Seth Lloyd - Is Information the Foundation of Reality?

Could information be the stuff of which everything is made? Information seems so abstract, not a substance or a thing, so how could it be the building blocks of reality? There are ways and reasons how information can literally be reality, some scientists claim, and their ideas are revolutionary.

[jackpullen]

The test of how well you yourself understand something is your ability to explain it to anyone in simple terms of understanding, Seth Lloyd gets an "A".

[arendpsa]

The signifcance is that no one in our universe can escape information, because it is an essential part in us .

[Rocky_Anunnaki]

I was waiting for this video thank you very much.

Please make more videos about this topic.

[SirTravelMuffin]

I've always felt that if we could show that all the universe consists of is information, we'd also be saying it only consists of relationships, which I feel comfortable with. "Correlations without correlata"

[spacemanjupiter]

That was insane and may be the best explanation I've heard yet. I always try to explain to people why you shouldn't feel threatened to think of this reality as a simulation. I could never come close to explaining it like Seth just did but I tell people, 'It's not that reality is imitating computers, it's that computers are imitating reality and nature'. Our computers exist because that is the nature of reality fundamentally, and computers are sort of a natural result of the evolution of this reality. Instead of thinking of 1s and 0s, think on or off states. Take the computer terminology completely out of it, but it's still describing the same thing and it is how things seem to work as a matter of fact.

[davylondon]

Wow ! So beautifully and succinctly put. Amazing explanation !

[commanderthorkilj.amundsen]

Such a pleasant interaction between two intelligent men!
But despite Seth Lloyd's obvious deep understanding of the nature of computation in digital and quantum systems that he has decades of experience with, the common anthropomorphic error is made, which he even alludes to initially, then proceeds down that path talking about digital and quantum bits, flipping, and mathematical explanations for his argument, which are, in effect, human-derived explanations of a universe that is more ANALOG in nature, than DIGITAL.
The organelles, membranes, even biomolecules of cells are performing myriad decision-making processes per ever second of our lives (as it would appear to us as observers, ) that are often in degrees of magnitude, rather than absolutes, as in binary or quantum bits, flipping pos or neg, up or down, yes or no.
Rahul Sarpeshkar has been working with analog computational models which seem more in line with reality. This universe existed long before man arrived to give processes and entities names, and apply mathematical explanations to ancient, pre-existing phenomena. We still don't understand LIFE; and the BIG BANG, and DARWINIAN EVOLUTION seem more like a fairy tales, the deeper we go.

[tomgrimes]

Remember, it's a good thing if the camera stays put. Moving the camera while the interview subject is talking is both distracting and, almost as bad, it's a mid-1990s cliche. At least you're not doing the 1980s cliche of jigging the camera as if it didn't having an auto stabilizer.

[RussellCatchpole]

Consider this.
The quantum world is a world without information.
The classical world IS information.

[dabo]

By 8:13 Deep intense look...
At 8:14 mind totally blown away, not actually getting all the information that he just received.

Also I'm sure he was actually going to say "wtf?" around those frames.

[Tore_Lund]

"Closer to truth" also asked this question to Sean Carroll in their previous episode, but there are a subtle differences. In the talk with Sean Carroll the interviewer extrapolate to the virtual universe isuggesting "someone" made it, while here he is actually taking about about the encoding itself embedded in quantum mechanics. This is the far more reasonably question to ask and it is regrettable that Sean Carroll, as a physicist only was asked philosophical questions. In this episode Seth Lloyd explains this encoding as embedded in the properties of particles in the standard model. This is not how current quantum mechanics thinks that possible encoding works. It is rather made of the entanglement of virtual particles. But I guess Seth Lloyd used the very incorrect Electron example for simplification purposes??

[i]

The ping-pong camera slides arent helping, thanks.

[MrAndrew]

What is the primary objective when seeking to determine the nature of "truth", what constitutes truth and even how truth can be defined? The answer is, establish the reliability of the instruments one seeks to use and the other is to be sure a suitable context is established. But of equal importance is to have the most efficient and accurate use of language which is commensurate with the task. None of the above rules are adhered to, by any academic I have encountered or studied, yet videos such as these continue to be published and conversations had. It never ceases to amaze me.

[YitroBenAvraham]

How this ties into human free will is most interesting to me.

[luciengrondin]

10:39 "There are about 2^300 elementary particles in the Universe. That means that if each particle had a bar code — I'm not sure where we'd even put the bar code, I guess in some sense the particle _is_ the bar code."

I suspect this glossed over remark is actually profound.

[sonarbangla]

Information as the foundation of reality defines life, consciousness, soul and faith, out of the universal complexity of information.

[SebastianChum]

I dare say there's too much camera movement.

[VuNguyen-mhoo]

so, what gives rise to the sense of understanding, the feeling, the emotion in us? What makes us tear up? onion peeling or bits flipping? My fucking mind is blown

[mithrandir]

Very informative. In a similar way the universe could be a formal system.

[wildlyoptimistic]

We tend to think of computers as the box on our desk, phone in our pocket or that clamshell like thing called a laptop. We all know what those computers can do though few understand how they do it. In nature there are other systems we could call a type of computer that also performs some function. As an example the proteins in a living cell that takes the massive program encoded in DNA and replicates the components of the cell and controls the process of creating a duplicate of itself. Not to mention the function it provides to the organism it is part of.
Point is “computers “ can take many forms large and small and perform some function at its own level. So now you take some quarks and combine them in a particular fashion and you get elementary particles that behave a certain way or you might say perform a function. In all of this there is information behind how things are put together to behave in some fashion.
It seems very clear to me that information is behind everything.