Dear Rajiv,

Very interesting essay, I finally got to read it. I loved this "an information is necessarily semantic in our consideration", which indeed is true. Information is always relative to something, but if all that is is information, one should stop somewhere, and that place should be the source of the meaning. You said it well that "Natural association of information with states of physical entities and the mechanics of information processing at each physical interaction are the critical missing elements in our scientific understanding that are needed to bridge the fissure between the tangible material and intangible purposes!". Also I liked the idea of conjunctions of disjunctions.

Best regards,

Cristi

Dear Cristi,

First, thank you very very much for perusing and commenting on my essay.

It is downright satisfying to observe that someone like you who can analyze and critique my essay well has liked a few things in my essay. Though, I would have further liked a statement on whether in your view the method of information processing described here is indeed potent enough to form the basis of semantic build up by natural processes? And whether neural system indeed appears to have used this method of information processing?

If I understand your statement, "... but if all that is information [as a description of relation], one should stop somewhere, and that place should be the source of the meaning", correctly, then it seems to be pointing to some ultimate and absolute reality that is independent of relative nature of all descriptions. When I think of this relative nature of all descriptions, I conclude that at the most fundamental level, elements are not absolute in the sense of having an existence independent of everything else, independent of any a reference frame. In fact, at most fundamental level, elements are not needed to be stable, as long as there exists a constancy of relation among such elements, even if limited to some extent.

Thanks again.

Rajiv

Greetings Rajiv,

After reading your timely and welcome thoughts on the flavor of this year's contest, I will most certainly return back with comments after reading your essay. Agree or disagree; I am sure it is worthy of my attention.

All the Best,

Jonathan

    Dear Jonathan,

    I would appreciate your perusal of my essay. And be in the knowledge that I do not need any sweetener, so feel free to analyze and dissect as plainly as you could.

    In the mean time, let me also have a look at your essay, given the fact that your main profession for living is not physics or maths, yet you follow them both so earnestly. Moreover, I rarely encounter an artist's view on such matters.

    Rajiv

    You have done well Rajiv..

    I like that you describe 'an information' as conveying a relation, and having a reality of its own, including all categories from the most abstract to the most definite. The use of 'atomic' in describing the orderly progression of numbers is confusing. But overall your terminology is refreshingly clear. The concept of conjunction and disjunction does have parallels with the topic in my essay, non-associative algebras and geometry. In the octonions, my main example; the algebra fails to be associative, but is alternative - which means alternating associative and anti-associative elements.

    I'm guessing you already read my essay. In my conversation with Tevian at GR21; I was mainly concerned with how certain geometric elements break down between the quantum gravity scale and the Planck scale. What defines geometry is relational information, like independent objects that can be separated and move differently from each other, so the concepts from General Relativity only hold down to about 10^-12 cm. But I am arguing that evolutive properties in Math have a broader footprint than the nanoscale realm alone.

    However it's nice to see that some of my ideas about the mechanics of emergence can arise in a much simpler context or rules base. And this is what you have shown. I like how you wove in constancy and semantic correlation. I do not like that you made me wonder if you were going to connect it back to the assigned topic, as you finally did at the end. Of course; showing the mechanics of sentience emergence is a big deal, and does address the topic, but that has to be inferred. So I can't give you full credit, but I do give you high marks and kudos.

    All the Best,

    Jonathan

      The syntax of the octonions is notable..

      I have the following comments. It ranges from most abstract to most specific. It starts and ends with an identity declaration. It alternates involutive and evolutive terms. It forms a seven level hierarchy of abstractions. I've written out several dozen, but my favorite goes like this...

      One, open, as multiplicity and formless nothingness, finds peace in true relation, and knows all as self.

      This can be put in a list-like format instead.

      Oneness, openness, as-ifness, multiplicity, ...

      Identity, receptive, projective, multiple, ...

      This would appear to be a variation on, or an extension of, your theme of alternating conjunctive and disjunctive elements to form a valid decision making protocol.

      More later,

      Jonathan

      You may find value in the attached paper..

      Paola Zizzi is one of my inspirations, so I hope you enjoy this too. It is not an exact match for what you are doing, but it addresses some similar concerns, so it may be useful or helpful.

      Regards,

      JonathanAttachment #1: zizzi_paper.pdf

      Oh the paper above is called..

      "Poetry of a Logical Truth"

      Enjoy,

      Jonathan

      Copied from my thread:

      Thanks anyway Rajiv!

      In a way, you have paid me a compliment and shown me I am at a crossroads. I felt the same, the first time I read Alain Connes' paper "Noncommutative Geometry Year 2000" I would get a few pages in, get overloaded, then come back again another day until I could get a little further each time. Much of it seemed utterly incomprehensible, but I eventually grasped a few key concepts - due to sheer repetition. Later I learned that Connes advised budding mathematicians to do exactly that, adding that when his own brain became full he would recline for a while and nap or lay in reverie while letting the new ideas sink in.

      I am presenting an idea that is foreign to almost everyone literate in Math, which goes against the grain of some of what we are taught early on, and that only a handful of mathematicians are masterful about. The fact that I see it as a key is only that I have focused so intently on certain points of interest for years. No worries!

      All the Best,

      Jonathan

        Dear Rajiv,

        Your essay has several interesting points, which I'd like to stress and follow up with some questions. It would be more convenient to start from your comment to our essay:

        "You ask, "If the two branches of being [thought and matter] were totally alien to each other, how could they interact? If they have a common ground, how can that ground be understood?". What if they do not interact, but are inseparable in such a manner that interaction of physical states constructs the semantics for another, as I have tried to work out. This way, the path to subjectivity is laid down with the processes of objectivity."

        You are trying to assign objectivity to concepts like "information", "meaning", "semantics", thus assuming that they exist independently of humans. To follow you, I have to assume that certain semantic units did exist billions years ago. Well, I fully agree: some of these units are called the laws of nature. They are mathematical, having clear mathematical meaning and beauty, and as physicists we assume that they worked since at least the Big Bang. Mathematics is a mental entity; thus, mentality is very real; it structures the material world. The assumption of the Mind primacy is actually embedded in Physics, although many scientists do not see and do not want to accept it. As soon as the primacy of Mind is realized, we do not need to go through the Epimenidian business of derivation of human minds from material processes; it is much more reasonable to assume that our minds are rooted in the Absolute Mind, the Author of everything. Thus, by suggesting the objective information, meaning and semantics you are making a step in the right direction, albeit insufficient; "meaning" without mind is meaningless.

        Another interesting thing in your composition is your appendix. Your consideration about the infinite number of states in the continuous space-time and the problems appearing from that reminded me similar ideas of D. Hilbert (in his comments on the Achilles paradox) and R. Feynman's conclusion that in this case nature must calculate infinitely fast. I would suggest you to find these places, think about and quote them in the updated edition of your essay.

        Lev and I will discuss and rate your essay.

        All the best,

        Alexey.

        I would like to add..

        Your comments illustrate why endnotes are allowed and sometimes needed. I said upon finishing the body text "why bother since it won't count anyway?" but I now see that I owe someone like you a bridge between the ordinary approach and what I am championing. My view is that the portion of Math most people learn covers only what is regular, and this is a small part of the total landscape. However; you did not have the benefit of conversations with the world's foremost experts on irregular Math, Ben Mandelbrot, 30 years ago - to spur you into seeking out some of the more arcane subjects in Math. Nor have most of my readers.

        I am glad you pulled no punches, and honestly informed me of my deficiency. Thanks again for your honest sharing of thoughts.

        All the Best,

        Jonathan

        Hi Jonathan,

        Readers do not care if forced reduction of the text of your idea is the reason something is not clear. They begin to believe that the author is resorting to leaps in his/her logic, that is, the rationality is not well founded. Therefore, one has no choice but to cut down on the themes to be presented. At the same time, no reader has the patience to read properly even 25,000 chars (so called 9 pages). Therefore, a two step evaluation process is better. In the first step, one writes a smaller version of 15000 chars (5-paqges), and the selected ones are asked to resubmit with liberal limits.

        Rajiv

        Dear Alexey and Lev,

        First let me thank you for perusing my essay, but I do hope you did peruse! Thanks are due for pointing me to "Achilles paradox, and Feyman's conclusion", I will hunt down and use appropriately.

        I am writing this to contest the comments, assuming that the responders are willing to take the time, and effort to move forward in our understanding.

        "You are trying to assign objectivity to concepts like 'information', 'meaning', 'semantics', thus assuming that they exist independently of humans. To follow you, I have to assume that certain semantic units did exist billions years ago. ... Thus, by suggesting the objective information, meaning and semantics you are making a step in the right direction, albeit insufficient; 'meaning' without mind is meaningless."

        You made it so utterly clear that the sense and meaning of terms like, 'information' and 'semantics' mean different things to you than what they mean to me. Let's give it a genuine try to resolve the differences, without drawing a battle line (even if friendly) yet.

        We set the base line where we may agree to begin with. We both base our views only on scientific methods to establish our points. We do not go back to how universe came into existence, and why the changes in states have a pattern reflecting natural causation. We just trust they are given.

        Now, in the first experiment, if an electron was ejected by an interaction at (x,t), the existential state of electron must correlate with this information. An electron does not convey this information to anyone, it just correlates with the information that interaction at (x,t) changed its course. As shown, any test of coherence relation designed to determine if interaction did take place at (x,t) succeeds, and test for any other point except (x,t) fails. This defines the limits of positive and negative correlation range within space and time. We wonder what is the meaning of this coordinate (x,t)? Does the electron know its location and the time of interaction. No, it does not know in the sense we know anything, it just correlates with this information. If this is the difference between our views, then it should settle the issue. But can we deny that the state of the ejected electron correlates with the information of its interaction, e.g. space, time, and a whole lot etc.? As further shown in the experiment that when an electron interacts with an observing device specifically pointed towards (x,t), the resultant state of the observing device does not exclusively correlate with electrons location or time of ejection at (x,t), but it just correlates with the electron's incoming direction and time of observation that is in congruence with (x,t), without being exclusive. If the state of observing device is further tested with a coherence relation among such devices, it shows that it correlates with point of ejection of the electron. So, we infer that a transmission of information takes place at each interaction, in such a manner that a limited history of one interacting entity is passed to another that depends on the observing limits of the observing entity (in this case the device). That is, information processing takes place at each interaction.

        I have always requested to take the definition of terms in the essay. That is, even if a reviewer has her/his own definition, it must be shed while reading the text. I define, "An information always conveys a relation, at least with contextual elements." Can we deny that? "Therefore, an information is necessarily semantic in our consideration; here, information refers to the semantic value rather than the quantity. The term 'semantics', as used here, is independent of any language or interpreter; it is synonymous to 'meaning', a value that expresses a relation (an object)."

        If someone says semantic information or semantics of information, does not one refer to the value content of the information which is the relation. I have also stated that 'semantics' is synonymous to 'meaning' in this text, which is always conveyed by the relation of the object with the context, its relation with other objects etc. Please think of any object which has an existence or a meaning without having this sense of relation. All objects are necessarily relative in this sense. If you do not succeed in finding an object, simple, complex, or abstract, which could be referred to without referring to its relations, then should not I request you to take the meaning of the term semantic as a reference to these relations.

        Therefore, does not the electron carry around the information about context of interaction? In fact, the real picture of the essay begins here, when I show that through a properly arranged interactions, the information of correlation can grow arbitrarily to represent any object simple, complex, or abstract. I have always wished that the reader sees the essay in the this context to take home the point that there is no 'meaning', or 'semantics', or 'information content' that cannot form the information of correlation in this perspective. That is, all our mental thoughts are such correlations of states of neurons with the semantics of information. All mathematics have originated from such processing of information. Please retest my views in the text of the essay, shedding for a moment any a priori consideration we may have. In doing so, when we find the authors claim do not hold, then we also have ready rationality as to why claims do not hold. My essay also resolves the following issues.

        1) Neurons do seem to connect and process information in a manner that directly maps to proposed disjunction of conjunction. 2) If information processing was not taking place in the neural domain, then how would we come to have such information about objects that we have? 3) If information is not based on natural correlation of states of matter, then where and how do they exist at all?

        "To follow you, I have to assume that certain semantic units did exist billions years ago". No, to follow me, you did not have to assume this, but you did have to retest if there is a natural association of information with the states of matter.

        I thank you again for perusing, and hoping that you do take the discussion forward.

        Rajiv

          Hi dear Rajiv

          You have present one interesting and well narrated work that seems to me as deserving to a good rating, in first glance. I am saying this because for me somewhat is difficult to say something more definitely, as I cannot spent the necessary time to properly study it and say to you something more useful on this. I see just that you are somewhat skeptical on the opportunity to positive solution of contest question in whole, in that formulation as it are suggested. Here we can be like-minded definitely (if I'm right in my impression!) So, I just would simply to ask you (as the time is limited) to open my work to seen can we suggest each to others some useful remarks. Hope you will answer in my page and we well continue this talk. And, here is nothing mandatory, my dear!

          My good wishes

          Dear Rajiv,

          Time is running fast and I feel that most likely I will not find a possibility for a proper pondering and responding on your last post before April 7th. It was a pleasure to discuss all the issues with you, and regretfully many things are left underdiscussed. Please excuse us for that. Our score, which we give you right now, reflect our impression from both your essay and discussion.

          Many thanks and all the best,

          Alexey Burov.

          Dear Sirs!

          Physics of Descartes, which existed prior to the physics of Newton returned as the New Cartesian Physic and promises to be a theory of everything. To tell you this good news I use «spam».

          New Cartesian Physic based on the identity of space and matter. It showed that the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of force which on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.

          New Cartesian Physic has great potential for understanding the world. To show it, I ventured to give "materialistic explanations of the paranormal and supernatural" is the title of my essay.

          Visit my essay, you will find there the New Cartesian Physic and make a short entry: "I believe that space is a matter" I will answer you in return. Can put me 1.

          Sincerely,

          Dizhechko Boris