[Fis] it from bit

Sat Jan 20 00:22:03 CET 2024

To Fis

January 19,2024

Hello to All, 

I am learning a lot from these discussions. Warm thanks.  I hope I may add two new issues:

i.
Please take a bit of time to read the Kauffman Roli recent article, link attached again: “Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe.”  We define life in a new way: i. Kantian Whole; ii Catalytic Closure; iii Constraint Closure; iv. Spatial closure.  “Constraint Closure”, introduced in 2015 by Mael Montevil and Mateo Mossio, is a transformative idea. It is described in detail in the attached. A concrete example is the self -reproducing collectively autocatalytic set of 9 peptides created by Gonen Ashkenasy, Figure 2 in the attached. Please join me in this puzzle. Gonen’s system specifically constructs itself.  Moreover there is no “structure”  that is a separable set of INSTRUCTIONS for how to build this 9 peptide set.  The familiar distinction between hardware and software fails completely for Gonen’s system. It does not describe itself, it does thermodynamic work to construct specifically itself. There are no “abstract bits”, but concrete material processes.

All this seems fundamentally different than one normal concept of information. For example, consider a meter by meter Mondrian painting. “I” choose to partition it into 1 millimeter squares and use 4 bits to record the dominant wavelength in each square.  So, 4 x 10 ^ 6 bits describes the painting. I can then transmit this set of bits to computers all over the world that couple to entirely different physical devices using different materials and different pigments to print copies of the painting.  

Here the distinction between software and hardware is clear, and our normal sense of information is clear. This is also Aristotle’s four cause: Formal, Material, Efficient, Final. Does “semantics” enter into the Final cause aspect?  “I” chose the coarse graining, and “I” sent the bits to have them printed out around the world.

These two, a living entity, e.g. Gonen’s set, and the bit description of the Mondrian seem fundamentally different, and both are true. What does that mean? Please consider also that the flowering of the biosphere for 4 billion years is the flowering of Gonen’s set. More, the addition of DNA and its replication and the genetic code does not alter this. Cells construct specifically themselves. The printers around the world print anything sent to them to print.

II.

Among the interpretations of Quantum Mechanics, consider that of Heisenberg, 1958. The quantum state is a “potentia hovering ghost-like between an idea and reality”.  Potentia are neither true nor false. From this, Ruth Kastner, Mike Epperson and I have taken, “Res potentia, ontologically real Possibles, and Res extensia, ontologically real Actuals.  Res potentia and Res Extensia does not inherit the Mind Body Problem.  This interpretation of QM is not Cartesian substance dualism because potenta are not substances. It is not neutral monism, which lacks potentia. It is not materialism which lacks potentia, and it is not Idealism, which lacks Res Extensa.

Two other points seem important. 

The claim that “collapse of the wave function” is due to physical cause seems to be almost ruled out.  But if the quantum states are potentia, then no physical cause can convert an ontologically real Possible into an ontologically real Actual. So that fits the Heisenberg 1958 interpretation. 

The hypothesis of Res potentia and Res extensa invites the scientifically testable hypothesis that MIND actualizes potentia. Mind collapses the wave function as von Neumann sometimes thought.  Dean Radin and his colleagues have experimental evidence using the two slit experiment supporting this claim currently at 6.49 sigma. If these results hold up with wide and independent tests, then there is a role for MIND converting Possible to Actuals in the becoming of the universe. And Responsible Free Will is not ruled out. If all this is true, what are the implications for “Information”? Wheeler’s It from Bit? Our use of 4 x 10 ^ 6 bits to encode the Mondrian and send it. And, oddly Aristotle’s four causes? 

Thanks for patience.

Stu

“IS THE EMERGEGENCE OF LIFE…”  ON ARXIV LINK

https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://arxiv.org/abs/2401.09514__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Vl7ZLB5upZfV1_ZWeJxeCXf7ok7Mo4aNDVLCScVFiLuFtvsvHSLammRtdlnqKTMAruNyJzoKQ2khg1yTTPIPmV8$ 

> On Jan 19, 2024, at 2:23 PM, Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Wheeler’s slogan (“it from bit”) stands for how we bring forth consistent descriptions into our world by making many guesses (scientific hypotheses) and 
> correlating them with the help of imagination and reason until a coherent story emerges. The slogan is clever but has great utility, in that this is the way science is 
> done. Of course the “bits” are big chunks and not just little 0’s and 1’s. However, in the game of twenty questions, each question is answered by Yes or No, and in this sense 
> science can be structured in terms of bits. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a Dean of Science at an Unnamed University. I asked him how he did all that research with graduate students and acted as Dean for so many years. He said - well for me science is a business and for being Dean, I am very good at making binary decisions with no waste of time. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jan 19, 2024, at 1:09 PM, Marcus Abundis <55mrcs at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> The problem with ‘it from bit’ is that it is a clever phrase with little actual utility, but sounds smart and thus continually draws in new individuals who have yet to think deeply about underlying issues.
>> 
>> Marcus
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