Hi Ross and Roger
We don't speak much any more, Roger, but I can distinctly hear
your voice above the din and I notice your good inputs and
responses - particularly in the "Emotion" thread. This one about
information is however so interesting that I must join in.
Welcome Ross, and thanks for the enclosed article. The author
certainly is a gifted popularizer. It is always fun to read about the
riddles of modern physics and the many theories forwarded to
reconciliation the paradoxes of Quantum Theory (above all) but I
am old enough to remember that Relativity was a great mind-
twister once, and - as the author says - even a simple concept like
"energy" is at its root a mystery, yet very useful. And I wonder if
not this new approach of Zeilinger will be a success too.
At first sight Zeilinger's shift from classical physics to information
physics may resemble Pirsig's from subject/object metaphysics to
value metaphysics - Zeilinger looked for the ...
> the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows.
.......and found it in the "bit", still there is a difference. Even if
information is "abstract" - seen in a subject/object
(abstract/concrete) context, it's still supposed to be another
abstract theory about an abstract physical word. Do you get the
point: Pirsig took the full leap and said: THERE IS NO ABSTRACT-
CONCRETE DIVIDE however many retro-abstractions are made.
If Zeilinger had made a Dynamic/Static divide of his "reality=
information" insight and postulated that the physical world is the
first information "fallout" it would have been (like you say)
".... related to the idea of Quality, for what is information but
patterns of value?"
because you are darned right: Information is Value.
Now, Zeilinger really HAS postulated that the physical world is
information and maybe it will be the last straws that breaks the
SOM's back.
Bo
PS: There is one point in the article I want to dwell on. The author
says:
> > The special theory of relativity is also based on two principles,
> > namely, "Inside a speeding transatlantic jet, you have no way of
> > knowing how fast you are going," and "The speed of light shone from
> > this jet is the same as the speed of light from a stationary
> > source." That second statement is counterintuitive, but it is simple
> > to understand and turns out to be a stubborn experimental fact. And
> > general relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity, is based on the
> > thought that a freely falling person feels no weight. None of these
> > theories suffer from the confusions of quantum mechanics.
> >
> >
> > Now Zeilinger proposes to rebuild quantum mechanics on a similar
> > basis, to put it in terms that need no debatable philosophy.
> >
> >
> > Perhaps it is no surprise that the terms he uses are those of
> > information. We live in the age of information. We depend
> > increasingly on information technology, our schools teach
> > information processing and information science, and our industry and
> > commerce are information based. But until now, the concept of
> > information has only hovered on the edge of physics.
> >
> >
> > About a decade ago, John Archibald
Does this
> > seem like a reasonable suggestion?
> >
> >
> > (Sorry if this has been asked before, I'm new here)
> >
> >
> > Ross.
> >
> >
> > In the beginning was the bit
> Hello,
>
>
> I have a burning question, kinda...
>
>
> I've often wondered if physicl systems can be described purely in
> terms of the transfer of information. I recently found an article in
> New Scientist magazine (see below) about recasting physics in just
> such terms. This, to me, seems like it might be related to the idea of
> Quality, for what is information but patterns of value? Does this seem
> like a reasonable suggestion?
>
>
> (Sorry if this has been asked before, I'm new here)
>
>
> Ross.
>
>
> In the beginning was the bit
> 17 Feb 01
>
>
> And after that came the rest of the weird world, says Hans Christian
> von Baeyer
>
>
> "NOBODY understands quantum mechanics," lamented Richard Feynman. But
> Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna aims to prove him wrong.
> His research group has demonstrated the futuristic phenomena of
> quantum teleportation and quantum encryption, and these successes have
> encouraged Zeilinger to search for the essence of quantum
> mechanics-the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. He
> believes that he has found it. If he is right, all the mysteries of
> the quantum world will turn out to be inescapable consequences of a
> single, simple idea.
>
>
> Quantum theory describes the world with astonishing precision, whether
> applied to elementary particles a hundred thousand times smaller than
> atoms or to currents in superconducting rings a billion times larger.
> And yet it seems to present a catalogue of intertwined conundrums. The
> most fundamental is quantisation, the notion that energy, spin and
> other quantities only come in discrete steps. Another enigma is the
> probabilistic nature of the quantum world, at odds with the classical
> world of definite physical properties. Then there is entanglement, the
> profound connectedness of objects and processes across large
> distances, and superposition, the astonishing proposition that an
> electron can be both here and there, a current can flow simultaneously
> clockwise and anticlockwise, and a cat can be both dead and alive,
> until you look to see which.
>
>
> Physicists have anxiously devised one philosophical interpretation of
> quantum mechanics after another. In the Copenhagen interpretation, the
> outcome of an experiment is only revealed when the quantum system
> interacts with a macroscopic apparatus in the laboratory, which
> eliminates all possibilities but one. The many-worlds interpretation
> insists that all possible outcomes of an experiment actually occur in
> as many parallel universes, but as we only occupy a single branch of
> the hydra-headed multiverse, we experience only one outcome. Or, if
> you prefer, there's the guiding wave interpretation, which assigns an
> undetectable "pilot wave" to each particle to steer it along a
> perfectly determined path. Altogether there are at least eight serious
> and reputable interpretations of the theory, which implies that no
> single one is convincing.
>
>
> Zeilinger thinks that before we can truly understand quantum theory,
> it must be connected in some way to what we know and feel. The
> problem, he says, is the lack of a simple underlying principle, an
> Urprinzip. All the other major theories of physics are based on such
> principles-pithy, comprehensible maxims that anchor the formulae in
> the everyday world.
>
>
> Take the science of heat. Though highly mathematical and abstract,
> thermodynamics is based on two basic principles that can be described
> in colloquial terms. The first law of thermodynamics is just the
> conservation of energy: it means that there are no perpetual motion
> machines. The second law of thermodynamics is simply the statement
> that heat tends to flow from warm objects to cooler ones. When the
> stuff called energy was invented to quantify these laws, it was
> strange and undefinable, and even today we don't know what energy is.
> Yet energy quickly became a robust term in daily conversation and
> government policy.
>
>
> The special theory of relativity is also based on two principles,
> namely, "Inside a speeding transatlantic jet, you have no way of
> knowing how fast you are going," and "The speed of light shone from
> this jet is the same as the speed of light from a stationary source."
> That second statement is counterintuitive, but it is simple to
> understand and turns out to be a stubborn experimental fact. And
> general relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity, is based on the
> thought that a freely falling person feels no weight. None of these
> theories suffer from the confusions of quantum mechanics.
>
>
> Now Zeilinger proposes to rebuild quantum mechanics on a similar
> basis, to put it in terms that need no debatable philosophy.
>
>
> Perhaps it is no surprise that the terms he uses are those of
> information. We live in the age of information. We depend increasingly
> on information technology, our schools teach information processing
> and information science, and our industry and commerce are information
> based. But until now, the concept of information has only hovered on
> the edge of physics.
>
>
> About a decade ago, John Archibald
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