Dear Pedro and FIS colleagues, When connecting information to physics, I believe you may like the following view, from the abstract of an invited article for a special issue of the journal Information on Information and Energy/Matter (currently in review):
INFORMATION PHYSICS—TOWARDS A NEW CONCEPTION OF PHYSICAL REALITY Philip Goyal Department of Physics, University at Albany (SUNY), 1400 Washington Av., Albany, NY 12222, USA Version April 10, 2012 submitted to Information. Abstract: The concept of information plays a fundamental role in our everyday experience, but is conspicuously absent in framework of classical physics. Over the last century, quantum theory and a series of other developments in physics and related subjects have brought the concept of information and the interface between an agent and the physical world into increasing prominence. As a result, over the last few decades, there has arisen a growing belief amongst many physicists that the concept of information may have a critical role to play in our understanding of the workings of the physical world, both in more deeply understanding existing physical theories and in the formulation of new theories. In this paper, I explicate the origin of the informational view of physics, illustrate some of the work inspired by this view, and give some indication of its implications for the development of a new conception of physical reality. Goyal talks about all of physics, reformulated in terms of information, not only one part of it like quantum mechanics. If you combine this approach with Mark Burgin’s view that computation in general is information processing, then Philip Goyal’s article can be understood in terms of computation. I am looking forward to see the complete special issue which is taking shape these days, several articles are in review, and there are several already published interesting contributions on to the relationship between information and physics: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/matter/ With best regards, Gordana http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/ https://sites.google.com/site/naturalcomputingaisbiacap2012 From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan Sent: den 16 april 2012 17:54 To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing Dear Joseph and FIS collegues, The only item I can remember formally addressing the topic is "La logique du vivant", by Francois Jacob in very early 70's. But it was perhaps more a philosophy of life than a rigorous approach or overall theoretical description of life processes. In any case it was original ("bricolage") and inspiring. Nowadays my main criticism to visions inspired in physics would run as follows: imagine we are dealing with computers; any general approach to their performances, should it be based on "solid state physics"? Nope. You would need a theoretical, brand new vision, eg Turing machine on universal computation, or something similar attending to structures of computing processes and computing machinery. It would extend completely beyond physics, as the informatics realm is situated... pure technological creativity due to software and hardware engineers (of course, always mastering and slaving natural processes at the bottom, but in "artful" ways and multilevel purposes). Regarding bio, the new theoretical integrated or unified approach ("logic" or whatever) would be similar to the above creativity. Grounded on some central bio characteristic, in my opinion self construction, as von Neumann started with his unfinished theory of self-constructing machines. Cells (and organisms) are the only entities rigorously selfconstructing themselves. Actually biology would be the science of selfconstruction... where a new notion of info related to the impact of communication on selfconstructing processes ("meaning") would be central. It may look challenging, but without protein synthesis there is no meaning! My criticism to current bio-doctrines extends to systems biology and other fashions (synthetic biology, bioinspired computing, artificial life...). Some ideas thrown in Inbiosa meetings could enter into the discussion too, I think. best wishes ---Pedro joe.bren...@bluewin.ch<mailto:joe.bren...@bluewin.ch> escribió: Dear Pedro, Thank you, Pedro, for bringing up the question of logics. My suggestion of a Logic in Reality is to open the debate, rather than to claim it is the only "over-arching logic" possible. Nevertheless, it would be useful for me and perhaps others if you could make your critique more specific by pointing to at least one logic that is used biologically that addresses the dynamics of complex processes. So far, I have not identified any such logical system that is more than a metaphorical use of the term "logic" or refers to some more or less reproducible characteristics of such processes. Otherwise, logics seem to me to refer only to abstracted linguistic aspects of processes that of course follow classical propositional logic but equate to tautologies. Because Logic in Reality is grounded in physics, it is able to express somewhat more about change, evolution, etc. than any logic of which I am aware. I would be glad to learn of other candidates for this role. Thank you and best wishes, Joseph ----Ursprüngliche Nachricht---- Von: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es<mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> Datum: 11.04.2012 10:44 An: <fis@listas.unizar.es><mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es> Betreff: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing Dear John and colleagues, Nice to hear that you are OK after that dangerous intoxication --our best wishes for your complete recovery! About physical information I think that Landauer clarified the panorama, at least concerning the relationship between information theory and thermodynamics. According to his principle, any logically irreversible transformation of classical information is necessarily accompanied by the dissipation of at least k T ln(2) of heat per lost bit (about 3 x 10 exp -21 Joules at 300 K temperature), where obviously k is the Boltzmann constant and T the temperature. Recently this principle has been verified experimentally (Nature, 8 March 2012, p. 187). By the way, in his past message Loet enters "Watts" in a similar expression (?). To insist, Entropy and Information are dimensionless and do not explicitly incorporate any units... About the quantum management of info theory, it is another matter, quite more tricky. Beyond that immediate physicality, things get quite obscure as our contradictory "meaning" messages witness. The point made by Joseph on an overarching logic, is rather difficult to be maintained --at least in my small province of the biological signaling pathways. Too many logics are used biologically in too many different contexts or niches, either molecularly or neuronally... I bet that they are not susceptible of integration in any logical system. Maybe Inbiosa parties would also disagree with me in this regard. best wishes to all, ---Pedro John Collier escribió: Folks, I have been in the hospital for almost three weeks due to bleeding from warfarin. I had to have three blood transfusions and an operation. I am only now getting my strength back. Some of my comments, therefore, may be dated. "Physical" has a variety of overlapping meanings (a Wittgensteinian family resemblence). For example Quine takes the physical to be anything accessible to the senses or inferences therefrom. Ladyman, Ross, Collier an Spurrett take the physical to be the most fundamental laws of our (part of) the universe. I did not agree with this, among some other crucial points, so I was not a primary author. Information is at least physical in both of these senses. Quine's approach might make it entirely physical. I prefer to relate it to the causal, which always has physical parametres, as far as we know. But there are many ways of approaching this issue, and disentangling them will be a major advance in foundations of information theory. My Best, John Professor John Collier Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban 4041 South Africa T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031 email: colli...@ukzn.ac.za<mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>>>> On 2012/03/16 at 01:19 PM, in message <4f6321c3.5000...@aragon.es><mailto:4f6321c3.5000...@aragon.es>, "Pedro C. Marijuan" <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es><mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> wrote: Dear discussants, I tend to disagree with the motto "information is physical" if taken too strictly. Obviously if we look "downwards" it is OK, but in the "upward" direction it is different. Info is not only physical then, and the dimension of self-construction along the realization of life cycle has to be entered. Then the signal, the info, has "content" and "meaning". Otherwise if we insist only in the physical downward dimension we have just conventional computing/ info processing. My opinion is that the notion of absence is crucial for advancing in the upward, but useless in the downward. By the way, I already wrote about info and the absence theme in a 1994 or 1995 paper in BioSystems... best ---Pedro walter.riof...@terra.com.pe<mailto:walter.riof...@terra.com.pe> escribió: Thanks John and Kevin to update issues in information, computation, energy and reality. I would like point out to other articles more focused in how coherence and entanglement are used by living systems (far from thermal equilibrium): Engel G.S., Calhoun T.R., Read E.L., Ahn T.K., Mancal T., Cheng Y.C., Blankenship R.E., Fleming G.R. (2007) Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Nature, 446(7137): 782-786. Collini E., Scholes G. (2009) Coherent intrachain energy in migration in a conjugated polymer at room temperature. Science, vol. 323 No. 5912 pp. 369-373. Gauger E.M., Rieper E., Morton J.J.L., Benjamin S.C., Vedral V. (2011) Sustained Quantum Coherence and Entanglement in the Avian Compass. Phys. Rev. Lett., 106: 040503. Cia, J. et al, (2009) Dynamic entanglement in oscillating molecules. arXiv:0809.4906v1 [quant-ph] Sincerely, Walter ________________________________ _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es> https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es<mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ ------------------------------------------------- Please find our Email Disclaimer here-->: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer<http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer/> ________________________________ _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es> https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es<mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ ------------------------------------------------- -- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es<mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ -------------------------------------------------
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