FQXi is organizing its fifth essay contest “It from Bit or Bit from It” to which I submitted yesterday an essay (and it should be displayed there within ten days at which time I will replace the link to it). I'm especially interested in the answers addressing the new experimental set-ups for verifying the proposed hypothesis about the structure of events (for photons, electrons, etc.).
Here is the abstract:
The fathers of the Scientific Revolution intentionally excluded mind from the scientific agenda: they wanted to (and did) build science based on the much more familiar, spatial, considerations, while the mind, they agreed, is of non-spatial nature. It seems that behind the attraction of “it from bit” lies a long suppressed in science but deep seated and probably scientifically fruitful desire to see something ‘mental’ emerge as the principal element in the structure of the Universe. Yet it would be very naïve to hope that the integration of the ‘mental’ into a scientific view can be accomplished in the historically familiar, incremental, manner, for example, by simply bringing “bits” into the focus. The scientific common sense suggests: to achieve such extraordinary goal requires an extraordinary scientific step, which I propose is the replacement of our numeric ‘glasses’ with new, non-numeric, ‘glasses’. To this end, we have developed a fundamentally new—‘informational’, or structural—form of data representation, called “struct”, intended to capture previously inaccessible view of objects and processes. It might be considered as a far-reaching generalization of the underlying idea of causal sets (in quantum gravity). The struct promises not only to serve as the blueprint for all “its”, including space, but is supposed to elucidate the nature of the discovered in the last century ubiquitous discreteness. However, as never before in the history of science, the pragmatic question is this: Since it is the spatial considerations that for several millennia have fully guided the development of mathematics and physics, how many physicists are prepared to start the development of physics more or less anew, on top of such or similar informational structure (as opposed to the present ‘safe’ flirtations with the bits)?
http://www.cs.unb.ca/~goldfarb/FQXi_5.pdf
In mathematics the spatial view to things is cultivated in topology and the 'mental' view in algebra. You can find mathematics texts in which numbers either don't appear at all, or only at the very end. So the idea that all physics looks through 'numerical glasses' is not justified. Your structure diagrams can easily be represented with the operations of standard set theory. Who follows our growing capabilities of associating mental processes with spatial structures in the brain will probably find a dichotomy 'spatial' and 'mental' ridiculous. In my oppinion they are only two sides of the same medal, just as topology and algebra are in mathematics.
Hello Lev !
I welcome your intent to stir up a little bit the conventional thinking, but you should be careful when stating that mind is excluded from quantum physics. To me indeed the most disturbing or exciting fact is that it is not excluded. Please consult the book from David Bohm (I do not remember the name of the book, it might have been the Quantum Theory) in explanation of the Schroedingers cat paradox, he claims that a measurement on the system is done when a mindful being has received the information about it. Even though it is a bit too much of mysticism for my stomach it does point in th direction you want to go.
In my view the formalism of Quantum Physics (QP) theory has been built on a wrong footing - that is why many (including Einstein) find it incomplete. The quantum reality has been modeled as an improvement of a Newtonian physics (NP). The NP describes the world in terms of mechanical variables such as position and impuls, and as far as mesurements are considered having implicitly in mind a classical Shannon information described by Boolean laws, and of course mathematical analysis. In short, Newtonian physics is thought to be OK except in a certain region of sizes and energies where this "improved" version should be used. On top of that, contemporary schools of physics would not forget to emphasize that QP has a nice property that it would asymptotically turn into safety of NP when objects are large or hot enough., which would have to coinvince us that this Newtonian - Quantum symbiosis functions in a perfect harmony.
However, the true reality cannot be described in these simple terms (position, velocity, time, energy, classical bits of information). For example electrons in an atom do not have Newtonian path nor Newtonian angular momentum when orbiting the nucleus. now if we use these same concepts in the QP how could it ever be logical ? The same goes for photon paths in a double slit experiment or welches-weg experiment and EPR experiment with entangled particles: there is not any sense of even asking, much less in answers obtained on mechanical variables in any of these experiments.
In my view, QF has to be redesigned so that it relies on more natural observables than mechanical ones, such as the quantum information. In that case, if you like it so much, QP will be a theory of transfering of information between Universe and a "mindful being". We already know that we see order in Universe merely because our minds simplify things. We also know that when we do not touch it (ie when we do not "measure" it) then, by definition, Universe unfolds in an "undisturbed" quantum fashion that allows description in terms of quantum laws (and quantum information). The mesurement, done by a Mind, is then "projecton" of a part of Universe to a classical infomation. That part of the Universe can be your experimental setup on which you are doing measurements. Following that insight, one may be compelled to define a "mind" or "soul" to be such a point in the Universe where normal, undisturbed flow of quantum information if projected (reduced, simplified) to a classical information. It would seem that our less important body parts (arms, legs, mouth, belly, bowls) have a function of providing the energy required to perform the conversion form quantum to classical information.
The big question is: what is the purpose of such points in the Universe ?
Ulrich: "In mathematics the spatial view to things is cultivated in topology and the 'mental' view in algebra."
I do not understand your logic at all: if you look into the history of mathematics, you would notice that *all* algebraic concepts---Including all algebraic operations and structures--- were introduced to *support* our 'spatial' needs. Please pick any concrete example and we can look into it.
"Your structure diagrams can easily be represented with the operations of standard set theory."
What is that supposed to mean? ;--)
Set theory is just a present meta-language for a formal discourse.
But again thanks for the interest.
Mario,
Thanks for the interest!
I'm afraid, though, it looks as if you haven't read my essay or even its introductory section. ;--)
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