My notes from Murray Gell-Mann’s The Quark and the Jaguar.
see also: Notes from The Q&J: { Questions }
••••••
08
elementary particles have no individuality
individuality comes from compilations of information,
rises with complexity, travels with the arrow of time
09
Complex Adaptive Systems:
systems of compiled information (networks) which function as “wholes”, adaptively behaving within their environments (learning).
12
condition of early universe —› quantum mechanical histories —› complexities of macroscopic world
14
“[My brother] Ben and I wanted to understand the world and enjoy it, not slice it up [arbitrarily]…”
18
“If you are training a dog, you are watching a complex adaptive system in operation and you are functioning as one as well…”
19
Culture is a structure for keeping learned, non-instinctive behaviors.
Complex Adaptive Systems generate further C.A.S.s
27
Simplicity refers to the absence (or near-absence) of Complexity. Whereas the former word is derived from an expression meaning “once folded,” the latter comes from an expression meaning “braided together.”
28
“What is really meant by the opposing terms simplicity and complexity? In what sense is Einsteinian gravitation simple while a goldfish is complex?”
—› it’s important to use and think of both terms relative to their contexts.
The application of Coarse Graining and Fine Graining when observing systems on multiple levels is to select the level of detail one observes (but this is not cherry-picking: some details can safely be ignored when Coarse Graining because their affects, if accounted for, cancel each other out — this is called decoherence.)
29
Algorithmic Information Content:
The length of the shortest program that will output a message string and stop computing.
A good definition from Ivan Marsic, { AIC for Software Engineering }:
4.4.1 Algorithmic Information Content
I already mentioned that our abstractions are unavoidably approximate. The term often used is “coarse graining,” which means that we are blurring detail in the world picture and single out only the phenomena we believe are relevant to the problem at hand. Hence, when defining complexity it is always necessary to specify the level of detail up to which the system is described, with finer details being ignored.
One way of defining the complexity of a program or system is by means of its description, that is,the length of the description. I discussed above the merits of using size metrics as a complexity measure. Some problems mentioned above include: size could be measured differently; it depends on the language in which the program code (or any other accurate description of it) is written; and, the program description can be unnecessarily stuffed to make it appear complex. Away out is to ignore the language issue and define complexity in terms of the description length.
Suppose that two persons wish to communicate a system description at distance. Assume they are employing language, knowledge, and understanding that both parties share (and know they share)beforehand. The crude complexity of the system can be defined as the length of the shortest message that one party needs to employ to describe the system, at a given level of coarse graining, to the distant party.
A well-known such measure is called algorithmic information content, which was introduced in1960s independently by Andrei N. Kolmogorov, Gregory Chaitin, and Ray Solomonoff. Assume an idealized general-purpose computer with an infinite storage capacity. Consider a particular message string, such as “aaaaabbbbbbbbbb.” We want to know: what is the shortest possible program that will print out that string and then stop computing? Algorithmic information content (AIC) is defined as the length of the shortest possible program that prints out a given string. For the example string, the program may look something like: P a{5}b{10}, which means “Print ‘a’ five times and ‘b’ ten times.
38
AIC != Information
“Information is concerned with a selection from alternatives, and it is most simply expressed if those alternatives can be reduced to a sequence of binary choices, each of which is between two equally probable alternatives.”
39
AIC is Uncomputable: (it’s impossible to know which bit strings are certainly random)
—› There can always be some unknown theorem/algorithm that would permit further compression. Greg Chaitin proved that there is no procedure for finding all the theorems permitting further compression.
Similarly, Kurt Godel showed that it’s impossible to formulate a series of consistent axioms that could be used to test the truth of mathematical propositions. (Undecidables.)
44
Two meanings of Random:
Incompressible: “so irregular that no way can be found to express it in shorter form.”
Stochastic: generated by a random process, but compressible. (A coin toss can produce a regular string, like one of all heads).
46
Pseudorandom:
“A pseudorandom process is a process that appears to be random but is not. Pseudorandom sequences typically exhibit statistical randomness while being generated by an entirely deterministic causal process. Such a process is easier to produce than a genuinely random one, and has the benefit that it can be used again and again to produce exactly the same numbers - useful for testing and fixing software.” (Wiki)
A pseudorandom sequence is generated by a computer following a rule that mimics irregularity / a chance process.
50
An example: Proverbial Shakespeare-Typing Monkey AIC > Shakespeare AIC
—› Monkey AIC is typed randomly (stochastically), whereas Shakespeare wrote according to rules, and the content is compressible.
”Effective Complexity is then related to the description of the regularities of a system by a complex adaptive system that is observing it.”
53
The “first characteristic of a Complex Adaptive System”: “compress[ing] certain regularities identified in a body of experience into a schema…”
57
It’s possible that mythologies come from mistaking random strings to be regularities in an insufficiently long sequence of data.
59
Effective Complexity is highest when AIC is in the mid range — somewhere between order and disorder, regularity and randomness.
64
It’s important to distinguish between the variation in life (heritable and subject to natural selection) as opposed to the lack thereof in non-life.
And important to understand the meaning of variation in this context —›
significant information processing; compression of regularities.
74
“Now consider, in contrast to a robot [like MIT’s six-legged robot] that learns a few useful properties of the terrain it needs to traverse, a complex adaptive system exploring the general properties, as well as a host of detailed features, of a much grander terrain, namely the whole universe.”
86
A mention of Thomas Kuhn and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
—› paradigm shifts.
89
Pattern Recognition:
“Pattern recognition comes naturally to us humans; we are, after all, complex adaptive systems ourselves. It is in our nature, by biological inheritance and also through the transmission of culture, to see patterns, to identify regularities, to construct schemata in our minds. However, those schemata are often promoted or demoted, accepted or rejected, in response to selection pressures that are far different from those operating in the sciences, where agreement with observation is so critical.
—› Unsicentific cultural selection pressures lead to the construction of oft incorrect models of understanding (I.E. Sympathetic Magic, like rain dances).
90
“Merely Theoretical”
It’s paramount to distinguish between what a word (like “Theory” or “Observation”) means in science (or more specifically, what it means within a given field) vs what it means otherwise, and not to confuse the two.
93
Phenomenological or Empirical Theory:
A theory describing patterns we don’t understand yet.
98
“Self-Organized Criticality”
I.E. the critical value of the slope of a sand pile — no more sand can be added, or the pile will self-adjust.
100
Self-Organized Criticality & Emergence —› Universe. Complex Operating Systems.
“Scientists … are trying hard to understand the ways in which structures arise without the imposition of special requirements from the outside. In an astonishing variety of contexts, apparently complex structures or behaviors emerge from systems characterized by very simple rules. These systems are said to be self-organized and their properties are said to be emergent. The grandest example is the universe itself, the full complexity of which emerges from simple rules plus the operation of chance.”
101
Depth & Crypticity
Depth: difficulty of a program / compressed schema to be decompressed into a full-blown description of a system.
Crypticity: vice-versa.
103
Depth, Probability, & Time
“When a system occurring in nature has a great deal of depth, that is an indication that it took a long time to evolve or that it stems from something that took a long time to evolve.”
Depth = Avg. run time / program lengths, with the avg. weighted to emphasize shorter programs.
112
The Structure —› The System / “Reductionism”
“…while the various sciences do occupy different levels [of “magnification”], they form part of a single connected structure. [Its] unity is cemented by the relations among the parts. A science of a given level encompasses the laws of a less fundamental science at a level above. But the latter, being more special, requires further information in addition to the laws of the former.”
113-114
”Life”
“…living systems on this planet … may differ widely from many of the diverse complex adaptive systems that surely exist on planets revolving around distant stars in various parts of the universe. On some of those planets, perhaps the only complex adaptive systems are ones that we would not necessarily describe as alive if we encountered them. … Even the rule that genes must be made up of the four nucleotides abbreviated A, C, G, and T, which seems to be true of all life on our planet today, may not be universal on a cosmic scale of space and time.”
112, 116-117
Top-Down and Bottom-Up study / consideration (between levels of scientific fields) is important. (As with psychology, biology, & neuroscience.)
118
Popularization of Roger Sperry’s brain hemisphere studies has wrongly emphasized the “separate” functions of each hemisphere while ignoring “Sperry’s cautionary remark that ‘the two hemispheres in the normal intact brain tend regularly to function closely together as a unit…’”
119-120
How do “yin” & “yang” conditions across levels of science produce life as we know it?
“One of the great challenges of contemporary science is to trace the mix of simplicity and complexity, regularity and randomness, order and disorder up the ladder from elementary particle physics and cosmology to the realm of complex adaptive systems.”
—› “…what role is played by the unified theory of elementary particles, the initial condition of the universe, the indeterminacies of quantum mechanics, and the vagaries of classical chaos in producing the patterns of regularity and randomness in the universe within which complex adaptive systems have been able to evolve”?
124
Fermions: “obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle: no two particles of the same kind can occupy the same state at the same time.” (I.E.: Electrons)
Bosons: “obey a kind of Antiexclusion principle: two or more particles of the same kind exhibit a preference for being in the same state at the same time.” (I.E.: Photons —› LASERS)
Bosons are quanta of classical fields (“packets” of energy; I.E. the quantum of the electromagnetic field is the photon.)
125
“Now, [Because the U.S. House of Representatives scrapped the Superconducting Supercollider — a high-energy particle accelerator that was to be built in Texas] the only hope for verification of fundamental theoretical ideas lies in the lower energy accelerator … at CERN [the LHC] … Unfortunately, its energy may be too low.”
126
“In his old age, Einstein published a set of equations that claimed to accomplish [the task of unifying general-relativistic gravitation with Maxwell’s electromagnetism], but unfortunately their appeal was purely mathematical — they did not describe plausible physical interactions of gravitation and electromagnetism.”
127
a description of Einstein’s failures in consideration when formulating his unifying equations:
• Ignored the existence of other fields besides gravitational & electromagnetic.
• Did not discuss Fermions; believed, I.E., the electron would emerge from his equations.
• Never accepted the validity of Quantum Mechanics.
128
Bootstrap Principle: a system that gives rise to itself. (the man who could pull himself up by his own bootstraps)
Superstring Theory “grew out of … the bootstrap principle. …a set of elementary particles could be treated as if composed in a self-consistent manner of combinations of those same particles. All of the particles would serve as constituents … as quanta for force fields … and … would appear as bound states of the constituents.”
Earliest form of superstring theory proposed by: John Schwartz, Andre Neveu, & Pierre Ramond; 1971.
129
Theory of Everything?
Superstring Theory “cannot, by itself, tell us all there is to know about the universe and the matter it contains.”
131
Past & Future are arbitrary names given to the directions of time.
There is asymmetry between past & future.
131-132
Instead of Everything, Just Probabilities for Histories
“The fundamental laws of physics allow, in principle, only the calculation of probabilities for various alternative histories of the universe that describe different ways events could play themselves out given the initial condition. Information about which of those sequences of events is actually occurring can be gathered only from observation, and is supplementary to the fundamental laws themselves. There is no way the fundamental laws can supply a theory of everything.”
“The probabilistic nature of quantum theory can be illustrated by a simple example”: half-life.
134
Frozen Accidents:
“…chance events of which the particular outcomes have a multiplicity of long-term consequences, all related by their own ancestry.”
“The character of the whole universe was affected by accidents occurring near the beginning of its expansion. … A law of geology, biology, or human psychology may stem from one or more amplified quantum events, each of which could have turned out differently. The amplifications can occur through a variety of mechanisms, including the phenomenon of chaos, which introduces, in certain situations indefinitely large sensitivities of outcome to input.”
138
On Hugh Everett’s “Many Worlds” theory:
“…his interpretation is often described in terms of ‘many worlds,’ whereas we believe that ‘many alternative histories of the universe’ is what is really meant. … the many worlds are described as being ‘all equally real,’ whereas we believe it is less confusing to speak of ‘many histories, all treated alike by the theory except for their different probabilities.’ To use [this recommended] language is to address the familiar notion that a given system can have different possible histories, each with its own probability; it is not necessary to become queasy trying to conceive of many ‘parallel universes,’ all equally real.”
140
Quantum State of the Universe:
“The universe as a whole may be in a pure quantum state.”
[Hartle & Hawking have proposed this idea, as well as “a particular form for the pure state that existed near the beginning of the expansion of the universe.”
142
For alternative histories of the universe, a quantity D is given to describe the probability of the pair, such as: [Probability] D of [History] A & [History] B —› D(A,B)
143-144
Fine Graining:
“Completely fine-grained histories of the universe are histories that give as complete a description as possible of the entire universe at every moment of time.”
—› This is not even possible for us, for our whole universe, now. /Yet?.
But I think it wouldn’t be incorrect to say that this is exactly what the universe does: observes itself, at all moments, at every possible level. Via its experiencing itself, it so “chooses” a history, the way that particles in an experiment “choose” an outcome once they are observed (once something interacts with them. Interaction = Observation. Not magical-seeing-without-touching. That latter doesn’t exist, in our world — we only have that idea because that’s the way we experience it at our own crude magnification, without considering what’s working underneath.
& Coarse Graining
“…typically means following only certain things at certain times and only to a certain level of detail.”
Whatever happens at a “finer” level is “summed over” — like the meeting of a trough & peak, it cancels out.
See also: { Umwelt }
“The world as it is experienced by a particular organism.”
Our perception of our “direct” experience is the coarse version.
147
Entanglement & Decoherence
“Take the famous experiment in which a photon from a tiny source can pass freely through either of two slits in a screen on its way to a given point on a detector — those two histories interfere and cannot be assigned probabilities. It is meaningless to say what slit the photon came through.”
150
The Tree of Histories:
“The tree-like structure of alternative decohering coarse-grained histories of the universe is different from evolutionary trees like those for human languages or for biological species. In the case of evolutionary trees, all the branches are present in the same historical record. … By contrast, the branches of the tree of alternative decohering histories are mutually exclusive, and only one branch is accessible to an observer.”
150-151
Nearly Classical Behavior
See also, essay: { Quasiclassical Coarse Graining and Thermodynamic Entropy }
Gell-Mann & Hartle, 2007
153
Schrodinger’s Cat
Is a Bullshit analogy because quasiclassical objects (cats, cats in boxes, etc.) are such coarse systems that they decohere.
“No quasiclassical object can exhibit such behavior because interaction with the rest of the universe will lead to decoherence of the alternatives.”
Essentially, because a cat is not a quantum particle but a collection thereof, always interacting, he is forced into a single world history. A particle is not a “thing” like a cat, so itneeds to interact with other particles before it becomes part of a certain history, which is not a problem since all particles do so by way of their existing herein.
155
IGUS: Information Gathering & Utilizing System
(A Complex Adaptive System as Observer)
“An observation [in the context of physics] means a kind of pruning of the tree of branching histories.”
160
Individual Objects
“When a planet absorbs a meteorite or a cat breathes, the identity of the planet or the cat is not altered.”
From our point of view, at least. Over time, a planet and cat who have interacted with their environment are indeed changed into something else, or cease to be “cat” & “planet” and their particles are recycled into other “things”.
“But how is individuality to be measured?”
164-165
Home for Complex Adaptive Systems
“A great deal of what is followed by one IGUS could not be apprehended directly by [another].” (Umwelt.)
“Could an observer utilizing one domain really become aware that other domains, with their own sets of branching histories and their own observers, were available as alternative descriptions of the possible histories of the universe?”
!
••••••
To Be Continued…
![Einstein [May Have Been] Right: Space-Time Is Smooth, Not Foamy
Space-time is smooth rather than foamy, a new study suggests, scoring a possible victory for Einstein over some quantum theorists who came after him.
In his general theory of relativity, Einstein described space-time as fundamentally smooth, warping only under the strain of energy and matter. Some quantum-theory interpretations disagree, however, viewing space-time as being composed of a froth of minute particles that constantly pop into and out of existence.
…
“If foaminess exists at all, we think it must be at a scale far smaller than the Planck length, indicating that other physics might be involved,” study leader Robert Nemiroff, of Michigan Technological University, said in a statement. (The Planck length is an almost inconceivably short distance, about one trillionth of a trillionth the diameter of a hydrogen atom.)
{ space.com }
Interesting. Initially I thought of a sculpture I created a couple of years ago — the { Quantum Chess } set. Figured this would mean the idea is now obsolete, until I got to the part about Planck length. I’ve never really thought about the distinction between space-time foam and quantum foam before, or perhaps hadn’t heard of the former? Learned something.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/10c558dd2dc30cfc9cdfed32ddd6c4c1/tumblr_mgi45wYpHc1qa3q7lo1_500.jpg)
![—› This Will [Should Not] Mindfuck You [All That Much]: The Double-Slit Experiment.
The link above features a video narrated by “Dr. Quantum” about the Double Slit Experiment, and a new variation of the experiment by A. Wheeler.
Using those as evidence, the writer proposes:
…there is something NOT quite logical or scientific about this universe. The mere act of observation can completely change the outcome of an event!
…
When a camera observed the electrons, they acted as particles. However, when the no equipment was used to observe the electrons, they acted as waves and particles simultaneously.
So what’s the reason for this? Does the electron somehow know that it is being watched? That was the only “logical” reason that scientists could come up with so much skepticism and controversy followed.
That is not true, or just poorly phrased. A particle’s ‘sentience’ was not a “logical” reason proposed by scientists to explain this phenomenon. Competing theories about wave-particle were.
The experiment is well-known in the science community and has been widely explored since ~ 1801 — TWO CENTURIES! — but somehow it’s still boggling the general public’s minds in all the wrong ways.
••••••
The information is misunderstood and misconstrued, leading to this kind of thing in the comments section:
This is proof that we can affect our lives!
This is proof that God exists and scientists don’t understand anything!
This is proof that everything is conscious energy!
…And other new-agey garbage.
(The double-slit experiment is not proof of any of the above.
And though some things can’t be ruled out since we don’t know for certain, it doesn’t mean that all’s equal — we do know how nature works to an extent, and some theories have a greater probability of being true than others.)
The reason I concern myself with this so much is that, not knowing any better, I used to believe some similar ideas. I’d read some things by people who sounded like they knew what they were saying, watched “What the Bleep Do We Know?, etc.
…and then I accessed the giant library that is the internet and found that those ideas were misguided at best, even if well-intentioned.
••••••
A few problems with the “implications” listed by the author:
The term observation in quantum physics does not mean the same thing as it does for us in our daily experience, as the poster above illustrates.
It doesn’t necessarily follow that “macroscopic events” can be influenced in the way the author means — our human events do not directly translate to Nature’s language. We must attempt to understand that, no matter how much we’d like it to be the case that we can influence our lives with quantum mind power.
More of a question, and the real reason I’m posting this: (it would be great if anyone could contribute answers) — If we must disturb a particle to observe what it did, and the author claims that the experiment was designed so that the particle would not be disturbed until after it “decided” to act as wave or particle… how do we know that it decided to be a [particle] at all? I’d love a better explanation of Wheeler’s variation on the double-slit since I don’t really understand how it works, but don’t trust that this particular author has the right idea about it.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbp12v9aiT1qa3q7lo1_500.jpg)
![{ A Diamond Age? }
A QUANTUM COMPUTER HAS BEEN BUILT INSIDE A DIAMOND (CHIP) AND OPERATES AT ROOM TEMPERATURE.
(Usually, quantum computers require complex set-ups (like superconductors) to keep them at ultra-low temperatures & protect from { decoherence }).
Delft University:
Using this new method [ Scientists from the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience ] performed a quantum calculation with an electron spin and a nuclear spin (the spin of an atomic nucleus). This took place in a diamond chip at room temperature. Using this double quantum bit processor the researchers performed a quantum search algorithm, [which] finds an element in an unsorted database of four elements in a single attempt, whereas a standard computer on average needs more than two attempts to do this. This is a small-scale demonstration of the superior efficiency of a quantum computer. … it is the first time a quantum algorithm has been performed using spin quantum bits on a chip.
It seems that the reason for using a diamond has to do with what’s called an NV (Nitrogen Vacancy) center, caused by a defect occurring in diamonds that alters their structure and allows for { coherent electrons at room temperatures }.
image via { AWP }{ Pub. Release }](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m20wdxcaKM1qa3q7lo1_500.png)
