On 7/1/2014 6:52 PM, LizR wrote:
On 2 July 2014 05:33, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 7/1/2014 1:01 AM, LizR wrote:
On 1 July 2014 17:59, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
On 6/30/2014 9:35 PM, LizR wrote:
ISTM...
In primitive materialism, what exists are space / time and matter /
energy.
Information is an emergent property of the arrangements of those
things, like
entropy. Neither of these exist at the level of fundamental particles,
or
Planck cells, or strings, or whatever else may be the primitive
mass-energy/space-time) involved.
There are problems with this view if information has primitive status,
which
would indicate that the real picture is something like "it from bit" or
what
might be called "primitive informationism". Evidence for PI come from
the
entropy of black holes, the black hole information paradox, the Landauer
limit, the Beckenstein bound, the holographic principle, and (unless I
already
covered that) the requirement that erasing a bit of information
requires some
irreducible amount of energy. (And maybe some other things I don't know
about
... perish the thought).
That's the Landauer limit, which isn't really relevant at a fundamental
level.
It's a thermodynamic law which is reducible to statistical mechanics.
Interesting. How is the energy required to erase a single bit reducible to
statistical mechanics?
I'd appreciate an answer to this question, if you have one. I can't see the connection
and am genuinely interested, I wasn't being rhetorical.
Erasing a bit means putting it in a known state, which is a decrease in entropy. Since
overall entropy cannot decrease this must be transferred to the environment. If the
environment is at temperature T the work required to do this is ST, or for one bit
kTln(2). This is a very small number because Boltzmann's constant k is very small. So
real computers use many orders of magnitude more energy per bit. Feynman noted that it
can be avoided by using reversible computing.
PI isn't equivalent to comp, but from what you said above PI might be a
necessary consequence of comp, which would give the "ontological chain"
arithmetic -> consciousness -> information -> matter (I think ... this
is all
"ISTM" of course).
OK, except I think the chain is:
arithmetic -> information -> matter -> consciousness -> arithmetic
That doesn't make sense to me. I mean everything except the last term is
OK, but
you're apparently claiming that arithmetic is fundamental AND an invention
of the
human mind. Which at first glance looks suspiciously like fence sitting and
having
and eating your cake...
Unless you have a theory of circular ontology, of course, in which case
please fill
in a few more details.
Why? The details are no different than in the linear case. In the details
you look
at each "->" separately. What's different about the circular case is that
you don't
suppose that one of the levels is "fundamental" or "primitive".
OK, so how does that work? Like I said, I don't understand it. Intuitively, saying that
A causes B and B causes A doesn't appear to make sense,
It's not a causal relationship, it's an explanatory "->".
it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation (though luckily evolution can answer that
one). Some more information would be appreciated.
But I generally consider ontolgy to be derivative. You gather data, create
a model,
test it. If it passes every test, makes good predictions, fits with other
theories,
then you think it's a pretty good model and may be telling you what the
world is
like. THEN you look at and ask what are the essential parts of it, what
does it
require to exist. But that's more of a philosophical than a scientific
enterprise,
because, as in QM, there maybe radically different ways to ascribe an
ontology to
the same mathematical system. Even Bruno's very abstract theory is
ambiguous about
whether the ur-stuff is arithmetic or threads of computation. You can
probably show
they are empirically equivalent - just like Hilbert space and Feynman paths
give the
same answers but are ontologically quite different.
OK. How you get to it is, of course, via empiricism (how else?). But so far most
physicists (that I've come across) have considered that a reductionist ontology is most
likely to be correct.
What would a non-reductionist ontology look like? Some kind of Holism. Plotinus talks
about "The One", but what good is that. If you stop taking this stuff so seriously
(searching for THE TRUTH) and think of these theories as different models for an
unknowable reality, then you see that a model with ONE part isn't very useful. You
immediately then have to start explaining why it "seems" to have parts in spite of being
The One.
Of course the majority doesn't rule in physics, and it's fine that you prefer a circular
ontology, I'd just like to know how it's actually supposed to work, (preferably sans
waffle, if you can manage it).
and I'm not so inclined to take it as more than another possible model of
the world.
We aren't in a position to do more than build models of the world. If you think it's a
possible model then that's /all/ you can ever claim for it, well, unless some evidence
comes along that disproves it, when you can't even do that.
I think of it as a way to describe and predict and think about the world;
but
without supposing that it's possible to prove or to know with certainty the
world
must be that way.
Of course, we can't know for certain what the world is like.
As for A Garrett Lisi, I was under the impression that his particles were
something like a "point in a weight diagram" - or something - which sounds
to me
at least like some form of information theoretic entity. But I have to
admit my
understanding of how birds and flowers could emerge from the E8 group or
whatever
it's called is, well, about like this...
In a way, all of fundamental physics posits information theoretic entities.
"Particles" are nothing more than "what satisfies particle equations". Bruno
complains about Aristotle and "primitive matter", but I don't know any
physicists
who go around saying,"I've discovered primitive matter." or "Let's work on
finding
primitive matter."
Well, I think Bruno thinks it's more an unconscious assumption for most physicists,
rather than something explicitly stated. For example your statement about your mother
implicitly assumes her mind is "nothing but" what her brain does. That's a primitive
materialist assumption
But it's not an assumption. There's lots of evidence for it and
practically none
against it.
So it /is/ an assumption, made for the very reasonable reason that there's a lot of
evidence in its favour. Or were you just disagreeing for the sake of it?
I'm disagreeing with the implication that it's "just" and assumption. You don't call "New
Zealand is an English speaking country" an assumption do you?
I don't think Bruno contests that. He just supposes that this mind/body
relation
can be explained from a level he considers more basic (but I don't).
Well quite clearly you don't, if you think the most likely ontology is circular. In that
case nothing can be "more basic", by definition.
(and one that may be right, of course) but my point is that no one stops to make it
explicit, because nowadays it's deeply ingrained in the thought processes of anyone who
isn't strongly religious, and "goes without saying".
They just want a theory that is a little more comprehensive, a little more
accurate, a little more predictive than the one they have now. And they
couldn't
care less what stuff is needed in their theory - only that it works.
So why the century-long kerfuffle about the correct interpretation of quantum
mechanics? :-)
There are two reasons for worrying about the interpretation of QM. One is
that an
interpretation may really be, or lead to, a different theory, i.e.
something that is
testable. Obviously GRW and Penrose collapse theories are in principle testable.
Deutsch thinks a quantum computer could test Everett's interpretation.
However all the interpretations involve different "stuff" i.e. what is considered to be
real. Physicists do appear to worry about the stuff in their theories, at least
according to all the books I've read by physicists. They are not merely about theory +
observations. There is talk about how the fire gets into the equations and suchlike. I
think there's a name for the view that theory + observation are the only thing that
should be cared about (apart from "shut up and calculate", I mean) but I can't remember
what it is. (Maybe David can enlighten me...)
"Instrumentalism". But I've noted above there are reasons to think about what stuff your
theory implies even when you know the theory is 'wrong' as we thing GR is wrong.
Brent
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