[Fis] Is information physical?

[Burgin, Mark]

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion

                                       Is information physical?

My opinion is presented below:

Why some people erroneously think that information is physical

The main reason to think that information is physical is the strong 
belief of many people, especially, scientists that there is only 
physical reality, which is studied by science. At the same time, people 
encounter something that they call information.

When people receive a letter, they comprehend that it is information 
because with the letter they receive information. The letter is 
physical, i.e., a physical object. As a result, people start thinking 
that information is physical. When people receive an e-mail, they 
comprehend that it is information because with the e-mail they receive 
information. The e-mail comes to the computer in the form of 
electromagnetic waves, which are physical. As a result, people start 
thinking even more that information is physical.

However, letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all physical 
objects are only carriers or containers of information.

To understand this better, let us consider a textbook. Is possible to 
say that this book is knowledge? Any reasonable person will tell that 
the textbook contains knowledge but is not knowledge itself. In the same 
way, the textbook contains information but is not information itself. 
The same is true for letters, e-mails, electromagnetic waves and other 
physical objects because all of them only contain information but are 
not information. For instance, as we know, different letters can contain 
the same information. Even if we make an identical copy of a letter or 
any other text, then the letter and its copy will be different physical 
objects (physical things) but they will contain the same information.

Information belongs to a different (non-physical) world of knowledge, 
data and similar essences. In spite of this, information can act on 
physical objects (physical bodies) and this action also misleads people 
who think that information is physical.

One more misleading property of information is that people can measure 
it. This brings an erroneous assumption that it is possible to measure 
only physical essences. Naturally, this brings people to the erroneous 
conclusion that information is physical. However, measuring information 
is essentially different than measuring physical quantities, i.e., 
weight. There are no “scales” that measure information. Only human 
intellect can do this.

It is possible to find more explanations that information is not 
physical in the general theory of information.

Sincerely,
Mark Burgin


On 4/24/2018 10:46 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>
> A very interesting discussion theme has been proposed by Mark Burgin 
> --he will post at his early convenience.
> Thanks are due to Alberto for his "dataism" piece. Quite probably we 
> will need to revisit that theme, as it is gaining increasing momentum 
> in present "information societies", in science as well as in everyday 
> life...
> Thanks also to Sung for his interesting viewpoint and references.
>
> Best wishes to all,
> --Pedro
>
>   
> -------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Marijuán
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
> pcmarijuan.iacs en aragon.es
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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>
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