Information theory, Lego bricks and The Matrix

More science geekery, but last bit for a while I promise. This is maybe the weirdest post I've ever written, but so be it.

When you go down as small as atoms, they are all basically the same.......which seems a bit odd since everything we observe in the universe that exists at our size is so wildly varied. It's all made of the same kind of stuff, how can it look so different?

A possible explanation they're throwing around is the idea of the universe acting like some sort of supercomputer, outputting a version of the universe we all see, while not really being the REALITY of it.

Don't make that face, it's not that far fetched when you think about it. An electronic computer combines a simple code to create 3 dimensional looking images. Think of atoms as bits of code that all look simple until you pull back and get chemical structure, and then pull even further back and get cats, dogs, stars and people.

When you think of things like this, everything we see is precisely that - shimmering information, no more permanent or real than the picture you see on your PC screen. It's not real, it's made of thousands of pixels, and the pixels themselves are made of simple code, imagine the world as a three dimensional computer screen and you get the picture, as it were.

BUT a computer's information is manipulated by a physical architecture, usually stored in a computer chip. Some information theorists believe the world is like that...the information has no meaning without someone to READ IT, and it needs a system to process it.

From our point of view, subatomic stuff is like putting a magnifying glass to a computer screen and looking at the pixels. But we have to understand the processing architecture BEHIND those pixels to make sense of how the universe works.

Anyway, we're all made of stars, the atoms in us are billions of years old, and billions of years later these borrowed atoms will still exist, but we won't. If we're fleeting patterns in this long term information, in what sense are we real?

Computers use 2 types of information, that's it. The entire universe is built from standard particles......and these atoms are mostly empty space. So what's really more important, the real solid stuff that isn't (mostly) there, or the information it conveys? Like Lego.

The bricks are standard, but imagine you've built a cathedral model for them, but the next day all human culture is wiped from th earth, but the cathedral remains. In what sense is it anything more than a pile of bricks without us to process the information it imparts as a 'cathedral'?

When you think like that, on what level does the universe exist without beings like us to observe it? To give it meaning? And that not so daft either.

Electrons are really important, it's these little things that give us electricity when they flow. But we don't really know what are, and when we try to observe them, it alters what they will do. How does it know you're looking? Quite seriously, if you fire an electron at a wall with two holes in it and don't observe it, the results show it went through BOTH. Yet when it's observed, it goes through one or the other.

If we do test on an electron to see if it behaves like a wave - it does. But if we do another to see if it behaves like a particle, guess what? You got it, particle it is.

Are we making these things happen by watching them? Is what we see nothing more than information created by sub-atomic code? Hold on! I've see a film about that!

Comments

[Lee]

Have you been reading Kurzweil?

[NP]

Sporadically, but I didn't know he'd done stuff on this area. Where can I find it?

[JakeYbro]

How does that relate to brands and the process of planning? Are we merely applications in the super computer that help define meaning for the particles? The notion that we have our reality created for us or we create it by observation seems to have a parallel to brands and people.

Do I make sense, or have you just successfully scrambled my brain?

[lauren]

interactive or experiential architecture/art works from this theory, in that the artwork is only an artwork or 'functional' when we interact with it - that perception or experience is actually a vital element of form. when i get back from europe, i'm going to make sure i head up the M1 and we can have a geek catch-up session!

[NP]

I hadn't really thought of how it may apply to brands really Jake, but it's maybe interesting to think about how brands are made up of lots of little ideas and associations, that create some sort of overall picture....but at the same time, the picture is actually defined by the people that see it, how they behave around it.
Lauren, give us a shout, and I've got to agree, the viewer is as much part of it as the object. Let us know when you're up