Decoding Reality
Encyclopedia
Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information is a popular science book
by Vlatko Vedral
published by Oxford University Press
in 2010. Vedral examines information theory
and proposes information
as the most fundamental building block of reality. He argues what a useful framework this is for viewing all natural and physical phenomena. In building out this framework the books touches upon the origin of information, the idea of entropy
, the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics
, the replication of DNA, development of social networks, quantum
behaviour at the micro and macro level, and the very role of indeterminism
in the universe. The book finishes by considering the answer to the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The ideas address concepts related to the nature of particles, time, determinism
, and of reality itself.
dogma, the idea being that god created the universe out of nothing. Vedral says that invoking a supernatural being as an explanation for creation does not explain reality because the supernatural being would have to come into existence itself too some how presumably from nothing (or else from an infinite regression of supernatural beings), thus of course the reality can come from nothing without a supernatural being. Occam's razor
principle favours the simplest explanation. Vedral believes information is the fundamental building block of reality as it occurs at the macro level (economics, human behaviour etc.) as well as the subatomic level. Vedral argues that information is the only candidate for such a building block that can explain its own existence as information generates additional information that needs to be compressed thus generating more information. 'Annihilation of everything' is a more fitting term than creation ex nihilo Vedral states, as compression of possibilities is the process of how new information is created.
philosophical story about a tarot
-like card game as the kernel for his metaphor of conscious life arriving in medias res
to a pre-existing contextual reality. In this game the individual observers/players (Vedral suggests: quantum physics, thermodynamics, biology, sociology, economics, philosophy) lay down cards with ambiguous meanings as an attempt to communicate messages to deduce meaning out of the other players' interactions. The results (information) of previous rounds establish contextual rules for observers/players in subsequent rounds. The point of this game is not established until the last card has been played as later cards can change the meaning of previous events, as in the case of the quantum explanation for the photoelectric effect
instantly disproving classical physics
. Vedral points out that in our reality there is no last card.
, building upon George Boole's
digital logic. As information theory predicts common and easily predicted words tend to become shorter for optimal communication channel efficiency while less common words tend to be longer for redundancy and error correction. Vedral compares the process of life to John von Neumann
's self replicating automata
. These are enduring information carriers that will survive wear and tear of the individual by producing copies that can in turn go on to produce more copies.
of thermodynamics and the process of information increasing entropy. Maxwell's Demon
was thought to be a way around this inevitability, however such a demon would run out of information storage space and have to delete unwanted data thus having to do work to do so, increasing entropy.
as controlled risk taking using Shannon's information theory probability formulas. Casino as a ′cool′ financial entropy source and the gambler as a ′hot′ financial source, once again the Second law
of thermodynamics means the flow is almost always from hot to cold in the long run. For managed risk spread bets widely and in high risk high reward investments (assuming a known probability), this is the Log optimal portfolio approach.
means well connected people tend to be more successful as their social networks expose them to more chances to make choices they want. Schelling
precommitment as strategy in social and self control, for example burning your bridges by buying gym membership to help motivated self win over lazy self. Mutual information
resulting in phase transitions in social and political demography as well as physical systems, like water freezing into ice at a particular critical temperature or magnetic fields spontaneously aligning in certain atoms when cooling from a molten state.
, the qubit
, and examines one-time pad
quantum cryptography as the most secure form of encryption
because of its uncomputability. Quantum entanglement
demonstrates the importance of mutual information in defining outcomes in a reality.
. A sufficiently advanced quantum computer would break current encryption methods by factorizing large numbers several orders of magnitude faster than any existing classical computer. Any computable problem may be expressed as a general quantum search algorithm although classical computers may have an advantage over quantum search when using more efficient tailored classical algorithms. The issue with quantum computers is that a measurement must be made to determine if the problem is solved which collapses the superposition. Vedral points out that unintentional interaction with the environment can be mitigated with redundancy, and this would be necessary if we were to scale up current quantum computers to achieve greater utility, i.e. to utilize 10 qubits have a 100 atom quantum system so that if one atom decoheres a consensus will still be held by the other 9 for the state of the same qubit.
is key to generating new sources of surprise in a reality. Compression of these new sources to discard unimportant information is the deterministic element and organising principle.
or qubits. Vedral uses the initial effort of Archimedes
of Syracuse in calculating the amount of sand
that could theoretically fit inside the universe and compares it to a modern day attempt to calculate the bit content of the universe. Vedral however sees this content as ultimately limitless as possibly maximum entropy is never reached as compression of complexity is an open ended process and random events will continue to occur. As Vedral sees information as the ultimate building block of physical reality, he speculates that information originating at any scale can force outcomes in all other scales to abide where mutual information is shared. For example a human performed macro-level scientific test in search of a behaviour in a quantum particle could set parameters for that type of particle in the future when subjected to a similar test.
, starting trivially from an empty set
of numbers an infinite sequence of numbers can bootstrap their way out. An empty set creates the number 1 by observing an empty set within itself which is enough of a basis for distinguishability. It creates the number 2 by observing an empty set within the second empty set and the number 1, and so on. Vedral sees this as not creation as but data compression
as every event of a reality breaks the symmetry
of the pre-existing formlessness. Science is the process of describing a large amount of observed phenomena in a compressed programmatic way to predict future outcomes, and in this process of data compression science creates new information by eliminating all contrary possibilities to explain that phenomena.
code called DNA
. In this engaging and mind-stretching account, Vlatko Vedral considers some of the deepest questions about the Universe and considers the implications of interpreting it in terms of information. He explains the nature of information, the idea of entropy, and the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics
. He describes the bizarre effects of quantum behaviour - effects such as 'entanglement
', which Einstein called 'spooky action at a distance' and explores cutting edge work on the harnessing quantum effects in hyperfast quantum computers, and how recent evidence suggests that the weirdness of the quantum world, once thought limited to the tiniest scales, may reach into the macro world. Vedral finishes by considering the answer to the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The answers he considers are exhilarating, drawing upon the work of distinguished physicist John Wheeler
and his concept of “it from bit”. The ideas challenge our concept of the nature of particles, of time, of determinism, and of reality itself.
Science book
A science book is a work of nonfiction, usually written by a scientist, researcher, or professor like Stephen Hawking , or sometimes by a non-scientist such as Bill Bryson...
by Vlatko Vedral
Vlatko Vedral
Vlatko Vedral is a Serbian born physicist and Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and CQT at the National University of Singapore and a Fellow of Wolfson College. He is known for his research on the theory of Entanglement and Quantum Information Theory...
published by Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
in 2010. Vedral examines information theory
Information theory
Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...
and proposes information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
as the most fundamental building block of reality. He argues what a useful framework this is for viewing all natural and physical phenomena. In building out this framework the books touches upon the origin of information, the idea of entropy
Entropy
Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
, the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics
Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a physical science that studies the effects on material bodies, and on radiation in regions of space, of transfer of heat and of work done on or by the bodies or radiation...
, the replication of DNA, development of social networks, quantum
Quantum
In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized," referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete...
behaviour at the micro and macro level, and the very role of indeterminism
Indeterminism
Indeterminism is the concept that events are not caused, or not caused deterministically by prior events. It is the opposite of determinism and related to chance...
in the universe. The book finishes by considering the answer to the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The ideas address concepts related to the nature of particles, time, determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
, and of reality itself.
"Creation Ex Nihilo: Something from Nothing"
Vedral believes in the principal that information is physical. Creation ex nihilo comes from CatholicCatholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
dogma, the idea being that god created the universe out of nothing. Vedral says that invoking a supernatural being as an explanation for creation does not explain reality because the supernatural being would have to come into existence itself too some how presumably from nothing (or else from an infinite regression of supernatural beings), thus of course the reality can come from nothing without a supernatural being. Occam's razor
Occam's razor
Occam's razor, also known as Ockham's razor, and sometimes expressed in Latin as lex parsimoniae , is a principle that generally recommends from among competing hypotheses selecting the one that makes the fewest new assumptions.-Overview:The principle is often summarized as "simpler explanations...
principle favours the simplest explanation. Vedral believes information is the fundamental building block of reality as it occurs at the macro level (economics, human behaviour etc.) as well as the subatomic level. Vedral argues that information is the only candidate for such a building block that can explain its own existence as information generates additional information that needs to be compressed thus generating more information. 'Annihilation of everything' is a more fitting term than creation ex nihilo Vedral states, as compression of possibilities is the process of how new information is created.
"Information for all Seasons"
Vedral uses an Italo CalvinoItalo Calvino
Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...
philosophical story about a tarot
Tarot
The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...
-like card game as the kernel for his metaphor of conscious life arriving in medias res
In medias res
In medias res or medias in res is a Latin phrase denoting the literary and artistic narrative technique wherein the relation of a story begins either at the mid-point or at the conclusion, rather than at the beginning In medias res or medias in res (into the middle of things) is a Latin phrase...
to a pre-existing contextual reality. In this game the individual observers/players (Vedral suggests: quantum physics, thermodynamics, biology, sociology, economics, philosophy) lay down cards with ambiguous meanings as an attempt to communicate messages to deduce meaning out of the other players' interactions. The results (information) of previous rounds establish contextual rules for observers/players in subsequent rounds. The point of this game is not established until the last card has been played as later cards can change the meaning of previous events, as in the case of the quantum explanation for the photoelectric effect
Photoelectric effect
In the photoelectric effect, electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation of very short wavelength, such as visible or ultraviolet light. Electrons emitted in this manner may be referred to as photoelectrons...
instantly disproving classical physics
Classical physics
What "classical physics" refers to depends on the context. When discussing special relativity, it refers to the Newtonian physics which preceded relativity, i.e. the branches of physics based on principles developed before the rise of relativity and quantum mechanics...
. Vedral points out that in our reality there is no last card.
"Back to Basics: Bits and Pieces"
Shannon entropy or information content measured as the surprise value of a particular event, essentially inversely proportional to the logarithm of the event's probability, i = log(1/p). Claude Shannon's information theory arising from research at Bell labsBell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
, building upon George Boole's
George Boole
George Boole was an English mathematician and philosopher.As the inventor of Boolean logic—the basis of modern digital computer logic—Boole is regarded in hindsight as a founder of the field of computer science. Boole said,...
digital logic. As information theory predicts common and easily predicted words tend to become shorter for optimal communication channel efficiency while less common words tend to be longer for redundancy and error correction. Vedral compares the process of life to John von Neumann
John von Neumann
John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...
's self replicating automata
Automata
Automata is the plural form of automaton, a self-operating machine. It may also refer to:* "Automata", a short story by E. T. A. Hoffmann* "Automata", a hardboiled science fiction crime series by Penny Arcade...
. These are enduring information carriers that will survive wear and tear of the individual by producing copies that can in turn go on to produce more copies.
"Digital Romance: Life is a Four-Letter Word"
Genetic code as an efficient digital information store, containing built in codon redundancy for error correction in transcription."Murphy’s Law: I Knew this Would Happen to Me"
Examines the Second lawSecond law
Second law may refer to:* the second of Newton's laws of motion* Second law of thermodynamics* Second Law, or in Greek Deuterosis, the talmudic Mishna, which comes after the Law of Moses...
of thermodynamics and the process of information increasing entropy. Maxwell's Demon
Maxwell's demon
In the philosophy of thermal and statistical physics, Maxwell's demon is a thought experiment created by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell to "show that the Second Law of Thermodynamics has only a statistical certainty." It demonstrates Maxwell's point by hypothetically describing how to...
was thought to be a way around this inevitability, however such a demon would run out of information storage space and have to delete unwanted data thus having to do work to do so, increasing entropy.
"Place Your Bets: In It to Win It"
BlackjackBlackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
as controlled risk taking using Shannon's information theory probability formulas. Casino as a ′cool′ financial entropy source and the gambler as a ′hot′ financial source, once again the Second law
Second law
Second law may refer to:* the second of Newton's laws of motion* Second law of thermodynamics* Second Law, or in Greek Deuterosis, the talmudic Mishna, which comes after the Law of Moses...
of thermodynamics means the flow is almost always from hot to cold in the long run. For managed risk spread bets widely and in high risk high reward investments (assuming a known probability), this is the Log optimal portfolio approach.
"Social Informatics: Get Connected or Die Tryin’"
Six degrees of separationSix degrees of separation
Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, "a friend of a friend" statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer...
means well connected people tend to be more successful as their social networks expose them to more chances to make choices they want. Schelling
Thomas Schelling
Thomas Crombie Schelling is an American economist and professor of foreign affairs, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College Park. He is also co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute...
precommitment as strategy in social and self control, for example burning your bridges by buying gym membership to help motivated self win over lazy self. Mutual information
Mutual information
In probability theory and information theory, the mutual information of two random variables is a quantity that measures the mutual dependence of the two random variables...
resulting in phase transitions in social and political demography as well as physical systems, like water freezing into ice at a particular critical temperature or magnetic fields spontaneously aligning in certain atoms when cooling from a molten state.
"Quantum Schmuntum: Lights, Camera, Action!"
Vedral examines the basis of quantum informationQuantum information
In quantum mechanics, quantum information is physical information that is held in the "state" of a quantum system. The most popular unit of quantum information is the qubit, a two-level quantum system...
, the qubit
Qubit
In quantum computing, a qubit or quantum bit is a unit of quantum information—the quantum analogue of the classical bit—with additional dimensions associated to the quantum properties of a physical atom....
, and examines one-time pad
One-time pad
In cryptography, the one-time pad is a type of encryption, which has been proven to be impossible to crack if used correctly. Each bit or character from the plaintext is encrypted by a modular addition with a bit or character from a secret random key of the same length as the plaintext, resulting...
quantum cryptography as the most secure form of encryption
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
because of its uncomputability. Quantum entanglement
Entanglement
Entanglement may refer to:* Quantum entanglement* Orientation entanglement* Entanglement * Entanglement of polymer chains, see Reptation* Wire entanglement...
demonstrates the importance of mutual information in defining outcomes in a reality.
"Surfing the Waves: Hyper-Fast Computers"
Quantum computers offer a search advantage over classical computers by searching many database elements at once as a result of quantum superpositionsQuantum superposition
Quantum superposition is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics. It holds that a physical system exists in all its particular, theoretically possible states simultaneously; but, when measured, it gives a result corresponding to only one of the possible configurations.Mathematically, it...
. A sufficiently advanced quantum computer would break current encryption methods by factorizing large numbers several orders of magnitude faster than any existing classical computer. Any computable problem may be expressed as a general quantum search algorithm although classical computers may have an advantage over quantum search when using more efficient tailored classical algorithms. The issue with quantum computers is that a measurement must be made to determine if the problem is solved which collapses the superposition. Vedral points out that unintentional interaction with the environment can be mitigated with redundancy, and this would be necessary if we were to scale up current quantum computers to achieve greater utility, i.e. to utilize 10 qubits have a 100 atom quantum system so that if one atom decoheres a consensus will still be held by the other 9 for the state of the same qubit.
"Children of the Aimless Chance: Randomness versus Determinism"
RandomnessRandomness
Randomness has somewhat differing meanings as used in various fields. It also has common meanings which are connected to the notion of predictability of events....
is key to generating new sources of surprise in a reality. Compression of these new sources to discard unimportant information is the deterministic element and organising principle.
"Sand Reckoning: Whose Information is It, Anyway?"
The information content of the universe as measured in bitsBITS
BITS or bits may refer to:* Plural of bit* Background Intelligent Transfer Service, a file transfer protocol* Birla Institute of Technology and Science, a technology school in Pilani, Rajasthan, India, with campuses in Goa, Hyderabad, and Dubai...
or qubits. Vedral uses the initial effort of Archimedes
Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an...
of Syracuse in calculating the amount of sand
The Sand Reckoner
The Sand Reckoner is a work by Archimedes in which he set out to determine an upper bound for the number of grains of sand that fit into the universe. In order to do this, he had to estimate the size of the universe according to the then-current model, and invent a way to talk about extremely...
that could theoretically fit inside the universe and compares it to a modern day attempt to calculate the bit content of the universe. Vedral however sees this content as ultimately limitless as possibly maximum entropy is never reached as compression of complexity is an open ended process and random events will continue to occur. As Vedral sees information as the ultimate building block of physical reality, he speculates that information originating at any scale can force outcomes in all other scales to abide where mutual information is shared. For example a human performed macro-level scientific test in search of a behaviour in a quantum particle could set parameters for that type of particle in the future when subjected to a similar test.
"Destruction ab Toto: Nothing from Something"
The information basis for creation ex nihilo. According to John von NeumannJohn von Neumann
John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...
, starting trivially from an empty set
Empty set
In mathematics, and more specifically set theory, the empty set is the unique set having no elements; its size or cardinality is zero. Some axiomatic set theories assure that the empty set exists by including an axiom of empty set; in other theories, its existence can be deduced...
of numbers an infinite sequence of numbers can bootstrap their way out. An empty set creates the number 1 by observing an empty set within itself which is enough of a basis for distinguishability. It creates the number 2 by observing an empty set within the second empty set and the number 1, and so on. Vedral sees this as not creation as but data compression
Data compression
In computer science and information theory, data compression, source coding or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation would use....
as every event of a reality breaks the symmetry
Symmetry
Symmetry generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection...
of the pre-existing formlessness. Science is the process of describing a large amount of observed phenomena in a compressed programmatic way to predict future outcomes, and in this process of data compression science creates new information by eliminating all contrary possibilities to explain that phenomena.
Synopsis
The book explains the world as being made up of information. The Universe and its workings are the ebb and flow of information. We are all transient patterns of information, passing on the recipe for our basic forms to future generations using a four-letter digitalDigital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
code called DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
. In this engaging and mind-stretching account, Vlatko Vedral considers some of the deepest questions about the Universe and considers the implications of interpreting it in terms of information. He explains the nature of information, the idea of entropy, and the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics
Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a physical science that studies the effects on material bodies, and on radiation in regions of space, of transfer of heat and of work done on or by the bodies or radiation...
. He describes the bizarre effects of quantum behaviour - effects such as 'entanglement
Quantum entanglement
Quantum entanglement occurs when electrons, molecules even as large as "buckyballs", photons, etc., interact physically and then become separated; the type of interaction is such that each resulting member of a pair is properly described by the same quantum mechanical description , which is...
', which Einstein called 'spooky action at a distance' and explores cutting edge work on the harnessing quantum effects in hyperfast quantum computers, and how recent evidence suggests that the weirdness of the quantum world, once thought limited to the tiniest scales, may reach into the macro world. Vedral finishes by considering the answer to the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The answers he considers are exhilarating, drawing upon the work of distinguished physicist John Wheeler
John Archibald Wheeler
John Archibald Wheeler was an American theoretical physicist who was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in explaining the basic principles behind nuclear fission...
and his concept of “it from bit”. The ideas challenge our concept of the nature of particles, of time, of determinism, and of reality itself.
See also
- The Information: A History, a Theory, a FloodThe Information: A History, a Theory, a FloodThe Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood is a book by science history writer James Gleick, author of Chaos: Making a New Science. It covers the genesis of our current information age. The Information has also been published in ebook formats by Fourth Estate and Random House, and as an...
by James GleickJames GleickJames Gleick is an American author, journalist, and biographer, whose books explore the cultural ramifications of science and technology...