[Fis] A Landauer Conundrum, was Re: The Limits

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear Jerry and FIS Colleagues,

Thanks for the thoughtful comments and the Landauer's abstract. Apart of 
those three principles already mentioned (that Stan expanded some days 
ago) perhaps we could reinterpret in that light (agent's 
inaccessibility) many of the quantum conundrums: two slits experiments, 
decoherence of the wave function, measurement and instantaneous collapse 
of the wave function, entanglement of coherent/decoherent processes 
("spooky action at a distance"), and so on. Even the Second Law of 
thermodynamics could be reinterpreted from the agent's impossibilities 
point of view ("thou cannot process the same piece of information 
twice"). My contention is that our present approaches to information are 
still rudimentary and do not allow an informational cosmovision to 
complement (and not to try to supplant) the physicalist cosmovision. It 
won't happen if we do not previously solve the biggest conundrum in my 
view, _How "immaterial" laws of nature can occupy space-time at every 
corner or granularity and interact with "material" elements (particles, 
forces, fields), given that they lack even the slightly trace of 
physicality?_ In other words: Where are the Laws? How can they "act"? 
Maybe this response could be framed only in informational terms (????).

About Landauer, my interpretation is that as long as the (quantum) 
computation is kept in a coherent state, I mean, without measuring or 
observing or deleting its processes, it will be reversible at zero cost. 
This is quantum reversibility. If I am not wrong this paper was one of 
the founding works of quantum computing.  Does it relate to the chemical 
reaction you describe below? Good question.

That reaction, I think, is completely a "classical" phenomenon (well, 
except maybe the activation barrier energy, terribly low in this case) . 
All the participant atoms are in a bath of thermalizing photons that do 
not allow any maintenance of coherence or any emergence of quantum 
spooky effects. You speak about creation of information, yes, but at the 
same time there is disappearance of information. Three atoms enter, that 
are "deleted" along the reaction, and two new ones appear, that are 
"created". So, in terms of entropy there is a net decrease, but it is 
overcompensated by the enormous Q generated due to the differences in 
internal energies or enthalpies. The enormous value of heat formation 
you point out. I think Gibbs free energy is very clear about that.

I will appreciate if you or other FIS parties try to bite the bullet 
above about the laws of nature...

Best wishes--Pedro

El 05/03/2019 a las 22:58, Jerry LR Chandler escribió:
> Pedro, List:
>
> The original post on limits was truly novel to me.  Have you 
> references to other sorts of binding / blinding limits to scientific 
> theories?
>
> One sort-of counter-example came to mind.  It is a component of the 
> tensions between physical and chemical logics.
> It is based on foundational physical principles that could possibly be 
> associated with the foundational physical conceptualization of 
> information. Or mis-conceptualization?  The starting point for the 
> conundrum is Landauer’s famous abstract.
>
> ABSTRACT  (by Landauer)
> Thermodynamics arose in the 19th century out of the attempt to 
> understand the performance limits of steam engines in a way that would 
> anticipate all further inventions. Claude Shannon, after World War II, 
> analyzed the limits of the communications channel. It is no surprise, 
> then, that shortly after the emergence of modern digital computing, 
> similar questions appeared in that field. It was not hard to associate 
> a logic gate with a degree of freedom, then to associate /kT/ with 
> that, and presume that this energy has to be dissipated at every step. 
> Similarly, it seemed obvious to many that the uncertainty principle, 
> ΔEΔt∼ℏ,ΔEΔt∼ℏ, could be used to calculate a required minimal energy 
> involvement, and therefore energy loss, for very short Δt.Δt.
> There are no unavoidable energy consumption requirements per step in a 
> computer. Related analysis has provided insights into the measurement 
> process and the communication schannel, and has prompted speculations 
> about the nature of physical laws.
>
> Chemical example:
>
> Consider the reaction 2 H2 + O2  ——> 2 H2O.
>
> During this reaction, vast amounts of new information is created as 
> all of particles are in new quantum states and generate quanta spectra 
> that are different from the precursors.
>
> Yet, the reaction releases energy.  A huge of energy! (Think Hindenburg!)
>  (gas)
> A web sources gives the value of the heat of formation of water(gas) 
> from its elements as - 241.8 kJ/mole.
>
> Does this example of an actual physical measurement of a process that 
> CREATES new information confirm or deny the Landauer hypothesis?
>
> How is either a confirmed or denial related to Landauer's or any other 
> physical argument?
>
> Have fun with this conundrum!
>
> Cheers
>
> Jerry
>
>
>
>> On Mar 1, 2019, at 7:23 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan 
>> <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> Thanks to Jerry, Stan, and Bruno for their responses.
>> There is a recent publication on "Agent Inaccessibility as a 
>> Fundamental Principle in Quantum Mechanics" by Jan Waleczek (Entropy, 
>> 2019, 21/1), pointed out by courtesy of Malcolm Dean, that captures 
>> very well the deep sense of this discussion. The subtitle is: 
>> "Objective Unpredictability ad Formal Uncomputability." It is open 
>> access. Rather than the triumph of indeterminism with the quantum 
>> revolution, the paper states that it is only valid to claim the 
>> following: /the quantum revolution means the profound discovery of an 
>> agent-inaccesible regime of the physical universe. /
>> And if we think about all the problems and paradoxes surrounding 
>> research on consciousness, Do they relate to this very 
>> inaccessibility? Many parties have tried to connect consciousness 
>> "explanation" with the quantum. Rather unsuccessfully, at least at 
>> the time being. But the point I see is, Could the Limit of quantum 
>> inaccessibility to the external world of the agent be germane, or 
>> even the same Limit, than the inaccessibility to its own  internal 
>> world?
>> In my view, this does not imply a negationist stance concerning the 
>> integrity of the whole scientific enterprise or information science 
>> in particular. Precisely, the universalistic, open-ended nature of 
>> our human openness to information derives from consciousness, 
>> language, and the empirical congruence perception/action in a 
>> collaborative social framework. Because of this universal openness to 
>> information we can organize universalistic sciences (physics, maths, 
>> logics/comp., info science) and many other particularistic ones, 
>> depending on the further limits or principles we establish--as Jerry 
>> remarks below.
>> Should the universal openness to information, subtended by the 
>> inaccessibility limit(s) of quantum and consciousness, be considered 
>> as a sort of Information Zeroth Principle?
>>
>> Best wishes
>> --Pedro
>> PS. I have just seen entering the new message from Karl...
>>
>>

-- 
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group

pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------



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