Is reality digital or analog?

Logic as the language of innate order in the universe

Presented to:

by
Jeremy Horne, Ph.D.
mindsurgeon@hotmail.com
 Digital and analog
• Etymology of “digital” is “discrete,” or
distinct. “Digit” and its derivatives from the
Latin “digitus,” meaning finger, the simplest
form of expression being binary.
• “Analogue” refers to continuity - άνά, "up to"
+ λόγος "word, speech, reckoning,” this
etymology suggesting approximation or
finding a likeness but not an exact match.
An analogon is a comparison, hence, ratio.
 Two essential processes
undergird our universe:

• Dialectics – Our manner of apprehension

• Reductionism and holism – two ends of the

same pole
 Dialectics – Part I

Square with a circle inside it – what do

you see?
 Dialectics - Part II
Now, what do you see?
 Dialectics - III
You apprehend something in terms of
what it is not. Whatever is not red you
see blue, and whatever is not blue you
see red (aside from the background, of
course  ).
 What is dialectics?
• One apprehends something in terms of
what it is not.
• It is a process. One does not
apprehend this thing or that thing, but
one as being not the other and
conversely - dynamically.

Dialectics is inherently binary at its

simplest level.
 A process expresses the parts, and the parts, in
turn, give process its existential status.
Something exists in terms of what it is
not!!!!!
This most fundamental law helps us to understand
such apparent paradoxes as “particle wave
duality”. A wave may be regarded as process.
The “particle” is evidence of it, similar to
induction. Without the particle, we would not
know about the wave. This is similar to Kant’s
appearance and reality [Critique of Pure Reason]
and Plato’s forms.
6
 Reductionism and holism

• Reductionism – Cutting up into

pieces

• Holism – Apprehension of a
thing in itself
 Reductionism
“…we cannot conceive body unless as
divisible;”
- Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650),
- Discourse On the Method of
- Rightly Conducting the Reason,
And Seeking Truth in the Sciences,
Part III, Page 7,
http://infomotions.com/etexts/philosophy/1600-
1699/descartes-discourse-124.txt

Doesn’t this sound a bit like dialectical

thinking?
Find what exists by reductionism
–
Descartes’ method
• 1: A theory that all complex systems can be
completely understood in terms of their
components 2: the analysis of complex
things into simpler constituents
• http://dictionary.reference.com/
• Adapted definition: Breaking down into the
smallest units and attempting to explain
something in terms of these units.
• (Expanding an entity to infinity fails to reveal
its constituents.)
 Thought experiment
Take any object, a piece of paper, say,
and start cutting it up.
 Keep going … until
You reach Planck volume –

17.692 55 69946 ×10−105 M3

 Caveat on reductionism
• Remember dialectics
• Why do we start with reductionism?
• Merely expanding an entity gets us
nowhere.
• Something does not come from
nothing.
• We also bootstrap a method – just as in
logic.
Principle of Induction as inherent
and evident
• Structure of the eye – rods and cones
• Newsprint example
• Is there an illusion of solidity?
• Plato – Reality is understood by its
representations.
• A “deductive system stands upon…???
• Problems of induction – Hume, Mill,
and Russell – what is it, really?
 Holism
• Something is apprehended in its entirety.
• But, is this possible, given dialectics?
• Holism, then, should be seen as a framework,
background, or a context for individual
pieces.
• Without holism, the pieces could not be
apprehended.
• Without the pieces, there could be no
context.
 Boundary conditions between
holism and pieces
• What happens at the “boundary” between a Plank
volume (PV) entity and a non-PL one?
• Suggestion – purely speculative – As was in the
singularity the four fundamental forces, space and
time merge.
• Anything other than PV is a micro black hole or
vacuum space, possibly a “gateway” into another
world.
• The beginning of the singularity that began is now at
the “edge” of our universe, is not space-time
dependent.
• In what way do space and time exist, and how do we
know?
 Regardless -
• It is the case that the “pieces” – Planck
Volume units - are apprehended in terms of
each other as well as what they collectively
are not – a process.
• The PVs, themselves, because of what
Heisenberg said of the quantum level, cannot
be located both in terms of position and
momentum, again, a location is possibly only
as a dynamic, a process.
 Binary world
It from bit –
• John A. Wheeler (the physicist):
• "...a machinery for the combination of
yes-no or true-false elements does not
have to be invented. It already exists.”
• (Misner, C.W., Thorne K.S., Wheeler
J.A. (1973) Gravitation New York: W.H.
Freeman and Company)
 Piaget
“There exist outline structures which are precursors of
logical structures,... It is not inconceivable that a
general theory of structures will...be worked out,
which will permit the comparative analysis of
structures characterizing the outline structures to
the logical structures characteristic of the higher
stages of development. The use of the logical
calculus in the description of neural networks on the
one hand, and in cybernetic models on the other,
shows that such a programme is not out of the
question. (emphasis included) [Piaget J. (1958) Logic
and Psychology. New York: Basic Books, Inc. , p.
48]”.
 Binary is not new.
• Creation hymn in the Rig Veda
• Samkhya, the oldest form of Hinduism, the soul (purusha) is
counterpoised against matter (prakriti),
• Hesiod, Theogeny (ca. 750 and 650 BCE) wrote of everything being
born of chaos
• Anaximander (c.610—546 BCE), stated, “...some other nature which is
indefinite, out of which come to be all the heavens and the worlds in
them.[6]”
• Lucretius, The Nature of Things (ca. 99 BC – ca. 55 BCE) stated that
without differentiation there could be no harmony
• Apraphul people, South Pacific – 800 CE - A. K. Dewdney, “An ancient
rope-and-pulley computer is unearthed in the jungle of Apraphul”,
Computer Recreations, Scientific American, April, 1988: 118-122
• 1200-1500 CE - Incan binary code -
http://www.translatorscafe.com/cafe/MegaBBS/thread-view.asp?threadid=97

• Leibniz (1646-1716) - Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire,

https://docs.google.com/viewer?
url=http://ads.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/10/47/81/PDF/p85_89_vol3483m.pdf
&embedded=true&chrome=true, 1703.
 Binary is the deep structure of
the universe
But, you need process to make it work.
Process is endemic in the universe.

Let us look at the nature of process.

 The origin of binary logical
space
• Cartesian subdivision – recap digital
universe
• A structure falls out “naturally” and
contains natural deduction
 What exists
• The Existent - p0
• But we need what it is not – blue room
problem – remember dialectics?
 The identifier of P0
The existent and its p q
identifier – p0 in
0 1
terms of what it is
not.
Permutations of existent and its
other
p q

0 0

0 1

1 0

1 1
Binary world/space repeats itself, and is uniform. Because of
the reduction process, everything is expressible in binary form
with the 16 dyadic functions [(fn)(p,q)], each being a homeostat:
f0 f1 f2 f3 f4 f5 f6 f7 f8 f9 f10 f11 f12 f13 f14 f15
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1
0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1

Fa(fi,fj) →fb fa(fb,fj)→ fc fa(fc,fj)→.fn . . . - outputs are

forward-fed as inputs into succeeding functions, until the
original function is repeated.
(Horne, J., Recursion of logical operators and regeneration of
discrete binary space June 2000, Informatica, Josef Stefan
Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Three-dimensional hypercube
f1 - and
Three-dimensional hypercube
f13 - contains
 Observations
• 16 plates, each corresponding to a function
• Hypercube contain ALL possible dyadic
relationships – 4096, or 212
• Can derive ANY theorem by inspection and
backtracking
• This is a natural deduction system – axiom-
free!
• Emerging patterns, e.g., “gliders” in
automatons
• Basis for theorem classification for pattern
recognition
 Applications

• Theorem creation
• Theorem classification
• Theorem prover
• Shortened truth tables
• Parameter passing in self-annealing
environments
• Machine language programming?
• Explanation of chaos dynamics?
 Example of theorem creation
Modus ponens
p ⊃ q = f13(f3, f5)
p = f3
∴ q = f5

Corresponding conditional
Thus - f13 {f1[f13(f3, f5),f3], f5} = f15

Old notation of corresponding conditional:

{[p ⊃ q] & p} ⊃ q = 1111
“True”, or tautology - makes this a theorem.
Shortened truth table calculation –
old way:
New way:
 Parameter passing
• Two parallel proofs, one for which involves an
invalid argument schema
• Can the valid one be corrective of the invalid one by
passing a parameter?
• Two proofs are linked, of course, the invalid one
dependent upon the valid one.
• Corrective parameter is developed in valid one and
passed to the invalid one.
• Isn’t the valid one an application or a repair program
for the second?
• Use the hypercube to develop the application.
• Use of machine language?
 Hypercube may explain chaos
theory
• Wuensche – Basins of attraction in network dynamics:
• A conceptual framework for biomolecular networks - 1993
Fractal nature of binary space
• Something, including a regularity, or
pattern, does not come from nothing.
• There is an origination point.
• Look at the hypercube plates, again.
You’ll see, fractal origination points”.
 Basin of attraction
Mathematical Optimization, Applications, and Analysis class at Carroll College presented for the Mathematical
Association of America the “Four Humped Camel” in which is a maxima-minima analysis of basins of attraction
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url
=http://www.carroll.edu/~mparker/maa-2006/optimization%2520talk2.ppt&embedded=true&chrome=true,
http://www.carroll.edu/~mparker/maa-2006/4%20hump%20presentation.ppt
 Wolfram
From : A New Kind of Science
We have seen the “particulars”,
but what of the general – the
universe?
 Nature of the Universe
• Singularity –EVERYTHING bound up
within it
• Originally uniform – Aristotle’s
substratum
• Physical laws in Universe, as well –
Feynman – Character of Physical Law
• Laws are the boundaries – process
boundaries
• What of ideas?
 Dennett and others - Memes
• Memes regarded as individual entities –
similar to organisms
• But – No one has identified one, as an
object.
• Could “meme” be another word for
“process”, because no one has
physically identified one.
 Ideas bound up with the
singularity?
• Problem of ego – Oriental and South Asian
views strive to rid oneself of the ego.
• What is the relationship of the binary to
process?
• PV is the “thing” but what it is not, as we
said earlier, is the process.
• If this is all the case, what of one of the
ultimate questions – who are we, and where
are we destined?
 Implications of assessing
boundary conditions – is there a
distinction between:
• Material and non-material
• Space and time
• Real and abstract
• Property and individual
• Existential and universal?
The universe exists in terms of what it is
not. The above are “duals”.
These are binary relations!
 Boundaries are subjective
• We set them
• Measurement problem
• Calculus
• Again, in the ultimate analysis, there is
the Heisenberg/quantum, issue of
never being able to fixate a point;
everything is in a state of flux.
 US
• And what of ourselves and time?
Perceptual lag – a road to us
How long does it take for you to
realize the presence or absence of:

• Alpha Centauri - 37 billon km away

• Four light years from Earth
 The Sun
• 150 million km from earth – Eight
minutes
Your friend next to you?
 Your nose?
This is getting a bit tricky, now, isn’t it?
 Where does your awareness or
consciousness reside?
At what level?
 Immersion
• If we are in a “sea” of zeros and ones –
PVs, each in a constant state of flux, or
process, part of which is ideas, then
what is the logical consequence?
• When we die, our consciousness – a
process that originated from a unitary
consciousness of the Universe,
“dissolves” back into the universal.
Is the universe digital or analog?
• Are we digital or analog?
• It both because of dialectics, the
inability to locate anything
(Heisenberg), and perceptual lag.
 New IIIS Tradition
• Call for collaboration.
• It is not enough to present but to say
that you are continuing the quest and
want to have others participate.
Discovery is a universal process.
• In my case – I am looking for a machine
language expert to assist in theorem
classification and pattern recognition
studies.