What is the relationship between matter and information?

[bohm2]

"It from bit" or "Bit from it"

I've always had some difficulties understanding the whole concept of information:

Is matter really just information? Does one mean just our information about matter? Isn't all information embodied in some more basic "physical" stuff? Doesn't information require something to be informed? Can information be "active" (as per Bohm/Hiley's proposed "informational field" that guide the particle)? Nevertheless, I thought this would be an interesting poll. So, if you had to choose, which of the 3 options do you find more reasonable:

1. Information is more primitive/fundamental than matter/physical/energy ('it from bit')
2. Matter/physical is more primitive/fundamental than information ('bit from it')
3. None of the above (e.g. neither is more primitive/fundamental than the other or the question is meaningless)

Some interesting quotes for both positions:

I. IT FROM BIT:

Wheeler: It is not unreasonable to imagine that information sits at the core of physics, just as it sits at the core of a computer. It from bit. Otherwise put, every it—every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself—derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits... ‘It from bit’ symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom–a very deep bottom, in most instances–an immaterial source and explanation; 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’s most pointed suggestion is that “information” can’t be defined in terms of “matter” or “energy” and that it may therefore be as or more fundamental than either “matter” or “energy”, the most basic notions in physics.

Introducing the Computable Universe
http://lanl.arxiv.org/pdf/1206.0376.pdf

...perhaps information is more primitive than matter, underpinning the laws of physics...

The physics of downward causation
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/vi...44318.001.0001/acprof-9780199544318-chapter-2

II. BIT FROM IT:

With his aphorism ‘it from bit’, Wheeler argued that anything physical, any it, ultimately derives its very existence entirely from discrete detector-elicited information-theoretic answers to yes or no quantum binary choices: bits. In this spirit, many theorists now give ontological primacy to information. To test the idea, I identify three distinct kinds of information and find that things, not information, are primary. Examination of what Wheeler meant by ‘it’ and ‘bit’ then leads me to invert his aphorism: ‘bit’ derives from ‘it’...

Bit from It
http://platonia.com/bit_from_it.pdf

Here are some words which, however legitimate and necessary in application, have no place in a formulation with any pretension to physical precision: system, apparatus, environment, microscopic, macroscopic, reversible, irreversible, observable, information,
measurement...Then that notion should not appear in the formulation of fundamental theory. Information? Whose information? Information about what?

Against ‘measurement’
http://duende.uoregon.edu/~hsu/blogfiles/bell.pdf

 

[Ken G]

Given my other posts, you will no doubt not be surprised that I conclude that both "it" and "bit" rely on each other to exist. I think Wheeler is right on target that the universe is participatory, and that physics is about information, but we must also recognize that what we mean by "the universe" is not actually the universe "out there", it is precisely the universe that we interact with. We know about the universe by interacting with it, and so our every language about physical reality is actually a language about our own participation in physics. The universe is not participatory, we are, and we are the physicists too.

Thus to object to information being housed in our minds, rather than in the universe itself, is to miss that the two are not so easily separated after all. Yet there should need to be some "it" for the "bit" to exist, while there needs to be "bits" for us to know anything about "it", so both require the other to mean anything-- or else neither term belongs in any language. In the immortal words of the Talking Heads: "that word does not exist in any language, it will never be uttered by a human mouth." Hence, neither "it" nor "bit" is more fundamental-- they each give the other its meaning, and if you push either one too far to their extreme, they disintegrate into the other. It is the place where they interact that the concepts bear fruit.

 

[audioloop]

"IT"

 

[Gold Barz]

What does Wheeler's "it from bit" say about consciousness or subjective experience?

 

[bohm2]

At times I kinda get confused with these arguments. But my guess, is that Wheeler would probably say that physics doesn't have much to say on subjectivity? Consider this quote by him:

Caution: "Consciousness" has nothing whatsover to do with the quantum process. We are dealing with an event that makes itself known by an irreversible act of amplification, by an indelible record, an act of registration. Does that record subsequently enter into the "consciousness" of some person, some animal or some computer? Is that the first step into translating the measurement into "meaning" meaning regarded as "the joint product of all the evidence that is available to those who communicate." Then that is a separate part of the story, important but not to be confused with "quantum phenomena." (Wheeler, 1983).

Law without law
http://what-buddha-said.net/library/pdfs/wheeler_law_without_law.pdf

But then again, I'm not sure? I have a lot of trouble understanding some of their positions. There seems to be this dualism that really confuses me: bit (information) vs it (matter), mind vs body, configuration space vs 3-space, etc. What makes it even more difficult is there seems to be this implicit assumption that we really have a clear conception of what we mean by "matter" or "information" is. But I'm not sure we do?

 

[Paulibus]

... Do you know any Latin, William?"
" Jus' a bit," said William, guardedly. "I've learned a lot, but I don't know much."

I think this confession from children's literature just about sums up how little is known (including by the erudite Wheeler) about the fancied link between information and physical reality. To clarify what is supposed, I'd like to have explained exactly how the information in the quote, lost if all our books were to fall through an event horizon around a collapsing mass concentration, would nevertheless remain smeared out, as it were, all over the horizon. Are material binary bits scattered like confetti all over the horizon? And if they're material, why don't they also fall through it?

 

[ConradDJ]

Is matter really just information? Does one mean just our information about matter? Isn't all information embodied in some more basic "physical" stuff? Doesn't information require something to be informed?

I posted some thoughts about this a few years ago... currently working on a paper that talks about how information needs to be defined, in physics. The main thing is that if we define information quantitatively, in terms of “bits”, we can conveniently bypass the quantum measurement problem – but end up without a clear connection between information and “matter” or any other aspect of physics.

For me the basic question is how information actually does get defined, in the physical world. We know it does, because we can see it and communicate it. But we don’t yet have a good framework for understanding how measurement and communication actually work.

This is from a draft of my current paper –

Despite all we know about physical interaction at the quantum level, we still conceive these basic information-processes essentially the same way Plato and Aristotle did. We talk about information as if it were built into the intrinsic nature of things in themselves, as if it were inherently well-defined, apart from any context. In this framework, to measure something essentially means to copy data out of the object onto something else, like making an impression of the object on a wax tablet, or recording its length with a ruler. To observe a thing means to make a copy of it in your mind.

But at a fundamental level, there are no physical processes corresponding to this notion of how information works. Making copies of given data is something that hardly happens in the physical world, though living organisms have found ways to do it, as the basis for their evolution. And human culture depends on our being able to reproduce information, in many different ways.

But the basic information-processes in physics are quite different. They're not about replicating information that's already objectively pre-defined, in itself. Instead, they're about setting up contexts of interaction between particular local systems that can physically define the information in the first place.

 

[chiro]

Regardless of the model for causality and regardless of the actual constraints used whether they are implicitly or explicitly defined, language is still required not only for the ability to represent and describe something, but also to compute.

Computers work with information and the structure must be known to the actual processing unit in order for a computation to take place.

This requires essentially one to describe the linguistic representation of the information being processed and thus indirectly a natural decomposition in the context of the computation exists.

Everything is completely based on a descriptive capacity, and the structure of the language itself as well as the entire spectrum of decomposition tells the scope of the analysis and subsequent computation that may be performed on the information.

Decomposition is the basis for analysis. It doesn't matter if the language is a spoken one, an aural one, a written one, a mathematical one: there has to exist methods to decompose things process them in some kind of decomposed state and then synthesize the results to bring something new.

For a programmer that is used to dealing with myriads of data structures all day, this is not really something out of the ordinary especially if the structures themselves are complicated.

The thing is though that computations at the fundamental level need to deal with some kind of representation of some sort and this requires a descriptional capacity.

 

[cobalt124]

It from bit. Damn, I've got it the wrong way round. Bit from it. It is more fundamental. I don't see how it could be any other way. Why would bit be more fundamental? Why would it be both? The only reason I can see is to give a better way of describing how the universe works, not what it fundamentally is. I don't see what previous posts are saying about actual reality. If it's just about usefulness of concepts then I don't see a big issue.

Could someone change my it from bit vote to a bit from it vote please?

 

[Paulibus]

Chiro, you have it exactly right: language is the key requirement because, as you put it, a "descriptional capacity" is needed --- I hope you mean to define and deal with information (and also its converse, entropy).

Well, it just so happens that such a capacity is innate in human beings, to a degree that far exceeds that in our fellow animals. Courtesy, somehow, of Evolution; we don't know exactly how and when we were lucky enough to evolve this capacity, but we now have it, in spades. Hence the inordinate length of threads in this forum about such matters as the philosophy of that most arcane, elegant and useful language, mathematics.

And indeed, hence physics and these forums, in which our attempted quantitative description of the contingent physical circumstances we find ourseves in is discussed. Not to be taken as engraved in stone as discovered truth, since the same information about circumstances may often be adequately described by us talkative primates in several distict dialects.

 

[chiro]

The important thing, building on Paulibus' comment is that descriptions are relative and not in a vacuum.

Different descriptions of something have relativity with other descriptions in the way of the similarities and differences with respect both the universal set of all descriptions, as well as with what something has been related to. So if we look at A compared to B of which both are in U, then A can not be just related to B, but also to U as well.

It is a subtle point, but when the notion of relativity is lost (i.e. the intent to always compare possible descriptions together for some kind of utility and to ascertain the advantages and disadvantages of one over the other), then that is the situation that creates a vacuum and all point of reference (which requires relativity is lost).

In the context of the computation, computational models are also relative to one another just like descriptions of information are, which is an important to consideration for constructing any argument or any discourse over why one computational model is preferable or not preferable to another.

 

[Paulibus]

Again, I agree that:

The important thing...is that descriptions are relative and not in a vacuum

as a practical matter for driving our understanding deeper, in physics as well as in writing computer software.

But it is also important to keep in mind that relative descriptions only describe and inform; they do not uncover what is. Indeed, I suspect that we have become overconfident about the use of the dangerous words "are" and "is", as well as about the deep importance of information, which is easily coloured by the fallible perspectives of folk who ferret information out of our complicated world.

Such overconfidence may well be derived from the simplicity, apparent truth and everyday utility of the information in, say; "this rose is red" — a statement that conveys quite different information when unpacked from the contrasting perspectives of a poet or a physicist.

Even the perspectives of respected Billy Thomson, who maintained that "atoms are vortices in the luminiferous ether", and of those who have more recently proposed that "atoms are tiny strings" may mislead if this information doesn’t lead to predicted phenomena that are later confirmed.

Information as a deep aspect of reality seems to me an idea that can be taken too seriously, especially in physics, where the Baconian tradition of making predictions and confirming them seems both necessary and sufficient.

I think "it from bit" is nonsense. How can such a claim be tested?

 

[chiro]

Again, I agree that: as a practical matter for driving our understanding deeper, in physics as well as in writing computer software.

But it is also important to keep in mind that relative descriptions only describe and inform; they do not uncover what is. Indeed, I suspect that we have become overconfident about the use of the dangerous words "are" and "is", as well as about the deep importance of information, which is easily coloured by the fallible perspectives of folk who ferret information out of our complicated world.

Such overconfidence may well be derived from the simplicity, apparent truth and everyday utility of the information in, say; "this rose is red" — a statement that conveys quite different information when unpacked from the contrasting perspectives of a poet or a physicist.

Even the perspectives of respected Billy Thomson, who maintained that "atoms are vortices in the luminiferous ether", and of those who have more recently proposed that "atoms are tiny strings" may mislead if this information doesn’t lead to predicted phenomena that are later confirmed.

Information as a deep aspect of reality seems to me an idea that can be taken too seriously, especially in physics, where the Baconian tradition of making predictions and confirming them seems both necessary and sufficient.

I think "it from bit" is nonsense. How can this claim be tested?

Anyone can measure something: that isn't really hard at all. You can ask anyone to observe what is happening and if you need an instrument to do it, and the analysis needs to be carefully done, then so be it.

But without any kind of relative analysis, it means absolutely nothing.

If I give you a string of random digits in an unknown language and you look at it, then it will probably mean absolutely nothing to you. If it's in a language you understand, then it will be decodable, but still won't contain anything that's useful.

But when the language has context, then it's an entirely different matter. When it has context it has a relative aspect to it, and the relative aspect means that the description can be differentiated from other descriptions that are otherwise also realizable but not: in short the context is a product of having a point of reference.

The way that measurement done now has no context.

If you want to give it context, the thing that needs to be done is to consider the alternatives and then consider any discussion as to why one should be realizable or preferred over another.

You ask how can it be tested? Well the thing is that you are forced to work under uncertainty: it is the foundation of science. We assume uncertainty and do the best we can.

The other thing that you have to realize is that most of science is inductive: we take results and try to wildly extrapolate general principles in most cases from said results, observations, and measurements.

One needs more than simple tests: you can measure all you want, but without a solid argument or any comprehension, the whole point is completely moot.

The linguistic argument is simple: in order to analyze something you need a descriptive capacity. Without a descriptive capacity you can not analyze: without analysis, you can't compute. Without computation, nothing can be transformed, or evolve.

The argument is based on our current theory and definition for a computer and subsequent ideas are found in computer science and linguistics.

It makes sense at least from some point and does not require measurement of any kind to understand.

If you want to test this in the lab, construct a statistical test to do so and perform the test on your data: that's how you can test the assumption. First come up with a null hypothesis and a normal hypothesis, differentiate the region for acceptance or failure to accept the null hypothesis and publish your findings. That's it.

But despite this, it would be interesting to ask you why the above assertion is wrong in any way whether partial or non-partial.

 

[Whovian]

As the device I'm on can't load PDFs, I can't read the computible universe argument. However, I'm fairly certain Quantum Mechanics' randomness prevents the Universe from being computed, as it's been proven that software algorithms can't generate any sort of randomness.

 

[Whovian]

(Again, I can't edit posts on this flippin' thing, but I wish to make a correction. I didn't mean to call the Universe computible, but rather, the properties of it and its contents.)

 

[chiro]

As the device I'm on can't load PDFs, I can't read the computible universe argument. However, I'm fairly certain Quantum Mechanics' randomness prevents the Universe from being computed, as it's been proven that software algorithms can't generate any sort of randomness.

The flow-control need not be bound through deterministic paradigms: the flow-control can be based on non-classical means.

The argument relates to the representation of information having to have some kind of discrete representation and this being a requirement for a computation under paradigm to actually manifest.

Again, the issues is about requiring a descriptional capacity for analysis of any sort, but the requirement of a Turing machine or deterministic equivalent to underly the computational model for the universe.

 

[Paulibus]

Chiro: What "above assertion" are you talking about? the one that "is wrong in any way whether partial or non-partial"? I can't see anything wrong or even controversial in what you posted!

 

[chiro]

Chiro: What "above assertion" are you talking about? the one that "is wrong in any way whether partial or non-partial"? I can't see anything wrong or even controversial in what you posted!

The nature of descriptive capacity being required for computation regardless of the flow-control or transformation mechanism used in the computation.

 

[bohm2]

I thought these were interesting responses that would be in support of option 3, I think? Todd L. Duncan writes:

What if “analog” and “digital” are labels that apply to the quantitative formal systems we use to help describe our experience with reality, but ultimate reality transcends complete characterization by any particular formal system, and therefore also transcends these labels?...

Penrose reaches a similar conclusion but uses the "properties" of the mental to arrive at the following suggestion:

(If) the phenomenon of consciousness (or mental experience) can arise only in the presence of some non-computational physical processes in the brain...(then)...one can presume...that such (putative) non-computational processes would also have to be inherent in the action of inanimate matter, since living human brains are ultimately composed of the same material, satisfying the same physical laws, as are the inaminate objects of the universe. We must therefore ask two things. First, why is it that the phenomenon of consciousness appears to occur, as far as we know, only in or relation to brains-although we should not rule out the possibility that consciousness might be present also in other appropriate physical systems? Second, we must ask how could it be that such a seemingly important (putative) ingredient as non-computational behaviour, presumed to be inherent-potentially, at least-in the actions of all material things, so far has entirely escaped the notice of physicists? No doubt the answer to the first question has something to do with the subtle and complex organization of the brain...with regard to the second question, we must indeed expect that vestiges of such non-computability should also be present, at some indiscernible level, in inaminate matter...For physics to be able to accommodate something as foreign to our current physical picture as is the phenomenon of consciousness, we must expect a profound change-one that alters the very underpinnings of our philosophical viewpoint as to the nature of reality.

So he is arguing here that such properties cannot possibly emerge from a complex system like the mind-brain if vestiges of such properties are not present at least, in primitive form in "inaminate matter". Assuming Penrose is correct, doesn't that rule out the possibility of being able to model such processes?

 

[bohm2]

Even though I'm not sure this is really panpsychism (maybe panprotopsychism?), I thought this PhD dissertation just published was interesting and kind of relates to this topic. The author writes:

I argue that consciousness emerges from proto-consciousness, the fundamental property that is disposed to give rise to consciousness. Proto-consciousness is not an arbitrarily posited property; following an important contemporary approach in neuroscience (the integrated information account), I understand proto-consciousness as information...I solve the combination problem that by adopting Giuolio Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness and demonstrating emerging higher-order conscious properties just is a system integrating information. Thus information is the fundamental property that, when integrated in a system such as a human being, is consciousness.

Naturalized Panpsychism: An Alternative to Fundamentalist Physicalism and Supernaturalism
http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1207&context=dissertations_mu

 

[ConradDJ]

There are quite a few entries in the latest FQXi essay contest on this theme, including one I wrote -- An Observable World.

The idea is that a fundamental theory in physics needs to address two distinct kinds of structure -- both the structure of what we think of as objective reality, and also the structure of the informational environment that makes facts measurable and communicable. I argue that both QM and Relativity can be seen as making the information-structure the more fundamental of the two. However, because observable information is inherently contextual, it can't be understood in terms of context-independent "bits".

Another of these essays I found interesting -- Toward an Informational Mechanics by Karl Coryat. It advocates for an "It from Bit" approach, but also takes seriously the fact that physical information is contextual.

 

[bohm2]

I noticed in your previous thread in your link you mentioned Rovelli's "relational QM". Tononi notes some points of similarities between his model and Rovelli's but there's one thing I never understood about all relational/contextual models: Don't relations need relata or intrinsic properties on some level, to ground them? It seems to me, that one can argue that things can't be relational all the way down?

 

[apeiron]

I noticed in your previous thread in your link you mentioned Rovelli's "relational QM". Tononi notes some points of similarities between his model and Rovelli's but there's one thing I never understood about all relational/contextual models: Don't relations need relata or intrinsic properties on some level, to ground them? It seems to me, that one can argue that things can't be relational all the way down?

Co-incidentally, Ellis addresses this in another FQXi essay.

Short answer, reductionist take the view that properties are intrinsic, but holists see properties as contextual.

So relata, along with the relations, are all jointly part of the whole that emerges.

Recognising Top-Down Causation by George F. R. Ellis

One of the basic assumptions implicit in the way physics is usually done is that all causation flows in a bottom up fashion, from micro to macro scales. However this is wrong in many cases in biology, and in particular in the way the brain functions. Here I make the case that it is also wrong in the case of digital computers – the paradigm of mechanistic algorithmic causation - and in many cases in physics, ranging from the origin of the arrow of time to the process of quantum state preparation. I consider some examples from classical physics; from quantum physics; and the case of digital computers, and then explain why it this possible without contradicting the causal powers of the underlying micro physics. Understanding the emergence of genuine complexity out of the underlying physics depends on recognising this kind of causation. It is a missing ingredient in present day theory; and taking it into account may help understand such mysteries as the measurement problem in quantum mechanics:

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1337

 

[bohm2]

I'm not sure Ellis is adressing this issue? The question is whether information derives from underlying "objects/things", rather than vice-versa; that is, is physics only a theory of the relative information that systems have about each other so that this information exhausts everything we can say about the world as Rovelli argues?

or

Is such information underlain by other stuff so that there is a bearer of relational properties that isn't exhausted by it's relational properties: so that it must have some intrinsic properties, etc.

Barbour's piece I linked above discusses the second option pretty well, I think:

But whatever authors may mean by information, quantum states still give us probabilities for outcomes in the form of factual information about things. Moreover, the probabilites themselves are determined by observation of things. I therefore conclude that things are the ground of being and constitute the ontological basement. Reality creates information and is separate from it. Once this has been recognized, we see that, for all its importance, information theory can in no way change what has always been the starting point of science: that structured things exist, in the first place in our mind and, as a reasonable conjecture given the remarkable correlations in our mental experiences, in an external world. Moreover, the proper task of ontology is to establish the structure of things.

Then again, I might be misunderstanding.

 

[apeiron]

Is such information underlain by other stuff so that there is a bearer of relational properties that isn't exhausted by it's relational properties: so that it must have some intrinsic properties, etc.

So you don't see any problem with the idea it is turtles all the way down? To me, I take that as a no go theorem really.

Barbour's piece I linked above discusses the second option pretty well, I think:

...no way change what has always been the starting point of science: that structured things exist, in the first place in our mind and, as a reasonable conjecture given the remarkable correlations in our mental experiences, in an external world.

Structure might exist, but why call it a thing rather than a process or a dynamical equilbrium? What justifies such a sweeping statement by Barbour?

Is it a surprise that if you model the world in terms of "thingness" (ie: standard issue atomism and mechanical causality) then the world does appear to correlate to that vision to a remarkable degree. Until it doesn't. Until you run into QM, mind, and pretty much any real-life complexity.

 

[ConradDJ]

I'm not sure Ellis is adressing this issue? The question is whether information derives from underlying "objects/things", rather than vice-versa; that is, is physics only a theory of the relative information that systems have about each other so that this information exhausts everything we can say about the world as Rovelli argues?

or is such information underlain by other stuff so that there is a bearer of relational properties that isn't exhausted by it's relational properties: so that it must have some intrinsic properties, etc.

Barbour's piece I linked above discusses the second option pretty well, I think:

"But whatever authors may mean by information, quantum states still give us probabilities for outcomes in the form of factual information about things. Moreover, the probabilites themselves are determined by observation of things. I therefore conclude that things are the ground of being and constitute the ontological basement. Reality creates information and is separate from it."

I agree that top down vs bottom-up is a different issue. For Ellis and Apeiron the two issues are closely related, but that's not the way I look at it. Both "top-down" and "bottom up" are ways of describing the world from an outside (objective) viewpoint. My argument is that this viewpoint needs to be supplemented by the "observer's" viewpoint -- by which I don't mean the subjective contents of someone's mind, but the physical world "out there" as seen from a particular place in a particular moment, in the web of interaction.

I would respond to Barbour -- Yes, the information content we get from interaction consists of facts about things; yes, we can interpret our interaction as the observation of real things with intrinsic properties. This is a very important aspect of our informational environment. However it does not provide any logical basis for the conclusion he draws.

Physics traditionally ignores the question of HOW this information content actually gets defined and measured through physical interaction. I argue that the context-structure that makes this possible is just as important as the fact-structure, and that in principle it's not reducible to the fact-structure. Therefore a fundamental theory needs to deal with both kinds of structure. I go on to argue that this dual structure is just what we find both in Relativity and in QM.

So (like Ellis and Apeiron) I don't think there's an Either/Or here. Rather, information is about things, but it's ALSO communication between viewpoints. I argue that the communications structure is ultimately fundamental -- but not in the sense that physical things should be eliminated from theory and replaced by what Coryat calls "standalone information".

Don't relations need relata or intrinsic properties on some level, to ground them? It seems to me, that one can argue that things can't be relational all the way down?

The situation is something like -- which came first, chicken or egg? What's fundamental in that case is neither chicken nor egg but the evolutionary process of self-replication. Here we're asking which is basic, real things-in-themselves or relational information. But what's basic is the functionality of the communicative environment that can support observable information about things.

As to the question about "all the way down" -- the origins of self-replicating systems are difficult to envision, but we don't imagine that suddenly there appeared well-defined organisms that could create copies of themselves. In a similar way it's difficult to envision the primitive stages of communicative interaction and the kinds of information-content it conveyed. But I don't think there's any logical basis for assuming there have to be well-defined things-in-themselves at bottom, as you and Barbour suggest.

Supposing you do begin with some kind of real things, with well-defined intrinsic properties -- consider what you would need to add to your picture to make these things and properties physically measurable. I think you'll find that a difficult problem. And if you take it seriously that (as QM strongly suggests) ALL information about things in our universe is apparently not only measurable (no "hidden variables") but indeed actually "measured" by something, then my position may seem to make more sense.

Thanks, I appreciate your pursuing these questions -- Conrad

 

[bohm2]

But I don't think there's any logical basis for assuming there have to be well-defined things-in-themselves at bottom, as you and Barbour suggest.

I thought you would agree with this, as it’s for the same reasons (if I understand you) that you don’t buy the “standalone information” view. I just can’t see how something can consist of nothing but “relational structure” all the way down to the "bottom". The only model I can think of where such a view was entertained was Leibniz's with respect to space. I voted for option 3 (none of the above) because I still see some form of "dualism" at the bottom level as currently understood (e.g. wave function in configuration space and particle in 3D space).This point by Monton spells out this "dualism":

We have two disconnected spaces, with presumably no causal connection between the particles in the one space and the field in the other space, and yet the stuff in the two spaces is evolving in tandem. Presumably there is a nomic connection between the stuff in the two spaces, which supports counterfactuals of the following form: if the stuff in one space had evolved differently, the stuff in the other space would have evolved differently. But having that nomic connection without a causal connection makes it all the more mysterious how these spaces are associated with each other.

Quantum Mechanics and 3N Dimensional Space
http://spot.colorado.edu/~monton/BradleyMonton/Articles_files/qm%203n%20d%20space%20final.pdf

 

[Maui]

Structure might exist, but why call it a thing rather than a process or a dynamical equilbrium? What justifies such a sweeping statement by Barbour?

Is it a surprise that if you model the world in terms of "thingness" (ie: standard issue atomism and mechanical causality) then the world does appear to correlate to that vision to a remarkable degree. Until it doesn't. Until you run into QM, mind, and pretty much any real-life complexity.

Agreed completely. At a fundamental level, the ultimate constituents of the world are beyond comprehension. It may well be our evolutionary inaptness to deal with such situations. Discoveries in fundamental physics and neuroscience cast doubt over the idea that we as humans will one day be able to understand anything at all in depth and detail. I thus voted 'none of the above'.

 

[apeiron]

The only model I can think of where such a view was entertained was Leibniz's with respect to space.

Peircean semiotics is one such ontological model where it is indeed "all relata" and holistic emergence.

Monton: We have two disconnected spaces, with presumably no causal connection between the particles in the one space and the field in the other space, and yet the stuff in the two spaces is evolving in tandem.

If you end up with a disconnected dualism that makes no sense to anyone, surely it is time to retrace your steps to discover where you went wrong?

 

[apeiron]

You cite Barbour at the beginning - http://platonia.com/bit_from_it.pdf - and here he is talking about the difference that a holistic approach makes.

Reality emerges as a self-organising sum over histories where global coherence determines local instances (even as it is also, bottom-up, constituted of them).

His resulting law of inertia became the prop of reductionism; it suggests that the most essential property of a body can be established by abstracting away everything in the universe that is observable. The catch, all too often forgotten, is that an inertial frame of reference is needed to define the motion. If one asks after its origin, one is led to an account of motion in which configurations, not bland empty space, determine local inertial motion (Appendix B). I believe this undermines reductionism. It also calls for a definition of the universe. I define it [7] as a set of possible configurations that nature has selected for reasons, perhaps of simplicity and consistency, that we have not yet fathomed.

So the OP poll needs a fourth option - the holistic story of "It from bit and bit from it" that covers such a fully relational, strongly emergent, view of the causality.

 

[bohm2]

If you end up with a disconnected dualism that makes no sense to anyone, surely it is time to retrace your steps to discover where you went wrong?

Nobody is claiming this is the final picture. It's the model we currently have. In QM, it's the wave-particle duality, in neuroscience/cognitive sciences it's the mind-body problem and quantum gravity is another area that awaits some unification between QM and gravity. What exactly needs to be done to allow for unification is an open question. There's nothing that excludes the possibility that nature is dualistic or monistic, etc. This assumes that a linguistic/symbolic chimp like us has the cognitive powers to probe nature deeply enough.

So the OP poll needs a fourth option - the holistic story of "It from bit and bit from it" that covers such a fully relational, strongly emergent, view of the causality.

Option 3

 

[apeiron]

What exactly needs to be done to allow for unification is an open question.

Yes, so we need to be considering answers that could possibly work.

Monton points out the Liebnizian absurdity that results from standard thinking - you end up with two realms that must be completely in correlation, but with no possible causal connection. Once you are up the cul de sac that leads to windowless monads, time to back up and see where your thinking took a wrong direction.

There's nothing that excludes the possibility that nature is dualistic or monistic, etc. This assumes that a linguistic/symbolic chimp like us has the cognitive powers to probe nature deeply enough.

On the contrary, we should be smart enough to recognise a no go theorem when we run up against it.

Dualism has to be excluded on the grounds of logic if we find ourselves saying that there both must be an interaction, and there can't be an interaction. Calling this impasse "mysterious" is just avoiding the issue.

 

[bohm2]

Dualism has to be excluded on the grounds of logic if we find ourselves saying that there both must be an interaction, and there can't be an interaction. Calling this impasse "mysterious" is just avoiding the issue.

It kinds of depends on what one means by interaction. And not that I'm necessarily suggesting that there's a connection in the problems listed above, but consider quantum entanglement. You have what seems to look like an invisible, seemingly instantaneous wire/hidden signal between two particles. As some physicists have described it:

...whatever causes entanglement does not travel from one place to the other; the category of “place” simply isn't meaningful to it. It might be said to lie *beyond* spacetime. Two particles that are half a world apart are, in some deeper sense, right on top of each other.

Of course, one doesn't directly "see" any entanglements, just the correlations but then what is responsible for such instantaneous correlations? They are not the normal classical "interactions" as traditionally understood. All I'm saying is that we should not set apriori limits on some metaphysical reasons of what type of -ism (monism/dualism) there is. With respect to mysterianism/cognitive closure, , I'm not saying that we should abandon hope but be open to the possibility, as many have argued, that like all other animals we have cognitive limitations. There may be stuff that we will never know. Areas where we seem to have little or no progress (philosophical questions like free will, MBP/"hard" problem, etc.) may be beyond our capabilities.

 

[ConradDJ]

I argue that the communications structure is ultimately fundamental -- but not in the sense that physical things should be eliminated from theory and replaced by what Coryat calls "standalone information".
...
But I don't think there's any logical basis for assuming there have to be well-defined things-in-themselves at bottom, as you and Barbour suggest.

I thought you would agree with this, as it’s for the same reasons (if I understand you) that you don’t buy the “standalone information” view. I just can’t see how something can consist of nothing but “relational structure” all the way down to the "bottom"

I agree with you in part... in general, wherever there’s “relational structure” there are also things of some kind IN the relationships. I don’t believe in “standalone information” for the same reason I don’t believe in “standalone things”.

Though it’s intuitively obvious to us that relationships imply things, it’s not intuitively obvious that things imply relationships. It’s very easy for us to imagine objects existing in and of themselves, with intrinsic properties, independent of anything else in the world. (In fact, that was Ockham’s criterion for the “reality” of a thing – that you could still imagine it as existing even if everything else in the universe were no longer there.) My thought is that the notion of things-in-themselves is nonsense, apart from a system of relationships that communicates information about them. That's why I like Rovelli's Relational QM.

This debate tends to be framed – Either the world is made of Things, Or the world is made of Relationships. But I believe relationships only exist because of things, and it’s equally true that things exist only in and through their relationships. The latter part of that sentence is what needs emphasis, against our “common sense” intuition.

As to the foundations – I tend to imagine the low-level physics in terms of graph theory. There we have nodes and edges, but a good deal of structure needs to evolve before we have anything that resembles a physical thing (particle) in dynamic spacetime relationships with other things. So the lowest level may have a kind of “duality” that’s a precursor to the thing/relationship dichotomy. That’s what I had in mind by bringing up chickens and eggs in the previous post.

Thanks again – Conrad

 

[apeiron]

It kinds of depends on what one means by interaction. And not that I'm necessarily suggesting that there's a connection in the problems listed above, but consider quantum entanglement. You have what seems to look like an invisible, seemingly instantaneous wire/hidden signal between two particles. As some physicists have described it:

Yes. And surely this proves my point? It illustrates the conviction that ontic dualism cannot possibly be the case and so there must be some "hidden" non-local interaction.

So if we accept dualism is a no go, then that means we can get on with considering the alternatives.

Holistic causality also recognises contextual causation - global or top-down acting constraints. And that at least fits generally with QM and decoherence type interpretations.

To get back to the OP, I very much like Davies arguments which you cited right at the start.

See also the paper which was the basis for that chapter... http://arxiv.org/ftp/quant-ph/papers/0703/0703041.pdf

He makes clear the consequences for theory of the fact that the universe's information is materially constrained by holographic bounds. It from bit presumes an interactive ontology. It is about the questions the universe, as a globally decohering context, can ask of its specific space time locales. So, the universe may be "made of bits", but it is also forming those bits. And there is thus a material limit to the crispness of those bits.