Information Is Physics
61–70 of 78 posts
Re: Information Is Physics
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weird. It's new to me that we didn't have experimental evidence before, but I guess it would have to be pretty subtle equipment. I wish I knew how to catalog/index my assumption/belief set, so I could scrub it down for unverified sub-assumptions from time-to-time. I'm happy to update them, when they are proven wrong, but I don't know how to do this methodically and as a result, my brain fills up with crap. And then I…
Your brain is not a computer
We have no scientific evidence of any process in and brain or mind which isn't computable in the sense of Church/Turing. On the other hand I personally feel that I experience episodes that couldn't be computed, but I struggle to articulate the smallest parts of these. One is the small creative epiphany of writing, the structures of with can be created computationally, but the turns of sense and narrative don't seem to me to be the outcome of functional transformations.
I know that others will hold to the idea that they are and could be, but to me that renders us as zombies, and that isn't satisfactory in the sense that while a zombie that acts like a real person would be evolutionary fit, I see no reason why the zombie should believe it has free will, or could, and yet I do.
Re: Information Is Physics
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except physics is precisely not a substance. So let me ask that again, what else could information be? Even dualistic philosophies are conceptually reducible to "physics" because physics is all there is , by definition . To paraphrase George Carlin about the Earth and plastic, even if you think "minds" or "information" are not "physical" (by which people usually mean material, which is yet again something else), then…
Physicists certainly don't concern themselves with the study of everything. Take sociology or art, for example. At best you can you say everything is made up of physical stuff. But even then, there are questions. Are math and logic made of physical stuff? What about causality or laws of nature? And what of universals or possible worlds or counterfactuals? If those exist, are they physical? And then there's consciousn…
That the discipline of physics doesn't study everything doesn't entail that everything isn't physics. The title of the OP doesn't refer to the discipline.
As for your other points, I'm familiar with the debates on physicalism in their various forms. I just believe most of them are elaborate semantic games with very little actual content.
That people will ask what it means for everything (or anything) to be physical is precisely my point — stating that "information is physics" is a vague and (in my view) probably empty/tautological statement if you don't explain what you mean by that more precisely.
Re: Information Is Physics
#64This reminds me a bit of David Deutsch's Constructor Theory. What's the mainstream acceptance of that like at the moment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructor_theory
I'm always ticked off when I hear the hype around constructor theory. While information theory has had profound impacts in physics, constructor theory has always seemed to me to accomplish nothing but add fancy words. Yet it has done very well trading on the past prestige of its proponents, and promoting itself through popular talks where no real scientists are present to question them. For example, constructor theor…
“It is also a warning to avoid blind trust in past credentials.”
Indeed. A thing is initially more interesting if the author has past contributions of worth, but historical performance should never lead to blind faith about claims. Always remember Linus Pauling’s irrational infatuation with vitamin C.
Re: Information Is Physics
#65Fascinating! Thank you for sharing, OP! Having recently gone down a similar rabbit hole [1], having references and starting points is incredibly useful for further exploration, as this stuff is very hard to search for.
There does seem to be a direct computational link between information and the universe - and the way we’re using this link now , with classical computers, is highly abstracted and inefficient (the article also compares current energy cost of computing vs the much much lower theoretical limit). Quantum computers come closer to the nature of that link, but still require many abstractions.
I wonder if it will be possible to eventually compute without abstractions, directly on the substrate of the universe. Though that might be equivalent to real magic ;)
Re: Information Is Physics
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your brain is not a computer
We have no scientific evidence of any process in and brain or mind which isn't computable in the sense of Church/Turing. On the other hand I personally feel that I experience episodes that couldn't be computed, but I struggle to articulate the smallest parts of these. One is the small creative epiphany of writing, the structures of with can be created computationally, but the turns of sense and narrative don't seem t…
The zombie could believe it has free will the same way it holds any other belief - whether it happens to be a delusion is immaterial to whether it's able to hold the belief and there's nothing particularly unique about this particular belief. It's also far from implausible that belief in free will could have some evolutionary utility (or, more likely, be a concomitant of some other property that has evolutionary utility). None of this proves you wrong, of course, I just don't see why we should imbue our common sense intuitions in this one area with such authority when they have failed us in so many others.
Re: Information Is Physics
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
So where does the information go upon the final heath death of the universe? Does it become encoded by, say, the final diameter of the post-expansion universe (i.e. by some "environmental" property at the sub-quantum field level)?
There is no environment when you are considering the entire universe. This means it evolves unitarily and no information is ever erased.
> evolves unitarily and no information is ever erased.
Nor created.
Re: Information Is Physics
#68Fascinating! Thank you for sharing, OP! Having recently gone down a similar rabbit hole [1], having references and starting points is incredibly useful for further exploration, as this stuff is very hard to search for. There does seem to be a direct computational link between information and the universe - and the way we’re using this link now , with classical computers, is highly abstracted and inefficient (the arti…
I don't think you need to bring quantum computing into the picture. For example "naturally" 3D printing a Mango takes a few years. Just drop a seed in the right place on earth and wait. Isn't that computing on the substrate of the universe?
Are you asking if nature can be coaxed into doing it in a few seconds or a day? Or maybe you are not bothered about time and want to drop in that seed and grow a chair? The answer is probably yes to both. It will just take some time to get there. I don't think quantum computing will be required but who knows...
Re: Information Is Physics
#69Fascinating! Thank you for sharing, OP! Having recently gone down a similar rabbit hole [1], having references and starting points is incredibly useful for further exploration, as this stuff is very hard to search for. There does seem to be a direct computational link between information and the universe - and the way we’re using this link now , with classical computers, is highly abstracted and inefficient (the arti…
I don't think you need to bring quantum computing into the picture. For example "naturally" 3D printing a Mango takes a few years. Just drop a seed in the right place on earth and wait. Isn't that computing on the substrate of the universe? Are you asking if nature can be coaxed into doing it in a few seconds or a day? Or maybe you are not bothered about time and want to drop in that seed and grow a chair? The answer…
Yeah, dropping a seed in and growing a chair very quickly sounds like it is in the same ballpark, or at least further along the spectrum of efficient computation. That seed (program) would very tricky to produce, though. Contrary to the current practice of writing programs relatively easily, but the machines to run them are incredibly complex, both to run and to manufacture. With the seed, though, the machine would be nature, 1=1.
I agree that there is no need to bring quantum computing into the discussions, but it is higher on the efficient computing scale. It also requires a lot of effort to come up with programs that make sense, and they use more of natural phenomena (superposition, entanglement, etc) compared to classical computers. It’s something to look at for inspiration, at least?
Re: Information Is Physics
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you need to bring quantum computing into the picture. For example "naturally" 3D printing a Mango takes a few years. Just drop a seed in the right place on earth and wait. Isn't that computing on the substrate of the universe? Are you asking if nature can be coaxed into doing it in a few seconds or a day? Or maybe you are not bothered about time and want to drop in that seed and grow a chair? The answer…
Yeah, dropping a seed in and growing a chair very quickly sounds like it is in the same ballpark, or at least further along the spectrum of efficient computation. That seed (program) would very tricky to produce, though. Contrary to the current practice of writing programs relatively easily, but the machines to run them are incredibly complex, both to run and to manufacture. With the seed, though, the machine would b…
Definitely. You might like - https://www.edge.org/conversation/seth_lloyd-seth-lloyd%E2%8...