Fred56

Time and distance are two "different" properties that we observe. Both exist because of the nature of energy to disperse, and then condense (into atoms, then into stars, and so on). Its otherwise called change. We "observe" and measure this change. It seems that distance is changing, and we assign something called time to this "change in distance", and map this to the "fixed surface" of a rotating body (as we move around it). But both are aspects of change, a fundamental thing about the world. We have to change too (or we stop living), and this is therefore how we "communicate" with and "measure" the world around us. But it doesn't "happen" for free, there is a cost (to the universe and to us lifeforms), This cost is both the required change (expenditure of energy) we need to make (to measure the world and remain alive), and that the world (the universe) also must necessarily make. This is the dispersal (something otherwise known as entropy, the "measurement" of energy change over "time"). Entropy explains lots of stuff. Entropy can be defined mathematically (some of you may, in fact, already know this). It turns out that it can be defined in terms of a density (of states), this is how von Neumann described it, and this gives also the classical and Shannon entropy definitions. The von Neumann definition is: [math] S \equiv -kT_r \{ \hat \rho\ ln \hat \rho \}[/math] , where [math]\ \hat \rho=\sum_k p_k| \phi_k >< \phi_k| [/math] substituting, this gives: [math] S \equiv -k\sum_j < \phi_k|\sum_k p_k|\phi_k >< \phi_k| \ ln (\sum_k p_k|\phi_k >< \phi_k|\phi_j >)[/math] expanding, [math]\ ln \hat\rho = 0 + (\hat\rho -1)+ \frac {(\hat\rho -1)^2} {2!} + ... [/math] which yields: [math] S \equiv -k\sum_j p_j \ ln p_j[/math] which is the Gibb's equation of entropy. Since [math] p_j = 1 / \Omega [/math] for a microcanonical assembly, Then [math] S = k\ ln\Omega [/math] , the Boltzmann equation of entropy.

This is something I posted here because there didn't seem to be anywhere else. Is the rule meant to be that everything has to ask a question or set the stage for discussion? Perhaps I could have asked if anyone thinks we are getting close to completing the map of biochemical pathways, or something? We seem to be improving the resolution -this was one of several articles about biochemistry from an email I got. What I thought was "interesting" was the indication that there is an apparent adaptation to the "behaviour" of stereochemical compounds, and how the NAGK-PII complex "modifies" the binding affinity. This probably evolved because of the behaviour of so-called "self assembling" protein-units -so the most efficient would have emerged eventually. It's an example of co-option of conformal properties of such (stereochemical) things by evolution, maybe. the article: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/45/17644

OK, this is from an "Editor's choice" email, looks like I will need to do more than just cut&paste. I'll avoid including the editor's name, and post a link to the article (I have a few subscriptions to exploit). Sorry about that folks...

Is there a problem with just including the ref at the bottom?

Hmm. This all represents my thinking, if that's what you mean. It's based entirely on my own observations (and learning -Biochemistry, Physics, etc). I don't know that any of it isn't something that plenty of other people have thought about as well (I must have got it from somewhere). The study of information exchange at the cellular level is an ongoing process, and there are already lots of fairly well-understood enzymatic and biochemical pathways. But we don't have anything near a "complete" picture of what's happening. Also we tend to concentrate on the neural aspects of information processing (but obviously there's a lot more going on). ...later on: All life observes its environment. It is obliged to do this. It requires a store of energy, and has learned how to meet this requirement in gradual steps, that have yielded an ability to aggregate and communicate better with other lifeforms, and eventually develop, via this more efficient storage, "better communicating" lifeforms (with each other, and with the environment). We are a result of this long chain of development, of adaptation (change), and an apparent purpose. We have observed a lot of things about the world and, one of the things we know is just how improbable our own existence (as a species), actually is: how we are at the end of a very twisted and pruned twig of a very much larger tree. How many times our own planet has come close to sweeping us (or our predecessors) off the stage altogether, and how we are just one surviving member of a family of (immediate) predecessor species, the last man standing, as it were, in our particular spot(light). All this has not been an easy journey. There has been, and of course, continues to be, a necessary expenditure, by us and all the other contending lifeforms (species) for a place on the stage, and we (and all the others) have changed the world (as well as ourselves), all lifeforms therefore are obliged to change their environment. But we are now at a point where we seem to be trying to change the environment too quickly, or we are expending too much energy, in doing so, and there seems to be a new threat emerging from the 'stage wings' that has not been seen for a long time: since the last time there was a global change incurred as a cost, or result, of a species changing its environment. For the first time in our history as a species our own activity is looking set to change the world's climate, and change the environment to our disadvantage, and that of many other species who need land to live on, or fresh water. The planet looks like it is going to become a dangerous place (for us, anyway), for a while. Change is inevitable. The universe is changing constantly, as all life is too, and there is a compulsion, but also a striving, to this change. It is a contention, a constant ongoing and energy-using task, that we and the environment, as part of the changing universe, have to do. We cannot (despite many centuries of pondering the possibility) step outside of this "frame of reference" --there is no outside to step to, we cannot observe (change) without changing ourselves, and expending energy. We have to observe our surroundings constantly (even though we "imagine" ourselves to be unaware of it for a part of each day). The environment and the universe, external to our internal "observer" status, our internal map of the world and the immediate things in it, including our own location, also is a universe of things that communicate, and in some sense, also adapt (they certainly change). We imagine ourselves sometimes to be somehow able to exist between the two (the external and internal worlds), that we are somehow disconnected from both, free to float somehow beyond the perturbing influence of the senses, or the mind itself. But we are clearly reliant, connected firmly to both, and as examples of life, actually connected to that living, that existence which is necessarily based not on, but in, a compartmentalisation, a package (actually a collection of other sub-collections of quite specialised packages, or cells). Something that this basis, this collection or package, that we don't reside within, but are (we are the package, as it were), is promising to deliver (eventually), because of our developed ability to observe, and learn from, the world, is looking extremely promising, probably it will represent a new kind of resource that we can harness. What it might bring us is a bit of a guess at the moment, but it has already, thanks to recent developments in our ability to manipulate matter at very small scales, delivered some fairly amazing stuff (and lots of useful new mathematics). We seem to be between two things after all, but they are real things, and represent real choices and work we are bound to perform. We have already assured that the next century will be somewhat unpleasant for many of us, and for probably many other animals, but we are at some kind of threshold here, I believe, and we have to start thinking harder about what it all means, and what we are (supposed to be) doing here.

A new, highly sensitive gyroscope which uses Rb atoms as a matter-wave may be able to measure frame-dragging more accurately:

An enzyme (NAGK) used by a cyanobacterium allows a configuration of arginine units (ammonia storage) that means they don't bind too tightly, so the arginine units remain available:

I'm not all that knowledgeable about meteorology, but I believe such things can be found all over the planet. Apart from the atmospheric "vortices", there are such things in the ocean -the current that carries warm water up to the Arctic Ocean (the Gulf Stream) sinks somewhere near Greenland, and there is a vortex, or well, that carries the cooled current (more saline because water is extracted as ice, which remains on the surface), to the bottom where it begins its return journey to the south pole. Apparently someone found several of these back in the 70's, and has since discovered that many have disappeared, leaving just the one (that he could find). Anyway, I don't think these things produce energy, but are "driven" by the energy (heat, chemical gradients) in the atmosphere and oceans. They are the "effect" of energy moving around, due to temperature gradients, Coriolis forces, adiabatics, and generally rotating bodies (of air, water, and of course, the earth itself). It gets pretty complicated up there in the atmosphere, and we haven't mapped out all that much of it, or the oceans either. But we have, I think, a good general understanding of what makes it tick. The model isn't very fine-grained though, as yet. Of course, harnessing the energy in one of these weather systems is another story, in which case you could say that they "produce" energy.

Ahem. I once had a (quite well-paid) job working for a large conglomerate who are an outsourcing business (some of you may guess which it is), and started a day job "learning the ropes" and waiting for some training, and for a team to be gathered (hired). The "team" was a group who would be on shift work (12 hours) for 4 days, then 4 days of night shifts, then 4 days off. I though this sounded ok, and the dosh was ok too. But I found I couldn't handle the switch between sleeping at night and then during the day (I suspect other members of the group also had problems, but they may have had more reasons to stick around, like a family to feed, say). Needless to say, I started falling asleep at my desk. When I didn't respond to a "serious fault", but slept through it, my "co-ordinator" decided it was time for a chat, at which I more or less told him to save the lecture and handed my resignation over. I didn't have too many concerns about being out of work, because people would often ring me with job offers -but I felt kind of sorry for the other dudes (well for a little while, anyway). But I distinctly recall a feeling of being "wired" all the time, and sort of "not there". Not very nice, but there must be people with worse working hours (bus drivers, say).

This is the "second kind", only possible between sentient beings. However this is not the only definition: the world communicates with us too (and with itself).

Ah, hmm, yes. Well perhaps there is a need to really define what information and communication actually are. There are the messages (intelligent or sentient) observers get, and there are (conceptually) messages between non-sentient observers. An electron emitting a photon which is then absorbed by another electron is 'communicating' in a physical sense (and after all, it is this same process that gives us vision). So getting them confused can be downright, well, confusing. I think there is definitely a difference. The whole field of Information Theory is apparently "non-physical", as opposed to the physical information in some thermodynamic system. We already understand this, but seem to get confused about the distinction all the time. Maybe "physical" information should always be called such, and "information" should be the label we give to the stuff in our brains (then we need to show just how they are different). BTW this "aspect principle" or experiment with photons, can you post a bit more about it? Aspect is the guy's name, yes? I haven't really looked at this yet.

Norman: I have found a 1995 paper (you may have seen it) by Cognola & (Italians), and it's titled "One-loop quantum corrections to the entropy for an extremal Reissner-Nordstrom black hole". It's a quantum gravity paper, but maybe the math illustrates something? It does analysis of the scalar fields...?

The "glaring error" in the previous post is indeed about measurement, and the fact that information has mass/energy. Previously, when talking about the observer/observed measurement paradigm, I said: This is true -energy is conserved. But there has to be an exchange between the two -the observer must "extract" information (photons or other energy) from a system, and this lowers the amount in the system. Something like an open fire, for example, is radiating energy in all directions. An observer will only be able to measure some of this. Most of the 'measurable' energy is lost to the surroundings. Modern instruments can help to measure certain aspects of a system, but such things only reduce the effort needed at the time of measurement (it takes energy to make an instrument). They can collect information for us, but this “short cut” is illusory. Energy must be “collected” (by the electrons in our eyes' pigment cells, for instance), and the observer processes this "information energy", which requires more energy. Storing a measurement (as memory) is not cost-free. The input which 'produces' -via our brain- a memory, is also only a small part of the relative energy an observer must use to do this. In other words, to have "complete" information about some system, the observer would need to 'measure' all of the photons (and any other energy output), which would mean extracting all of it from the observed system. This is not practicable, the system would need to lose all its energy, and we do not usually measure more than a tiny fraction of the total available information. The system being measured doesn't need to transfer much energy to an observer for them to do this –we are generally aware of a campfire, say. We can stand near it and feel warm (measure the fire), without having to look at it, and so we don't need to receive much information to do this. If we get too close (measure too much information) there is usually a result from the information energy overload --we get singed or burned. So there is a cost in physical energy --radiation, sound, etc.-- to the (observed) system being measured, and a cost to the (observer) system --in chemical and electrical energy-- doing the measuring. The small amount of energy transferred to the observer (measured), projects to a potentially unbounded amount of information (except that we generally don't spend a lot of energy on any single observation). The observer uses (their own internal store of) energy to map the information impinging on their senses to a more stable form (than a fleeting “sample”). There is also a transfer from the observer to the external system. This is the work required by the observer to measure it, which again, in terms of the systems energy, might be small (and so have only a small effect). If you go near a fire, your body will absorb heat (part of this is your measurement), but the act of walking to the fire to take this measurement (and the fact your body absorbs heat without measuring it) will have some effect on the fire itself --although this isn't really noticeable. Small systems with small energies have only a possibility of observation, which explains why we can't see very well at extremely small scales, despite having built instruments which, because they need to transfer a measurable amount of energy to an observer, must collect sufficient energy themselves. Also it is much easier to perturb the system because of the work required to be able to measure it. So the problem is building a sensitive enough instrument that can record a tiny amount (say a single photon) of energy. This is only possible if such a signal is amplified dramatically (using, say a photomultiplier) -because neurons in an eye require many hundreds, or thousands of photons before they trigger a single pulse. Such a sensitive instrument will generally take a lot of effort to design and build. We are forever at this remove from the world of fundamental mass/energy quanta.

Admittedly it seems difficult for our brain to objectivise itself. I would hazard that we simply haven't got enough data yet. What we can see is definitely interesting, even surprising, but we need to 'dissect' things a whole lot more. Much of the historical record comes from the study of malfunctioning or damaged brains -we're only starting to see more detail, more levels, and mapping different functional areas. The brain appears to be a multiple kind of structure (unlike, say, the liver which is fairly homogenous). I still think this particular NP-hard problem is waiting for the technology...

We might need to begin adjusting our concepts of "external" reality vs "internal". We continue to regard the world as an external (to us) thing. This extends to concepts of the universe being contained (in empty space). But there is no container --the universe is the container itself. Like mass/energy doesn't have 4 different "properties": (gravity,charge,nuclear 'force', superposition) --it is 4 different things. (The 5th thing --the weak 'force'-- is apparently part of the second thing --charge.)

I'm not sure that we can define change without referring to the way it, 'changes' all the time...

No links to add to the groaning table, so just a comment, with whatever weight it may have: Applied Mathematics is what helps make a whole lot of the (modern) world go, and its applicability to something like Art or Music, or Literature, or any subject that I would guess many reading this would place firmly outside of the realm of Science, isn't just possible, it's been happening ever since we picked up a paintbrush, or started to create music and rhythm. I was surprised to see a comment (in the first post) about the surprise someone experienced when discovering that Music was a mathematical topic. But of course music (being a science of harmonies and sound and beat) is mathematical, and represents one of our earliest attempts to find order and meaning in the world...

OK, try googling 'brain' and 'fourier'. There's apparently lots (try it with "signal processing" and 'neural') of sophisticated "algorithms" in the ol' noodle. But what level does it represent, and what else is going on? I'm starting to think (hehe) that we will need to build a brain from quantum devices before we can really begin to analyse, or maybe model, what's going on in there...

You really should stop doing this, because photons really don't stop. Even when they get absorbed by a Bose-Einstein condensate there still has to be a corresponding transfer of momentum out of the BEC via the 'reference' beam. i.e. energy is conserved in all frames of reference (Al was right).

This thread (and the OP) apparently is suffering from the condition known as "I think everyone knows what I'm talking about" syndrome...

It could eventuate that we need to abandon the concept of "something" that waves, and replace it with "the wave is". Matter and energy don't have an oscillatory character, they are an oscillation. This fundamental 'behaviour' is what we see as mass (weight in a gravity field), and energy (photons). Regarding Fourier's math, did you know the brain is capable (apparently) of FT of input 'signals' or whatever the internal representation is?

Mmm. Interesting. I have been meaning to ask about (any)one's experience with programming. Particularly with functional or 'logic' languages (Haskell, Meta). If (any)one has absolutely no idea what a functional (programming) language is, it lets you 'define' something in terms of functionality, instead of data (structures) that are manipulated (processed), functional languages don't use such dated concepts, but instead use 'lists', which are of course, already mapped to lots of useful (Turing and other) algebra. Lisp and Forth are earlier examples... And if (any)one is wondering: These kinds of languages (functional algebras) seem to be better suited to certain kinds of problems. Which could explain why the AI brigade is so keen on them. Because a (non-empty) list always has a first element, it is identifiable or selectable of itself, because of this first element, and selection always 'starts' at the first element. Also a list is a stack, which is a Turing machine, or a Markov chain or process. Lists seem to fit more easily with what life does (except when you just want to crunch numbers, in which case data structures are probably a better idea), and are inherently symbolic.

There certainly is the appearance of different versions of what war is, and different interpretations, to the effect that "someone" can define their own version, and not even call it a war... This is more than a little bit how it looks from afar, at least.

I didn't think anyone would really be able to 'do away' with Time. The claim that time is a fundamental property of the universe is (to me at least) a bit like claiming that we can't go anywhere unless we know how far it is, or how long it will take (are we there yet?). In other words, before life came along, everything was changing just fine all by itself. Then time was "needed" for life to keep a handle on all the change -be able to remember when things happen by "putting a stick in the ground". I don't see how that means it is needed (except by us, so we can do our observing). Everything was presumably changing ok before we showed up and noticed it...

One more observation: Life observes. This is an active, energy requiring, and ongoing process. Information, in the form of photons of EMR, chemicals, and electric potential (in special cases), is collected, or received -in the case of prokaryotes via channels or pores (or simple gaps) in their outer wall, or sheath, that contains their substance (prevents it dissipating) and protects it. Life only samples the constant 'flow' of mass/energy and it then uses the samples to 'remember' or map its environment. In eukaryotes, there is more structure, and more 'sophisticated' transport systems (proteins embedded in cell walls). Also, these more developed cells have learned how to live as a single community, an evolutionary step which led to collections of differentiated cells becoming more dependent on the collective behaviour of all the others. Compartmentalisation into different organs (collections of highly specialised cells), and eventually the adaptation of charge (due to electrons and protons, or ions), and its active separation (across a cell membrane and against a gradient -by specialised proteins or 'ion pumps'), led to a new way of communicating information and collating it. The brain uses regular patterns of synchronistic and synergistic activity to 'measure' and map external (and internal) information, and the (fundamental) control of electrical potential opens the door to this. Observation requires energy. To observe something, a life-form with a brain has to expend energy, but energy from the external world (photons, or sound/pressure waves, or chemicals -touch is a pressure 'wave'), is 'received' by specialised neuronal assemblies, which are adapted to their particular 'energy-receiving' mode. The visual system in humans is arguably our most developed sense (it certainly uses a significant part of the overall brain structure), and this, of course, collects photons. Photons from some external source, say the Sun, can be absorbed by pigment molecules and this triggers an electrical signal (when a certain threshold of pigment molecules has been 'reconfigured' -a stereochemical phenomenon), and a quantum of information (an electrical pulse) gets delivered to the visual cortex. We don't react to individual photons, and their energy is converted into electrical energy (a process which borrows additional energy from the observer's internal store). This internal representation is unbounded in the sense the observer can expend further energy, mapping it to some internal representation (a theory). This is possible because of the storage capacity of an observer, not just of the energy required to actually do any observing, but storage of 'ideas' -memory itself.