Posted on 03/27/2010 11:06:22 AM PDT by LibWhacker
The new role that quantum information plays in gravity sets the scene for a dramatic unification of ideas in physics
One of the hottest new ideas in physics is that gravity is an emergent phenomena; that it somehow arises from the complex interaction of simpler things.
A few month's ago, Erik Verlinde at the the University of Amsterdam put forward one such idea which has taken the world of physics by storm. Verlinde suggested that gravity is merely a manifestation of entropy in the Universe. His idea is based on the second law of thermodynamics, that entropy always increases over time. It suggests that differences in entropy between parts of the Universe generates a force that redistributes matter in a way that maximises entropy. This is the force we call gravity.
What's exciting about the approach is that it dramatically simplifies the theoretical scaffolding that supports modern physics. And while it has its limitations--for example, it generates Newton's laws of gravity rather than Einstein's--it has some advantages too, such as the ability to account for the magnitude of dark energy which conventional theories of gravity struggle with.
But perhaps the most powerful idea to emerge from Verlinde's approach is that gravity is essentially a phenomenon of information.
Today, this idea gets a useful boost from Jae-Weon Lee at Jungwon University in South Korea and a couple of buddies. They use the idea of quantum information to derive a theory of gravity and they do it taking a slightly different tack to Verlinde.
At the heart of their idea is the tricky question of what happens to information when it enters a black hole. Physicists have puzzled over this for decades with little consensus. But one thing they agree on is Landauer's principle: that erasing a bit of quantum information always increases the entropy of the Universe by a certain small amount and requires a specific amount of energy.
Jae-Weon and co assume that this erasure process must occur at the black hole horizon. And if so, spacetime must organise itself in a way that maximises entropy at these horizons. In other words, it generates a gravity-like force.
That's intriguing for several reasons. First, Jae-Weon and co assume the existence of spacetime and its geometry and simply ask what form it must take if information is being erased at horizons in this way.
It also relates gravity to quantum information for the first time. Over recent years many results in quantum mechanics have pointed to the increasingly important role that information appears to play in the Universe.
Some physicists are convinced that the properties of information do not come from the behaviour of information carriers such as photons and electrons but the other way round. They think that information itself is the ghostly bedrock on which our universe is built.
Gravity has always been a fly in this ointment. But the growing realisation that information plays a fundamental role here too, could open the way to the kind of unification between the quantum mechanics and relativity that physicists have dreamed of.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1001.5445: Gravity from Quantum Information
Can you direct me to an article or book that describes these experiments? I’ve read several texts on quantum physics, and so far have found for the most part only theoretical discussion. It’s one thing to come up with a probabilistic treatment that can be reconciled mathematically with the known physical laws. Quite another thing to come up with a theory that can be tested favorably against actual statistics.
Maybe you are referring to the two slit experiments? I’m not sure if that convinces me. There are other explanations for that, as Bohm showed.
Try this: Multiscale Methods in Quantum Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (Trends in Mathematics)
“If you want proof you have to go to mathematics. Deductive reasoning provides a proof.”
So you do not think the possibility of heavier-than-air human flight has been proven? It certainly wasn’t proved by mathematics. It was proved my demonstration.
I’m afraid you’ve been taken in by the logical postivists, and their mystic concept of “proof.”
I never mentioned “inductive” reason (of which there really is no such thing).
The concept of coherent light was a hypothesis for a long time. The idea of stimulated light emission was introuduced by Einstein in 1905. For years the concept of coherent light was discussed and patents taken out, but it was never proven. It was not until 1960 that the concept of coherent stimulated light was proved, not by mathematics, but a working model created by Theodore Maiman. The hypothesis of coherent light, we now call lasers, was proved, and it is now a proven workable theory.
You, like so many others influenced by the academic perversions of logical positivism, linguistic analysis, and postmodernism, have swallowed the skepticism inflicted on every academic discipline by Hume and Kant. I do not blame you. I would like to help you overcome them, but that is up to you.
Hank
Theorizing about dark energy and dark matter is trying to force the geometro-dynamics of space-time into a bed of Procrustes of concepts we devised to describe interactions of matter and energy, not changes in space and time themselves.
Thanks. I’ll read it.
Unless I'm mistaken, theories are proven as fact when demonstrated through exeriments that can be duplicated.
You're mixing apples and oranges. It takes only one counter example to disprove a proposition. All apples are red. Is that statement true? Well, all you have to do is show a counter example, there is a yellow apple, and the proposition is disproved. This is still deductive reasoning.
Theories in science are not proven as fact. They can only be supported by experimental data. Newtonian theory was supported by experimental data for 200 years. And then in the late 18th century physicists observed data that contradicted Newton's theory. So they had to come up with a better theory. And that was Einstein's theory of relativity. But very soon relativity was contradicted by observations of subatomic particles. So they had to come up with a theory to explain that contradiction, and that was quantum mechanics.
So physics now has two theories that contradict each other, relativity and quantum mechanics. And that's why they are looking for a better theory.
The distinction here is between proving a theory and supporting it. Science does not prove theories. It can only support a theory with data. But this is inductive reasoning, and inductive reasoning is not proof.
Same here, FRiend....
The article is otherwise rather frustrating, in that it does not provide a means by which information gets a physical component.
Information = Gravity ping....
I've seen speculation that time is a manifestation of entropy.... sorta like gravity, according to this theory.
Suppose they're both correct. If so, rather than space-time, perhaps it's more appropriate to talk about gravity-time.
bflr
Because it is intrinsically important to this subject.
From the article:
They think that information itself is the ghostly bedrock on which our universe is built.
Jesus Christ is the Word. He made everything, and by Him all things consist, or hold together.
Colossians 115 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
In my opinion this theory seems to have scriptural basis.
I'm thinking many modern scientists are going to have a hard time seeing it, though. They're not going to want to face up to the fact that information doesn't just make itself. It has a Source.
Sad, because the founders of this republic considered this to be as obvious as the nose on your face.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created..."
And the Apostle Paul knew it almost 2000 years ago.
Thanks for the ping!
for your various ping lists
Thanks Kevmo
Deep into his blog. Is there anything more recent than 01/09?
“manifestation of entropy”
It’s gotta be more than that, though. The Special Theory of Relativity associates it with motion. But there is no complete theory of time at this point.
This guy is the real deal. Here's another sample from the Kurzweil site. My first sample was from there also.
Question:Is it possible to provide a consistent theory of nonexistence? In some way, nonexistence gives us some kind of information about itself, that is, nonexistence cannot be destroyed, nor created, it has no boundaries, it has no surface, it is complete, it is nothing, etc.
Answer:Yes! It is possible. You need a mathematically precise definition of nonexistence to do so. I'll try to put this into words. I hope you understand a little bit of mathematics.
To create a consistent theory of nonexistence and existence, you have to make a distinction between 'complete, consistent, closed' nonexistence; and 'incomplete, inconsistent, non-closed' nonexistence, because they are two different things and they different properties. (The terms 'complete', 'consistent', and 'closed' are used in their mathematical sense).
'Complete, consistent, closed nonexistence' cannot be destroyed because it is nothing and you can't destroy nothing; but it can be created. It is created by black holes. It exists inside the event horizon of every black hole. It also existed prior to the creation of the energy that began the Big Bang.
Existence is a direct representation. (See my blog for the definition of direct representation). It is not based on information. Information is just the basis for human communication. See my blog for proof of this.
Existence is based on 'incomplete, inconsistent, non-closed' nonexistence.
Start with complete, consistent, closed nonexistence; aka 'nothing'. This is the state that existed before the creation of the bosonic energy that created the Big Bang.
When the first boson/antiboson pair and the dark energy between them are created by a nilpotent symmetric difference in nonexistence, it breaks the symmetry of 'complete, consistent, closed' nonexistence and nonexistence becomes 'incomplete, inconsistent, and non-closed due to the existence of the nilpotent symmetric difference between the boson, antiboson, dark energy triplet.
The existence of the nilpotent symmetric difference creates an event horizon in nonexistence that separates existence from nonexistence. The difference in nonexistence is the event horizon.
At this point nonexistence is incomplete, inconsistent, and non-closed due to the existence of the event horizon which partitions it.
But completeness, consistency and closure are all boolean properties.
That means something else must become complete, consistent, and closed.
At this point in time, there is only one set of things that exists: The boson-antiboson-dark energy triplet and its event horizon. Since those are the only things in existence, that set must be complete, consistent, and closed by disjunctive syllogism.
Via the transfinite recursive powerset of complete, consistent, closed nonexistence and incomplete, inconsistent, non-closed nonexistence - you can generate the direct representation of the complete, closed, consistent universe of physical existence.
The physical representation of existence is based on the direct representation of incomplete, inconsistent, non-closed nonexistence.
Existence is represented by, and composed from, partial - incomplete, inconsistent, non-closed nonexistence. It is partial due to the constant finite speed of light in space. Complete nonexistence is infinite. The speed of light is finite. It represents the creation of finite existence from infinite nonexistence.
The speed of light is the metric between space and time. It is the invariant relation between space and time. That's why it is a universal constant. That is why it appears in the equations that relate spacetime, energy and matter.
Due to the finite speed of light, it is impossible for nonexistence to become complete, consistent and closed again UNLESS the speed of light in free space is violated. That is exactly what happens inside the event horizon of a black hole. When the speed of light is violated inside the event horizon of a black hole, it makes the complete, consistent, closed representation of existence incomplete, inconsistent, and non-closed in the localized region of spacetime that violated the speed of light, and in doing so destroys its existence and creates a localized region of complete consistent, closed nonexistence. When you destroy the representation of existence, it destroys the existence that that representation represented. Existence = Representation. Equality is a symmetric relation. Therefore, Representation = Existence. In other words the direct representation of existence IS existence.
The localized spacetime region that exceeded the speed of light is the interior of the event horizon of the black hole. It represents the annihilation of all the space-time, dark energy, energy, and matter that exceeded the speed of light inside the black holes' event horizon.
But then what creates the black holes gravity? Surely it can't be created by nothing...
The gravity of a black hole isn't due to the energy and matter it swallows. That is destroyed when it crosses the event horizon. The complete, consistent, closed nonexistence inside the event horizon has 0 spectral energy density. The spacetime outside the event horizon is composed of dark energy plus whatever normal energy and matter it contains. The spectral energy density of the spacetime outside the black holes event horizon is tremendous. If quantum mechanics is correct it is on the order of 10^113 Joules per cubic meter. The high spectral energy density of the spacetime outside the event horizon will create an accelerated flow of dark energy, spacetime, energy and matter into the 0 spectral energy density of the nonexistence inside the event horizon. The dark energy flow curves spacetime around the black holes event horizon like the curvature of water going down a drain. We interpret that spacetime curvature as the gravity of the black hole.
You can't break the metric between space and time without destroying the existence of the spacetime that does so. The direct representation of existence is closed, complete, consistent, and encapsulated. Spacetime is finite. It has a boundary. The encapsulation is due to the nested hierarchical composition of the direct representation of existence. Each thing that exists is composed of the things that compose it. This is true for everything that exists. The existence of the bosons that lay at the base of existence are themselves composed from nilpotent symmetric differences in nonexistence. The nested hierarchical composition that represents existence is defined by the transfinite recursion of the powerset of complete, consistent, closed nonexistence and incomplete, inconsistent, non-closed nonexistence which creates the direct representation of existence.
I wrote another reply to one of your earlier posts that includes a more in-depth step by step description of the creation of the energy in the Big Bang from complete nonexistence. It describes step by step how existence is created from non-existence in greater physical detail.
It is impossible to destroy complete, consistent, closed nonexistence because nothing can't be destroyed; but it can be converted into incomplete, inconsistent, non-closed nonexistence. In other words, nonexistence can be converted into existence. Existence and nonexistence are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other because they are defined relative to, and in terms of each other.
Because nonexistence cannot be destroyed, it is conserved absolutely. That is the ultimate and absolute truth of existence. I call this the law of conservation of nonexistence:
Nonexistence is conserved absolutely.
This means the totality of existence is always nonexistence. It means existence is a partial representation of nonexistence. Existence is a partial representation of nonexistence due to the finite speed of light.
The conservation of nonexistence is the one absolute truth that the creation of existence itself is based on.
Almost everybody thinks physical existence is the ultimate basis of truth, because it is obvious from our first person direct perspective as observers that we exist, and that the universe around us exists. But the reality is there has to be a deeper absolute truth that is responsible for the creation of existence itself. That deeper absolute truth is the conservation of nonexistence.
In conjunction with the direct representation of existence, the conservation of nonexistence can be used to work out a physical theory of everything, including the universal representation of thought, and the theory of consciousness. The conservation of existence is more fundamental than the conservation of energy.
The conservation of nonexistence is the first cause of symmetry. It is why symmetry exists in the universe. It is why symmetry becomes more and more common as you work your way down to smaller and smaller spatial and temporal scales of existence.
The conservation of nonexistence is the cause of the creation of all the bosonic energy that created the Big Bang.
The conservation of nonexistence is the cause of the creation of dark energy.
The conservation of nonexistence is the cause of the conservation of energy.
The conservation of nonexistence is the cause of all quantum phenomena. It is the ultimate cause of the quantization of existence.
The conservation of nonexistence is the cause that created the four dimensions of spacetime.
The conservation of nonexistence is the cause of the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
The conservation of nonexistence is the unique basis for all truth because it was responsible for creating the Big Bang, and creating existence.
The conservation of nonexistence is also responsible for creating the future from the past. It operates on the past state of the universe to create its future state, on a state by state basis everywhere throughout spacetime.
The conservation of nonexistence is much more powerful than the Schroedinger Wave equation, and much simpler to use for understanding physics, especially for quantum scale phenomena.
----------------------------------------------- CRITICAL - BLACK HOLE FORMATION -----------------------------------------------
Unfortunately, the conservation of nonexistence may also end our existence here on earth. The conservation of nonexistence is responsible for creating black holes.
Black holes aren't created by gravity. Black holes create gravity.
Black holes are created when nature has no other way to conserve nonexistence. The conservation of nonexistence is absolute. You can't destroy nothing because there is nothing to destroy.
Normally, nature conserves nonexistence by releasing energy, or by creating matter from energy. For example, this occurs in stars. The energy is released in the form of radiation, the creation of heavier elements, and the creation of gravity.
Nature also conserves nonexistence by creating dark energy as the universe expands. The dark energy composes spacetime. The dark energy has to be created to balance out the creation of energy and matter so that the totality of existence is nonexistence.
The conservation of nonexistence is the first cause of symmetry. It conserves the symmetry of complete nonexistence. It ensures the totality of existence is nonexistence.
Nature will create a black hole if it can't conserve nonexistence any other way. Existence is an assymetry in nonexistence. Energy of all forms is an asymmetry in nonexistence. That asymmetry has to be cancelled by another asymmetry to conserve the totality of nonexistence.
If nature can't conserve the totality of nonexistence by releasing energy at the speed of light, it has no choice but to attempt conservation by forcing the energy past the speed of light. Doing so destroys the representation of the energy and the spacetime that contains it, and creates a black hole.
If Physicists slam too much energy together in too small of a volume of spacetime, nature will not be able to compensate for the resulting asymmetry via the release of energy from the colliding particles. The more particles we slam together, and the higher the energy of the particles, and the smaller the collision volume, the greater the asymmetry density we create in spacetime. If nature doesn't have time to compensate for this asymmetry via the explosive release of gamma rays and subatomic particles, it will accelerate the energy and matter released from the collision beyond the speed of light to conserve nonexistence. Doing so will destroy the energy, mattter, and spacetime that exceeds the speed of light and create a black hole.
The black hole won't be driven by the energy that went into its creation. That is only the trigger. It will be driven by the difference between the 0 spectral energy density inside the black hole and the almost infinite spectral energy density of the spacetime surrounding the black hole. Since quantum mechanics and general relativity disagree on the magnitude of the spectral energy density of space by a very large magnitude, we don't know what the ratio is between the rate at which the black hole will grow and the rate at which it will collapse. We could model both cases and see what the outcome would be, but I don't have the equations to do that yet. Neither do the Physicists at the LHC.
The Physicists at CERN argue that it should be safe to create microscopic black holes because the energy in the colliders' proton collisions is less that involved in the collision of high energy cosmic rays with the earth's atmosphere. Therefore, microscopic black holes are probably already being formed in our upper atmosphere, and they haven't destroyed the planet yet so we should have nothing to worry about.
The cosmic ray argument is invalid because it does not take the assymetry of the collision of multiple colliding particles in a concentrated volume of spacetime into account. The critical factor in creating a black hole is not just the amount of energy involved in the collision. The critical factor in creating a black hole is the asymmetry that energy represents relative to the volume of spacetime the collision occurs in. It is extremely unlikely large numbers of high energy cosmic rays will collide with the earths atmosphere (or anywhere else) at the same point in spacetime. Therefore, it is very unlikely cosmic rays are creating microscopic black holes in earth's atmosphere. CERN needs to take this into account before they risk destroying the collider, or worse, destroying earth.
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Question:But all of these clues about nonexistence are features/attributes/qualities that make a description/definition of something = nonexistence.
Answer:No. They make a description/definition of something = PARTIAL incomplete, inconsistent nonexistence.
Complete consistent nonexistence and incomplete, inconsistent nonexistence are two different things. They have different mathematical properties.
Complete consistent nonexistence is nothing. Partial incomplete, inconsistent nonexistence is everything. It is existence.
Only the totality of incomplete inconsistent nonexistence is nothing. That totality cannot exist physically due to the finite speed of light. The finite speed of light cannot span existence instantaneously. It can't reach all of existence simultaneously. It takes time for light to travel through space. That is why when we look at the light from the sun, or the light from distant stars we see conditions on those stars as they existed in the past.
Question:Since nonexistence cannot be even described nor even talk about it, given its absolute lack of existence, then i cannot understand what nonexistence is exactly.
Answer:You are thinking about the problem from the indirect perspective of the representation of information.
From the perspective of information we can create abstract representations to represent nonexistence, but the referent of such a representation has nothing to refer to so it causes a contradiction. It causes confusion.
To think clearly about nonexistence, you have to think in terms of direct representation, as in Representation = Existence. Direct representation is the representational basis of existence itself. Unlike the representation of information, direct representation is both consistent and complete.
Physical existence is not based on the representation of information. We just use information to describe it. We use information to communicate. Information is an incomplete representation. If it could describe everything the description would necessarily be inconsistent. This is mathematically proven by Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems.
Question:Can we talk about nonexistence during hours? yet how can we talk about "nothingness" and at the same time be able to assign attributes to it?
Answer:Again, you have to think about from the perspective of direct representation. It cannot be represented consistently using the indirect representation of information.
That is why the false belief that the universe and everything that exists is composed of information is so bad. It is an incorrect "world view". It prevents us from thinking clearly about existence. Please read my blog for proof that the universe IS NOT composed of information.
A terrible mistake was made in the philosophy of information in the argument that justifies the second principle of ontological neutrality. The argument failed to make a distinction between the physical existence of subatomic particles and fields of force and their abstract, indirect representation as information.
See: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-sema ntic/
for a good summary of the philosphy of information. In particular, think carefully about the following section and the inconsistencies in it:
Beginning of Reference
1.6 Ontological neutrality By rejecting the possibility of dataless information, GDI also endorses the following modest thesis of ontological neutrality:
Ontological Neutrality (ON): There can be no information without data representation. Following Landauer and Bennett [1985], and Landauer [1987]; [1991]; [1996], (ON) is often interpreted materialistically, as advocating the impossibility of physically disembodied information, through the equation “representation = physical implementation”, that is:
(ON.1) There can be no information without physical implementation.
(ON.1) is an inevitable assumption, when working on the physics of computation, since computer science must necessarily take into account the physical properties and limits of the data carriers. Thus, the debate on (ON.1) has flourished especially in the context of the philosophy of quantum information and computing (see Deutsch [1985]; [1997] and Di Vincenzo and Loss [1998]; Steane [1998] provides a review). (ON.1) is also the ontological assumption behind the Physical Symbol System Hypothesis in AI and Cognitive Science (Newell and Simon [1976]). But (ON), and hence GDI, does not specify whether, ultimately, the occurrence of every discrete state necessarily requires a material implementation of the data representations. Arguably, environments in which all entities, properties and processes are ultimately noetic (e.g., Berkeley, Spinoza), or in which the material or extended universe has a noetic or non-extended matrix as its ontological foundation (e.g., Pythagoras, Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Fichte, Hegel), seem perfectly capable of upholding (ON) without necessarily embracing (ON.1). The relata in DDD (above) could be dedomena, such as Leibnizian monads, for example. Indeed, the classic realism debate on the ultimate nature of “being” can be reconstructed in terms of the possible interpretations of (ON).
All this explains why GDI is also consistent with two other popular slogans, this time favourable to the proto-physical nature of information and hence completely antithetic to (ON.1):
(ON.2) 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 (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 [1990], 5);
and
(ON.3) [information is] a name for the content of what is exchanged with the outer world as we adjust to it, and make our adjustment felt upon it.” (Wiener [1954], 17). “Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day (Wiener [1961], 132).
(ON.2) endorses an information-theoretic, metaphysical monism: the universe's essential nature is digital, being fundamentally composed of information as data/dedomena instead of matter or energy, with material objects as a complex secondary manifestation (a similar position has been defended more recently in physics by Frieden [1998], whose work is based on a loosely Platonist perspective). (ON.2) may but does not have to endorse a computational view of information processes. (ON.3) advocates a more pluralistic approach along similar lines. Both are compatible with GDI.
A final comment concerning (GDI.3) can be introduced by discussing a fourth slogan:
(ON.4) In fact, what we mean by information — the elementary unit of information — is a difference which makes a difference”. (Bateson [1973], 428).
(ON.4) is one of the earliest and most popular formulations of GDI (see for example Franklin [1995], 34 and Chalmers [1996], 281). The formulation in Mackay [1969] — that is, “information is a distinction that makes a difference” — predates Bateson's but it is slightly different from it in that, by speaking of “distinction” instead of “difference”, it has an epistemological rather than an ontological twist. A “difference” (a “distinction”) is just a discrete state, namely a datum, and “making a difference” simply means that the datum is “meaningful”, at least potentially.
End of Reference
Direct representation is based on an ontology that 'implements' ON.1, ON.3 and ON.4. ON.2 is inconsistent with ON.1, ON.3, and ON.4 because it fails to distinguish between physical existence and the representation of physical existence using information. Direct representation 'fixes' that inconsistency by creating separate representations for physical existence and information. This must be done. (Wiener [1961], 132) is correct.
All logic, mathematics, and science rest on this invalid, inconsistent argument because they are all based on information. That doesn't mean all logic, mathematics and science are incorrect, but it does mean they are incapable of creating or representing a full and complete, consistent understanding of existence. Goedel proved that.
I just figured out how to get around the consequences of Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems.
B4L8r
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