One thing that all of these examples of leading-edge science have in common is a prominent role for Information. Not the mundane stuff you get on Google, but the essential stuff as defined by Claude Shannon. In his analysis of communication, he saw that data flows in a manner similar to electricity in wires. Meaningful information is equivalent to potent Energy as opposed to depleted Entropy. Yet in a larger context, Information also has the ability to give meaningful or useful or valuable form or shape to some raw, unformed material. Information is full of potential as opposed to the emptiness of Entropy. Inspired by that potent metaphor, along with some insights from Quantum Theory, I have concluded that Energy actually consists of Elemental Information. On the most basic levels, such as laws of physics, that invisible “in-formation” is equivalent to the numerical relationships we call mathematics. According to my developing thesis of Enformationism [see Note 1], as we zoom our perspective from micro (smallest) to macro (human scale) to cosmic (largest), the information we find becomes more and more condensed, compressed, and solid, and then it begins to fade away back into the same ethereal stuff it began from. This is an essential part of the cycle of evolution: the Ourobouros (snake biting tail) information cycle---what goes around, comes around. In other words, evolution begins and ends as information. In the process, this proto-energy is neither created nor destroyed, but only changes form–-like Proteus, the shape-shifting sea-god of the ancient Greeks.
Step one in the cycle of evolution is what I call theEn-Form-Action (EFA) stage. [see Note 2] EFA can be visualized as raw, unprocessed, absolute, formless, primal, proto-energy. In physics, energy is defined as “the ability to do work”, whereas EFA can be further defined as the potential for change, and the power to give form to the formless. Keep in mind that potential is not a physical "thing"; it is more like a principle or a definition---or a law. In other words, information about something, rather than a thing in itself. Such information is typically expressed in mathematics as a ratio (the root of rationality), and the arithmetic symbol is "/ " or "÷" or "%", where the dots and spaces are variable values, and the bar signifies an implicit connection. In language the abstract ratio is expressed as a more concrete relationship (a comparison). The logical symbol for a meaningful relationship is " x:y ", where the variables are compared to each other in the form (A:B::B:C), meaning A is to B as B is to C. In all such cases the overall meaning or “mind-value” is in the ratio or relationship, not in the things themselves. Hence, numerical information about physical things is more elemental than the energy or matter they are made of.
Step two is the Active Energy phase of the cosmic process. Metaphorically, that original universalPotential(EFA) was bottled-up in the singularity that gave birth to the Big Bang. During the so-called “inflationary” phase, the substance of the universe was not yet organized into the energy and matter we are now familiar with. As time went by though, that dark formless fog of potential energy was in-formed by the mathematical laws of physics, and transformed first into Light Energy. Visible light is a common form of electro-magnetic energy, but EME is also manifested in many other forms. For example, the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation recently discovered by astronomers is considered to be a remnant of that first burst of light after the Big Bang. EM energy is organized into a pattern of wavelengths that perform specific kinds of change, and it ranges from nuclear forces, to electro-magnetism, to gravity*. All of these manifestations of information /energy are able to create or change the form of matter.
Step three is the Materialization phase of the birth of the universe. As some cosmologists have described it, after the Big Bang an inflationary “cloud” of pent-up creative energy expanded rapidly, and cooled down to a point where the pre-dawn cosmic “fog” began to condense into tangible bits of Matter. As various wavelengths of energy interacted among themselves, tiny drops of sub-atomic matter condensed out of the “cloud” of proto-energy. Some physicists envision these first inklings of matter as intersecting wave crests of energy vibrations. One way to think of materialization is to envision complex interactions of electromagnetic wave crests and troughs that either cancel or enhance each other, turning potential energy into actual matter. That description is only a metaphor for something science hasn’t yet pinned down. In any case, physicists have concluded that matter is basically a solid form of intangible energy. Mass-energy equivalence was proposed by Albert Einstein in 1905 (E = MC²). Mass-Energy-Information equivalence is the subject of this thesis.
OUROBOROS
The eternal cycle
* Yes, gravity is also a form of proto-energy (in-form-action), in the sense that it has the potential to cause change in matter. Gravity shapes space, which in turn gives form to matter.
PROTEUS
Shape Shifter
SOMETHING
FROM NOTHING
In the very beginning there was a void–– a curious form of vacuum –– a nothingness containing no space, no time, no matter, no light, no sound. Yet the laws of nature were in place, and this curious vacuum held potential.
—- Leon Lederman
The God Particle
RATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
OF REASON
Not only then is the ratio a:b the fundamental notion for all activities of perception, but it signals one of the most basic processes of intelligence in that it symbolizes a comparison between two things, and is thus the elementary basis for conceptual judgement . . . A proportion, however, is more complex, for it is a relationship of equivalency between two ratios . . . An analogy.
—-Robert Lawler
Sacred Geometry
Note 1
The “en” prefix added to “form” means
<< to cause to be >>
Note 2
The “-ation” ending added to “inform” means << the action of . . .>>
