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This is a misconception. It’s more fundamental than that. There’s a fundamental connection between (Shannon) information theory and thermodynamics. The Landau L

This is a misconception. It’s more fundamental than that. There’s a fundamental connection between (Shannon) information theory and thermodynamics. The Landau Limit, whether blackholes can destroy information or not, quantum mechanics, etc. Information is actually tangible. It’s not just an analogy or a coincidence that the word “entropy” is a word used in both physics and computer science (information theory). Thermodynamics, mind you, is perhaps THE most fundamental elements of physics and how the universe works.

chermi 3mo ago
Did you mean landauer?
- Robotbeat 3mo ago
  Yes. Unable to edit it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle
Diogenesian 3mo ago
Information and computation are not the same thing. I was very specifically talking about Turing machines and other theoretical models of computation. That said, you are still making the same mistake I pointed out, elevating human symbolic information to a higher plateau than it deserves. I think it's because you're being too vague about the connection, when it's fairly mundane. The "fundamental connection" is that physical quantities are information, and on the other hand information is always a large collection of semi-independent semi-stochastic physical objects and can be profitably modelled by some sort of statistical mechanics. Information theory is relevant all over physics because human agents collect all sorts of physical information. The universe "doesn't care" about information in and of itself. Shannon entropy and Boltzmann entropy have similar formulas because they measure precisely the same thing; put another way, a goofy but formally equivalent way to model a gas would be a noisy radio channel communicating each molecule's kinetic energy. The problem with the black hole information paradox isn't that information is destroyed per se, but that it appears to be destroyed in a way that violates quantum mechanics (destroying quantum state without a measurement). The theoretically predicted destruction of information points to a more general problem. The Laundauer limit is no more fundamental to the universe than "a mechanical crane cannot violate the laws of pulleys." It says that no matter how you design your binary (or whatever) computer, it must involve an ensemble of binary states, and statistical mechanics puts an absolute floor on how little heat is required to alter such states. Whether these states are gas molecules or the written symbols "0" and "1" is immaterial.
- chriswarbo 3mo ago
  > Information and computation are not the same thing. Shannon information, sure. However, algorithmic information (Kolmogorov complexity, etc.) is based on computation.
  - Diogenesian 3mo ago
    But that just takes us even further from physical relevance / universal fundamentals. Kolmogorov complexity is fundamental in computation, but its relevance in physical science is pretty selective.
- BirAdam 3mo ago
  I’ve always hated the use of the word “information” in relation to things like spin. Information and order are effects of human perception and preference. They exist as abstractions in the mind and not in reality.
  - ChrisGreenHeur 3mo ago
    Best way to show this is to implement information in multiple physical substrates. Make a book out of paper and make it out of clay. Same information. The physical substrate doesn’t matter.
    - lmpdev 3mo ago
      A parallel concept to this is from functionalism/theory of mind in Philosophy is that of Multiple Realisability
  - rdtsc 3mo ago
    It’s not as simple as for example degrees of freedom and the states for a system is “information” and those one can argue are physical.
  - voidhorse 3mo ago
    This. I'll never understand people who reify "information" as though it is some object with independent existence from man. No information without an interpretation. The "amount" of information is completely dependent on the observer. You'd think people who work constantly with abstraction wouldn't fall prey to reifying abstractions but they actually seem more susceptible to it than anyone else.
jibal 3mo ago
> It’s not just an analogy or a coincidence that the word “entropy” is a word used in both physics and computer science (information theory). Shannon asked von Neumann what to call it, and von Neumann said "You should call it entropy, for two reasons: In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, nobody knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage."
- Robotbeat 3mo ago
  I’m aware of the von Neumann joke. There is, however, a direct equivalence between them derived from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle
  - jibal 3mo ago
    Um, only the second part was a joke. The first part was confirmation of your statement that it's not just an analogy or coincidence ... and Shannon followed von Neumann's advice (not joke).
curiousest 3mo ago
You can say things like, “In the domain of physics, X,” “Assuming the scientific method, X,” or “Assuming the premises of logic, X.” But “computation is a fundamental aspect of the universe”, in the way it's being understood in this thread (as opposed to the article) does not remain within any of those frameworks. It makes a claim about reality as a whole. Once you make that kind of universal claim, all the assumptions built into “computation” - about identity, distinct states, lawful transitions, causation, logic, etc. - become part of the claim. You cannot use those assumptions silently and then present the conclusion as framework-independent. And those frameworks come with consequences. Using the language of computation, they come with "lossiness" wrt modelling "reality". (see Aristotle Metaphysics -> Kant CoPR -> later Wittgenstein)
- Robotbeat 3mo ago
  The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the Laws of Thermodynamics are pretty d*mn fundamental.
- pegasus 3mo ago
  The Church-Turing thesis (the fact that all models of computation we've been able to come up with are equivalent) gives the necessary weight to that claim.
  - Diogenesian 3mo ago
    The Church-Turing thesis is a statement about symoblic processes, and symbolism is simply not fundamental to the universe. It is fundamental to how humans understand the universe. That's the distinction.
alfiedotwtf 3mo ago
Thank you. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and couldn’t express what I was thinking about… but when you linked information theory to thermodynamics, it clicked. Given the quantum fields were collapsed in the early universe, I’m now wondering how information theory looked like during the different phases on the universe

chermi 3mo ago

Did you mean landauer?

Robotbeat 3mo ago
Yes. Unable to edit it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle

Diogenesian 3mo ago

Information and computation are not the same thing. I was very specifically talking about Turing machines and other theoretical models of computation. That said, you are still making the same mistake I pointed out, elevating human symbolic information to a higher plateau than it deserves. I think it's because you're being too vague about the connection, when it's fairly mundane. The "fundamental connection" is that physical quantities are information, and on the other hand information is always a large collection of semi-independent semi-stochastic physical objects and can be profitably modelled by some sort of statistical mechanics. Information theory is relevant all over physics because human agents collect all sorts of physical information. The universe "doesn't care" about information in and of itself. Shannon entropy and Boltzmann entropy have similar formulas because they measure precisely the same thing; put another way, a goofy but formally equivalent way to model a gas would be a noisy radio channel communicating each molecule's kinetic energy. The problem with the black hole information paradox isn't that information is destroyed per se, but that it appears to be destroyed in a way that violates quantum mechanics (destroying quantum state without a measurement). The theoretically predicted destruction of information points to a more general problem. The Laundauer limit is no more fundamental to the universe than "a mechanical crane cannot violate the laws of pulleys." It says that no matter how you design your binary (or whatever) computer, it must involve an ensemble of binary states, and statistical mechanics puts an absolute floor on how little heat is required to alter such states. Whether these states are gas molecules or the written symbols "0" and "1" is immaterial.

chriswarbo 3mo ago
> Information and computation are not the same thing. Shannon information, sure. However, algorithmic information (Kolmogorov complexity, etc.) is based on computation.
- Diogenesian 3mo ago
  But that just takes us even further from physical relevance / universal fundamentals. Kolmogorov complexity is fundamental in computation, but its relevance in physical science is pretty selective.
BirAdam 3mo ago
I’ve always hated the use of the word “information” in relation to things like spin. Information and order are effects of human perception and preference. They exist as abstractions in the mind and not in reality.
- ChrisGreenHeur 3mo ago
  Best way to show this is to implement information in multiple physical substrates. Make a book out of paper and make it out of clay. Same information. The physical substrate doesn’t matter.
  - lmpdev 3mo ago
    A parallel concept to this is from functionalism/theory of mind in Philosophy is that of Multiple Realisability
- rdtsc 3mo ago
  It’s not as simple as for example degrees of freedom and the states for a system is “information” and those one can argue are physical.
- voidhorse 3mo ago
  This. I'll never understand people who reify "information" as though it is some object with independent existence from man. No information without an interpretation. The "amount" of information is completely dependent on the observer. You'd think people who work constantly with abstraction wouldn't fall prey to reifying abstractions but they actually seem more susceptible to it than anyone else.

jibal 3mo ago

> It’s not just an analogy or a coincidence that the word “entropy” is a word used in both physics and computer science (information theory). Shannon asked von Neumann what to call it, and von Neumann said "You should call it entropy, for two reasons: In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, nobody knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage."

Robotbeat 3mo ago
I’m aware of the von Neumann joke. There is, however, a direct equivalence between them derived from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle
- jibal 3mo ago
  Um, only the second part was a joke. The first part was confirmation of your statement that it's not just an analogy or coincidence ... and Shannon followed von Neumann's advice (not joke).

curiousest 3mo ago

You can say things like, “In the domain of physics, X,” “Assuming the scientific method, X,” or “Assuming the premises of logic, X.” But “computation is a fundamental aspect of the universe”, in the way it's being understood in this thread (as opposed to the article) does not remain within any of those frameworks. It makes a claim about reality as a whole. Once you make that kind of universal claim, all the assumptions built into “computation” - about identity, distinct states, lawful transitions, causation, logic, etc. - become part of the claim. You cannot use those assumptions silently and then present the conclusion as framework-independent. And those frameworks come with consequences. Using the language of computation, they come with "lossiness" wrt modelling "reality". (see Aristotle Metaphysics -> Kant CoPR -> later Wittgenstein)

Robotbeat 3mo ago
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the Laws of Thermodynamics are pretty d*mn fundamental.
pegasus 3mo ago
The Church-Turing thesis (the fact that all models of computation we've been able to come up with are equivalent) gives the necessary weight to that claim.
- Diogenesian 3mo ago
  The Church-Turing thesis is a statement about symoblic processes, and symbolism is simply not fundamental to the universe. It is fundamental to how humans understand the universe. That's the distinction.

alfiedotwtf 3mo ago

Thank you. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and couldn’t express what I was thinking about… but when you linked information theory to thermodynamics, it clicked. Given the quantum fields were collapsed in the early universe, I’m now wondering how information theory looked like during the different phases on the universe