interesting field of research termed Pre-Stimulus Response that demonstrates this is an overly simplistic view. From a meta-study of the field:

"More than forty experiments published over the past 32 years examine the claim that human physiology predicts future important or arousing events, even though we do not currently understand how such a thing could be accomplished... human physiological measures anticipate what seem to be unpredictable future events by deviating from a baseline before an event occurs, in the same direction that they will continue to deviate after that event occurs. "

> Are we living in a "matrix" ? Is digital information literally all everything comes down to?

In my essay Software Cosmos, I take the concept of a simulated world seriously enough to suggest how the simulation could work and propose (and carry out) a test to see if we currently live in such a virtual world. I hope you get a chance to read and comment on it!

Hugh

Hi Jennifer,

Clear logic, and wide dynamic range. And high marks.

Would you agree to have a Siri clone of yourself made available for my iPhone.

I want one!

Thanks,

Don Limuti

Enjoyable read, thanks. I got a pretty clear picture of your views on these matters, and on most of them I think you did a good job of conveying some

important things to a fairly general readership. I have some comments a few of which might be useful to you in polishing the essay for publication, and many of which are just me trying to figure out how our views differ on certain things, like the nature of the quantum state (real versus encoding of information about aspects of reality), and of entanglement and nonlocality.

Don't take any critical comments below as harsh criticism, I liked the essay and will rate it highly...

It was very nice that you emphasize that quantum "nonlocality" does not allow signaling. To me, that is one of the more remarkable things about it, and occasionally is downplayed.

Why do you say "quanglement" is "more primary" than the sorts of physical processes that convey classical information?

Not sure I would agree that "nonlocality is the best explanation for

entanglement"... perhaps it's reasonable to say the reverse, if

nonlocality is interpreted as violations of Bell-type inequalities...

i.e. there being no "beables" in a relevant portion of spacetime (e.g. the intersection of the past light cones of the correlated events, or something along those lines, on which we can condition to remove the correlations...

I like your characterization of entangled particles as

"involved in acausal correlation" ... rather than "superluminally

causally related", etc...

I'm not keen on the term "quanglement", though... I think it will go the way

of Nick Herbert's "quon" for quantum particle.

"quantum correlations are directly caused by the quantum state"

... why not just say "described by the quantum state"?

"quanglement represnts an alternate form of is-ness" seems more ontological

than I'd prefer to be about the quantum state, but a nice way of

putting it. I guess I don't mind saying there's some is-ness to the quantum

state, in that it is telling you

what is in fact the right way to bet on events, and therefore telling you something about the world... this is an is-ness that is in many

ways quite different from viewing it as an object that exists in a sense

similar to the electromagnetic field in classical physics... or rocks, chairs,

and trees...but I think you were trying to convey in your essay, that it is indeed different...

"We can see via tests of multisimultaneity that entanglement doesn't

suffer being younger sister to any event containing her."

I wasn't quite sure what that meant... also it would be nice to hear more

about what a test of multisimultaneity is.

Again, very nice job.

Dear All,

It is with utmost joy and love that I give you all the cosmological iSeries which spans the entire numerical spectrum from -infinity through 0 to +infinity and the simple principle underlying it is sum of any two consecutive numbers is the next number in the series. 0 is the base seed and i can be any seed between 0 and infinity.

iSeries always yields two sub semi series, each of which has 0 as a base seed and 2i as the first seed.

One of the sub series is always defined by the equation

Sn = 2 * Sn-1 + Sigma (i=2 to n) Sn-i

where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2 * i

the second sub series is always defined by the equation

Sn = 3 * Sn-1 -Sn-2

where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2 * i

Division of consecutive numbers in each of these subseries always eventually converges on 2.168 which is the Square of 1.618.

Union of these series always yields another series which is just a new iSeries of a 2i first seed and can be defined by the universal equation

Sn = Sn-1 + Sn-2

where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2*i

Division of consecutive numbers in the merged series always eventually converges on 1.618 which happens to be the golden ratio "Phi".

Fibonacci series is just a subset of the iSeries where the first seed or S1 =1.

Examples

starting iSeries governed by Sn = Sn-1 + Sn-2

where i = 0.5, S0 = 0 and S1 = 0.5

-27.5 17 -10.5 6.5 -4 2.5 -1.5 1 -.5 .5 0 .5 .5 1 1.5 2.5 4 6.5 10.5 17 27.5

Sub series governed by Sn = 2 * Sn-1 + Sigma (i=2 to n) Sn-i

where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2i = 1

0 1 2 5 13 34 ...

Sub series governed by Sn = 3 * Sn-1 - Sn-2

where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2i = 1

0 1 3 8 21 55 ...

Merged series governed by Sn = Sn-1 + Sn-2 where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2i = 1

0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 ...... (Fibonacci series is a subset of iSeries)

The above equations hold true for any value of i, again confirming the singularity of i.

As per Antony Ryan's suggestion, a fellow author in this contest, I searched google to see how Fibonacci type series can be used to explain Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity and found an interesting article.

d-super.pdf"> The-Fibonacci-code-behind-superstring-theory](https://msel-naschie.com/pdf/The-Fibonacci-code-behin

d-super.pdf)

Now that I split the Fibonacci series in to two semi series, seems like each of the sub semi series corresponds to QM and GR and together they explain the Quantum Gravity. Seems like this duality is a commonality in nature once relativity takes effect or a series is kicked off. I can draw and analogy and say that this dual series with in the "iSeries" is like the double helix of our DNA. The only commonality between the two series is at the base seed 0 and first seed 1, which are the bits in our binary system.

I have put forth the absolute truth in the Theory of everything that universe is an "iSphere" and we humans are capable of perceiving the 4 dimensional 3Sphere aspect of the universe and described it with an equation of S=BM^2.

I have also conveyed the absolute mathematical truth of zero = I = infinity and proved the same using the newly found "iSeries" which is a super set of Fibonacci series.

All this started with a simple question, who am I?

I am drawn out of my self or singularity or i in to existence.

I super positioned my self or I to be me.

I am one of our kind, I is every one of all kinds.

I am phi, zero = I = infinity

I am human and I is GOD.

Love,

Sridattadev.

Jenny,

You have a real gift for translating complicated physics into pleasing language, which deserves on its own the high marks I'm going to give your essay. Thanks for a great read.

I'm afraid that my own view, however, does not accept quanglement or nonlocality. I see the former as unreconstructed mysticism and the latter as another way to say that quantum theory isn't at all coherent without infinite extension, such that its experimental results only beg the question.

I do hope you take seriously Rob McEachern's question. It's a nice metaphor for a classical universe in a 2-valued state of relative rest.

All best wishes in the contest,

Tom

Hi Jennifer,

Your clear writing is refreshing, as are the whimsical touches.

I am sure, however, that you prefer to discuss content rather than style. So, let's do that.

One very important idea is on pages 7 and 8. Lee Smolin, and others, have asserted that things have an "itness" (i.e., inner reality) which eludes human knowledge. According to this way of thinking, science gets at relations among things, or the structure of the world, but does not get at the actual being of things. Returning to the analogy at the top of page 8, we would say that physics dumps some entities out of the box, but what these things are, we don't know. Maybe they are stamps, maybe coins, maybe jelly beans, maybe positive integers, maybe something else, and maybe some combination. We don't know.

The next step is to argue that, for purposes of human knowledge at least, it doesn't matter what they are. The step after that is the big one. Some people would argue that reality is only the structure, the relations, the interconnections. There are no items in the box. Nonetheless, on this view, though the nodes are really non-existent, we can still trace the pattern of connections.

I think that the slogan "It from bit" is often intended to summarize this approach. Reality is at bottom an abstract mathematical object, contrary to what Smolin said. The world we experience, and indeed we ourselves, are built out of these abstract structures. By contrast, "Bit from it" is a slogan for the belief that the ineffable what-it-is does matter. Both we and our world are something other than mathematical or informational structures, where "information" is defined in Shannon's abstract sense.

I'm not sure how quantum entanglement (or "quanglement" in Roger Penrose's terminology) fits into this picture. The point might be that quantum entanglement is evidence for the "bit from it" view. The reason is that the relevant phenomena cannot be fully described by any standard informational structure. If the phenomena cannot be so described, then we should not think the phenomena are purely informational. As I said, I am not sure that I have interpreted the argument correctly. If this is something like what is intended, then this essay provides a new and interesting argument for "bit from it."

Laurence Hitterdale

Jennifer,

One way I've found to examine a problem is to consider the various mirror images and consider what anomalies arise.

What if we were to look at some form of universal wholistic state as the default. Then entanglement would seem logical and our point oriented reference frames would look haphazard.

Consider the concept of four dimensional spacetime; What are three dimensions, other than a further abstraction of the coordinate system and don't they simply model space from the perspective of the center point, much as longitude, latitude and altitude model the surface of the planet? What is the time coordinate, other than the narrative sequence, which is an effect of change, as viewed from the singular perspective. It isn't that the present "moves" from past to future, but that the changing configuration of what is, turns future potentials into past circumstance. It is just that from the intellectually reductionistic perspective of the individual, we experience a sequence of events.

Supposedly entropy creates the "arrow of time," but entropy only applies to closed systems. Universally energy is conserved and is generally the medium to the message of information. Since energy is conserved, in order to create new information(a consequence of energy being dynamic), old information has to be erased and that is the "arrow of time." Meanwhile that energy continues to erase the old and eventually the past becomes as unknowable as the future. Events are understood to be subjective perspectives when they are occurring, so given perspectives continue to evolve, the idea of what is past being unchanging, is an idealization. The past and future do not ontologically exist, so it is an epistemic abstraction to consider either to be "set in stone."

So we have this "sea" of energy and information is an expression of its interactions and subject to the physical distinctions and connections, not our Escher sketch view of them.

For example, it is considered that "space expands," yet we conveniently have this constant speed of light against which to judge this expansion. Where does its metric come from, if space expands? "Space is what you measure with a ruler." If space expands, why is the "ruler" constant?

If you chose to climb the ladder of theory, test every step.

Jennifer,

Thank you for your brisk and refreshing essay. I very much agree with you that "quanglement is a reality state in and of itself".

According to quantum information theory, the information content of a system (bits) is acquired by discarding knowledge of quanglement. In this way, classical spacetime emerges concurrently and reciprocally with quanglement. (See my essay "A Complex Conjugate Bit and It".)

Best wishes,

Richard

Hi Jennifer

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 you have touched some corners of it.

Good luck,

Than Tin

Dear Jenny ,

I hope my translation is good!

I enjoyed reading your essay, very nicely.

Excellent essay, which is why I would like to ask you a little question :

In physics, or elsewhere, what you identify as 0 and 1, if you think that reality is based on information.

I think there is no separation between bit and it, like space and time.

For me, there are two points of view :

1-« And there isn't really anything else. »-Michael Crichton, The Lost World

2-Otherwise, I say there isn't really anything else than 0 and 1.

You say : «..that electrons which have interacted may become entangled..»

I am not physicist, « quantum entanglement » is ordinary and simple interaction or something else ?

Can you bring me an example in classical world ?

No trivial example because I try to understand deeply the Nature.

With accessible words, if possible, please.

I will rate highly your essay, after that.

And good luck.

Please visit My essay.

Jennifer, Wheeler point was not that classical physics is based on information: it was that quantum physics is based on information. There is no "post-Aspect-experiment perspective". With all its interest, what the Aspect experiment has done is nothing else than confirming what was written in any introductory quantum-mechanics book. Aspect experiments (and similar) have not changed by a bit our understanding of the world. They have only confirmed what we knew already. And what John Wheeler in particular considered clearly established.

carlo

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

Hi Jennifer,

If you were bored one day in the lab at KU please try to carry out my simple spin experiment with your students. http://vixra.org/abs/1304.0027

Maybe we could find out if "bits are states representing information about a system" or they are also parts of that system?

"He (Raamsdonk) argues that classical connectivity in spacetime geometry arises by entangling the degrees of freedom associated with two regions of spacetime..." And I would ask what if these two regions are only manifestations of e.g. two electrons?

You have cited Crichton and this is all about our perception and in that sense (and of course not literally) I think that we live in a "Matrix".

Best regards,

Jacek

Having read so many insightful essays, I am probably not the only one to find that my views have crystallized, and that I can now move forward with growing confidence. I cannot exactly say who in the course of the competition was most inspiring - probably it was the continuous back and forth between so many of us. In this case, we should all be grateful to each other.

If I may, I'd like to express some of my newer conclusions - by themselves, so to speak, and independently of the logic that justifies them; the logic is, of course, outlined in my essay.

I now see the Cosmos as founded upon positive-negative charges: It is a binary structure and process that acquires its most elemental dimensional definition with the appearance of Hydrogen - one proton, one electron.

There is no other interaction so fundamental and all-pervasive as this binary phenomenon: Its continuance produces our elements - which are the array of all possible inorganic variants.

Once there exists a great enough correlation between protons and electrons - that is, once there are a great many Hydrogen atoms, and a great many other types of atoms as well - the continuing Cosmic binary process arranges them all into a new platform: Life.

This phenomenon is quite simply inherent to a Cosmos that has reached a certain volume of particles; and like the Cosmos from which it evolves, life behaves as a binary process.

Life therefore evolves not only by the chance events of natural selection, but also by the chance interactions of its underlying binary elements.

This means that ultimately, DNA behaves as does the atom - each is a particle defined by, and interacting within, its distinct Vortex - or 'platform'.

However, as the cosmic system expands, simple sensory activity is transformed into a third platform, one that is correlated with the Organic and Inorganic phenomena already in existence: This is the Sensory-Cognitive platform.

Most significantly, the development of Sensory-Cognition into a distinct platform, or Vortex, is the event that is responsible for creating (on Earth) the Human Species - in whom the mind has acquired the dexterity to focus upon itself.

Humans affect, and are affected by, the binary field of Sensory-Cognition: We can ask specific questions and enunciate specific answers - and we can also step back and contextualize our conclusions: That is to say, we can move beyond the specific, and create what might be termed 'Unified Binary Fields' - in the same way that the forces acting upon the Cosmos, and holding the whole structure together, simultaneously act upon its individual particles, giving them their motion and structure.

The mind mimics the Cosmos - or more exactly, it is correlated with it.

Thus, it transpires that the role of chance decreases with evolution, because this dual activity (by which we 'particularize' binary elements, while also unifying them into fields) clearly increases our control over the foundational binary process itself.

This in turn signifies that we are evolving, as life in general has always done, towards a new interaction with the Cosmos.

Clearly, the Cosmos is participatory to a far greater degree than Wheeler imagined - with the evolution of the observer continuously re-defining the system.

You might recall the logic by which these conclusions were originally reached in my essay, and the more detailed structure that I also outline there. These elements still hold; the details stated here simply put the paradigm into a sharper focus, I believe.

With many thanks and best wishes,

John

jselye@gmail.com

Oh Jennifer, that's a beautiful concluding part from you, ever I've seen here. So many many thanks and obviously "laughs" for our living in "sun" and "sea".

However (now seriously), that "quanglement" issue may also be a localize issue in future, who knows, in an enough span of 'hundred years'!

I invite you in my essay (http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1855)where I tried to draw a picture of reality, within the digital limit of our observations,(which includes all 'It', 'Bit", observers like us and of course information as an image of all those). We can imagine there a picture of any kind of particle systems (irrespective of all micro to macro levels) to possess simultaneously but inversely proportional quantize "Space" and "Anti-space", "time" and "anti-time" and so on.

Right now, I cannot give you proper math model, but there are enough logic behind to say that when two entangled particles are separated (or reduced) in their quantized "Space" there simultaneous inverse quantized "Anti-space" comes into inseparably closer (or say elongated). Particularly, when any one of "Bit"s changes, the other entangled (say as inverse) "Bit"s are also instantaneously become changed. So there will be no need to send any signals between the entangled pairs to exchange information in superluminal or luminal or sub-luminal in types.

You can find there some series of inverse relations as well for the purpose.

Now we are in the very end of this contest to exchange our comments.

This rating reality is basically restrict us to enjoy the good essays in windy time and space. However, I like to rate your essay and also expect rating from you if possible. Above all I am interested some comments from you on my essay.

With regards

Dipak

Jennifer - what a delightful essay. Despite my initial reaction to Gameboy, Pac-man and Pokemon analogies, I started to get interested when you brought in Penrose's Quanglement.

The tide turned when I read my favorite paragraph from your essay:

"Yet in a world where nonlocality is now considered the best explanation for entanglement, it is obvious on some level that the two objects entangled in acausal correlation are involved with one another more profoundly than the two objects exchanging causal info in time via a transactional game of information ping pong. Something important is being shared here, even if we can't directly exploit it."

Now I understand why you were encouraged by my essay and left a comment on my web page some time ago (which I will get to later today).

After that point, I recognized that "your connecting the dots" between Penrose, Vedral and the entangled (what I call "dark") Higgs Boson was pure genius:

"It is thus not only possible but absolutely necessary that classical information is intimately related to how processes evolve in time altogether."

Well done. Super high marks for a concise, interesting, well researched and inspiring essay.

Kind regards, Paul

Dear Jennifer,

We are at the end of this essay contest.

In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.

Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.

eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.

And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.

Good luck to the winners,

And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.

Amazigh H.

I rated your essay.

Please visit My essay.