The Perception of Order by Noson S. Yanofsky

Dear Noson,

the prospect of getting laws out of some process of emergence seems a motivating factor in several of the essays in this contest. It's an attractive idea: after all, everything else can only react with a shrug when asked 'but why this?'. And how could laws be fundamental if they need further justification?

Markus Müller has an interesting take on this, with a subjectivist (almost phenomenologist) bent, if you haven't read his essay.

Also, if you find the time, I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on my own contribution!

Cheers,

Jochen

Professor Yanofsky,

[My pledge: goo.gl/KCCujt] First my positive reactions:

-- Very nicely written! It is entertaining and easy to read, with a really nice and accurate mathematical and physics history intro.

-- Definitely novel! The path you took was definitely not any path I was expecting, which is exactly why I liked it and feel you are exploring the kind of new approach for which FQXi is looking.

-- Your examples also caught me off guard, which again is cool! While I was aware at least in concept that larger arrays of random numbers create larger opportunities for finding unexpected order.* In the white noise you can find any song you wish, but only if you know the song ahead of time and build your pattern of selection from chaos upon it. Order from chaos, but only if we apply the order.

* In retrospect, the example in my own essay of how larger expansions of pi provide increased opportunities to find matches to larger arbitrary strings of digits would seem to be an example of this principle.

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Negatives (this is the "ouch" part, sorry, I hate it too, but I think it's best to be clear here also, instead of hand-wavy and vague):

-- When I look at fundamental physics, it is very hard for me to understand how this idea of pattern selection applies temporally. Are you perhaps suggesting some kind of Wheeler-like end-of-the-universe observing the beginning, as I think you are referring to in your reference [4]?

So that is maybe not so much a negative on your concept of perceived order as fundamental -- anthropic probabilities alone say we are certainly missing something extreme and profound, given the insanely unlikely origins of our particular universe -- as a lack of clarity in your essay as to how your idea maps to the universe as we see it.

For example, as I read it I was wondering if you intended some sort of solipsistic interpretation in which you (and others? did I just try to invent multiple solipsism? heh!) are some sort of independent entities looking upon chaos? Or something Wheeler-like, where the consensus originates from the conclusion of the universe? So, it just felt incomplete and left me a bit baffled as to where exactly you were placing the "ordering function" in all of this chaos, and what the origins of these ordering functions (us) is. Also, how do we get the consensus that most would agree exists, especially scientists who make independent measure and come up with similar conclusions?

I am not of the Wheeler-ish school on this point, I should note. I think the universe existed just fine and dandy before we humans ever came around to impose our own ordered perceptions upon it. As you know from my essay, I also think that rather than imposing order, we mine or extract it from the preexisting universe. But that is irrelevant to your excellent argument. I have been wrong many times (ask my wife), and certainly don't assume myself to be correct on such deep topics just because it make since within my necessarily very limited scope of knowledge.

And of course, there is also that anthropic monkey wrench in all of this, which seems to imply rather powerfully that the incredible order we now perceive was somehow inserted into the very origins of our universe. My own essay does nothing more than suggest how to get better at finding and extracting that order. I don't even attempt to explain where that order might have come from, as you do!

-- While I liked your random number matrix examples, I do wish you had used a smaller font so that you could have spent at least about two pages elaborating on where your order-imposers reside, and how they manage (or if they manage?) to see the same beautiful songs when peering into the white noise of the universe.

-- Also, this is perhaps more a question, but it was also a concern that I recall having as I read your essay:

In computation you need things like memory to create filters. If your observers are independent of the universe, what is the source of their own computational structures by which they are capable of perceiving order in chaos? How does your strategy avoid simply turning the creation (selection, perception) of order to an earlier step, that being the "creation" of the observers themselves?

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And again: Nice essay!

Cheers,

Terry Bollinger (Topic 3099, "Fundamental as Fewer Bits")

Noson,

As time grows short, I recheck those that I have commented on to see if I've rated them. I find that I have not rated yours and am correcting that now.

Hope you can get a chance to look at mine.

Jim Hoover

Hello Professor Yanofsky,

Congratulations for your essayj, I liked a lot,

spherically yours :)

Dear Noson,

Very good essay! Indeed, without our ability to perceive order science would not be possible. We perceive order because we are trained to find patterns. But is it possible that there is no order out there? Could it all be in our heads? I think it is true that our theories show that the order we see has a strong subjective component, that we project it over whatever is out there. But I think there is order out there, and our projections are at least good approximations of orders isomorphic to the real orders. While we can say that in astrology and numerology the projected order has nothing to do with reality, in physics and science in general we can test the order by experimentally testing its predictions. I find it hard to believe that for example the conservation of momentum, confirmed in countless cases, and used on a regular basis in various collision experiments, was just a recurring coincidence. Now let's think this from an evolutionary perspective. Why would we develop the ability to find order, if not for our survival? But this survival proved that our ancestors were good enough to detect regularities. Otherwise all our history would be just a series of conspiracy theories disconnected from reality, which happened to work well enough for us to survive, and for our best theories about nature to survive too. But I completely agree with you that we perceive order whether or not it is out there. So maybe what's fundamental from this point of view is both this ability, and the fact that there is actually order to be perceived.

I agree with you more than it may seem if someone would compare your essay with my comment, and especially with my own essay. I agree, on a different level, but maybe the order I perceive in your essay is my own projection. If we think at the various fields on spacetime, it may be very well that there are no two regions in spacetime which are identical. That is, maybe there are no two points having two identical neighborhoods with identical fields on them. Or other put it, maybe there is no spacetime symmetry transformation except for the identity. Or at most these automorphisms of the spacetime are in a finite number, or maybe they form a discrete group, with much fewer degrees of freedom than the diffeomorphisms of spacetime. In this case, there is no symmetry, but we still hold the claim that the laws of physics are the same everywhere and at any time. This means that this order is in our eyes only. So we perceive the irregular spacetime as highly regular, even if it is not. And the symmetries from our theories maybe are just not there, but whatever is there, we expand somehow in terms of highly symmetric abstractions. For example, take a very irregular wavefunction. It can be expressed as a superposition of eigenstates of the momentum. This order is only in the expansion of the wave in the momentum basis in the Hilbert space. So with this I agree, although I am not sure if this is what you say.

We can even go one step forward, and claim that the universe is not symmetric at all, it is what remains when we factor out all the symmetries from the perceived universe. If we factor out all the symmetries, we remove all redundancies. So maybe the universe doesn't have a pattern at all, and we perceive patterns because our perception is redundant. As if we look through a kaleidoscope, and there are some very irregular beads, but because of the multiple reflections, we see beautiful symmetries.

Maybe someone thinks that our essays are completely opposite, that yours places the order only in the eyes of the beholder, and mine proposing that the world is highly ordered. But seen like this, the two apparently opposite poles become one and the same. Thanks again for the excellent reading!

Best wishes,

Cristi Stoica, Indra's net

Professor Yanofsky,

The basic order I see in the universe is thermodynamics. The basis of this is energy expanding out, as structure precipitates in.

Consider galaxies are radiation expanding out, as mass coalesces in.

Human societies are organic and social energies expanding out, as cultural, civil and economic structures coalesce inward, giving form and structure to these energies.

Consider how this is reflected in the relationship of youth and age, as we expend our youthful energies expanding to fill our niches, as the lessons of these adventures form who we become, then the cycle repeats, with the next generation.

I am a presentist, in that I see only the present as physically real, the problem being though, that as we experience reality as flashes of perception, we think of time as the point of the present, "flowing" past to future, which physics codifies as measures of duration, but it is change turning future to past. As in tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

So the underlaying dynamic is this energy propelling forms along, building them up and breaking them down, like waves. So the energy being conserved, is only present, as the information it creates and dissolves comes and goes. Thus energy goes past to future, as form goes future to past.

As with the cycle of aging, the individual goes from birth to death, future to past, as the species moves onto the next generation, shedding the old.

Consider it as a factory, where the product goes start to finish, as the process points the other direction, consuming material and expelling product.

Thermodynamic feedback loops.

So time is really like temperature, an effect of action. The individual frequency, versus masses of frequencies and amplitudes. We think we are more objective about temperature, because it is only foundational to our emotions, bodily functions and environment, not our rational, narrative thought process, as with time. Yet the brain does have two hemispheres. The left, rational, sequential and the right, emotional, instinctive side. One a clock, the other a thermostat.

Regards,

John Merryman

Dear Noson

If you are looking for another essay to read and rate in the final days of the contest, will you consider mine please? I read all essays from those who comment on my page, and if I cant rate an essay highly, then I don't rate them at all. Infact I haven't issued a rating lower that ten. So you have nothing to lose by having me read your essay, and everything to gain.

Beyond my essay's introduction, I place a microscope on the subjects of universal complexity and natural forces. I do so within context that clock operation is driven by Quantum Mechanical forces (atomic and photonic), while clocks also serve measure of General Relativity's effects (spacetime, time dilation). In this respect clocks can be said to possess a split personality, giving them the distinction that they are simultaneously a study in QM, while GR is a study of clocks. The situation stands whereby we have two fundamental theories of the world, but just one world. And we have a singular device which serves study of both those fundamental theories. Two fundamental theories, but one device? Please join me and my essay in questioning this circumstance?

My essay goes on to identify natural forces in their universal roles, how they motivate the building of and maintaining complex universal structures and processes. When we look at how star fusion processes sit within a "narrow range of sensitivity" that stars are neither led to explode nor collapse under gravity. We think how lucky we are that the universe is just so. We can also count our lucky stars that the fusion process that marks the birth of a star, also leads to an eruption of photons from its surface. And again, how lucky we are! for if they didn't then gas accumulation wouldn't be halted and the star would again be led to collapse.

Could a natural organisation principle have been responsible for fine tuning universal systems? Faced with how lucky we appear to have been, shouldn't we consider this possibility?

For our luck surely didnt run out there, for these photons stream down on earth, liquifying oceans which drive geochemical processes that we "life" are reliant upon. The Earth is made up of elements that possess the chemical potentials that life is entirely dependent upon. Those chemical potentials are not expressed in the absence of water solvency. So again, how amazingly fortunate we are that these chemical potentials exist in the first instance, and additionally within an environment of abundant water solvency such as Earth, able to express these potentials.

My essay is attempt of something audacious. It questions the fundamental nature of the interaction between space and matter Guv = Tuv, and hypothesizes the equality between space curvature and atomic forces is due to common process. Space gives up a potential in exchange for atomic forces in a conversion process, which drives atomic activity. And furthermore, that Baryons only exist because this energy potential of space exists and is available for exploitation. Baryon characteristics and behaviours, complexity of structure and process might then be explained in terms of being evolved and optimised for this purpose and existence. Removing need for so many layers of extraordinary luck to eventuate our own existence. It attempts an interpretation of the above mentioned stellar processes within these terms, but also extends much further. It shines a light on molecular structure that binds matter together, as potentially being an evolved agency that enhances rigidity and therefor persistence of universal system. We then turn a questioning mind towards Earths unlikely geochemical processes, (for which we living things owe so much) and look at its central theme and propensity for molecular rock forming processes. The existence of chemical potentials and their diverse range of molecular bond formation activities? The abundance of water solvent on Earth, for which many geochemical rock forming processes could not be expressed without? The question of a watery Earth? is then implicated as being part of an evolved system that arose for purpose and reason, alongside the same reason and purpose that molecular bonds and chemistry processes arose.

By identifying atomic forces as having their origin in space, we have identified how they perpetually act, and deliver work products. Forces drive clocks and clock activity is shown by GR to dilate. My essay details the principle of force dilation and applies it to a universal mystery. My essay raises the possibility, that nature in possession of a natural energy potential, will spontaneously generate a circumstance of Darwinian emergence. It did so on Earth, and perhaps it did so within a wider scope. We learnt how biology generates intricate structure and complexity, and now we learn how it might explain for intricate structure and complexity within universal physical systems.

To steal a phrase from my essay "A world product of evolved optimization".

Best of luck for the conclusion of the contest

Kind regards

Steven Andresen

Darwinian Universal Fundamental Origin

Dear Jochen,

Is Maxwell's demon (us) pulling order out of disorder?

Would I be correct to say: We are the order makers, and frequently we like to place the blame elsewhere. So, I can think of my essay as an attempt at order making. Take a look and let me know what you think :)

Thanks for a most thought provoking essay.

Don Limuti

Dear Noson,

I enjoyed your essay a lot. Indeed the perception of order is fundamental. And is the order in the perceived or in the perceiver or in both? And what is the perceiver? A self aware being, an animal, tree? Or even a crystal or an electron?

I would like to think the order lies in both: in the relation of the perceived and the perceiver. While from a realistic point of view, the order lies in the perceived, and we just have to discover it, I like to think, that the perception of order is a condition that allows us to name things. A condition, that makes the realistic view possible as experience.

I also like to think that also things can perceive order. The electro magnetic field carries the information of the location and velocities of the charges. The connection between the properties of the charges and the field is trough the gauche invariance of the law, which defines the interaction.

If I could, I would derive all physics from symmetries: 1. Free particles as irreducible representations of the symmetries.

2. Interactions from measurability criteria for the properties given in 1. And 3. derive properties of the environment, that allows to describe 1. and 2. as closed system (separability of the environment).

However the real miracle is our ability to perceive order in totally random events. I think, I speculated in my essay, that this is connected to free will. In the perception and conceptualization of order I see a creation of new concepts, of new things. This could be described as an act of free will.

Good luck in the contest. Your essay is certainly one that I liked most.

Luca