At Mind Matters News: How information becomes everything, including life

Sev @ 1, >"...there is a tendency to talk about information as if it is a single, monolithic concept whereas this discussion shows that there are at least four different specialized definitions in play." Very true. We cannot get sloppy about the particulars when discussing it. There are over 50 proposed measures of information and/or complexity out there, and more being added all the time; see here for just one list: http://cfpm.org/pub/users/bruce/thesis/all.pdfEDTA

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Of supplemental note, the easiest way to demonstrate that information has a physical reality, which is independent of matter and energy, is with quantum teleportation. As the following article states, “the photons aren’t disappearing from one place and appearing in another. Instead, it’s the information that’s being teleported through quantum entanglement.,,,”

Quantum Teleportation Enters the Real World – September 19, 2016 Excerpt: Two separate teams of scientists have taken quantum teleportation from the lab into the real world. Researchers working in Calgary, Canada and Hefei, China, used existing fiber optics networks to transmit small units of information across cities via quantum entanglement — Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance.”,,, This isn’t teleportation in the “Star Trek” sense — the photons aren’t disappearing from one place and appearing in another. Instead, it’s the information that’s being teleported through quantum entanglement.,,, ,,, it is only the information that gets teleported from one place to another. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/09/19/quantum-teleportation-enters-real-world/#.V-HqWNEoDtR

And as the following article states. “scientists have successfully teleported information between two separate atoms in unconnected enclosures a meter apart,,, information,,, is transferred from one place to another, but without traveling through any physical medium.”

First Teleportation Between Distant Atoms – 2009 Excerpt: For the first time, scientists have successfully teleported information between two separate atoms in unconnected enclosures a meter apart – a significant milestone in the global quest for practical quantum information processing. Teleportation may be nature’s most mysterious form of transport: Quantum information, such as the spin of a particle or the polarization of a photon, is transferred from one place to another, but without traveling through any physical medium. It has previously been achieved between photons over very large distances, between photons and ensembles of atoms, and between two nearby atoms through the intermediary action of a third. None of those, however, provides a feasible means of holding and managing quantum information over long distances. Now a team from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) at the University of Maryland (UMD) and the University of Michigan has succeeded in teleporting a quantum state directly from one atom to another over a substantial distance https://jqi.umd.edu/news/first-teleportation-between-distant-atoms

Thus obviously, the materialistic belief of Darwinists that information is an 'effect' of matter and energy, and that it does not have an existence independent of matter and energy, is now experimentally shown to be a false belief on the part Darwinian materialists. In short, Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, are now empirically shown to not even be on the right conceptual framework in order to understand life in the first place. Which is, scientifically speaking, certainly not a minor failing for a theory that purports the be all/end all scientific explanation for how all the diversity of life on earth originated. i.e. for "the Origin of Species".bornagain77

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Moreover, on top of all that, (as if that were not already more than enough to falsify the presuppositions of atheistic materialists who hold information to merely be ’emergent’ from a material basis), classical information is now shown to be a subset of quantum information. In the following site entitled “Quantum Information Science”, a site where Charles Bennett, (of quantum teleportation and reversible computation fame), himself is on the steering committee,

Quantum Information Science Steering Committee C. H. Bennett IBM D. P. DiVincenzo IBM N. Gershenfeld MIT H. M. Gibbs University of Arizona H. J. Kimble Caltech J. Preskill Caltech U. V. Vazirani UC/Berkeley D. J. Wineland NIST C. Yao Princeton University https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/nsf00101.htm

On that site, they have this illustration showing classical information to be a subset of quantum information

Classical Information is a subset of Quantum information – illustration https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/images/figure1.gif below that illustration they have this caption, “Figure 1: The well-established theory of classical information and computation is actually a subset of a much larger topic, the emerging theory of quantum information and computation.”

Moreover, the fact that quantum information is ubiquitous within life has now also been theoretically and experimentally established.

“What happens is this classical information (of DNA) is embedded, sandwiched, into the quantum information (of DNA). And most likely this classical information is never accessed because it is inside all the quantum information. You can only access the quantum information or the electron clouds and the protons. So mathematically you can describe that as a quantum/classical state.” Elisabeth Rieper – Classical and Quantum Information in DNA – video (Longitudinal Quantum Information resides along the entire length of DNA discussed at the 19:30 minute mark; at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper remarks that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it) https://youtu.be/2nqHOnVTxJE?t=1176 Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – Mar. 6, 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552

The absolutely fascinating thing about finding quantum information to be ubiquitous within life, “in a wide range of important biomolecules”, is that it takes a ‘non-local’, i.e. beyond space and time, cause in order to explain quantum correlations in the first place,. As the following paper entitled “Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory” stated, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”

Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php

Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, and especially with the falsification of ‘hidden variables’, simply have no beyond space and time cause that they can appeal so as to be able to explain the non-local quantum coherence and/or entanglement that is now found to be ubiquitous within biology.

“hidden variables don’t exist. If you have proved them come back with PROOF and a Nobel Prize. John Bell theorized that maybe the particles can signal faster than the speed of light. This is what he advocated in his interview in “The Ghost in the Atom.” But the violation of Leggett’s inequality in 2007 takes away that possibility and rules out all non-local hidden variables. Observation instantly defines what properties a particle has and if you assume they had properties before we measured them, then you need evidence, because right now there is none which is why realism is dead, and materialism dies with it. How does the particle know what we are going to pick so it can conform to that?” per Jimfit https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/quantum-physicist-david-bohm-on-why-there-cannot-be-a-theory-of-everything/#comment-662358

Christians, on the other hand, readily do have a beyond space and time cause that they can appeal to so as to explain ‘non-local’ quantum entanglement.

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Moreover, it is also important to realize that quantum information is conserved. As the following article states, In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed.

Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time – 2011 Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html

The implication of finding ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, cannot be created nor destroyed, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every important biomolecule in our bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication, of course, being the fact that we now have very strong empirical evidence suggesting that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff states in the following article, “the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”

Leading Scientists Say Consciousness Cannot Die It Goes Back To The Universe – Oct. 19, 2017 – Spiritual Excerpt: “Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” – Stuart Hameroff – Quantum Entangled Consciousness – Life After Death – video (5:00 minute mark) (of note, this video is no longer available for public viewing) https://radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/10/life-after-death-soul-science-morgan-freeman/

Personally, I consider these recent findings from quantum biology to rival all other scientific discoveries over the past century. Surpassing even the discovery of a beginning of the universe, via Big Bang cosmology, in terms of theological, even personal, significance. As Jesus once asked his disciples along with a crowd of followers, “Is anything worth more than your soul?”

Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?

Also of note, long before DNA, 'negentropy', and quantum information, were even known about, Christians have always held that life has an author,

Acts 3:15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

bornagain77

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Moreover recently, via ‘using only information about the particle’s position’, researchers have now built a ‘information engine’ and have achieved “power comparable to molecular machinery in living cells, and speeds comparable to fast-swimming bacteria,”

World’s fastest information-fuelled engine designed by SFU researchers – May 11, 2021 Excerpt: The information engine designed by SFU researchers consists of a microscopic particle immersed in water and attached to a spring which, itself, is fixed to a movable stage. Researchers then observe the particle bouncing up and down due to thermal motion. “When we see an upward bounce, we move the stage up in response,” explains lead author and PhD student Tushar Saha. “When we see a downward bounce, we wait. This ends up lifting the entire system using only information about the particle’s position.” “Guided by this insight, we picked the particle mass and other engine properties to maximize how fast the engine extracts energy, outperforming previous designs and achieving power comparable to molecular machinery in living cells, and speeds comparable to fast-swimming bacteria,” says postdoctoral fellow Jannik Ehrich. https://www.sfu.ca/university-communications/issues-experts/2021/05/world-s-fastest-information-fuelled-engine-designed-by-sfu-resea.html

The inference to Intelligent Design could hardly be more direct. As Evolution News remarked in an understated tone about the preceding finding, “the best minds in science and engineering are trying to approach the capabilities of bacteria. That might suggest some thoughts about the origin of the target they are trying to reach.”

Life Fights Entropy with Intelligent Design – June 8, 2021 Excerpt: Then comes the punch line in the last sentence: “Guided by this insight, we picked the particle mass and other engine properties to maximize how fast the engine extracts energy, outperforming previous designs and achieving power comparable to molecular machinery in living cells, and speeds comparable to fast-swimming bacteria,” says postdoctoral fellow Jannik Ehrich.” Consider: the best minds in science and engineering are trying to approach the capabilities of bacteria. That might suggest some thoughts about the origin of the target they are trying to reach. https://evolutionnews.org/2021/06/life-fights-entropy-with-intelligent-design/

These experimental realizations of the Maxwell demon thought experiment go to the very heart of the Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design debate and completely blow the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists, (presuppositions about immaterial information being merely ’emergent’ from some material basis), out of the water. A 'bit' of Information, i.e. "a record of a choice", contrary to what Darwinian materialists hold, is not emergent from some material basis, but a bit of information is now shown to be its own distinct 'physical' entity in that a bit of information, i.e. "a record of a choice", is now shown to have a causal thermodynamic effect on matter and energy. And just how many bits, i.e. "records of choices", are required to explain the 'non-thermodynamic equilibrium' of life. Well, when working from a thermodynamic perspective, it is found that 10^12 ‘choices’ had to be made, and bits of information created, in order for a bacterium to come into existence, and in order to explain the “negentropy” (Schrödinger, 1944) of a ‘simple’ bacterium,

Biophysics – Information theory. Relation between information and entropy: – Setlow-Pollard, Ed. Addison Wesley Excerpt: Linschitz gave the figure 9.3 x 10^12 cal/deg or 9.3 x 10^12 x 4.2 joules/deg for the entropy of a bacterial cell. Using the relation H = S/(k In 2), we find that the information content is 4 x 10^12 bits. Morowitz’ deduction from the work of Bayne-Jones and Rhees gives the lower value of 5.6 x 10^11 bits, which is still in the neighborhood of 10^12 bits. Thus two quite different approaches give rather concordant figures. http://www.astroscu.unam.mx/~angel/tsb/molecular.htm

,,, Which is the equivalent of about 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. ‘In comparison,,, the largest libraries in the world,, have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.”

“a one-celled bacterium, e. coli, is estimated to contain the equivalent of 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. Expressed in information in science jargon, this would be the same as 10^12 bits of information. In comparison, the total writings from classical Greek Civilization is only 10^9 bits, and the largest libraries in the world – The British Museum, Oxford Bodleian Library, New York Public Library, Harvard Widenier Library, and the Moscow Lenin Library – have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.” – R. C. Wysong – The Creation-evolution Controversy ‘The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 10^12 bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica.” – Carl Sagan, “Life” in Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropaedia (1974 ed.), pp. 893-894

Thus since bacterial cells are about 10 times smaller than most plant and animal cells.

Size Comparisons of Bacteria, Amoeba, Animal & Plant Cells Excerpt: Bacterial cells are very small – about 10 times smaller than most plant and animal cells. https://education.seattlepi.com/size-comparisons-bacteria-amoeba-animal-plant-cells-4966.html

And since there are conservatively estimated to be around 30 trillion cells within the average human body,

Revised Estimates for the Number of Human and Bacteria Cells in the Body – 2016 Abstract: Reported values in the literature on the number of cells in the body differ by orders of magnitude and are very seldom supported by any measurements or calculations. Here, we integrate the most up-to-date information on the number of human and bacterial cells in the body. We estimate the total number of bacteria in the 70 kg “reference man” to be 3.8·10^13. For human cells, we identify the dominant role of the hematopoietic lineage to the total count (?90%) and revise past estimates to 3.0·10^13 human cells. Our analysis also updates the widely-cited 10:1 ratio, showing that the number of bacteria in the body is actually of the same order as the number of human cells, and their total mass is about 0.2 kg. https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533

Then that gives us a rough ballpark estimate of around 300 trillion times 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. Or about 300 trillion times the information content contained within the books of all the largest libraries in the world. Needless to say, that is a astonishingly massive amount of ‘choices’ that had to be made in order to explain the “negentropy” of a single human body. Moreover, quantum mechanics, specifically advances in quantum information theory, have gone one step further in linking the thermodynamics of a system directly to a 'intelligent observer'. Specifically, as the following article states, “when the bits to be deleted are quantum-mechanically entangled with the state of an observer, then the observer could even withdraw heat from the system while deleting the bits. Entanglement links the observer’s state to that of the computer in such a way that they know more about the memory than is possible in classical physics.,,, In measuring entropy, one should bear in mind that an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer. ”

Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 1, 2011 Excerpt: The new study revisits Landauer’s principle for cases when the values of the bits to be deleted may be known. When the memory content is known, it should be possible to delete the bits in such a manner that it is theoretically possible to re-create them. It has previously been shown that such reversible deletion would generate no heat. In the new paper, the researchers go a step further. They show that when the bits to be deleted are quantum-mechanically entangled with the state of an observer, then the observer could even withdraw heat from the system while deleting the bits. Entanglement links the observer’s state to that of the computer in such a way that they know more about the memory than is possible in classical physics.,,, In measuring entropy, one should bear in mind that an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer. Applied to the example of deleting data, this means that if two individuals delete data in a memory and one has more knowledge of this data, she perceives the memory to have lower entropy and can then delete the memory using less energy.,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601134300.htm

And as the following article states, “James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,, quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,, Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,

The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution – May 2017 Excerpt: the 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell put it, “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.” In recent years, a revolutionary understanding of thermodynamics has emerged that explains this subjectivity using quantum information theory — “a toddler among physical theories,” as del Rio and co-authors put it, that describes the spread of information through quantum systems. Just as thermodynamics initially grew out of trying to improve steam engines, today’s thermodynamicists are mulling over the workings of quantum machines. Shrinking technology — a single-ion engine and three-atom fridge were both experimentally realized for the first time within the past year — is forcing them to extend thermodynamics to the quantum realm, where notions like temperature and work lose their usual meanings, and the classical laws don’t necessarily apply. They’ve found new, quantum versions of the laws that scale up to the originals. Rewriting the theory from the bottom up has led experts to recast its basic concepts in terms of its subjective nature, and to unravel the deep and often surprising relationship between energy and information — the abstract 1s and 0s by which physical states are distinguished and knowledge is measured.,,, Renato Renner, a professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, described this as a radical shift in perspective. Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,, https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-thermodynamics-revolution/

To repeat that last statement, “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,, If that statement doesn't make a Darwinian atheist's head spin around in circles nothing ever will. :)bornagain77

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As to: "Robert J. Marks: But in terms of absent information, if everything that followed Bernoulli principle, we would just be dust, kind of spread around. Mathematically, Bernoulli’s principle is exactly the same as maximum entropy. And we know that maximum entropy is what spreads the gas around the room. So if there was no organization, if there was no informational structure, that’s where we would go, according to Bernoulli and to thermodynamics."

Michael Egnor: If you consider the information that is put into a system by an intelligent agency, is that one of those particular kinds of information? Or could it be any kind of information? Robert J. Marks: It does turn out that one of the one of the challenges with naturalistic processes is that they cannot be creative. And therefore, if you see the act which is creative requires external information to be infused in the process in order to guide whatever is being designed to its final design. For example, in biology information is there everywhere. Shannon information is there. Kolmogorov information is there, because the description of the human body would take volumes to write down. Specified complexity, algorithmic specified, complexity is also there. Because the body and what it does has a lot of meanings.,,, Michael Egnor: Wow. Sometimes when it’s difficult to define or understand a concept, it’s helpful to imagine its absence. What would characterize a system that had minimal information? Robert J. Marks: Well, this dates back to the 18th century mathematician Jacob Bernoulli, who came up with the idea of Bernoulli’s principle of insufficient reason. His concept was that if we have no a priori information about anything, the best that we can do is assume that everything is going to be uniformly distributed. It’s a very useful principle. But in terms of absent information, if everything that followed Bernoulli principle, we would just be dust, kind of spread around. Robert J. Marks: Mathematically, Bernoulli’s principle is exactly the same as maximum entropy. And we know that maximum entropy is what spreads the gas around the room. So if there was no organization, if there was no informational structure, that’s where we would go, according to Bernoulli and to thermodynamics.

And indeed, for Darwinists "the problem of biological form remains unsolved."

On the problem of biological form - Marta Linde-Medina (2020) Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3

In short, Darwinists simply have no possible answer to Talbott's following question,,, "the question, rather, is why things (i.e. biological forms) don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer?"

The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings - Stephen L. Talbott - 2010 Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. ,,, the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Despite the countless processes going on in the cell, and despite the fact that each process might be expected to “go its own way” according to the myriad factors impinging on it from all directions, the actual result is quite different. Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings

And it turns out that immaterial information answers that question from Talbott quite well, As Robert Shedinger noted,

"Since living organisms consistently resist the ravages of entropy that all forms of inanimate matter are subject to, there must be some non-physical principle allowing living matter to consistently defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics. And for Davies there is; the demon in the machine turns out to be information." Robert Shedinger, “Hey, Paul Davies — Your ID Is Showing”

For Darwinists, matter and energy are the primary things. immaterial information, is so far as it can even be said to exist on a Darwinian view of things, is held to be an effect of matter and energy, and/or 'emergent' from a material basis. And thus since Darwinists hold information to be an effect of matter and energy then, obviously, information, as an effect, can never have any causal control over its own purported cause of matter and energy. And as such, and scientifically speaking, this leaves Darwinian Materialists in quite the bind in so far as to ever giving an adequate explanation for why life is so far out of thermodynamic equilibrium. Darwinists, because of their reductive materialistic framework, "have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter… These two domains will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term ‘reductionism.’… Information doesn’t have mass or charge or length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn’t have bytes… This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence,"

“Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter… These two domains will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term ‘reductionism.’… Information doesn’t have mass or charge or length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn’t have bytes… This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms.” George Williams – Evolutionary Biologist – “A Package of Information”

And as Dr Andy C. McIntosh, who is professor of thermodynamics and combustion theory at the University of Leeds, states in the following paper, "Information has its definition outside the matter and energy on which it sits, and furthermore constrains it to operate in a highly non-equilibrium thermodynamic environment. This proposal resolves the thermodynamic issues and invokes the correct paradigm for understanding the vital area of thermodynamic/organisational interactions, which despite the efforts from alternative paradigms has not given a satisfactory explanation of the way information in systems operates.,,,"

Information and Thermodynamics in Living Systems – Andy C. McIntosh – 2013 Excerpt: ,,, information is in fact non-material and that the coded information systems (such as, but not restricted to the coding of DNA in all living systems) is not defined at all by the biochemistry or physics of the molecules used to store the data. Rather than matter and energy defining the information sitting on the polymers of life, this approach posits that the reverse is in fact the case. Information has its definition outside the matter and energy on which it sits, and furthermore constrains it to operate in a highly non-equilibrium thermodynamic environment. This proposal resolves the thermodynamic issues and invokes the correct paradigm for understanding the vital area of thermodynamic/organisational interactions, which despite the efforts from alternative paradigms has not given a satisfactory explanation of the way information in systems operates.,,, http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789814508728_0008

Moreover, for all the different definitions of 'classical' information that Dr. Robert Marks listed, Shannon information, Kolmogorov information, etc,,,, the one thing that unites any definition of 'classical' information that you may put forth is the 'bit'. And as Perry Marshall recently stated, "Information is measured in bits, not kilograms, meters, seconds, joules, or other physical quantities. (and) A bit is a record of a choice. All codes and communication systems reflect choices (Pattee, 1969). A 64-Gb USB stick holds 549,755,813,888 bits, which yield 2^549,755,813,888 choices or degrees of freedom.,,," and as Perry Marshall further explained, “It is by avoiding the rapid decay into the inert state of ‘equilibrium’ that an organism appears so enigmatic ….What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy.” Negative entropy is necessary to create information (Schrödinger, 1944)",,, "Choice is negative information entropy (i.e., the opposite of noise) because it converts uncertainty to certainty, order out of chaos.,,, Negative information entropy is measured in bits, just as in information transmission. Coin toss = 1 bit of entropy Choice between two sides of a coin = 1 bit of negentropy,,,"

Biology transcends the limits of computation – Perry Marshall – Oct. 2021 Excerpt: Table 2 Computational Choices Information is measured in bits, not kilograms, meters, seconds, joules, or other physical quantities. A bit is a record of a choice. All codes and communication systems reflect choices (Pattee, 1969). A 64-Gb USB stick holds 549,755,813,888 bits, which yield 2^549,755,813,888 choices or degrees of freedom.,,, Negative Information Entropy or Negentropy In “What is Life?” Erwin Schrödinger introduced the term ‘negentropy’ or ‘negative entropy’ (Schrödinger, 1944). He states, “It is by avoiding the rapid decay into the inert state of ‘equilibrium’ that an organism appears so enigmatic ….What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy.” Negative entropy is necessary to create information (Schrödinger, 1944) Negentropy is extensively discussed in the literature, and after 75 years, the consensus has barely changed (Davies, 2019) from Schrödinger’s views. Choice is negative information entropy (i.e., the opposite of noise) because it converts uncertainty to certainty, order out of chaos.,,, Negative information entropy is measured in bits, just as in information transmission. Coin toss = 1 bit of entropy Choice between two sides of a coin = 1 bit of negentropy,,, 5. Discussion 5.1. Choices by definition are not computable Choice is intrinsic to information theory (Shannon, 1948), where one bit of information is a choice. This paper takes as axiomatic that choice is not an illusion. This axiom is ubiquitous and essential in society, from consequences for committing crimes to the ability to propose and debate mathematics and scientific laws. I have not arbitrarily defined codes, goals, inductive reasoning, and evolution as choices, and presumed them to be non-computable. The very definition of choice and the observed behaviors of agents dictate that they are necessarily non-computable. Thus, there is a vast chasm between life and non-life, and things as “ordinary” as language and abstract mathematics do not exist, and in principle cannot exist, without cognition (Pattee, 2012). This chasm is an inevitable consequence of Gödel, Turing, and Shannon. It is interesting to compare this with proposals by Chalmers (1995) and others that consciousness is an “irreducible fundamental property of mind with its own laws and principles” (Walker et al., 2017). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610721000365?via%3Dihub

Moreover, this claim that "A bit is a record of a choice" is not just some abstract, mystical, academic discussion, but has now been empirically demonstrated. Specifically, it has now been empirically shown that a bit of information, i.e. "a record of a choice", has a quote-unquote 'thermodynamic content,

Maxwell's demon demonstration turns information into energy - 2010 Excerpt: Scientists in Japan are the first to have succeeded in converting information into free energy in an experiment that verifies the "Maxwell demon" thought experiment devised in 1867.,, In Maxwell’s thought experiment a partition with a small trapdoor is placed in the box, and the trapdoor is guarded by the imaginary being who, without expending energy, selects which molecules go through to the other side.,,, Until now, demonstrating the conversion of information to energy has been elusive, but University of Tokyo physicist Masaki Sano and colleagues have succeeded in demonstrating it in a nano-scale experiment. In a paper published in Nature Physics they describe how they coaxed a Brownian particle to travel upwards on a "spiral-staircase-like" potential energy created by an electric field solely on the basis of information on its location.,, The results also verified the generalized Jarzynski equation, which was formulated in 1997 by statistical chemist Christopher Jarzynski of the University of Maryland. The equation defines the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit, (i.e. a bit), of information. https://phys.org/news/2010-11-maxwell-demon-energy.html

As Christopher Jarzynski, who was instrumental in formulating the 'equation to define the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit, (i.e. a bit), of information', stated, “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,”

Demonic device converts information to energy – 2010 Excerpt: “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,” says Christopher Jarzynski, a statistical chemist at the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1997, Jarzynski formulated an equation to define the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit of information2; the work by Sano and his team has now confirmed this equation. “This tells us something new about how the laws of thermodynamics work on the microscopic scale,” says Jarzynski. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=demonic-device-converts-inform

The Maxwell demon thought experiment has also now even been extended to build a refrigerator that is powered, not by energy, but by information.

New Scientist astounds: Information is physical – May 13, 2016 Excerpt: Recently came the most startling demonstration yet: a tiny machine powered purely by information, which chilled metal through the power of its knowledge. This seemingly magical device could put us on the road to new, more efficient nanoscale machines, a better understanding of the workings of life, and a more complete picture of perhaps our most fundamental theory of the physical world. https://uncommondescent.com/news/new-scientist-astounds-information-is-physical/

bornagain77

November 5, 2021

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The most interesting takeaway is that there is a tendency to talk about information as if it is a single, monolithic concept whereas this discussion shows that there are at least four different specialized definitions in play. That being the case, unless we agree in advance which definition is being used in a discussion then there is a real risk of ambiguity and even equivocation. For example, in my favorite illustration of the tree-rings which tell a dendrochronologist more about the history of the tree than I could infer from looking at the same rings, which version of information applies here? Is information a property of the tree-rings or does it refer to the process by which the dendrochronologist learns something he did not know before?Seversky

November 4, 2021

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