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  • Post #100

Tommaso: "...going back to the remark by James -- if the universe is a computer (or, better, a computation), it needs power supply, and needs to be programmed -- I agree with the reply that there is no need to program it for a purpose, and not need to inject information during the computation. A lot of interesting things emerge in computations that are not the result of a purposeful design, and are 'closed', that is, not interacting with the outside, as many experiments have shown."

There is always a purpose. That purpose may not be a specific end result. However, the result was a part of purpose. In other words, everything that can possibly occur as a result of the properties of the universe was already potentially possible. Any equations that correctly model the universe already contain all possible outcomes. Nothing is added after the beginning. The origin of the universe had to have all possible outcomes included in its properties at the time of its origin. No latter miracles can be permitted. The concept of unpredictibility cannot stand for sneaking in latter miracles. So far as I know there is no true unpredictibility and no true randomness. Even those computations that involve results for which we cannot make specific individual predictions are always enveloped in some form of control. The end result is that they perform useful purpose for which we can assign meaning.

Tom: "The power supply of the universe is already given by E = mc^2. Matter, as observation so far informs us, makes up only a tiny portion of what we see but accounts for all of what we measure. Interaction among mass points is the engine of change in particle states. Programming? There is no physical principle that prevents the universe from programming itself, with itself. Nor is there a physical principle that prevents the universe from being its own algorithm and thus entirely random."

This is an argument in favor of something coming from nothing because nothing is really something. When I speak of nothing I do not mean something. By nothing I mean the completely inexplicable beginning of something.

Hector: "...the second may be as simple as to believe that the universe is just computing itself, and sometimes we make it compute for ourselves (computers at the end are part of the universe, and when we compute with them we ask the universe to compute something for us)."

Yes the universe computes itself. I see no reason to look for strings being pulled to manipulate it. There is no need for intervention. The beginning set all in motion. Any programming for any effect that has occurred or can occur was already in existence after the origin of the universe. It would be very interesting to know where that original programming came from; however, we don't have that information by scientific means. I would not refer to it as programming. I see it as the consequence of natural properties fully controlled and operating in a cooperative meaingful manner from which it cannot deviate. Nothing gets added after the origin. Everything gets explained by connecting it back to the origin.

Hector: "On the other hand, if someone or something ran the universe code, the algorithmic view tells how this was, if necessarily, only at the very beginning, because the structure one finds today all over the universe is neither the result of chance nor the result of design, but can be explained by computation without having to think that there is a purpose, nor to have someone to intervene at every step to get to where it is today. This worldview claims that the universe outcome is the result of computation in which the theory of algorithmic probability explains and predicts the distribution of random-looking and organized structures."

Well, I won't try to argue the details of algorithmic probability. However, if it in any way implies that some detail or meaning that is part of the universe was added on after the origin of the universe, then I see this as possibly being one of those theoretical fogs that get introduced in order to suggest that the answer lies just beyond our reach in some odd complexity which we can't quite explain.

James

Hi James,

Then I think we agree. Algorithmic probability is not magic, although it has been called a 'miraculous distribution' before by Kirchherr, Li and Vianyi:

The Miraculous Universal Distribution

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.120.2873&rep=rep1&type=pdf

And my own papers (in joint with Jean-Paul Delahaye) on the same subject, related to this essay:

Numerical Evaluation of Algorithmic Complexity for Short Strings: A Glance into the Innermost Structure of Randomness (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1101.4795)

and

On the Algorithmic Nature of the World (http://arxiv.org/pdf/0906.3554)

Levin's distribution establishes that 'simple' hypotheses - the ones you favor under Occam's razor - are precisely those with small complexity. My work shows that Levin's distribution is not only a prior but it behaves as one would expect when one actually run the experiments, and even more surprising, it seems to fit (from weak to strong correlation significance) empirical datasets from the real world.

Best

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  • Post #102

Hector,

Thank you for those references. I need to be knowledgeable about this subject.

James

Dear Hector

I congratulate you on very good essay, though disagree with many of your fundamental tenets.

From your cv I quite understand your view that; "Physical laws, like computer programs, make things happen." I object on the basis that such 'entities' are not physically causal and can only propagate the non causal. They can do much of value, describe, predict, cause switches to throw and much more, but I feel it endangers our understanding of causality to claim to much.

Surely "Structure from randomness BY iterated computation" is a bounded view. Is it not enough to claim to just 'explain' some structure from randomness, aided by computation?

On causality I have found clearly and proposed that the apparent lack of quantum causality is only due to our lack of understanding. As Einstein said, we don't yet understand 1,000th of 1%..." Is it not arrogant to assume we know and understand, and that we can can judge it on those basis.?

I feel you have cart before horse in saying information 'makes' a cup a cup and a human a human'. I'm even tempted to suggest you may have spent too much time playing at computers in your youth! Yet I do understand what I hope you mean, a very 'catholic' translation of 'makes'. As a supporter of reality (and of Edwins view above) I'd strongly wish to preserve the real meaning of 'makes'.

And I do see your "matter and space exist as a continuum" differently to Edwin and applaud the view I see. I have derived and find it empirically consistent that in particle terms the discrete condenses from the (sub 'matter') continuum to implement 'change'. Indeed this goes far enough to resolve both SR and GR with QM, consistent with Edwin's and other good essays here. I'd be very pleased if you'd give your views on my essay, but warn you may be shocked by it's naive reality/ locality empiricism, perhaps in another universe to yours. (Though the discrete field model involved logically derives recycled sequential not parallel universes. - yet would you believe my own search beyond maths turned out to be on the same grounds Alice in Wonderland was written!?)

Through all this I am pleased to agree as an essay it deserves a front runner status, and enjoyed an entirely different viewpoint on nature to my own.

Best wishes

Peter Jackson

    Hector nice essay.

    From an artistic perspective, I view the behavior of the universe as a reproductive system. Interesting enough, if you view a reproductive system as a set of random events, or you view it as a predictable (algorithmic) set of events, the resulting distribution is pretty much the same in either case.

    That is the link to the Fibonnaci series I elude to in my essay. Check it out if you get a chance at http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/893.

    Good Luck

    Pete

      Dear dr ZENIL,

      Your essay is very understandable and readable, but I dont see the universe as a computer, I quite understand that humans created this machine and for that they had to design a way in which this machine really could make computations, these computations resulted in images and sounds that our senses sight and hearing could interprete as a virtual reality, the point is still the same it is "to be or not to be", the virtual universe we are creating out of the zero's and the one's is just ONE possibilllity that we have as mankind to CREATE, as I put it in my essay when we are in the possibillity to create a consciousnes that exists in this virtual reality we move one step further in the understanding of our own consciousness, this new consciousness however has all the restrictions of the DIGITAL essence, it is a second hand reality from our point of vieuw.

      Analogue may also mean ONE, the continuity of the whole, not made of two units, when science will be able to construct a quantum "computer" there is a infinity of superpositions to choose, and all the answers of all the possible questions are in facto "present" even when he is not connected to the electricity, we can see that as a ONE, for achieving that we have to bring back choices to one...

      kind regards

      Wilhelmus de Wilde

        Hello, Hector

        Thanks for a well-written essay, which I read with keen interest. I like your (French!) style of clear analysis and expression. The strategy of comparing the evolution of patterns in nature and in computer programs seems very promising. I do have some comments about certain passages, and would like to know your response to them.

        "Lossless compressibility" [p9] may apply perfectly to a pattern that is already defined (like files in your computer), but only imperfectly to natural patterns (data from observations). Your result that "most empirical data carries an algorithmic signal" seems simply to restate the fact that there are evident patterns in the world. I cannot take this to mean, however, that the world in itself is pure ordered pattern, fully accountable in a set of algorithms. That seems too great a leap. Am I missing something?

        [p5] You say that "Producing random bits in a deterministic universe...would actually be very expensive..." But isn't this an argument AGAINST determinism? Perhaps nature cannot be forced into a mold that defines it either as deterministic or as non-deterministic. This could be the case if 'determinism' is actually a purely logico-mathematical concept and not ascertainable as an ontologically physical reality. The meaning of 'determinism' may be nothing other than logical implication (computability). We are free to project this upon nature, but isn't it really our own invention? Similarly, we are free to imagine the universe as driven by simple algorithms (after all this works to some extent!). The really interesting thing, to me, is our apparent human need to know what the universe is in itself, in ultimate terms, apart from simply understanding what knowledge is (or can be) for us. Perhaps it is human thought that is driven by simple algorithms!

        [p4] From an engineering point of view, "what makes a cup a cup" is information; but from a physics point of view, what makes a cup a cup is structure. They may seem to coincide in the cup, which is an artifact, more than in the case of the human body, which is not. Information is effectively a set of instructions to the engineer to build the cup (a program). No engineer, however, knows how to build a human body or any natural thing. (The cup too--as a physical thing rather than a conceptual thing--is made of natural materials.) Such knowledge presupposes a blueprint from which to construct the natural entity. But a natural thing does not come with a blueprint, and anything looking like its blueprint is actually a product of an analysis that can never be assumed complete or exhaustive. The natural thing is found, the simulation (and the information behind it) is made. I suspect this applies to atoms as well as cups.

        [p5] You say "if information is even more fundamental than the matter of which it is made and the physical laws governing that matter, then the question of whether these effects violate physical laws may be irrelevant." That is a big 'if'! The very question to be decided! It would undeniably be convenient if natural reality were fundamentally "informational", but that does not make it so. In the medieval world, violation of physical law was similarly irrelevant, because an omnipotent God was ultimately the cause of everything, including natural law and miracles!

        [p8 re: "DNA construction] I think it is unfair to dismiss the interaction with environment as not a "true random function operating on the DNA". What is a 'true random function'? Even by a mathematical definition, one cannot prove randomness. How then to apply this to the real world? Perhaps we can say no more than that DNA construction, like the evolution of the universe as a whole, involves an interplay of predictable and unpredictable factors.

        Thanks again and best wishes,

        Dan

          Hello Dan,

          Thanks for your kind comments. Here are my answers to your interesting questions:

          You say:

          ""Lossless compressibility" [p9] may apply perfectly to a pattern that is already defined (like files in your computer), but only imperfectly to natural patterns (data from observations). Your result that "most empirical data carries an algorithmic signal" seems simply to restate the fact that there are evident patterns in the world. I cannot take this to mean, however, that the world in itself is pure ordered pattern, fully accountable in a set of algorithms. That seems too great a leap. Am I missing something?"

          You are not missing anything, you make a fair point. That, as you say, may be the case. Ii find, however, interesting the fact that this 'algorithmic signal' seems to be present everywhere and that it can actually be quantified. There is a researcher that takes your point to the extreme, that empirical data sets are algorithmically random, you may be interested (although I cannot agree with his conclusions):

          James McAllister's 2003 article, "Algorithmic randomness in empirical data" Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 34 (3):633-646.

          See also a strong reply:

          Charles Twardy, Steve Gardner & David Dowe (2005). Empirical Data Sets Are Algorithmically Compressible: Reply to McAllister. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Part A 36 (2):391-402.

          You say:

          "[p5] You say that "Producing random bits in a deterministic universe...would actually be very expensive..." But isn't this an argument AGAINST determinism? Perhaps nature cannot be forced into a mold that defines it either as deterministic or as non-deterministic. This could be the case if 'determinism' is actually a purely logico-mathematical concept and not ascertainable as an ontologically physical reality. The meaning of 'determinism' may be nothing other than logical implication (computability)."

          Yes, if a deterministic universe were able to produce true random bits that would be an argument against determinism if I were ready to accept that that actually happens (as Quantum Mechanics may imply). If I consider this possibility is only to explain that classical mechanics implies a deterministic universe yet quantum mechanics is supposed to be a source of free randomness which is one of the deepest contradictions between these two mainstream theories. I only point out that if the universe is deterministic as one may believe (as I do), then there is this fundamental incompatibility.

          You say:

          "We are free to project this upon nature, but isn't it really our own invention? Similarly, we are free to imagine the universe as driven by simple algorithms (after all this works to some extent!). The really interesting thing, to me, is our apparent human need to know what the universe is in itself, in ultimate terms, apart from simply understanding what knowledge is (or can be) for us. Perhaps it is human thought that is driven by simple algorithms!"

          Yes, it might be a projection, or even a mirage. But when a mirage works well (i.e. seems to explain and predict something) we use to call it a scientific model. I think it is fair to think that the world is based in simple rules if it turns out that, as it seems to be the case, it is comprehensible in a large extent with simple models of the world (including current scientific theories governed by simple formulae). If these simple rules turn out to produce the complexity we see around I think one can safely assume that they may be the responsible for the organized complexity in the world. It could, of course, be the case, that nature is fooling us making us to believe that rules are simple but actually are very complicated, looking only simple at the surface.

          "[p4] From an engineering point of view, "what makes a cup a cup" is information; but from a physics point of view, what makes a cup a cup is structure. They may seem to coincide in the cup, which is an artifact, more than in the case of the human body, which is not. Information is effectively a set of instructions to the engineer to build the cup (a program). No engineer, however, knows how to build a human body or any natural thing. (The cup too--as a physical thing rather than a conceptual thing--is made of natural materials.) Such knowledge presupposes a blueprint from which to construct the natural entity. But a natural thing does not come with a blueprint, and anything looking like its blueprint is actually a product of an analysis that can never be assumed complete or exhaustive. The natural thing is found, the simulation (and the information behind it) is made. I suspect this applies to atoms as well as cups."

          But a blueprint is a description which tells someone (if not you then nature) how to build something. The claim that only information makes a cup a cup rather than a human being is because both human beings and cups are made exactly of the same elementary particles and it is nothing but the way they are arranged that make one or the other. But let me know how that could be wrong from a purely materialist point of view.

          You say:

          "[p5] You say "if information is even more fundamental than the matter of which it is made and the physical laws governing that matter, then the question of whether these effects violate physical laws may be irrelevant." That is a big 'if'!"

          Of course that is a big 'if', I would only dare to say so in a foundational question essay. Notice, however, that several authors think of information as more fundamental than physics itself. And it is a common practice in science to find all the time more fundamental structures on which previous ones were lying on. I don't have may troubles seeing information as more fundamental than matter but of course some may disagree (as they do, such as e.g. David Deutsch).

          "The very question to be decided! It would undeniably be convenient if natural reality were fundamentally "informational", but that does not make it so. In the medieval world, violation of physical law was similarly irrelevant, because an omnipotent God was ultimately the cause of everything, including natural law and miracles!"

          Right, but I don't think we are going backwards, replacement of explanations that were once laws before is a common practice, if not the goal, of science, and the replacement seems to have a direction in the form of models that explain more and more phenomena and have greater prediction power. Of course saying that the world is something won't make it that something, but when you find that something smells, looks and behaves as something one can be persuaded that it is this something. In this case, it seems clear that information is, in the worst scenario, something as fundamental (even if it is a worldview and not necessarily an ontological truth) as other variables in the physical world (matter, energy). Whether this is the case or not we will see or we may never know. Notice, however, that many physicists have jumped to similar conclusions even if they are treated differently, by giving the concept of symmetry (that you may see as information or an abstract mathematical object) a foundational role for even predicting the existence of new particles, that so far has been quite successful.

          "[p8 re: "DNA construction] I think it is unfair to dismiss the interaction with environment as not a "true random function operating on the DNA"."

          It is a generalized agreement that the macro world is fully deterministic and does not produce indeterministic randomness, so mutation may be only truly a random process if based on quantum mechanics based on current physics.

          "What is a 'true random function'? Even by a mathematical definition, one cannot prove randomness."

          When I write true random function I mean a function capable of producing truly independent random bits just as predicted by the mainstream interpretation of QM.

          Thanks Dan, very interesting questions.

          - Hector

          Thanks Pete. Vey nice and Interesting essay, I like your artistic point of view.

          I discuss a bit the relationship of an object vs. its pictorial representation in this paper (in joint with Delahaye and Gaucherel) that you may find interesting as related to the concept of physical complexity:

          Image Characterization and Classification by Physical Complexity, available online at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1006.0051

          Best regards.

          Dear Peter,

          Thank you for sharing and for your encouragement.

          The claim that only information makes a cup a cup rather than a human being is because both human beings and cups are made exactly of the same elementary particles and it is nothing but the way they are arranged that make one or the other. But let me know how that could be wrong from a purely materialist point of view.

          Sincerely.

          Dear Edwin,

          Interesting comments. I agree with you on some points, I hope to find time soon to elaborate further and give you a more proper answer.

          Thanks for your kind words.

          Sincerely.

          Rafael,

          Thanks for your comments. You are right that I didn't jump to making claims on what the universe may be truly made off, or whether it may turn out to be digital or not. I prefer to leave the readers withdraw that conclusion by looking that an algorithmic world would not really need to assume but the kind of digital computations. Yet, my view is compatible with an analog algorithmic world. I explain, however, why I think that may not be the case, because it would look more like the uncomputable (truly random in the strictest mathematical sense) digits of a Chaitin Omega number rather than the more ordered digits of the mathematical constant Pi, random-looking but deterministic and plenty of algorithmic structure, as I think may be the case of the real world.

          I don't think most people think that the universe is digital by the way it unfolds, I think this is a rather different view of mine, or if not a novel view a novel statistical treatment based in an empirical distribution and the concept algorithmic probability undertaken in my research project. Yet, I don't conclude from there that the world is digital, even if I (as do the results) suggest that there is no need to think it is analog.

          Sincerely.

          Good afternoon (or the time you may read this post) Hector Zenil

          I did not at all want to offend you in my post, on the contrary you gave me a lot of reasons to continue for the search of understanding our universe and explainede very clear how the "technical" side of our community is searching for more knowledge.

          I would like to join to my post that in my opinion there is a difference between Intelligence and Consciousnes, with our total intelligence we can construct the LHC, but it is our consciousnes that asks always WHY, like a child that won't stop asking WHY, the HOW is the intelligence and the Why our consciousnes, the intelligence can be constructed by our (Turing)machines, but the consciousness untill now we could not reproduce so this is perhaps not a digital "substance", so not reproducable in the digital way (?), like a piece of art, you can copy it but the copy will never be the original.

          The way we experience "reality" is different for every one, but seems to be analoguefor a majority, (ana = from logos= reason) so the way our reason interpretes it becomes reality, but this also means that there multiple interpretations, from which the digital interpretation is only one.

          Perhaps my interpretation is not the one of a pure scientist like yourself, but I think that this is the richness of the rainbow of thoughts so beautiful expressed in this contest.

          I wish you a lot of luck (digital ?) in the contest

          and

          best regards

          Wilhelmus de Wilde

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          • Post #115

          Hi dear Hector you say "In any case, the main argument holds, that Pi is simpler to calculate by throwing bits that one interpret as instructions of a computer language, disregarding the language (or if you prefer rules), but it is much harder if you want to generate any number of digits of Pi by throwing the digits themselves into the air. This is because programs of Pi will be always short in relation to its expansion"

          Could you develop, it's relevant that...

          Regards

          Steve

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          • Post #116

          because for a real understanding of the theory of numbers, the reals and the continuity and discretness .....it must have a difference between the physicality and its distribution rational, the infinity behind our walls.And the adds and infinities invented by humans due to some adds or mult.Now if we take this language, mathematical, as the computing, don't forget it's a human invention where we create codes of continuities, where sometimes the categories permits the synchro and the sortings. Of course it's a beautiful machine and its language is logic, but for the simulations, the laws can be changed and thus the conclusions loose the real uniersal sense. It's essential when we want really interpret our reality objective physical. I can for example simulate the mass of stars and planets, or BH , that doesn't mean it's real...there we return about a very beautiful work of Eckard about the axiomatization rational of our reals with a real unity, 1 and reals domains.All is there in fact,the 0,- and infinity aren't reazlly real in their pure number and its distribution, spherical.

          The language is the same because the maths are the maths but the reals are better than imaginaries ....the strings are a beautiful tool for the 2d picture , I prefer a spherical membran, oscillating and we can thus simulate the mass also,it's more logic, the programm just needs a little improvement inserting the number of the ultim entanglement of spheres.and their volumes from the main central sphere.In all case, the duality wave particle can be harmonized due to the proportions with mass.The strings were an idea, this idea can be universalized simply in the spherical logic in 3D.

          Dear Hector, could you explain me the algorythms, If I know the principle, I can invent several models of sortings and synchro.Could you explain me how is the base of computing , this language in fact is logic and mathematic,but what is an algorythm of sorting for example, you insert what the volumes??? Or a serie, ....in fact how I have the pictures here at home on my pc for example.

          Steve

          Dear Wilhelmus de Wilde,

          You didn't offend me at all. I appreciate your comments.

          Best.

          Thank you so much, Hector, for your thoughtful and patient replies. I haven't been able to access McAllister's 2003 article, but I did read the Twardy et. al. reply, which I think fairly refutes McAllister's claims when interpreted in narrow terms. However, I did read a more recent piece by McAllister (2009) "What do patterns in empirical data tell us about the structure of the world", from which I can see that he hasn't given up! His two main points there, liberally interpreted, seem to be (1) 'noise' is relative and may be mined for further pattern (signal), and (2) there is a sense in which 'pattern' is in the eye of the beholder. I would agree fully with (1), while acknowledging the usefulness of provisionally disregarding noise in pattern extraction. While I think he may go too far in his case for (2), there is something in the spirit of it that would certainly be useful should we ever have to confront alien scientists! In any case, it seems a wise proviso for human researchers to bear in mind.

          In your reply you say:

          "I only point out that if the universe is deterministic as one may believe (as I do), then there is this fundamental incompatibility [between randomness and determinism]."

          My point is that the universe can only be deterministic if it happens to coincide perfectly with some formalism, for only such deductive systems are truly deterministic (i.e. the only meaning that can actually be assigned to causality is logical implication within some deductive system). In other words (to put it somewhat outlandishly), the universe can only be deterministic if it is not natural but artificial; conversely, if it is natural, it cannot be fully and finally mapped in any formalism. On the other hand, we are not in a position to say that it is fundamentally indeterministic either, since (mathematical) randomness cannot proven. This is why I wonder at the basic human impulse to assert a "truth of the matter" one way or the other, since it seems hopeless to establish that. I hope I am not trying your patience too much, but I would very much value your feedback to these ideas.

          You reply also:

          "But a blueprint is a description which tells someone (if not you then nature) how to build something. The claim that only information makes a cup a cup rather than a human being is because both human beings and cups are made exactly of the same elementary particles and it is nothing but the way they are arranged that make one or the other. But let me know how that could be wrong from a purely materialist point of view."

          While perhaps useful, I think it is a mistake to project human communication models upon nature. We should not assume that nature engages in some form of information processing or computation, along the lines utilized by human beings. We cannot assume that we possess the (complete) information involved in the structure of a natural thing, which is not made by us but found in an incompletely known state. In the sense hinted at by McAllister, the information is made by us, and we can never be sure how exhaustively (or correctly) it describes the real thing. We only know for certain the blueprints we literally make, not the blueprints we impute to nature.

          Thanks again for the clarity of your thinking and your willingness to respond.

          Dan

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          • Post #119

          The continuity rational seems lost in the pure confusions, why just because the reals are correlated witht he biggest rationality.The cotegorification of sortings in computing seems the cause, due to the adapted algorythms probably.That's why probably we have some bizare simulations.In logic a real turing machine seems rational, it can't simply be an irrational road simply.

          Dear Hector, you say"By definition, a continuum is a body that can be continually sub-divided into infinitesimal elements" I am not sure about that, really,that implies some confusions about the real meaning of the infinities.And the finite numbers! DEFINITING MASS FOR EXAMPLE.thus what is this fractilization, I think there is a little problem.A continuum is more than that,the time operator seems confound with the fractal of a body which is in logic finite in its pure newtonian fractalization.I can understand the difference with the 2d computing and the waves correlated with the fractal of this digit,a kind of unity...that permits the 2d forms ok but the strings aren't foundamental for our universe ,a spherical 3d sphere and the picalculus improved with a better fractal for the digit of this 3D sphere and its spherical membran forming all systems....if the rotations are proportional with mass and if the fractal is finite and precise in its decreasing of volumes.....3D spherical computer holographic .....a program of convergences will be easy, and after we can simulate correctly at my humble opinion, I AM PERSUADED THAT lAWRENCE CAN MADE THAT for the 3D holographic computer and its turing universality....the work of Pierce seems relevant about the real axiomatization , the caratheodory method also and the real proportionalities....the convergences seem easy between this 2d towards the 3D universal......the Mtheory is too weak simply ...3DSPHERES AND SPHERIZATION DEAR ALL .

          Regards

          Steve