It, Bit, Object, Background by Armin Nikkhah Shirazi

Dear Armin,

Physics concerns what we can say about nature...just this philosophy is underlying the line of thought "It from bit", but I am convinced that we can know Nature's last secrets. To me the most promising way to unveil these secrets is a Modern Metaphysics, because the ONE (i.e. an omnipresent and transcendent field) is the most fundamental level of reality.

If we know how the ONE determines structure and conception of the universe we are on the path toward a final theory of the Universe. But the ONE implies a specific feature or attribute, that contradicts the possibility to state distinctions, because the ONE is explicitly defined as the foundational branch of reality, in which ALL distinctions are solved into Oneness. That's the inner meaning of the term - the ONE.

If information is introduced or implemented in physics as the most foundational level just this secret or hidden field of reality (i.e. the ONE) is, in principle, excluded. We are simply unable to see or to understand the 'meaning' of this field inclusive the meaning of the universe.

I agree with you that we need distinctions before we can have information. But if this is the case, the meaning (!) of distinctions within the global context of reality cannot be grasped by information itself. This seems to be a philosophical task - at least in parts. (Empirical data may be necessary to identify the physical distinctions with which Nature is dealing.)

By the way Wheeler's notion of "It from bit" is only half the truth: He often expressed his deep appreciation of the science of Einstein. The point of his appreciation was centered on Einstein's grasp of the importance of the WHY-question in physics. The WHY of the universe had to become vital for real progress to be made. Therefore Wheeler has called the scientific community to seek to do "Meaning physics" because of the importance of this point. We could not be content merely with knowing HOW the universe goes, but we must be able to penetrate into its MEANING, where both moral and physical laws are found inherently in the nature of the universe. It was just this kind of epistemology that was demanded by him.

I admit that the ONE and its relationship to the visible universe could not yet be clarified in terms of physics convincingly, but I am nevertheless believe, that the ONE and only the ONE is the key to a final theory of the UNIVERSE, because it answers the WHY-question.

Out of this epistemological view I am convinced, too, that a purely information-theoretic approach leads to a picture of reality, that is unreal and artifical. This becomes obvious if you look at the (Aristolean) relationship between substance and form. If this relationship is formalized in terms of bits you get a dead universe at the end - a universe, in which nothing happens.

I've tried to sketch this conclusion in my 2010-FQXI-paper "Can the Universe completely be digitized?"

To summarize my point of view: An information-theoretic approach is very modern, but it seperates us from the possibility to understand the inner meaning of the Universe.

Nevertheless, I wish you good luck with your paper. Though I do not agree with your position, I've rated it high, because it expresses the deep wish to grasp the inner core of reality.

Regards

Helmut

Dear Armin

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.

With best regards,

Than Tin

Dear Armin,

I know you are a multi-talented person, so let me ask you this question which I want to ask other professional physicists.

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

Hello, Armin,

I liked your approach and agree with much of it. Perhaps you have just not gone far enough in its implications. If information requires a background which can be a substance, that means, to me an energy. Hence energy is primitive, QED ;-)

I hope you will read and rate my Essay, It, Bit, Both or Neither.

Best regards,

Joseph Brenner

Dear Armin,

Because of similarity of thoughts between our essays and also for presenting your essay in an elegant manner, I have rated your essay with maximum possible honors.

All the best,

Sreenath

Dear Armin,

I have rated your essay with maximum honors on 25th of July; if you have not yet rated my essay, would you, please, rate my essay accordingly and inform me of it? Expecting positive reply from you.

Best wishes,

Sreenath

Dear Armin,

I am sorry in the delay in replying you. I did not check the replies.

It was my proposition, it was not an inference to your essay. What I mean is that we should be more close experimental results for our propositions.

I think we form a picture of anything in our mind, and keep them in our memories. We communicate about that picture to others, which we call information. When we die we loose all these pictures and memories.

Now in this context, can we create material from information...?

You can discuss with me later after this contest closes also.

Best

=snp

snp.gupta@gmail.com

Armin,

thanks for your very logical analysis including; "the term "background independent quantum theory" has to be considered a contradiction," which agrees with my own thesis, as does;

"The very fact that speed is a relational concept logically demands at least a local background". I analyse why there's no logical reason to abandon local backgrounds with the one 'absolute' one, so allowing a 'condensate'. Your proposal is intriguing, but I propose may be unnecessary. (This of course matter little with regard to rating).

I also comment you on Superposition; "The absence of an explicit specification entails all possible default specifications." I hope and believe my essay may offer a possible intuition. I hope you have time to read it before the deadline.

Congratulations on yours.

Best wishes.

Peter

Hi Armin,

Your essay is very important because it clearly shows possible associations of objects with information and background.

In your essay conclusion we can find: "whereas in classical physics information is associated with objects, in quantum physics it is associated with the background, which has itself the characteristics of a substance."

Let us carry out a simple thought experiment: we emit a wave to observe a small region in spacetime (the size of an elementary particle radius). That region is deformed to the grade that the wave actually detected (observed) comes back to us along a geodesic ("straight line" in differential geometry). In fact we observe only a strongly deformed spacetime region and redirecting our wave but apparently... we perceive a particle. "We perceive" means that our measuring instruments and our language out of the force of habit say so. The fact that deformation of spacetime exist is generally recognized as a part of general relativity theory (e.g. gravitational lensing). In contrast to GR's distance scale the metric under consideration refers to the quantum scale.

Before we proceed to calculate the proper scale invariant metric we need to take some assumptions regarding the spacetime properties to decide what could possibly emerge out of our reasoning:

a) the spacetime is continuous, i.e. not perforated, not torn and has a homeomorphism property

b) the spacetime has elastic properties (possible to calculate)

c) the elastic properties of spacetime are isotropic

d) any spacetime deformation is unlimited (to some extent, it deforms the entire spacetime in Gaussian distribution mode, due to its elastic and homeomorphism properties). Quantum nonlocality becomes GR type locality by the emergence out of Gaussian distribution

e) the spacetime is a dissipative coupled system that exhibits self-organized criticality. That assumption is necessary to use the general law of survival of the stable for the evolution of spacetime deformations)[3]

The spacetime here is not the infamous ether which was rightly rejected because it was to be a frame of reference and a background for all events. The spacetime is not the background, but the material (fabric) of matter and energy itself and then it is quite natural that energy and matter can be transmitted as waves/wavepackets.

The real experiment

A source emits a right-handed photon, the photon impinges almost perpendicularly a mirror being reflected to a detector set up to measure the spin of particle. The photon shall be a low-energy photon to avoid a photoelectric effect, Compton scattering or pair production.

According to Standard Model of QM the reflected photon's spin is the opposite to that of the photon emitted at the source.

According to our thought experiment carried out above the "reflected" photon's spin is the same as that of the photon emitted.

According to Standard Model the photon does not go "around" along a geodesic but it is simply reflected and as a cause of that reflection the spin is changed.

We try to prove that the photon is not a point particle (like in Standard Model) that is reflected from another point particle (one of the many creating our mirror) but instead it travels around a "particle" being a part of the mirror and comes back along a geodesic. The way it goes is a geodesic because the mirror's "particle" is the spacetime deformation only. If our photon goes along the geodesic (straight line) it does not change its spin.

So it is a realization of the thought experiment.

What if the result of the real experiment confirmed our thought experiment prediction? Than the time would come to work out the one, scale invariant metric. We could propose a new correspondence principle claiming that any interaction is entirely geometrical by nature (that is the metric alone determines the effect of any interaction) and the fundamental behavior of systems does not depend on a distance scale.

Finally we should be able to decide if physics is anything more than the pure geometry.

The outcome of the real experiment contradictory to Standard Model of QM would let us forget the wave-particle duality, wave function collapse and so on....

Best regards,

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

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

Dear Armin,

Very interesting essay, deep analysis to the essential spirit of Descartes, new concepts, ideas and eidoses, their parametric definition and conclusions.

It is extremely important conclusions:

«We need distinctions before we can have information. Given that the presence of matter and energy introduces distinctions in our world, intuitively the relation between them and information seems very straightforward: it is always possible to consider any local material arrangement to form a pattern of distinctions, and this pattern can then be formatted to yield information. »

«This conception of space is a problem for considering substance and information on an equal footing because in classical physics the background is not dynamically a_ected by the objects in it. Ascribing to the background the dynamical properties of a substance therefore introduces an asymmetry between information and substance: All patterns of distinction can be ascribed to some arrangement of substance (re-de_ned now to include space itself in addition to matter and energy), but not all arrangements of substance can be ascribed to some pattern of distinctions.»

«Of course, in classical physics, one can have patterns of distinctions introduced by _elds, but this does not help: Fields ultimately require sources somewhere in space in order to be considered physical, and the sources are just what we would consider substance. On the other hand, in classical physics _elds are not considered a property of the background, they are considered as objects that exist independently in space. Therefore, one can think of _elds as extensions of the concept of substance without impacting the problem that a dynamically inert background has been ascribed substance properties. For these reasons, it does not appear that classical physics supports the notion of patterns of distinction in the absence of a corresponding material rrangement. This seems quite in agreement with our intuitions: historically, it has been intuitive to imagine how information can come out of matter and energy, probably because it is easy for us to think of information as arising from a pattern of distinctions in otherwise formless substance. Thus it is very easy to create a \ map "that takes us from the former to the latter in classical physics, but the reverse is not true. It seems very di_cult to imagine how, in the absence of any substance whatsoever-and especially substance associated with the existence of a dynamically inert background-one might arrive from information to substance. One might call this the «problem of the map". «However, whereas in classical physics information is associated with objects, in quantum physics it is associated with the background, which has itself the characteristics of a substance. This is important within the context of quantum gravity, because it undermines the possibility for a background-independent formulation of quantum theory.»

I only have a general question regarding the foundations of mathematics as "the language of nature."

Constructive ways to the truth may be different. One of them said Alexander Zenkin in the article "Science counterrevolution in mathematics":

«The truth should be drawn with the help of the cognitive computer visualization technology and should be presented to" an unlimited circle "of spectators in the form of color-musical cognitive images of its immanent essence».

http://www.ccas.ru/alexzen/papers/ng-02/contr_rev.htm

In the russian version of the paper that thought shorter: "the truth should be drawn and presented to" an unlimited number »of viewers".

Do you agree with Alexander Zenkin?

Please read my essay.

Best regards,

Vladimir

Dear Armin,

Tough you were one of the first to write to me about my essay and about some of the similarities of our views on the relation between matter and information, I might be one of the last to write comments to you - I was away from work for almost a month, and got back only now.

In you well written essay, you make the point that the relation in question depends on the domain in which one explores it, with matter taking priority in classical physics, equal status in GR and information taking a conditional primary role in quantum physics. I am perhaps much more 'material' asserting the primacy of matter all through. However, I can see some of the similarities you mentioned, especially since you mention 'material arrangements'. However, I think we will start disagreeing on many things starting from you section 6, when quantum physics is discussed. For me, since 'background' is also matter, its state needs to be specified and treated in the same theory. Thus the theory should not make a distinction, even though standard quantum theory does make a distinction just as it does for system and apparatus. Perhaps we can have an extended discussion on another occasion.

With regards,

Unnikrishnan

Dear Armin,

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.

Late-in-the-Day Thoughts about the Essays I've Read

I am sending to you the following thoughts because I found your essay particularly well stated, insightful, and helpful, even though in certain respects we may significantly diverge in our viewpoints. Thank you! Lumping and sorting is a dangerous adventure; let me apologize in advance if I have significantly misread or misrepresented your essay in what follows.

Of the nearly two hundred essays submitted to the competition, there seems to be a preponderance of sentiment for the 'Bit-from-It" standpoint, though many excellent essays argue against this stance or advocate for a wider perspective on the whole issue. Joseph Brenner provided an excellent analysis of the various positions that might be taken with the topic, which he subsumes under the categories of 'It-from-Bit', 'Bit-from-It', and 'It-and-Bit'.

Brenner himself supports the 'Bit-from-It' position of Julian Barbour as stated in his 2011 essay that gave impetus to the present competition. Others such as James Beichler, Sundance Bilson-Thompson, Agung Budiyono, and Olaf Dreyer have presented well-stated arguments that generally align with a 'Bit-from-It' position.

Various renderings of the contrary position, 'It-from-Bit', have received well-reasoned support from Stephen Anastasi, Paul Borrill, Luigi Foschini, Akinbo Ojo, and Jochen Szangolies. An allied category that was not included in Brenner's analysis is 'It-from-Qubit', and valuable explorations of this general position were undertaken by Giacomo D'Ariano, Philip Gibbs, Michel Planat and Armin Shirazi.

The category of 'It-and-Bit' displays a great diversity of approaches which can be seen in the works of Mikalai Birukou, Kevin Knuth, Willard Mittelman, Georgina Parry, and Cristinel Stoica,.

It seems useful to discriminate among the various approaches to 'It-and-Bit' a subcategory that perhaps could be identified as 'meaning circuits', in a sense loosely associated with the phrase by J.A. Wheeler. Essays that reveal aspects of 'meaning circuits' are those of Howard Barnum, Hugh Matlock, Georgina Parry, Armin Shirazi, and in especially that of Alexei Grinbaum.

Proceeding from a phenomenological stance as developed by Husserl, Grinbaum asserts that the choice to be made of either 'It from Bit' or 'Bit from It' can be supplemented by considering 'It from Bit' and 'Bit from It'. To do this, he presents an 'epistemic loop' by which physics and information are cyclically connected, essentially the same 'loop' as that which Wheeler represented with his 'meaning circuit'. Depending on where one 'cuts' the loop, antecedent and precedent conditions are obtained which support an 'It from Bit' interpretation, or a 'Bit from It' interpretation, or, though not mentioned by Grinbaum, even an 'It from Qubit' interpretation. I'll also point out that depending on where the cut is made, it can be seen as a 'Cartesian cut' between res extensa and res cogitans or as a 'Heisenberg cut' between the quantum system and the observer. The implications of this perspective are enormous for the present It/Bit debate! To quote Grinbaum: "The key to understanding the opposition between IT and BIT is in choosing a vantage point from which OR looks as good as AND. Then this opposition becomes unnecessary: the loop view simply dissolves it." Grinbaum then goes on to point out that this epistemologically circular structure "...is not a logical disaster, rather it is a well-documented property of all foundational studies."

However, Grinbaum maintains that it is mandatory to cut the loop; he claims that it is "...a logical necessity: it is logically impossible to describe the loop as a whole within one theory." I will argue that in fact it is vital to preserve the loop as a whole and to revise our expectations of what we wish to accomplish by making the cut. In fact, the ongoing It/Bit debate has been sustained for decades by our inability to recognize the consequences that result from making such a cut. As a result, we have been unable to take up the task of studying the properties inherent in the circularity of the loop. Helpful in this regard would be an examination of the role of relations between various elements and aspects of the loop. To a certain extent the importance of the role of relations has already been well stated in the essays of Kevin Knuth, Carlo Rovelli, Cristinel Stoica, and Jochen Szangolies although without application to aspects that clearly arise from 'circularity'. Gary Miller's discussion of the role of patterns, drawn from various historical precedents in mathematics, philosophy, and psychology, provides the clearest hints of all competition submissions on how the holistic analysis of this essential circular structure might be able to proceed.

In my paper, I outlined Susan Carey's assertion that a 'conceptual leap' is often required in the construction of a new scientific theory. Perhaps moving from a 'linearized' perspective of the structure of a scientific theory to one that is 'circularized' is just one further example of this kind of conceptual change.

Hi, votes are vanishing again.

Interesting. I rated it ten

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1616

Dear Armin,

I have now finished reviewing all 180 essays for the contest and appreciate your contribution to this competition.

I have been thoroughly impressed at the breadth, depth and quality of the ideas represented in this contest. In true academic spirit, if you have not yet reviewed my essay, I invite you to do so and leave your comments.

You can find the latest version of my essay here:

http://fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/Borrill-TimeOne-V1.1a.pdf

(sorry if the fqxi web site splits this url up, I haven't figured out a way to not make it do that).

May the best essays win!

Kind regards,

Paul Borrill

paul at borrill dot com

Good luck Armin,

I am glad you made the finals, and I hope the judges treat you well.

All the Best,

Jonathan