Further to the question, recently raised, as to whether information could be the long-sought missing dark matter, our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon, offers some thoughts:
![The Long Ascent: Genesis 1–11 in Science & Myth, Volume 1 by [Sheldon, Robert]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51G-veeEcdL.jpg)
Materialist thinkers may need to see information as material, whether that approach fits information or not
There is no evidence that information is dark matter or that consciousness is physical but materialists understandably long for evidence that would make their theory more viable.
There’s a couple of metaphysical assumptions going on here that keep this from working. That is, the physics isn’t so bad, it’s the metaphysics.
First: The dark matter problem is real?
I agree, and I think it can be explained by matter clumped in objects bigger than a pea but smaller than an asteroid. In this size range, astronomers cannot detect it with telescopes. The only issue is with an astrophysical model of the Big Bang that says if dark matter were “baryonic”, as in, made out of ordinary stuff–then ratios of Li/H are off etc. My claim is that the astrophysical model is incorrect, as many other people are now saying, so that it cannot rule out ordinary materials. We even have a candidate for this material–comets.
Second: Information has quantized energy?
I’m ambivalent. To begin with, Landauer’s estimate used entropy as the connection between information and energy, and there’s serious problems with equating different sorts of entropy, as our own Granville Sewell has pointed out. And even if we do quantize it, it seems to be attached to ordinary matter. Even the AIP paper cited in the article came up with 1000 proton mass difference in a full and empty Terabyte drive. Considering there are something like 10^24 atoms in the thing, we are never going to get 1:10^21 accuracy to measure this.
Third: Einstein said E=mc^2, so that energy must have a mass?
If it were true that information has energy, then perhaps it would have a mass. But we already have situations, such as gravitational potential energy, where we can’t locate the mass in a gravitationally bound system–like the Earth and Moon. So there are issues with trying to locate the mass associated with the energy.
Fourth: Finally, even supposing that we grant 2 & 3, the location of the mass has to be “outside” the galaxy in order to account for the dark matter attraction. How does information occupy empty space? Landauer would have said it couldn’t.
There’s just way too little to go on here.
Experimental physicist Rob Sheldon is also the author of Genesis: The Long Ascent and The Long Ascent, Volume II
Information being defined as what exactly, in this context?
What do they mean by “dark matter”?
What does that 2-word term refer to?
No, it means that matter and energy are interchangeable.
no need for the dark fudge factor required for the current consensus to have a chance of being valid, based on the strongest science, which is both ID and YeC,
where all the empirical observations fully align w/ normal matter and basic science as explained in by SPIRAL cosmological redshift hypothesis and model, that as son as studied and fairly considered should be established as the new standard.
here is how the two options compare on some key issues: https://www.academia.edu/36013854/SPIRAL_vs_SCM_cosmological_models
As to this claim
There are a couple of major problems in this article and paper.
First off, I can save him a lot of time and trouble in his effort to try and prove that information has mass, and prove that information does not have mass, by simply referencing quantum teleportation:
In other words, information does not have mass but information is what is defining the atom to have mass.
Even quantum field theory states that mass is not an intrinsic property of matter but that mass is acquired via interaction with the Higg’s field:
In other words, mass is not even a fundamental property of the particles themselves but is an ’emergent property’ of the particles via their interaction with the Higg’s field:
Moreover, as if that was not bad enough for his theory, via John Wheeler, we now know that information is even more fundamental than fields themselves are, and is thus more fundamental than the Higg’s field itself which, according to quantum field theory, is what is giving particles their mass.
The second major problem in his paper is that he claims that “Landauer said this proves information is more than just a mathematical quantity.”
Yet, although Landauer indeed did say that ‘information is physical’, Landauer explicitly denied the independent physical reality of information. In fact Landauer said that Roger Penrose’s contention that information has an existence independent of matter and energy was a quote unquote ‘quaint notion’.
Moreover, despite Landauer deriding Penrose’s ‘quaint notion’, Landauer’s contention that information cannot exist independently of its physical representation has also now been falsified by advances in quantum information theory.
In the following 2011 paper, researchers ,,, show that when the bits (in a computer) 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 (in quantum information theory) an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer.
in regards to the preceding article, in the following article Dr. Vaccaro states that “Landauer said that information is physical because it takes energy to erase it. We are saying that the reason it (information) is physical has a broader context than that.”,
Moreover, in 2010 the Maxwell’s demon thought experiment, which was originally devised by James Clerk Maxwell in 1867, was finally experimentally realized. As the following paper highlights, it has now been experimentally demonstrated that knowledge of a particle’s location and/or position converts information into energy.
And as the following 2010 article stated about the preceding experiment, “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,”
And as the following 2017 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.”,,,
Again to repeat that last sentence,“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.”,,,
That statement about entropy being a property of an observer who describes the system, for anyone involved in the ID vs. Darwinism debate, ought to send chills down their scientific spine.
Simply put, these developments in quantum information theory go to the very heart of the ID vs. Evolution debate and directly falsify, number one, Darwinian claims that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from some material basis. And number two, these experimental realizations of the Maxwell’s demon thought experiment go even further and also directly validates a primary claim from ID proponents that an Intelligent Designer who imparts information into a biological system is necessary in order to circumvent the second law.
In other words, the last decade or so of experimental research in quantum information theory has been VERY GOOD to the presuppositions of Intelligent Deign proponents
Verse: