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Information-Theoretic Concepts in Physics
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Information-Theoretic Concepts in Physics

A special issue of Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300). This special issue belongs to the section "Multidisciplinary Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2024 | Viewed by 9374

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Michael Cuffaro

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU Munich, 80539 München, Germany
Interests: philosophy of physics; philosophy of computing; history and philosophy of science; Kant
Prof. Dr. Stephan Hartmann

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU Munich, 80539 München, Germany
Interests: philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, formal epistemology, Bayesian cognitive science

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Information-theoretic concepts are becoming increasingly important in physics, both in applied and theoretical physics. Examples include using quantum-mechanical systems to perform computations and transmit information; the use of information-theoretic concepts to characterize gravitational phenomena, such as black holes; informational axiomatizations and interpretations of quantum theory; and many others.

The goal of this Special Issue is to provide an interdisciplinary snapshot of the foundational and philosophical research at the cutting edge of this important area of physics. We welcome submissions focused on topics such as (but not restricted to):

  • Historical perspectives on the use of informational concepts in physics;
  • Quantum and classical information;
  • Quantum and classical computational resources;
  • Informational interpretations and axiomatizations of physical theories;
  • Informational approaches to spacetime phenomena;
  • Informational characterizations of thermodynamical phenomena and the thermodynamics of information;
  • Informational characterizations of open systems phenomena;
  • General methodological and philosophical issues related to the physics of information.

Dr. Michael Cuffaro
Prof. Dr. Stephan Hartmann
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Entropy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • information in physics
  • information and spacetime
  • information-theoretic axiomatizations
  • thermodynamics of information
  • quantum information
  • quantum computing
  • philosophy of information

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 971 KiB  
Article
A New Logic, a New Information Measure, and a New Information-Based Approach to Interpreting Quantum Mechanics
by David Ellerman
Entropy 2024, 26(2), 169; https://doi.org/10.3390/e26020169 - 15 Feb 2024
Viewed by 1187
Abstract
The new logic of partitions is dual to the usual Boolean logic of subsets (usually presented only in the special case of the logic of propositions) in the sense that partitions and subsets are category-theoretic duals. The new information measure of logical entropy [...] Read more.
The new logic of partitions is dual to the usual Boolean logic of subsets (usually presented only in the special case of the logic of propositions) in the sense that partitions and subsets are category-theoretic duals. The new information measure of logical entropy is the normalized quantitative version of partitions. The new approach to interpreting quantum mechanics (QM) is showing that the mathematics (not the physics) of QM is the linearized Hilbert space version of the mathematics of partitions. Or, putting it the other way around, the math of partitions is a skeletal version of the math of QM. The key concepts throughout this progression from logic, to logical information, to quantum theory are distinctions versus indistinctions, definiteness versus indefiniteness, or distinguishability versus indistinguishability. The distinctions of a partition are the ordered pairs of elements from the underlying set that are in different blocks of the partition and logical entropy is defined (initially) as the normalized number of distinctions. The cognate notions of definiteness and distinguishability run throughout the math of QM, e.g., in the key non-classical notion of superposition (=ontic indefiniteness) and in the Feynman rules for adding amplitudes (indistinguishable alternatives) versus adding probabilities (distinguishable alternatives). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information-Theoretic Concepts in Physics)
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25 pages, 4024 KiB  
Article
Broken Arrows: Hardy–Unruh Chains and Quantum Contextuality
by Michael Janas and Michel Janssen
Entropy 2023, 25(12), 1568; https://doi.org/10.3390/e25121568 - 21 Nov 2023
Viewed by 866
Abstract
Hardy and Unruh constructed a family of non-maximally entangled states of pairs of particles giving rise to correlations that cannot be accounted for with a local hidden-variable theory. Rather than pointing to violations of some Bell inequality, however, they pointed to apparent clashes [...] Read more.
Hardy and Unruh constructed a family of non-maximally entangled states of pairs of particles giving rise to correlations that cannot be accounted for with a local hidden-variable theory. Rather than pointing to violations of some Bell inequality, however, they pointed to apparent clashes with the basic rules of logic. Specifically, they constructed these states and the associated measurement settings in such a way that the outcomes satisfy some conditionals but not an additional one entailed by them. Quantum mechanics avoids the broken ‘if …then …’ arrows in such Hardy–Unruh chains, as we call them, because it cannot simultaneously assign truth values to all conditionals involved. Measurements to determine the truth value of some preclude measurements to determine the truth value of others. Hardy–Unruh chains thus nicely illustrate quantum contextuality: which variables do and do not obtain definite values depends on what measurements we decide to perform. Using a framework inspired by Bub and Pitowsky and developed in our book Understanding Quantum Raffles (co-authored with Michael E. Cuffaro), we construct and analyze Hardy–Unruh chains in terms of fictitious bananas mimicking the behavior of spin-12 particles. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information-Theoretic Concepts in Physics)
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11 pages, 813 KiB  
Article
Classical Information and Collapse in Wigner’s Friend Setups
by Veronika Baumann
Entropy 2023, 25(10), 1420; https://doi.org/10.3390/e25101420 - 06 Oct 2023
Viewed by 736
Abstract
The famous Wigner’s friend experiment considers an observer—the friend—and a superobserver—Wigner—who treats the friend as a quantum system and her interaction with other quantum systems as unitary dynamics. This is at odds with the friend describing this interaction via collapse dynamics, if she [...] Read more.
The famous Wigner’s friend experiment considers an observer—the friend—and a superobserver—Wigner—who treats the friend as a quantum system and her interaction with other quantum systems as unitary dynamics. This is at odds with the friend describing this interaction via collapse dynamics, if she interacts with the quantum system in a way that she would consider a measurement. These different descriptions constitute the Wigner’s friend paradox. Extended Wigner’s friend experiments combine the original thought experiment with non-locality setups. This allows for deriving local friendliness inequalities, similar to Bell’s theorem, which can be violated for certain extended Wigner’s friend scenarios. A Wigner’s friend paradox and the violation of local friendliness inequalities require that no classical record exists, which reveals the result the friend observed during her measurement. Otherwise, Wigner agrees with his friend’s description and no local friendliness inequality can be violated. In this article, I introduce classical communication between Wigner and his friend and discuss its effects on the simple as well as extended Wigner’s friend experiments. By controlling the properties of a (quasi) classical communication channel between Wigner and the friend, one can regulate how much outcome information about the friend’s measurement is revealed. This gives a smooth transition between the paradoxical description and the possibility of violating local friendliness inequalities, on the one hand, and the effectively collapsed case, on the other hand. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information-Theoretic Concepts in Physics)
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17 pages, 597 KiB  
Article
The Measurement Problem Is a Feature, Not a Bug–Schematising the Observer and the Concept of an Open System on an Informational, or (Neo-)Bohrian, Approach
by Michael E. Cuffaro
Entropy 2023, 25(10), 1410; https://doi.org/10.3390/e25101410 - 02 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1605
Abstract
I flesh out the sense in which the informational approach to interpreting quantum mechanics, as defended by Pitowsky and Bub and lately by a number of other authors, is (neo-)Bohrian. I argue that on this approach, quantum mechanics represents what Bohr called a [...] Read more.
I flesh out the sense in which the informational approach to interpreting quantum mechanics, as defended by Pitowsky and Bub and lately by a number of other authors, is (neo-)Bohrian. I argue that on this approach, quantum mechanics represents what Bohr called a “natural generalisation of the ordinary causal description” in the sense that the idea (which philosophers of science like Stein have argued for on the grounds of practical and epistemic necessity) that understanding a theory as a theory of physics requires that one be able to “schematise the observer” within it is elevated in quantum mechanics to the level of a postulate in the sense that interpreting the outcome of a measurement interaction, as providing us with information about the world, requires as a matter of principle, the specification of a schematic representation of an observer in the form of a ‘Boolean frame’—the Boolean algebra representing the yes-or-no questions associated with a given observable representative of a given experimental context. I argue that the approach’s central concern is with the methodological question of how to assign physical properties to what one takes to be a system in a given experimental context, rather than the metaphysical question of what a given state vector represents independently of any context, and I show how the quantum generalisation of the concept of an open system may be used to assuage Einstein’s complaint that the orthodox approach to quantum mechanics runs afoul of the supposedly fundamental methodological requirement to the effect that one must always be able, according to Einstein, to treat spatially separated systems as isolated from one another. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information-Theoretic Concepts in Physics)
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24 pages, 4256 KiB  
Article
Physical Grounds for Causal Perspectivalism
by Gerard J. Milburn, Sally Shrapnel and Peter W. Evans
Entropy 2023, 25(8), 1190; https://doi.org/10.3390/e25081190 - 10 Aug 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 811
Abstract
We ground the asymmetry of causal relations in the internal physical states of a special kind of open and irreversible physical system, a causal agent. A causal agent is an autonomous physical system, maintained in a steady state, far from thermal equilibrium, with [...] Read more.
We ground the asymmetry of causal relations in the internal physical states of a special kind of open and irreversible physical system, a causal agent. A causal agent is an autonomous physical system, maintained in a steady state, far from thermal equilibrium, with special subsystems: sensors, actuators, and learning machines. Using feedback, the learning machine, driven purely by thermodynamic constraints, changes its internal states to learn probabilistic functional relations inherent in correlations between sensor and actuator records. We argue that these functional relations just are causal relations learned by the agent, and so such causal relations are simply relations between the internal physical states of a causal agent. We show that learning is driven by a thermodynamic principle: the error rate is minimised when the dissipated power is minimised. While the internal states of a causal agent are necessarily stochastic, the learned causal relations are shared by all machines with the same hardware embedded in the same environment. We argue that this dependence of causal relations on such ‘hardware’ is a novel demonstration of causal perspectivalism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information-Theoretic Concepts in Physics)
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22 pages, 578 KiB  
Article
Free Agency and Determinism: Is There a Sensible Definition of Computational Sourcehood?
by Marius Krumm and Markus P. Müller
Entropy 2023, 25(6), 903; https://doi.org/10.3390/e25060903 - 06 Jun 2023
Viewed by 1764
Abstract
Can free agency be compatible with determinism? Compatibilists argue that the answer is yes, and it has been suggested that the computer science principle of “computational irreducibility” sheds light on this compatibility. It implies that there cannot, in general, be shortcuts to predict [...] Read more.
Can free agency be compatible with determinism? Compatibilists argue that the answer is yes, and it has been suggested that the computer science principle of “computational irreducibility” sheds light on this compatibility. It implies that there cannot, in general, be shortcuts to predict the behavior of agents, explaining why deterministic agents often appear to act freely. In this paper, we introduce a variant of computational irreducibility that intends to capture more accurately aspects of actual (as opposed to apparent) free agency, including computational sourcehood, i.e., the phenomenon that the successful prediction of a process’ behavior must typically involve an almost-exact representation of the relevant features of that process, regardless of the time it takes to arrive at the prediction. We argue that this can be understood as saying that the process itself is the source of its actions, and we conjecture that many computational processes have this property. The main contribution of this paper is technical, in that we analyze whether and how a sensible formal definition of computational sourcehood is possible. While we do not answer the question completely, we show how it is related to finding a particular simulation preorder on Turing machines, we uncover concrete stumbling blocks towards constructing such a definition, and demonstrate that structure-preserving (as opposed to merely simple or efficient) functions between levels of simulation play a crucial role. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information-Theoretic Concepts in Physics)
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