• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Is Information The Fifth State Of Matter?

rhinefire

DP Veteran
Joined
May 3, 2007
Messages
10,282
Reaction score
2,965
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Independent
Soon an experiment to examine information as possibly joining gas, plasma, liquid and solid states. If info. does have mass it could explain mysterious phenomenon like dark matter and even confirm the theory that we are living in a simulation. Cool huh?
 
Soon an experiment to examine information as possibly joining gas, plasma, liquid and solid states. If info. does have mass it could explain mysterious phenomenon like dark matter and even confirm the theory that we are living in a simulation. Cool huh?
No.
If you want information to have a reality in physics, its a state of energy.
 
It is true that the theory that describes particles and matter and space and time, with quantum mechanics, have information as a language.
But I try not to go there. (Quantum mechanics), I start realizing that I barely exist and am just some packets of energy, talking to other strings of energy. :)
That's just at the starting line. My thoughts start folding in on themselves.
I would like to see the results of the experiment.
 
Soon an experiment to examine information as possibly joining gas, plasma, liquid and solid states. If info. does have mass it could explain mysterious phenomenon like dark matter and even confirm the theory that we are living in a simulation. Cool huh?
Nope.
 
Heat and pressure determine the states of matter, and I don't see information as fitting at either end of that.

And if information had mass, it would travel measurably slower than the speed of light. And since light can carry information ...
 
Soon an experiment to examine information as possibly joining gas, plasma, liquid and solid states. If info. does have mass it could explain mysterious phenomenon like dark matter and even confirm the theory that we are living in a simulation. Cool huh?
Cool nah. Just very silly. There is a piece of information for you - if you want to imagine it's a chunk of matter be my jest.
 
Soon an experiment to examine information as possibly joining gas, plasma, liquid and solid states. If info. does have mass it could explain mysterious phenomenon like dark matter and even confirm the theory that we are living in a simulation. Cool huh?

You know the mistake you made here?

You didn't bring a source.
 
You know the mistake you made here?

You didn't bring a source.
Kind of an absurd idea that dark matter is actually literally digital information, because dark matter is an observed effect at galactic scales, not planetary scales. Are there galactic invisible hard drives floating around? The article also proposes no explanation for why a hard drive filled with zeroes would weigh less than a hard drive filled with ones, or how that would be applicable to galactic and intergalactic gravitational forces. And if the mass difference is so small that no existing mechanism can detect it, then how can information possibly exert enough force to affect the movement of stars?

It sounds pretty stupid to me.
 
Soon an experiment to examine information as possibly joining gas, plasma, liquid and solid states. If info. does have mass it could explain mysterious phenomenon like dark matter and even confirm the theory that we are living in a simulation. Cool huh?
Sounds quite interesting.
. You'll let us know the outcome, won't you?
 
It is true that the theory that describes particles and matter and space and time, with quantum mechanics, have information as a language.
But I try not to go there. (Quantum mechanics), I start realizing that I barely exist and am just some packets of energy, talking to other strings of energy. :)
That's just at the starting line. My thoughts start folding in on themselves.
I would like to see the results of the experiment.
I saw a documentary not long ago that said that experiments like the Mandelbrot prove that matter is somehow predisposed to pattern, order. That where no pressure to assume any pattern or order exists, pattern and order still arise.

Which immediately made me think : that adds a big boost to both religion and the simulation theory.

It’s much easier to imagine a simulation complex enough to encompass the observed universe if the fabric itself is actively cooperating, for instance.

I’m still kind amazed that so few have really integrated into their idea of the universe that the observer influences the event observed through the act of observation. Which means there is interaction between consciousness and matter beyond just passive examination or physical manipulation.

Because any direct interaction changes the whole basic understanding of reality and our role in it. Makes us active participants rather than mere subjects to the whole confusing amazing thing.

Love it!
 
I saw a documentary not long ago that said that experiments like the Mandelbrot prove that matter is somehow predisposed to pattern, order. That where no pressure to assume any pattern or order exists, pattern and order still arise.

Which immediately made me think : that adds a big boost to both religion and the simulation theory.

It’s much easier to imagine a simulation complex enough to encompass the observed universe if the fabric itself is actively cooperating, for instance.

I’m still kind amazed that so few have really integrated into their idea of the universe that the observer influences the event observed through the act of observation. Which means there is interaction between consciousness and matter beyond just passive examination or physical manipulation.

Because any direct interaction changes the whole basic understanding of reality and our role in it. Makes us active participants rather than mere subjects to the whole confusing amazing thing.

Love it!
Oh, yeah. Things seem to be even further apart then what we've thought was The Standard.
I can't tell you how many times people have talked about "Nothing" and I've have to interject that there really is no such thing as "nothing"
I don't mind it or act like ,,um..an asshole about it. It's a fascinating talk.
I like what Lawrence Krauss says: "Nothing’s just not what to used to be". :)
 
Kind of an absurd idea that dark matter is actually literally digital information, because dark matter is an observed effect at galactic scales, not planetary scales. Are there galactic invisible hard drives floating around? The article also proposes no explanation for why a hard drive filled with zeroes would weigh less than a hard drive filled with ones, or how that would be applicable to galactic and intergalactic gravitational forces. And if the mass difference is so small that no existing mechanism can detect it, then how can information possibly exert enough force to affect the movement of stars?

It sounds pretty stupid to me.

Better than no source at all.

The total information encoded in the universe would be a huge multiple of the number of particles (since each particle has movement, quantum state etc) and it might stay geographically located where the most matter is, ie galaxies.

As to why a hard disk full of zeros is not already full of Information, I don't really follow that bit and get the feeling the author of the article didn't either. Not counting a human or other intelligence to find the pattern in the new data, all zeros or all ones would appear to be the lowest entropy states.
 
Better than no source at all.
I would say not inherently, no. I can write up a random blog about how unicorns are definitely the source of the nuclear strong force, that doesn't actually lend weight to the idea just because it exists on the internet.

The total information encoded in the universe would be a huge multiple of the number of particles (since each particle has movement, quantum state etc) and it might stay geographically located where the most matter is, ie galaxies.
The trouble is that the distribution doesn't appear to actually match observable matter, IIRC, so if "information" were some additional property of matter that causes gravitational effects, you'd expect to see a better correlation between the two.

As to why a hard disk full of zeros is not already full of Information, I don't really follow that bit and get the feeling the author of the article didn't either. Not counting a human or other intelligence to find the pattern in the new data, all zeros or all ones would appear to be the lowest entropy states.
It's weird to even describe anything on a hard drive as some sort of universal concept of "information." A hard drive is just a platter that stores microscopic sections that are magnetized or demagnetized to represent 1s and 0s, but what that actually means is something humans straight up invented. Magnetized being 1 and demagnetized being 0 was arbitrary. Certain patterns of 1s and 0s representing letters of the English alphabet are arbitrary. A random scrambling of 1s and 0s on a hard drive isn't really "information" the way you or I would use the term, and yet it would have roughly as many 1s and 0s as a hard drive filled with my google search history or a hard drive full of porn.

If I chop down a tree, turn it into paper, and have a bottle of ink on my desk, there's a certain total mass and energy here. If I then put that ink onto the paper and write limericks, I increased the gravitational pull of the Earth?

It strikes me as something that was conceived of while using drugs.
 
I would say not inherently, no. I can write up a random blog about how unicorns are definitely the source of the nuclear strong force, that doesn't actually lend weight to the idea just because it exists on the internet.

Expecting people to debate something so abstruse with no source at all is clearly worse than providing some layman's explanation. If the source is really as bad as you hypothesise, then it will at least serve to save everybody's time.

The trouble is that the distribution doesn't appear to actually match observable matter, IIRC, so if "information" were some additional property of matter that causes gravitational effects, you'd expect to see a better correlation between the two.

Right. If dark matter behaved like any other massive thing, it would collapse to the center of galaxies even more than visible matter does (and it does: see galactic center black holes). Yet the MACHO explanation that dark matter somehow stays on the periphery of galaxies is sadly lacking in any mechanism for that "somehow". It can't be repelled by light, because it does not interact with light.

Information as the "halo" object at least provides a possible mechanism. Suppose information is generated by matter simply existing (eg by quantum collapses), and its massive component leaves at the speed of light but unlike leptons it has a limited lifetime. That's a halo, though notice it wouldn't be in the galactic plane but instead be a sphere.

Information being constantly created by matter would fit rather nicely with the apparently irreversible increase of entropy, wouldn't it?

It's weird to even describe anything on a hard drive as some sort of universal concept of "information." A hard drive is just a platter that stores microscopic sections that are magnetized or demagnetized to represent 1s and 0s, but what that actually means is something humans straight up invented. Magnetized being 1 and demagnetized being 0 was arbitrary. Certain patterns of 1s and 0s representing letters of the English alphabet are arbitrary. A random scrambling of 1s and 0s on a hard drive isn't really "information" the way you or I would use the term, and yet it would have roughly as many 1s and 0s as a hard drive filled with my google search history or a hard drive full of porn.

If I chop down a tree, turn it into paper, and have a bottle of ink on my desk, there's a certain total mass and energy here. If I then put that ink onto the paper and write limericks, I increased the gravitational pull of the Earth?

It strikes me as something that was conceived of while using drugs.

Sometimes drugs help to grasp the immensely large and the immensely tiny. Suppose every particle interaction produced at least one bit of information, wouldn't that be many orders of magnitude greater than the creative actions of your brain or the tiny difference between you scribbling and you writing limericks?

As to why nobody has noticed mass-information coming from the Earth or the Sun, it would be drowned out by ordinary gravitation. And of course the total mass of the Earth does not need to increase: you simply converted some energy to mass-information. Which may or may not have taken flight immediately.
 
Soon an experiment to examine information as possibly joining gas, plasma, liquid and solid states. If info. does have mass it could explain mysterious phenomenon like dark matter and even confirm the theory that we are living in a simulation. Cool huh?
I dont think so. Information doesnt really have a physical property in and of itself. How would you convert gas into a physical information medium?
 
Im not going to snark because this is a genuine thread.
 
I saw a documentary not long ago that said that experiments like the Mandelbrot prove that matter is somehow predisposed to pattern, order. That where no pressure to assume any pattern or order exists, pattern and order still arise.
Entropy increases.
Which immediately made me think : that adds a big boost to both religion and the simulation theory.
Black matter is theorized because galaxies are moving away from each other slower than can be accounted for with the matter we know of.

But they're still moving away from each other and eventually all will dissipate into randomness and chaos.
It’s much easier to imagine a simulation complex enough to encompass the observed universe if the fabric itself is actively cooperating, for instance.
For you, maybe.
I’m still kind amazed that so few have really integrated into their idea of the universe that the observer influences the event observed through the act of observation. Which means there is interaction between consciousness and matter beyond just passive examination or physical manipulation.

Because any direct interaction changes the whole basic understanding of reality and our role in it. Makes us active participants rather than mere subjects to the whole confusing amazing thing.

Love it!
Enjoy.
 
I dont think so. Information doesnt really have a physical property in and of itself. How would you convert gas into a physical information medium?

I agree that "fifth state of matter" is a mistake. However you have to ask yourself, could information in any sense "exist" without matter?

In empty spacetime (if that even makes sense) information might exist in the zero-energy field. But without even that?

If literally nothing existed, there would be no differences between one thing and another, a zero but without a one, if you like. A perfect void would be incapable of encoding even one bit.
 
Entropy increases.

Black matter is theorized because galaxies are moving away from each other slower than can be accounted for with the matter we know of.

But they're still moving away from each other and eventually all will dissipate into randomness and chaos.

For you, maybe.

Enjoy.
Entropy can exist whether or not Matter tends to find patterns where nothing is influencing it.

And the observer does influence the event observed through the act of observation. Consciousness affects reality at the subatomic level.

And some cosmologies could be interpreted as “simulation”. A reincarnation universe the purpose of which is space time experiences would function much like the simulation idea.

Reality gets really fuzzy the smaller you go.
 
Back
Top Bottom