[Fis] Physical information is WHAT? A Puzzle.
FISers: The following example concerning the fundamental theory of information in chemistry and physics puzzled me. Logical analyses of this puzzle from longtime participants would be welcomed. Consider any pair of atomic numbers. (Recall that the concepts of atomic numbers were established by physical measurements (Rutherford, Moseley, (1911)). Because the conundrum is a question of meaning, I will select the two numbers 1 and 6. As atomic numbers, these two numbers represent all of the physical information contained in the respective atoms. The QM equations for these two numbers (e.g., hydrogen and carbon) are well studied. And, the respective geometries of the orbitals are well studied. Next consider exact 8 pairs of these two numbers, 16 integers in all. (Could we write a string: 6,1,6,1,6,1,6,1,6,1,6,1,6,1,6,1) that would represent the 16 physical sets of information.) The sum of these atomic numbers is 56 (= 8 x7) First question: How much physical information is in the number 56? Let us call the sum of the atomic numbers the molecular number. Two separate and distinct chemical molecules can be composed from the this partition of the molecular number of 56 into 8 separate but physically identical pairs of atomic numbers. One molecular number 56 is called cubane. The geometry of cubane is that of a cube, with each corner of the cube having the number 6 and each of the number 1s projecting outside the cube as one node of a tetrahedron. (Do Not conflate this geometry of a physical tetrahedron with the tetrahedron of a categorical representation of commutativity.) A second molecular number 56 is called cyclo-octene (or, more exactly, 1,3,5,7, tetra-dehydro-cyclo-octene. The geometry of cyclo-octene is that of an octagon with each angle of the octagon having the number 6 and each of the number 1s projecting outside the octagon. Note that both chemical representations of molecular number 56 are symmetric graphs composed from the same multi-sets of atomic numbers. Questions: Is the physical information content of molecular number 56 the same in cubane and cyclo-octene? How much information is the molecular number? What is the physical basis for calculating the information content of molecular number 56? When would the amount of information represented in this molecular number be the same? What is necessary and what is sufficient to calculate meaningful physical information? Have fun! (Thanks to Joseph Brenner for calling this line of reasoning to my attention!) Cheers Jerry ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Physical information - anyone for an anyon?
Quoting Michael Devereux [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Thanks Michael for your cogent reply. I understand Landauer's insight not as an analysis of the logical structure of information, nor of its ubiquitous utility throughout human endeavors, but rather as a more precise description of the mechanisms for storage and transmission of information. I agree that 'storage and transmission of information' (if info is predefined as physical data carrying marks) is a useful description of the mechanism. But if the data carry numbers and letters the information exchange process involves qualia as well as quanta, implies structure shape and pattern (like anyons in quantum knot theory imply two dimensional worlds). Human communication is notoriously more complex than barcoding brains but we don't need to resort to a metaphysical account involving 'disembodied abstract entities' to explain the rules (Descartes can crawl back into his oven - some axiom like Miller's 'plus or minus 7' might suffice). I suppose neuroscientists today may even be able to locate those specific areas of the brain that process mathematical thoughts. Yes, if info transmission is basically a physical process we should be able to map its movement within the cerebellum (like Pinker maps verb tense usage in the brain with MRI scans). The corollary of the physical view is that 'information' is (unlike concepts such as language, mind, consciousness or number) not a distinct phenomenon but merely a feature of matter. If info transmission is an 'event' (as Stanley and Rafael) suggest, then what is its essential structure? 'Any surprising such representing a range of suches' perhaps? If so then any mere transmission of physical data (signals) would only qualify as information under certain conditions. It may be that information 'takes place' in the no-man's land of possibility between the ones and the zeroes, between the lines of text, between noise and news and occurs deep within the interstitial spaces of microtubular networks or in the sense-data filtering mechanisms of the thalamus. The anyon phenomenon may even have counterparts across the 'ubiquitous utilities' of human endeavours - e.g. rhetoric - homonyms, puns, metaphors logic - paradoxical statements, nonsense grammar - syntactic ambiguity, ambipositions computing - wildcarding/regular expressions card games - the joker (representing all the possible cards playable) punctuation - asterisks (representing any of a range of swear words) I suppose I am arguing that information transfer is not a transmission of X from point A to point B but the act of in-form-ation becomes a trans-form-ation to Y in the process (just as reading material print can inform and transform the consciousness of a reader). This 'mysterious transformation of raw information into cognitive content' (Collier) remains the philosopher's stone of cognitive science. The stone itself, of course, may be composed of neither bosons nor fermions. Cheers, John H Dear Colleagues, I understand Landauer's insight not as an analysis of the logical structure of information, nor of its ubiquitous utility throughout human endeavors, but rather as a more precise description of the mechanisms for storage and transmission of information. According to Landauer, and I think he was right about this, information is exclusively stored in the configuration of physical objects,.and transmitted only by material entities. So, for example, the energy configuration of a simple bi-level atom would contain a single bit of information, represented by zero, say, in its ground configuration, and by one in its excited level. Of course the physical configuration of the atom's nucleus, made up of protons and neutrons, must also contain additional information, ignored in this instance. And we know that protons and neutrons are themselves composed of quarks, whose physical configuration must also contain more information. And, as far as we know, those quarks may be constituted by some structure of strings, with even more information, and so on. I also understand Landauer to tell us that information is transmitted from one thing to another only by physical objects, all of which are composed of energetic quanta. As, for instance, sending information on a telegraph line by a series of electrical impulses, each of which contains many electrons. I know of no reason to suppose that the information any person holds and exploits, even about mathematics, is not stored and transmitted physically, as Landauer has said. Jerry wrote that mathematics is often deemed as abstraction, (so) mathematical information is often deemed as abstract. But, it is the brain cells and synaptic connections, their chemical and electrical configuration and signal processing, which alone permits us to employ mathematics. Clearly, traumatic injury to the brain (or death, even) can destroy a person's mathematical facility. I suppose
Re: [Fis] Physical Information
DT To: fis@listas.unizar.es, "Stanley N. Salthe" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Fis] Physical Information Dear Stanley, not to forget the relation between information and rhetorics in Aristotle which makes a *pendant* to the nature-oriented view of the *aitiai* (causes). You probably know the classic study by L.W. Rosenfeld: Aristotle and Information Theory. A Comparison of Causal Assumptions on Two Theories of Communication (The Hague 1971). This brings us back to our former discussion: there *is* the *material* world but we *live* also in a *symbolic* world. It seems to me that (to put it in a simplified way) we argue with two theories of information, one which is related to the *material world* (physical information) and the other which is founded in the *symbolic world*. It seems to me that we have discovered that there is something *similar* to what we call information in the *symbolic world* in the material world (semantic information)(, and that this is what makes information theory especially appealing for both perspectives. This discovery is the view that natural processes can be understood in terms of *message* communication (and not just in the Aristotelian terms of *in-formation* of matter through form) kind regards Rafael Jerry LR ChandlerResearch ProfessorKrasnow Institute for Advanced StudyGeorge Mason University ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Physical Information
Dear Jerry and all, thanks for criticisms. Very shortly: exposing in a very simplified manner, the "two theories of information" does not contradict, in my opinion, your theory of the emergence of several levels of phenomena. It is "just" another more analytical (than genealogical) perspective. My intention was to see how far the phenomenon of communication (as "message exchange") in the complex human world *reflects* back into our theories and observations at the very *material* level (and at the levels in between), instead of taking the usual path (from the bottom to the top). What I wanted to say is, that the view of natural processes as communication processes is non-aristotelian and modern (maybe post-modern). kind regards Rafael ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] Physical Information
Dear Andrei, John, and colleagues, The relationship between information and the material world was correctly described, I believe, some ten years ago, by Rolf Landauer, the chief scientist at the IBM Watson laboratory in New York. In several seminal papers he insisted that all information is physical. In his words, “Information is not a disembodied abstract entity; it is always tied to a physical representation. It is represented by engraving on a stone tablet, a spin, a charge, a hole in a punched card, a mark on paper, or some other equivalent. This ties the handling of information to all the possibilities and restrictions of our real physical world, its laws of physics, and its storehouse of available parts.” (Physics Letters A 217, 1996, p. 188.) When information is exchanged between two objects, as in a measurement, there is, necessarily, a transfer of some physical thing. I would note that all physical objects are composed of quanta and all quanta carry energy. So, according to Landauer, and many scientists who have read his work, the correspondence of information with the experienced, physical world is definite. Cordially, Michael Devereux ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
