Not to be a dick, but is not "information" or "data" perforations, and pulses, in mater and energy? This is how we recognize information from background noise, correct? Is there a third state of reality that is not matter or energy?
-----Original Message----- From: Russell Standish <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 4:28 pm Subject: Re: Is information physical? On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 01:34:32PM +0000, David Nyman wrote: > http://edge.org/conversation/constructor-theory > > I don't recall if the list has discussed these ideas of David Deutsch > recently. The link is to an Edge interview in which he discusses his view > that mathematicians are mistaken if they believe that information or > computation are purely abstract objects. He says that both are in fact > physical, but to justify that assertion we may need deeper principles of > physics than the existing ones. He proposes constructor theory as a > candidate. > > Implications for comp (or anything else for that matter)? > When I last took a look at constructor theory, it wasn't much of a theory. I know David's been working on it, when he's not doing the chat show circuit, but hadn't heard any major development in it announced, so haven't taken another look. Do you have any papers on it? AFAICT, "physical information" is really talking about the fact that information has "physical" consequences, such as heat dissipation and entropy change. But if you consider that statistical physics can be completely formulated in terms of information theory, that is not surprising. But in terms of "micro-physics", ie the reversible stuff described by classical, unitary quantum or relativistic physics, concepts such as entropy and information are meaningless. And once you do add these concepts, all you are doing is expanding physics to describe observers, the process of observation, and abstract things like "semantics". -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
