Why Quantum?

Well...funny how it is with measurement. Space or length is now defined with the wavelength of light and the speed of light and not by any displacement in space. The wavelength of light is as you know equivalent to an energy and therefore to a mass. Therefore, displacement is in fact now measured as an equivalent mass.

The speed of light is a very important space time constant and that is how light defines length. However, is light moving?...or are we moving and is it light that is standing still? In order for the universe to make sense with just matter and time, the speed of light must decrease by exactly 0.283 ppb/yr. In fact, the speed of light is the collapse rate of the universe, giving the equivalence of energy and object mass m as E = mc2 and all matter decays at 0.283 ppb/yr, which is now a constant. This decay rate turns out to be a product of space time constants as well.

It might seem a little odd that the speed of light varies over time because that really messes up our interpretation of the cosmos and action time. The constant is c/alpha, not just c. Of course, Planck's constant also varies and it is h/c2 that is constant instead.

If you go down the list of constants, they all come down to matter, time, and action and as long as we are in a very slowly collapsing and therefore shrinking universe of boson matter, constants have nothing to do with space. So it would seem like the limitation of three dimensions exists in our imaginations, not in our reality.

By the way, this variation of the speed of light is consistent with current uncertainties. Moreover, the current mass standard, the IPK, has lost about 0.55 ppb/yr over the last 100 years relative to its six secondaries, whose constant cleaning and use over the years tended to keep their masses constant. Because science assumes the speed of light is constant, matter appears to decay at 0.56 ppb/yr, twice what it actually does, which agrees with the IPK decay.

Sorry, Steve, I can't make sense of that. Does one displace space when laying a meter stick on the ground, or measuring the seconds it takes a horse to round the track?

"The wavelength of light is as you know equivalent to an energy and therefore to a mass."

What? Certainly not that I know. One may say that wavelength is a measure of energy, not that mass-energy is the same thing as a measure of wavelength.

Tom, Akinbo, John C, Steve,

You can't measure space; you can only measure e.g. distance between things in space: i.e. you are measuring relationships between things, not space itself.

In what sense would you suggest that space itself could be measured, or in what sense would you suggest that space could contain position information?

I am contending that space itself contains no information at all BECAUSE it is a derived category of information: it is a result, not an entity that carries any sort of information. Space is fundamental-level information, but it's not the MOST fundamental-level information.

Cheers,

Lorraine

"You can't measure space; you can only measure e.g. distance between things in space: i.e. you are measuring relationships between things, not space itself."

Right. Relationships between mass points, and their change in relative position over time.

"In what sense would you suggest that space itself could be measured, or in what sense would you suggest that space could contain position information?"

No one suggested that space is physically real. The curvature of spacetime however, is measured by Einstein lensing. The apparent position of a body in space compared to its actual position is most certainly position information.

"I am contending that space itself contains no information at all BECAUSE it is a derived category of information: it is a result, not an entity that carries any sort of information. Space is fundamental-level information, but it's not the MOST fundamental-level information."

You should be careful of what you mean by "information." How about a precise, meaningful definition?

Tom,

YOU should be careful of what you mean by information, because most people are barking up the wrong tree. When most people talk about information, they are referring to mere representations of information. Some people get unnaturally excited about mere representations of information (e.g. Jaan Tallinn and Max Tegmark )

So a computer is processing mere REPRESENTATIONS of information. A computer screen REPRESENTS information, but only when this represented information is subjectively apprehended by a person does it become real information. The point is that real information is apprehended information, NOT represented information.

As physicist John Archibald Wheeler pointed out, representations "can't fly". He said, referring to law-of-nature equations written on pieces of paper: "You see, these equations can't fly. But our universe flies. We're still missing the single, simple ingredient that makes it all fly."

And I contend that the same principle applies at all levels of reality: information is subjectively apprehended information. So for a particle, information apprehended is e.g. mass, charge etc. ; and naturally, information is always related to other information - information relationship is itself information.

Cheers,

Lorraine

Lorraine,

"In what sense would you suggest that space itself could be measured,"

Your point being that there is nothing we can look to as setting an absolute scale for measurement. Quite so. And Minkowski's method of measuring time in relation to space, and space in relation to time, without assuming a God's eye point of observation, does none-the-less assume that the scale of a unit span of time is commensurate with a unit span of direction in space based on light velocity which gives the length of one nanosecond being about the length of your forearm.

I would suggest that light velocity is your 'derived category of information: the result'. Because while we cannot say that there is a constant standard of unit length for either time or space, we can say that there is an operational relationship of relative scales that finds equilibrium at light velocity. So though neither time or space will exhibit characteristic 'increments', both can be treated mathematically as continuums. This suggests that any intersection (as in set theory) of time and space would establish the operational scales of each.

Illustrating this one dimensionally, a lesser durational length of time in intersection with a greater directional length of space, would induce time to extend to equalize with space. That would not alter the relative established scale of space, however, so as time extends so would the spatial dimension in an accelerating fashion up to what would be equivalent to light velocity, whether the initial intersection produces a physical durational space of a gamma wavelength, or a cosmological parsec.

Take a common bi-metal spiral spring, like that used is simple thermostatic controls, and roll it out flat on the workbench. That's like spacetime to me. It's also a lot of energy, as much in fact as the applied heat necessary to cause it to flatten out. Cheerio! jrc

Lorraine,

By your "definition" of information, DNA is devoid of information; it functions without ever being "apprehended by a person".

This is a rather serious defect in your definition.

Your apprehending "person" would not even exist, unless DNA and its functioning, contained information.

You are confusing "information" with "responses to that information". Think of a look-up table. In order to function correctly, two entirely different operations must take place:

First: The index (serial number) into the table, must be correctly decoded, from an input "message".

Second: That correct index, must then be used, to retrieve the correct "response to the index", from the look-up table.

If either of the two is performed incorrectly, the system will "fail" - it will respond incorrectly to the input.

"Information" is about the first step only; it is about correctly recovering the "represented" index.

"Apprehending" that index, is the second step; looking-up how to respond to the input index. That is better defined by a word like "knowledge", rather than mere "information"; for example, "knowing" what the index "physics" means, is a very different process, compared to merely correctly acquiring the symbols p-h-y-s-i-c-s and assembling them into the super-symbol (word) "physics". But "information", is only concerned with the latter.

Rob McEachern

John,

I agree that "light velocity", is the standard by which all other velocities are measured "relative" to.

But that is also the reason that QM and Relativity Theory do not mix; when one zooms-in and sees only a single photon, that very standard of measurement, ceases to exist, since "light" no longer exists, as a traveling wave, with a phase velocity. That is where treating everything as, measurements of continuous functions, breaks-down.

The problem is ultimately related to the nature of information. Information comes in discrete quantities. Hence, when one zooms-in enough, on a system containing a limited amount of information, one must inevitably encounter discontinuous measurements - individual bits of information. That is what QM is all about. That is what is quantized - information.

Rob McEachern

No Rob,

you have misread what I have said, or I have not explained things very clearly, maybe both. We have disagreed about this issue several times before.

I have repeatedly contended in essays and posts that all information-integrated objects (particles, atoms, molecules, cells and other living things) subjectively apprehend information, not just people.

The type of "information" you are talking about is a dead thing: you are talking about REPRESENTED information . You need to understand the difference between information and represented information: you need to understand the difference between the living and the dead.

Lorraine

"YOU should be careful of what you mean by information ..."

I am. However, I haven't said what I mean yet.

" ... information is subjectively apprehended information."

Do you seriously contend that this is what Wheeler meant? John Archibald Wheeler, the physicist?

"So for a particle, information apprehended is e.g. mass, charge etc. ; and naturally, information is always related to other information - information relationship is itself information."

Is information of the information relationship, new information?

Lorraine,

"you need to understand the difference between the living and the dead."

How did "dead" entities ever evolve into "living" entities?

You keep trying to redefine common words, like "dead" and "information", in ways that blur important distinctions, that should never be blurred. It is as though you are trying to define "ice" to be the same as "water".

I understand perfectly what you mean by "apprehended information". What I object to, is you trying to redefine "information" to correspond to your meaning. "Information" has a very specific, well-established definition. But it is not your definition. Pick a different word. "Knowledge" is much closer to the mark.

"Information" has nothing to do with meaning. It has to do with the ability of a "receiver" to recover/reconstruct that same sequence of symbols (bit-stream) that a "transmitter" intended the receiver to recover. It has nothing to do with how one should subsequently "behave" towards or "apprehend" the received symbols. That is a different process, and needs a different name; the name "information", has already been taken. Pick a different name.

And bear in mind, that in sophisticated systems, the ability to recover/reconstruct the intended "message", is based on "apprehending" the limited set of valid "characters" being used to achieve communications. How do you "know" that "A" is the same character as "a", for example? How do you "know" that "pllzi" is not a valid "word" in English? The point is, that "apprehending" the validity of a received message, is quite different than "apprehending" the meaning of the received message. But it is no less important. That is why a specific word "information" has be agreed upon, to discuss the ability to "apprehend" the validity of messages, independently of the ability to "apprehend" the meaning of the message.

Rob McEachern

Robert,

I think both disciplines are going to have to reform a bit for there to be much in the way of agreement. In reality there is not a Cartesian reference grid overlaying the universe any more than there are such things as vanishing infinitesimals. I can understand Quants not wanting to get sucked into the old adage of 'you could cut the distance in half and still miss it', but the indivisibility of the Quantum should be recognized as being a special case associated with the electromagnetic spectrum just as is Special Relativity being a special case associated with that uniform velocity.

It is difficult to argue against your contention that 'light' no longer exists, as a traveling wave, with a phase velocity... from a position in classical mechanics where a 3-D model of the wave event is conspicuously absent. But it is just as difficult to defend by pointing to the reference grid of an osciloscope. That sinusoidal wave is only the graphic signature of effect on a receiving system, not necessarily a true representation of the real wave event. We can say as a first approximation that the Quantum is observed in each wave event. but that in itself is not sufficient to make it a fundamental and inviolate, singular quantity. It is post hoc ergo proctor hoc, to say Bohr's Quantum Leap proves its fundamental quality. As you and I previously discussed, treating it that way rather than as a time dependent value makes all subsequent Fourier Transforms arbitrary to a point of irrelevance. It is also naïve to say that time 'stops' at light velocity. I say, that is as fast as time can go too. jrc

John,

While I agree with your comments about there being no "reference grid" overlaying the universe, I think that the real difference between how QM and Relativity view the universe, lies elsewhere.

Relativity attempts to describe the universe "as it is". QM attempts to describe the universe "as it appears". QM, in this regards, is the ultimate in "relativity", because it is ultimately based on the realization that there is no final, absolute "reference", by which anything can be measured; everything is always measured relative to whatever the observer is doing in order to perform an observation. And, as has been learned via modern communications theory, observers that know how to exploit vast amounts of a priori knowledge, pertinent to an observation, can ultimately observe many things that can never be observed without exploiting such knowledge.

Consequently, the observer's knowledge, is the only reference that can ultimately be used to extract the maximal amount of information from an observation. Hence, the notion of having an "objective" description of nature, similar to relativity theory, is doomed to be inferior, in that it has no hope of maximizing the amount of information recovered from observations.

So we have a catch-22 type situation. An objective reality, independent of an observer seems to exist. But, unfortunately, some aspects of that reality cannot be "observed", until after one already knows exactly what, and how, the observation needs to be carried out, relative to the observing system.

I don't think that the final answer can be obtained by continuing to trod down either the Relativity or the QM paths. A new path, based on incorporating recent "measurement theory" developments, from communications theory, that show how a priori information can be exploited, needs to be incorporated into older measurement theories, (like Fourier Transform based theories) that deliberately avoided any attempt at exploiting a priori knowledge, since, at the time, the physicists did not have any such knowledge.

Rob McEachern

Rob, Tom, John C,

The issue of representation is an important one. Wheeler knew that representations "can't fly".

It is important to analyze and define distinctions properly, otherwise you start to get into all sorts of conceptual difficulties and woo-woo nonsense. Despite what you say, Rob, "information" has never been properly defined, and that's why there is STILL so much discussion about what information in fact really is.

Rob, you and many others have in effect failed to comprehend the difference between a living person and a facsimile of a person. When you define the FACSIMILE as the living person, when you define a painting or a representation as the living person, you start to get into all sorts of conceptual difficulties.

It's the same with information: the representation of information has been defined as information itself. This failure to properly analyze and define reality inevitably leads to misunderstanding e.g. "the robots are coming" scenario promulgated by the principals of the "Future of Robots Institute" whose logo has recently appeared on FQXi webpages. Rob, today's common definition of information, which you subscribe to, is completely unsophisticated.

Tom re "Is information of the information relationship, new information? ": This is a prime example of the conceptual difficulties that arise from inadequate definitions of information.

Cheers,

Lorraine

"Wheeler knew that representations 'can't fly'."

Wheeler knew that even though the representation of a cat can't scratch, when one sees c-a-t, one knows that scratching is inevitable. The same John Wheeler, physicist, reminded us that "No phenomenon is a physical phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." No representations -- no physics.

"Tom re 'Is information of the information relationship, new information? ': This is a prime example of the conceptual difficulties that arise from inadequate definitions of information.'"

Once again, I remind you that I have not promoted a definition of information yet. Now just try to answer the question that you, not I, opened the door to.

Tom, Lorraine,

Tom wrote "The same John Wheeler, physicist, reminded us that "No phenomenon is a physical phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." No representations -- no physics."

"Physical" is another word with many meanings, that Tom uses in a specific way referring to being part of the space-time continuum. Does "no representations no physics" mean; no physics the science or no physics happening in the(Image reality) visible universe? What about the physics happening -Now ahead of observation and the physics happening unseen inside objects?

If John Wheeler is talking about the necessity for things to be known so that they can be used in physics, the science, that is different from phenomena having no existence without observation. Of course things/events not observed are not a part of the would be observers Image reality and so do not seem to exist. And that is the basis of magic. Physic's rabbit in the hat error.

Dear Georgina, Tom,

we turn around in circles if we not include the main ingredient of the scientific method, namely testing models and hypothesis' by their predictions.

"No phenomenon is a physical phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon."

One can understand this statement in exactly the sense i envisioned. For every two competing theories, there has to be at least one differing prediction to discriminate the competing theories from one another. If the new theory is right, its prediction will surely be an observed phenomenon in Wheeler's sense. If the theory is not right, the other theories' prediction will surely be an observed phenomenon in Wheeler's sense (but only if the latter theory's prediction has already been confirmed in other experiments).

Two *yet unconfirmed* theories with different predictions relating to a certain measurement (experiment) may lead to the result that none of these theories' predictions are an observed phenomenon in Wheelers sense, means either of the two predictions couldn't be observed. Does this mean that these theories can't represent what is going on in physics if nobody looks at it? Yes, because we have taken a look, and whatever the real physical processes are that lead to the outcome we observed, the two theories cannot represent them. For the two theories to have another chance to represent the outcome, - they must be changed in some way - so that at the end of the day we have another two new theories to be tested (with new predictions!).

A theory that claims to make exactly the same predictions as an already tested theory (the latter being confirmed by experiment), is not a theory, but an interpretation. Examples for this could be the many-worlds-interpretation, the Bohmian pilot-wave interpretation (if representing all known and tested physics until now).

"Of course things/events not observed are not a part of the would be observers Image reality and so do not seem to exist."

This has nothing to do with magic - if we don't forget that the basis of science is testing models and hypothesis' by their predictions. Means: to decide if an unobserved event is a constitutive element of reality, we have to observe at least some consequences of that element, some consequences that differ from the claim that this element does not exist.

If we don't proceed in this way, we cannot in principle decide wether "things/events not observed" are real things in physics or merely imaginations in the scientists mind that have no counterpart in physical reality. By merely attaching imaginations to already observed physical events, one only establishes a mental correlation between imagined elements and real elements. This is not the basis of magic, *but* the basis of *magical thinking*. To escape this magical thinking, mankind has invented the scientific method of testing predictions!

We know that the most common statistical fallacy is based upon this magical thinking. For example, it was reported that owners of canary birds are more likely to obtain lung cancer. You could take this as a causal link with yet to be discovered causal chains from the canary bird to the owner as long as you don't look at the statistics of how many owners of canary birds do smoke. So we have to look wether canary bird owners are more likely to be smokers than people that don't own canary birds.

Best wishes,

Stefan

Stefan you quoted me "Of course things/events not observed are not a part of the would be observers Image reality and so do not seem to exist." And you wrote"This has nothing to do with magic - if we don't forget that the basis of science is testing models and hypothesis' by their predictions. Means: to decide if an unobserved event is a constitutive element of reality, we have to observe at least some consequences of that element, some consequences that differ from the claim that this element does not exist."

I should perhaps have said the art of illusion, which is all about creating false perception of reality through distraction or concealment of method, rather than magic which you may have interpreted to mean something supernatural. I'm glad you asked for proof.

The rabbit most definitely is a physical(material) phenomenon while unobserved in the hat. The live rabbit (object) has a structure and function including its biochemistry. The biochemistry involves atoms and particles and therefore also physics. A test could be done to show that the o-rabbit continues to function unobserved, and therefore exists somewhere. For example give it some aural sugar solution and measure its blood sugar after 2 minutes then leave the rabbit and measure blood sugar again after extraction from the hat. Do the same thing for a rabbit (object) not put into a hat. Compare. If the hat o-rabbit had stopped existing and then existed again when observed its blood sugar should still be high in comparison to the control because there has been a halt in the insulin response while the o-rabbit is not in existence. Surely we shouldn't suppose that metabolism continues in the absence of the material body!

What does not exist while the rabbit (o-rabbit) is in the hat is the sensory data (sd-rabbit) to form an Image reality of it (i-rabbit). Obtain the sensory data, X-ray the "empty hat" just before the rabbit (o-rabbit) is extracted and the plate will show rabbit(i-rabbit) in the hat.

Observations do not create material actualization but form manifestations that we can interpret. The click of a Geiger counter is not the creation of a radioactive particle but an audible manifestation that can be interpreted as a radioactive particle.All of the undetected particles are like rabbits in hats, not part of our experienced reality but still having existence (in Object rather than image reality.) They (actualised objects) do not become real upon observation but their manifestations do.

Here is some more of what John Wheeler said "No phenomenon is a physical phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon. The universe does not exist 'out there,' independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. We are not only observers. We are participators."

Key for me is -Quote "bringing about that which appears to be happening" I agree. Quote"The universe does not exist 'out there,' independent of us." I disagree. The material universe exists independent of us, AND we are inescapably involved in creating the Image reality we experience,IE what appears to be happening.

Dear Georgina,

for your example with the rabbits to work, you must assume that you know that there's a rabbit in the hat (at least if you look into the hat and take the rabbit out, you'll know there was indeed a rabbit in the hat). This is not the case for theories which claim that there's a rabbit in some hat, but can't prove or disprove it experimentally. You must take the rabbit out of the hat and show it others, otherwise they won't believe. They could also look into the hat to believe. For this case, you must allow them to look into the hat!

Your main error is to assume that some things where already proven to be true by experiment, but indeed aren't yet. A new theory's prediction must be proven experimentally to say that its predictions are true or not (a rabbit is in the hat or not).

Best wishes,

Stefan