New Experiences of an Old Universe

     Thoughts after reading the biography of David Bohm, "Infinite Potential", by F.David Peat (1997)          (ISBN#0-201-40635-7), & "The Undivided Universe" by Bohm & Basil Hiley, (1993) (ISBN#0-415-12185-X).

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It is with some trepedation that I write this, since making an internet contact with Basil Hiley recently (winter 97/98) and having garnered brief interest from him re my theses, and then silence.   He wrote me that he was in the midst of writing a piece focussing on entropy vis a vis his ontological interpretation of quantum theory.    Re-analysis of entropy (and information) is fundamental to the Integrity Paradigm view of how the universe is organized and functions.  Bohm and Hiley have made "quantum leap" advances over conventional quantum-theory -- in mathematical structure that is totally distinct from proposal forms made by Integrity -- yet I perceived companion underpinnings in our respective concepts, and so made overtures for discussion.     In absense -- or prelude -- of that communication, I've decided to net-publish my perspective on the matter regardless.

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The singular theme which ontological non~locality (Bohm & Hiley) and information topology () have in common is communication causality.  Bohm & Hiley developed a consistent description of foundational structure from which arises quantum mechanics (which had been assumed to be the ultimate model, pre-Bohm), explaning or at least accounting for connected events that are precluded in the relativity version of universal structure.  This, in the light of Einstein's work which originally enfixed the situation of energy quantums, and even indicated trans-relativity phenomenon in the EPR equations (so-called "spooky" action at a distance), even while predictive of relativity mechanics that works specifically because of the rigid restriction of c, the speed of light (photo propogation) in a vacuum.

"Classical" Quantum Mechanics is a stochastic house.  Event probabilities occur with Hamiltonian symmetry. That is, events and organizations are modeled which have no regard for a preferred flow of Time, they work equally well either "forward" or "backward" in any sense of time flow that is our experience under Thermodynamics.  And here in rests the formidible problem.  QM physicists are quite happy with time-irrelevance.  The whole menagerie of sub-atomic particles has been discovered and verified using those equations, so why clutter things up when time seems to play no role?  But, these particles and relationships congeal into systems that behave with a strict temporal sequencing -- the thermodynamic and relativistic universe we know.  And, adding insult to injury, QM leap-frogs thermodynamics/relativity to say that spatial prioritization may be a chimera also -- that there are behavioral connections that bind events irrespective of distance ... on vast transluminal (faster than light) scales.  Events can be "simultaneous"   when classical relativity demands that they have no connection at all. This is the realm of Einstein-Podalsky-n, of Josephson Junctions, of Bell's Inequality, of Aharanov-Bohm, of Alain Aspect, of Bohm & Hiley.  

The universe is a coherent orchestration of phenomena, following regular rules and order, but its seems then that there are 2 sets of antithetical rules and a confusion on how to blend them.  Prigogine (c.1969) initially developed a model which has Time being generated from QM.  His latest work (1995) now flips that and says that Time is somehow primordial.   Bohm also wrestled with the issue -- causality -- and published his ideas on the "implicate order" in 1951,1980, and Bohm & Hiley in 1993.  Circa 1967 is when I began my own explorations of the problem, approaching it from the stance of the biological question, "How do complex energy accumulating- processing systems come about from primal physics systems which operate under an opposite rule of energy dissipation ... entropy?"    Now, it may seem a gross audacity to presume that the question can be resolved based mainly on broad logic and biological relationships, without benefit of higher mathematics.  Fortunately, the "forest for the trees" phenomenon took affect in my effort, as I resolved to evaluate factors from a "dynamic behaviors" point of view (now generally called the "systems approach").   I used several assumptions.  The first being that all factors had to have a translation constant.  Whether "time" or "space" or "energy" or "mass" or "sequence" etc, there had to be a some common quality which enabled their mutual use in mathematical equations. Specifying the quality came easy (defining it still being a work-in-progress).  That quality is:   "information".  They -- and more -- all contribute "information" in the existential blend.   The second assumption was that science had correctly identified, if not perfectly understood, the universe's predicating "forces" :  gravity, electromagnetism, the 2 nuclear forces (strong, weak) and lastly, entropy.  And finally, that human sentient comprehension was a filter -- but an accurate one -- of all that information, with the corollary that Mathematics is just another "language" used to analogue empirical experiences, and that mathematics could be as vulnerable and accessible to re-interpretive definition as any other language on the planet. 

I struck gold immediately.  I learned that, since Shannon (1948), information had been alligned with entropy, or more properly neg-entropy.  And there-in was the crux of temporal directionality, if not directly the problem of temporal vs atemporal predications.  Next came the logical analogy that if we observe that life and complex accumulations happen in special time/space places, local regions, that means that entropy is behaving "locally" there, counter to its treatment in scientific discussions that took the gas-model of heat/energy/spatial dissipation and generalized it from empirical examples out to the universe at large.  That is, I reasoned that if we can naturally identify or artificially create local bounded examples of entropy activity, shouldn't the universe be more properly perceived as extensive interactions among pluralities of entropy groupings, all moving in different yet interconnected gradients, with differing rates, different relevances, different entropy/neg-entropy directions?   Developing a model of such interacting dynamics would be the real goal, and I intuited that any one entropy phenomenon might causally induce neg-entropy in another frame of reference, after all, it is the dissipation of radiant energy from the sun that pumps and induces energy accumulation, storage and processing in slower moving molecules -- crystalines and organics -- on earth.  These "slower" systems had to be structured with the capacity potential to hold varying larger amounts of energy than mere enduring sustaining energy.  Again, the basic systems relationships were obvious and identifiable, lacking only mathematical definition and confirmation.

   ... to be continued ... Commentary Bulletin #10.

December, 1997

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