Matter vs. Not-matter

[epepke]

Re: Re: Re: Matter vs. Not-matter

I think we can safely conclude that "information is transmitted by matter" in any case. It can also be stored in/by matter, and processed by things made of mass/energy.

We can say that.

But I don't think that we can say much about matter as a separate philosophical category from information.

Not that it matters (pun intended).

 

[epepke]

Re: Re: Matter vs. Not-matter

By a technicality (called Eienstein's theory of Special Relativity), energy and matter are equivelant, they are really twos sides of the same coin. In a way, matter can be described as "congealed energy"

Energy-momentum, actually--that's the thing that transforms as a 4-vector in the same way spacetime does and determines graviation according to GR.

 

[sorgoth]

Re: Re: Matter vs. Not-matter

I gotta laugh at questions like this.

I don't know what Skeptics™ decide, but as a person who is fairly well versed in 20th Century physics, I don't even know what matter is.

Take a very simple case: one electron in a hydrogen atom. It has a spin which, when measured, will be either up or down. One could say that the electron is matter, and the spin is information. I think that it is possible to do things to the electron such that, if the spin is up, afterward there is a high probability that the spin willl be down. But I don't know that the spin is a seperate thing from the electron; I don't know that Joe Electron switches its spin or that it is replaced by Fred Electon with the opposite spin; I just think electron number is conserved. But there are plenty of particles whose number is not conserved.

Down one level, and I don't know if there is an electron there. I think that there is an amplitude that an electron is there, and if I assume that an electron is a point particle, I can calculate a probability of finding an electron there. If I stick to the highest probabilities, then they form a fuzzy sphere around the nucleus, and I can calculate that pretty easily. But the sphere is much bigger than the electron would appear if it were not around the proton. So, is there really an electron there, or is there information about the nucleus that there is a certain probability of finding an electron around it?

Furhtermore, this spin of which I speak seems to be related to a thing called angular momentum, which is related to rotational symmetry, which is related to the very existence of another particle.

I'm pretty sure that everything in the universe works basically the same way, because if there were something that didn't work the same way, then all hell would break loose, and this doesn't seem to have happened.

In the absence of a solution to these extremely simple cases, I don't see that it's remotely possible to make a decision about a statement like "information is matter."

Here's what I think:

Although I am not too sure yet of it's truth, I am very interested in Superstring Theory. It seems to make sense, in a nonintuitive sort of way. Since matter/energy would be defined by the pattern of the strings, would not all information be conserved in the string resonances?

 

[Interesting Ian]

To me, information seems to be more than the paper, computers, and memory that it is written on. -Although I admit I can't define exactly what I mean. [/B]

I don't think that can be maintained.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Still, information would be a property of matter, not matter itself.

No, matter is information.

 

[smalltlalk_2k]

Would the Strings in String Theory be matter? If so then isn't everything matter? That is assuming String Theory is correct, and my limited understanding of String Theory is correct. Don't Strings make up everthing in the universe even forces?

 

[homunculus]

Most of what you mentioned has a physical substrate (for example, chemical and/or electrical patterns within brains and nervous systems). No observeable process can be explained by introducing any non-corporeal, invisible forces or entities, which never interact with any other matter (or do so, but not in any consistent, measurable way).

Consider the ancient notion that the movement of planets was controlled by angels. This theory cannot by itself "explain" the movement of planets, unless supplemented by an independant theory of how angels move (all we have done here, is invoke something else which is itself unexplained).

Paul.

 

[jj]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Matter vs. Not-matter

jj,

Are you talking about the Shannon Information? [/B]

I'm talking about "information" in any usual sense.

Shannon's reduction to bits, and providing of units, is only part of the story. (And the channel capacity theorem has proven remarkably useful, too, of course.)

 

[jj]

No, matter is information.

Really ...

Note, I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but your statement is quite ambiguous, really.

Please expand on this statement.