The Universe as an Information Field : An approach to a unified theory of everything!

It is every layman's dream to stumble across some truth/insight that has evaded the broader scientific community at large. Without hubris, and at risk of professional ridicule and career suicide :-) , I am publishing this paper in the hopes that it may benefit those that are pursuing research in these fields, with applications for humanity in general.

We are all familiar with the story of Newtons Apple, and how it supposedly led to the postulation of gravity. 

Well, we pick up the story after Newton has left, and looking at the apple - we ask - what makes the apple STAY an apple after it came to rest on the ground? Yes gravity dropped it, but what makes an apple retain its "apple-ness" without any interaction or support from an uncaring world? How does it "remember" it's an apple? For that matter, how do I remember who I am when I wake up every morning? Why don't we "reset"? Especially since all the particles that make me up, have not sworn any allegiance to me personally, and I myself am a different person in many ways from the person that went to sleep last night?

A weird, and wonderful way, to picture this, is to imagine 3 versions of you. Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas future. (or t-1, t, t+1 where t=time). We think that information is exchanged OVER THE TIME DIMENSION between past-you and present-you that enables present-you to extend from the past, and then this repeats from present-you to future-you, and so on ad-infinitum. 

This exchange is not necessarily 1/1. Information may be changed, deleted, or added during transmission, that makes present-you not the same as past-you (position in time is different for one...). If you are riding in a car, all the particles in present-you move at the same speed to get future-you moved by a distance proportional to the speed of the car. If the car stops, all the particles go from moving - to a dead stop from one moment to the next. How did they all know? 

That's what got us started - we explain the theory with 6 assertions below, and VERY BRIEFLY start to unpack some implications - just to enable you to see what we are excited about!

THE THEORY:

(1) "Information"is the only fundamental reality in this universe - everything we see and experience can ultimately always be described in terms of "State" , that is, a set of attributes, and the values of those attributes, pertaining to the entity in question.  

Examples of attributes we are used to at both macro and micro-scales are shape, color, temperature, energy, position in space or time, velocity, number of protons, polarization state of a photon, charm, strangeness (when talking about subatomic particles) etc. While it may be argued that these attributes are subjective to human experience and definition, decades of scientific research have established that they are useful tools for us to observe, draw up hypotheses, test our inferences, and ultimately, harness and control, the reality we live in.

(2) At the macro, and micro (indeed ALL levels) information is constantly being exchanged. 

We submit that while certain modes of information exchange are well understood, and described from the macro to the sub-atomic level, we are just discovering additional modes of information exchange that are non-local, and temporal, and that additional attributes/modes of information exchange constitute the "missing" dark matter/energy (attributes).

(3) At the lowest level, for a particle possessing a set of attributes, the potential values the attributes can take are not infinite, but constrained by a number of factors.

These could be because of interaction with "nearby" particles (local and non-local), those imposed by fundamental laws (e.g. position of electrons in orbitals) - and can be described (albeit incompletely) by probability density functions. This links the macro and quantum worlds by constraining the possible states of information.

(4) Particles can be thought of as maintaining and propagating their own state by exchanging information, with themselves, in the time dimension (past, to present, to future). 

This is the example we started with, and it is not limited to particles, but they are a convenient entity to study.

This state can obviously be changed and manipulated by exchanges with other particles also, thus the state of the particle at time n+1 = state at time (n) + net changes due to all interactions. Newtons 1st and 2nd laws arise naturally out of this premise!

At the macro level this is evidenced by the fact that human beings do not forget who they are day to day, and that the furniture in the house, "essentially and practically ", does not change over time (it does change at the micro level) - unless picked up and carried elsewhere.

(5) Any point in space can be considered to contain, or be void of, information. (The Information Field).

This could be an electrical/magnetic/gravitational field, a single particle ( described by its constituent attributes), dimensional attributes (curvature of space/time) etc. This is the Universe as an Information Field. The field is denser where we have "solid" matter, and non-zero even in "empty" space (all the electrical, magnetic, gravitational attributes), and also time-varying (a photon/comet may transit, the gravitational fields will change based on the position of the nearby bodies causing it ... we live in a very dynamic universe.

By Manipulating the information contained in a space (adding or taking away) we should be able to construct any physical entity we want (the ultimate in 3-D printing... turn iron into gold etc.) 

(6) Human and "living" things are unique in their ability to perceive, and manipulate information - particularly, their ability to reverse entropy (create order, or NEW information). 

A bird builds a nest. A tree grows by adding structures to itself. Human brains absorb existing concepts, but then create new ones .... steel, plastic etc. are configurations of information that do not naturally occur in the physical world. A very useful definition of LIFE! (and one worth further study as to why exactly that is.)

THE IMPLICATIONS:

(a) Energy is just another attribute/type of information. 

We are familiar with Einsteins E=mc2. This equation represents (per Einstein) the SUM TOTAL of ALL the INFORMATION (=energy) that a particle can contain. But this is not the whole picture. 

A lot of this energy is not available to be used... when considering a closed system, the energy available = Sum (mc2) of all the particles ...LESS... sum (of that used to maintain the systems state (ENTROPY or degree of disorder) at the temperature T of the system). 

Entropy expresses the number Ω of different configurations that a system defined by macroscopic variables could assume. Under the assumption that each microstate is equally probable, the entropy S is the natural logarithm of the number of microstates, multiplied by the Boltzmann constant kB.

Even accounting for these two factors, neither equation allows for the facts of information interchange with other fields (information spaces) - the formulation assumes a closed system with no information exchange outside the system boundaries... 

Hence our postulation that the Einstein equation accurately calculates the value of one attribute (energy) but may not embrace all the terms that full define the particle (... where dark energy/matter /information reside).

(b) The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases over time. 

Isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium, the state with maximum entropy. Non-isolated systems, like organisms, may lose entropy, provided their environment's entropy increases by at least that amount so that the total entropy increases. Therefore, total entropy in the Universe does increase. 

Entropy is a function of the state of the system, so the change in entropy of a system is determined by its initial and final states. In the idealization that a process is reversible, the entropy does not change, while irreversible processes always increase the total entropy.

The key to note here is the word "non-isolated". This comes so close to the concept of information exchange but does not address it except to observe "the conservation of information" concept. If I reduce entropy here, the universe must increase entropy there.

The key question here is, IS INFORMATION TRULY CONSERVED or are there gains/losses in the exchange that causes the Universe to always increase increase entropy over time?

Per this theory we can say that the perceived increase in entropy (or disorder) of a system over time is due to information exchanges (not yet measured by physicists) with its environment that we are unaware of, and need to study in more detail. 

(c) The preceding discussions focused on Information as a key concept unifying the observable universe. We can view everything as islands of defined data floating on an ocean of information, all of which is constant dynamic motion and interconnected with everything else. 

Mysticism and spiritualism have long been pooh-poohed by scientists, but current research into parapsychology and paranormal phenomena have firmly, and statistically established, that our brain activity can actually influence disconnected devices like random number generators physically isolated from the subject.  

These are modes of information exchange that transcend the normal modes (talking, writing, recording/playing back) that we accustomed to. So yes, there is probably more under Heaven and Earth then are currently dreamt of in our philosophies.

As regards the implications to the existence of the Divine - the question is - where do the "constraints on information" (physical laws, e.g. strength of magnetic or gravity fields as a function of mass and distance) come from? 

Till date, only one religious text (the Bible) posits the concept of a "Logos" - a Word (information or concept), or Reason (Law/Pattern), or if we go with Heraclitus - a principle of order and knowledge. Order and pattern are deemed to have been coded into the fabric of our universe!

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This is just a beginning... there are real applications in the fields of Information Entropy, Quantum Mechanics, and Physics itself - should we embrace this paradigm, and it is my hope that publishing this in this forum enables critical examination of this position!