Take a good look at the text you are reading. You see letters. Each letter is an information carrier. When combined the individual letters together form words, which, in turn, are also information carriers. But you can’t just add and subtract that information. The meaning of those words depends on a bigger picture. The word ‘good’ in the first sentence has several meanings when it is isolated from its context. The context, its coherence with other words in the sentence, gives it its meaning. It makes it clear that the word ‘good’ is to be understood as a descriptive adjective to the word ‘look’ and not as an indicator whether something is morally right. Isolated letters and words can have many meanings, or none at all, but specific information arises in relation to a larger whole. The key question is: What is this relationship?

There are many arguments in favor of Wheeler’s theorem, as mentioned in the previous chapter, that information is more fundamental than matter and energy. For example, Wheeler’s theorem answers the question of Maxwell’s demon. Maxwell’s demon is a thought experiment formulated in 1867 by Scottish physicist James Maxwell [1], which revolves around the question whether an imaginary creature can selectively separate slow- and fast-moving particles. Suppose this were possible, then the demon would be able to create energy, because energy is released once the separation is removed. Maxwell’s point, however, is that this would violate the second law of thermodynamics. He had constructed a conundrum. The solution came much later, in 1960, when the German-American physicist Rolf Landauer made the case that Maxwell’s demon stores information about the state of the particles. In doing so the creature converts energy into information and vice versa. Landauer’s solution evolved into Landauer’s principle which states that energy must be released when information is erased, as is also the case when we delete information from our computers. Landauer’s principle has since been proven by experiments [2]: information can transform into energy.

Matter (particles), energy, really everything can be traced back to information. We must learn to think in terms of information. Information is physical

Maxwell’s demon (bron: Wikipedia)

It has been made plausible that quantum information cannot be lost. The no-hiding theorem [3] states that all information in the universe is conserved. Quantum information cannot be copied, nor can it be erased. But it can be transferred to the environment or transformed into another form. The latter is important, for example, when studying black holes in the universe and when researching elementary particles.

Quantum information cannot be lost

When information arises or disappears in a system, the same amount of information must simultaneously arise or disappear elsewhere, because it cannot be that there is just a little more or a little less information in the universe; not even for a moment. So, with each event, information moves from one system to another – the environment – or the information is shared. This sharing is possible by means of quantum entanglement.

As we’ve pointed out in Chapter 9, quantum entanglement between particles means that there is a connection between these two particles, a connection which is independent of the distance between them. When the state of one particle is measured, the state of the other particle is determined simultaneously. This does not only apply to measurements, but to interactions in general. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter which way you look at it. It applies to changes in the observer and the object; and also in a system and its environment. In both directions, that is. Entanglements are the sharers, and the redistributors, of information.

When two particles are entangled, they share information. In fact, they form a whole.
When entanglement is disentangled, the joint information is redistributed among particles in the environment, forming new entanglements.

Perhaps, like Einstein, you have trouble imagining that things influence each other simultaneously and regardless of distance. Then it might help to take a look at the holographic principle of the Dutch physicist and Nobel Prize winner Gerard ‘t Hooft and American physicist Leonard Susskind [4]. According to this principle, all the information of the universe fits on a shell around the universe. And reality as we experience it can be seen as a projection of this, just like a hologram.

Our universe as a hologram, a projection of information

Physicists try to describe everything as information. However, the behavior of this information cannot be described in one way. Not yet, at least. On the one hand, we use the representation of particles and energy that develop in time and space. This corresponds with what we are used to do on our human scale. On the other hand, when quantum entanglements collapse, the exchange of information also occurs independently of time and space. Both representations of change are difficult to integrate into one.

Back to emergence
Our story focuses on emergence and is not intended as a crash course in quantum mechanics. Still, it is necessary to become acquainted with the big picture, because quantum mechanics provides the concepts and frameworks that help us to understand emergence. And it’s insanely exciting. So, take a walk on the wild side and think about how the cause-and-effect approach of classical physics can be reconciled with superposition and entanglement from quantum theory. As we pointed out before, the cause-and-effect model alone is problematic in emergence. Something is missing. What if superposition and the collapse of superposition are the missing links? After all, it relates to the behavior of the smallest particles that form the basis of everything we know. So, are quantum entanglements the overlapping relationships we seek? What if they also have effects at the macro level (our daily level) in the form of downward causality from the environment? Let’s find the similarities, and see where they differ and/or complement each other.

Upward causality
As we’ve seen in chapter 4, upward causality manifests itself in interactions that take place in a one-on-one and step-by-step manner. When it comes to our daily environment this thinking in particles is self-evident. It is very compatible with the macro level.

The cause-and-effect model gets stuck
The model above illustrates the classical way of thinking in terms of cause and effect. But it falls short, because the concepts of time and space are necessary. However, space and time are also results of interactions. Because if nothing happens, there is no time. One interaction creates a before and an after, but in an isolated system this interaction is still reversible. As we’ve seen in Chapter 9, this reversibility ceases to exist when many cohesive interactions occur. When this happens, time comes into being and is given direction. The same can be said about space, which also emerges only by cohesion between elements. As with time, space is relative and has only meaning for its observer. In other words; a space emerges around an observer through interactions with other elements. The Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli explores this idea in The Order of Time [6]. Time and space are necessary for the description of interactions in a cause-and-effect approach. But time and space owe their very existence to interactions. This leads to circular reasoning, which can only be solved by examining coherence. This is possible with the concept of downward causality.

Downward causality
Change can also occur together-and-at the same time. This can be observed at the quantum level. We know that an observation of one of two entangled particles immediately determines the state of the other particle; no matter how far apart they are. What was shared information before the observation is now redistributed among other elements, including the observer. All participants have changed. As a result of interactions (observations, measurements) entanglements collapse, and new entanglements are formed. Something occurs that has nothing to do with space and time. There is a before and an after, yet no time has passed. The elapsed time can only be observed in the upward causality. Time is a macroscopic concept.

Facing coherence
Now we are standing face to face with coherence. Particles and systems are connected through entanglements. These are the relations we are looking for. One system cannot change without another system changing simultaneously. As with Maxwell’s demon, any change in information has to be compensated somewhere else.  Collapse of superposition means that of all possible states that a quantum particle can assume, only one becomes reality. Observation/interaction thus creates one outcome where there were previously many possibilities. You could argue that this amounts to a loss of information. What happened to the other ‘candidates’? That information is shared with the environment through: new entanglements [7] [8]. From this point of view, collapse of superposition is the same as redistribution of the shared information.

Merging upward and downward causality
Is it possible to merge upward and downward causality? This challenge amounts to an attempt to integrate classical physics with the quantum information theory. If this attempt is to be made, a model comes into being which resembles the image below, a model in which a macroscopic ‘particle’ is represented as a relatively stable system of swapping entanglements. We urge you to resist the temptation to regard these entanglements as well-defined entities with discrete values. Rather think of them as the previously mentioned fields with a probability distribution for a value. The image of swapping entanglements is ugly, but hold on to it for a while. In the coming chapters we will elaborate on this subject, using examples and descriptions.

Entanglement
Entanglement is still a relatively unknown phenomenon. When you read about it, it seems like something extraordinary or something out of a laboratory. And yes, you can’t really use it yet in a practical sense. For example, until now it has been difficult to make an entanglement stable. However, stabilizing entanglement is a top priority for scientists around the world, it being essential in creating quantum computers. In the meantime, when we accept the conservation of information – which we do – we have no other choice than to assume that entanglements are everywhere. They connect everything and continuously flip information to new positions. In this all-encompassing network, a universal hologram so to speak, new compositions of our universe are constantly developing.

A pixelated world
There is another curious consequence of the quantum information conservation theorem. Conservation of information is only possible if changes occur simultaneously. This can be compared with the pixels of a computer screen [9][10]. There should then be an indivisible tiniest amount of time with which everything is constantly jumping; in the entire universe at the same time. With every jump a new generation of states arises. You may also want to use the hologram metaphor here to create a representation of a pixelated world. Keep in mind, however, that these are models that create simplified representations of reality. The essential differences with (computer) models will be discussed later.

With every jump in a pixelated world, information is being rearranged

This serves as a great segue to a well-known model of jumping information: cellular automata. The most famous version of this is Conway’s Game of Life [11]. It’s not necessary to master the Game of Life in order to understand the following chapters, but it’s fun. And it can stimulate the imagination about the meaning of the ‘rules’ that play a role in the ‘game of life’. Cellular automata form a grid of cells that can assume different states. In Conway’s game of life, these cells can be black or white. And a set of four simple rules dictates the outcome. This simple setup already yields many possible outcomes. The striking thing is that you see patterns emerge. You could regard the rules of the game as downward causality.

The real world is of course even more intriguing than this game. After all, our world cannot be defined by just two states, black or white, but by a litany of colors and shades. Furthermore, in contrary to the ‘game of life’ our world is not limited to two dimensions, it consists of many ‘cells’ with different shapes. And in the real world there are more rules, of course. But the fundamental difference is: The rules of reality contain probability. This is a consequence of the collapse of superposition. In Chapter 14, the chapter that delves into self-organization, we will discuss how probability can lead to rules and stability. Outcomes of cellular automata can be calculated, but reality is unpredictable. This means that, unlike Conway’s Game of Life, the course of things is not fixed. There is no determinism because different states can be expressed in different ways.

The Game of Life
The Game of Life is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. The “game” is actually a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, needing no input from human players. One interacts with the Game of Life by creating an initial configuration and observing how it evolves.

The rules of the game

The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, dead or alive (populated or uninhabited, respectively). Every cell interacts with its eight neighbors, which are the cells that are directly horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent. At each step in time, the following transitions occur:

• Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbors dies, as if by loneliness.
• Any live cell with more than three live neighbors dies, as if by overcrowding.
• Any live cell with two or three live neighbors lives, unchanged, to the next generation.
• Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbors comes to life.

These rules, which compare the behavior of the automaton to real life, can be summarized in the following:

• Any living cell with two or three living neighbors continues to exist.
• Every dead cell with three living neighbors becomes a living cell.
• All other living cells die in the next generation. Likewise, all other dead cells remain dead.

The initial pattern constitutes the seed of the system. The next generation is created by applying the above rules simultaneously to every cell in the seed – births and deaths happen simultaneously. In other words, each generation is a pure function of the one before. The rules continue to be applied repeatedly to create further generations.

Emergence at the quantum level
With some imagination you could describe two entangled quantum particles as a form of emergence. After all, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Parallel to this, you can regard different properties of elementary particles (e.g. location, mass, spin, charge) as manifestations that are a result of different combinations of entanglements. In this way complex structures can arise with constantly new (emergent) properties.

What does this mean?
You may think: What should I do with quantum particles, the cosmos or cellular automata? I want to know what it means in my life. To answer this question, take a look at Chapter 4, where you will find our example regarding obesity and downward causation. Or take a look at There is no theory of everything, in which author Lars Q. English uses an everyday situation to illustrate downward control [12].

Imagine we are aliens. We observe the earth and we notice that the cars are driving on the right side of the road in North America. Perhaps this has something to do with the vehicles? Are they built in such a way that they can only drive on the right? No, the vehicles can also drive on the left. But there is a rule that says that cars have to drive on the right. An external factor, implemented from above, determines the behavior of the traffic. That is downward control.

All participating parties change
With every event, with every interaction, with every encounter, all participating parties change. That holds true in all areas of life. People influence each other. That is why the Persian philosopher and poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi said: “When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.” [13]. And more generally speaking, you could even say that everything in the universe is connected. That is what Rumi probably meant by “You’re not a drop in the ocean, you’re the whole ocean in a drop.”

Although the theory has been around for a while, quantum entanglement is still enigmatic. It has only recently, and only to a limited extent, been proven in experiments. The concept is so elusive that our lexicon still lacks adequate words to describe it in a broader context. But isn’t it beautiful? Science, philosophy and experiences in our daily lives are guiding us towards the discovery of coherence.