Hi all,
Information is information.
There is no reason to bundle it under any other genus.
There are physical information! (Cf., my paper at the Vienna conference,
2015.)
... And there are other (non-physical) information.
Other approach:
Information follows, in certain aspects, some laws of physics, and it
avoids to do so in other instances.
Even following a law of physics doesn't allow to identify the object (in
our case: information) with physics.
Similar to a well discussed other example: information can be
characterised by similar mathematics to that of entropy, while this
similitude does not mean that information as such is entropy.
Good luck,
Gyuri
On 2018.04.25. 6:52, Louis H Kauffman wrote:
Dear Mark,
Thank you for suggesting this topic.
I concur wholeheartedly with your stand on this matter.
Information in the sense that you indicate
is pattern that is independent of the particular substrate on which it
is ‘carried’.
There is a persistent myth in popular scientific culture that
mathematics and the physical are identical.
Just as information is not physical, neither is mathematics.
Each mathematical structure is recognizable as mathematics in that it
is strictly relational and quite independent of the medium in which it
is expressed.
The example of mathematics as information independent of substrate
is an opening for exploring more deeply the nature of information. For
we are all aware
of the remarkable interplay of mathematics and the quantitative and
structural understanding of the physical.
I suspect that the end result of that exploration will be for us to
admit that
we do not know know what is physical,
that we can deny that information is not physical.
The crux of the matter (sic)
lies in the distinction made between the physical and the non-physical.
There is such a distinction.
The boundary of that distinction is unknown territory.
Very best,
Lou Kauffman
On Apr 24, 2018, at 8:47 PM, Burgin, Mark <mbur...@math.ucla.edu
<mailto:mbur...@math.ucla.edu>> wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion
Is information physical?
My opinion is presented below:
Why some people erroneously think that information is physical
The main reason to think that information is physical is the strong
belief of many people, especially, scientists that there is only
physical reality, which is studied by science. At the same time,
people encounter something that they call information.
When people receive a letter, they comprehend that it is information
because with the letter they receive information. The letter is
physical, i.e., a physical object. As a result, people start thinking
that information is physical. When people receive an e-mail, they
comprehend that it is information because with the e-mail they
receive information. The e-mail comes to the computer in the form of
electromagnetic waves, which are physical. As a result, people start
thinking even more that information is physical.
However, letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all physical
objects are only carriers or containers of information.
To understand this better, let us consider a textbook. Is possible to
say that this book is knowledge? Any reasonable person will tell that
the textbook contains knowledge but is not knowledge itself. In the
same way, the textbook contains information but is not information
itself. The same is true for letters, e-mails, electromagnetic waves
and other physical objects because all of them only contain
information but are not information. For instance, as we know,
different letters can contain the same information. Even if we make
an identical copy of a letter or any other text, then the letter and
its copy will be different physical objects (physical things) but
they will contain the same information.
Information belongs to a different (non-physical) world of knowledge,
data and similar essences. In spite of this, information can act on
physical objects (physical bodies) and this action also misleads
people who think that information is physical.
One more misleading property of information is that people can
measure it. This brings an erroneous assumption that it is possible
to measure only physical essences. Naturally, this brings people to
the erroneous conclusion that information is physical. However,
measuring information is essentially different than measuring
physical quantities, i.e., weight. There are no “scales” that measure
information. Only human intellect can do this.
It is possible to find more explanations that information is not
physical in the general theory of information.
Sincerely,
Mark Burgin
On 4/24/2018 10:46 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
Dear FIS Colleagues,
A very interesting discussion theme has been proposed by Mark Burgin
--he will post at his early convenience.
Thanks are due to Alberto for his "dataism" piece. Quite probably we
will need to revisit that theme, as it is gaining increasing
momentum in present "information societies", in science as well as
in everyday life...
Thanks also to Sung for his interesting viewpoint and references.
Best wishes to all,
--Pedro
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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