It, Bit, and Us by Dean Rickles

Dear Dean,

I enjoyed reading your stimulating essay. You distinguish between two ways the analog/digital debate can go: '...(1) as a claim about the discreteness (or not) of space, time, and matter; (2) about the computational nature of the universe.' In my own essay, I pursue the latter course.

I've taken the liberty to comment on some of your passages, in a manner I hope will be welcome:

'Often the assumed denseness of an analogical model is parasitic on the assumed dense nature of the process or object functioning as the model.' I would point out that, similarly, often the assumed "sparseness" of a digital model is assumed to reflect some ontological discreteness in nature.

'...the question "Is reality digital or analogue?" concerns representation,

and representation involves intentional systems...' The digital strikes me, specifically, as paradigmatically a product of definition. The analog is too--technically speaking (i.e. as a mathematical definition)--though through common experience it is more familiar and so is more readily associated with the natural reality it represents. That is, one thinks of the real mercury in a thermometer as 'analog', since its expansion appears macroscopically to be continuous, whereas the scaled markings are 'digital' and clearly imposed for the sake of "reading" the temperature.

"...that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe." [Wheeler] This may be what Wheeler calls 'reality', on some phenomenological basis, but it cannot be the usual sense implied by physical realism. I would agree that this describes physical knowledge, though not necessarily physical reality. I can sympathize with the sentiment of a participatory universe, though I suspect Wheeler goes somewhere with this I would not dare to. Again, he seems to be talking about "experience" rather than "external reality".

'For Wheeler, in an important sense, epistemology precedes ontology: bit

precedes it.' However, 'bit' is a concept historically derived from 'it' (info theory from thermodynamics). Even if we consider it logically independent, it is still a concept derived from general experience in the real world (bit = thing), just as set theory is. The conclusion is recycled as the premise.

'...there is no such thing as a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.' This is an ambiguous use of 'phenomenon'. It should mean EITHER the representation in experience (or in science) OR the thing it represents, but not both. Similarly in the expression '...past events are not definite'. 'Definite' is ambiguous, since it can refer to what is definitely known or what is causally determined. Wheeler should have known better. But your sympathetic conclusion is justified: 'Theories about the physical world inescapably bear our imprint; they are constructed to account for our experience.'

'All we have to go on in science... is pointer-readings, the record of some interaction, and the relationships between such entities. These take the form of coincidences [events]...' This reminds me of Keith Oatley's description (in 'Perceptions and Representations, 1978) of "flying blind"--the metaphorical position of the brain, sealed inside the skull, obliged to navigate solely by instrument. Also, Maturana and Varela pursued similar ideas ('Autopoeisis and Cognition'), generalized to the case of the organism in relation to its environment. Taking off on these concepts, I once wrote a chapter in a philosophical novelette, to explore the encapsulated brain metaphor through a Cartesian theater analogy. The protagonists somehow find themselves inside the control room of what appears to be a space ship of some sort, but turns out to be an advanced alien machine-based life form(!) They discover for themselves the art of flying blind when they try to figure out how the thing works, simply by trial and error of observing correlations between inputs (control levers) and results on their instrument displays. They then develop a program to account for these correlations, thus creating an automatic pilot and (largely) working themselves out of a job...

'All physical theories are, in this sense, approximations: they go beyond what

is observed (namely, discrete events).' I think more can be said than that they are "approximate" in a quantitative sense. There is a qualitative difference between theory and reality, which I like to characterize as the difference between artifact (the 'made') and natural reality (the 'found'). Certainly I agree that expecting too much can get us into trouble. I do think, however, that there is some utility yet to be squeezed out of recognizing this qualitative difference, and not mistaking the map for the territory.

Thanks for a well-written essay, a pleasure to read!

Dan

The scope of this essay contest (discussed here) expressly includes the philosophy of physics as an appropriate viewpoint.

Nice essay Dean. Incidentally, I know Steven French (actually, we should nominate him for FQXi membership), though I haven't seen him in several years. He was the external examiner on my PhD thesis which dealt with Eddington's Fundamental Theory. Great guy.

Dean,

I couldn't resist the Tull reference. And, wow, you actually read my thesis! I'm humbled. Steven only read it because he had to. :) I was working on turning it into a book for CUP a couple of years ago when my computer HD crashed. I still have the original, but lost all this great work I'd done to "spruce it up." I plan to go back to it soon.

I see you are slated to be at the FQXi conference in August so we will meet in person. Also, I think you know Ken Wharton as well, correct? I've just nominated him for FQXi membership. I definitely think we should nominate Steven, though, as well. I'll send Kavita an e-mail (don't know if it's too late or not).

Ian

Dean,

Thanks so much for this links to all the interesting references! I will enjoy following up on those. As you suspect, I'm familiar with Eddington, but have not read all his work yet. By the way, Ian has just pointed me to his dissertation on Eddington which I look forward to reading.

I agree completely with you that "descriptions can be continuous or discrete, but when we try to connect them up to the world we inevitably have to make do with the discrete events."

Best regards,

Tom

Incidentally, I've been mulling over your essay, and it occurred to me that the comments and essays on this site would seem to be strong evidence in and of themselves of your hypothesis.

Bought a 16GB flash drive at Costco for US$35 not long ago, just saw that it's now available online for under US$25 ...

Dean,

Excellent work! Very enjoyable.

It is a good way to describe the current view of quantum mechanics and/or trying to go beyond the limits. Bohr would probably say that photons are bits and if we try to make them into full-time its, we are taking photons out of their defined role. Switching to the electron - David Bohm would have suggested that there were undiscovered bits out there that might one day turn the electron into better defined its.

Where its, bits and us overlap or change roles is a fascinating topic. Shining photons on the outside of a photodetector will tell you where the detector is while the inside of the detector will tell you where the photons are. I think it was John Bell who used his eyeglasses as an observer/observed example (and it being a gray area) as he pulled them forward off of his head until he held them at arms length.

Quantum theory seems to say that we can't get a better fish net (to use your example) because the fish exist in a state that would prevent them from being captured in a smaller net - in fact the net we are using triggers them into a state that the net can trap.

What do you think - are we at the end of the measurement line?

Dear Dean,

I enjoyed very much your essay especially the fact that your title contains the Us, perhaps the Us is like the yellow light in the traffic lights that you mention, inbetween one state and the other, only there is no deterministic sequence in the follow up from the colours, the quote of John Wheeler on page 9 reminds me very much of my essay (Realities out of Total Simultaneity) where the mirror of our consciousness caused by our observations (orobouros) is also the cause of our observable universe. You say it is unlikely that intentional-system-centric notions would have counterparts in reality, independently of minds, I assume you mean our own minds not minds of other possible universes ?

Wilhelmus de Wilde

Dear Dean,

Multiverse or paralel universe "theorist" is the right word, because it can only be theory (untill now), but like all other theories it is a product of our minds, and becomes an hypothetical reality, if once we are able (perhaps with assistance of "a" future quantum computer) to create another consiousness and by coupling this consciuosness to our own, this new reality becomes an it, while the bits may be obeing total different physical laws, that cannot be tested by our instruments, this it can become a part of us.

Sorry I did not directly understand your phrase intentional etc , I fully agree with you.

thanks

Wilhelmus

It's from circa 1930, and probably refers to Eddington's earlier period. Eddington apparently found a sidebar career in the 1920s or at least a hobby (as did Feynman later) in amazing the public ... the "solidity" of a table, stuff like that. Some confusion resulted and LW seems to have wanted a reality check. Bohr's philosophical thinking was pretty much in process of formulation at that time, or at least not much had been published (I think).

The passage has an interesting resonance with Zeilinger's "A photon is a click in a photon counter." (We can overlook Mermin's retort about AZ being a click in an Anton counter.) Reality's what you can observe and correlate with your mental construction of the physical world. The rest is metaphysics.

Here's what W was referencing ("The Nature of the Physical World", 1928, Preface):

"Science aims at constructing a world which shall be symbolic of the world of commonplace experience. It is not at all necessary that every individual symbol that is used should represent something in common experience or even something explicable in terms of common experience. The man in the street is always making this demand for concrete explanation of the things referred to in science; but of necessity he must be disappointed. It is like our experience in learning to read. That which is written in a book is symbolic of a story in real life. The whole intention of the book is that ultimately a reader will identify some symbol, say BREAD, with one of the conceptions of familiar life. But it is mischievous to attempt such identifications prematurely, before the letters are strung into words and the words into sentences. The symbol A is not the counterpart of anything in familiar life."

Yes. But. You gotta have a phenomenon to have science. The photon counter's click. You don't see the photon make the click, but the click's all you need because only a photon could make it. And it's all you're going to get. The click is the observation which grounds the mathematical formalism and builds the bridge between abstract symbolism and physical world. You simply cannot do without it.

Wittgenstein was probably suggesting that Eddington wasn't a terribly astute epistemologist. Sometimes LW could be a jerk. One can have other beefs with Sir Arthur, though. You sense in a statement like "The stuff of the world is mind-stuff" and many of the words surrounding it one of the feeder streams into quantum mysticism and New Age bogosity. To be sure, he had no way of knowing that.

Hi Dean,

It's a delight to read an article so dense in meaning, and spoken with the authority of first rate scholarship.

So I'm just going to tease out a couple of things that I particularly relate to, and regret leaving so much unsaid.

In an early draft of my essay (right above yours in alphabetical order), I had devoted a whole paragraph to the digital-analog watch comparison. I edited it out, after a reader commented that even an analog watch generates digital information (which was actually the point I was trying, but failed, to make) -- the point that should have been made with the analogy is the one that you elegantly brought to bear: reality as a metaphor ... representing what?

Second, I'll pick an argument with Eddington, who is fortunately for me in this context, safely dead. You're right about the ultra-empiricism in your reference (4). The assumption that alien intelligence parallels our sensory experience and interpretation is not rationally justified. Einstein had the more rational view: " ... from the standpoint of epistemology it is more satisfying to have the mechanical properties of space completely determined by matter ..." and so hedging against metaphysical realism, rather important now that all our observations tell us that the universe contains very little matter. Pick a new epistemology to stand on. :-)

Good luck in the contest, and

All best,

Tom