Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Reality: A universe of information
03 October 2012 by Michael Brooks
Magazine issue 2884. Subscribe and save
For similar stories, visit the Quantum World Topic Guide
What we call reality might actually be the output of a program running on a cosmos-sized quantum computer
Read more: “Special issue: What is reality?”
WHATEVER kind of reality you think you’re living in, you’re probably wrong. The universe is a computer, and everything that goes on in it can be explained in terms of information processing.
The connection between reality and computing may not be immediately obvious, but strip away the layers and that is exactly what some researchers think we find. We think of the world as made up of particles held together by forces, for instance, but quantum theory tells us that these are just a mess of fields we can only properly describe by invoking the mathematics of quantum physics.
That’s where the computer comes in, at least if you think of it in conceptual terms as something that processes information rather than as a boxy machine on your desk. “Quantum physics is almost phrased in terms of information processing,” says Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford. “It’s suggestive that you will find information processing at the root of everything.”
Information certainly has a special place in quantum theory. The famous uncertainty principle – which states that you can’t simultaneously know the momentum and position of a particle – comes down to information. As does entanglement, where quantum objects share properties and exchange information irrespective of the physical distance between them.
In fact, every process in the universe can be reduced to interactions between particles that produce binary answers: yes or no, here or there, up or down. That means nature, at its most fundamental level, is simply the flipping of binary digits or bits, just like a computer. The result of the myriad bit flips is manifest in what we perceive as the ongoing arrangement, rearrangement and interaction of atoms – in other words, reality.
According to Ed Fredkin of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, if we could dig into this process we would find that the universe follows just one law, a single information-processing rule that is all you need to build a cosmos. In Fredkin’s view, this would be some form of “if – then” procedure; the kind of rule used in traditional computing to manipulate the bits held by transistors on a chip and operate the logic gates, but this time applied to the bits of the universe.
Vedral and others think it’s a little more complex than that. Because we can reduce everything in the universe to entities that follow the laws of quantum physics, the universe must be a quantum computer rather than the classical type we are familiar with.
One of the attractions of this idea is that it can supply an answer to the question “why is there something rather than nothing?”. The randomness inherent in quantum mechanics means that quantum information – and by extension, a universe – can spontaneously come into being, Vedral says.
For all these theoretical ideas, proving that the universe is a quantum computer is a difficult task. Even so, there is one observation that supports the idea that the universe is fundamentally composed of information. In 2008, the GEO 600 gravitational wave detector in Hannover, Germany, picked up an anomalous signal suggesting that space-time is pixellated. This is exactly what would be expected in a “holographic” universe, where 3D reality is actually a projection of information encoded on the two-dimensional surface of the boundary of the universe (New Scientist, 17 January 2009, p 24).
This bizarre idea arose from an argument over black holes. One of the fundamental tenets of physics is that information cannot be destroyed, but a black hole appears to violate this by swallowing things that contain information then gradually evaporating away. What happens to that information was the subject of a long debate between Stephen Hawking and several of his peers. In the end, Hawking lost the debate, conceding that the information is imprinted on the event horizon that defines the black hole’s boundary and escapes as the black hole evaporates. This led theoretical physicists Leonard Susskind and Gerard’t Hooft to propose that the entire universe could also hold information at its boundary – with the consequence that our reality could be the projection of that information into the space within the boundary. If this conjecture is true, reality is like the image of Princess Leia projected by R2D2 in Star Wars: a hologram.
Michael Brooks is a writer and New Scientist consultant based in Sussex, UK http://bit.ly/SBuUxt
Monday, May 21, 2012
The man who gave us risk intelligence, 21 May 2012 by Alison George - New Scientist
Humans are useless at assessing probabilities. But against the odds, Dylan Evans has tracked down the handful of people who rate as geniuses on the intelligence scale he calls risk quotient. Alison George asked him what they can teach us - and if we can boost our own scores
Most people probably haven't heard of risk intelligence. What is it?
It is the ability to estimate probabilities accurately, it's about having the right amount of certainty to make educated guesses. That's the simple definition. But this apparently simple skill turns out to be quite complex. It ends up being a rather deep thing about how to work on the basis of limited information and cope with an uncertain world, about knowing yourself and your limitations.
Are most of us bad at this?
Yes. The psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky laid the ground for a lot of what we know about judgement and decision-making. One of their findings is that we are incredibly bad at estimating probabilities. I assumed this was pretty much universal and hard, if not impossible, to overcome. So I was surprised to come across occasional islands of high risk intelligence in odd places.
Where were those pockets of genius?
I found them among horse-race handicappers, bridge players, weather forecasters and expert gamblers. You can only be an expert gambler where there is room for skill, like blackjack, poker or sports betting. It is hard to track them down because they shun publicity, and it was hard to get them to trust me, but eventually they did. I interviewed the blackjack team who inspired the film 21, as well as other blackjack and poker players. What they have in common is they are very disciplined and hardworking.
What's the difference between an expert gambler and an ordinary gambler?
The expert gambler makes money and the problem gambler loses it. But there are emotional differences. Although they both gamble a lot and it appears to be compulsive, expert gamblers know when not to bet, they evaluate their opportunity each time.
There is also a big asymmetry in feelings about winning and losing. Problem gamblers get a buzz from winning, it's like an adrenalin rush, but they don't mind losing that much. With experts, it's the opposite: they don't get a huge kick out of winning, the pleasure is more cognitive. But they hate losing so much that they are constantly re-evaluating their decisions and finding out how to do better.
Does a talent for blackjack mean you make intelligent choices in the rest of your life?
There is a degree to which the things you learn by developing high risk intelligence in one area spill over to the rest of life - you see a kind of modesty, for example. A distinguishing feature of people with this kind of intelligence is that they've had extensive experience of learning the mistakes of being overconfident in one area, and apply that lesson generally.
Knowing your limits is key then?
Yes. It doesn't matter if you've got a high level of knowledge about horses in a race: if you don't have corresponding self-knowledge, it is no good, you won't have high risk intelligence.
What else did you find about expert gamblers?
They're not Rain Man geniuses, they don't necessarily have mathematics degrees, and there is no correlation with education or IQ. But they are all comfortable with numbers, and their risk intelligence is substantially higher than average.
How do you quantify risk intelligence?
I set up an online test to measure risk quotient or RQ. It consists of 50 statements, some true, some false, and you have to estimate the likelihood of a statement being true. The average RQ is not high. There are two ways you can have a low RQ. One is by being overconfident, the other is by being under-confident. You do find people making the under-confidence mistake, but there are far fewer of them.
Your book presents a rather worrying finding - that doctors have a very low risk intelligence?
Absolutely. In fact, as they get older, they become more confident, but no more accurate, which means their risk intelligence actually declines. One study I looked at showed that when doctors estimated patients had a 90 per cent chance of having pneumonia, only about 15 per cent had the condition, which is a huge degree of overconfidence. Another way of putting it is that they think they know more than they do. One explanation is that doctors have to make so many different decisions about so many different things they don't get a chance to build up a good model. Maybe if you have to make life and death decisions, you feel you have to exude confidence otherwise you'd be too damned scared to do anything.
Is the appetite for risk a very different thing from being intelligent about risks?
Yes. They are often confused. Appetite for risk is an emotional thing, while risk intelligence is a cognitive skill. You could have people with both an appetite for high risk and a high risk intelligence or people with low levels of both. A particularly dangerous combination would be high risk appetite and low risk intelligence.
What mistakes do we make in assessing risks?
The need for closure is a really interesting one. If you have a great need for closure, it means you don't like being in a state of uncertainty - you want an answer, any answer, even if it is the wrong one. On the other extreme, there is this need to avoid closure, where you are constantly seeking more information, so you get stuck in analysis paralysis.
Can we increase our risk quotient?
Absolutely. One way is by being aware of different cognitive biases. Another is to play a personal prediction game. Bet against yourself and estimate probabilities of anything: whether your partner will get home before 6 o'clock, or whether it is going to rain, and keep track of them. Expert gamblers are constantly on the lookout for overconfidence, biases and so on. It is hard work, but it means they know themselves pretty well and they don't have illusions. They know their weaknesses.
I did your RQ test, and got a high score. If that's correct, would that manifest itself in my life?
It probably means you can judge the accuracy of information pretty well. You wouldn't be totally taken in by a random news story. You would probably be quite good at learning how much to trust what people tell you.
People may have heard of you because of the "fruitbatgate" incident, when you were accused of sexual harassment after showing a colleague a paper about fruit bats engaging in oral sex...
It is complicated, and I don't want to comment on the specifics of the case, but I will comment on the broader context - a worrying trend in academia towards policies that inhibit free discussion of ideas and sharing of information. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education in the US has highlighted many cases in which free speech in universities has been curtailed by oppressive policies. Universities should encourage academics and students to take risks and push back the frontier of knowledge, but they are increasingly risk-averse, and this is a terrible shame.
Profile
Dylan Evans is visiting professor of psychology at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He has a PhD in philosophy from the London School of Economics and in 2011 founded risk intelligence company Projection Point. His latest book is Risk Intelligence: How to live with uncertainty. Test your RQ at www.projectionpoint.com
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
OUR PLANET IS NOT AN ENEMY.
Pour le sang trop nombreux et la pierre a le même poids. Il ya des anges qui n'ont pas de sang.
Pour le sang trop nombreux et la pierre a le même poids. Il ya des anges qui n'ont pas de sang.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
The reasons why my interview with Pedro Velez from 2007 is misleading
I've been told by friends that this would be important to blog, so I am blogging it..
To most people who view an old interview/studio visit I did with Pedro Velez in 2007, it's a horrible interview.. But there are still people who are not skeptical of how I & my work are presented in it.
At the time- I was being bullied, threatened & harassed by a Chicago 'painter' (& some might say I still am) & Velez was seeking to align himself with him.. Also Velez is a former 'artist' cum 'critic'-.
There has been a decent amount of my work that I am willing- to share on the net since 2007 (CLICK) & this finished work & more was available in my studio at the time of Velez's visit.. But instead of noting the literature that I read- & instead of taking a half way decent photograph of plenty of finished work, he took a bad & poorly edited photo of the top- of a minor & unfinished small painting & described it in a way that is self explanatory as to his internalized notions of me & my work..
The interview speaks for itself (again for most skeptical people) but in case there is need for clarification- the flattery of being compared to Leon Golub & some noteworthy attention to my Hamas series aside- Velez was basically trying to intentionally or unintentionally make me look bad.
Link to old 'interview' of 2007: (click)
ALIVE AND KICKING
by Pedro Vélez
part 1: The Studios
To most people who view an old interview/studio visit I did with Pedro Velez in 2007, it's a horrible interview.. But there are still people who are not skeptical of how I & my work are presented in it.
At the time- I was being bullied, threatened & harassed by a Chicago 'painter' (& some might say I still am) & Velez was seeking to align himself with him.. Also Velez is a former 'artist' cum 'critic'-.
There has been a decent amount of my work that I am willing- to share on the net since 2007 (CLICK) & this finished work & more was available in my studio at the time of Velez's visit.. But instead of noting the literature that I read- & instead of taking a half way decent photograph of plenty of finished work, he took a bad & poorly edited photo of the top- of a minor & unfinished small painting & described it in a way that is self explanatory as to his internalized notions of me & my work..
The interview speaks for itself (again for most skeptical people) but in case there is need for clarification- the flattery of being compared to Leon Golub & some noteworthy attention to my Hamas series aside- Velez was basically trying to intentionally or unintentionally make me look bad.
Link to old 'interview' of 2007: (click)
ALIVE AND KICKING
by Pedro Vélez
part 1: The Studios
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
