Seth Lloyd - Is Information Fundamental?

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Does information work at the deep levels of physics, including quantum theory, undergirding the fundamental forces and particles? But what is the essence of information-describing how the world works or being how the world works. There is a huge difference. Could information be the most basic building block of reality?
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Seth Lloyd is a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He refers to himself as a “quantum mechanic”.
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Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[@longcastle4863]

Just because nature corresponds to a digital way of trying to understand it, doesn't mean the universe is digital. It just means digital is a good way of trying to understand nature at certain levels of reality.

[@keithdmaust1854]

That's right - just because you have a computer doesn't make everything code.

[@ailblentyn]

Yes. Mistaking the model for reality is a universal problem.

[@darryl1319]

@@keithdmaust1854 If all you have is a computer then everything is code

[@bozo5632]

In the 18th century, the universe was clockwork. In the 19th, it was a steam engine.

[@gert8439]

Yes, ''information processing'' is an abstract description of the actual stuff of the universe interacting - eg particles interacting according the laws of physics. This seems to blur the distinction between a type of description and the actual stuff of the universe.

[@CometComment]

Haven't we been here before with Galileo and Newton? The universe is a giant machine or a giant clock, the universe as being something which mirrors the best technology of the time.

[@bozo5632]

I think that comment is more profound than what's said in This video. (Nothing against the video per se, but your comment is more valuable.) It might not be a Law of Physics, but it seems to be a law of physicists. So I'm very skeptical about the universe "really" being whatever the next guy's specialty just happens to be.

[@thesoundsmith]

@@bozo5632 Science evolves. Religion cannot. Operationally, we have most of the pieces, we just need someone with the right frame of reference to piece it all together. And MY bet is this is as illusory as ANY TV show. WE are 'real,' but the parts we think are real are mostly empty space and the illusion holds till beyond what we can show.

[@bozo5632]

@@thesoundsmith Religion does evolve. Pretty fast, when it has to.

[@billjohnson6863]

@@bozo5632yeah religion retreats when we learn more about the universe. Because ultimately religion is cope when faced with the unknown.

[@bozo5632]

@@netdreamr So I guess I'm a few seconds smarter than the guy in the video. Amazing. Fascinating.

[@psicologiajoseh]

One of the best interviews on the channel.

[@TerryBollinger]

2:14 SL: _“Quantum mechanics [says] if you look [closely enough] there aren’t any more bits. [When] you look at the proton [and] get down to [its] spin … that’s it: There isn’t anything more.”_ Beautiful! A defining feature of the inherently non-testable (INT) theories that have dominated physics theory funding for half a century is disregarding Max Planck’s century-old point. Planck foams, superstrings, the infinitely detailed universal wave functions of Everett’s many-worlds, and (more subtly) Minkowski’s infinitely long, infinitely precise worldlines all require the view that if you _look closely enough,_ the underlying universe _must_ contain an infinite number of details. 0:52 SL: _“The universe is computing: It consists of bits of information… [__2:37__] To my mind, the major role that quantum mechanics plays in our universe is to make information finite - to make the universe digital.”_ Professor Lloyd, I’m naught but a poor, bewildered information specialist. However, I hope you might consider a slightly different way of thinking about what you just said, which connects better with your Geometric Event-Based (GEB) quantum mechanics: Rather than treating them as fundamental, it is better to treat bits as extraordinarily complicated little machines full of loops and repeating behaviors. These machines _emerge,_ like clouds of tiny crystals, only when a set of delicate and rather unlikely preconditions come together. The formless medium - the word _tohu_ is tempting - from which these bit clouds emerge is neither quantum nor classical. It has fewer, not more, dimensions than spacetime, and the 3-separations between its events are the squares of the numbers we use in classical spaces. Regarding complexity, Hilbert spaces are to this formless medium roughly what humans are to bacteria. The medium is timeless not because it lacks change but because it lacks _bits._ Only after conditions are ripe for a slurry of bits to crystalize out can the narrower concept of xyz space, as we think of it, be defined meaningfully. Only after space comes into existence can local _time,_ the formation of repeating bit patterns, acquire enough meaning to say, with some decent level of confidence, what “was,” what “is,” and what “will be.” The deeper cause of special relativity is not some complex space but a _lack_ of space - an absence of metrics once you leave your local bubble of scintillating space-and-time defining bits. The formless separations remain, and persistent bits give the illusion of universal time. But it’s only events, with some repeating enough to create the scattering of precious bits, that create time, history, and meaning. There is no universal wave function. There cannot even be a universal concept of time. The best you can do is a hodge-podge of clumsily patched-together clouds of locally classical bits, what we somewhat naively call “frames of reference.” The simpler separations of the formless energy keep them from stepping on each other. The quantum world below is just as emergent: The boundary between crystalized bits, most of them “particles,” and the formless world below. It is the glass bottom in the classical boat, at which the bit crystals give up, at least in part, on defining the rather ratty concepts we call local xyz and t. But again: I’m just a poor, bewildered information specialist. Still, I like your work, and you could do so much better if you’d stop using those exceptionally classical Hilbert spaces to describe events better characterized by the _absence_ of pretty spaces with pretty orthogonalities. Spaces and angles become sharply defined only when you have enough _bits,_ such as in condensed matter physics, to _make_ them sharply defined. (a PDF version of this 2023-06-26 comment is available at sarxiv dot org slash apa)

[@longcastle4863]

_The quantum world below is just as emergent._ Couldn't follow a lot of what you said, but this I have thought is likely true for a while now. But not just from below, imo; rather from every angle, sideways and maybe even from above. Our influences surround us.

[@TerryBollinger]

@@longcastle4863 Thanks - it's an interesting issue, isn't it? That is, despite it being so strange, quantum mechanics is no more fundamental than classical physics - that is, bit-based physics. QM could not even exist without its classical counterpart giving it structure. Sorry about the cryptic description, but the math is taking a while. It's tough to find good notation precedents when your starting point is to make length and duration emergent quantities. Everything becomes a messy, scale-free, multi-level creation-annihilation dance in which issues such as fermion half-spin can no longer be passed off as "givens," but instead become intricate parts of how length and duration emerge. Then again, is it really surprising that Pauli exclusion, the same mechanism that creates volume, is part of the space emergence process? Mostly, we need to stop disrespecting condensed matter physics and reinterpret it as the central force for creating stable, meaningful, local-only definitions of what we think of as space and time. Spacetime, in sharp contrast, becomes more like an incredibly useful but limited approximation whose precision is constrained by that same finite bit count Professor Lloyd mentioned.

[@ywtcc]

@@TerryBollingerQuantum mechanics does seem to imply that there are such things as "black boxes" in the universe. There are theories that the universe is entirely made of information. Problem is, our experiments are unable to differentiate between said theories beyond a certain scale. Energy quantization does seem to imply a minimum scale for the universe, at least on a practical level. Nearly every deterministic theory put forth so far has been superseded by non deterministic theories. It's not just a matter of mathematical convenience, its a product of living in an informationally incomplete universe. It's not just people that experience observer effects, fundamental particles experience the same effect. In other words, we're not just arguing about what the universe looks like to scientists, we're also arguing about what the universe looks like to photons. What's information if you can't see it? It's a black box. Information, as a concept, is dependent on the observer, and we're all fundamentally limited observers. I think you're missing out if you're rejecting the wave equation It's worth considering that space time is fundamentally probabilistic in nature, and is a direct consequence of the uncertainties involved in particle interactions. Personally, I accept the particle physicists' view that there's nothing observable but particle interactions, so any description of space time must be a consequence of properties of particles and particle interactions. As far as I can tell, the reason why a particle experiences a space of, say, x is a direct consequence of that particle being uncertain of exactly where it is with respect to x! Space time is a probability space, with an analogy being squares on a roulette table, a bingo board, or numbers in a lottery draw. Ergo, the wave equation is the best description of space time we have, and a refined wave equation that accounts for general relativity is probably the best advancement we should hope for.

[@TerryBollinger]

@@longcastle4863 Addendum: Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the century-old puzzle of half-spin is a possible deep connection to astrophysics. In 2004, Jennifer Chen and Sean Carroll came up with, to the best of my knowledge, the first version of a dual universe that explicitly separates the universes along a space-like dimension. (William James Sidis arguably did something similar in 1925, but he appears to have co-located his versions - which is also interesting for time dynamics, but that’s a different story.) I mention Jennifer Chen first because the paper contains two pairing concepts: spherical and dual-pair. The paired one comes later, indicating it’s likely the less famous author. I came up with my version in 2007, not knowing about Chen-Carroll until years later. I started dual, switched to spherical the next day, then back to dual the day after! Boyle and Turok have some of my favorite papers on the topic since, unlike the earlier Chen-Carroll work, they emphasize the importance of keeping complete CPT symmetry. Barbour also wrote a book on it, though his handling of the critical negative-energy issue is spotty at best, slipping it in almost accidentally via an error in a definition and then focusing instead on the resulting gravitational dynamics. I tend to do search spaces first and math later. For comparison, if a programmer starts writing code first and only later bothers later to check what was needed, the result tends to be noisy and inferior software (or equations). Recently, what I keep coming back to is that half spin _may_ be a case of cross-universe entanglement, not much different from saying that half of each spin occurs in this universe and the other half in our Chen-Carroll contraverse. That sounds nonsensical if you focus only on xyzt distances, but we know experimentally from entanglement and wave collapse experiments that the universe is more complicated than that. In a bit-cloud universe, _all_ separations necessarily collapse into momentum and energy allocations that create profound interaction barriers for _some,_ but not all, activities. Half spin would be one of those exceptions, falling into the “not all” category of bit-cloud relations. The masses and energies of pro (our universe) and contra (negative energy universe) particle pairs would remain profoundly isolated, literally in separate universes, but their single unit of shared _spin_ would stay in “one place,” or at least not be subject to the same separation metrics. The bottom line of the cosmic half-spin hypothesis is that every fermion half-spin observed in our universe would complete its full loop (loops matter!) as a contrafermion somewhere in a Chen-Carroll contraverse 27.4 billion lightyears distant in geometric (but not causal) time. That would be both delightful and a bit hilarious and, more importantly, at some point, testable. These are real entanglements with real consequences, with outcomes currently hidden within what we now consider “pure” quantum noise. I should mention that dual-universe shared spin is just one branch of my hypothesis tree, and I currently rate it at no higher than about 50%. I could quickly end up chucking this entire branch out the window if it doesn’t reduce complexity in the overall structure. In contrast, even though it sounds much more radical, I would rate my hypothesis that the weak-force-blind chiralities of the fermions have negative energy and mass at something like 97%. That one produces remarkable reductions in complexity and gives insights into the nature of time. (a PDF copy of this 2023-06-27 comment is available at sarxiv dot org slash apa)

[@TerryBollinger]

@@ywtcc James Nicholl, that’s an excellent and thoughtful analysis. Thanks! JN: _“Nearly every deterministic theory put forth so far has been superseded by non-deterministic theories.”_ If Professor Lloyd’s bit model is deterministic - I don’t know whether it is - that would be because it assumes bits as fundamental units. I emphatically don’t do that. My emergent bits are inherently uncertain, as are all real bits in all real physical devices. Entropic complexity stabilizes them, but that’s never 100%. Furthermore, the physics of the underlying timeless structure _does not disappear._ That means you cannot fully describe the classical universe using only its emergent bit structure, even in cases where the bits are so stable that you can treat them as eternal. Entanglement is the obvious example, but scale is another issue. I’ve noted in other comments that I think Roger Penrose’s concept of universal rescaling after the loss of all metrics to be profound and extremely important - to me, it seems like a variant of the early version of gauge theory - but I think it such rescaling goes on _all the time and at multiple levels._ A photon traveling through your cornea and lens works at one scale but then rescales to molecular size to deposit energy. Some call that wave collapse, but the rescaling is the subtler and more important issue. The universe has to _work at it_ to find a single shared scale, and atoms do most of the heavy lifting there. JN: _“… we’re not just arguing about what the universe looks like to scientists, we’re also arguing about what the universe looks like to photons.”_ Yes! If a photon can maintain coherency as it passes through an Einstein lens tens of millions of light years across, the right question becomes not how its energy gets splattered over a significant fraction of the entire volume of the visible universe but how the _photon_ sees that enormous lump of complexity. Part of the answer is that until its energy content rescales back to atomic scales, it “sees” that vastness in the same fashion as it sees the cornea of your eye: With a blurriness commensurate to its energy content. Whether a cornea or Einstein lens, it looks about the same to the photon. JN: _“I think you’re missing out if you’re rejecting the wave equation.”_ How would such a rejection even work? The Schrödinger wave equations for lab experiments and Maxwell’s electromagnetic waves are so excruciatingly well-proven experimentally that dismissing either would be a mathematical and practical disaster. I know grainy universes are popular, even outside of string theory, but it never works compared to special relativity’s absolute dominance. I recall how even Roger Penrose - who somewhat secretly was a grainy-universe person if you read far enough into his books - expressed genuine surprise when in a Zoom group when we began discussing the HAWC Collaboration results that proved space far too smooth to permit superstrings. I’m only talking about an all-bit _classical_ universe. Any physics outside the bit-intensive, entirely historical classical domain belongs either quantum or relativistic, with Schrödinger wave functions and infinitely divisible Maxwell electromagnetic waves falling into the lower quantum regime. What we interpret as a wave in xyzt space has most of its dynamics occurring in the bitless, timeless, lower-resolution region of formless energy where the bit clouds of classical matter reside. Classical matter and its attached potentials (ah, potentials!) serve only as guideposts, including imposing speed-of-light limits on how quickly a wave can touch more matter. There are no bit-imposed limits to smoothness in the dynamics of the formless domain, so _average_ transmission behaviors in that domain appear indefinitely smooth. I don’t subscribe to the popular concept of a _universal_ wave function since actual Schrödinger waves don’t work that way. From what I’ve seen in Everett’s thesis, his universal wave function emerges by assuming that universe-spanning quantum states emerge _instantly_ upon any change to a system. That does not describe what happens in labs and quantum encryption devices in which Schrödinger waves never spread faster than light. Take away Everett’s assumption of instantly “universal” Hilbert states, and the concept of a universal wave function becomes experimentally meaningless. JN: _“As far as I can tell, the reason why a particle experiences a space of, say, x is a direct consequence of that particle being uncertain of exactly where it is with respect to x! Space time is a probability space, with an analogy being squares on a roulette table, a bingo board, or numbers in a lottery draw.”_ However, think about that: Why assume the _particle_ is the uncertain part? Why not make the _particle_ - a little bundle of quantum numbers - into the part that remains certain, and _space itself_ the part that becomes uncertain? Space thinking is, quite literally, wired into our neurons. It’s a fantastic computational shortcut and perhaps the greatest gift of classically-behaving clouds of emergent “bit crystals.” Without sufficiently slow and stable environments in which xyzt thinking becomes a viable way of enduring and surviving, it’s unlikely that life could exist in the first place. Bravo to bits, the most remarkable emergence from formless energy! JN: “… a refined wave equation that accounts for general relativity is probably the best advancement we should hope for.” If classical-like bit-clouds define space, here’s one possible alternative: Curved space is the limit at which the linear-momentum-related metrics of xyzt space begin to fail. That branch of the search space is compatible with the lower-dimensional sheets, strings, and occasional isolated void galaxies observed in the universe at its largest large scales. Again, thank you for so many thoughtful and well-considered comments.

[@johnsgarage6622]

This was one of the best formalisms of the universe I have heard.

[@CloserToTruthTV]

So glad you enjoyed it 💫

[@fig7047]

In order to be complete though, I think you would need to equate information with energy (or the change of information with energy) in the same way that Einstein equated energy with mass. Has someone managed to do this?

[@robertrozier2940]

Completely agree. Where has this guy been????

[@David.C.Velasquez]

@@robertrozier2940 Seth Loyd has been a favorite of mine for many years. Most of these interviews are 6-12 years old, originally airing on PBS. They've been thankfully edited and published on youtube, although Closer to Truth has a website with much more, including full episodes.

[@jmanj3917]

I'm digging the James Brown analogy...lol Go Bluejays!

[@LeeCarlson]

Every generation looks at the universe in terms of the highest tech that they have created. Now that we use computers for everything, we see the universe as a computer.

[@darryl1319]

Seth LLoyd nailed it

[@DanijelDrnic]

Interesting question rise. What was the minimum of information to build up from quantum to particle physics

[@bltwegmann8431]

I don’t know how many bits there are in the universe, but it’s a whole lot more than those bits of hair clinging for dear life on his dome.

[@hvglaser]

Seth Lloyd proving the inverse correlation between cosmological insight and hair stylist proximity.

[@longcastle4863]

Gotta love scientists though; because no one else would wear that haircut😊

[@bozo5632]

​@@longcastle4863Rappers in 2024 maybe.

[@Churro_Flaminguez]

That is one true scientist. The man is 100% unconcerned about his appearance! 😂

[@TesserId]

One of my biggest questions, and this seems to be the guy to address it, is this: what does it mean that there is such a thing as a possibility? That is, if a condition becomes a physical reality, was it any kind of a real thing before it became a reality, and if so what? And, are there any possibilities that do exist in such a form but then are never realized? Or is it just wrong to think there are such things as possibilities? ~~ This then becomes a question about what it means that we have a choice? Or, do we not have choice? If not, how is it that we evolved to think that we are conscious of making choices? (And, then you can talk about how such choices form in the sub-conscious, but I'll skip that here.)

[@blijebij]

About choices, dont think black&white about this like, we are 100% free and have 100% freedom of choice, or the opposite, no freedom. How about a degree of freedom of choice. Since with awareness we are a dynamic system with an integrated coupling back part. A kind of integrated mirror within our consciousness that makes us a witness of ourselves. But lots of things we are not free in, like sexual choice, or can we choose when we mourn not to mourn about a dear one we just lost. We are born with preferences. What smells we like, what spices or flavors. What jobs we prefer or dislike. We are free to some degree. In reality nothing is absolute free then it could not have a filling in Reality, an identity with characteristics. That does not mean how ever we have zero freedom. Between black and white are shades of grey. Same for choice. So we got choice within some boundaries. Possibilities are degrees of freedom within any system. So any system has degrees of freedom, doesnt mean they can happen all at once. Time limits that. You can see that with a Roulette wheel. Many numbers but each turn only one option can be selected. Being conscious about making choices doesnt mean you are free to choose what ever you want. Your feelings will limit your choice of freedom, where your feelings and rational choice fall in line you are free to choose. So if I take myself as example, when a dear one of my dies I can not choose not to mourn. I am attrackted to certain foods and females not males, so in those things iam not free. And even in a game like chess Iam not free, cause my ego wants to win. So I select the best moves I am Aware of. But yes i can choose what color of pants or shoes i wanne wear. Or to move my coffee cup on the left or right side of the table etc etc. Relative freedom, relative freedom of choice not absolute freedom of choice. I can not surpass my own Identity&personality, but where my feeling&rational awareness of possibilites find harmony, fall in line, I am free to choose. Not all possibilities have to come true, never the less they exist as degrees of freedom in a system, like the example of the Roulette wheel.

[@David.C.Velasquez]

There is what is called the realm of platonic forms, and in this possibility space, is the abstract conceptualization of everything real, imagined, or unimaginable. Things like mathematics, and ideas, even the patterns of you or I, existing as raw potential, separate from the material world.

[@ywtcc]

90% of what people think occurs on the unconscious level. That leaves only 10% for doing things like making choices. The thing is, you can teach both the 10%, and some of the 90%. So, if you're worried about choices, I'd say that's not as much of the issue as you'd think. The more important thing to realize is that people can learn to do better. This way people make better "choices" (engage in better behavior), regardless of whether they consciously considered their options. I think that in practice, you'll find that a lot of the worst behavior people engage in is because they didn't consider their options, not because they didn't have any. The concept of "choices" is an easy political tool, I'm just not convinced it's really a powerful argument.

[@TesserId]

@@blijebij I definitely allow for gradations. And, I generally do not just flip back and forth on what the reality is. But, then there's also the question of compatibilism; and when considering that position, I favor explanations that show that the two are the same thing. But, I have not settled on a final position on this. That question I summarized above is getting in the way. The only thing I'm sure of is that we are conscious of making choices, however those choices arise, but that doesn't place our consciousness outside the causal chain. That is, our conscious is a part of the causal chain of the Universe, hence the saying "we are the Universe becoming conscious." Cheers.

[@TesserId]

@@David.C.Velasquez Yes, absolutely, Plato's realm of forms definitely relates to the problem. For me, with a Computer Science background, I find that information theory (Claude Shannon) may form a basis to challenge Plato's realm of forms. The problem is that our tiny brain cases can only hold so much information, and does so by using very efficient and compact manners of storing what we know. That raises the question: did Plato get it backwards? Did he treat what is our brain's way of summarizing reality as a foundation for reality itself? Well, I don't have a final conclusion on this. I think my question above does ultimately get tied to that, so it was well that you brought it up.

[@tflashtube]

Thanks to Seth us nerds feel finally at home in the universe! I just want to believe this!

[@phillipdyson2689]

I watch every new video on this channel as it asks the fundermental questions for which most Scientists have no answers. I found this video exceptional as next time someone asks me what is life I know the answer. "Computational probability, it is defined as the development of data structures and algorithms to automate the derivation of existing and new results in probability, statistics and life."

[@hn5460]

There is a high-pitched sound about 8 KHz going on in the background.

[@genomicmaths]

There is a fallacy in Seth Lloyd reasoning. Computation does not happen just per se, as his words implies. Computation take place only in the framework of a communication system, which implies that the whole Universe is information technology. In particular, for example, the genetic information system is (beyond any reasonable doubt) a communication system, enzymes are molecular machines and all the computation accomplished by enzymes take place in the framework of a communication system.

[@Bill..N]

Is ENTROPY just information processing as well..? If it is, then everything has a pre-configured self-destruct mode..

[@bob4wall]

The idea of the origins of the universe coming through information is much older than one hundred years. "In the beginning was the Word." And, "Through him (the Word) all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."

[@blameyone]

well, its getting funkier now 🍥🌪

[@100woodywu]

Great video. The universe bits of information self computing or could even be a self simulation as a different wording… mmm 🤔

[@jacksonvaldez5911]

YES

[@Lopfff]

This totally reminds me of something some entities told me during a DMT trip around 2019

[@kuyab9122]

You should have taken notes. Like literally.

[@petersamy826]

Does he means computations or simply probabilities?

[@patrickmchargue7122]

Information as the basis of the universe is just the application of a popular paradigm - computation - to explain what we see. Consider that we still describe engine power in terms or 'horse power.' Such paradigms are popular & persistent.

[@rebokfleetfoot]

it's an interesting idea to explore, but instinctively i think no, information is always a statement about something, it is not something in itself

[@opinionale7468]

Well, but again in any other theory that tries to dig the bedrock of reality would also intuitively not feel something that gives us the essence of experience. Moreover how do we even prove that which we think is the "SOMETHING" is really that thing or not. Maybe then it just comes down to individual preferances about accepting or not accepting what they want the reality to be like, even when we actually find out the nature of reality

[@Uri1000x1]

The material items make up systems. The state of the system is describing it as you say and the matter and the system are together. Together because they will not be separated. The information then is used to compute behavior even though the matter is there with it, it is less fundamental than the information.

[@johngarbi3011]

Mental states are about things in the world (I believe X; I see Y); they represent information about the world in some way. Are mental states not entities that exist in themselves? If so, information would seem to take on existence by virtue of being necessary constituent parts of entities that exist (mental states).

[@blengi]

how many bits are there in a single gravitational wave that subtly perturbs every particle in the observable universe as it radiates out?

[@Uri1000x1]

If the system is an atom, can we describe its state just enough to see how it behaves? So the nature of the physical part is unknown making its information fundamental, but we don't know all its information either. Still, its information changes in interaction even if unknown, making Seth right, computation occurs and the physical nature remains unknown as well as its information.

[@anywallsocket]

depends on your compiler lol

[@Uri1000x1]

Seth says the cosmos is information and the transformation of information which is computation. He only proves everything that happens is a result of the computational nature of systems in the cosmos.

[@S3RAVA3LM]

Nice simplification. Something that's mutable, ever changing, of a duration, where is the 'fundamental' part again? I understand that GOD is a bad! word around here. If one decides that there is no Primordial Cause or substratum, or supraessence, and all that ever was and is, is all this, then I can see why information is fundamental. Studying the Ancient Greeks, learning about the radii of the circle, or the axle of the wheel - which didn't turn back then - the principle and the attribute, light and illumination. He is discussing illumination while having not alluded to the light. We don't see light, we see illumination. In Seth's case, we understand illumination and the illumination is fundamental.

[@jimbo33]

Ain't it funky now!

[@kakhaval]

Information + processing + platform, all needed if a system has to work

[@TheDeepening718]

Language doesn't create the Rorschach blot it interprets it, when the inkblot is made malleable by the mind which interprets it, it becomes a reflection of that interpretation along with whatever adaptations are made according to probability and circumstance. Some falsely think that if reality is only consciousness, it can be shaped by the mind. This is wrong for 2 reasons: 1. the ego in charge of shaping reality is part of that which is being shaped, and 2. It doesn't matter if the physical is within consciousness or not, physical consequences come from physical actions, not from thoughts.

[@iamcosmic1993]

This was said 4000 years ago , science reinvents the past knowledge

[@iamcosmic1993]

Ancient scientist knew very well , that what is in your mind is just collected from the universe .. they called the persona a limited entity and the universe the whole

[@anywallsocket]

yea and we're still wrong about it

[@jamesnasmith984]

In biology, increasing complexity has been attributed to change driven by randomness (mutation). I wonder where cosmic randomness and its information processing intersect, or overlap, or co-exist.

[@johnrobinson4445]

He has one paradigm and is going to ride with it.

[@anywallsocket]

everyone eventually gets stuck inside a single ideology, sadly, it seems

[@TheShinedownfan21]

Information only exists in the mind of the observer who separates the informed from the informer. The universe happens as a whole, cause and effect are just a convenient tool for assessing relationships. There is no fundamental difference between the actor and the acted upon, there is only the action.

[@Bassotronics]

Virtual Particles are gravitational digital bits.

[@firstaidsack]

Are qualia reducible to information?

[@johnyaxon__]

Mostly yes. But awareness is like a Higgs field - everywhere. Awareness+information = qualia

[@robertgisborn5152]

of course, nothing exists in any form without information

[@ywtcc]

Information may be fundamental, depending on how you define it. I'd argue that lack of information is even more fundamental. The law of conservation of energy plays out as follows: we observe systems, and when energy is missing or in surplus, we deduce that it must have come from outside the system. So, we go looking for it, and describe energy wherever we find it effects the experiment. This theory of energy has been playing out for centuries now, and we still haven't got around to providing a unified theory of it. It's amazing how this ethereal concept of energy has kept so many brilliant minds occupied, despite it being poorly defined, and an incomplete theory. For centuries! The punchline is, the search for energy, and the search for information, are one and the same search. So that explains the fascination. The universe seems good at providing us not just with information, but also black boxes. Such as what's inside a fundamental particle, or what's inside a singularity at the heart of a black hole. Given that the entire universe is made of particles, there's an awful lot of black boxes out there, and an awful lot of inaccessible information. The guest describes information as simply discrete arrangements of a system. The system we occupy, unfortunately, does not always provide us with such arrangements to interpret, especially at the quantum scale. So, if you're going to say that information is fundamental, then you should also say that black boxes are fundamental at the same time. They're in the equations, and I don't think you can really understand quantum mechanics unless you understand that parts of the universe are never going to give up their information.

[@anywallsocket]

Certainly, yet isn't it undecidable whether or not there is any information at all in such 'black boxes'? It reminds me of how science always seems to have an option: the model is consistent or it is complete, and simply for the sake of progression, we insist is is consistent yet incomplete. To me it's much more palatable to consider information not as being 'out there', in any sense at all, but rather information is only the irreducible elements composing our models. Such models should be considered updatable, just like reality.

[@ywtcc]

@@anywallsocket I mostly agree, but I am a hyperrealist in the sense that I also believe our models and information are physical, whether they be encoded digitally, in print, or in a passing thought. To me, saying something is only a model in your head proves it exists... it just doesn't do the more difficult task of proving its accuracy. Also, "black box" is a simplification. Some (maybe all) of these black boxes give away their secrets, it's just that they don't do that until some significant distance between now and the end of the universe, in some cases the whole distance. So, it's a moot point.

[@anywallsocket]

@@ywtcc ​ Hmm, yes. What is and what isn't 'physical' is another matter, which should probably be addressed like most things as a spectrum or gradient rather than a sharp dualism. That said, the interaction between any two objects can be considered to communicate information, and it is often suggested that information is the same no matter how it is interpreted, if you will. Like if I am numb in one hand and not the other, and I try to pick up the same cup of coffee, one will communicate HOT while the other will not, yet on behalf of the coffee it is communicating the same information with my hand, just that one hand is not interpreting it the same. Likewise your blackboxes would be communicating with the rest of the world only at the ends of their lives, no matter who may be listening? Sounds sane enough, yet a part of me still acknowledges that we are referencing the information it contains even when it is beyond our epistemological reach, and that perhaps we should only discuss the information that could hypothetically be communicated with us.

[@ywtcc]

@@anywallsocket As far as these black boxes go, they have their own perspective on the problem, which is part of the problem. A quantum observation is from the perspective of a particle hitting another particle. It's not that the perspective of the scientist doesn't matter and shouldn't be accounted for, it's just that the perspective of the particle is more fundamental, as it's the only way to interact with the universe. So, it doesn't really address the problem of asking if a tree falling in the forest makes a sound when no one's there to hear it. I suppose the answer to that is the particles that make up the tree and forest will hear it just fine. Furthermore, the entire universe is apparently composed of indivisible, partly deaf listeners. We can say they hear something, but their perspective seems to be highly informationally limited. We can't say what's on these listeners minds without paradoxically taking that information out of these listeners minds. So, it's a different kind of communication, when you're dealing with information that apparently can't be duplicated.

[@anywallsocket]

@@ywtcc Yes that's a good way to phrase it. Observation is just interaction, and if interaction is to be considered a two-way communication or computation, it stands to reason that the more I learn about you the less you learn about me, simply because if we try and talk and listen at the same time we cannot differentiate your signals from my own.

[@potheadphysics]

Omg I tried to warn everyone we live in a computer. It’s so obvious!

[@thomasbradley2916]

Lovely, information theory is a superset of physics, evolution is key, lets write it up

[@clownworld-honk410]

I would suggest a trip to a hair stylist is fundamental here! 😊

[@fortynine3225]

Somebody buys this guy a comb

[@elvill419]

Mastication is one of the most important metacognitive functions. Every bit is a packet of information. We use BALSAMIC to manage and navigate every bit of information. The law of large numbers requires consciousness. Ever smaller bits is mastication: that is the key of understanding our own understanding. Nature is digital but humans are analog and analog when you know BALSAMIC.

[@elvill419]

Humans are the unicorn in the universe: only thing that understand it’s own understanding effectively aka consciousness. BALSAMIC is the encryption keyphrase behind the quantum computer of the mind. Yes!! This is a high order high entropic state. Is there a higher order lower entropic state? Closer tot he truth.

[@idontwantahandle10]

The universe is the OUTPUT of computation, not the computer itself. A computer can't output itself and so the computer must be "outside" out the virtual spacetime of the reality. The computer must be "non-local" to that which is a result of it's computation. So the computer must be non-physical and have no location in the universe. Edward fredkin was the first to figure this out and he called the place were the computer is lacated "other" in one of his papers on digital physics. And this is where it becomes obvious that the server and the clients are minds which compute and transmit receive the experiencial, mental data streams. The computer is an all mind. There is no "quantum world" and so "the quantum world" isn't computing anything. There is no actual wave function of possibilities floating around somewhere in some hilbert space. It's just a math model which is useful to make predictions of possible outcomes. the reality is a simulation of a reality that acts AS IF there were a quantum world from the view point of the observer.

[@kos-mos1127]

The Universe is doing computation and is able to simulate Turing-Machines. Bill Gates realized the Universe does pure computations which is completely decoupled from programming. Also he discovered that the Universe is not running algorithms it is creating algorithm's.

[@CharlesB-NGNM]

On a combover scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being tRump's combover and 10 being Nicolas Cage's combover, where does Seth's combover rank?

[@derfunkhaus]

It exists in a superposition of all states between 1 and 10, and only when you actually measure it does it collapse to a single, specific number.

[@CharlesB-NGNM]

@@derfunkhaus 😂

[@idegteke]

Every single particle inside (and potentially outside) of our discoverable universe has the theoretical potential to access, transmit, conduct, apply (use) and maybe even store virtually infinite amount of information, especially when we measure that amount in the equivalent binary information. Common knowledge that every single quantum is - at the very least - a quantum bit, and even, potentially, a mega broadband with the far end attached to something we can never have any idea of, or, even, is a quantum computer on its own right. And if you ask how many subatomic particles are there in our discoverable universe combined - if we only consider the ones that fully reside in our reality - not a single one. They are only partly interfering with our space-time, they don’t require our discoverable universe in order to exist, similarly to the street car that has no passengers but is still arguable a street car.

[@franzrichter4852]

Not only a hundred years ago it was known. It was probably known by Plato in his secret teachings, it was certainly known in the neo-platonic prologue of the 4th gospel by St. John: "In the beginning was the logos and the logos was with God and God was the logos." What was described there was not only information (or better knowledge - in India called Veda) but the whole interplay of the knower, the known, and process of knowing, in the gospel depicted by the metaphor of the (quantum-mechanical?) Father and the Son (who enters space-time) plus the spirit (consciousness, i.e. the computer). Note that in interprocess-communication you also have parent and child processes and in object-oriented programming you have inheritance of classes.) Another strange sentence in the gospel of John challenging the hypocrites of all times was "Before Abraham was - I AM". In the Vedic tradition of India one of the final cognitions of enlightenment is "Veda aham" ("Knowledge I am"), and Aham Brahmasmi ("I am wholeness"). I don't know whether the theoretical physicist of Oxfort, David Tong also is enlightened, but he said a few years ago in a beautiful lecture available on YT on the question what we are made of: "Atoms are a lie, we are the field". So not information is fundamental but the holy trinity of the sender, receiver, and flow of information. My Indian master Maharishi called it "Self-interacting wholeness". This involves symmetry and broken symmetry - for the game does only work when there is something that the other does not know and yet both are on the same wave length and understand each other. (By the way every equation has both symmetry and broken symmetry, so also mathematics comes from self-interaction.) This leads to the conclusion that space-time is only a kind of a monitor (like the flat-time monitor in front of me). And behind this there would be, let's say in the quantum vacuum, the holy trinity of - processor (creating change and thus bringing forth time) - memory (creating dimensions and objects in them) and - programs / processes bringing about inter-process-communication Another brief revival of this knowledge of trinity happened around 1300 by a German mystic called Meister Eckhard. However, he disappeared in Avignon when he was trying to present his findings to the exiled Pope. I give you here my translation of a poem ascribed to him. Note that he hints at a possible measurement theory as he mentions the senses, and (cosmic) senses you need for measurement. He also indicates that we cannot know "IT" (unless we ARE IT as Vedic teachers tell us: "Thou art THAT") Anonymous poet Trinity Song IN dem begin, Where you commence, hoch über sin High above sense, was ie das wort. The Word is stored, o richer hort, Abundant hoard, do ie begin begin gebar. Where origin gives birth to origin. (self-interaction) O vater brust, O Father‘s breast us der mit lust From which with zest (joy) das wort ie floz: The Word outpours doch hat diu schoz And yet the source (womb, vaccuum?) das wort behalten, Has always kept the Word within. das ist war. (That is true.) Von zwein ein fluz, Of two a flow, der minnen guz, Of love a glow, der zweier bant The bond of two, den zwein bekant, From both who knew fliuzet der vil süeze geist Flows the Holy Spirit very sweet - Vil ebenlich, Quite evenly. unscheidenlich In unity, (non-duality) diu dri sint ein: The three are one: weistu waz? nein, Who knows it? None! ez weiz sich selbe aller meist. IT knows ITSELF, it is complete. Der drier stric The bond of three hat tiefen schric, Shocks sanity, den selben reif And to that ring, (ring theory instead of string theory) nie sin begreif: Sense cannot cling. er ist ein tiefe sunder grunt, It is a depth that has no ground. Schach unde mat, Check and checkmate zit, form und stat; Time, form, and state, der wunderrinc The magic ring, ist an gesprinc, Is not a thing (of physical origin) gar unbeweget stet sin punt. Immovable its point is bound. Des puntes berc The point! Its mount stigt ane werc Cannot be found verstentlicheit, By work of mind, der wec der treit The way to find in eine wüesten wunderlich, Is vastness of unbounded kind. Diu breit diu wit Which wide and wise, ungmezzen lit. UNMEASURED lies. diu wüeste hat The void displays wedr zit noch stat, Neither time nor space ir wise diu ist sunderlich. Its kind transcends your very mind.

[@odonnelly46]

No, it wasn't. There was no concept of a "computer" back then. And the bible certainly had no clue, it is a bunch of immoral and self-contradicting anti-science gibberish.

[@marcioviotti1639]

Excellent postmodern scientific analysis. But if the universe is a natural computational system, where did the extremely sophisticated algorithms, like those of life, come from? Where do metaphysical entities such as the four fundamental forces interact in a complementary and intelligent way?

[@kos-mos1127]

The Universe is a pure computational system where the algorithms and computations are completely decoupled. Theoretically the Cosmos is closest to a Von Neumann Machine.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

*"Excellent postmodern scientific analysis. But if the universe is a natural computational system, where did the extremely sophisticated algorithms, like those of life, come from?"* ... They evolved from simplicity to complexity over time ... just like how a simple abacus has evolved into complex quantum computers.

[@marcioviotti1639]

The abacus is a simple object composed of wires and balls, incapable of any capacity in itself. To be of any use, it needs an intelligence that creates it and leads it to its ends.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@marcioviotti1639 *"The abacus is a simple object composed of wires and balls, incapable of any capacity in itself. To be of any use, it needs an intelligence that creates it and leads it to its ends."* ... Prokaryotes are mindless single-celled lifeforms, yet they evolved into self-aware humans with brains that science boldly declares as the most complex structure to exist in the known universe. If this is the case, then the algorithms that formed life could evolve in a similar way (simplicity to complexity).

[@abelincoln8885]

lol. Silly humanist Liberals. The Universe is an Isolated Thermodynamic System (Function) .. composed of space, time, Laws of Nature, matter & energy which are all Functions ... and .. has increasing entropy (function). Science is a method (function) made by an Intelligence (Function) to explain Natural phenomena (functions) completely relying on fixed laws of Nature (functions). Numbers, symbols, letters, language, mathematics, pen, paper, desk, chair, blackboard, chalk, text book, room, building Earth, Atmosphere, Sun, moon space, time, Laws of Nature are all Functions ... with purpose, form/design, processes, properties which are all INFORMATION ... and therefore can only be made by an Intelligence with a Mind. Information .. can only come .. from the Mind of an Intelligence. And only an Intelligence ... can extract .. information from Functions made by an Intelligence. All Systems are Functions. All Thermodynamic Systems ... originate from the Surrounding System .. which must provide the INFORMATION ( space, time, laws of nature, matter & energy) .. to exist & to function. The surrounding System ... of the Universe with time & Laws of Nature ... must be UNNATURAL timeless, & infinite .. and ... must be the Intelligence that made the Universe. God .. is ... the entire Unnatural System ... that that the Universe originates from & is expanding in. The Mind of an Intelligence is Unnatural (soul/spirit). God is Spirit .. and the entire Unnatural System .. and is the Mind of God ... which can produce ... INFORMATION ... for natural or unnatural Functions made by an intelligence.

[@Jaggerbush]

"Yeah absolutely i mean in fact and and ironically i mean even though maybe im im ..." 😬 1:24

[@kakhaval]

In digital design there are two stages: information bits (say of a program) and means to implement them. So information on its own is useless.

[@anywallsocket]

Indeed, info is processed, there is no info without process, and no process without info.

[@kakhaval]

@@anywallsocket In software that is true. In hardware sense processing can be run without run-time information. It needs prior information of human to design a rigid circuit to do a specific task. The use of software implies a multi-state multi-purpose configurable hardware that needs processing at high speed to compete with rigid hardware approach.

[@Caniac76]

Information is assigned to the particle by the observer. If you have 1 photon, then you have one piece of information. If you choose to split that photon into other photons, then you have more information (with each new photon having less energy than the original photon). Information does not have a quantitative or a relative value compared to other particles. Therefore information is not fundamental as in bits on and off as the smallest unit of measurement. Another way to show this is, a computer can use electrons as bits or it can use photons. The electrons have mass and cannot be split. The photons have no mass and can be split. The electron can only be one bit. The photon can be arbitrarily split and can be more than one bit. A highly energetic gamma ray can be split many more times than a photon that is in the radio spectrum. Also, as a scientist, you cannot know how much information you can extract from the universe. There could always be an experiment that creatively extracts new information from particles.

[@user-gp1zy3up7y]

I would request him to do research on Hinduism, read the sacred text of Hindus(vedanta or upnishad or Bhagvad Gita) . There is no realy world out there, it is all in our experience. and we experience just because we are the consciousness. One can't know what is it, because we need consciousness to know it. Most of the material physicist are trying to keep consciousness out of the context, but they hit the wall always. Physics Nobel 2022 proved this.

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

Since we live in a universe where we can build Turing universal machines (computers) then what follows is that the universe must also be Turing universal, and that it will after infinite time, compute all computable functions, and is therefor equivalent to a Turing machine. whether you think its more than that, is up to personal debate. but it is, by logic proof, not any less powerful than a Turing machine.

[@kos-mos1127]

The Universe can simulate Turing Machines but is not itself a Turing Machine. The Universe's computations are completely decoupled from programming. In this view The Universe creates all theories then select which one's to apply in a given branch.

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

@@kos-mos1127 That's incorrect. That's infact how you prove turing completeness, is by getting one system, to simulate another turing complete system. like mentioned, because turing complete systems exist, the universe is by definition also a turing machine. Whether you think the universe applies only a given branch (doing only specific computations)...well that's up for debate but i'd argue that it's not true, and very anti-occams razor as you have to explain WHY it only does specific computations and create an excuse for each one.

[@jean-pierredevent970]

If the universe is a giant computer (so a brain? ) then to be one system and not several computers, it needs to be entangled. OK, that is said to be the case. But next, what task is it running? Is it computing itself? Then that's like pouring a lot of water from a mountain and then say, this an analog computer and the water is computing its best way down. That sounds a bit like a trick. Normally we use computers to work out reality faster than reality could do it itself. So we would input a 3D model of the mountain and calculate instead where the water would come down.

[@thomasanderson1882]

Heuristic/telos?

[@robertelliot8880]

what is information?

[@v11a03]

We can digitalize stuff, but I am not satisfied with that.

[@NotNecessarily-ip4vc]

0D is necessary; having no predecessor (negative numbers are not considered whole numbers). 1D, 2D, 3D, 4D are contingent (or, in three words, "not locally real"); on their predecessor. Every dimension has to contain within it all previous dimensions. There is no 1D without 0D so when Newton said that 0D was contingent ("not-necessary") and 1D was necessary he was wrong. This is the contingent and less real side of 0D. The other side is necessary and more real. God's first act for creation was the "self-withdrawal" to allow emptiness/space for creation to take place in i.e. God withdrew to the necessary and more real side. This contingent side of 0D is where we (subject) can learn Good from Evil in the one-way flow of time with a contingent identity (object). We have the Holy Trinity on this side which is Genesis 1 Elohim "sons of El" (Father and Son "who are one") and Ruach Elohim "Spirit of God" (Spirit of Truth/Holy Spirit). The Monad (first emanation of God) is the zero-dimensional space holding our quarks together with the Strong Nuclear Force. Read Leibniz's Monadology 📖. Check out NASA's mirror universe theory. 0D is the center of our mirror universe.

[@jacksonvaldez5911]

I think we need to distinguish the terms "computation" and "computer". Computation is just the passage of time, transforming the state of a system from one to the next, discretely. A computer is a human made object. Seth is not at all proposing the universe is a computer. The only alternative to this is that information is continuous Seth is also not proposing any reason why the universe is computing, or why the universe is here at all, so there is really nothing to disagree with here

[@johnyaxon__]

Non existence does not exist. Between zero and infinity is one - this exact moment. Zero means - nothing, that's why zero is in the "past" past disappeared into nothing. Future is infinity, infinite possibilities at some sense. Between infinite possibilities and nothing(zero) there is process of realising some of the possibilities. What is future? For you it is some possibilities. You can go right, you can go left etc. Future is potential. If you miss one possibility or another it disappears into nothing, you loose your opportunities. That's how nature works. Infinity of possibilities - Future, they disappeared into Nothing - Past. Moment of Now is moment of opportunities and choices. This choices is computation. Suppose, you are fishing. When you fishing - Now. What you want to do? - Catch a fish. How? By increasing possibilities of catching fish. That's computation. That's no guarantee to catch a fish, but there is probability to catch a fish. What you are computing is ways to increase probabilities. That's how nature works. Nature is a flow of possibilities which are opening and closing. Nature creates mostly TRAPS. Which trap is catching better it will reproduce and thrive. That's why Nature full of traps. Even men and women are traps for each other at some sense. Almost everything is a trap in Nature. Maybe the whole Nature is a trap?

[@tomjackson7755]

Information is a byproduct of existence just like truth.

[@Uri1000x1]

Reality is truth. But the statement is a tautauology

[@tomjackson7755]

@@Uri1000x1 I would say that truth is a description of reality. Reality is also a byproduct of existence.

[@Uri1000x1]

Information can specify the state of a system. One thing that exists can be physical systems. Interactions are computed with the information in a system. A moving snooker ball has the byproduct momentum information. The video says there is only information.

[@Kenneth-ts7bp]

Propaganda is a byproduct of existence.

[@InnerLuminosity]

We are in a self simulation.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

*"We are in a self simulation"* ... What is being simulated?

[@InnerLuminosity]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC your entire reality 😉

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@InnerLuminosity *"your entire reality."* ... Well, if my perceived reality is just a simulation, then what is the "actual reality" that is not in a simulation?

[@MonacoBlast66]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC Exactly!

[@InnerLuminosity]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC You are God playing hide and seek with itself 😁😉

[@Sebastian-ni4le]

this guy is pretty clever

[@kos-mos1127]

The view that the Universe is computer has been around since the early days of computer science. Jon Von Neumann realized the Universe could simulate Turning Machine because it closer to an automata

[@Uri1000x1]

He's still saying physical systems have informational states. Interactions of particles result in a state change, a changing of the information in a system state is COMPUTATION.

Information is an expression of facts, not reality. A human "informs" you for behavior. Reality was here before there was information. Remember?

[@brothermine2292]

Isn't Seth cherry-picking some properties of particles, for example quantum spin of a fermion, to support his claim that all information is digital information? Fermions have other properties, such as position and momentum, that according to quantum physics can take any value in a continuous range of values. The light that Planck said comes in discrete lumps of energy can have an amount of energy that can be any value in a continuous range of values, determined by the random kinetic energy of the molecules excited by the heat of the oven. The fundamental equation in quantum mechanics is a linear differential equation that depends on the time "dimension," which is modeled as a continuous variable, not discrete. It seems fair for Seth to say the universe computes, but it doesn't follow that all the computations are digital.

[@Verlamian]

Quite. The discreteness in the spectra of some observables is often given far more significance than it warrants. Sometimes the significance of the non-zero value of Planck's constant is misconstrued. It's not just Seth that does this - far from it - and in general I wouldn't pay much attention to what he or indeed the vast majority of physicists have to say about quantum foundational matters. They're often very poorly informed in this area ("quantum foundations") and prone to making serious mistakes. For example, I notice that in an earlier Closer to Truth video Seth claimed that we may never have a satisfactory explanation of QM because of "this thing about things being in two places at the same time". But this "thing about things being in two places at once" is another serious interpretational misconception common among mathematical physics / quantum foundations-naive physicists. A particularly egregious one. QM doesn't justify such a frankly nonsensical interpretation any more than e.g. a classical probabilistic mechanical treatment of a coin toss would justify the contention that the coin is (or has landed) both heads and tails (until you look at it). To see most clearly why that's so it helps - although it isn't absolutely necessary - to know that quantum /theory/ is really just an algebraic generalisation of classical (Kolmogorovian) probabilty theory (and among the many other important things that have apparently escaped the notice of 'foundations-naive physicists is the fact that classical mechanics can be written in the exact same - Hilbert space and operator - formalism).

[@anywallsocket]

@@Verlamian Indeed, although I think many serious physicists recognize that QM is not the whole quantum story. QFT handles the time variable not as a free parameter like in QM but treats it equivalently to space, which can be quantized as well. The trade-off is that you have to get rid of operators and the measurement problem as well, which has its own issues because now we cannot distinguish the possible from the actual. That's all very hand-wavy and I'm no expert myself, but regardless, I believe you two have both destroyed a fair chunk of Seth's argument, and I offer support :)

[@TheTroofSayer]

Treading tenuous ground here, with this emphasis on information as digital. At 0:52 - "The universe is computing." How so? Where's the computer, the Boolean circuits? At 3:25 - "At bottom the universe is processing information. It's computing." Information, as it relates to life, is not so much process as it is integration. Meaning, semiotic. Process, however, is linear. An example of integration comes from the narrative of emergence in systems theory, where a water molecule cannot be predicted from the oxygen and hydrogen molecules of which it comprised. Three atoms combine to create a new entity with a new "integrated" meaning, water. The water molecule emerges on its own, there is no computer anywhere "manufacturing" it. The human comprised of CHNOPS (elements of life) is not assembled anywhere by any kind of computer or factory or Hand of God. It evolves through millennia of integration of meaning upon meaning upon meaning, beginning with the void and the symmetries of meaning playing out at the domain of the very small. If we are going to take information theory seriously, we should approach it from the perspective of integration and meaning, not processing and bits. To get a better handle on this, we need to better appreciate the implications of cube-root scaling to subatomic levels (cube root scaling - why insects with long, slender legs can lift many times their own weight). There is a phenomenology playing out at atomic/subatomic domains that is alien to us at the macro level. This integration, this recombination of entities to form new integrated wholes, such as water molecules, ants, pigeons and humans, is taking place at all levels. Information as digital processing, on the other hand, is not just a weak metaphor, it doesn't even account for the machine that is alleged to "process" it! The inputting/outputting of data is entertained without accounting for the mechanism that interprets it! When I gaze out from my office onto the street below, with people climbing on and off trams and buses, going into shops to buy goods, entering/leaving the train station, arguing on the street, busker playing music, policeman talking to a vagrant, heavy traffic on the bridge, etc, etc, etc, there is no computer anywhere orchestrating any of this. All these agents are going about doing their own thing, and in the process, they integrate with the whole that is culture. The culture is the integrated whole, it is the top-down from which agents make choices and live out their lives. No computing required.

[@SamoaVsEverybody814]

7:26 😂

[@theloniousMac]

Hmmm... if the universe is a computing machine, apparently general purpose, what is it computing, and who is it computing for? Does this in fact, dovetail with simulation theory.? Is the Earth, in fact, really a piece of software? Is the Earth an application, or is it system software? Is everything happening on this planet an algorithm engineered to solve a specific problem? (Not the great question, but maybe all the great questions?) Don't bring up Ascii 42 being a wildcard symbol. Are we each a function in this computing machine? Are we just an instantiation of a class? Does the tank behind Seth Lloyd contain absinth?

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

*"Hmmm... if the universe is a computing machine, apparently general purpose, what is it computing, and who is it computing for?"* ... It's computing its own information to figure out what "Existence" is. Who do you live your life for? You live life for yourself, and you study everything about you and your environment to figure out who and what you are. *"Is everything happening on this planet an algorithm engineered to solve a specific problem?"* ... I believe so, and on a universal scale (not just Earth). Everything that exists does so in an effort to justify "Existence" as a whole. Existence must justify why it should rise above absolute nothingness, otherwise there is no reason for the universe to "be" (Principle of Sufficient Reason).

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

Yea, It's general. The universe is computing everything. In other words It's not computing "for" anything it just computes all possible things. A lot of the assumptions of what we think computation is, is based off of our own constructions (computers) but all systems are computing. Alan Turing is responsible for the extremely powerful statement, that you don't need to build a new machine(system) to do a task, you simply feed the system a set of instructions, and it can then compute those instructions, and one simply has to know how to feed instructions to it (programs), which is what led us to the modern day computer. There's a guy named Stephan Wolfram who wrote a book called a New Kind of Science, that you should look into if you are more curious to know why all this stuff makes perfect sense. In that book he describes formally, this notion that simple rules lead to complex behavior, through brute force computational experiments...and the conclusion to the book is that essentially all systems are capable of turing universal computation (Called The Principle of Computational Equivelence). Specifically, he shows how a simple rule class (called the elementary cellular automata) are able to simulate one another, and then finally, a turing universal system, meaning that this simple rule class, is equally complex as your computer. He has a series where he reads this book and explains its contents. it's 14 part 3 hour videos so about 36 hours of video (What We've Learned from NKS Chapter 1: The Foundations of a New Kind of Science) and honestly its worth every second of your time. A lot of the misconceptions about computation are ironed out in that book, and is a deep dive into what gives evidence to folks like Seth here the reasons they believe these things true. Cheers.

[@abelincoln8885]

The Function, Intelligence, Mind & ... Information ... Categories prove ... everything is a Function with purpose, form/design, properties & processes which are INFORMATION .. and .. were made by an Unnatural timeless & infinite Intelligence with a Mind. Information can only come ... form the Mind .. of & Intelligence. This is why only an Intelligence make, operates, improves, & fine tunes .. Functions. There is zero evidence ... that Nature & natural processes ... can make & operate the simplest physical Function 13.7 or 4 billion years ago .. a quantum particle, field or force ... an atom, element, compound, molecule ... space, time, Laws of Nature, matter & energy .. numbers, symbols, letters, language, mathematics, science, pen, paper, desk, chair, text book, black board & chalk, room, building ... Earth, atmosphere, Sun, moon ... Universe .. are all Functions ... composed entirely of Information ... and come from the Mind of an intelligence.

[@stephenzhao5809]

2:34 ... SL: that's fundamental that's quantum mechanics if you like to my mind the major role that quantum mechanics plays in our universe is to make information finite [BTS pp says: 40% Dirac Sea and 60% Dark Energy in The Realy True Void]. 2:43

[@mickobrien3156]

That combover rules! It takes guts to have long hair when you're badly balding.

[@Uri1000x1]

Seth is so confident. He's saying that physical systems go from one state to the next. That is computation. Do physical particles interact to compute, no information is used to compute.

[@anywallsocket]

You're putting the cart before the horse, as is he. Because physics can be computed, doesn't mean reality is a computer.

[@Uri1000x1]

Computing means using information to produce information.

[@anywallsocket]

@@Uri1000x1 Something like that yes, but I believe it’s more about how our brains work than it is about how the universe works.

[@Uri1000x1]

@@anywallsocket he's talking about interactions like what happens when two snooker balls collide.

[@anywallsocket]

@@Uri1000x1 That’s a very Newtonian idealized interaction but yes I get what you’re saying. What I’m saying however is that he’s mistaking the map for the territory; he’s ignoring that physics is written in comprehensible terms, which happen to be computational, because that’s how we logic. It doesn’t imply anything directly about reality, just about the nature of our models.

[@Smitty65721]

So deterministic....

[@malayangrago5628]

If you eavesdrop on the Universe's computation, you might just hear " play that funky music white boy, play that funky music right ..." 😅

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

Rainbow shows our Eternal Consciousness, (7) a Circuit of Life-Abilities, from low to high, Instinct, (1) Red, is the simplest, Memory, (6) Indigo, is the highest. All Information depend on Memory. Water have Memory, Nobel-price.

[@davidlongshanks]

Infinite potential and spontaneous complexity not funky enough!!???😉🤔

[@lostpianist]

Human understanding of information is limited to a subset of whats out there, each advance gets closer to truth but further away from our origin. Complex dynamic systems contain within them yet more complex and dynamic systems. Counting to 10 seems simple and logical but could just be a convention with only the slightest of reference to underlying reality. Indeed reality itself is ultimately just an idea.

[@JanBroekhuisen]

Feynman predicted atoms as bits in the 70’s.

[@donbarile8916]

hot tub! good gawd.

[@rb1431]

Does anyone else hang that background noise ?!

[@Roger_Costello]

Arre there experiments that can be performed to prove/disprove the theory that the universe is a computer?

[@DingleberryPie]

Inside the proton there are quarks with more information..

[@friedrichdergroe9664]

"The Universe is a perfect simulation of itself." -- Yours Truly, at the risk of this sounding like a tautology.

[@anywallsocket]

that immediately begs infinite regress and indeed says nothing at all

[@ronmexico5908]

He sounds like DJ Vlad

[@bp5ll]

i will not listen to a single word this man has to say unless he shaves his head.

[@alpachino2shae]

had to scroll for quite a while before getting here 😅

[@CharlesB-NGNM]

On a combover scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being tRump's combover and 10 being Nicolas Cage's combover, where does his combover rank?

[@Roscoe0494]

I am thrilled to know that a maserati will spontaneously emerge in my driveway at some point in the future. And that it will be self aware. Essentially we are the A.I. emerging from the universe puter. If there ever was a warning shot this is it. Don't let A.I. in the door.

[@gordonquimby8907]

Isn't there a difference between bits of information and computing? A picture printed on paper has thousands of pixels, each being a bit of information, but it is not computing. Containing information does not mean computing. Libraries are storehouses of organized information, but they are not computing. Computing involves a controlled processing of information. The 10 to the 23rd power bits of information in the universe are constantly interacting and changing, but that is not computing any more than a child shaking up alphabet building blocks in a bag is writing a novel.

[@marishkagrayson]

Somehow, I can deal with a universe that has finite information. It’s pondering infinity that deeply disturbs me.

[@bozo5632]

You can go around in a circle infinitely many times. Relax, it's just infinity.

[@picksalot1]

Knowledge is fundamental. Information is about transmission. Understanding can place when knowledge is accurately transmitted and the recipient is competent.

[@Uri1000x1]

Information is used to compute a result, can be stored in a memory or communicated (transmitted) as you said.

[@mustafahmed9101]

We wuz informationz! Okay, then deduce consciousness from it.

[@movazi]

didn't we recently find out that the big bang may not have the beginning? (i.e. we don't know much about the big bang:)

[@cajones9330]

James Brown predicting Ai singularity. Also What if dark matter and dark energy is just the backup of the universe.

[@heinzditer7286]

The memory of the universe.

[@blijebij]

Information is fundamental for sure ^^

[@anywallsocket]

to understanding yes, but anything else? well, we wouldn't be able to understand it if it were.

[@blijebij]

I dont work with absolutes like we know nothing or we can know all. It is a playground of interest. If you mean we never gone understand Reality as she is in her total form, yes, can only agree there. So I hear you :) (I hope there is still enough out there for us to discover).

[@philsmycrevice]

For some reason the only thing I could think of during this interview was quail.

[@kratomseeker5258]

Well I thought about this enough to know that people have it the other way around. The universe came first and the computer can replicate that because it is part of the universe

[@dougg1075]

Yes because I’m the beginning was the word , and the word was with God and the word was God.

[@amedeeabreo7334]

Does the encyclopedia Britanica contain more information than an equal size book of non-sense characters?

[@playpaltalk]

The universe is sentient 🤔 just adding that everything that is real is not made of atoms.

[@TheLuminousOne]

Seth has the coolest hairline!

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

(3:20) *SL: **_"At bottom, the universe is processing information."_* ... Seth has opined on 95% of my understanding of Existence. When you rewind life, you reach a point where you encounter only inanimate matter. Something _mysterious_ had to happen for life to emerge from non-living matter. And when you rewind all the inanimate matter, you reach a point where you encounter Big Bang's "singularity." Something _mysterious_ had to happen for all the inanimate matter to emerge from that point of singularity. This is the point where everyone wants to halt the regression, ... _but why?_ If you simply stick to the pattern, then it follows that multidimensional, inanimate matter emerged from all the nondimensional *information* that preceded it. Existence started out with nondimensional information which evolved into multidimensional structure which evolved into life, and which further evolved into self-aware consciousness. Everyone is perfectly willing to accept everything happening _after_ that singularity (matter, life, and self-awareness), but completely unwilling to consider anything happening _before_ it ... even if it's logical and follows the same regressive pattern.

[@brothermine2292]

Seth is saying it's NOT mysterious how life arises from inanimate matter. He said it's inevitable given the laws of physics.

[@Uri1000x1]

@@brothermine2292 the inanimate particle is in its nature information so there's no reason to call it matter, it's mind.

[@brothermine2292]

@@Uri1000x1 : Thanks for your opinion, but it's conventional in physics to call particles matter. There's no need to call it mind.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@brothermine2292 *"Seth is saying it's NOT mysterious how life arises from inanimate matter. He said it's inevitable given the laws of physics."* ... I seriously doubt that. Neither you, Seth, nor I know or understand what causes "life" to arise, so to attribute it all to the "laws of physics" is simply tossing out a placeholder answer until the correct answer comes along.

[@scambammer6102]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC well there's no evidence for anything outside the law of physics. Until there is, physics is a fair assumption.

[@BradHolkesvig]

One wavelength is our Creator's lowest form of coded language. So anything that is vibrating is our Creator's coded language at work to keep his created AI and all created minds experiencing life forever and ever.

[@tomjackson7755]

Brad get the help that you need.

[@BradHolkesvig]

@@tomjackson7755 Foolish words like yours come from very fooled created men who have no idea how they were created as an AI.

[@tomjackson7755]

@@BradHolkesvig Foolish words like your proves just how desperately you need help.