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III. Ecosmos: A Revolutionary Fertile, Habitable, Solar-Bioplanet, Incubator Lifescape

1. A CoCreative Participatory UniVerse

Lombardi, Olimpia, et al, eds. What is Quantum Information? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. With coeditors Sebastian Fortin, Federico Holik and Cristian Lopez, the collection conveys how this definitive quality within nature’s foundations is gaining much attention, validity and service. Some chapters are Quantum versus Classical Information by Jeffery Bub, Inferential versus Dynamical Conceptions of Physics by David Wallace, and Quantum Information and Locality by Dennis Dieks. See also a special issue project Foundations of Quantum Mechanics: Quantum Logic and Quantum Structures edited by O. Lombardi, et al online at Entropy, June 2018, and the VIII Conference on Quantum Foundations (November 2018).

Combining physics and philosophy, this is a uniquely interdisciplinary examination of quantum information science which provides an up-to-date examination of developments in this field. The authors provide coherent definitions and theories of information, taking clearly defined approaches to considering information in connection with quantum mechanics, probability, and correlations. Concepts addressed include entanglement of quantum states, the relation of quantum correlations to quantum information, and the meaning of the informational approach for the foundations of quantum mechanics. Furthermore, the mathematical concept of information in the communicational context, and the notion of pragmatic information are considered.

Masanes, Lluis, et al. Existence of an Information Unit as a Postulate of Quantum Theory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 110/16373, 2013. Theoretical physicists Masanes, University of Bristol, Markus Muller, Perimeter Institute, Remigiusz Augusiak, Institut de Ciències Fotòniques, Barcelona, and David Perez-Garcia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, contribute to this latest quantum revolution by realizations of inherent communicative operations. As the project proceeds, this primordial, fundamental domain, as suffused by information processing and consequent network geometries, can be brought into the classical fold where it belongs. See also Information-Theoretic Postulates for Quantum Theory by Masanes and Muller at arXiv:1203.4516.

Does information play a significant role in the foundations of physics? Information is the abstraction that allows us to refer to the states of systems when we choose to ignore the systems themselves. This is only possible in very particular frameworks, like in classical or quantum theory, or more generally, whenever there exists an information unit such that the state of any system can be reversibly encoded in a sufficient number of such units. In this work we show how the abstract formalism of quantum theory can be deduced solely from the existence of an information unit with suitable properties, together with two further natural assumptions: the continuity and reversibility of dynamics, and the possibility of characterizing the state of a composite system by local measurements. This constitutes a new set of postulates for quantum theory with a simple and direct physical meaning, like the ones of special relativity or thermodynamics, and it articulates a strong connection between physics and information. (Abstract)

Despite the enormous success of quantum theory, its significance and meaning are still being debated. In particular, the standard postulates of quantum theory are abstract mathematical statements in terms of complex vectors, self-adjoint operators, etc., and as such they lack a clear physical interpretation. For this reason, it is difficult to assess what they say about the structure of the physical world. In this article, we prove that quantum theory can be formulated through four very simple postulates, each having a direct physical and intuitive meaning. Also, our postulates unveil some connections between physics and information that remain hidden in the standard postulates, thus supporting Wheeler’s hypothesis “it from bit.” (Significance)

Mermin, David. Making Better Sense of Quantum Mechanics. Reports on Progress in Physics. 82/1, 2018. The veteran Cornell University physicist rightly observes that quantum studies have been impeded and burdened by an absence of philosophical thought or vision. (The late Stephen Hawking often claimed this.) So it remains an historical collection of disparate opinions. The first half of the paper is a shorter and longer essay on Quantum Bayesism (QBism) perspectives. It then broadly compares this model with writings from John Bell and Niels Bohr alphabetically to Erwin Schrodinger and Stephen Weinberg, 15 men in all. This leads to a section entitled There is no Classical World and a consequent new physics of Now. Mermin closes with his 2017 talk in the Czech Republic, as noted in the second quote.

We still lack any real consensus about what quantum mechanics means. The absence of conceptual clarity for almost a century suggests that the problem might lie in some implicit misconceptions about how scientific explanations are reached. I describe here some unvoiced but widely shared assumptions. This new view of physics requires physicists to think about science in an unfamiliar way. My primary purpose is to explain the new perspective and urge that it be taken seriously. My secondary aims are to explain why this perspective differs significantly from what Bohr, Heisenberg, and Pauli had been saying, and why it is not solipsism. To emphasize that this is a general view of science, and not just of quantum mechanics, I apply it to a long-standing puzzle in classical physics: the apparent inability of physics to give any meaning to 'Now' - the present moment. (Abstract)

Science starts with mind, the private library of experience for each of us. From the contents of our own experience each of us strives to assemble what that experience means about the world that gives rise to it. An all too common misreading of QBism in the popular scientific press is “It’s all mind”. This is as wrong as the opinion most physicists have about physics, that it’s all world. There is mind and there is a world. Quantum mechanics has taught us that we cannot understand what we are talking about without paying attention to both. What links the contents of my mind to the world that induces them is the meaning I construct for my experience. If I had to design a coat of arms for QBism, it would display three words: mysl, smysl, sv ̆et in poetic Czech which is Mind, Meaning, World. (15-16)

Mermin, David. QBism puts the Scientist Back into Science. Nature. 507/421, 2014. When this hypothesis known as Quantum Bayesian appears after formative years in this premier journal, it is worth a record. The author is an emeritus Cornell University physicist who has been an advocate for this theory by Christopher Fuchs, a Perimeter Institute physicist, and colleagues. Search both on arXiv for papers. An editorial in the same issue about it notes that when combined with an information content in quantum phenomena, the upshot implies a participatory role in the objective cosmic scheme for perceiving subjects such as us. Bayesian inference or statistics is about choices from a population of probabilities, based on past experience, which may then be iterated to reach an optimum enough future response. If cosmic nature, aka universal Darwinism, is in some way like this, human beings are more than spectators, rather our mindful selections do matter more than we know.

Nesteruk, Alexei. A Participatory Universe of J. A. Wheeler as an Intentional Correlate of Embodied Subjects and an Example of Purposiveness in Physics.. arXiv:1304.2277. This latest posting by the Russian-British, University of Portsmouth, mathematician and philosopher, which also appeared in the Journal of Siberian Federal University (6/3, 2013), continues his project to integrate a conducive cosmos into a single scenario whereof human beings naturally evolve and arise from it on purpose. As many lately, he draws on the visionary physics of John Archibald Wheeler as a course from universe to us, popularly as “It from Bit.” In some way an act of conscious observation is required to complete the circuit and bring reality into full existence. By this teleological vista of “self-selection,” phenomenal persons become “the centre of disclosure and manifestation” and “co-creators of physical reality.” Through human sentience, the cosmos may attain its own reflective self-awareness. See also his Cosmology at the Crossroads of the Natural and Human Sciences at arXiv:1102.3154. The author’s earlier work Light from the East: Theology, Science, and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition (2003, search) evokes this luminous tradition to aid and inform our 21st century mission.

This paper investigates the role of human subjectivity and its delimiters in articulating the universe in physics and cosmology. As a case study, we reflect upon the complex of ideas of the so called Participatory Universe by later J. A. Wheeler. The objective of the paper is to explicate the role of the human agency as a centre of disclosure and manifestation of the universe as well the teleology of scientific representation of the world implied by the intrinsic purposiveness of human actions. (Abstract)

In conclusion, the main interesting result of Wheeler’s attempts to sketch the “physics of meaning” was the rediscovery of the issues of the life-world. Physics has sense as long as it has meaning, which was assigned to it by human beings. This means that physics is essentially human, as well as the universe constructed through physics, and represents an intentional correlate of human intersubjectivity, so that it is given to us in so far as it contain us. (15)

Nielsen, Michael and Isaac Chuang. Quantum Computation and Quantum Information. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. This is a second edition from 2000 by a programmer and scientist writer, and an MIT physicist of a widely used text for this broad field, aka the “Mike and Ike” book. It well covers the main currents, techniques and promise of this 21st century frontier.

Peres, Asher and Daniel Terno. Quantum Information and Relativity Theory. Reviews of Modern Physics. 76/1, 2004. Mathematical affirmations of the essential informative and communicative character of the universe.

Preskill, John. Quantum Information in the 21st Century. www.perimeterinstitute.ca/research/conferences/convergence. A presentation by the Caltech physicist for this Convergence week hosted by Perimeter Institute, Ontario, Canada, June 2015, on “a big picture overview of fundamental physics and its future.”

A new quantum age is dawning in which humans will be able to build and control scalable quantum systems with amazing properties and applications. Aside from enabling revolutionary future technologies, quantum information science is providing powerful new tools for attacking deep problems in fundamental physical science. In particular, the recent convergence of quantum information and quantum gravity is sparking exciting progress on some old and very hard questions. (Abstract)

Rickles, Dean. It, Bit, and Us. http://fqxi.org/community/essay/winners/2011.1. In this entry to the Foundational Questions Institute’s 2011 topic “Is Reality Digital or Analog?,” the University of Sydney philosopher of physics muses it is surely both. He goes on from Greek atomists and stoics to John Archibald Wheeler, the main source, to review its dual lineaments and consequences, which are huge. If reality is so computational, a “participatory universe” results whereof we people are that emergent phenomenon by which such a cosmos tries observe, recognize and create itself, human and universe as a mirror image.

Rodríguez-Laguna, Javier, et al. Qubism: Self-Similar Visualization of Many-Body Wavefunctions. New Journal of Physics. Online May, 2012. Barcelona and Madrid system scientists at ICFO, IFT, and ICREA, describe a novel graphic method as a portal upon the pervasive, intrinsic fractality of all manner of substantial complex systems. Through still another view, from physical depths to genomic nucleotides onto linguistic civilizations, a recursive program runs, informs and instantiates.

A visualization scheme for quantum many-body wavefunctions is described that we have termed qubism. Its main property is its recursivity: increasing the number of qubits results in an increase in the image resolution. Thus, the plots are typically fractal. As examples, we provide images for the ground states of commonly used Hamiltonians in condensed matter and cold atom physics, such as Heisenberg or ITF. Many features of the wavefunction, such as magnetization, correlations and criticality, can be visualized as properties of the images. (Abstract)

Scharf, Caleb. The Ascent of Information: Books, Bits, Genes, Machines, and Life’s Unending Algorithm. New York: Riverhead Books, 2021. This is a timely 2021 contribution by the Columbia University astrobiologist Caleb Scharf (search) which provides his update take upon a participatory universe. Some 30 years on, the extant cosmos is seen as distinguished by dual phases of overt physical features, and an immaterial program-like source. A temporal course is again traced from a Bit origin through life’s evolution to a late worldwide, literary sapience, our It reception. This certain emergence is often seen to have relative phenotype and genotype-like aspects. Scharf then moves beyond algorithmic terms and gives this informative vector a “dataome” name. Yet the contribution remains within the olden paradigm so to be devoid of any meaning or purpose. Even as this 2020s version is newly defined by a generative code quality, it is not meant to pass onto human agency and intent. Rather the stream is seen to make use of and rush past our human phase.

Your information has a life of its own, and it’s using you to get what it wants. A most unique features of human beings is the 20 quintillion bits we create every day, which requires energy, resources, and effort to maintain all this data. Drawing on evolutionary biology, computer science, and astrobiology, Caleb Scharf argues that information is, in a very real sense, alive. All the data we create amounts to an aggregate lifeform with goals and needs. And it’s a symbiotic organism that has evolved right alongside us. Data isn’t just something we produce; it’s the reason we exist. This powerful idea has the potential to upend our role as humans, and the fundamental nature of life, a humbling vision of a universe built of and for information. (Publisher excerpt)

In the most successful framework we have for describing quantum phenomena, the world is made of fields whose energetic oscillations can manifest sub-atomic particles. But prior to being observed or interacted with, these particles exist in a blurry superposition of possibilities in space, time and stare. The very act of observation is what causes their properties to snap into focus. In other words, this is a participatory universe of information, in which, as Wheeler puts it, we get “it from “bit.” (9)

These ideas seem to be getting at the real implication of Darwin’s description of “progress.” Not necessarily toward a conventional idea of perfection, but toward more and more-meaningful information, and better and better projection. Consequently, if data and its content are really what determine life’s function and trajectory, the line between us and the dataome is most definitely blurred. (129)

Siegfried, Tom. The Bit and the Pendulum. New York: Wiley, 2000. A science writer explains how information is coming to be realized as the prime characteristic of the evolving universe. Its leading theorist has been physicist John Archibald Wheeler who coined the phrase "It from Bit." As an aspect of this view, life is an interplay of dynamical self-organization and computational processing.

Wheeler’s appeal to information is symptomatic of a new approach to understanding the universe and the objects within it, including living things. This new approach may have the power to resolve many mysteries about quantum physics, life, and the universe. It’s a new view of science focused on the idea that information is the ultimate ‘substance’ from which all things are made. (6)

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