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Information and computation are not the same thing. I was very specifically talking about Turing machines and other theoretical models of computation. That sai
by Diogenesian 2mo 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 2mo ago> Information and computation are not the same thing. Shannon information, sure. However, algorithmic information (Kolmogorov complexity, etc.) is based on computation.
- Diogenesian 2mo agoBut 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 2mo agoI’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 2mo agoBest 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 2mo agoA parallel concept to this is from functionalism/theory of mind in Philosophy is that of Multiple Realisability
- rdtsc 2mo agoIt’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 2mo agoThis. 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.
- aeonik 2mo agoI think you are prematurely dismissing something deeper here. The more I learn about the fundamental nature of the electron, probability in quantum mechanics, and the wave function in general... the more information being fundamental substrate makes sense. I'm not saying it is... just that it makes more sense the deeper you get.
- dchftcs 2mo agoA more concise explanation is that, computation is the transformation of information. Any transformation of information is computation, and is thus subject to some theory of computation. A physical process involves the transformation of information, so can be studied with a theory of computation.
- andsoitis 2mo ago> A physical process involves the transformation of information, so can be studied with a theory of computation. A rock rolling downhill has state-dependent future behavior you could describe informationally, but nothing is gained by modeling it with automata theory instead of Newtonian mechanics, and it isn't computing in any substantive sense.
- dchftcs 2mo agoQuantum mechanics is pretty fundamental but you wouldn't use it to describe a rock rolling down hill either.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]