Information: A Field Study

We are given a field, 2.8 acres in extent and newly planted in corn. It is bottomland, sloping slightly to the South and along the top of the field runs a small ditch carrying mountain water recently descended.

The planting has given the field its characteristic corrugated appearance; long mounded rows of loose, dry soil containing the seed separated by the shallow furrows to carry the water for germination and growth.

The task at hand is to create a manifold connection between the ditch of water and the furrows, sending an equal flow to each one. An irrigation “set” looks something like this:

This arrangement in the flow of water must be carefully created and sustained within a physical dynamic and the basic method must surely dates back to well before we learned to write about it. One takes a small rock or chunk of sod with plenty of root fiber and places it at the point of diversion creating a rough little valve that can be adjusted by inching the rock about until the right amount of water is flowing down the furrow.

There is a challenge here in that any one change begets another, both upstream and down. Achieving an equal flow of water to a dozen furrows is a delicate balancing act, more art than science, but is a pleasant early morning exercise.  Here, dried out and pressed upon the page, is the image of the rock turning water:

We find that the rock is part of a “hierarchy of suitability”; some things work better than others in turning the water.  A simple dirt clod will work briefly, but not endure the effects of moving water and soon fail. On the other hand, the farmer’s storage building is full of metal and plastic devices purchased with the notion of better serving the same function. We will return to this ideogram after introducing two more.
 

Here we find an instance of a feedback loop and we have come to it along a path that features the role of the farmer’s rock in the process. As a causal chain it seems a rickety, tenuous construct, more idea than actuality. Still, each year the farmer returns to place the rock and some molecules water that were turned the year before likely linger in his cells.

Now, while the rock does not require manufacture, it does require some energy in its placement. Further, some other sort of device (from the French root “to divide”) may require energy and material to create its structure. A more general and systemic view would replace the rock with a little loop to indicate this energy/material flow:

       Here we see the small circle representing the rock within the larger circle representing the dynamic path of the farmer’s year.

       With the exception of a general systems view, this last ideogram is an archetypal pattern that does not show up on the page of any single science. In the course of the farmer’s year it traces a path that crosses and recrosses the analytical space of physics, chemistry and biology.

       In biological systems we find countless analogues to this process pattern. It is a rough but useful way of identifying a dynamic that is the basic stitch of life process. It occurs again and again in living systems at scales varying more than 10²⁰ in extent. Its analogues are nested in countless iterations along the loop of the farmer’s four seasons. On a variety of scales, here are some examples.

       Each planted kernel of seed corn is a rock-like device, much more complex than the farmer’s rock, but functioning in a similar fashion. Instead of simply water, its input currencies are various: the ambient warmth of the soil, water and water-borne nutrient molecules. Given these diffuse currents of energy, material and its own internal energy in the form of starch, the germinal portion of the seed begins a process with the apparently ultimate goal of recreating itself at a later season.

       In the cells of the corn leaf, for example, we find the currency of the water replaced with that of sunlight and the rock replaced with a much more elegant device: the chlorophyll molecule. In confluence they drive an electrochemical pathway dividing up to five (5) CO₂ molecules / nm² / second, making available an equivalent free energy for plant processes. A portion of that energy is returned to create and maintain the chlorophyll molecule.

       A third, more extensive example of nature’s devices that function in the fashion of the farmer’s rock may be found in the farmer himself -- in his vocal tract. Active as he is, the greater portion of his motor cortex is devoted to coordinating this complex assemblage as it actively modulates sound frequencies to produce a spoken language. One must assume that, in devoting so much resource to the capacity for speech, human kind has gained returns beyond that of Shakespeare’s poetry, returns that may ultimately be measured in Calories.

       We include this example in order to introduce the connection between a physical process and the notion of information. Note that a spoken language may be approximated by a string of written phonetic symbols and their sequence then analyzed by the appropriate Shannon H-theorem yielding, in the case of written English, about 1.0 – 1.5 bits/symbol.  Here, at a greater level of abstraction, Shannon’s index arises from an underlying physical dynamic without conveying the full semantic measure of that process. Any oddments of internal correlation have been extracted as redundancy.

This cyclic pattern – currency, device, division and return -- is a necessary condition for living systems. Its observation would be a litmus test for life if found there uniquely. It is also possible that the germ of this pattern was already preexistent in nature and life arose upon its framework.

       With a seven-league leap over some necessary exposition, we reach this conclusion. In so far as metaphor may serve as a cognitive touchstone, there is utility in considering that physical information is in essence a rock-like device.

                   

The Breath of Nature

When great Nature sighs, we hear the winds
Which, noiseless in themselves,
Awaken voices from other beings,
Blowing on them.
From every opening
Loud voices sound. Have you not heard
This rush of tones?

There stands the overhanging wood
On the steep mountain:
Old trees with holes and cracks
Like snouts, maw, and ears,
Like beam-sockets, like goblets,
Grooves in the wood. hollows full of water:
You hear mooing and roaring, whistling,
Shouts of command, grumblings,
Deep drones, sad flutes.
One call awakens another in dialogue.
Gentle winds sing timidly,
Strong ones blast on without restraint.
Then the wind dies down. The openings
Empty out their last sound.
Have you not observes how all then trembles and subsides?

Yu relied: I understand:
The music of earth sings through a thousand holes.
The music of man is made on flutes and instruments.
What makes the music of heaven?

Master Ki said:
Something is blowing on a thousand different holes.
Some power stands behind all this and makes the sounds die down.
What is this power?

The Way of Chuang Tzu, Translation by Thomas Merton
New Directions, 1969

Amazon

                     

"There is nothing more disorderly
and disordering in civilized life
than the selfishness of people of power."

                

On this June day the Yampa River, one of the last wild rivers in the Western US, is flowing at about 6,000 cubic ft./sec. On average is dropping 11 feet per mile and on the map is moving in a generally Westward direction.  So we have about 187 tons of water per second tumbling forward at about five miles per hour, or an energy conversion rate, potential to kinetic, of about 77.5 kilowatts. One sobering fact is that, while it seems to be a huge amount of energy, this is only 75% of our per capita energy use here in the U.S. That is, for each and every U.S. citizen, there is somewhere a giant water wheel turning that the Yampa River could not drive.

But, that is not what this is about.

If you look at the river you will notice that, while there is a clear consensus in direction of flow, many parts of the water may be moving in diverse directions, left, right, up, down and backwards. This is the terrain’s influence on path and suggestive of the part it plays in life processes.

                        

Posted here

In his FQXi essay Julian Barbour questions Newton’s time and demonstrates that, with a clever cast, one can remove time from a dynamical equation. He concludes thereby that time must be an emergent rather than integral feature of nature. He states, “Time emerges only on the extremal curves (of the least action transition between the fixed end points of two possible configurations of the universe). If his essential point has not suffered too much in my translation, I find myself quite willing to give up on Newton’s time, but still very much attached to mine own. After all, an emergent property may be a very useful and real property, real enough to set one’s grocery bags upon at least, and surely time was up early at the dawn of creation. I doubt much really got done before time clocked in. Yet perhaps Dr. Barbour means to do away with time altogether. I expect he is probably correct, certainly more than half way. In the Dutch video, “Killing Time”, Julian illustrates Newton’s time by holding up a little drawing of laundry pegged to a clothesline, the idea of a linear, metronomic progression upon which we can locate past, present and even future moments. Perhaps a major flaw with this type of time is that it is disjunctive, it is a generally applied rule and it lacks direct relationship to nature’s underlying terrain. What if time’s geometry was more complex, rather than a simple line, what if it is more of a knitted affair, less mathematically comfortable but with more of a personality? In this light Newton’s time is an artifact, yet still a proven tool for the strobe-like illumination of nature along a certain axis. Nature has what it needs. If it needs time, it probably calls it by another name. Does our science need time to treat with nature? I would say yes, because periodic phenomena vary throughout nature, in both phase and scale, by greater than thirty orders of magnitude. If the distance between points were declarative of a need for space-like dimensions, then the difference between phases would be declarative of the need for a time-like dimension. Timing matters in any enterprise, the valve closes, then the spark of ignition. As to time’s emergence, if we keep in mind Julian’s “fixed” end points and the curve of least action (the “change”) between them, here is a curious construct. Consider a tale of two houses in some province of long ago. These houses are utterly at odds in their nature and each one is without time. The quieter household is governed by stasis; all things are “fixed”, no one-thing changes, and no little shift of tick to tock. What need for time if no thing changes? Now the other house, in complete contrast, is an unruly bedlam of change so savage and continuous that there is no enduring clock, no memory of tick or tock. What need for time if no thing endures? Now say that, some enchanted morning, there is an alchemical conjunction, a marriage between these diverse households from which a new thing emerges, one that acknowledges the natures of both parents. What child is this?

Of course, once one has convinced oneself,
it is hard to let go of cherished notions.
I seem to like my physics more than physics proper.

                   

Found several of these travelers in desert country, making a living as predatory beetles within a stone’s throw of 800 year-old cliff dwellings. Exciting to find out its a newcomer there and a very successful traveler. How it arrived here from its home in Northern Europe the story does not say.

                   

"These long, crazy-looking clouds can grow to be 600 miles long
and can move at up to 35 miles per hour,
causing problems for aircraft even on windless days."

Image & text
Solitary Wave
Wiki

                 

We are born into a field study,
Delivered into discovery,
The sorting out of up and down.
We look out upon a world stretching away large and lively
And mostly beyond our reach.

Still early on we push out our hands and the world presses back,
Incredibly novel in its terrain.
And our little travelers,
In their random walk
Discover a Braille-like pattern.
The world repeats itself.
One thing is like another.

And here, reading before we write.
We triangulate our position,
Locate the center of our gravity.
Our hands trace out the meaning of edges,
Carry measure to the eye.
Turn a face of Nature
To the frame
And grasp in order to concieve,

BaghdadSerai

                   

“Some distance away is a white azalea bush which stuns me with its stately beauty. It has an ethereal purity and freshness and as I get closer, it seems to get taller – it is swathed in clusters of flowers with petals larger and thicker than those of the red azaleas I saw earlier. Lush white flowers are scattered beneath the bush. They have not begun to wither and are so charged with life that they exude a lust to exhibit themselves. This is pristine natural beauty. It is irrepressible, seeks no reward, as is without goal, a beauty derived neither from symbolism nor metaphor and needing neither analogies nor associations. This white azalea with the purity of snow and the luster of jade keeps re-appearing but is always a solitary bush and appears and disappears, here and there, among the slender cold fir trees, like the tireless hidden cuckoo which captivated ones soul and keeps leading one towards it. I take deep breaths of the pure air of the forest, inhaling and exhaling is effortless and I feel the very depths of my soul being cleansed. The air penetrates to the soles of my feet, and my body and mind seem to enter nature’s grand cycle. I achieve a sense of joyful freedom such as I have never before experienced."

Soul Mountain, Gao Xingjian, Harper Collins
Translated by Mabel Lee

Thankfully we can be there,
floating feathered,
 on a soft edge of the moment,
Or barely balanced on some
rushing, downslope abandon.

                  

“A turning is a necessary prerequisite
to any possibility of return
and return is an essential ingredient
to anything of enduring interest.”

Field Study: Observables

This seems to be self-evident, that a turning should be necessary for any possibility of return, but we recall that at one point it was equally apparent that the sun revolved about the earth and that Galileo repeatedly had his hand slapped (by philosophers and clerics) when he tried to lift that veil of obvious truth. So, while we cannot trust the easy answer, we may trust philosophers not to make it easy.

Nevertheless, within the microcosm of our cornfield, we are given many instances of turning apparently leading to a return. It is an observable.

For example, if we watch our field over a longer period of time, the rock turns the water into the field to germinate the seed. The corn plant grows to produce the corn that feeds the farmer. The farmer returns with his shovel the following spring to once again place the rock.

This is hardly the first recognition of this pattern, but there still may be some utility in spending time with our little cartoon. It illustrates the familiar motif that is ubiquitous in nature and is the fundamental engine of life in all its diverse forms. While this may seem overstated, nature draws it out dynamically in such a wealth of complex interwoven detail that its agency not always apparent. Perhaps, a few more examples may begin to reveal the larger pattern.

While science has in part achieved elegant quantitative
modeling of these dynamics (i.e., Tsallis Entropy),
there may still be something gained in a simple-minded review.

Consider that, if we focus in on this larger feedback loop, follow it along over the course of a year and look at it in greater detail, we will find many other smaller loops nested fractal-like within it, many embedded, dynamic analogs of the little loopy cartoon. 

When we return to our cornfield, after a few days, we will see little vibrant green flicks of newly sprouted corn and consider the consequence of replacing the rude device of our rock with its delicate analog, one of nature’s most elegant devices, the chlorophyll antenna.

This image is a jpeg formatted file of a vector tracing of a digital scan of a photograph that was taken in Three Rivers, New Mexico and then published in a book on early southwestern rock-art. Despite the iterations of this image, it is a fairly accurate rendering of a design etched in rock by unknown hands sometime between 900 and 1400 A.D.

I am deeply curious as to what was in the mind of the artist. Was it an original creation or something handed down? Of things I have seen, it is unlike any of the usual designs that appear in thousands of tucked away places in the southwestern U.S.

What does it mean? Is it, as it seems to me, deeply cosmological, an independent realization of the same essential truth conveyed in the better-known yin/yang symbol?

In any case, it immediately resonated with my own deeply etched cosmological metaphor of the traveler and the terrain.

The Omagh Community Youth Choir
Video

Love Rescue Me

Love rescue me

Come forth and speak to me

Raise me up and don't let me fall

No man is my enemy

My own hands imprison me

I said, Love rescue me

Many strangers have I met

On the road to my regret

Many lost who seek to find themselves in me

They ask me to reveal

The very thoughts they would conceal

I said, Love rescue me

And the sun in the sky

Makes a shadow of you and I

Stretching out as the sun sinks in the sea

I'm here without a name

In the palace of my shame

I Said, love rescue me

Yeah, though I walk

In the valley of shadow

Yeah, I will fear no evil

I'm here without a name

In the palace of my shame

I Said, love rescue me

Sha la la...sha la la la

Sha la la la...sha la la...

Sha la la la...sha la la la

Sha la la la...sha la la

Sha la la la...sha la la la

Sha la la...

I said love, love rescue me

I said love, love rescue me

Written by Bono and Bob Dylan
The Omagh Community Youth Choir

Songs Around The World, Album
Playing For Change Video