TFNR - The Structures of Information
Everywhere we look, observe, measure, everything we are, everything we imagine... Everything has structure, everything is structure, structures, objects, things, Forms or parts of larger and more complex Forms. Structures that make up structures, systems of structures and parts in dynamic relationship, everything is Information in incessant interaction.
Information, In-Form-Action...
Structures of Information make up the entire evolving Universe, from our body to the entire Physical Universe... And not only that... Even in the cognitive domain of Reality, everything is structure, Structures of Cognitive Information (perceptions, sensations, emotions, memories, thoughts, models, etc.) incessantly interact to form the flow of consciousness, states, dynamics, representations of ourselves and the world in which we live.
Information and Structures everywhere!
As seen, in the causal chain that, from the Source, from its active side, the Force, leads to the Form, to the Forms, to the Universe, to Reality as a whole in progress, after the Action we have found Information. The Form of Action, precisely.
Information tends to form Structures, Processes, patterns of organization of Relations between Events. Structures that in turn constitute the bricks that make up the Forms.
In this knowledge system, in a general sense and with reference to the most basic level of Reality, the term "Structure of Information" means pattern of organization of Action in the Field (Information, In-form-action).
Structures represent the shapes, the forms, correlations of the distributions of the elementary fluctuations in / of the Elementary Field under the incessant Action of the Fundamental Force, the product of the inner interaction between the active and the passive aspect of the Primary Source, the Source of Reality.
But we can give many other definitions (complementary or equivalent) with respect to the way we observe them.
And then, the most significant aspects, classification and origin, properties and dynamics of the Structures of Information, aspects that we will deal with in greater detail in this tenth chapter.
Various definitions
By observing the Structures of Information from the different perspectives of the profound nature of Reality, we can formulate different definitions, all complementary and equivalent, but each capable of providing us with a peculiar image that can help us build a more complete and detailed overall vision.
Strictly speaking, at the most elementary level of Physical Reality, by Structures we mean those small objects, so to say, that represent the discrete, the quantized aspect of Reality: waves and particles, and their more or less complex interactions, objects that make up visible/ordinary matter (radiation, particles, atoms, etc.). In the representation of what exists within this system of knowledge we do not only find these Structures of Information, which represent only a minimal fraction (5%?) of the existing Matter and Energy (Information). To this we must add all the matter and energy of the dark side of Physical Reality, which we will talk about later.
Let's try to put things in order:
- from the perspective of what exists in terms of Entities, Events, Relations and Processes, we can define the Structures of Information as Processes, dynamic networks of Relations among Events, that show some correlation in the basic dynamics of the Field, networks of organized Events that show consistent collective expressions / behaviors and common properties emerging from the more elementary levels of Reality, from the dynamics of Elementary Action. In other words, Structures of Information, at the most elementary level of Physical Reality, are patterns of correlation among the quantities that describe the dynamics of each point of / in the Field, the dynamics of the so called Micro-states, the point distributions of the elementary fluctuations (the Elementary Events, the Action) of the spatial dimensions in the time domain in / of the Elementary Field. In summary, at the level of the Elementary Field, the Structures of Information represent networks of Elementary Events, that show some level of correlation (organized by Relations) and manifest a collective behavior from which a condition of individuation emerges such that the Structures themselves can be configured as independent entities.
- from the perspective of what exists in terms of Sources (Forces and Fields couples), Action, Information, Form, Structures can be seen as (Derived) Entities, causal and variational centers of action, produced by the incessant Action of the Force on the Field, in the inner interaction between the two aspects of the Primary Source, the Source of Reality. A structure represents an organized (more or less definite and identified / identifiable) portion of the Elementary Field, which can then be seen ad a (Derived) Field (for example, the electric field manifested by a charged particle), which become source of a (Derived) Force (for example, the electric force manifested by that same charged particle). The Structures in turn then become (Derived) Sources of Causality and Variationality, Entities, centers of causal and variational Action, which constitute the derived aspect of the fundamental entities (Force and Field) in which the Source of Reality manifests itself. Formed by Elementary Action and being centers of Derived (more complex) Action, the Structures manifest form, properties, dynamics and behaviors that depend on their particular constitutive profiles of the Modes / Components of Elementary Action (Perturbation, Translation and Rotation, in the two sub-modes Rotation-Chirality and Rotation-Axis Orientation). These Derived Entities are the structures that populate both the dark and visible sides of the Universe.
- from the perspective of the relationship between continuity and discreteness, we can say that Structures represent the discrete (quantized) aspect of Reality in a continuous field. Although composed by the correlations of an enormous number of Events in space-time domains, nets of dynamical micro-states in a continuous field, Structures can be considered as units, units intended as organizations or systems, "individualities", that show emergent properties and behaviors.The key element for this emerging and special unity/individuality of each Structure of Information is the level of correlation between the Elementary Events that participate in, support its existence. When the intensity of the correlations between the Elementary Events of a dynamic set is greater than the intensity of the correlations between such Events and all the other Events that animate the Field not included in the dynamic set considered, we can say that the correlations between the distributions of elementary fluctuations of / in the Field or, in other equivalent terms, the Relations between the Elementary Events of the dynamic whole considered, constitute a Structure of Information of / in the Field. The border between the continuous and the discrete (two aspects that coexist in Physical Reality, the discrete that emerges from the continuous and influences its form and dynamics in an incessant co-formative, co-evolutionary process) is a very often blurred border, only sometimes clearer, sharper. Everything that we perceive or imagine as clearly distinct, separate, confined, is in fact not so if we observe its boundary at the smallest dimensional scales. Already at the molecular level, even more so at the atomic and subatomic level. Let us imagine electrons as elementary, "simple", unitary, point-like particles, of which, net of quantum indemination and their peculiar dynamics, it is possible to determine the position with infinite precision, if at the same time we give up analogous infinite precision for the measurement of speed of movement in space-time (position and velocity are conjugate quantum quantities). This is not the case. In this model of representation of Reality, in the Evolutionary Knowledge System, an electron, as an Information Structure, of the "Vortex" type / "Particle" sub-type, and for all the characteristics of the model, is hypothesized to be a portion of space-time, or rather of the Elementary Field, organized (with a particular configuration of the correlations between the distributions of the elementary fluctuations of / in the Field, a configuration that has the shape of a three-dimensional "Vortex", whose blurred boundaries find a fluctuating dynamic limit in the the very indeterminacy of the correlations, in the sense that the intensity of the correlations at the spatial boundaries of the electron fluctuate around the average value of the indeterminacy, making the boundary which would virtually be infinite/indeterminate blurred).
What takes on particular relevance here are not the Events themselves, which can enter and exit the considered set (dynamic in this sense), but the relations that bind them, that "organize" them, the correlations between the distributions (temporal) of the elementary (spatial) fluctuations of the Field which constitute the Elementary Events. These Relations, these schemes of correlation, represent Information, or, in its most basic sense, Energy (Information purified of the aspect of the Form of greater level of complexity, Energy represents a more elementary expression of it, a sort of synthetic, aformal, expression, in the sense of measurement of a physical parameter averaged over an interval of space and time as in statistical mechanics, e.g. "temperature", synthetic measurement of the average kinetic energy of the vibrating and colliding atoms, a domain of atoms considered as "isolated", unitary and identified.
- from the perspective of the role they play in the construction of Reality
Structures are the (Derived) Entities that compose the physical world: force carriers, Radiation, Dark matter, particles of Ordinary matter, and all the connected fields and forces, as their expressions. As entities, Waves, Vortices (particles) and Interactions, the elementary and composite structures of Matter and Radiation, can be defined Agents; specifically, Quantum Agents, as their interactions mainly follow the principles of Quantum Dynamics. Structures of Information represent the causal sources of the quantization of matter and energy in the continuous Elementary Field.
They are the building blocks of Material Forms, the objects of Physical Reality. As nets of Physical Structures of Information in incessant interaction (like waves and particles), as we will see in the next chapter, the Material Forms evolve in more and more complex objects (atoms, molecules, bodies, etc.), showing different emergent features and properties, behaving in the different ways as described by the dynamics proper to that peculiar Structure / Form (the physical and chemical dynamics for atoms forming molecules, for molecules forming materials, for material forming complex bodies like rocks, tissues, organisms, planets and stars, and so on). Transcending the level of the Structures, new properties and behaviors emerge with the evolution of Material Forms. And vice versa, the new properties and behaviors of the Forms, make the Structures to evolve modifying their behavior, their properties, in an incessant co-evolution that gives form to the Universe.
Waves, vortices (massive particles), interactions, constitute the network of Structures that populate the descriptive models of the constituents of matter (Dark and Visible).
Among them we find the structures that we call Dark matter, the diffuse low-density structures that create the texture of the cosmos, the galactic bubbles, and the even larger ones that house immense clusters and the other large cosmic structures.
And also the constituents of the Visible matter (or Ordinary matter), the particles from whose interaction the atoms are formed, and the other particles that are created in high-energy phenomena / collisions.
Waves represent the dynamic structures able of carrying Information or, in terms of conventional physics, vectors of forces. Here we find the gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves (and their particle counterpart / representation, the photon).
Vortices represent the conservative structures, from whose fundamental nature the mass phenomenon derives. Structured information which, due to its peculiar conformation, acquires an (apparently) permanent form. Dark matter halos, the invisible structure of the cosmos, which make up the complex cosmic web, the dark side of the Universe. Elementary particles, including leptons and quarks, in the visible side. From the interaction of these Structures composite particles arise, which form most of the particles that exist in nature or have been produced in accelerators (hadrons - protons, neutrons, etc. - and mesons).
Importance
Because of the closeness to us, the enormous space taken up by this field of research in modern physics and the amount of related theoretical and experimental activity
Origin
The Process of Formation of the Dark and Visible Structures of Information
Where the Structures of Information come from? Which is their origin? How they take form? The simple and concise answer is that they form from the dynamics of the Field, ruled by the three Fundamental Principles (Uncertainty, Action and Reaction and Least Action), essentially through two aspects of the evolutive processes.
The first, self-organization, is a fundamental aspect of the evolutive dynamics of Reality, as described in a previous chapter. Structures emerge from the Field, coevolving in an incessant evolutive interaction with the dynamics of the Field itself, where the evolutive Operators of Reality, Organization, Transformation and Selection, give form to more and more complex Structures and interactions. Given appropriate "environmental" conditions (an appropriate local state of the Field) processes of events (Information) organize spontaneously in stable structures, with "causal permanence" and characterized by properties that derive from the “collective behavior” of the elementary events that participate to their existence, or, in other words, from the correlations of the Action (perturbation, translation and rotation) of the microstates relative to the considered space-time domain.
The second, interaction, is the aspect through which many of the Structures are produced by the dynamics of existing Structures (i.e. the emission of e. m. waves by accelerating charged particles, the formation of mass particles by the friction of the huge dark matter halos hosting clusters and super clusters, the formation of composite Structures through the interaction of elementary ones).
Classification
The Physical Structures of Information, according to their nature, can be classified in two fundamental / pure types and a mixed type produced by various kinds of Physical Interactions between them:
...
Properties
Different kinds of Structures have different properties. In general, we can say that all the Physical Structures of Information have causal, spatial and temporal extension. Other properties are related to the shape of the structure (the form in the space), to its dynamics (the form in the time), to the way in which it can interact with other structures. Many other properties derive from the way in which the single structure is aggregated with other forms. In other words, the properties of the structures imply the properties of the more complex aggregates to which they take part, and the emerging properties of the aggregates imply the properties of the structures that compose the aggregates themselves. The elementary and the complex co-evolve influencing each other.
No defined form... (function of speed, mass, environment, etc.) and ever changing...
Form in the terms of the modes of E Action
Spacial-temporal (space-time) and Mass form and dynamics / Position of the structure in space-time, shape in space-time (position of its parts and relations...)
Motion form / evolution of the form -> dynamics -> change of position of the structure in space-time, change of shape in space-time (position of its parts and relations...), change of mass, etc.
Charge and Spin form and dynamics
Dynamics
In the Process of Formation of Reality, the Dynamics of the Structures of Information is that part of Evolutionary Dynamics that specifically describe the level of the Structures of Information. It analyzes all the processes of the two main classes of structures, the Structures of Propagation and the Structures of Conservation, and the Interactions of the two that produce the Structures that compose the Material Forms, the states of matter, the objects of the Physical Reality.
The interaction among the Structures of Information is the bridge toward Material Forms. More than the properties of the single structures, the “collective behavior”, the emerging properties of the dynamics of nets of Structures, at the same time belonging to the same class and to different classes, is what determines the properties of Material Forms. Here we can thing to the different states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma and various types of condensates) to the different chemical elements that forms more and more complex molecules with increasingly amazing properties and behaviors.
Looking at Reality in the most complex levels, all the Material Forms, like chemical, geological, organic, biological, cosmic structures, and the most complex forms made by the cognitive action of the Living Beings, show a vast and mutating net of properties emerging and incessantly evolving from the properties and the dynamics of the underling levels of the Structures that compose them. The properties and the dynamics of the elementary levels of Reality determine, entails, the emergence of the properties and the dynamics of the objects that populate the more complex levels, but in turn this evolution toward complexity enables the emergence of new and more complex properties and behavior of the objects of the more elementary levels, incessantly opening new possibilities of further evolution toward new levels of organization of Reality. It is an iterative and nested process of co-evolution of the elementary and the complex levels, of what exists and what can exist, that interests all the aspect of the Existence and the Essence of Reality.
Observation
What is different observing Structures from absolute or relative perspectives, from the point of view of the Field (the absolute perspective) or from the point of view of the Structures themselves (the relative perspective)?
In a further paragraph, we will describe, in short, the same Structures viewed from the two perspectives. In particular, vortices and wave structures, at rest or moving (uniform or accelerated motion), observed by:
- the absolute perspective of:
- a point event, represented as a micro-state, of the Field,
- a space domain, a portion of the Field, a set of points events, represented by a net of micro-states,
- the relative perspective of:
- the same observed structures, moving in the Field.
An "extreme" example to try to make it clearer
To give a concrete content to these words, in particular "to the correlations between the distributions of the elementary fluctuations of / in the Field" let's try to give an "extreme" example... in a domain of Reality close to us, which certainly does not have the characteristics of indeterminacy and uncertainty of the quantum world, but due to its simplicity it can better help us represent and understand the fundamental idea. Let's imagine a large football field, full of people.
Let's imagine looking at (observation, measurement) the (observable) field from the stands (observer). If we ask the people who are on the field to move freely in any direction, we will see a chaotic movement, and within certain limits we can say that each person on the field will have a motion independent of that of any other person (speaking of probability of movements, we can say that each person will move in a stochastic way independent of all the others, therefore in terms of correlations between the "movement" variables, in this case: no correlation).
The football field is the equivalent of the Elementary Field, the movements that determine the movements of the people (their mutual spatial distances) are equivalent to the infinitesimal fluctuations of the spatial distances of / in the Elementary Field at the Planck Scale, the speed of the people's movements represents the distribution of elementary fluctuations in the time dimension, the average speed of movement of people in each point of the field, or in a specific area, (we could call it "movement density", or even "time flow density") represents the speed of propagation of the elementary fluctuations of / in the Elementary Field (in physics this quantity is called the speed of light in vacuum, it is considered constant, but this is not the case, according to the hypotheses posed in this model). We will therefore have a football field, full of people moving in a chaotic and independent way, with speeds varying around an average value and below a limit value (we assume by convention the last record set by the world record holder in the 100m race meters, and let's consider it with an inviolable universal limit).
Image that we take as a metaphor of what happens at the most basic level of Reality, at the Planck Scale. In such an ideal situation (stochastic independence of people's movements), we can say that on the football field there are no Structures of Information (the position, speed and "intention" of all people is absolutely chaotic, disordered, uncorrelated, maximum entropy). No information at a higher level (Structures of Information and related dynamics) than the elementary level of the movement of individual people (Field and related dynamics). To describe this situation accurately, the maximum amount of information is needed. Normally (even in physics), to describe such situations we use formalisms and statistical quantities, which provide us with convenient "synthetic" representations of the phenomenon (e.g. temperature, an average measurement of the individual speeds / impacts of each particle that makes up the system under observation) .
We are using a discrete example (people moving on / in a field) to exemplify a dynamic situation that essentially takes place in the continuum (elementary fluctuations of / in the Elementary Field, Planck Scale fluctuations of spatial distances in the time domain, their distribution and related correlations). We are an expression of the emerging discrete aspect of Reality, we live at discrete levels and therefore we can only find discrete examples, since everything in us and around us is made of atoms, particles. But we must be aware that this oversimplification. These metaphors are useful for understanding, but we must not forget that the elementary level of Reality is continuous, and that the discrete is an emergent characteristic, dimension, property. With this clarification, let's try to delve into the example.
But let's go back to the football field. We provide instructions to a group of selected people who stand inside a circle in the center of the field. We tell them to start rotating on themselves while moving in more or less large circles around the center of the field while remaining within the identified circular area.
From the grandstand we will begin to see a movement that tends to be / approximately swirling, which is basically / approximately centered in the center of the field, within the considered circle. A Vortex-type Information Structure has appeared! This structure (pattern of correlations between the distributions of fluctuations / movements) is the manifestation of the Information that we have provided (= action of a force) to some people in the field (= elementary fluctuations of / in the field).
The potential energy (of creation of structures, manifestation of organizational schemes, of information), which people had but did not express in their chaotic and independent motion, due to the action of a force (= instructions provided), i.e. for the transfer of Information / Energy from the platform to the people in the field (= execution of an experiment), from potential it has transformed into manifest energy (precisely information). If we observe the vortex, and the field around the considered circle, we will see that the vortex movement, due to impacts, "induction", imitation, etc. it has spread to people in the areas immediately surrounding the vortex from time to time.
And so on. We hypothesize that this "motion propagation", which in effect is information propagation, follows an inverse square law (intensity of the propagation result decreasing as the square of the distance from the center of the vortex structure). In reality the situation is not quite so defined, precise, symmetrical (the dynamics of each person is different from all the others, as we well know, the grass on the pitch is not uniform, there could be small imperfections that slow down or speed up the movements , people outside the circle could be more or less "receptive", etc. infinite variables...). But let's assume that the contributions of all these variables compensate and that the real situation fluctuates slightly around a complex attractor stable and strong enough to make the situation "ideal" or at least "near-ideal". And again we can hypothesize that the vortex motion widens, extends up to where the new people reached by an increasingly rarefied information (energy) induces a variation of the movement in the vortex direction
It is as if each person in the field took part, participated in the existence and essence/form of the Information Structure, the Vortex, to an individually variable extent, and individually the intensity of their participation fluctuated over time and in relation to the particular position assumed over time in the field with respect to the Structure, etc. Everything changes incessantly, the people who participate in the Structure, the intensity of their participation, the characteristics, the speed of individual movements, the positions, the evolution over time, etc. yet the Structure is formed (Organization), evolves and changes (Transformation) and survives / persists in a causal and variational sense (Selection) until it reaches a condition of equilibrium that makes it sufficiently stable (evolutionary adaptation, obviously unintentional, non-direct, not designed, etc.).
The same thing happens in / to the Elementary Field... We can hypothesize that, in the continuum, about 10^x Elementary Events participate in the existence and essence / form of a "simple" electron, the most elementary particle we can imagine (fluctuations of the Elemental Field which, given the characteristics / intensities / resistances of the Fundamental Force and the Elemental Field, resonate at the Planck Scale) and all the correlations (Relationships), variously intense and correctly organised, between all the distributions of such elementary fluctuations . A dimensional scale, an enormous complexity for a "simple" particle... And we are surprised that we are unable to fully describe it, to precisely predict its properties and behavior, to understand its nature and characteristics, its interactions with its peers and with the other particles/forces, etc.
We could have used many other phenomena close to us (flocks of birds in flight, schools of fish in the sea, etc.) to provide a concrete example, as comprehensible as possible of what, apparently very abstract, we are trying to describe in this chapter and more generally in this work.
But I hope that this particular example has helped to clarify at least a little what we are talking about, beyond the formal and necessarily abstract definitions. Being able to imagine in a spatial / geometric / visual sense and in a temporal / dynamic / evolutionary sense helps us to understand better. Modern physics, especially the quantum field with its abstract formalisms and concepts that often appear patently absurd and incomprehensible (even to physicists) does not help us get a "realistic" idea of Reality, pardon the pun. But I'm sure we understand each other!
Links to the tables of contents of TFNR Paper
