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

Mon Mar 11 16:56:03 CET 2019

Dear Pedro,

Your note contains three distinct points, of which the second seems most significant:

1. I need to understand better your underlined sentence. I learned, I think, that real events, processes, etc. follow laws. However, laws are abstract epistemic entities invented to describe the observed regularities in nature. Their only reality is the energy required to think about them, not that they possess. The expression “how laws of nature occupy space-time and interact…” is inoperative. 

2. The term ‘information’ on the other hand refers to the behavior or evolution of the energetic processes of thought as well as other real, ontological phenomena. Wu Kun’s metaphilosophy of information is a highly developed ‘informational vision’ which includes, without conflation, an informational-scientific or ‘physicalist’ vision. An example of this approach is Wu’s identification of the ‘informosome’, the integral, imaginable if not isolatable, of all the experiences of an individual, past, present and probable, the latter as potentialities.

3. Jerry has correctly stated the informational aspects of the H2 +O 2   =  2H2O reaction, but what do you mean by saying its activation energy barrier is “terribly low”? If one mixes hydrogen and oxygen, nothing happens. A source of energy is needed, a spark, or a catalytic surface for the activation energy barrier to be overcome. Obviously, you meant molecules not atoms; two reactant molecules yield two product molecules, with the same total number of atoms. Put enough energy into water, say by electrolysis, and the reaction goes in the opposite direction. I thus agree with you that the system is completely classical, but it is not necessary to invoke a bath of ‘thermalizing photons’.

Perhaps a restatement of the Landauer Conundrum would be useful.

Best wishes,

Joseph

  _____  

From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan
Sent: lundi, 11 mars 2019 14:21
To: Jerry LR Chandler; 'fis'
Subject: Re: [Fis] A Landauer Conundrum, was Re: The Limits

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> 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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