Section VI: Information
(See also: Section 3: "Fractals"; Section12: "Man's Role in Nature"; Section 14: "Causality")
(revised Jan., 2006)
John A. Gowan
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/jag8/index.html
Papers: "The Information Pathway" with table "The Information Ladder";
"Nature's Fractal Pathway";
The Origin of Matter and Information;
The Higgs Boson and the Weak Force IVBs;
Causality vs Information
The "Information Pathway" is one of the more recent papers, presented at "CPSI" in June 1999. The "Pathway" paper and the table "The Information Ladder" is simply the much older "Fractal Table" reinterpreted. Each realm of the fractal table can also be considered as a realm of information; it is of considerable interest to note how far up this "ladder" of information human science, art, and philosophy have climbed. Humans have physically explored all 8 of the "Microphysical" and "Biophysical" levels, from particle physics to planet Earth. We are now exploring the first level of the "Astrophysical" realm - with Earth orbiting satellites, Moon landings, and robotic missions to various planets of our Solar System, including the Sun itself (level 9, Stars). Level 10 (Galaxies) remains in the domain of science fiction and art ("Star Trek", "Star Wars"), and of our observational and astrophysical sciences, (via telescopes and theory), as do level 11 ("Universe") and level 12 ("Multiverse" or "First Cause"), accessed through cosmology, religion, and philosophy. The metaphysical realms (levels 13 -16 and 17-20) are represented by the principles of the Unified Field Theory and/or the conservation laws of the tetrahedron model - in either case, the natural laws which underlie the manifest Universe (rational mode). In the intuitive mode, we find religious notions of Divine Law, or Plato's philosophic notions of the Eternal Verities and Ideal Forms which lie beyond, but are responsible for, the manifest Universe; or occult notions of cosmic order expressed in various "world systems" (the I Ching, astrology, etc.). Some Eastern religious categories of these higher metaphysical levels are delineated in my late father's books: "Trance, Art, and Creativity" and "Operations of Higher Order".
Viewing the "Information Ladder" table as an evolutionary sequence of information states, we see that each higher level necessarily encompasses all the information contained in the levels below. In this sense it is important to distinguish the planetary level information state of "Gaia" (level 8) from that of a lifeless planet, as the "Gaia" state would apply only to planets which support a biological information realm. Whereas the "Gaian" state is the last level of the biotic realm, the abiotic or gravitational planetary state is the first cell of level 9 (Stars) in the Astrophysical Realm.
Humans seem to have "a foot on the rung" at every level of the ladder, if only by means of theory or observation. We are at level 7 or 8, considered as separate individuals or as a globally distributed, "terraforming" species, just 2/3 up the 12 rungs of the physical ladder. Yet we have extended our influence, investigations, observations, and theories both upward and downward to the extreme limits of the "Information Ladder". The ladder clearly suggests that we will continue the upward physical climb, certainly into level 10 (Galaxy) and possibly on into the Universe of level 11.
The "Information Ladder" reminds me of two things: 1) the Biblical story of "Jacob's ladder", extending from Earth into the Heavenly realms (Genesis 28:12); 2) Chardin's "Omega Point", a universal final state of self-knowledge and unity. In Chardin's view, information, not entropy, is the chief evolutionary vector of the Universe; entropy is just the way the accumulation of information is paid for. (See: "Chardin: Prophet of the Information Age").
Causality and Information share the 4th point (matter, mass, bound energy) in the Tetrahedron Energy Model of the conservation principles and natural laws underlying the unification theory. Information is the concept that most comprehensively and succinctly characterizes the significance of matter; without matter, the information content of the Universe is zero. Information requires an asymmetry to exist; perfect symmetries cancel each other and so carry no net information - the prototypical example is the particle-antiparticle pair which self-annihilates (see: "The Origin of Matter and Information").
Due to genetics, genes, the conservation of heritable units of molecular information (DNA), and the negentropic mechanism of Natural Selection, biological systems have become a conservation domain of information, a molecular analog of the abiotic conservation domain of information and matter's "causal matrix", historical spacetime. Human abstract information systems simply continue and extend this natural biological accumulation of information - through memory, language, writing, books, libraries, computers, educational institutions, social systems, etc.
Life, humanity, and history are all conservation domains of information. Spacetime itself is the ultimate storehouse and repository of historical information. The ancients referred to this aspect of spacetime as the "Akashic Record", and thought certain of the adept had occasional access to it (oracles, soothsayers). Science has likewise taught us that we are looking into history as we look outward into space and backward into time. (See: "A Spacetime Map of the Universe").
When we stand back a little and look at the reach of humanity into every part, from bottom to top of the "Information ladder", it is difficult to comprehend the view of some scientists that humanity is not a special creature. I subscribe to the view of Teilhard de Chardin that consciousness and intelligence and information are the principle evolutionary axes of the Universe, and that on planet Earth, at least, humanity is the point of this "evolutionary arrow", the apex or tip of the evolving vector.
A human individual contains an enormous amount of information in the trillions of cells, DNA, biochemical systems, and interconnections of the nervous system. In terms of physical size, we are puny and insignificant; but in terms of information content, we are astronomical in magnitude, both as individuals and as a species. It is on the information scale that the significance of humans must be measured and compared to the other major players of the Cosmos - planets, stars, galaxies, etc.
It seems that abiotic information conservation may be limited to the historical component of spacetime. In terms of "hardware", information begins with charge. Information is most reliably stored as charge at the atomic level, but when charges annihilate, the information they carried is gone, except for the historical component, which is more durable, although evidently subject to the entropy of "dilution" as its effects spread and propagate throughout spacetime. At a certain high level of dilution, these effects will become subject to the operation of chaos and quantum uncertainty, further eroding their information content. Hence even though the effects of an action may remain forever in the Cosmos, it may after a time become impossible even in principle to trace an effect back to a single, definite original cause (in the absence of an "artificial" conservation intervention requiring external energy inputs, such as human record-keeping).
There seems to be no limit to the complexity or amount of information systems can attain, if enough energy is available. The function of information is to lead matter back to symmetry upon the "straight and narrow path" of natural law via charge conservation. The information a material system contains is basically the road map or information it needs to return to its original symmetric condition of light. Hence we see the natural tendency of all material systems to convert bound energy to free energy, following the information pathway of the charges they contain (stars, supernovas, quasars, the quantum radiance of black holes, proton and particle decay, chemical reactions, matter-antimatter annihilations, etc.).
Although gravitation is an abiotic force, it is nevertheless responsible, directly or indirectly, for every level of the fractal hierarchy, with the possible exception of the first. Gravity creates the elements in stars, creates planets to support life and the stars which supply life's energy (including radioactive energy), and organizes the various levels of the Astrophysical Realm. Newton's Gravitation stands to the Fractal Hierarchy of Nature as Darwin's Natural Selection stands to the Theory of Evolution - gravity is the negentropic engine which produces all the material realms. The fact that both these negentropic drives, and the 4x3 fractal algorithm, intersect in the replicating molecule of DNA, has enormous implications for the abundance of life in the Universe, amounting to a theory of, and a prediction for, exobiology. Gravitation, chemistry, and the operation of the 4x3 fractal algorithm are universal abiotic forces which inevitably produce 4x3 molecular structures including DNA whenever environmental conditions allow. The information system of life is therefore not accidental, but a natural and predictable outcome of the operation of physical law, because of the universal presence and activity of the 4x3 fractal algorithm. (See: "Newton, Darwin, and the Origin and Abundance of Life in the Cosmos.")
The tendency of biological and material systems to create large and interconnected information structures (such as the biological web or matrix of Earth, and the dispersal of life into the galaxy) is apparently due to matter's never-ending quest for antimatter, as driven by charge and symmetry conservation, the long-range electromagnetic and gravitational forces, and matter's attempt to recreate in material systems the original connectivity, unity, and symmetry enjoyed by light. The charges of matter are the symmetry debts of light; charges are matter's memory that it once was light. The unity and connectivity of light are evidently also ultimately conserved correlates of light's state of perfect symmetry. (See: "Symmetry Principles of the Unified Field Theory"). The emergence of "beauty" in material and biological systems is an imperfect expression of symmetry conservation manifesting as best it can in an intractable medium.
The problem posed to the Cosmos by the creation of matter is this: does matter contain enough information, in the absence of antimatter, to return to its origin as light? Matter is only 1/2 of light's particle form, and so contains only one-half of the original information contained in particle-antiparticle pairs. The answer to this question is "yes", but another dimension, time, must be added to space to allow the working through of the difficult return path. During this return journey, the information pathway develops as a consequence of matter's eternal search for antimatter, and appears to be an attempt to recreate in material form the original attributes and potentials of light, including its unity, connectivity, symmetry, and creativity (light creates both space and matter), a parallel construction, an analog in matter of the Universe of light, Heaven reproduced on Earth, Chardin's "Omega Point". (See also: "Comment on the Metaphysical Realm (rational mode)".)
Our species' special position comes about through our discovery of Natural Law and the scientific method. Natural Law is the same everywhere in the Universe; hence a knowledge of the information content of Natural Law is a necessary prerequisite for a universal traveler, a galactic explorer and colonizer, a true Citizen of the Cosmos. The human "niche" has evolved from its beginnings in local Earth biology to a universal expression: the extraction of energy via the social apprehension and application of Natural Law. Our biological role is to be the seed of Gaia, dispersing earth-life into the galaxy via our space program and rocket ships. Nor is it likely that Earth is the only planet in the Milky Way entering its dispersal phase. We need to stop fighting among ourselves, protect our fragile mother-planet, and move on to the new frontier that beckons us from above and is the evolutionary purpose, promise, and destiny of our species.
