Where is the information stored?

[Heywood]

Hmmm... it's really hard to separate formalism from theory from reality here. I'm sure you could find a way to look at it where the information is encoded in the fields. In the so-called Heisenberg picture of quantum physics, all the dynamics of the universe is indeed encoded into the time evolution of the fields. You could also adopt the attitude that the formula in the picture is a sentence which contains all the information about dynamics and interactions. It could however be that we are merely discussing formalism here, and since all theories are provisional, one can wonder how closely this really resembles the actual structures in reality, if that is even a thing.

I have to think about this. I find your field explanation intriguing. Right now the thought in my head is the information contained in this discussion is and has been contained in the fields.

[robvalue]

Alex: Hey, what you do in the privacy of your bathroom is nothing to do with me

---

Heywood: if that is the case, I hope they have good encryption Bloody hackers everywhere.

[Alex K]

I have to think about this. I find your field explanation intriguing. Right now the thought in my head is the information contained in this discussion is and has been contained in the fields.

In the picture I've outlined above, the fields contain the dynamics (all the potential), but the concrete state of the universe is a separate mathematical entity called - the state.

[Heywood]

I have to think about this. I find your field explanation intriguing. Right now the thought in my head is the information contained in this discussion is and has been contained in the fields.

In the picture I've outlined above, the fields contain the dynamics (all the potential), but the concrete state of the universe is a separate mathematical entity called - the state.

Lets call all possible universes the landscape. The fields would contain the information of the landscape. That is a lot of information.

[Alex K]

Ok, sounds good. But be aware that the "landscape" is already a technical term in String Phenomenology where it is used for all possible sets of laws of physics which can arise from the superstring, without making reference to what concretely is going on in the respective universes.

[dyresand]

Imagine completely empty space. Now in that space place two electrons. Smash those electrons together hard enough and you get a shower of other particles....including protons. This suggests the information necessary to construct a proton is contained in the electron. Continue to smash particles together and conceivably you can have an entire universe....just like ours. Does the information necessary to construct a universe just like our exists in just two electrons? If it doesn't where does this information exist?

There is no such thing as empty space there needs something to be there like the fabric of reality so space itself isn't empty. Or i should say is space is simply not empty. Its empty in a visual since but on a subatomic level not its not. People can create the "big bang" or something else like it in the LHC
even if they created a universe what would be the point as it would be connected to ours only for a brief moment of time to just well "disappear".

[Alex K]

People can create the "big bang" or something else like it in the LHC

Nope, not even close, that's just PR mumbo jumbo

[Davka]

Imagine completely empty space. Now in that space place two electrons. Smash those electrons together hard enough and you get a shower of other particles....including protons. This suggests the information necessary to construct a proton is contained in the electron. Continue to smash particles together and conceivably you can have an entire universe....just like ours. Does the information necessary to construct a universe just like our exists in just two electrons? If it doesn't where does this information exist?

What?

Where do you get the idea that by smashing two electrons together, you will end up with more matter and more energy? You'll get two electrons' worth of subatomic particles.

Your concept is like saying "smash two cars together and you'll get a shower of car particles, everything you need to build a car. Continue to smash the car parts together and conceivably you can have an entire auto-assembly-line, showroom, and a huge lot full of all makes and models of car."

You're not making a lot of sense.

And yes, "where is the information stored" is a puzzle that's currently being worked on. But the answer doesn't include magical multiplication of mass and energy simply by smashing things together.

(there is, of course, the outside energy needed for the smashing, but in you scenario that's arrived at magically as well. Who or what is doing the smashing, if there are only two electrons to begin with?)

[Esquilax]

In the picture I've outlined above, the fields contain the dynamics (all the potential), but the concrete state of the universe is a separate mathematical entity called - the state.

Lets call all possible universes the landscape. The fields would contain the information of the landscape. That is a lot of information.

I'm a little leery about what you're talking about here, mainly due to the way you're using the word information. Information isn't a thing that can be "contained" in anything, as it's not an objective phenomenon on its own. Information is a conceptual label that humans place upon descriptions of phenomena; at best, all you can really say is that a given quantity in the physical world contains aspects that humans have imbued meaning onto, sufficient to create a pattern that can be decoded by minds familiar with that meaning, and that the resultant description of what the pattern does is information.

We sometimes get the same kind of language with DNA, this claim that it must be designed because it contains information, which requires a designer, but that misses two different points. The first is that what DNA really contains is a set of predictable patterns (this set of genes expresses predictably in X way, this other set does the same in Y) that, due to their consistent nature, can be "read" as a sort of language, but that the language exists only because of the consistent nature of the expressed genes, and our ability to recognize that. The second is that everything contains information; the position of an object in space, the age of an object, its molecular makeup, that's all information, due to objective facts about the object expressed in terms of human measurements. The point is though, that no matter how thoroughly you crack open any object, information will never spill out of it. You'll never be able to hold information in your hand, or weigh it, or anything.

Objects do not "contain" information. They are information, when viewed by human observers willing to quantify the object. The question in the OP is malformed.

[Alex K]

@Esquilax: don't you think that e.g. the fundamental parameters are a kind of information which we can obtain from nature, but which is not concretely manifested in an object? That's why I say the whole enterprise has a Platonic vibe.

You'll never be able to hold information in your hand, or weigh it, or anything.

I tentatively disagree

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_in_...lack_holes