I am not a physicist but I believe it is similar in a superficial way. With a piece of parchment, the information is encoded based on the relative positions of

I am not a physicist but I believe it is similar in a superficial way. With a piece of parchment, the information is encoded based on the relative positions of molecules of ink and paper and if you use thermodynamically irreversible processes to decompose the constituent molecules you by definition lose any information encoded in higher layers of abstraction. The most fundamental piece of information is the identity of individual clumps of energy (subatomic particles). The reason black holes destroy information is that they are such an extreme environment that this identity no longer holds. Any energy, whether it is a photon or gluons making up a proton, that enters a black hole becomes a faceless part of the entire mass. Even if Hawking is correct and blackholes can radiate energy, anything they radiate will be made up of the same energy as the particles absorbed by the singularity but any information about what energy was before is entirely lost, as is any information stored in higher level patterns of that energy.