From: scerir (scerir@libero.it)
Date: Wed Dec 12 2001 - 14:15:32 MST
[Leibniz]
"[A]lthough the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream
and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this
dream or phantasm real enough if, using reason well, we were never
deceived by it.".
[Mitch]
It from Bit perhaps? Yet, looking for analogies to help me understand,
what is the basis of mathematics rely on, for I contend it must have
a physical form, yes? Is the 'physical world' based not on matter and energy,
but on information, then perhaps information is merely coherent patterns
that pass through matter and energy? Or is information more fundamental?
____________
Shelly Goldstein says that "information is one of the most abused terms
in contemporary physics".
But I think that information is "more fundamental". And information
has also a couple of unique peculiarity.
It's very _cheap_ to copy, to spead, to propagate, at least in non-equilibrium
systems.
There is a deep _morphism_ between "action" and "entropy" (also R. Thom
wrote about this, but his old paper in still unpublished) and between "action"
and "information".
Perhaps I would say, with Tom Stonier [Information and the Internal Structure
of the Universe, Springer-Verlag, London, 1990], that:
- information is a basic property of the universe, like matter and energy;
- the information contained by a system is a function of the
linkages binding simpler, into more complex units;
- the universe is organized into a hierarchy of information levels;
- the universe may end up in a state in which all matter and energy
have been converted into pure information.
-s.
<But does Zeilinger truly believe that `"quantum mechanics is about
information''? Information is always information about something.
Therefore, shouldn't quantum mechanics then be regarded as being
about that something? Quantum mechanics tells us about atoms
and chemical bonding and high-temperature superconductivity.
Of course, it also provides us with information about these things.
But it does so precisely because it is about the things themselves.
And does Zeilinger really wish to deny that the change of the state vector
that occurs during the measurement process is "a real physical process''
even when it leads to the destruction of the possibility of interference?
Can quantum interference be genuinely understood by invoking a
wavefunction that is nothing more than `"a representation of our knowledge''?
Moreover, it would not be at all sensible for a theory to acknowledge that
"any statement about the world has to make reference to observation,''
since Zeilinger's assertion is plainly false. Statements about history are not
statements about history books, and statements about dinosaurs are not
statements about fossilized dinosaur bones.>
- Shelly Goldstein
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