Great Problems in Philosophy and Physics

Great Problems
of
Philosophy
and Physics
SOLVED?
Bob Doyle
The Information Philosopher
“beyond logic and language”
This book on the web
informationphilosopher.com/problems/
and metaphysicist.com
Great Problems
of
Philosophy
and Physics
SOLVED?
Bob Doyle
The Information Philosopher
“beyond logic and language”
First edition, 2016
© 2016, Bob Doyle, The Information Philosopher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in

any form by electronic or mechanical means (including photo-
copying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without
the prior permission of The Information Philosopher.
Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)
Names: Doyle, Bob, 1936-

Title: Great problems in philosophy and physics solved? / Bob
Doyle, the Information Philosopher.
Other Titles: Great problems - solved?
Description: First edition. | Cambridge, MA, USA : I-Phi Press,
2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 978-0-9835802-8-7 | ISBN 978-0-9835802-
9-4 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy--Textbooks. | Philosophy and
science--Textbooks.
Classification: LCC BD21 .D69 2016 (print) | LCC BD21
(ebook) | DDC 100--dc23
I-Phi Press
77 Huron Avenue
Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
Dedication
To the hundreds of philosophers and scientists with web pages
on the Information Philosopher website.
After collecting and reading their works for the past six decades,
I have tried to capture their essential contributions to philosophy
and physics, as much as practical with excerpts in their own words.
Special thanks to many who have sent suggestions and
corrections to ensure that their work is presented as accurately
as possible for the students and young professionals who use the
I-Phi website (nearly a thousand unique new visitors every day) as
an entry point into some great intellectual problems that they may
themselves help to solve in the coming decades.
As a scientist and inventor, the author has contributed some
modest tools to help individuals and communities communicate,
to share information. So he would like also to dedicate this work
to some of the creators of the world’s fundamental information-
sharing technologies.
Alexander Graham Bell, Alan Turing, Claude Shannon, John
von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee,
Mark Zuckerberg, Jimmy Wales, Larry Page, Sergei Brin.
Information philosophy builds on the intersection of computers
and communications. These two technologies will facilitate the
sharing of knowledge around the world in the very near future,
when almost everyone will have a smartphone and affordable
access to the Internet and the World-Wide Web.
Information is like love. Giving it to others does not reduce it.
It is not a scarce economic good. Sharing it increases the Sum of
information in human minds.
Information wants to be free.
Bob Doyle
Cambridge, MA
September, 2016
vi Great Problems in Philosophy and Physics - Solved?
te nt s
Con
Contents vii
Table of Contents
Preface xi
How To Use This Book With The I-Phi Website 1
1. Introduction 3
The New Ideas of Information Philosophy 4; The Three Worlds of
Information Philosophy 9; Information Creation in the Material World 10;
Information Creation in the Biological World 11; Information Creation in the
World of Ideas 12; What Does Creation of Information Mean? 13
2. Metaphysics 15
Possibility and Possible Worlds 22; Naming and Necessity 24; Actual
Possibles 25; Actualism 28; Identity 30; Criteria 30; Coinciding Objects 33;
Composition 38; Aristotle Essences 45; Modal Logic Is Not Metaphysics 47
3. Ontology 55
The Metaphysicist’s Approach 56; Continuous or Discrete? 58;
Meta-Ontology 61
4. Free Will 63
The Two-Stage Model of Free Will 64; Neuroscientific Evidence for the
Two-Stage Model 66; History of the Free Will Problem 69; The Standard
Argument Against Free Will 74; Possible Worlds and Alternative Possibilities
76; Free Will and Creativity 77
5. Value 79
An Information-based Moral Code? 84; A Minimum Moral/Political
Message? 85; An Information-based Social Contract? 87; Information and
Negative Entropy as Objective Values 89
6. Good and Evil 91
Information (Negative Entropy) as Objective Good? 92; Evil 93;
A Statistical Comparison with Societal Norms 95
7. God and Immortality 97
No Creator, But There Was/Is A Creation 98; Theodicy (The Problem of
Evil) 98; Omniscience and Omnipotence Contradictory? 98; The Ergod 99;
The Problem of Immortality 100
8. Epistemology 103
The History of Epistemology 104; The Search for Knowledge Turns
Inward 109
9. Universals 119
The One and the Many 122; Philosophical Triads 126; Three Sources for
Authoritative Knowledge 128; Types of Triads 128; A Few Tetrads 129
10. The Problem of Induction 131
Induction and the Scientific Method 137
11. The Problem of Meaning 139
Meaning in the Theory of Information 142
12. Mind 147
The Scandal in Psychology 147; Mind as Immaterial Information 148;
Information Evolves to Become Mind 149; An Information Mind Model 150
viii Great Problems in Philosophy and Physics - Solved?
13. The Mind-Body Problem 155

Interactionists 156; The Mind-Brain Identity Theory 158; Eliminative
Materialism 159; Mind/Body and the ERR 163
14. Consciousness 165
The Binding Problem 166
15. The Self and Other Minds 171
Mind Over Matter? 172; The Problem of Other Minds 173
16. Mental Causation 177
The Problem of Mental Causation according to Kim 179; The Emergence of
Life from Matter and Mind from Life 179; Ribosomes Select Randomly Moving
Amino Acids 181; Ion Pumps in Neurons Select Individual Atoms 183;
Information Solves the Problem of Mental Causation. 185; “Bottom-up”
Physical Processes Are Not Deterministic 186; Molecular Machines 187
17. Information Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics 189
The “Possibilities Function” 194; Possibilities and Information Theory 196;
Other Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics 198
18. The Measurement Problem 201
Von Neumann’s Two Processes 205; Designing a Quantum Measurement
Apparatus 207; An Irreversible Example of Process 1 208; The Bound-
ary between the Classical and Quantum Worlds 210; The Role of the
Conscious Observer 211; Three Essential Steps in a “Measurement” and
“Observation” 214; Quantum Collapses Can Produce New Information 215
19. Determinism 217
Indeterminism 219; Determination 220; The Emergence of Determin-
ism 222; The History of Determinism 222
20. Collapse of the Wave Function 225
What is the Wave Function? 225; Information Physics Explains the Two-Slit
Experiment 227; Where Is Information About Probabilities Embodied? 230
21. Entanglement 233
Einstein’s Discovery of Nonlocality and Nonseparability 235; The Importance
of Conservation Laws in Entanglement 240; Can a Special Frame Resolve the
EPR Paradox? 242; Do We Need Superdeterminism? 245; EPR “Loopholes”
and Free Will 246
22. Decoherence 249
The Decoherence Program 251; The Measurement Process 257;
The Measurement Problem 259; What Decoherence Gets Right 261; What
Decoherence Gets Wrong 263; Quantum Interactions Do Not Create Lasting
Information 263; The Transition from Quantum to Classical World 263;
Decoherence and Standard Quantum Mechanics 264
23. Schrödinger’s Cat 269
24. The Arrow of Time 277
The Thermodynamic Arrow 277; The Historical Arrow 281; The Radiation
Arrow 282; The Cosmological Arrow 283
25. Microscopic Irreversibility 285
The Origin of Irreversibility 287; Detailed Balancing 290
Contents ix
26. The Recurrence Problem 293

Zermelo’s Paradox 293; The Extreme Improbability of Perfect Recurrence 295
27. Emergence 297
Emergence or Reduction? 297; History of the Idea of Emergence 298; Three
Kinds of Information Emergence 302; Emergence in the Body 305; Emer-
gence in the Brain 306; The Emergence of Immaterial Information Process-
ing 306; The Emergence of Determinism 307; There Was a Time with No
Determinism 308; Emergence Denied 309
28. Origins of Life and Information 311
History and Evolution in the Universe 312; The Origin of Information 316;
Information in Biology 317; Biological Machines 319; Ribosomes 321; ATP
Synthase 323; The Flagellum 324; Chaperones 326; Motive Power? 326;
Life, Love, and Death 327; Working Backwards in Time 327
A. Information 331
Information in the Universe 334; Information and Entropy 342
B. Entropy and the Second Law 345
Discrete Particles 345; The Second Law of Thermodynamics 349; Entropy
Flows in the Universe 354; Positive and Negative Flows 356
C. Quantum Physics 361
Basic Quantum Mechanics 366; The Principle of Superposition 367;
The Axiom of Measurement 368; The Projection Postulate 369; Dirac’s Three
Polarizers 371; The Wonder and Mystery of the Oblique Polarizer 374;
The Quantum Physics Explanation 375; Einstein and Quantum Physics 376
D. Chance 379
The Calculus of Probabilities 381; Chance and Free Will 392
E. Experience Recorder and Reproducer 395
The Binding Problem 398; Speed and Power of the ERR 399; How the ERR
Works 400; The ERR and Consciousness 401; Four “Levels” of the ERR 403;
What It’s Like To Be A... 404; Mental States? 405; Summary 406
F. The Cosmic Creation Process 409
The Fundamental Question of Information Philosophy 409; The Two Steps in
Cosmic Creation 411; The Flatness Problem in Cosmology 414; The Problem
of Missing Mass 416; The Horizon Problem 417
G. Biosemiotics 419
Will Biologists Accept Biosemiotics? 420
Bibliography 423
Arrow of Time 423; Biology 423; Chance 424; Consciousness 424;
Cosmology 424; Decoherence 425; Einstein 425; Emergence 426;
Entanglement 426; Epistemology 426; Free Will 427; Information in
Biology 428; Information 428; Meaning 428; Metaphysics 429; Mind 429;
Origin of Life 431; Philosophy 432; Physics 432; Psychology 433; Quantum
Mechanics 434; Theology 435; Value 435
Index 437
Image Credits 450; Books by Bob Doyle 450; Colophon 450
x Great Problems of Philosophy - Solved?
Preface
re f a ce
P
Preface xi
Preface
Preface
If I am right that information philosophy is a new method of
philosophizing, if by going “beyond logic and language” it can
provide new philosophical insights, it should be tested, applied to
some of the great problems in philosophy and the philosophy of
science. But what are the great problems?
A survey of several popular textbooks on philosophy produces
a remarkable consensus on the problems facing philosophers from
ancient to modern times. They typically include metaphysics -
what is there?, the problem of knowledge - how do we know what
exists?, the mind/body problem - can an immaterial mind move
the material body?, the “hard problem” of consciousness, free-
dom of the will, theories of ethics - is there an objective universal
Good?, and problems from theology - does God exist?, is God
responsible for the evil in the world, what is immortality?
Perhaps the best-known summary of philosophical problems
was Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy, published
over a hundred years ago. Other important texts in analytic
philosophy were G. E. Moore’s Some Main Problems of Philosophy
and later A. J. Ayer’s The Central Questions of Philosophy.1
Another set of classic problems comes from the philosophy
of science, which attempts to use metaphysics, ontology,
epistemology, and logic to provide new foundational principles
for the sciences. Philosophers of science question the foundations
of physics as well as the attempts by some thinkers to reduce all sci-
ences to physics. Some philosophers of mind, by contrast, argue
for emergent properties that cannot be reduced to a “causally
closed” world of physics.
Philosophers of biology speculate whether biology can be
reduced to physics and chemistry, or whether something else is
needed to explain life. We will show that information processing
and communication is the extra explanatory factor.
1 A popular recent text surveyed is Feinberg and Shafer-Landau, 2002
xii Great Problems of Philosophy - Solved?
Preface
Figure 1. A taxonomy of problems in physics and philosophy.

Preface xiii
The figure on the left arranges these great philosophy problems

and major problems in the philosophy of physics into a taxonomy
Preface
showing their relationships.
In the twentieth century, philosophers like Ludwig
Wittgenstein labeled many of our problems “philosophical
puzzles.” Russell called them “pseudo-problems.”
In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein hoped
to represent all knowledge in words. He saw a proposition as a
picture or model of reality and that the totality of true proposi-
tions is the whole of natural science (or the whole corpus of the
natural sciences).2 In his later work, he and subsequent analytic
language philosophers thought many of these problems could be
“dis-solved,” revealing them to be conceptual errors caused by the
misuse of language.
As an aeronautical engineer and architect, Wittgenstein might
have explored his idea of dynamical models3 further. He might
have seen that models are a better tool than language to represent
the fundamental, metaphysical nature of reality. Dynamical inter-
active models can easily show what often cannot be said.
Information philosophy goes beyond a priori logic and its
puzzles, beyond analytic language and its paradoxes, beyond
philosophical claims of necessary truths, to a contingent physical
world that is best represented with models of dynamic, interacting
information structures, including living things.
Knowledge begins with information in minds that is a partial
isomorphism (mapping) of the information structures in the
external world. I-Phi is the ultimate correspondence theory.
Using the new methodology of information philosophy, many
classic problems are now back under consideration as genuinely
important, analyzable, and potentially soluble in terms of physical,
but immaterial, information.
To be sure, where scientists seek solutions, philosophers prefer
problems, especially ones that are teachable as problems. But the
goal of information philosophy is not to remove a problem from
philosophy once it is tentatively solved.
2 Tractatus 4.01, 4.11
3 Tractatus 4.04
xiv Great Problems of Philosophy - Solved?
Returning to Russell’s pioneering text, we can say he simply was

wrong when he insisted that
Preface
“questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in

the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer
can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.”4
Information philosophy aims to show that philosophical problems
should not be reduced to “Russell’s Residue.”
Although our proposed solutions to dozens of problems are
grounded in science, they remain great questions in philosophy that
should continue to be taught as philosophy.
What’s In The Book
The introductory chapter provides background on the basic
concepts of information philosophy - what information is, its
relationship to entropy and the second law of thermodynamics,
how information is created, why metaphysical (non-epistemic)
possibilities are needed in order to create new information, the
connection between the theoretical probability of each possibility
and the empirical statistics of actual events, how many living
things have an experience recorder and reproducer (ERR) that stores
and recalls information, and why, despite microscopic chaos and
ontological indeterminism, the macroscopic world we live in is
adequately or statistically deterministic, a cosmos that only appears
to be determined and “causally closed under the laws of nature.”
Because information is immaterial, it provides insights into many
questions regarded as metaphysical. They include being and becom-
ing, causality, chance, change, coinciding objects, composition
(parts and wholes), constitution, essentialism, identity (and dif-
ferences), individuation, modality (counterfactuals), necessity (or
contingency), persistence (perdurance and endurance), possibility
and actuality, space and time, truth, and vagueness. Much work
in recent metaphysics has been an effort to establish metaphysical
necessity, especially the necessity of identity.
By contrast, information philosophy shows the existence of
metaphysical possibilities. See chapter 2 for some proposed solutions
to the questions above and go to metaphysicist.com for the rest.
4 The Problems of Philosophy, 1912, p.155

Preface xv
Chapter 3 explores meta-ontological questions about the

existential status of Platonic Forms, such as numbers and other
Preface
abstract entities.
In chapter 4, we present our two-stage model of free will, which
begins with the free generation of random alternatives (new infor-
mation) followed by a willed decision that is adequately (statisti-
cally) determined by our motives and reasons. The chance events in
the first stage do not cause our actions, although they are factors in
the decision. It is the agent’s decision in the second stage that is the
cause of the action. Actions are not pre-determined.
Chapter 5 makes the case that, because a formless entity has no
utility, information serves as a basis for objective value.
In chapters 6 and 7, armed with the value of information, we dis-
cuss good, the problem of Evil, God, and information immortality.
Chapter 8 argues that knowledge is created in minds, where it
remains embodied in the experience recorder, but may be stored
externally in books and the world-wide web.
In chapter 9, we examine the status of attributes and properties.
The problem of induction is connected to deduction and
abduction (hypothesis formation) in chapter 10.
Chapter 11 relates the meaning of a new experience to the recorded
experiences that are played back during the new one.
In chapters 12 and 13, we offer a model of the mind as immate-
rial information, as “software in the hardware” of the material brain,
which we see as a biological information processor.
In chapter 14 and appendix E we analyze consciousness as the
interactive exchange of actionable information by the experience
recorder and reproducer (ERR) .
We show in chapter 16 how downward mental causation is
possible, while bottom-up causal chains that would reduce biology
and psychology to physics and chemistry are implausible.
We provide an interpretation of quantum mechanics in chapter
17 that minimizes mysteries with visual models of what is going on
in the quantum world of possibility waves and actual particles.
xvi Great Problems of Philosophy - Solved?
We show in chapter 18 that unless new information is created,

there is nothing for an observer to see and nothing to be measured.
Preface
There is no strict determinism and thus no pre-determinism. In

chapter 19 we see that the statistical determinism that we have is
adequate enough to give us causal control when we need it.
When a particle is located somewhere, the many other possible
locations it might have been found (where the wave function was
non-zero) simply disappear as possibilities. In chapter 20, we call
this the collapse of the possibilities function. It is the fundamental
unavoidable quantum mystery.
In chapter 21, we disentangle the EPR paradox by showing that
we cannot measure one entangled particle without also instantly
measuring the second particle, as the two-particle wave function
collapses everywhere.
The “transition” from the quantum world to the appearance of a
classical world (decoherence) occurs when the number of particles
is large enough to average over quantum chance. In chapter 22, we
see there is only one world, quantum all the way up!
In chapter 23, the puzzle of Schrödinger’s Cat is solved by showing
that the macroscopic cat is always either dead or alive. Schrödinger’s
possibilities function gives us only the probabilities that the cat is
dead or alive before we look in the box.
Chapter 24 discusses arrows of time (radiation, entropy increase,
evolution, history), and the fundamental arrow, the expansion of
the universe, which creates all possibilities.
The origin of irreversibility is the random direction of particles
after their interaction with radiation. Chapter 25 shows this loss of
microscopic path information explains “one-way causality” in the
biological and mental realms.
The idea that the universe will ultimately return to its original
state is shown in chapter 26 to be wrong.
New information structures created at the biological and mental
levels explain how new properties emerge that cannot be reduced to
lower levels in a “causally closed” physical world. Chapter 27.
Preface xvii
In chapter 28, we show that the story of biological evolution is

continuous with the evolution of cosmological information struc-
Preface
tures. Life has evolved to include biological information processing
and communications as well as the external storage of information
that contains what we call the Sum of human knowledge. Living
things are dynamic and growing information structures, forms
through which matter and energy continuously flow. And it is infor-
mation that controls those flows!
Appendix A defines information and proposes dynamical interac-
tive information models as the best way to teach and to solve prob-
lems in philosophy.
In appendix B we show how statistical mechanics calculates the
possible positions and velocities for vast numbers of molecules in
a gas and proves the famous Second Law of Thermodynamics -
that entropy always increases, yet the universe creates magnificent
information structures, including us!
Appendix C reviews the basic principles of standard quantum
physics, which are unfortunately questioned or denied by so many
ill-informed philosophers of science.
In appendix D we ask whether chance is ontological and real or
epistemic and the result of human ignorance? We look through Ein-
stein’s skeptical eyes to see the origin of ontological chance, without
which there would be “nothing new under the sun.”
Appendix E describes the experience recorder and reproducer
(ERR), which stores information about all your past experiences
and plays back in the subconscious mind those that resemble some-
thing in your current experience.
In appendix F we describe the critical steps in the cosmic creation
process, which accounts not only for the existence of atoms and
molecules, for the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets, and for
biological evolution, but also for the “free creations of the human
mind” behind our philosophy and our physics.
Appendix G argues that life is coextensive with language, that
biology uses a semiotic system of signaling, signifiers, and signi-
fieds. Human language evolved from biological communications.
xviii Great Problems of Philosophy - Solved?
I hope that you will look at the I-Phi website to explore further
work in progress on these great problems in physics and philosophy.
Preface
Google Analytics reports that Information Philosopher has tens

of thousands of unique visitors each year from all over the world.
I look forward to your emails with critical comments on problems
that interest you and your feedback on our web pages for over 300
philosophers and scientists who have worked on these problems.
A Google search for their names often returns links to I-Phi pages
on the first results page, alongside those from Wikipedia and the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Wikipedia does not allow original research and each article on
the SEP is mostly the work of a single philosopher, with minimal
content from original sources. By contrast, I-Phi pages present
the work of hundreds of philosophers and scientists, often in their
original languages, with downloadable PDFs of their major papers,
for scholars without easy online access.
For example, we now have a bilingual Tractatus, with indexes in
English and German, and a bilingual of Frege’s major argument.
Your inputs will help make informationphilosopher.com as
accurate a resource as possible for twenty-first-century philosophers.
Please also take a look at our new websites devoted to metaphysical
problems that we believe are solvable using information philosophy,
metaphysicist.com, and our case for possibilities - possibilist.com.
Bob Doyle
[email protected]
Cambridge, MA
September, 2016
1
How To Use This Book With The I-Phi Website
Chapter 1
The content of this book comes primarily from the Problems
section on the informationphilosopher.com website and from our
new metaphysicist.com site. You will find multiple entry points
into the websites from this book, with URLs for the chapters and in
many of the footnotes. I hope that you agree that the combination of
a printed book and an online knowledge-base website is a powerful
way to do philosophy in the twenty-first century.
The Problems web page has a right-hand navigation menu to
the major problems and left-hand navigation to the hundreds of
philosophers and scientists who have contributed to these classic
problems in philosophy and physics.
Figures in the text often link to full-color animated images on the

I-Phi website. All images come from open-source websites.
Names in Small Caps are the philosophers and scientists with
web pages on the I-Phi website.
It is not easy to navigate any website, and I-Phi is no exception.
Find things of interest quickly with the Search box on every page.
Once on a page, a “Cite this page” function generates a citation
with the URL and the date you retrieved the page, in standard APA
format that you can copy and paste into your work.
2 Great Problems of Philosophy and Physics - Solved?
Chapter 1
c t i o n
Int rodu
Introduction 3
Introduction
Chapter 1
Information philosophy is a new methodology for diagnosing
and analyzing plausible solutions for several great philosophical
problems, many with us since antiquity. It hopes to take phi-
losophy, and the philosophy of sciences like physics and biology,
beyond logical puzzles and language games.
The information philosopher proposes information as the
preferred basis for examining current problems in a wide range
of disciplines - from information creation in cosmology to
measurement information in quantum physics, from the emer-
gence of information in biology to its role in psychology, where it
offers a solution to the classic mind-body problem and the “hard”
problem of consciousness. And of course in philosophy, where
failed language analysis can be replaced or at least augmented
by the analysis of immaterial information content as the basis for
justified (if not “true”) beliefs and as a ground for objective values.
The immodest goal of information philosophy is to restore
philosophy to its ancient role as the provider of first principles to
all other systems of thought.
Information philosophy is a philosophical system, the first since
the nineteenth century, because it makes the somewhat extrava-
gant claim that analysis of the information content, its creation,
processing, and communication, can provide profound insight
into problems of philosophy, physics and biology that have so far
not yielded acceptable solutions.
Just as analytical language philosophy is not the philosophy
of language, so information philosophy is not the philosophy of
information, with its focus on the philosophy of computers and
the proper uses of information technology.
Information is physical, but it is immaterial, and as such, it
enters the realm of the metaphysical. Information is neither matter
nor energy, though it needs matter for its embodiment and energy
for its communication. Information is the modern spirit.
Although the tagline of information philosophy is “beyond

logic and language,” the information philosopher uses logic (while
Chapter 1
noting that logic alone can tell us nothing about the physical
world) and of course information philosophy is written in a lan-
guage, despite the fact that the fundamental ambiguity of words
makes precise communication difficult and despite the inability
of twentieth-century linguistic analysis to make much progress in
philosophy.
As the possible ground for all thought, information philosophy
may be a sort of metaphilosophy. Quantitative information comes
close to Gottfried Leibniz’s ideal ambiguity-free language, though
the problem of meaning1 remains irreducibly contextual.
The strength of information philosophy comes from embrac-
ing and incorporating quantitative new knowledge from physics,
biology, and neuroscience - but above all, from the fields of infor-
mation theory and information science.
This raises the bar for young philosophers. In addition to doing
clear conceptual analysis of problems and knowing the history of
classic philosophical problems, they may now have to master some
concepts from quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, molecular
biology, neuroscience, and cosmology.
So beyond the words and images in this book, the I-Phi website
provides animated visualizations of the most basic concepts that
you will need to become an information philosopher.
These visualizations are dynamical and interactive models of
what is going on at the most fundamental level of reality. They let
us directly show concepts that may not be easily said.
Some of these concepts are familiar philosophical ones that we
hope information will explain more clearly. Some are scientific
concepts that every philosopher should know today. Other ideas
are novel and unique to information philosophy.
1 See chapter 11 for more on the meaning in information.
Introduction 5
The New Ideas of Information Philosophy

Here is a quick summary of several key ideas you should know
Chapter 1
which play major roles in the rest of this book.
1) Possibilities exist. Their existential status is problematic,
because possibilities are not things, not physical material objects.
They belong to the Platonic realm of ideas, an “ideal world” con-
trasted with the “material world.” We will discuss the status of
possibilities as a problem in metaphysics. Metaphysicians today
defend necessitism, especially the necessity of identity. We will
defend a metaphysical possibilism.
Note that the “possible worlds” of metaphysicians like David
Lewis and the “many worlds” of physicists like Hugh Everett III
are perfectly deterministic. Actual possibilities mean there is more
than one possible future.
2) Chance is real. Without chance and the generation of pos-
sibilities, no new information can come into the world. Without
chance, there can be no creativity. Without the creation of new
information, new ideas, the information content of the universe
would be a constant - “nothing new under the sun.” In such an
eliminatively materialist and determinist world, there is but one
possible future. Possibilities are metaphysical and chance is onto-
logical.
3) Determinism is an illusion. Determinism has had a long and
successful history in philosophy and physics, but it is an unwar-
ranted assumption, not supported by the evidence. The material
world is quantum mechanical, and ontological chance is the result
of quantum indeterminacy. An adequate and statistical determin-
ism does appear when macroscopic objects contain large numbers
of microscopic particles so that quantum events can be averaged
over.
4) Knowledge is an isomorphism. Information represents a con-
cept or an object better than an imprecise description in language.
Information is the form in all concrete objects as well as the con-
tent in non-existent, merely possible, abstract entities. Knowledge
is an information structure in a mind that is a partial isomorphism
(a mapping) of an information structure in the external world.

Information philosophy is the ultimate correspondence theory.
Chapter 1
4) Beyond language. But there is no isomorphism, no informa-

tion in common, no necessary connection, between words and
objects. Although language is an excellent tool for human com-
munication, its arbitrary and ambiguous nature makes it ill-suited
to represent the world directly. Language does not picture reality.
Is is not the best tool for solving philosophical problems.
5) The experience recorder and reproducer. The extraordinarily
sophisticated connection between words and objects is made in
human minds, mediated by the brain’s experience recorder and
reproducer (ERR). Words stimulate neurons to start firing and to
play back relevant experiences that include the objects. The neu-
roscientist Donald Hebb famously said that “neurons that fire
together get wired together.” Our ERR model says neurons that
were wired together by old experiences will fire together again
when a new experience resembles the old in any way, instantly
providing guidance to deal with the new.
6) Dynamic models. The elements of information philosophy,
dynamical models of information structures, go far beyond logic
and language as a representation of the fundamental, metaphysi-
cal, nature of reality. They “write” directly into our mental experi-
ence recorders. By contrast, words must be interpreted in terms of
earlier experiences. Without words and related experiences previ-
ously recorded in your mental experience recorder, you could not
comprehend spoken or written words. They would be mere noise,
with no meaning. Compare these two representations of a cat.
Figure 1-1. Linguistic and picture/model representations compared.

Introduction 7
Compared to a spoken or printed word, a photograph or a

moving picture with sound can be seen and mostly understood by
Chapter 1
human beings, independent of their native tongue.
Computer animated dynamical models can incorporate all the
laws of nature, from the differential equations of quantum physics
to the myriad processes of biology. At their best, such simulations
are not only our most accurate knowledge of the physical world,
they are the best teaching tools ever devised. We can transfer
knowledge non-verbally to coming generations and most of the
world’s population via the Internet and ubiquitous smartphones.
A dynamic information model of an information structure in
the world is presented immediately to the mind as a look-alike and
act-alike simulation, which is experienced for itself, not mediated
through ambiguous words.
7) Laws of nature are statistical. Because microscopic atomic
processes are governed by quantum physics, which is a statistical
theory, all laws of nature are in fact statistical laws. They give us
probabilities, not certainties. When material objects contain large
numbers of atomic particles, the statistical uncertainty approaches
zero and the laws are adequately but only statistically deterministic.
Quantum mechanical probabilities (Erwin Schrödinger‘s wave
functions) evolve deterministically and continuously according
to the Schrödinger equation, but the actual outcomes occur dis-
continuously and statistically. While this may seem like a logical
contradiction, it is not.
The average value of possible particle positions moves according
to classical mechanical laws, but the actual positions where par-
ticles are found are indeterminate (random), following quantum
mechanical laws. The “determinism” we have is only an “adequate”
statistical determinism.
8) Entropy and the Second Law. Abstract immaterial informa-
tion is mathematically, phenomenologically, and experimentally
related to a physical quantity in thermodynamics and statistical
mechanics called the entropy. The second law of thermodynamics
says that, left to itself, a closed system approaches a state of maxi-

mum entropy, or disorder. This change is “irreversible,” without
an input of free energy and information (negative entropy) from
Chapter 1
outside the system.

A closed system cannot spontaneously increase its information
structure, rearranging its material to contain more information. It
can of course spontaneously decay, and will do so according to the
second law. The approach to equilibrium destroys information.
The lost information equals the amount of entropy (disorder)
that is gained. Information is sometimes called negative entropy,
the amount by which a system is below the maximum entropy
possible.
9) The universe is open. It began in a state of total disorder, with
the maximum entropy possible for the initial conditions, some
13.75 billion years ago. How then can the universe today contain
such rich information structures as galaxies, stars, and planets like
Earth, with its rich biological information-processing systems?
This is the fundamental question of information philosophy.
The answer is that the maximum entropy of the early universe
was tiny compared to the maximum possible entropy today, as a
result of the expansion of the universe. And because the universe
has not had time to reach its potential maximum of disorder, new
information (negative entropy) has been and is now being created.
The expansion of the universe is the fundamental arrow of time.
10) Negative entropy has value. The source for all potential infor-
mation can be a basis for objective value.
11) The cosmic creation process. Information philosophy explains
the creation, the emergence of new information in the universe
as a two-step process beginning with a quantum event (in which
possibilities become actualized) and ending with some positive
entropy carried away from the resulting low-entropy information
structure, to satisfy the second law. 2
This process explains the creation of every single bit of infor-
mation, whether the formation of a hydrogen atom from a proton
2 See appendix F for more details.

Introduction 9
and electron, a complex physical measurement like discovering

the Higgs boson, or the creation of a new idea in a human mind.
Chapter 1
12) The two-stage model of free will. Since every free act cre-
ates information, free will is intimately related to cosmic creation,
beginning with the generation of alternative possibilities for action.
13) Information is history. The material particles of physics and
chemistry carry no history. Their paths do not tell us where they
have been in the past, though some deterministic physicists think
so. Cosmological objects do have an evolutionary history. And so
does biology. Matter and energy (with low entropy) flows through
living things, maintaining their dynamical information structures.
To discover the origin of life, it will be easier to work backwards
in time through the history of biological evolution than to start
from physics and chemistry that knows nothing of information.
The Three Worlds of Information Philosophy
There is an over arching idea that provides a high-level view
of the role of information. It is the notion that the “world” can be
divided into “worlds” based on the ancient dualist view, a material
world in the here and now and an ideal world above and beyond
it, “outside space and time,” some think.
Beyond the dualism, many philosophers have argued for a
“third world” between these two. Information philosophy strongly
defends this notion of a third world, which is distinguished by the
interaction of abstract information processing and concrete infor-
mation structures in the world of living things.
The great logician Gottlob Frege distinguished three “realms;”
an external realm of public physical things and events, an internal
subjective realm of private thoughts, and an “objective” Platonic
realm of ideal “senses” (to which sentences refer, providing their
meaning).
Karl Popper (very likely influenced by Frege) made the case for
a World I - the realm of physical things and processes, a World II
- the realm of subjective human experience, and a World III - the
realm of culture and objective knowledge.
Charles Sanders Peirce proposed a triad of Objects, Percepts,

and Concepts, which maps well onto the realms and worlds of
Chapter 1
Frege and Popper.

Information philosophy agrees with these fundamental divi-
sions, but defines them based on the different roles played by
information in each world. The three “worlds” of information phi-
losophy are symbolized in our tricolor logo (the colors are visible
on the book cover and on our website). The material world is the
lower green ball. The biological world is the middle red ball, and
the ideal or mental world is the upper blue ball.
We see the biological world as mixing matter from the material
world and form from the ideal world. It is much larger than Pop-
per’s world of subjective human experience. All living things have
experiences and the experience recorder and reproducer (ERR)
model of information philosophy lets us understand better “what
it’s like to be” a conscious living thing by analyzing its experiences.
The biological world is unique in that it not only creates but also
processes and communicates information.
The mental world is an immaterial world, a world of pure infor-
mation, the stuff of thought and of philosophy.
We can identify three different roles for information in these
three worlds - the purely material, the biological, and the mental.
But we shall see in appendix F that information creation in all
three worlds involves the same fundamental process of physical
information creation that is common to all creation processes,
from the largest galaxies down to the composite matter of nucle-
ons, atoms, and molecules built up from the fundamental particles
of physics - quarks, gluons, photons and electrons,
We will show that this cosmic creation process is also present
in all biological information creation, including the creation of
new ideas in human minds. Understanding this process is vital
to the solutions of several of our problems in philosophy and the
philosophy of physics.
Introduction 11
Information Creation in the Material World

The physical world of material objects, often described by
Chapter 1
philosophers as the “external world,” could not be perceived or
distinguished as individual objects if it did not have observable
shapes or forms. If the matter were in a state of thermal equilib-
rium, maximum disorder or entropy, it might resemble the inte-
rior of a cloud, uniform in appearance in all directions. The early
universe was just such a haze for the first few hundred thousand
years. There was no permanent information structure larger than
atomic and sub-atomic particles (electrons, protons, neutrons,
helium nuclei).
The physical shapes that we do see - the sun, moon, and stars,
the mountains and rivers - are the result of physical processes that
created the quantifiable information in those shapes and forms.
Cosmologists, astrophysicists, and geophysicists have specific
models of how visible material objects like galaxies, stars, and
planets came into existence and evolved over time.
But, and this is new and philosophically significant, the early
universe did not contain the information of later times, just as
early primates do not contain the information structures for intel-
ligence and verbal communication that humans do, and infants
do not contain the knowledge and remembered experience they
will have as adults.
Creation of information in the material world can be described
as the “order out of chaos” when matter and radiation first appeared
and the expansion of the early universe led to the gravitational
attraction of randomly distributed matter into highly organized
galaxies, stars, and planets. The expansion - the increasing space
between material objects - drove the universe away from thermo-
dynamic equilibrium, increasing the positive entropy and, some-
what paradoxically, at the same time creating negative entropy, a
quantitative measure of the order that is the basis for all informa-
tion. Material information structures were emergent.
Information Creation in the Biological World

A qualitatively different second kind of information creation
Chapter 1
was when the first molecule on earth replicated itself and went
on to duplicate its information exponentially. Accidental errors in
the duplication provided variations in reproductive success, the
basis for evolution. But most important, besides being informa-
tion creators, biological systems are also information processors.
Living things use information to guide their actions. All biological
systems are built from communicating “cognitive” elements.
Biology is physics and chemistry plus information.
Many biologists have explored the role of information in bio-
logical processes. We want to emphasize that all living things
are biological information processors, precursors of our man-
made information-processing machines. Whereas computers
are assembled by humans, even in the case of computers that we
design to assemble other computers, biological information pro-
cessors assemble themselves from atoms and molecules.
Biological evolution can be viewed as a story of information-
processing systems becoming steadily more powerful and sophis-
ticated. With the appearance of life in the universe came teleo-
nomic purpose. This biological purpose is not a telos, an essence
preceding the existence of life, but life, once existing, striving to
maintain and improve itself. The earliest philosophers, especially
Aristotle, recognized this as a unique characteristic, perhaps the
defining characteristic, of living things. He called it “entelechy,”
meaning “to have a purpose within.”
Matter and energy are conserved. There is the same amount of
E + mc2 today as there was at the universe origin. But information
is not conserved. It has been increasing since the beginning of
time. Everything emergent3 is new information.
Living things are dynamic and growing information structures,
forms through which matter and energy continuously flow.
And it is information processing that controls those flows, usu-
ally putting each atom or molecule in an appropriate place!
3 See chapter 27 on emergence
Introduction 13
Information Creation in the World of Ideas

The third process of information creation, and the most impor-
Chapter 1
tant to philosophy, is human creativity. Almost every philosopher
since philosophy began has considered the mind as something
distinct from the body. Information philosophy provides a new
explanation for that critical distinction.
We see the concrete physical information structures of the
universe evolving to create abstract information creation and
processing systems. Human beings are the current pinnacle of
that evolutionary process, especially as we are conscious, indeed
self-conscious, of our role externalizing information, sharing
knowledge with our fellow human beings and guarding it as our
most important gift to future generations.
For better or worse, it is knowledge, pure information, that pro-
vides humanity with the Baconian power we have to dominate our
planet. Subverting traditional notions of economic scarcity and
of fundamental limits to material resources, information creation
has continuously provided new and different ways to use the exist-
ing material of our planet as new resources.
We identify the mind with the immaterial information in the
material brain, the knowledge acquired through a combination
of heredity and experience. The brain, part of the material body,
we see as a biological information processor. As many philoso-
phers and cognitive scientists have speculated in recent decades,
the mind is indeed software in the brain hardware.
What Does Creation of Information Mean?
Creation means the coming into existence, the “emergence,” of
recognizable information structures, from a prior chaotic state in
which there was little recognizable order or information.
This fact of increasing information describes very well an unde-
termined universe with an open future that is still creating itself.
Stars are still forming, biological systems are creating new species,
and intelligent human beings are co-creators of the world we live
in. We are the authors of our lives.
Chapter 2
ys i c s
M etaph
This chapter on the web

metaphysicist.com
informationphilosopher.com/problems/metaphysics
Metaphysics 15
Metaphysics
We apply methods of information philosophy to metaphysics
Chapter 2
and find solutions to several classic problems, puzzles and para-
doxes. You can find them all on our new website metaphysicist.
com and in our forthcoming book Metaphysics. In this chapter,
we discuss just a few of them, absolute and relative identity, the
problem of composition (parts/wholes), coinciding objects (colo-
cation), Aristotelian essentialism, the need for metaphysical pos-
sibility, and the semantics and modal logic of "possible worlds."
Many ancient puzzles are variations on the problem of coincid-
ing objects, including Dion and Theon, the Growing Argument,
and the Statue and the Clay. We solve these puzzles.
A central problem in information philosophy is the existential
or ontological status of ideas. The creation of new ideas requires
the existence of ontological chance. Metaphysical possibility must
therefore be a fundamental aspect of metaphysical reality.
Information provides a unique explanation of self-identity and
the relative identity of numerically distinct objects. It also explains
the existential status of abstract entities.
Metaphysics is an abstract human invention about the nature
of concrete reality – immaterial thoughts about material things.
Information philosophy explains the metaphysics of chance and
possibilities, which always underlie the creation of new informa-
tion. Without metaphysical possibilities, there can be no human
creativity and no new knowledge.
A materialist metaphysics asks questions about the underly-
ing substrate presumed to constitute all the objects in the uni-
verse. Unfortunately, most modern philosophers are eliminative
materialists and determinists who think there is "nothing but" the
substrate of matter. As Jaegwon Kim puts it,
“bits of matter and their aggregates in space-time exhaust the contents
of the world. This means that one would be embracing an ontology
that posits entities other than material substances — that is, imma-
terial minds, or souls, outside physical space, with immaterial, non-
physical properties.”1
1 Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. p.71
A formalist or idealist metaphysics asks about the arrangement

and organization of matter that shapes material objects, what
brings their forms into existence, and what causes their changes
Chapter 2
in space and time. Information philosophy defends a Platonic

realm of immaterial ideas in a property dualism with the realm
of matter. The information realm is physical and natural. It is not
supernatural and “outside space and time.” Ideas are embodied
in matter and use energy for their communication. But they are
neither matter nor energy. They are forms that inform.
The total amount of matter (and energy) in the universe is a
conserved quantity. Because of the universe expansion, there is
ever more room in space for each material particle, ever more
ways to arrange the material, ever more possibilities. The total
information in the universe is constantly increasing. This is the
first contribution of information philosophy to metaphysics.
The second contribution is to restore a dualist idealism, based
on the essential importance of information communication in
all living things. Since the earliest forms of proto-life, informa-
tion stored in each organism has been used to create the following
generations, including the variations that have evolved to become
thinking human beings who have invented the world of ideas
that contains metaphysics. Abstract information is an essential, if
immaterial, part of reality. Plato was right that his “ideas” (ἰδέας)
are real. Plato's forms inform.
A third contribution from information philosophy adds biology
to the analysis of metaphysical problems which began in puzzles
over change and growth. The parts of living things – we call them
biomers – are communicating with one another, which integrates
them into their “wholes” in a way impossible for mere material
parts – we find a biomereological essentialism.
The arrangement of individual material particles and their
interaction is abstract immaterial information. The metaphysics
of information can explain the cosmic creation process underly-
ing the origin of all information structures in the universe and the
communication of information between all living things, which
Metaphysics 17
we will show use a meaningful biological language, consisting of

arbitrary symbols. Biological communications have evolved to
become human language.
Chapter 2
Ontology asks the question “what is there?”
Eliminative materialism claims that nothing exists but mate-
rial particles, which makes many problems in ancient and modern
metaphysics difficult if not insoluble. To be sure, we are made
of the same material as the ancient metaphysicians. With every
breath we take, we inspire 10 or 20 of the fixed number of mol-
ecules of air that sustained Aristotle. We can calculate this because
the material in the universe is a constant.
But information is not a fixed quantity. The stuff of thought and
creativity, information has been increasing since the beginning of
the universe. There is ever more knowledge (but relatively little
increase in wisdom?) With hundreds if not thousands of times as
many philosophers as ancient Greece, can we still be debating the
same ancient puzzles and paradoxes?
Information philosophy restores so-called “non-existent
objects” to our ontology. Abstract entities consist of the same kind
of information that provides the structure and process informa-
tion of a concrete object. What we call a “concept” about an object
is some subset of the immaterial information in the object, accu-
rate to the extent that the concept is isomorphic to that subset.
Epistemology asks, “how do we know what there is?”
Immaterial information provides a new ground for epistemol-
ogy, the theory of knowledge. We know something about the
“things themselves” when we discover an isomorphism between
our abstract ideas and concrete objects in the material world. But
words and names are not enough. Information philosophy goes
beyond the logical puzzles and language games of analytic phi-
losophy. It identifies knowledge as information in human minds
and in the external artifacts of human culture.
Abstract information is the foundation – the metaphysical

ground – of both logic and language as means of communication.
It is a dual parallel to the material substrate that the Greeks called
Chapter 2
ὑποκείμενον - the “underlying.” It gives matter its form and shape.

Form informs.
Much of formal metaphysics is about necessary relationships
between universal ideas, certain knowledge that we can believe
independent of any experience, knowledge that is “a priori” and
“analytic” (true by logic and reason alone, or by definition). Some
of these ideas appear to be unchanging, eternal truths in any pos-
sible world.
Information philosophy now shows that there is no necessity
in the natural world. Apodeictic certainty is just an idea. There
is no a priori knowledge that was not first discovered empirically
(a posteriori). Only after a fact is discovered do
we see how to demonstrate it logically as a priori. There is no
And everything analytic is part of a humanly con- necessity in the
structed language, and thus synthetic. All such natural world
“truths” are philosophical inventions, mere con-
cepts, albeit some of the most powerful ideas ever to enter the
universe.
Most important, a formal and idealistic metaphysics is about
abstract entities, in logic and mathematics, some of which seem to
be true independent of time and space. Aristotle, the first metaphy-
sician, called them “first principles” (archai, axioma). Gottfried
Leibniz said they are true in all possible worlds, which is to say
their truth is independent of the world.
But if these abstract metaphysical truths are not material,
where are these ideas in our world? Before their discovery, they
subsisted as unknown properties. Once invented and discovered
to be empirical facts, they are embedded in material objects, arti-
facts, and minds – the software in our hardware. Those ideas that
are invented but not found empirically “real” (imagined fictions,
flawed hypotheses, round squares) are also added to the sum of
human knowledge, even if never embodied.
Metaphysics 19
Many unchanging abstract entities share a property that the

early philosophers Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle called “Being,”
to distinguish its nature from “Becoming,” the property of all
material objects that change with time. Certain truths cannot pos-
Chapter 2
sibly change. They are eternal, “outside space and time.”
It is unfortunate that information philosophy undermines the
logical concepts of metaphysical necessity, certainty, the a priori
and analytic, even truth itself, by limiting their analyticity to the
unchanging abstract entities in the realm of Being. But, on the
positive side, information philosophy now establishes the meta-
physical possibility of ontological possibilities.
Possibilities depend on the existence of irreducible ontological
chance, the antithesis of necessity. Without metaphysical possi-
bilities, no new information can be created.
Information philosophy and metaphysics restore an immate-
rial mind to the impoverished and deflated metaphysics that we
have had since empiricism and naturalism rejected the dualism of
René Descartes and its troublesome mind-body problem.
Naturalism is a materialism. Just as existentialism is a human-
ism. Even stronger, naturalism is an eliminative materialism. It
denies the immaterial and particularly the mental.
While information philosophy is a form of the great dualism
of idealism versus materialism, it is not a substance dualism.
Information is a physical, though immaterial, property of matter.
Information philosophy is a property dualism.
Abstract information is neither matter nor energy, although it
needs matter for its embodiment and energy for its communica-
tion.
Information is immaterial. It is the modern spirit, the ghost in
the machine. It is the mind in the body. It is the soul. And when
we die, our personal information and its communication perish.
The matter remains.
Information is the underlying currency of all communication
and language. Passive material objects in the universe contain
information, which metaphysicians and scientists analyze to

understand everything material. But passive material objects do
not create, actively communicate, and process information, as do
Chapter 2
all living things.

Realism is the ontological commitment to the existence of
material things. Information realism is equally committed to the
existence or subsistence of immaterial, but physical, ideas.
Human language is the most highly evolved form of informa-
tion communication in biology. But even the simplest organisms
signal their condition and their needs, both internally among
their smallest parts and externally as they compete with other
living things in their environment.
Biosemioticians convincingly argue that all the messages in
biology, from the intracellular genetic codes sent to the ribosomes
to produce more of a specific protein, to the words in sentences
like this one, are a meaningful part of one continuously evolv-
ing semantic system. All messaging is as purposeful as a human
request for food, so biology is called teleonomic, though not teleo-
logical. This “telos” or purpose in life did not pre-exist life.2
Like human language, the signs used in biological messages can
be symbolic and arbitrary, having no iconic or indexical or any
other intrinsic relation between a signifier and the signified con-
cept or object. Like human signs, the meaning of a biological sign
is highly dependent on the context. Only four neurotransmitters
act as primary messengers sent to a cell, inside of which one of
dozens of secondary messengers may be activated to determine
the use inside the particular cell - the ultimate Wittgensteinian
“meaning as use” in the message.
Modern Anglo-American metaphysicians think problems in
metaphysics can be treated as problems in language, potentially
solved by conceptual analysis. They are analytical language phi-
losophers. But language is too flexible, too ambiguous and full
of metaphor, to be a diagnostic tool for metaphysics. We must
go beyond language games and logical puzzles to the underlying
information contained in a concept or object.
2 See Appendix G on Biosemiotics.
Metaphysics 21
Information philosophy restores the metaphysical existence of

a realm that is “beyond the natural” in the sense since at least
David Hume and Immanuel Kant that the “laws of nature”
Chapter 2
completely determine everything that exists, everything that hap-
pens, in the phenomenal and material world.
Although the immaterial realm of information is not “super-
natural” in any way, the creation of information throws consider-
able light on why so many humans, though few scientists, believe
– correctly as it turns out – that there is a providential force in the
universe.3
Martin Heidegger, the philosopher of “Being,” called
Friedrich Nietzsche the “last metaphysician.” Nietzsche
thought that everything in his “lebensphilosophie” was the cre-
ation of human beings. Indeed, when we are creative, what we
create is new information.
Did we humans “discover” the abstract ideas, or did we “invent”
them and then find them to be true of the world, including those
true in any possible world?
As opposed to an analytic language metaphysician, a meta-
physicist searches for answers in the analysis of immaterial (but
physical) information that can be seen when it is embodied in
external material information structures. Otherwise it can only
be known – in minds.
Metaphysical truths are pure abstract information, subsisting
in the realm of ideas.
Metaphysical facts about the world are discovered when there
are isomorphisms between abstract ideas and the concrete struc-
tures in the external world that embody those ideas.
Information philosophy bridges the ideal and material worlds
of Plato and Aristotle and the noumenal and phenomenal worlds
of Kant. It demonstrates how immaterial minds are a causal force
in the material world, connecting the psychological and phe-
nomenological with the “things themselves,” which are seen as
embodiments of our ideas.
3 See chapter 7.
The causal force of ideas, combined with the existence of alter-

native possibilities, is the information philosophy basis for human
free will.
Chapter 2
What are we to say about a field of human inquiry whose major

problems have hardly changed over two millennia? Information
philosophy looks at a wide range of problems in metaphysics,
situating each problem in its historical framework and providing
accounts of the best work by today’s metaphysicians. Metaphy-
sicians today are analytic language philosophers, some of whom
work on a surprisingly small number of metaphysical problems
that began as puzzles and paradoxes over two thousand years ago.
The metaphysicist adds biological knowledge and quantum
physics to help investigate the fundamental nature of reality.
David Wiggins called for the former and E. Jonathan Lowe
called for the latter. David Chalmers thinks information may
help solve the "hard problem" of consciousness.
An information-based metaphysics provides a single explana-
tion for the origin and evolution of the universe as well as life on
Earth. Since the beginning, it is the creation of material infor-
mation structures that underlies all possibilities. From the first
living thing, biological communication of information has played
a causal role in evolution.
Metaphysics must include both the study of matter and its
immaterial form. A quantum particle is pure matter. The quantum
wave function is pure abstract information about possibilities.
The metaphysics of possibility grounds the possibility of meta-
physics.
Possibility and Possible Worlds
In the “semantics of possible worlds,” necessity and possibil-
ity in modal logic are variations of the universal and existential
quantifiers of non-modal logic. Necessary truth is defined as
“truth in all possible worlds.” Possible truth is defined as “truth
in some possible worlds.” These abstract notions about “worlds” –
sets of propositions in universes of discourse – have nothing to do
with physical possibility, which depends on the existence of real
Metaphysics 23
contingency. Propositions in modal logic are required to be true or

false. Contingent statements that are neither true or false are not
allowed. So much for real possibilities in modal logic!
Chapter 2
Historically, the opposition to metaphysical possibility has
come from those who claim that the only possible things that can
happen are the actual things that do happen. To say that things
could have been otherwise is a mistake, say the eliminative mate-
rialists and determinists. Those other possibilities simply never
existed in the past. The only possible past is the past we have actu-
ally had.
Similarly, there is only one possible future. Whatever will
happen, will happen. The idea that many different things can
happen, the reality of modality and words like “may” or “might”
used in everyday conversation, have no place in metaphysical
reality. The only “actual” events or things are what exists. For
“presentists,” even the past does not exist. Everything we remem-
ber about past events is just a set of “Ideas.” And philosophers
have always been troubled about the ontological status of Plato’s
abstract “Forms,” entities like the numbers, geometric figures,
mythical beasts, and other fictions.
Traditionally, those who deny alternative possibilities in this
way have been called “Actualists.”
Reading the last half-century with the development of modal
logic, one might think that metaphysical possibilities have been
restored. So-called modal operators like “necessarily” and “pos-
sibly” have been added to the structurally similar quantification
operators “for all” and “for some.” The metaphysical literature is
full of talk about “possible worlds.”
The most popular theory of possible worlds is David Lewis’s
“modal realism,” an infinite number of worlds, each of which
is just as actual (eliminative materialist and determinist) for its
inhabitants as our world is for us.
There are no genuine possibilities in Lewis’s “possible worlds”!
It comes as a shock to learn that every “possible world” is just
as actual, for its inhabitants, as our world is for us. There are no
alternative possibilities, no contingency, no things that might
have been otherwise, in any of these possible worlds. Every world

is as physically deterministic as our own.
Modal logicians now speak of a “rule of
Chapter 2
There are no
possibilities in necessitation” at work in possible world
David Lewis's semantics. The necessarily operator and the
possible worlds possibly operator are said to be “duals” - either
one can be defined in terms of the other, so
either can be primitive. But most axiomatic systems of modal
logic appear to privilege necessity and de-emphasize possibility.
They rarely mention contingency, except to say that the necessity
of identity appears to rule out contingent identity statements.
The rule of necessitation is that “if p, then necessarily p.” It
gives rise to the idea that if anything exists, it exists necessarily.
This is called “necessitism.” The idea that if two things are identi-
cal, they are necessarily identical. The “necessity of identity” was
“proved” by Ruth Barcan Marcus in 1947, by her thesis adviser
F. B. Fitch in 1952, and by Willard Van Orman Quine in 1953.
David Wiggins in 1965 and Saul Kripke in 1971 repeated the
arguments, with little or no reference to the earlier work.
Naming and Necessity
Perhaps Kripke's most famous work is his idea that proper
names are "rigid designators" that are necessarily true in all pos-
sible worlds. That is to say, the same individual in other possible
worlds must have exactly the same name. This raises the ques-
tion of "trans-world identity." Must every possible property of
any individual be exactly the same? According to Leibniz's Law,
which Kripke uses, two entities are only identical if every prop-
erty they have is identical. So far, so good. But what about the
property of being in two different worlds, two different places?
If that one property differs, why shouldn't many other propeties,
including their names?
Kripke and Hilary Putnam famously asked whether the word
"water" and the molecular formula H2O are necessarily the same
in all possible worlds, because water is a "natural kind?"
Metaphysics 25
There is simply no necessity in the physical world, neither the

actual world nor "possible" other worlds. Necessitism exists only
in the ideal worlds of logic and mathenatics.
Chapter 2
The emphasis on necessitation in possible-world semantics
leads to a flawed definition of possibility, one that has no connec-
tion with the ordinary and scientific meanings of possibility.
Modal logicians know little if anything about real possibilities
and nothing at all about possible physical worlds. Their possible
worlds are abstract universes of discourse, sets of propositions that
are true or false. Contingent statements, that may be either true or
false, like statements about the future, are simply not allowed in
systems of formal logic.
Modal logicians define necessary propositions as those that are
“true in all possible worlds.” Possible propositions are those that
are only “true in some possible worlds.” This is the result of forc-
ing the modal operators ‘necessarily’ and ‘possibly’ to correspond
to the universal and existential quantification operators ‘for all’
and ‘for some.’ But the essential nature of possibility is the con-
junction of contingency and necessity. Contingency is defined as
the not impossible and the not necessary.
We propose the existence of a metaphysical possibilism along-
side the notion of necessitism.
“Actual possibilities” exist in minds and in quantum-mechan-
ical “possibility functions” It is what we might call “actual possi-
bilism,” the existence in our actual world of possibilities that may
never become actualized, but that have a presence as abstract enti-
ties that have been embodied as ideas in minds. In addition, we
include the many possibilities that occur at the microscopic level
when the quantum-mechanical probability-amplitude wave func-
tion collapses, making one of its many possibilities actual.
Actual Possibles
Although there are no genuine possibilities in Lewis’s “possible
worlds,” we can explain the existence of “actual possibles” in meta-
physical terms using the possible world semantics of Saul Kripke,
who maintained that his semantics could be used to describe vari-

ous ways our actual world might have been. Unlike many other
“possible world” interpretations, Kripke accepts that empirical
Chapter 2
facts in the physical world are contingent, that many things might
have been otherwise. Kripke’s counterfactuals are genuinely dif-
ferent ways the actual world might have been or might become.
I will say something briefly about ‘possible worlds’. (I hope to elab-
orate elsewhere.) In the present monograph I argued against those
misuses of the concept that regard possible worlds as something like
distant planets, like our own surroundings but somehow existing in a
different dimension, or that lead to spurious problems of ‘transworld
identification’. Further, if one wishes to avoid the Weltangst and phil-
osophical confusions that many philosophers have associated with
the ‘worlds’ terminology, I recommended that ‘possible state (or his-
tory) of the world’, or ‘counterfactual situation’ might be better. One
should even remind oneself that the ‘worlds’ terminology can often be
replaced by modal talk—’It is possible that . . .’
‘Possible worlds’ are total ‘ways the world might have been’, or states or
histories of the entire world.4
Following Kripke, we build a model structure M as an ordered
triple <G, K, R>. K is the set of all “possible worlds,” G is the
“actual world,” R is a reflexive relation on K, and G ε K.
If H1, H2, and H3 are three possible worlds in K, H1RH2 says
that H2 is “possible relative to” or “accessible from” H1, that every
proposition true in H2 is possible in H1.
Indeed, the H worlds and the actual world G are all mutually
accessible and each of these is possible relative to itself, since R is
reflexive.
Now the model system M assigns to each atomic formula
(propositional variable) P a truth-value of T or F in each world
H ε K.
Let us define the worlds H1, H2, and H3 as identical to the real
world G in all respects except the following statements describing
actions of a graduating college student Alice deciding on her next
step.
4 Naming and Necessity, p. 15, 18

Metaphysics 27
In H1, the proposition “Alice accepts admission to Harvard

Medical School” is true, but false in other worlds, so “possible.”
In H2, the proposition “Alice accepts admission to MIT” is true.
Chapter 2
In H3, the proposition “Alice postpones her decision and takes
a ‘gap year’” is true.
At about the same time, in the actual world K, the statement
“Alice considers graduate school” is true.
Note that the abstract information that corresponds to the three
possible worlds H is embodied physically in the matter (the neu-
rons of Alice’s brain) in the actual world and in the three possible
worlds. There is no issue with the “transworld identity” of Alice
as there would be with Lewis’s “modal realism,” because all these
possible worlds are in the same spatio-temporal domain.
The metaphysical question is which of the three possible worlds
becomes the new actual world, say at time t. What is the funda-
mental structure of reality that supports the simultaneous exis-
tence of alternative possibilities?
Just before time t, we can interpret the semantics of the model
structure M as saying that the above statements were “merely pos-
sible” thoughts about future action in Alice’s mind.
Note also that just after the decision at time t, the three possible
alternatives remain in Alice’s experience recorder and reproducer
as memories.
Some consequences of Alice’s alternative possible decisions.
In the future of world H1, Alice’s research discovers the genetic
signals used in messaging by cancer cells and cancer is eliminated.
Several hundred million lives are saved (extended) in Alice’s life-
time.
In the future of world H2, Alice engineers the miniaturization
of nuclear weapons so they are small enough to be delivered by
tiny drones. One is stolen from an air force base by a terrorist and
flown to an enemy country where millions of lives are lost. Alice
kills herself the next day.
In the future of world H3, a mature Alice returns to school,

completes her Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton and writes a book
titled Free Will and Moral Responsibility.
Chapter 2
Actualism
Actualism appeals to philosophers who want the world to be
determined by physical laws and by theologians who want the
world to be in the hands of an omnipotent, omniscient, and
benevolent god.
Some physicists think the future is causally closed under deter-
ministic laws of nature and the “fixed past.” If the knowledge that a
Laplacian “super-intelligence” could gather about all the motions
of material particles at a single instant is fixed for all time, then
everything today might have been pre-determined from the earli-
est moments of the physical universe.
The special theory of relativity, for example, describes a four-
dimensional “block universe” in which all the possible events of
the future already exist alongside those of the past. It makes “fore-
knowledge” of the future conceivable.
Diodorus Cronus dazzled his contemporaries in the fourth
century BCE with sophisticated logical arguments, especially par-
adoxes, that “proved” there could be only one possible future.
Diodorus’ Master Argument is a set of propositions designed
to show that the actual is the only possible and that some true
statements about the future imply that the future is already deter-
mined. This follows logically from his observation that if some-
thing in the future is not going to happen, it must have been that
statements in the past that it would not happen must have been
true.
Modern day “actualists” include Daniel Dennett, for whom
determinism guarantees that the actual outcome is and always
was the only possible outcome. The notion that we can change the
future is absurd, says Dennett, change it from what to what?
The ancient philosophers debated the distinction between
necessity and contingency (between the a priori and the
Metaphysics 29
a posteriori). For them, necessity included events or concepts

that are logically necessary and physically necessary, contingency
those that are logically or physically possible. In the middle ages
Chapter 2
and the enlightenment, necessity was often contrasted with free-
dom. In modern times it is often contrasted with mere chance.
Causality is often confused with necessity, as if a causal chain
requires a deterministic necessity. But we can imagine chains
where the linked causes are statistical, and modern quantum
physics tells us that all events are only statistically caused, even if
for large macroscopic objects the statistical likelihood approaches
certainty for all practical purposes. The apparent deterministic
nature of physical laws is only an “adequate” determinism.
In modern philosophy, modal theorists like David Lewis dis-
cuss counterfactuals that might be true in other “possible worlds.”
Lewis’ work at Princeton may have been inspired by the work of
Princeton scientist Hugh Everett III. Everett’s interpretation of
quantum mechanics replaces the “collapse” of the wave function
with a “splitting” of this world into multiple worlds.
According to the Schrödinger equation of motion, the time evo-
lution of the wave function describes a “superposition” of possible
quantum states. Standard quantum mechanics says that interac-
tion of the quantum system with other objects causes the system
to collapse into one of these possible states, with probability given
by the square of the “probability amplitude.”
One very important kind of interaction is a measurement by a
“conscious observer.”5
In standard quantum theory, when a measurement is made,
the quantum system is “projected” or “collapsed” or “reduced”
randomly into a single one of the system’s allowed states. But if
the system was “prepared” in one of these “eigenstates,” then the
measurement will find it in that state with probability one (that is,
with certainty).
So modern physics does not deny the possibility of a certain
measurement outcome, with probability equal to one, or even an
impossible one, with probability equal to zero. But these are very
special physical circumstances.
5 See chapter 18
Identity
In information philosophy, identity depends on the total infor-
mation in an object or concept.
Chapter 2
We distinguish the intrinsic information inside the object (or

concept) from any relational information with respect to other
objects that we call extrinsic or external. We can “pick out” the
intrinsic information as that which is “self-identical” in an object.
The Greeks called this the πρὸς ἑαυτο - self-relation. or ἰδίος
ποιὸν, “peculiar qualifications” of the individual.
Self-identity, then, is the fact that the intrinsic information as
well as the extrinsic relational or dispositional information are
unique to this single object. No other object can have the same
disposition relative to other objects. This is an absolute kind of
identity. Some metaphysicians say that such identity is logically
necessary. Some say self-identity is the only identity, but we can
now support philosophers who argue for a relative identity.
To visualize our concept of information identity, imagine put-
ting yourself in the position of an object. Look out at the world
from its vantage point. No other object has that same view, that
same relation with the objects around you, especially its relation
with you. Now another object could have intrinsic information
identicality. We will in fact identify a very large number of objects
and concepts in the world that are intrinsically identical, includ-
ing natural and artifactual kinds, which we may call digital kinds,
since they are identical, bit for bit.
We can now offer three fundamental facts about identity:
Id1. Everything is identical to everything else in some respects.
Id2. Everything is different from everything else in some other
respects.
Id3. Everything is identical to itself in all respects at each
instant of time, but different in some respects from itself at any
other time.
Metaphysics 31
We can rewrite these observations in terms of information phi-

losophy
I1. Any two things have some information in common.
Chapter 2
I2. Any two things have some different information.
I3.The identity of anything over time is changing because the
information in it (and about it) is changing with time.
These three observations might be called information axioms.
Armed with them, we are in a position to “dis-solve” or decon-
struct some of the most famous metaphysical puzzles and para-
doxes.
A Criterion for Identity
After accepting the fundamental fact that nothing is perfectly
identical to anything but itself, the criterion for relative identity,
for identical “in some respect,” or qua that respect, is that some
subset of the information in two different things must be the same
information, bit for bit.
Relative identity means that a can be the same I as b, but not
the same E as b, where I is the sum of all the intrinsic properties
and relations - internal self-relations between an object’s differ-
ent parts. For physical objects, these could be within some physi-
cal boundary, subject to conditions of vagueness. In a biological
entity, it also includes the vast communications going on inside
and between the cells, which makes it much more than a mereo-
logical sum of its parts.
The E for an object is the sum of extrinsic relations an object has
with things outside, including its disposition in space and time.
Mathematically, ∫iF(x) = ∫iG(x) , but ∫eF(x) ≠ ∫eG(x) , which says
that F(x) and G(x) are identical over their intrinsic domains (i)
but differ over their extrinsic domains (e) .
Set theoretically, in classical propositional calculus, we can say
that Ia is the set of intrinsic properties and internal relations that
can be predicated in propositions about an object a. Ea is the set of

extrinsic relations. We can now describe why absolute identity is
limited to self-identity.
Chapter 2
If Ia + Ea = Ib + Eb, then a and b are one and the same object.

And, if Ia = Ib, then a and b are relatively identical, qua their
information content.
Note that while self-identity is reflexive, symmetric, and an
equivalence self-relation, relative identity is often none of these.
This is because, unlike Max Black’s identical spheres, Saul
Kripke’s natural kinds, and our many digital clones, some part of
the information in a and b may be identical, but the information
that is not identical may also differ in quantity. We can say that if
aRb is 60% identical, bRa may be only 10% identical.
Extensional quantification over things in analytic language
philosophy is about their set membership, which is dependent on
language references to the properties of objects.
By contrast, quantification in information philosophy is a cal-
culation of the total information content in the entities, in prin-
ciple, free of language ambiguities, in practice, very difficult.
A Criterion for Essence
Information identity suggests a possible definition of the
“essence” of an object, what is “essential” about it. Furthermore, if
two objects are considered “essentially” the same, we can pick out
the subset of information that corresponds to that “essence.”
A subset of the intrinsic information may be essential with
respect to (qua) some concept of the object. As Edmund Husserl
emphasized, our concepts about objects depend on our intentions,
our intended uses of the object, which give it different (pragmatic)
meanings. We can say that an essence is the subset of an object’s
information that is isomorphic to the information in the concept.
What we call a “concept” about a material object is usually some
subset of the information in the object, accurate to the extent that
Metaphysics 33
the concept is isomorphic to that subset. By “picking out” differ-

ent subsets, we can sort objects. We can compare objects, finding
them similar qua one concept and different qua another concept.
Chapter 2
We can say that “a = b” qua color but not qua size.
But there are concepts that may have little to do with the
intrinsic peculiar information about an object. They are concepts
imposed on the object by our intended uses of it.
We must distinguish these extrinsic essences – our external
ideas and concepts about what the object is – from the intrinsic
essences that depend only on the object itself and its own pur-
poses, if any. The essences we see in an object are subjective, but
we may define an objective essence as the total intrinsic informa-
tion, including internal messaging, in the object.
Husserl and Gottlob Frege both pointed out that our ideas
are dependent on our personal experience. Experience constrains
and amplifies our possible concepts. Two persons may get the
general “sense” or “meaning” of something referred to, but Frege
said the “idea” or representation (Vorstellung) in each mind can be
very different, based on that individual’s experience. Information
philosophy locates the creation of meaning in the responses of the
experience recorder and reproducer (ERR) to different stimuli.
The relation “identical to,” between two numerically distinct
concrete or abstract entities, is the source of logical puzzles and
language games through the ages that are little more than verbal
disputes. Most such disputes are easily resolved or “dis-solved” by
paying careful attention to all the information, all the particular
properties, intrinsic and extrinsic, of the two entities that may be
identical qua some particular properties.
Coinciding Objects
The problem of coinciding objects (sometimes called coloca-
tion) is whether two things can be in the same place at the same
time. Common sense says that they cannot.
John Locke described the impossibility that two things of the
same kind should exist in the same place at the same time.
ANOTHER occasion the mind often takes of comparing, is the very

being of things, when, considering anything as existing at any deter-
mined time and place, we compare it with itself existing at another
Chapter 2
time, and thereon form the ideas of wherein identity and diversity.
When we see anything to be in any identity place in any instant of
time, we are sure (be it what it will) that it is that very thing, and not
another which at that same time exists in another place, how like and
undistinguishable soever it may be in all other respects: and in this
consists identity, when the ideas it is attributed to vary not at all from
what they were that moment wherein we consider their former exis-
tence, and to which we compare the present. For we never finding, nor
conceiving it possible, that two things of the same kind should exist in
the same place at the same time, we rightly conclude, that, whatever
exists anywhere at any time, excludes all of the same kind, and is there
itself alone. 6
In modern metaphysics, the problem of coinciding objects
should be the question of whether one mass of material – what the
Greeks called substrate or ὑποκείμενον (“the underlying”) – could
contain the whole of two (or more) separate objects containing
that same mass.
It is now common for many identity theorists to claim that the
whole of one object and the whole of another can occupy just
the same place at just the same time. Among them, according to
Michael Burke, are Roderick Chisholm, E. Jonathan Lowe,
Saul Kripke, and David Wiggins.
But it is not clear that this was the ancient problem in debates
between the Academic Skeptics and the Stoics. In modern times,
multiple ancient puzzles are used to pose the problem of coin-
ciding objects. One is the Statue and the Clay from which it is
sculpted. Another is Dion and Theon, known as the “body-minus”
problem. Another is Tibbles, the Cat and a similar cat missing his
tail. A third is the Stoic Chrysippus’s so-called “Growing Argu-
ment.”
All these modern claims that there can be two “coinciding
objects” can be shown to be distinguishing between different
aspects, in particular, the matter and form, of a single object,
6 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Of Identity and Diversity, Book II,

ch xxvii
Metaphysics 35
giving them different names, and then arguing that they have dif-
ferent persistence conditions.
Aristotle’s Metaphysics makes perhaps the earliest and clearest
Chapter 2
such distinction, using the example of a statue and its matter.
The term “substance” (οὐσία) is used, if not in more, at least in
four principal cases; for both the essence and the universal and the
genus are held to be the substance of the particular (ἑκάστου), and
fourthly the substrate (ὑποκείμενον). The substrate is that of which
the rest are predicated, while it is not itself predicated of anything else.
Hence we must first determine its nature, for the primary substrate
(ὑποκείμενον) is considered to be in the truest sense substance.
Now in one sense we call the matter (ὕλη ) the substrate; in another,
the shape (μορφή); and in a third, the combination Both matter and
form and their combination are said to be substrate of the two. By
matter I mean, for instance, bronze; by shape, the arrangement of the
form (τὸ σχῆμα τῆς ἰδέας); and by the combination of the two, the
concrete thing: the statue (ἀνδριάς). Thus if the form is prior to the
matter and more truly existent, by the same argument it will also be
prior to the combination.7
Aristotle clearly sees the statue as a combination of its form/
shape and its matter/clay.
Of course Aristotle sees no problem with the body and soul of
a person being combined in one substance (οὐσία), but a hundred
or so years after Aristotle, the Academic Skeptics attacked the
Stoics, saying Stoics were making single things into dual beings,
two objects in the same place at the same time, but indistinguish-
able. And this may have been the beginning of the modern prob-
lem.
The “two things” that bothered the Skeptics appeared first in the
“growing argument” described by the later second century BCE
Stoics, Posidonius and Mnesarchus, as reported by Stobaeus in
the fifth century CE. What is it that grows, they asked, the mate-
rial substance or the peculiar qualities of the individual? But note
that this is still matter versus form. The substance (matter) does
not grow. It is the individual that grows.
The substance neither grows nor diminishes through addition or sub-
traction, but simply alters, just as in the case of numbers and mea-
sures. And it follows that it is in the case of peculiarly qualified indi-
7 Metaphysics, Book VII, § iii, 1-2

viduals, such as Dion and Theon, that processes of both growth and
diminution arise.
Therefore each individual’s quality actually remains from its genera-
Chapter 2
tion to its destruction, in the case of destructible animals, plants and

the like. In the case of peculiarly qualified individuals they say that
there are two receptive parts, the one pertaining to the presence of the
substance, the other to that of the qualified individual...
The peculiarly qualified thing is not the same as its constituent sub-
stance. Nor on the other hand is it different from it, but is all but the
same, in that the substance both is a part of it and occupies the same
place as it, whereas whatever is called different from something must
be separated from it and not be thought of as even part of it...8
Like Aristotle, the Stoics were distinguishing the individual’s
“constituent substance” from the “peculiar qualifications” of the
individual.
The Stoic term for “constituent substance” or substrate, follow-
ing Aristotle, was ὑποκείμενον. Their term for the unique person,
possibly separate from the material body, was ἰδίος ποιὸν - a par-
ticular individual “who,” for example, Socrates, as opposed to
κοινός ποιὸν, a general “whoness,” for example, a human being.
But in the vehement debates of the third century BCE the Aca-
demic skeptics laughed at the Stoics for seeing a dual nature in
man. Their most famous puzzle was the coinciding objects of Dion
and Theon (reframed by Peter Geach as the puzzle of Tibbles,
the Cat and a similar cat lacking a tail).
Plutarch, writing in the first century CE, accused the Stoics
of “crazy arithmetic” and absurdity, that “each of us is a pair of
twins, two-natured and double, joined in some parts but separate
in others, two bodies sharing the same color, the same shape, the
same weight, the same place,”
Yet this difference and distinction in us no one has marked off or dis-
criminated, nor have we perceived that we are born double, always in
flux with one part of ourselves, while remaining the same people from
birth to death with the other...
8 Stobaeus (I,177,21 - 179,17, in The Hellenistic Philosophers, A.A.Long and
D.N.Sedley, v.1, p.168
Metaphysics 37
If when we hear Pentheus in the tragedy say that he sees two suns and
a double Thebes we say he is not seeing but mis-seeing, going crazy in
his arithmetic, then when these people propose that, not one city, but
Chapter 2
all men, animals, trees, furniture, implements and clothes are double
and two-natured, shall we not reject them as forcing us to misthink
rather than to think?9
Another early statement is in the first century BCE.
That what concerns the peculiarly qualified is not the same as what
concerns the substance, Mnesarchus says is clear. For things which are
the same should have the same properties. For if, for the sake of argu-
ment, someone were to mould a horse, squash it, then make a dog, it
would be reasonable for us on seeing this to say that this previously
did not exist but now does exist. So what is said when it comes to the
qualified thing is different.
So too in general when it comes to substance, to hold that we are
the same as our substances seems unconvincing. For it often comes
about that the substance exists before something’s generation, before
Socrates’ generation, say, when Socrates does not yet exist, and that
after Socrates’ destruction the substance remains although he no
longer exists.10
An Information Analysis of “Coinciding Objects”
Most of these metaphysical puzzles start with a single object,
then separate it into its matter and its form, giving each of them
names and declaring them to be two coinciding objects. Next we
postulate a change in either the matter or the form, or both. It is
of course impossible to make a change in one without the other
changing, since we in fact have only one object.
But our puzzle maker asks us to focus on one and insist that the
change has affected the status of only that one, usually claiming
that the change has caused that one to cease to exist. This follows
an ancient view that any change in material constitutes a change
in identity. But the modern metaphysicist knows that all objects
are always changing and that a change in identity may always pre-
serve some information of an entity. The puzzle claims that an
9 “Against the Stoics on Common Conceptions” 1083, The Hellenistic Philoso-
phers, A.A.Long and D.N.Sedley, v.1, p.166-7
10 ibid, p.168
aspect of the object persists if the relative identity, or identity “in

some respect” has not changed.
To create a paradox, we use two of our axioms about identity,
Chapter 2
Id1. Everything is identical to everything else in some respects.

Id2. Everything is different from everything else in some other
respects.
We (in our minds) “pick out” one respect whose identity per-
sists over time because of Id1 and a second respect which changes
in time because of Id2.
We now have one object that both persists and does not persist
(in different respects, of course), the very essence of a paradox.
We call them different objects to create the puzzle.
For example, in the case of the statue and the clay, Mnesarchus’s
original version assumed that someone moulds a horse, then
squashes it. We are asked to pick out the horse’s shape or form.
The act of squashing changes that shape into another relatively
amorphous shape. The object changes its identity with respect
to its shape. Mnesarchus said it would be reasonable to see this
sequence of events as something coming into existence and then
ceasing to exist. The most obvious thing changing is the horse
shape that we name “statue.”
By design of the puzzle, there is no change in the amount of
clay, so the matter is considered identical over time with respect
to the amount of clay. The clay persists.
We now claim to have seen a difference in persistence condi-
tions. The object qua clay persists. The object qua statue goes in
and out of existence.
But this is just a way of talking about what has happened because
a human observer has “picked out” two different aspects of the
one object. As the statue is being smashed beyond recognition,
every part of the clay must move to a new position that accom-
modates the change in shape of the statue. There are changes in
Metaphysics 39
the clay with identical information to the change in the shape of

the statue. These we ignore to set up the puzzle.
In more modern versions of the statue and clay puzzle, we can
Chapter 2
make a change in the matter, for example by breaking off an arm
and replacing it with a new arm made of different material but
restoring the shape. We ignore the change in form, although it
was obviously a drastic change until the restoration, and we focus
on the clay, making the claim that the original clay has ceased to
exist and new clay come into existence.
In either case, the claim to see different persistence conditions is
the result of focusing on different subsets of the total information.
When identity theorists say that the whole of one object and
the whole of another can occupy just the same place at just the
same time, they are never talking about two objects of the same
type, kind, or sort. They are always “picking out” different aspects
of a single object and giving them differing existential status.
Composition (Parts and Wholes)
Debates about the relation of parts to wholes is a major part
of modern metaphysics. Many puzzles have to do with different
persistence conditions of the “parts” of a composited whole, as we
saw with the idea of coinciding objects.
“Mereological universalism” or extensional mereology is an
abstract idea, defined in 1937 by Stanislaw Leśniewski and later
by Henry Leonard and Nelson Goodman (1940). It claims that
any collection of things, for example the members of a set in sym-
bolic logic, can be considered as the parts of a whole, a “fusion”
or “mereological sum,” and thus can compose an object. Critics
of this idea says that such arbitrary collections are just “scattered
objects.” A mind-independent connection between things is
needed for them to be considered integral “parts.”
That connection is to be found in the information that led to the
whole in the first place and/or is now maintaining that integrity.
“Mereological essentialism” is Roderick Chisholm’s radical

idea that every whole has its parts necessarily and in every pos-
sible world. This goes too far. No physical object can maintain its
Chapter 2
parts indefinitely and freeze its identity over time. Recall our third
axiom of identity:
Id3. Everything is identical to itself in all respects at each
instant of time, but different in some respects from itself at any
other time.
“Mereological nihilism” is the opposite extreme. Peter van
Inwagen and the early Peter Unger denied the existence of
composites, seeing them as simples (partless entities) arranged to
look like a composite object. For van Inwagen, a table is “simples
arranged table-wise.”
It is the information in the process that is doing the arranging is
responsible for the composite whole.
Van Inwagen made a surprising exception for living objects. He
bases the composite nature of biological entities on the Cartesian
dualist view that humans are thinking beings!
Van Inwagen’s says that his argument for living beings as
composite objects is based on the Cartesian “Cogito,” I think,
therefore I am.
My “reasons for believing in organisms,” therefore, are reasons for
stopping where I do and not going on to maintain that there are no
organisms but are only simples arranged organically. My argument
for the existence of organisms, it will be remembered, involved in an
essential way the proposition that I exist.11
With van Inwagen’s exception of living things, and now that
Unger has abandoned his own form of nihilism in recent years,
both philosophers now accept that they themselves exist (sic).
Van Inwagen could see no obvious demarcation level at which
even the simplest living things should not be treated as composite
objects. We shall see that it is biological information that makes a
whole being out of just matter and energy.
Information philosophy and metaphysics ask who or what is
doing the arranging? Information provides a more fundamental
11 Material Beings, p.213
Metaphysics 41
reason than van Inwagen’s for treating living things as integrated

composites and not simply mereological sums of scattered objects.
Furthermore, it extends a true composite nature to artifacts and
Chapter 2
to groupings of living things because they share a teleonomic
property – a purpose. And it shows how some “proper parts” of
these composites can have a holistic relation with their own parts,
enforcing transitivity of part/whole relations.
A process that makes a composite object an integrated whole
we call teleonomic (following Colin Pittendrigh, Jacques
Monod, and Ernst Mayr) to distinguish it from a teleological
cause with a “telos” pre-existing all life. Teleonomy is the explana-
tory force behind van Inwagen’s “arrangement” of simple parts.
Biological parts, which we can call biomers, are communicat-
ing systems that share information via biological messaging with
other parts of their wholes, and in many cases communicate with
other living and non-living parts of their environments. These
communications function to maintain the biological integrity (or
identity) of the organism and they control its growth. Artifacts
have their teleonomy imposed by their creators. For example,
when a carpenter cuts the wood for a table, it is the “telos,” the
end or purpose for the table, that “arranges it table-wise.”
Biocommunications are messages transferring information,
inside the simplest single-cell organisms. For the first few bil-
lion years of life these were the only living things, and they still
dominate our planet. Their messages are the direct ancestors of
messages between cells in multicellular organisms. They evolved
to become all human communications, including the puzzles and
problems of metaphysics. A straight line of evolution goes from
the first biological message to this book of Great Problems.
Like many metaphysical problems, composition arose in the
quarrels between Stoics and Academic skeptics that generated
several ancient puzzles still debated today. But it has roots in Aris-
totle’s definition of the essence (ουσία), the unchanging “Being”
of an object. We will show that Aristotle’s essentialism has a bio-
logical basis that is best understood today as a biomereological
essentialism. It goes beyond mereological sums of scattered

objects because of the teleonomy shared between the parts,
whether living or dead, of a biomeric whole.
Chapter 2
The essence of an object, the “kind” or “sort” of object that it

“is”, its “constitution,” its “identity,” includes those “proper” parts
of the object without which it would cease to be that sort or kind.
Without a single essential part, it loses its absolute identity.
While this is strictly “true,” for all practical purposes most
objects retain the overwhelming fraction of the information that
describes them from moment to moment, so that information
philosophy offers a new and quantitative measure of “sameness”
to traditional philosophy, a measure that is difficult or impossible
to describe in ordinary language.
Nevertheless, since even the smallest change in time does make
an entity at t + Δt different from what it was at t, this has given rise
to the idea of “temporal parts.”
Temporal Parts
Philosophers and theologians, e.g., Alfred North Whitehead
and Jonathan Edwards, have argued for distinct temporal parts,
with the idea that each new part is a completely new creation ex
nihilo. The world is newly created at every instant! Even modern
physicists (e.g., Hugh Everett III) talk as if parallel universes are
brought into existence at an instant by quantum experiments that
collapse the wave function.
David Lewis, who claims there are many possible worlds,
is a proponent of many temporal parts. His theory of “perdur-
ance” asserts that the persistence through time of an object is as a
series of completely distinct entities, one for every instant of time.
Lewis’s work implies that the entire infinite number of his possible
worlds (as “real” and actual as our world, he claims), must also be
entirely created anew at every instant.
While this makes for great science fiction and helps to pop-
ularize metaphysics, at some point attempts to understand the
Metaphysics 43
fundamental nature of reality must employ Occam’s Razor and

recognize the fundamental conservation laws of physics. If a new
temporal part is created ab initio, why should it bear any resem-
Chapter 2
blance at all to its earlier version?
It is extravagant in the extreme to suggest that all matter dis-
appears and reappears at every instant of time. It is astonishing
enough that matter can spontaneously be converted into energy
and back again at a later time.
Most simple things (the elementary particles, the atoms and
molecules of ordinary matter, etc.) are in stable states that exist
continuously for long periods of time, and these compose larger
objects that persist through “endurance,” as Lewis describes the
alternative to his “perdurance.” Large objects are not absolutely
identical to themselves at earlier instants of time, but the differ-
ences are infinitesimal in terms of information content.
The doctrine of temporal parts ignores the physical connec-
tions between all the “simples” at one instant and at the follow-
ing moment. It is as if this is an enormous version of the Zeno
paradox of the arrow. The arrow cannot possibly be moving when
examined at an instant. The basic laws of physics describe the con-
tinuous motions of every particle. They generally show very slow
changes in configuration – the organizational arrangement of the
particles that constitutes abstract information about an object.
One might charitably interpret Lewis as admitting the endur-
ance of the elementary particles (or whatever partless simples he
might accept) and that perdurance is only describing the con-
stant change in configuration, the arrangement of the simples, the
information, that constitute or compose the whole.
Then Lewis’s temporal parts would be a series of self-identical
objects that are not absolutely identical to their predecessors and
successors, just a temporal series of highly theoretical abstract
ideas, perhaps at the same level of (absurd) abstraction as his pos-
sible worlds?.
Is a temporal part a reasonable concept? What exactly is a part?

And what constitutes a whole? For each concept, there is a strict
philosophical sense, an ordinary sense, and a functional or teleo-
Chapter 2
nomic sense.
In the strict sense, a part is just some subset of the whole. The
whole itself is sometimes called an “improper part.”
In the ordinary sense, a part is distinguishable, in principle sep-
arable, from other neighboring parts of some whole. The small-
est possible parts are those that have no smaller parts. In physics,
these are the atoms, or today the elementary particles, of matter.
In the functional sense, we can say that a part serves some pur-
pose in the whole. This means that it has may be considered a
whole in its own right, subordinate to any purpose of the whole
entity. Teleonomic examples are the pedals or wheel of a bicycle,
the organs of an animal body, or the organelles in a cell.
The teleonomic sense of an object is that it seems to have a
purpose, the Greeks called it a telos, either intrinsic as in all living
things, or extrinsic as in all artifacts, where the purpose was
invented by the object’s creator.
The most important example of a teleonomic process is of
course biology. Every biological organism starts with a first cell
that contains all the information needed to accomplish its “pur-
pose,” to grow into a fully developed individual, and, for some, to
procreate others of its kind.
By contrast, when a philosopher picks out an arbitrary part of
something, declaring it to be a whole something for philosophical
purposes, perhaps naming it, the purpose is simply the philoso-
pher’s intention of analyzing it further.
For example, something that has no natural or artifactual basis,
that does not “carve nature at the joints,” as Plato described it, that
arbitrarily and violently divides the otherwise indivisible, may be
a perfectly valid philosophical “idea,” an abstract entity.
Metaphysics 45
But temporal parts do not “carve nature at the joints.” They do

not capture the fundamental nature of reality.
Temporal parts are bad metaphysics.
Chapter 2
Aristotelian Essentialism
Aristotle knew that most living things can survive the loss of
various parts (limbs, for example), but not others (the head). By
analogy, he thought that other objects (and even concepts) could
have parts (or properties) that are essential to its definition and
other properties or qualities that are merely accidental.
Aristotelian essentialism is the study of those essential parts.
For Aristotle, and in ordinary use, not every part of a whole
is a necessary part (let alone in all possible worlds). Much of the
verbal quibbling in metaphysical disputes is about objects that are
defined by language conventions as opposed to “natural kinds”
that we can recognize by their information contents.
When we can identify the origin and current processing of that
information, we have the deep metaphysical sense of essence.
Aristotle called the arrangement “the scheme of the ideas.”
By matter I mean, for instance, bronze; by shape, the arrangement of
the form (τὸ σχῆμα τῆς ἰδέας); and by the combination of the two, the
concrete thing: the statue (ἀνδριάς)12
Information philosophy provides the deep reason behind
Aristotle’s essentialism for living things and artifacts.
The “parts” of biological organisms are created and maintained
(arranged) by anti-entropic processes that distribute matter and
energy to all the vital parts. There is a purpose or “telos.” Aris-
totle called it a built-in telos or “entelechy” (loosely translated
as “having the final cause within”). The telos is implemented by
messaging between all the vital parts or “proper parts.” A bio-
mereological essentialism notes that every biomer (a biological
part) is normally in direct or indirect communication with vast
numbers of other biomers in the living organism and with the
extra-cellular environment. Communication is information that
12 Metaphysics, Book VII, § vii

is neither matter nor energy. It is the ideal content of the message

that implements the organism’s “telos.” Some examples...
• Human artifacts. Here the “telos” comes from the creator.
Chapter 2
The leg of a table is an essential part of the original design. Such

proper parts often have recognizable functions, so when they are
missing the whole is no longer functional.
• Physical combinations of elementary particles into nuclei and
chemically emergent combinations of atoms – water from hydro-
gen and oxygen and salt from sodium and chlorine.
• Cosmological and other material objects formed with an
anti-entropic process that created their information. Astronomi-
cal bodies were pulled together by gravity into information struc-
tures. Crystals grow information rich structures (e.g., snowflakes).
Many of these “wholes” can survive the loss of some parts. But
we are back quibbling. When their efficient/material causes and
their formal and final causes are “teleonomic” and not simply
arbitrary human conventions, we can say these are “natural kinds.”
The problem of composition becomes more severe when some
metaphysicians consider matter to be infinitely divisible, just as
the real number line contains an infinite number of numbers
between any two numbers (and a higher order of infinity of irra-
tional numbers!).
By contrast, the metaphysicist’s view is that matter is discrete,
not infinitely divisible like the continuous spatial and tempo-
ral dimensions. The Greek materialists argued for simple atoms
separated by a void. Ludwig Boltzmann and Albert Einstein
showed that the atoms of nineteenth-century chemistry really
exist. In modern physics the simplest elementary particles are
quarks, leptons, and bosons. So let’s suppose that we have a region
of space with two oxygen atoms in it. It seems reasonable to say
that it contains two simple things (the atoms).
Peter van Inwagen denies the mereological sum. David
Lewis defends it. Recent mereological debates in metaphysics
have taken this form:
Metaphysics 47
Mereological nihilist: There are two things in this region.

Mereological universalist: There are three things in this region
(the two simples and the mereological sum).
Chapter 2
Now a metaphysicist can still argue cleverly and cogently about
the proper number of parts and the choice of the proper whole.
The oxygen atoms each contain eight protons, eight neutrons, and
eight electrons. So one possible count is the 48 sub-atomic par-
ticles that are visible. We can go deeper by noting that the nuclear
particles are each made up of three quarks, which are not observ-
able. We then can count 112 parts to the whole?
And the metaphysicist has a strong argument for the two
simple atoms to be considered a whole. If the two atoms are very
close, they can form an oxygen molecule. Even when disassoci-
ated, quantum mechanics that treats them as a quasi-molecule is
more accurate than a description as two independent atoms.
Why Modal Logic Is Not Metaphysics
Modal logicians from Ruth Barcan Marcus to Saul Kripke,
David Lewis, and the necessicist Timothy Williamson are right
to claim metaphysical necessity as the case in the purely abstract
informational world of logic and mathematics. But when infor-
mation is embodied in concrete matter, which is subject to the
laws of quantum physics and ontological chance, the fundamental
nature of material reality is possibilist.
There are two reasons for the failure of modal logic to represent
metaphysical reality. The first is that information is vastly superior
to language as a representation of reality. The second is that truths
and necessity cannot be the basis for metaphysical possibility.
Possible world semantics is a way of talking about universes
of discourse - sets of true propositions - that considers them
“worlds.” It may be the last gasp of the attempt by logical positiv-
ism and analytic language philosophy to represent all knowledge
of objects in terms of words.
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s core idea from the Tractatus had the

same goal as Gottfried Leibniz’s ambiguity-free universal lan-
guage,
Chapter 2
“The totality of true propositions is the whole of natural science

(or the whole corpus of the natural sciences)”13
Information philosophy has shown that the meaning of words
depends on the experiences recalled in minds by the experience
recorder and reproducer (ERR).14 Since every human being has
a different set of experiences, there will always be variations in
meaning about words between different persons.
The goal of intersubjective agreement in an open community of
inquirers hopes to eliminate those differences, but representation
of knowledge in words will always remain a barrier and source of
philosophical confusion. The physical sciences use analytic differ-
ential equations to describe the deterministic and continuous time
evolution of simple material objects, which is a great advance over
ambiguous words. But these equations fail at the quantum level
and where discrete digital messages are being exchanged between
biological interactors. Moreover, while mathematical methods are
precise, their significance is not easily grasped.
The very best representation of knowledge is with a dynamic
and interactive model of an information structure, what Ludwig
Wittgenstein may have seen as a model and “picture of reality.”
Today that is a three-dimensional model implemented in a digi-
tal computer with a high-resolution display, even a virtual reality
display, some day visible on the Internet. While computer models
are only “simulations” of reality, they incorporate the best “laws”
of physics, chemistry, and biology.
Sadly, modal logicians have never proposed more than a hand-
ful of specific propositions for their possible worlds, and many
of these generated controversies, even paradoxes, about sub-
stitutivity of presumed identicals in modal contexts. Word and
object have degenerated to words and objections. By comparison,
molecular models of the extraordinary biological machines that
13 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.11
14 See Appendix E.
Metaphysics 49
have evolved to keep us alive and let us think can be “shown,” not
said, just as Wittgenstein imagined.
His later work can be summed up as the failure of language
Chapter 2
to be a picture of reality. Information philosophy gives us that
picture, not just a two-dimensional snapshot, but a lifelike anima-
tion and visualization of the fundamental nature of metaphysical
reality.
Our information model incorporates the irreducible onto-
logical chance and future contingency of quantum physics. The
claimed “necessity of identity,” and the “necessary a posteriori” of
natural and artificial digital “kinds” with identical intrinsic infor-
mation content are just more “ways of talking.” There is no neces-
sity in the physical world.
Truths and necessity are ideal concepts “true in all possible
worlds,” because they are independent of the physical world. They
have great appeal as eternal ideas “outside space and time.”
Possible worlds semantics defines necessity as “propositions
true in all possible worlds” and possibility as “propositions true
in some possible worlds.” There is no contingency here, as the
only allowed propositions are either true or false. Modal logicians
have little knowledge of our actual physical world and zero factual
knowledge, by definition, of other possible worlds. The possible
worlds of “modal realism” are all actual worlds, deterministic and
eliminatively materialist. There are no possibilities in possible
worlds, even the equally deterministic “many worlds” of physics.
A necessicist metaphysics is only a half-truth. Without meta-
physical possibility, we cannot account for the information in the
universe today, nor can we explain the cosmic, biological, and
human creation of new information in our free and open future.
Necessitism and possibilism are another variation of the great
duals of idealism and materialism.15 See possibilist.com.
History of Metaphysics
Metaphysics has signified many things in the history of phi-
losophy, but it has not strayed far from a literal reading of “beyond
15 See the table of dualisms in chapter 9.

the physical.” The term was invented by the first-century BCE

head of Aristotle’s Peripatetic school, Andronicus of Rhodes,
who edited and arranged Aristotle’s works, giving the name Meta-
Chapter 2
physics (τα μετα τα φυσικα βιβλια), literally “the books beyond

the physics,” perhaps the books to be read after reading Aristotle’s
books on nature, which he called the Physics.
Aristotle never used the term metaphysics. For Plato, Aristo-
tle’s master, the realm of abstract ideas was more “real” than that
of physical objects, because ideas could be more permanent (the
Being of Parmenides), whereas material objects are constantly
changing (the Becoming of Heraclitus). Neoplatonists like
Porphyry worried about the existential status of the Platonic
ideas. Does Being exist? What does it mean to say “Being Is”?
Aristotle’s original concerns in his “First Philosophy” were
ontology (the science of being), cosmology (the fundamental pro-
cesses and original causes of physical things), and theology (is a
god required as a "first mover" or “first cause?”).
Aristotle’s Physics describes four “causes” or “explanations”
(aitia) of change and movement of objects already existing in
the universe (the ideal formal and final causes, vs. the efficient
and material causes). Aristotle’s metaphysics can then be seen as
explanations for existence itself. What exists? What is it to be?
What processes can bring things into (or out of) existence? Is
there a cause or explanation for the universe as a whole?
In critical philosophical discourse, metaphysics has perhaps
been tarnished by its Latinate translation as “supernatural,” with
its strong theological implications. But from the beginning, Aris-
totle’s books on “First Philosophy” considered God among the
possible causes of the fundamental things in the universe. Tracing
the regress of causes back in time as an infinite chain, Aristotle
postulated a first cause or “uncaused cause.” Where every motion
needs a prior mover to explain it, he postulated an “unmoved first
mover.” These postulates became a major element of theology
down to modern times.
Metaphysics 51
Metaphysics is the division of philosophy which includes ontol-

ogy, or the science of being, and cosmology, or the science of the
fundamental causes and processes of things. The primary mean-
Chapter 2
ing of metaphysics is derived from those discussions by Aristotle
which later commentators suggested should be read before Aris-
totle's great works on Physics and other subjects.
For medieval philosophers, metaphysics was understood as the
science of the supersensible. Albertus Magnus called it sci-
ence beyond the physical. Thomas Aquinas narrowed it to the
cognition of God. Aquinas argued that 1) God had given man the
power of reason, 2) God had used reason to create the universe, so
that 3) man can use reason alone to understand the world.
John Duns Scotus disagreed with Aquinas, arguing that God’s
omnipotence is not constrained by reason. God has freedom of
the will, so only study of the world as it has been created can yield
knowledge of the world and thus God. Scotus was arguably the
origin of British empiricism, just as Aquinas was the source of
Continental rationalism.
René Descartes began a turn from what exists to knowledge
of what exists. He changed the emphasis from a study of being to a
study of the conditions of knowledge or epistemology. For empir-
icists in England like John Locke and David Hume, metaphysics
includes the “primary” things beyond psychology and “second-
ary” sensory experiences. They denied that any knowledge was
possible apart from experimental and mathematical reasoning.
Hume thought metaphysics is sophistry and illusion.
If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics,
for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning con-
cerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental
reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it
then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illu-
sion.16
16 (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section XII)

In Germany, Immanuel Kant’s Critiques of Reason claimed

a transcendental and noumenal realm for pure, or a priori, reason
beyond the merely phenomenal. The phenomenal realm is deter-
Chapter 2
ministic, matter governed by Newton’s laws of motion. The nou-

menal is the metaphysical realm of the “things themselves” along
with freedom, God, and immortality. Kant also identified ontol-
ogy not with the inaccessible things themselves but what we can
think - and reason - about the things themselves. In either case, he
thought metaphysical knowledge might be impossible for “finite”
minds.
The notion that metaphysics transcends experience and the
material world led to nineteenth-century positivists like August
Comte and Ernst Mach, and twentieth-century empiricists
like Rudolf Carnap and Moritz Schlick, also denying the
possibility of metaphysical knowledge.
Naturalism is the anti-metaphysical claim that there is nothing
in the world beyond the material (including energy), that every-
thing follows “laws of nature,” and that these laws are both causal
and deterministic. So “supernatural” appears to imply the free-
dom to break the laws of nature. Information philosophy denies
the supernatural. But it defends immaterial information as that
which constitutes the human spirit, or soul, the “ghost in the
machine.” And it defends ontological chance as the generator of
novel possibilities that are not determined by the “fixed past.”
Positivism is the claim that the only valid source of knowledge
is sensory experience, reinforced by logic and mathematics.
Together these provide the empirical evidence for science. Com-
tean positivism rejected metaphysics and theology as obsolete
earlier phases in the development of knowledge.
Mach’s positivism claimed that science consists entirely of
“economic summaries” of the facts (the results of experiments).
He rejected theories about unobservable things like Ludwig
Boltzmann’s atoms, just a few years before Albert Einstein
used Boltzmann’s work to prove that atoms exist.
Metaphysics 53
The logical positivism of Bertrand Russell and Ludwig

Wittgenstein claims that all valid knowledge is scientific
knowledge, though science is often criticized for “reducing” all
Chapter 2
phenomena to physical or chemical events. The logical positivists
may have identified ontology not with the things themselves but
what we can say - using concepts and language - about the things
themselves. Logical positivists and the logical empiricists of the
Vienna Circle asserted that all knowledge is scientific knowledge,
that it is derived from experience, i.e., from verifiable observa-
tions. They added the logical analysis of language as a tool for
solving philosophical problems. They divided statements into
those reducible to simpler statements about experience and those
with no empirical basis, which they called “metaphysical” and
“meaningless.”
Most analytic language philosophers of the mid-twentieth
century continued to deny traditional metaphysics, which P. F.
Strawson famously called “obscure and panicky.” But starting
in the 1970’s a new group of analytic-language metaphysicians
defended a new materialist and determinist metaphysics grounded
in modal thinking about possible worlds.
See metaphysicist.com for discussions of the work of David
Armstrong, Michael Burke, David Chalmers, Rod Chisholm,
Peter Geach, David Lewis, E. Jonathan Lowe, Trenton Merricks,
Huw Price, Willard van Orman Quine, Michael Rea, Nicholas
Rescher, Alan Sidelle, Ted Sider, Richard Taylor, Peter Unger,
Peter van Inwagen, David Wiggins, and Timothy Williamson.
Chapter 3
l o g y
Onto

informationphilosopher.com/problems/ontology
Ontology 55
Ontology
Ontology asks the question “what is there?”
Eliminative materialism claims that nothing exists but mate-
Chapter 3
rial particles, which makes many problems in ancient and modern
philosophy difficult if not insoluble. To be sure, we are made of
the same material as the ancients. With every breath we take, we
inspire 10 to 20 of the same molecules of air that sustained Aris-
totle. The total matter and energy of the universe is a fixed or
“conserved” quantity
But information is not a fixed quantity. The stuff of thought and
creativity, information has been increasing since the beginning of
the universe. Information is an abstract entity. Digital information
is just bits of data, yet it is capable of representing any physical
object or process and arguably can also represent abstract con-
cepts.
The ontological status of abstract concepts is a completely dif-
ferent question from the ontology of concrete physical objects,
though these questions have often been confounded in the history
of philosophy.
Information philosophy provides distinct answers to these two
ontological questions. Physical objects are pure material or par-
ticles of energy that exist in the world of space and time. Abstract
concepts (like redness) are pure information, neither matter nor
energy, although they need matter for their embodiment and
energy for their communication. For example, the abstract idea
of “two” is embodied in any two objects. The idea of a circle is
embodied in a round object. Redness is embodied in the red pho-
tons being emitted or reflected from an object. The arrangement
of material objects, whether continuous matter like the wood in
a table top, or the momentary position of billiard balls, is pure
information.
The ancients sometimes said that these abstract concepts do
not “exist,” but rather are said to “subsist.” Information philosophy
claims that the “form” of an object can not be separated from the
matter and so deserves to be ontological, even metaphysical?
The contrast between physical objects and abstract concepts can
be illustrated by the difference between invention and discovery.
Chapter 3
We discover physical objects through our perceptions of them.

To be sure, we invent our ideas about these objects, their descrip-
tions, their names, theories of how they are structured and how
they interact energetically - with one another and with us. But
we cannot arbitrarily invent the natural world. We must test our
theories with experiment. The experimental results select those
theories that best fit the data, the information coming to us from
the world. This makes our knowledge of an independent external
world scientific knowledge.
By contrast, we humans invent many abstract concepts such as
the names we give to objects. We know that these cultural con-
structs do not exist somewhere in nature as physical structures
before we create them. Cultural knowledge is conventional, rela-
tive to and dependent on the society that creates it.
However, some of our invented abstract concepts seem to
clearly have an existence that is independent of us, like the num-
bers and the force of gravity.
Consider the shape of a given object. The abstract representa-
tion of the shape in the mind, or in a computer model, is (quanti-
tatively) much less information than the total information in the
shape of the physical object.
But when the representation is accurate, it is isomorphic with a
proper subset of the information in the object itself. We can assert
that at least this similar information is in the world and should be
included in our physical ontology.
The Metaphysicist’s Approach
Rather than simply ask “Do abstract entities like numbers and
properties exist,” a metaphysicist prefers to ask in what way they
might exist that is different from the way in which “concrete”
objects exist.
Ontology 57
Concrete objects can be seen and touched by our senses. They are
material, with causal relations that obey the physical laws of nature.
Abstract entities are immaterial, but some of them can still play
a causal role, for example when agents use them to decide on their
Chapter 3
actions, or when chance events (particularly at the quantum level)
go this way instead of that.
Just as the mind is like software in the brain hardware, the abstract
information in a material object is the same kind of immaterial stuff
as the information in an abstract entity, a concept or a “non-existent
object.” Some philosophers say that such immaterial things “sub-
sist,” rather than exist.
Broadly speaking, the distinction between concrete and abstract
objects corresponds to the distinction between the material and the
ideal. Ideas in minds are immaterial. They need the matter of the
brain to be embodied and some kind of energy to be communi-
cated to other minds. But they are not themselves matter or energy.
Those “eliminativists” who believe the natural world contains only
material things deny the “existence” of ideas and immaterial infor-
mation.
Some ideas may be wholly fictitious and nonsensical, whether
mere possibles or even impossibles, like the round square, but most
ideas correspond to actual objects or processes going on in the
world. In either case, we can usually specify the informational con-
tent of the idea. Some anti-metaphysicians like to say that names of
non-existent objects are “meaningless.” But this is wrong. There is
a wealth of meaningful information in our knowledge base about
unicorns, for example.
Metaphysicists identify abstract entities with the information
contained in them. They may be concepts that did not exist in
the world until they were invented. Or the information may have
existed in material structures and so we say they were discovered.
For example, the idea of the moon includes the concepts of a dis-
tinct shape, color, and even the appearance of a face.
Many such ideas are mind-independent. Consider properties of
the moon. Most observers agree the shape is round and the color is
white. (Actually, the moon is blacker than most any terrestrial black
object. It only appears white compared to the blackness of space.)
Some metaphysicians deny the existence of a universal property
such as roundness or whiteness. But metaphysicists see the informa-
Chapter 3
tion needed to specify circularity and the wavelengths of radiation

that correspond to whiteness. And that information is embodied
in the moon, just as a software program is embodied in computer
hardware, and a mental idea is embodied in a brain.
Many ideas or concepts are created by human minds by “pick-
ing out” some of the information in physical objects. Whether such
concepts “carve nature at the joints” (Plato, Phaedrus, 265e) depends
on their usefulness in understanding the world.
Plato’s Theory of the Forms held that an Idea like the circle pre-
exists material beings, where Aristotle argued that the Ideas are
abstractions from the most general properties, for example, in all
the actual circles.
Information philosophy restores so-called “non-existent objects”
to our ontology. They consist of the same kind of information that
provides the structure and process information of a concrete object.
What we call a “concept” about an object is some subset of the infor-
mation in the object, accurate to the extent that the concept is iso-
morphic to that subset. By “picking out” different subsets, we can
sort objects, e.g., into sets or “natural kinds.”
Information philosophy settles deep philosophical issues about
absolute and relative identity. All material objects are self-identical,
despite concerns about vague boundaries. All objects have relations
with other objects that can be interpreted as relative identities. All
objects are identical to other objects in some respects and different
qua other respects.
Continuous or Discrete?
Is the fundamental nature of reality continuous fields or discrete
particles? What about space and time? Are they perhaps also digi-
tal and discrete and only appear to be continuous? The Academic
Skeptic argument about growth said that even the smallest mate-
rial change destroys an entity and another entity appears. A change
Ontology 59
in the instant of time also destroys every material object, followed

instantaneously by the creation of an almost “identical” object.
The Skeptics argued that an individual cannot survive material
change. When any material is subtracted or added, the entity ceases
Chapter 3
to exist and a new numerically distinct individual comes into exis-
tence. By contrast, the Stoics saw the identity of an individual as
its immaterial bundle of properties or qualities that they called the
“peculiarly qualified individual” or ἰδίος ποιὸν.
The Stoics were following Aristotle. Like him, they called the
material substance or substrate ὑποκείμενον (or “the underlying”).
They believed the material substrate is “transformed” when matter
is lost or gained. The Stoics suggested these changes should be
called “generation (γενέσεις) and destruction (φθορὰς).” They said
it is wrong to call material changes “growth (αὐξήσεις) and decay
(φθίσεις).” These terms were already present in Aristotle, who said
that the form, as essence, is not generated. He said that generation
and destruction are material changes that do not persist. The Stoics
argued that the peculiarly qualified individual does persist. Aristotle
commented on his use of words about persistence:
It is therefore obvious that the form (or whatever we should call the
shape in the sensible thing) is not generated—generation does not apply
to it—nor is the essence generated; for this is that which is induced in
something else either by art or by nature or by potency. But we do cause
a bronze sphere to be, for we produce it from bronze and a sphere; we
induce the form into this particular matter, and the result is a bronze
sphere...
For if we consider the matter carefully, we should not even say with-
out qualification that a statue is generated from wood, or a house from
bricks; because that from which a thing is generated should not persist,
but be changed. This, then, is why we speak in this way.1
The basic definition of persistence is to show that an object is the
same object at different times. Although this may seem trivially obvi-
ous for ordinary objects, information philosophy shows that there is
strictly no such thing as identity over time. The “same” object at two
different times contains different information (minimally, its time
coordinate in four-dimensional space-time has changed). Metaphy-
sicians say it is better considered as two objects that are not abso-
lutely identical.
1 Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book VII, § vii & viii.

Willard van Orman Quine’s ontology proposed that we con-

sider an object as existing in “stages.” Quine’s student, David Lewis
argues that at every instant of time, every object disappears, ceases
to exist, to be replaced by a very similar new entity.
Chapter 3
As we saw in chapter 2, Lewis proposes temporal parts as a solu-

tion to the problem of persistence. He calls his solution “perdur-
ance,” which he distinguishes from “endurance,” in which the whole
entity exists at all times. Lewis says:
Our question of overlap of worlds parallels the this-worldly problem of
identity through time; and our problem of accidental intrinsics paral-
lels a problem of temporary intrinsics, which is the traditional problem
of change. Let us say that something persists iff, somehow or other, it
exists at various times; this is the neutral word... Something perdures iff
it persists by having different temporal parts, or stages, at different times,
though no one part of it is wholly present at more than one time; whereas
it endures iff it persists by being wholly present at more than one time.
Perdurance corresponds to the way a road persists through space; part
of it is here and part of it is there, and no part is wholly present at two
different places. Endurance corresponds to the way a universal, if there
are such things, would be wholly present wherever and whenever it is
instantiated. Endurance involves overlap: the content of two different
times has the enduring thing as a common part. Perdurance does not.2
Lewis’s perduring road parts do not exactly persist. They are
intrinsically different parts. The enduring entity does persist sim-
pliciter.
In their thinking about persistence, many science-minded meta-
physicians have been inspired by Einstein’s theory of special relativ-
ity. The idea of a four-dimensional manifold of space and time sup-
ports the idea that the “temporal parts” of an object are as distinct
from one another as its spatial parts. This raises questions about its
continued identity as it moves in space and time. But what if space
and time are not themselves continuous?
As to the more common sense view of endurance, it is metaphysi-
cally necessary, both logically and in terms of an information analy-
sis, the case that everything is identical to itself. Self-identity is a
necessary truth. If you exist, you do not exist necessarily, but you are
necessarily self-identical at each instant of time.
2 On the Plurality of Worlds, p. 202
Ontology 61
And if you exist, you are very nearly identical to yourself a

moment ago. But because your information content is a strong
function of time, you at time t + 1 is not exactly equal to you at
time t. This will make the perdurantists happy, but the change in
Chapter 3
information is such a tiny fraction of your total that endurance
theorists are closer to the truth in the problem of persistence.
But will this continuity of the preponderance of the intrinsic
information in an entity be continuous if there is a “gap” in the
time itself? Can we fall back to the pre-Socratic insight of Par-
menides, who said that if there is nothing between two objects,
they must be in contact? This felt like nonsense in the case of
space, is it the same with the time?
Meta-Ontology
The deepest of all ontological questions for information phi-
losophy is the meta-ontological question, does information exist?
Does it help if we change the question and look for another way
information might exist, different from the way matter exists?
Some say form - information subsists. But this feels like a verbal
quibble. We can say that whatever it consists of, it is not matter. But
this only says what it is not. More wordplay, ways of talking.
Information consists of numbers, ideas, thoughts, composites
of simples, arrangements of matter, its organization, order out of
chaos, software in the hardware, above all, it is communications
between entities. But is it “nothing but,” nothing over and above
the matter itself?
Quantificationally, information is increasing in the universe
while matter (with energy) is a conserved and constant quantity.
Quintessentially, information is the metaphysical and
ontological locus of possibility and chance.
Quantum mechanically, the one irreducible mystery is how a
purely abstract probability wave can acausally move information,
if not matter, from one place to another at speeds faster than light.
62 Great Problems in Philosophy and Physics - Solved?
Chapter 4
Wi l l
Free

informationphilosopher.com/freedom
Free Will 63
Free Will
In our 2011 book Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy, our mind
model was a combination of a rudimentary experience recorder
and reproducer (ERR)1 and our two-stage model of free will. Recent
Chapter 4
information analysis of the mind and the mind-body problem
has greatly strengthened our mind model. We now see the mind
as immaterial information, the “software in the hardware” of the
material brain, which we view as a biological information processor.
Five years ago, we saw the quantum randomness in the first stage
as adding “uncaused” events to fit a picture of “event causality”
and to attack the “causal closure” of the eliminative materialists.
Now that our mind model is unapologetically immaterial, it is
in fact an example of the kind of metaphysical entities that the
famous philosopher P. F. Strawson rejected as “panicky metaphys-
ics - uncaused causes, immaterial minds, non-empirical noume-
nal selves, non-event agent causes, and prime movers unmoved.”
We now endorse the idea of agent causality,2 in which the mind
has causal powers over the material world.
We argue that freedom of the will begins in the pre-deliberative
thoughts of the agent. Although Albert Einstein was a strong
believer in determinism, he saw our thoughts and theories as “free
creations of the human mind.” These creative thoughts bring new
information into the universe. New information emerges3 from the
material and biological worlds to become part of the mental or
ideal world, even as it is embodied in the material world.
Without alternative possibilities for an open future, there can
be no new information in the universe, in biology, or in human
minds. But there continues to be new information, in stars still
forming, in the evolution of new species, and in creative minds.
1 See Appendix E.
2 See informationphilosopher.com/freedom/agent-causality.html
3 See chapter 27 on emergence and appendix F on cosmic creation..
The Two-Stage Model of Free Will

Our two-stage model is now the most plausible explana-
tion, not only for human free will, but also for creativity, cited
in the American Psychological Association’s Review of General
Psychology as supporting the Campbell-Simonton BVSR model of
Chapter 4
creative thought.4
Given the “laws of nature” and the “fixed past” just before a
decision, many philosophers wonder how a free agent can have
any possible alternatives. This is partly because they imagine a
timeline for the decision that shrinks the decision process to a
single moment.
Collapsing the decision to a single moment between the closed

fixed past and the open ambiguous future makes it difficult to see
the role of free thoughts of the mind - which bring new informa-
tion into the universe - followed by the willed and adequately
determined action in a temporal sequence, as shown here.
But the two-stage model is not limited to a single step of gener-

ating alternative possibilities followed by a single step of determi-
nation by the will. It is better understood as a continuous process
of possibilities generation by what we call the micro mind (parts
of the brain that leave themselves open to noise) and adequately
determined choices made from time to time by the macro mind
(the same brain parts, perhaps, but now averaging over and filter-
ing out the noisiness that might otherwise make the determina-
tion random).
4 Review of General Psychology, APA, 2013, Vol 17, No 4, 374
Free Will 65
In particular, note that a special kind of decision might occur

when the macro mind finds that none of the current options are
good enough for the agent’s character and values to approve. The
macro mind then might figuratively say to the micro mind, “Think
again!” Thus we can say that the agent has control over the gen-
Chapter 4
eration of alternative possibilities, without controlling the specific
new idea that may come to mind
Many philosophers have puzzled how an agent could do oth-

erwise in exactly the same prior circumstances. Since humans
are intelligent organisms, and given the myriad of possible cir-
cumstances, it is impossible that an agent is ever in exactly the
same circumstances. The agent’s memory (stored in the experience
recorder and reproducer) of earlier similar circumstances guaran-
tees that.
The two-stage model may make an artificial temporal separa-
tion between micro-mind creative randomness and macro-mind
deliberative evaluation. These two capabilities of the mind can
clearly be going on at the same time. That can be visualized by the
occasional decision to go back and think again, when the available
alternatives are not good enough to satisfy the demands of the
agent’s character and values, or by noticing that the subconscious
micro mind might be still generating possibilities while the macro
mind is in the middle of evaluations.
Finally, not all decisions in the two-stage model end with an
adequately determined “de-liberation” or perhaps better we can
call it simply self-determination. Many times the evaluation of the
possibilities produces two or more alternatives that seem more or
less of equal value.
In this case, the agent may choose randomly among those
alternatives, yet have very good reasons to take responsibility for
whichever one is chosen. This is related to the ancient liberty of
indifference.
I like to call such a decision an “undetermined liberty,” because it

remains undetermined at the moment of the decision. Though not
determined by the deliberations, we can say that the agent “deliber-
ately” chooses at random between equal options.
Chapter 4
Undetermined liberties include Robert Kane’s Self-Forming

Actions, although Kane limits his SFAs to “torn” decisions between
moral and self-interested alternatives.
Neuroscientific Evidence for the Two-Stage Model
Benjamin Libet’s famous experiments are widely cited by com-
patibilists and determinists as showing that the decision has been
made a long time before the conscious will can act. We shall inter-
pret them as supporting the temporal sequence in the two-stage
model of free will, creating new information in the first stage.
The original discovery that an electrical potential (of just a few
microvolts - μV) is visible in the brain long before the appearance of
conscious will was made by Kornhuber and Deecke (1964). They
called it a “Bereitschaftspotential” or readiness potential.
Figure 4-1. Kornhuber and Deecke “readiness potential”
The neurobiologist John Eccles had speculated that the subject

must become conscious of the intention to act before the onset of
this readiness potential. Benjamin Libet decided to test Eccles’s idea.
Free Will 67
Libet’s 1983 experiments measured the time when the subject

became consciously aware of the decision to move the finger. Libet
created a dot on the screen of an oscilloscope circulating like the
hand of a clock. The subject was asked to note the position of the
moving dot when he/she was aware of the conscious decision to
move a finger or wrist..
Chapter 4
As shown on the RP diagram, Libet found that although con-
scious awareness of the decision preceded the subject’s finger motion
by only 200 milliseconds (the up arrow), the rise in the readiness
potential was clearly visible at about 550 milliseconds before the flex
of the wrist (down arrow). The subject showed unconscious activity
to flex about 350 milliseconds before reporting conscious awareness
of the decision to flex. Indeed an earlier very slight rise in the readi-
ness potential can be seen as early as 1.5 seconds before the action.
Of course the kinds of deliberative and evaluative processes that
are essential for free will involve much longer time periods than
those studied by Libet. Nevertheless, we can correlate the begin-
nings of the readiness potential (350ms before Libet’s “conscious
will” time “W” appears) with the early stage of the two-stage model,
when alternative possibilities are being generated, in part at random.
Figure 4-2. Readiness potential and the two-stage model
The early stage may be attributed to the subconscious, which

is capable of considering multiple alternatives (William James’
“blooming, buzzing confusion”) that would congest the low-data-

rate single stream of consciousness.
Alfred Mele criticized the interpretation of the Libet results on
two grounds. First, the appearance of the RP a half-second or more
before the action in no way makes the RP the cause of the action.
Chapter 4
It may simply mark the beginning of forming an intention to act.

In our two-stage model, it corresponds to the agent’s thoughts that
generate possible options, which may create new information.
Libet himself argued that even if a decison has been made, there
is enough time after the W moment (a window of opportunity per-
haps 50 ms) to veto the action, but Mele’s second criticism points
out that such examples of “free won’t” would not be captured in
Libet experiments, because the recording device is triggered by the
action (typically flicking the wrist) itself.
Thus, although all Libet experiments ended with the wrist flick-
ing, we are not justified in assuming that the rise of the RP (well
before the moment of conscious will) is a cause of the wrist flicking.
Libet knew that there were very likely other times when the RP
rose, but which did not lead to a flick of the wrist. All such events
could create immaterial information about new possibilities, but
might not be acted upon immediately. Libet noted that in normal
decisions we might deliberate all day.
We should also distinguish between deliberations about what choice of
action to adopt (including preplanning of when to act on such a choice),
and the final intention to actually “act now.” One may, after all, deliberate
all day about a choice but never act... However, conscious will definitely
can control whether the act takes place. We may view the unconscious
initiatives for voluntary actions as “burbling up” unconsciously in the
brain. The conscious will then selects which of these initiatives may go
forward to an action, or which ones to veto and abort so no act occurs.5
We conclude that Libet’s neuroscientific experiments may be
interpreted as supporting the two-stage model. We know little about
what goes on in the early rise of the readiness potential. But only
a dogmatic determinist would claim that it already contains and
directly causes any later decision.
5 B. Libet, Mind Time, pp.148-149
Free Will 69
History of the Free Will Problem6

In our research on the history of the free will problem, we have
identified several thinkers who developed two-stage solutions to
the classical problem of free will, first William James, then Henri
Poincaré, Jacques Hadamard, Arthur Holly Compton, Karl
Chapter 4
Popper, Daniel Dennett, Henry Margenau, Robert Kane,
David Sedley and Anthony Long, Roger Penrose, David
Layzer, Julia Annas, Alfred Mele, John Martin Fischer, Ste-
phen Kosslyn, Storrs McCall and E. J. Lowe, John Searle, and
Martin Heisenberg.7
Some of course were more clear and comprehensive about the
two stagesthan others, but our goal is to give them all credit.8
Recently we discovered a possible two-stage argument many cen-
turies before William James.
Titus Lucretius Carus is our main source for the work of
Epicurus, who provided the first argument for chance with his
“swerve” of the atoms. Lucretius eloquently made Epicurus’ case.
Shortly after describing the swerve, he says:
“If all motion is always one long chain, and new motion arises out of the
old in order invariable, and if first-beginnings do not make by swerving
a beginning of motion so as to break the decrees of fate, whence comes
this free will?”9
But now we have found evidence that Lucretius made the case
for alternative thoughts coming to mind before a willed decision,
and the possible new ideas sound very much like Epicurus’ random
swervings.
Now listen, and hear what things stir the mind, and learn in a few words
whence these things come into the mind. In the first place I tell you
that many images of things are moving about in many ways and in all
directions.10
6 Doyle, 2011, chapter 7 is a 60-page history of the problem

7 See Doyle, 2011, chapter 12, for these two-stage solutions.
8 Also see informationphilosopher.com/freedom/two-stage_models.html
9 De Rerum Natura, Book 2, 251
This also sounds a great deal like William James’ “blooming,

buzzing, confusion” of the subconscious and Libet’s “burbling up.”
even in things plainly visible you can observe that, it is just as if the
thing were all the while withdrawn and far removed from you. Then
what wonder is it, if the mind misses everything except what it is itself
Chapter 4
intent on?11
Lucretius again sounds like James, who explains choice as the
focusing of attention. Next comes the will (voluntas).
Next I will say how it comes about that we can carry onwards our steps
when we please...I say in the first place images of movement come in
contact with our mind, and strike the mind, as I said before, After this
comes will; for no one ever begins anything until the intelligence has
first foreseen what it wills to do.12
So Lucretius may have long ago captured the essence of the
temporal sequence in our two-stage model.
The classic problem of free will is to reconcile an element of free-
dom with the apparent determinism in a world of causes and effects,
a world of events in a great causal chain.
Determinists deny any such freedom.
Compatibilists redefine freedom. Although they say that our will
is determined by prior events in the causal chain (including our rea-
sons, motives, etc.), our will is in turn causing and determining our
actions. Compatibilists say that determinism of our actions by our
will allows us to take moral responsibility for our actions. This is
correct. The second stage of our model makes us responsible.
Libertarians think the will is free when a choice can be made that
is not pre-determined or necessitated by prior events. The will is free
when alternative choices could have been made with the same pre-
existing conditions.
Freedom of the will allows us to say, “I could have chosen (and
done) otherwise.”
In a deterministic world, everything that happens follows ineluc-
tably from natural or divine laws. There is but one possible future.
We cannot have chosen otherwise,
In the more common sense view, we are free to shape our future,
to be creative, to be unpredictable.
Free Will 71
From the ancient Epicureans to modern quantum mechani-

cal indeterminists, some thinkers have suggested that chance or
randomness is an explanation for freedom, an explanation for the
unpredictability of a free and creative act. A truly random event
would break the causal chain and nullify determinism, providing
Chapter 4
room for human freedom.
Freedom of human action does require the randomness of abso-
lute unpredictability, but if our actions are the direct consequence
of a random event, we cannot feel responsible. That would be mere
indeterminism, as unsatisfactory as determinism.
Moreover, indeterminism appears to threaten reason itself, which
seems to require certainty and causality to establish truth, knowl-
edge, and the laws of nature.
Most philosophers in all ages have been committed to one or
more of the dogmas of determinism,13 refusing to admit any indeter-
minism or chance. Aristotle said chance was “obscure to human
reason.” Chryssipus described the case of “indeterminism is true”
as a disaster for reason. David Hume found “no medium betwixt
chance and necessity.” Many theologians thought chance atheistic,
doubting God’s omniscience,
Many scientists agree that science is predicated on strict causality
and predictability, without which science itself, considered as the
search for causal laws, would be impossible.
For those scientists, laws of nature would not be “laws” if they
were only statistical and probabilistic. Sadly for them, all laws of
nature turn out to be thoroughly statistical and our predictions
merely probable, though with probabilities approaching certainty.
Science is irreducibly statistical.
But fortunately, for large objects the departure from deterministic
laws is unobservable. Probabilities become indistinguishable from
certainties, and we can show there is an “adequate (or statistical)
determinism”14
Important elements of the model have been proposed by many
philosophers since Aristotle, the first indeterminist. A number of
modern philosophers and scientists, have proposed models of free
13 See Doyle, 2011, chapter 9, for a review of many determinisms.

14 See informationphilosopher.com/freedom/adequate_determinism.html
will. But none of them has been able to locate the randomness so
as to make free will “intelligible,” as libertarian Robert Kane puts it.
The insoluble problem for previous free-will models has been to
explain how a random event in the brain can be timed and located
- perfectly synchronized! - so as to be relevant to a specific deci-
Chapter 4
sion. The answer is it cannot be, for the simple reason that quantum
events are totally unpredictable.
The two-stage model is not a single random event, one per deci-
sion, but many random events in the brain as a result of ever-present
noise, both quantum and thermal noise, inherent in any informa-
tion storage and communication system.
The mind, like all biological systems, has evolved in the presence
of constant noise and is able to ignore that noise, unless the noise
provides a significant competitive advantage, which it clearly does
as the basis for freedom and for creativity that brings new informa-
tion into the universe.
Let’s see how randomness in the two-stage model is never the
direct cause of our decisions. Decisions are always adequately, i.e.,
statistically, but near certainly, determined by reasons and motives.
We assume that there are always many contributing causes for
any event, and in particular for a mental decision. In both the New-
ell-Simon “Blackboard” model15 and Bernard Baars’ “Theater of
Consciousness” and “Global Workspace” models,16 there are many
competing possibilities for our next thought or action. Where do
they come from? And, most importantly, does the agent have any
control over their generation?
Each of these possibilities is the result of a sequence of events
that goes back in an assumed causal chain until its beginning in an
uncaused event. Aristotle called this original event an arche (ἀρχῆ),
one whose major contributing cause (or causes) was itself uncaused.
What this means is that tracing any particular sequence of events
back in time will come to one event - a “starting point” or “fresh
start” - Aristotle’s origin or arche - the dreaded “causa sui.” Today we
say it must involve quantum indeterminacy.
15 Newell and Simon, 1972

16 Baars, 1997
Free Will 73
Whether a particular thing happens, says Aristotle, may depend

on a series of causes that
“goes back to some starting-point, which does not go back to something
else. This, therefore, will be the starting-point of the fortuitous, and
nothing else is the cause of its generation.”17
Chapter 4
We can thus in principle assign times, or ages, to the starting
points of the contributing causes of a decision. Some of these may
in fact go back before the birth of an agent, hereditary causes for
example. To the extent that such random causes adequately deter-
mine an action, we can understand why hard determinists think
that the agent has no control over such actions. Of course if we can
always opt out of an action at the last moment, so we retain control,
even if the origin of the option was inherited.
Other contributing causes may be traceable back to environmen-
tal and developmental events, perhaps education, perhaps simply
life experiences, that were “character-forming” events. These and
genetic or hereditary causes would now be present in the mind of
the agent as fixed habits, with a very high probability of “adequately
determining” the agent’s actions in many situations.
But other contributing causes of a specific option may have been
undetermined up to the very near past, even fractions of a second
before an important decision. The causal chains for these contribut-
ing causes may originate in the noisy brain. They include the free
generation of new alternative possibilities for thought or action
during the agent’s deliberations. They fit Aristotle’s criteria for causes
that “depend on us” (ἐφ’ ἡμῖν) and originate “within us” (ἐv ἡμῖν).
Causes with these most recent starting points are the fundamen-
tal reason why an agent can do otherwise in what are essentially (up
to that starting point) the same circumstances.
These alternatives are likely generated from our internal knowl-
edge of practical possibilities based on our past experience. They
are stored in our experience recorder and reproducer. Those that
are handed up by the ERR for consideration to Baars’ “executive
function” in his “Theater of Consciousness” may be filtered to some
extent by unconscious processes to be “within reason.” They likely
consist of random variations of similar actions willed many times
in the past.
17 Metaphysics Book VI 1027b12-14
Note that the evaluation and selection of one of these possibilities

by the will is as deterministic and causal a process as anything that a
determinist or compatibilist could ask for, consistent with our cur-
rent knowledge of the physical world.
Remember also that instead of strict causal determinism, the
Chapter 4
world offers only adequate (or statistical) determinism, and it is the

random origins of possibilities that provides libertarian freedom of
thought and adequately determined but not pre-determined action.
Why have philosophers been unable for millennia to accept the
common sense view that humans are free? Partly because their logic
and language preoccupation makes them say that either determin-
ism or indeterminism is “true,” and the other must be “false.” This is
the standard (but flawed) argument against free will.
But there is a deeper concern. If the origin of possibilities is truly
random, have we lost the control needed to assert moral responsibil-
ity? Can the two-stage model provide a measure of control over the
creative generation of alternative possibilities that does not make
them pre-determined? Let us see.
The Standard Argument Against Free Will
Simple variations of this standard argument are found through-
out the somewhat unsophisticated philosophical literature on free
will,18 and even in some of the most extensively cited work, for
example, Galen Strawson’s “Basic Argument on the Impossibility
of Moral Responsibility.”19
The standard argument has two parts.
If determinism is the case, the will is not free.
If indeterminism and real chance exist, our will would not be in
our control, we could not be responsible for randomly caused actions.
The two-stage model provides the two essential requirements
needed to defeat this standard argument
The first requirement is some indeterminism (objective chance)
to break the causal chain of determinism and to generate creative
thoughts and alternative possibilities for action. But this indeter-
minism must somehow not destroy our moral responsibility. It must
not be the direct cause of action.
18 See Doyle, 2011, chapter 4, for dozens of examples.
19 Philosophical Studies: Vol. 75, No. 1/2, (Aug., 1994), pp. 5-24
Free Will 75
Thus the second requirement is that our deliberations and evalu-

ations are “adequately” (or statistically) determined, so that we can
be responsible for our choices, so that they are “up to us.”
“Adequate” (i.e., statistical) determinism means that the indeter-
ministic alternative possibilities themselves are not the direct cause
Chapter 4
of our actions. The cause is the agent’s decision.
Objective chance in the generation of alternatives means that at
least some of the possibilities are not causally determined by imme-
diately preceding events, so they are unpredictable by any agency,
including us. They can then be the source of the creativity that adds
new information to the universe.
Chance gives us the “free” in free will.
Adequate determinism gives us the “will” in free will.
Thoughts come to us freely. Actions go from us willfully.
We must admit indeterminism, but not permit it to produce random
actions as some Determinists mistakenly fear.
We must also limit the determinism, but not eliminate it as some
Libertarians mistakenly think is necessary.
The evaluation and careful deliberation of all the available
possibilities, both ingrained habits and creative new ideas, can be
recognized as “self-determination.” This makes us the responsible
“agent cause” of our actions.
But we must not thing that our “self-determination” was in any
way pre-determined before we began to consider our possibilities.
Self-determination is only “adequately and statistically” determined.
It is not completely immune from random noise.
Compatibilists should be comfortable that the reasons, motives,
feelings and desires of the agent are causal factors that were evalu-
ated by the agent during the second-stage deliberations and the ulti-
mate choice of an action.
This is all that is needed for the agent to accept what Robert
Kane calls “ultimate responsibility” for the action.
But some event acausality is a prerequisite for any kind of agent
causality that is not pre-determined by the moments before delib-
erations begin. This acausality is the quantum indeterminism, the
ontological chance, that accompanies the new information creation

in the first stage of the two-stage model, where the agent freely gen-
erates alternative possibilities for action.
The two-stage model of free will proves that our actions are not pre-
determined, even from moments just before we begin thinking about
Chapter 4
freely generating new options for action.

We can summarize our criticism of the standard argument against
free will in a few simple lines.
“Free Will” is really two independent stages that combine a
limited indeterminism with a limited determinism.
First comes the “free” generation of alternative possibilities, then
our adequately determined “willed” actions.
Our thoughts are free. Our actions are willed.
First “free,” then “will.”
Possible Worlds and Alternative Possibilities
In the twentieth century the study of modal logic (the truth con-
ditions for statements about necessity and possibility) led to a model
theory involving possible worlds. The philosopher David Lewis
maintained there are an infinite number of possible worlds, all just
as real for their inhabitants as our actual world. The physicist Hugh
Everett III said that the world splits in two whenever a quantum
experiment is performed.
Lewis and Everett were materialists and determinists. In their
worlds everything is determined by the laws of nature and the fixed
past. Each world has but one future. Free will is an illusion.
But Saul Kripke, who formulated the theory of possible world
semantics for modal logic, described the use of possible worlds as
representations of how our actual world might be. “‘Possible worlds’
are total ‘ways the world might have been’,” he said, which means
they can describe the alternative possibilities of our two-stage model
for free will.
Free Will 77
They are “counterfactual situations” in Kripke’s sense, involving

a single individual. Suppose the agent is considering five different
courses of action. During the second stage of evaluation and delib-
eration only one of the five options (each a “possible world”) will
become actualized.
Chapter 4
Note that Kripke’s possible worlds are extremely close to one
another, “nearby” in the sense of their total information content,
the difference between them is very small amount of information
compared to the typical examples given in possible worlds cases.
For typical cases of a free decision, the possible worlds require
only small differences in the mind of a single person. Kripke argued
against the thesis that mind and body (or brain) are identical. In this
example, it would only be the thoughts in the mind of the agent that
pick out the possible world that will be actualized.
Free Will and Creativity
Creativity requires that new information come into the world. It
must be information that was not implicit in earlier states of the
world. Information is only fixed in a deterministic universe.20
It is new information creation that explains agent causality.
When we create new information, we do it freely. Our thoughts
are “free creations of the human mind,” as Einstein said.
Humans are conspicuous creators and consumers of new infor-
mation structures, altering the face of planet Earth. And we create
the constructed ideal world of thought, of intellect, of spirit, includ-
ing the invention of the laws of nature, followed by the discoveries
that confirm them experimentally.
We are authors of our lives and co-creators of our natural world.
20 See appendix A.
Chapter 5
Value

informationphilosopher.com/value
Value 79
Value
Is the Good something that exists in the world? Existentialists
thought not. They thought we have freedom, but saw freedom
as absurd, because there are no values to help choose. Without
values, no evaluations. Most religions place the origin of good in
Chapter 5
a supernatural Being. Existentialists denied that Being. “God is
dead,” they said, and thus denied any essential objective Good.
The traditional source of normative values, of morality, of ethics,
of what one “ought to do,” has been religion. It is often said that
science, the empirical study of the natural world, cannot possibly
help us to define the good. David Hume is often cited as saying
we cannot derive “Ought” from “Is.” This is sometimes called the
“fact/value” dichotomy. Science, it is said, can help us to do what
we decide to do. It can help with prudential or instrumental deci-
sions about “means,” but not with moral decisions that depend on
the intrinsic value of “ends.”
It is difficult to generalize about the thousands of religions
invented over the ages by their prophets and founders, but most
include a code of moral behavior. Some founders told their fol-
lowers that they had simply discovered the correct moral codes.
Some prophets claim to have been explicitly told the “truth” about
good and evil in a conversation with God, or by a mystical vision.
With founders and prophets mostly long gone today, moral codes
are typically handed down by various traditions.
The power of the institutions that has grown up around world
religions lies entirely in their ability to limit the knowledge of their
members to their beliefs about the “truth.” Where these traditions
vary in their beliefs, and they do disagree in fundamental ways,
they cannot possibly all be right, unless all cultural beliefs are rela-
tive, which they may well be at the present time.
Humanists think that good and evil are human inventions, that
value systems are relative to a local community or society. “Man is
the measure of all things.” Comparative ethics is the study of dis-
parate value systems in the hope of finding come commonly held
rules, for which one can claim some universal or objective sig-
nificance, for example, the golden rule, “Do unto others” or com-
mandments like “Thou shall not kill.” Some philosophers make
human life an objective good. Some make one own’s life the ulti-
mate good. Some think the good is the maximization of pleasure,
or happiness, or well-being, for all humans (or maybe just one
Chapter 5
own’s family, tribe, community, or nation?),

Modern bioethicists hope to avoid all this relativism by situat-
ing value in all life, seeing humanism as short-sighted, if general-
ized, self-interest. A variety of ancient religions looked to the Sun
as the sustainer of all life and thus found an objective good outside
of human life. They anthropomorphized the sun or the “bright
sky” as God. Dark and night were stigmatized as evil and “fallen.”
Echoes of these ancient views persist in our metaphors of light, of
enlightenment, as good.
Philosophers have ever longed to discover a cosmic good. The
ideal source of a cosmic good is perhaps as remote as possible
from the Earth in space and as distant in time. Many theologians
and philosophers think it must be “outside space and time.” For
Plato, it was a timeless Good to be found in Being itself. For his
student Aristotle, it was a property of the first principles that
set the world in motion. For Kant, it was a transcendental and
“noumenal” God outside the everyday “phenomenal” world of
experience.
Information philosophy has found that the story of human
evolution does not start with Darwin and DNA. It starts much,
much earlier, at the very beginning of the universe. For those of
you thinking that your origins and place in the universe might be
found outside of animal evolution, beyond a mere material expla-
nation, you might be happy to learn that your most distant begin-
ning was in the primeval formation of immaterial, abstract infor-
mation, a kind of metaphysical spirituality you can tie directly to
the information content of your innermost thoughts.
Has information philosophy discovered the cosmic good? Does
it at least identify the prerequisite source of anything resembling
Value 81
the Good? Yes, it does. Does it resemble the Good anthropo-

morphized as a God personally concerned about our individual
goods? No, it does not. But it has one outstanding characteristic of
such a God. It is Providence. Information philosophy has discov-
ered the fundamental process in the universe that provides for our
well-being. It provides the light, it provides life, it provides intelli-
Chapter 5
gence. For all of these things, should we not be thankful and rever-
ent toward such a creative process, attitudes humans normally feel
towards a providential god?
Information philosophy replaces the difficult problem of “Does
God exist?” with the more tractable problem “Does Goodness
exist?” Humanists situate values in reason or human nature. Bio-
ethicists seek to move the source of goodness to the biosphere. Life
becomes the summum bonum. Information philosophers look out
to the universe as a whole, beyond the obviously beneficent Sun to
find a cosmos that grew from a chaos. The growth of that cosmos
continues today, in a cosmic creative process that formed the gal-
axies, stars, and planets, that led to life and then to the evolution
of the information-processing minds that created language and
logic. It is this process that we propose creates objective value.
Exactly how that is possible requires a subtle understanding
of the second law of thermodynamics in an expanding and open
universe. The second law is the tendency of isolated systems to
become more disorderly, to increase the “entropy,” a quantitative
measure of disorder. When entropy increases in a closed system,
information is destroyed irreversibly.1
A very small number of processes that we call ergodic can
reduce the entropy locally to create macroscopic information
structures like stars and planets as well as microscopic ones like
atoms and molecules. And most important to human beings, this
creative process is not only responsible for our existence, it has
made us creative individuals in its own image! In what sense? It
is that we are creative beings. We are co-creators of the world we
live in, wielding a power to create, for better or for worse, that is
unparalleled in the history of the world.
1 See appendix B for entropy flows in the universe.
Every living thing is an information processor and communica-

tor. But the handling of information suggests four different levels
of processing among the animals - instinctive, learning, predictive,
and normative (reflective).
• The lowest organisms are created with a fixed amount of infor-
mation that is essentially constant their entire lives. Their behav-
Chapter 5
ioral repertoire is almost completely instinctive. They have little or

no learning capability. Their automatic reactions to environmental
conditions are “built in,” transmitted genetically. Information about
past experiences (by prior generations of the organism) is only pres-
ent implicitly in those inherited reactions.
• Animals with a learning capability can acquire new informa-
tion during their lifetimes. Their past experiences condition their
current choices. Mostly habitual reactions are developed through
experience, including instruction by parents and peers.
• The ability to predict the future evolved in animals with an expe-
rience recorder and reproducer (ERR) that can play back beyond the
current situation. These animals have foresight and imagination
that help them evaluate the future consequences of their choices.
They can generate alternative possibilities for future actions, based
on the playback of multiple past experiences in similar situations.
• Normative information appears in human societies that have
externalized and codified their past social experiences. Future
actions are evaluated based in part on ideas about the past, in addi-
tion to the individual’s actual experiences. Conscious deliberation
about community and universal values influences the choice of
behaviors.
All four levels are emergent,2 in the sense that they did not exist
in the lower, earlier levels of biological evolution. The emergence of
human beings also marks the emergence of information and infor-
mation processing that is going on outside of biological organisms.
The storage and retrieval of information in the form of writing, then
printing, and now the world-wide web, has enabled the transmis-
sion of knowledge to leap over vast distances in space and time.
2 See chapter 27 on emergence.
Value 83
Francis Bacon saw clearly that knowledge is power. Information

philosophy defines knowledge as information that has meaning3 for
humans, in the sense that it expands the possible alternative actions
to let us choose the best means to achieve our ends. The power of
this knowledge is shown in the exponential growth of humanity on
the planet. A mere ten thousand years ago the biomass of humans
and their domesticated animals was less than one percent of the
Chapter 5
biomass of terrestrial vertebrates. Today it is near ninety percent.
Humans have taken over the planet.
The Sum of human knowledge will soon be accessible to anyone
in the world with a tablet computer or smartphone. We estimate
this will be nearly the entire human population by the year 2020. If
this comes to be the case, there is an opportunity to expose young
children to the most universal of human values, perhaps before they
have been indoctrinated by their local cultural values.
This will be vehemently opposed by conservative governments
and fundamentalist religious forces whose hold on power depends
on keeping young minds closed to “outside” ideas.
A battle rages between cosmic ergodic processes and chaotic
entropic processes that destroy structure and information. Anthro-
pomorphizing these processes as good and evil gives us a dualist
image that nicely solves the monotheistic problem of evil.” If God
is the Good, God is not responsible for the Evil. Instead, we can
clearly see an impersonal Ergod behind Providence – the cosmic
source without which we would not exist and so a proper object
of our reverence. And Entropy is the “devil incarnate,” as Norbert
Wiener described it.
The fundamental moral guide to action found in information
philosophy is then very simple – when faced with a moral dilemma,
we ought to choose to preserve information structures against the
entropy. Beyond moral standards, the discovery of a cosmic source
of value suggests a basis for societal and legal norms.
Celebrating the first modern philosopher, René Descartes,
we call our model for value the Ergo. For those who might want to
anthropomorphize on the slender thread of discovering a natural
3 See chapter 11 on meaning.
Providence, call it Ergod. No God can be God without being Ergo-

dic, standing in opposition to forces of darkness and destruction.
Ergodic processes are those that resist the terrible and universal
Second Law of Thermodynamics, which commands the increase
of chaos and entropy (disorder). Without violating the inviolable
second law overall, ergodic processes reduce the entropy locally,
Chapter 5
producing pockets of cosmos and negative entropy (order and

information-rich structures). Ergo is the ultimate sine qua non.
The idea of a moral science has a long history. John Stuart Mill’s
Logic of the Moral Sciences was a major influence. Translated into
German as Geisteswissenschaft, or science of the spirit, Mill’s “moral
science” was then back-translated into English as the Human Sci-
ences or what has become the humanities in today’s universities. Of
course, David Hume and his great English colleague, Adam Smith,
a hundred years before Mill, had given us great insights into what
they saw as “natural” moral sentiments or feelings. Hume thought
he could make a science of human nature based on laws as definite
as Isaac Newton’s laws of motion. But this was to be a failure.
Maybe so, but we believe a moral society should be and can be
informed by the best scientific knowledge about human origins,
human capacities, and our current status in the universe.
An Information-based Moral Code?
The first rule of an information-based morality is that all choices
should be made so as to minimize the destruction of abstract
information and concrete information structures. All natural pro-
cesses increase the entropy. A very few (life, gravitation) decrease
the entropy locally. These we call ergodic. In principle, one should
calculate the entropy increase and the negative entropy gain for each
choice and maximize production and preservation of information.
Because abstract information can be duplicated and disseminated
at near-zero cost in the information age (“information wants to be
free”), our second rule is that we should share all information (our
knowledge Sum) to the maximum possible extent. Practically, this
means nourishing and educating all the world’s children, especially
Value 85
the females, who are more likely to assist in this project of nourish-
ing and education than are the males.
By contrast, a concrete “information structure,” or “wealth” in
the form of low-entropy information-rich matter and energy, is
subject to the laws of economic scarcity. The natural distribution of
wealth and income among individuals follows statistics like Pareto’s
Chapter 5
“80/20” rule, where the largest percentage of wealth is “normally”
concentrated in a minority of the population.
Some inequality is the unavoidable consequence of the “normal”
distribution of human intelligence and capability due to chance. It is
also the avoidable consequence of the historically random distribu-
tion of opportunity, including the inheritance of material property.
Redistribution of wealth through a progressive taxation system is
the means to regulate income and wealth inequality to a societally
acceptable norm that allows even the least capable humans to exer-
cise their creative freedom to their limits.
A Minimum Moral/Political Message?
Information philosophy has established that every human being
is uniquely capable of creating new information. This includes the
abstract ideas of our ancestors that have become the Sum of human
knowledge. It also includes the creation of concrete information
structures which add to the stock of material wealth, although
material objects are subject to the laws of economic scarcity. From
this, we can formulate our basic insight into human freedom and
creativity,
Thoughts Are Free, Actions Are Willed, Self-Determined,
Limited Only by Creative Control Over Matter and Energy.
Everything we know and much of the material value that we enjoy
today is the product of past and present creative human beings. It is
therefore of vital interest, a core value, for human society to protect
that free creative power for everyone.
We can say it is in the interest of future society that every human
being should have the right to exercise their ergodic freedom to
create new ideas to the maximum of their individual potential.
This right requires a minimum standard of well-being and edu-

cation, and a minimum of constraints on self-expression so society
can hear those new ideas.
The right to exercise this creative freedom comes with a respon-
sibility, an obligation to protect that freedom and opportunity for
others, and to see that the fruits of that creativity are distributed as
Chapter 5
fairly as possible to all humanity, while preserving adequate prop-

erty rights for the creator.
This is a kind of freedom that some philosophers have only
dreamed of. Sadly, many more have denied this creative freedom
as logically or physically impossible. We are finite beings, they say,
compared to the infinite powers that they mistakenly imagine are in
charge. It is their own limited imaginations that have sadly embraced
the idea of such infinite powers.
The fact is that human beings are the universe’s highest form
of pure information creator, a natural outgrowth of the universe’s
cosmic creative process. Humans are inferior to the cosmic process
in its power over useful matter and energy. That is the providential
gift of the negative entropy or Ergo in the form of incoming solar
radiation. But humans are superior to the cosmic process as the cre-
ators of ideas. Ideas are immaterial, potentially immortal if added to
the Sum of human knowledge.
Additions to human knowledge mean that the lives of our descen-
dants will almost always be richer and fuller than those of our ances-
tors, both materially and spiritually. As Albert Einstein knew, it
is our ideas that let us comprehend the almost incomprehensible
nature of the universe.
Unfortunately, as the material wealth and overall well-being of
humanity has greatly increased, and world poverty is nearing elimi-
nation, there is also an increase in anomie. As agricultural and
industrial productivity has soared, without the need to struggle
every day to provide our livelihood, we may face the danger of a life
of leisure that lacks a sense of meaningful purpose.
Beyond individual, family, tribe, and nation, can we develop the
sense of a universal telos, understanding why we live, love, and die?4
4 See the end of chapter 28 on the origins of information and life.
Value 87
An Information-based Social Contract?

With reference to past declarations of human rights, the discov-
ery of a universal and objective standard of value by information
philosophy suggests the following elements of a universal social
contract, to be accepted by individuals reaching the age of consent,
in order to have full participation in society.
Chapter 5
As a person coming of age in human society, I freely consent to
the following limits on my natural free agency, in order to preserve
a more perfect society.
As I seek maximum freedom and opportunity for myself, I will
protect equal freedom and opportunity for all other human beings.
As I am free to think whatever thoughts come to my mind, my
self-determined actions will be responsible, limited only by the
equal rights of others.
As I seek to gain my maximum allowable share of economic
wealth and personal well-being, I will do my best to help others earn
their own maximal shares.
As I seek to acquire the knowledge that will ensure my own future
well-being, I will help disseminate that knowledge to the world,
insofar as knowledge is our common human creation and inher-
itance from our ancestors, and since the cosmic creation process
provides more than enough negative entropy for everyone.
I will do nothing to others, nor advocate such things, that I do not
expect would be done to me in similar circumstances, according to
the laws of society. Liberty consists of doing anything which does
not harm others.
I respect the limited protection of an individual’s right to their
created intellectual and material property, but eventually some ideas
become common property. These include the laws that govern our
social behaviors. Laws should forbid only actions harmful to society.
Anything which is not forbidden by law should not be prevented.
All persons can contribute personally or through their represen-
tatives to the formation of the laws. Laws must be the same for all,
either as they protect, or as they punish.
All persons, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally admis-
sible to all public places and employments, according to their capac-
ity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of
their talents.
Since the laws are our common property, I will not use my finan-
cial or political power to change those laws in order to advance my
Chapter 5
own personal cause, or that of my family, my business, my commu-

nity, not even my nation. My power to change the laws I will limit
to my powers of persuasion and my power through the ballot box to
approve legislation.
I will respect the right of others to hold and to express conflicting
beliefs. But I will not impose my beliefs on others, for example, by
insisting they be encoded as laws of society. I will not allow others
to impose their own beliefs on me, other than by their powers of
public persuasion.
My right to think freely and to determine my own actions means
that I take responsibility for them, and will accept punishment for
my illegal acts which harm others.
No one can be punished except under a law approved by the leg-
islature, with information about the law published before the fact of
any particular offending action.
Punishment may include incarceration to prevent further physi-
cal harm to others. Government has a monopoly on the use of force
to prevent illegal behavior, because it is necessary for the common
good. But that force must be only that necessary and must minimize
harm to the offending person.
A person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, but if arrested
for cause, does not have the right to resist arrest by authorities.
Resistance is itself illegal. However, if the arrest is found to have
been unjustifiable, a person is deserving of appropriate compensa-
tion for the harm, the loss of abstract freedom, and possibly loss of
material value such as wages.
No one should face arrest for an act that does no physical harm
or dangerously threaten such harm to others. No law should prevent
behavior simply because others find that behavior objectionable.
No form of speech expressing unpopular opinions, however
harmful to the feelings of others, shall be cause for arrest.
Value 89
Information and Negative Entropy as Objective Values

Perhaps the most radical suggestion of information philosophy
is the idea that the negative entropy flows in the universe - which
make possible the creation of all passive information structures as
well as dynamic, interactive, purposeful living things - should be
considered as an objective basis for the concept of value.
Chapter 5
The Nobel-prize-winning economist Nicolas Georgescu-
Roegen once proposed negative entropy as the ultimate source of
all economic value.5 Information philosophy agrees.
Critics may complain that there can be no single criterion for the
good, that any tool can be both harmful and helpful, we ask them
to look deeper.
A knife in the hands of a surgeon can save a life, in the hands of
a killer take one. But just look at the information implications to
judge the moral value of this example. Consider the evil in a single
thermonuclear weapon, which can destroy information structures
faster and more thoroughly than any other human invention. How
can we have built and maintain thousands of these devices, each one
capable of destroying all the lives in one of the world’s largest cities?
Imagine a panel of ethicists choosing the better alternative in
cases of moral dilemmas. Then imagine a panel of scientists calcu-
lating the increase in entropy (destructive disorder) versus the pres-
ervation of information (negative entropy) in each case. We suggest
there would be a high correlation between moralists and scientists
on the better alternative.
For centuries, values were considered a theological question,
something given to humanity. Then humanists began to make
human life the ultimate basis. Some philosophers assign infinite
worth to each life, to block any comparative worth analysis.
In recent decades, bioethics has shifted the locus of values to the
earth’s biosphere and beyond to the overall environment.
Information philosophy hopes to enlarge the sphere of ethics to
the cosmos itself, where the process of information creation appears
as a sort of divine providence.
5 The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Harvard, 1971.

Chapter 6
Ev i l
o o d and
G

informationphilosopher.com/value/good
Good/Evil 91
Good and Evil

The abstract philosophical Idea of the Good began with Plato,
who first defined the notion of abstract Ideas in his Theory of
Forms. At the end of Book VI of the Republic (509D-513E), Plato
describes what he called a “divided line,” at the top of which is
the “Form of the Good, followed by theories (noesis), hypotheses
Chapter 6
(dianoia), techniques (pistis), and stories (eikasia)
Plato describes the visible world of perceived physical objects
and the images we make of them (in our minds and in our draw-
ings, for example). The Sun, he said, not only provides the vis-
ibility of the objects, but also generates them and is the source of
their growth and nurture. Many primitive religions identify the
Sun with God, for good reason.
Beyond this visible world, which later philosophers (especially
Immanuel Kant) would call the phenomenal world, lies an intel-
ligible world (that Kant calls noumenal). The intelligible world is
(metaphorically) illuminated by “the Good” (τον ἀγαθὸν), just as
the visible world is illuminated by the Sun.
Plato’s Line is also a division between Mind and Body. The upper
half of the divided line is usually called Intelligible as opposed to
Visible, meaning that it is “seen” by the mind (510E). Illuminated
by “the Good,” it is seen by the mind, in Greek, the nous (νοῦς),
rather than by the eye.
The division of Plato’s Line between Visible and Intelligible is
then a divide between the Ideal and the Material, the foundation
of most Dualisms.1 Plato may have coined the word “idea” (ἰδέα),
using it somewhat interchangeably with the Greek word for shape
or form (εἶδος). The word idea derives from the past participle
in Greek for “to have seen.” The word “wisdom” comes from the
same source.
In many ways, Plato’s theory of immaterial forms existing out-
side space and time and providing the shape of material things
is consonant with information philosophy’s focus on immaterial
information as the basis for thought, for mind, for knowledge, and
1 See chapter 3 for the many names of this fundamental dualism.
for the abstractable elements of information structures in the real

world. Plato’s distinction between Form and Matter stands at the
beginning of the great dualism between Idealism and Material-
ism.
Information philosophy is a return to a kind of Idealism. It situ-
ates the Idea of the Good in the Platonic realm of Ideas, which
Chapter 6
we now recognize as immaterial information. And it shows how

immaterial ideas can have causal force in the world of matter and
energy, solving the mind/body problem, among others.
Now the Good embodied in an information structure such as
a material thing, a living thing, or a complex situation including
many things, can in principle be calculated as the quantitative
amount of negative entropy that it contains. Perhaps it is equally
easy to see the Bad in something by measuring its destructive
force. Think of the evil in a thermonuclear weapon, whose only
use is to destroy a city and its population.
But it is plain that no single monotonic value can decide
between the goodness of two things, since values are deeply con-
text dependent. Indeed, Kenneth Arrow’s theorem in economics
shows that values are not strictly transitive. A can be preferred to
B, B preferred to C, and yet C can be preferred to A.
Information (Negative Entropy) as Objective Good?
Nevertheless, however imperfect it may be, information, or
more generally negative entropy, provides an objective, human-
independent, starting point for value comparisons, without which
all preferences are hopelessly subjective and relative to the indi-
vidual or to the society. This is as it should be. Facts of the matter
are questions for science. What should be or ought to be are cul-
tural question for society or individual persons.
Free will, for example, is a scientific question. But moral respon-
sibility is a cultural and conventional question for society. Never-
theless, those answering the conventional questions of right and
wrong can consult the informational and entropic implications of
different choices.
Good/Evil 93
Consider utilitarianism, which hopes to achieve the “greatest

good for the greatest number.” The measure of utility in some-
thing correlates strongly with the amount of free or available
energy (negative entropy) in that thing.
Evil
It is a sad but necessary observation to note that our definition
Chapter 6
of Evil as the creation of Entropy or Disorder - that is, the destruc-
tion of Information or Negative Entropy - means that the greater
of the dualistic forces at work in the universe, at least in quantita-
tive terms, is not the Cosmos but the Chaos.
The unavoidable Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Entropy
Law, has been confirmed in the kinetic theory of gases by Ludwig
Boltzmann with his H-Theorem, and in statistical mechanics
and quantum mechanics by Albert Einstein with his analysis of
fluctuations in the entropy.
As the universe evolves, the increase in the total entropy, the
disorder and chaos, is unstoppable. Fortunately, there are impor-
tant places where the entropy is reduced locally, leaving behind
information structures, pockets of negative entropy or cosmos.
The established fact of increasing entropy led many scientists
and philosophers to assume that the universe we have is “running
down” to a “heat death.” They think that means the universe began
in a very high state of information, since the second law requires
that any organization or order is susceptible to decay. The infor-
mation that remains today, in their view, has always been here.
There is “nothing new under the sun.”
But the universe is not a closed system. It is in a dynamic state
of expansion that is moving away from thermodynamic equilib-
rium faster than entropic processes can approach it. The maxi-
mum possible entropy is increasing much faster than the actual
increase in entropy. The difference between the maximum pos-
sible entropy and the actual entropy is potential information.
Creation of information structures means that in parts of the uni-

verse the local entropy is actually going down. Our Sun-Earth
system is one such place. All life depends on the flow of negative
entropy from Sun to Earth, as Ernst Schrödinger told us.
Chapter 6
Figure 6-1. Photons from the sun are our major source of negative entropy.
It is a necessary evil that creation of negative entropy (the Good)

is always accompanied by radiation of an even larger amount of
positive entropy (the Bad) away from the local structures to distant
parts of the universe. Ultimately, it goes to the night sky and away
through our transparent universe to the most distant cosmic micro-
wave background.
Figure 6-2. Positive and negative entropy flows to the earth.
As the universe expands, both positive and negative entropy

are generated. The normal thermodynamic entropy, known as the
Boltzmann Entropy, is the larger darker arrow. The negative entropy,
often called the Shannon Entropy, is a measure of the information
content in the evolving universe.
Good/Evil 95
A Statistical Comparison with Societal Norms

The pre-Socratic philosopher Protagoras famously said that
“man is the measure of all things.” The relativism of good and evil,
of right and wrong, is a great problem in post-modern society. Any
particular action may be judged good in some circumstances, evil in
others. No single monotonic criterion of value can possibly serve in
all cases. So what does the information theory of value amount to?
Chapter 6
It is a claim about how an independent panel of ethicists, includ-
ing a full range of traditional sources from humanists to theists
who cite ancient religious doctrines, would judge a large number of
moral choices.
An information-based ethics claims that if a second panel of
judges consisted of scientists with expertise in chemical thermody-
namics were asked to consider the same list of choices, there would
be a significant statistical correlation between those deemed good
by the traditional panel and those found by the second panel to pre-
serve the most information, or to produce the least destruction of
information, the least increase in entropy and disorder.
So the moral advice from information philosophy is very simple.
When confronted with a moral desicion, take the alternative that
minimizes the increase in disorder, that minimizes the destruction
of information.
Since living things are rich in information, this coincides with a
morality that regards life as an ultimate good, but it does not go the
extreme of regarding each life as of infinite worth, which is designed
to make value comparisons impossible when lives are involved..
Chapter 7
d a n d
Go tality
m o r
Im

informationphilosopher.com/value/ergod
God 97
God and Immortality

Most of the world’s religions have some concept of gods or a
God, with some notable exceptions such as Buddhism.
Theologians claim to have discerned the essential attributes of a
monotheistic God, such as omniscience (perfect foreknowledge),
omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present every-
Chapter 7
where), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), and a necessary
and eternal existence.
Information philosophy offers a simple test of the “revealed
truth” of these attributes, specifically the visions by inspired
thinkers that have no empirical evidence. Although these visions
are in the realm of “pure ideas,” we can say that if every world reli-
gion agreed completely on the attributes of God, it would increase
their believability. As it is, the comparative study of religions with
the incredible diversity of their claims, renders the idea of God as
implausible as Santa Claus.
At the present time, arguments like these will carry little weight
with the believers in a religion, most of whom have little exchange
of knowledge with those of other faiths. This can be expected to
change with the reach of the Internet via smartphones to most of
the world’s population by 2020.
In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe. In
deism, God is the creator, but not the sustainer of the universe,
which is now assumed to be running itself following deterministic
laws of motion. Open theism denies that God’s foreknowledge has
already determined the future. Monotheism is the belief in the
existence of one God or in the oneness of God. In pantheism, God
is the universe itself. Polytheists hold that there are many gods.
For atheists, no gods exist.
God is sometimes conceived as an immaterial being (without
a body), which information philosophy accepts, since God is
quintessentially an idea, pure information. Some religions think
an avatar of God has come to earth in the past. Some religions
see God as a personal being, answering human supplications and

prayers. A God intervening in human affairs is thought to be the
source of all moral norms. Logical “proofs” of God’s existence are
based on various of these assumed attributes.
Now that information philosophy and physics has identified the
essential attributes and properties of the cosmic creation process,1
the problem for theologians is to reconcile their views of their
Chapter 7
gods with these new discoveries.

No Creator, But There Was/Is A Creation
Modern cosmology confirms that the universe came into exis-
tence at a definite time in the past, some 13.8 billion years ago.
Although this does not need the Creator some religions want, it
does confirm a creation process. Because this process continues
today (indeed human beings are co-creators of the world), deists
are wrong about a creative act at the beginning followed by a
mechanical clockwork universe tending to itself ever since.
So “creationism” is wrong. What about “intelligent design?”
This is the ancient notion that the “essence” or idea of some things
was there before the thing itself came into existence. Since all
information structures, first cosmological and then biological,
were “emergent,”2 at least some of their peculiar specific informa-
tion did not pre-exist them. The “existentialists,’ from Nietzsche
to Sartre, were correct in this respect, but their idea that “God is
dead” was absurd.
Now a metaphysicist might argue that the laws of nature, how
things behave, might pre-exist, or come into existence simul-
tansously with, the first matter and energy. But laws, beginning
with the Heraclitean logos, contain nothing specific about future
arrangements of matter and energy that is information.
Theodicy (The Problem of Evil)
The problem of evil is only a problem for monotheists who see
their God as omnipotent. “If God is Good, He is not God. If God
1 See appendix F.
2 See chapter 27..
God 99
is God, He is not Good.”3 The information philosophy solution

to the problem is a dualist world with both entropic destruction
and ergodic creation. If ergodic information is an objective good,
then entropic destruction of information is “the devil incarnate,”
as Norbert Wiener put it.
Omniscience and Omnipotence Contradictory?
The idea of God as an omniscient and omnipotent being has an
Chapter 7
internal logical contradiction that is rarely discussed by the theo-
logians. If such a being had perfect knowledge of the future, like
Laplace’s demon, who knows the positions, velocities, and forces
for all the particles, such a God would be perfectly impotent,
because the future is already determined. That is, if God had the
power to change even one thing about the future, his presumed
perfect knowledge would have been imperfect. Omniscience
entails impotence. Omnipotence entails some ignorance. Prayer
is useless.
The discovery by Albert Einstein of ontological chance poses
an even greater threat to the omniscience of God and the idea
of foreknowledge. The great mathematicians who invented prob-
ability always regarded chance as atheistic. The use of statistics
was simply to make estimates of outcomes of many independent
events when detailed knowledge of those events was not possible
because of human ignorance. Ontological chance means that even
God cannot know some things.
For example, in quantum physics, if knowledge exists of which
slot a particle will go through in a two-slit experiment, the out-
come of the experiment would be different. The characteristic
interference caused by the wave function passing through both
slits disappears.
The Ergod
There is absolutely nothing supernatural about the cosmic
creation process. But it is the source of support for human life.
And many theologically-minded thinkers have long assumed that
life and mind were a gift to humanity from a divine providence.
3 from J.B., a play by Archibald MacLeish
The physical product of the cosmic creation process is all the

negative entropy in the universe. While thermodynamics calls it
“negative,” information philosophy sees it as the ultimate positive
and deserving of a better name. So we call it the Ergo, which ety-
mologically suggests a fundamental kind of energy (“erg” zero),
e.g., the “Gibbs free energy,” G0, energy that is available to do work
because it has low entropy.
Chapter 7
We co-opted the technical term “ergodic” from statistical mechan-

ics as a replacement for anti-entropic, and because it contains the
highly suggestive “ergod.
An anthropomorphization (or theomorphization) of the process
that creates all the energy with low entropy that we call Ergo has a
number of beneficial consequences. Most all human cultures look
for the source of their existence in something “higher” than their
mundane existence. This intuition of a cosmic force, a providence
that deserves reverence, is validated in part by the discovery of what
we can provocatively call “Ergod,” as the ultimate source of life.
Such an Ergod has the power to resist the terrible and universal
Second Law of Thermodynamics, which commands the increase of
chaos and entropy (disorder).
Without violating that inviolable Second Law overall, the Ergod
reduces the entropy locally, creating pockets of cosmos and negative
entropy (order and information-rich structures). All human life,
and any possible extraterrestrial life, lives in one of these pockets.
Note that the opposition of Ergod and Entropy, of Ergodic pro-
cesses and Entropic processes, coincides with the ancient Zarathus-
trian image of a battle between the forces of light (Ahura Mazda)
and darkness (Angra Manyu), of good and evil, of heaven and hell.
Many religions have variations on this dualist theme, and the three
major Western religions all share the same Biblical source, probably
incorporated into Judaism during the Babylonian exile.
The Ergod is “present” and we can say enthusiastically is “in us.”
The Ergod’s work is to create new information, so when we create
and share information we are doing the Ergod’s work.
God 101
The Problem of Immortality

The two basic kinds of immortality available today may not sat-
isfy those looking for an “afterlife,” but they are both very real and
important, and there is a third, medical technology solution visible
on the horizon that should satisfy many persons.
The first is least satisfying - partial immortality of your genes
through children. This is of no significance to the childless.
Chapter 7
The second is the ancient notion of fame or kleos (κλέος) among
the Greeks. When Homer sang of Achilles and Odysseus, it was to
give them undying fame, which they have today among many liter-
ate persons.
A third kind of immortality will result from a solution to the
problem of aging, almost certainly from stem cell research, which
should allow vital organ replacement, and from a cure for runaway
cancer cells, a devastating entropic force.
This should satisfy even Woody Allen, who famously said,
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work.
I want to achieve it through not dying.
The second kind we call “information immortality.” It is more
realizable than ever with the development of world-wide literacy
through print and now through the world-wide web, which makes
the Information Philosopher available anywhere. In five years time,
a majority of the world’s population will be carrying a smartphone
and thus able to read this work.
The great online Wikipedia will be capable of having something
about everyone who has made a contribution to human knowledge.
If we don’t remember the past, we don’t deserve to be remembered
by the future.
Chapter 8
o l o g y
Ep istem

informationphilosopher.com/knowledge
Epistemology 103
Epistemology
Epistemology asks, “how do we know what there is?”
Immaterial information provides a new ground for
epistemology, the theory of knowledge. We know something
about the “things themselves” when we discover an isomorphism
between our abstract ideas and concrete objects in the material
world. Information philosophy goes beyond the logical puzzles
Chapter 8
and language games of analytic philosophy. It identifies knowl-
edge as information in human minds and in the external artifacts
of human culture.
Abstract information is the foundation – the metaphysical
ground – of both logic and language as means of communication.
It is the part of a dualism parallel to the material substrate that the
Greeks called ὑποκείμενον - the “underlying.” It gives matter its
form and shape. Form informs.
Knowing how we know is a fundamentally circular problem
when it is described in human language, as a set of logical propo-
sitions. And knowing something about what exists adds another
complex circle, if the knowing being must itself be one of those
things that exists.
These circular definitions and inferences need not be vicious
circles. They may simply be a coherent set of ideas that we use
to describe ourselves and the external world. If the descriptions
are logically valid and/or verifiable empirically, we think we are
approaching the “truth” about things and acquiring knowledge.
How then do we describe the knowledge itself - an existing
thing in our existent minds and in the existing external world?
An information epistemology does it by basing everything on the
abstract but quantitative notion of information.
Information is stored or encoded in physical and biological
structures. Structures in the world build themselves, following
natural laws, including physical and biological laws. Structures in
the mind are partly built by biological processes and partly built
by human intelligence, which is free, creative, and unpredictable.
Knowledge is the Sum of information created and stored in

minds and in human artifacts like stories, books, and internet-
worked computers.
The History of Epistemology
Although the English word “epistemology” is relatively new
(coined in the 19th century), it has been known for centuries as
the problem of knowledge (Erkenntnisproblem in German), and
appears in the earliest philosophical works - by the Presocratics,
Chapter 8
Plato and Aristotle, and especially by the Skeptics, who doubted

that it could be proved that knowledge is possible.
Sophists
The great sophist Gorgias challenged the many physicists
(φυσικοι) who lectured and wrote on “what there is” in treatises
called “Peri Physis” (Περι Φύσις) - roughly, About Nature, or the
Nature of the Physical World.
The content of a typical physicist/philosopher lecture in Gorgias’
time was usually in three parts:
Things exist
You can know what things exist
You can tell others about what exists
Gorgias is reported to have dazzled and delighted his audiences
by proving the opposites, by using nearly identical arguments:
Nothing exists
If by chance something did exist, you could not know anything
about it
If you did accidentally learn something about it, you could not
communicate your knowledge to others
The lesson we can take away from Gorgias is that arguments,
especially verbal reasoning alone, can be used to prove anything
by clever rhetoricians. Logical and linguistic arguments can tell us
nothing “true” about the physical world.
This is the problem of knowledge. How can we know - how can
we be certain about - what we know? It is related closely to the
Epistemology 105
question of what abstract concepts and physical objects (ontology

and cosmology) exist in the universe - what are “the things them-
selves” - for us to know.1 How is what we perceive through our
senses related to the physical things and the abstract concepts that
our reason tells us lies behind the laws of nature (metaphysics).
Plato/Socrates
In his Theaetetus, Plato tells us that Socrates considered,
but ultimately rejected, three possibilities for what knowledge
Chapter 8
(ἐπιστήμη) is and how we come to have it.
• The first is perception (αἴσθησις). Our perceptions are “true”
(ἀληθῆ), at least to us, a kind of private knowledge. But they may
be dreams or illusions. (160D)
• The second is true (ἀληθῆ) opinion or belief (δόξαν). Socrates
asserts that Protagoras’s relativistic argument that “man is the
measure of all things,” means “what is true is what is true for
me.” But “myriad” others may properly judge your opinion false
(ψευδῆ).(170D)
• The third is true belief that had some reasons (λόγος) or jus-
tification (συλλογισμῶ), a rational explanation for the belief. True
(or right) opinion accompanied by reason is knowledge. (δόξαν
ἀληθῆ μετὰ λόγου ἐπιστήμην εἶναι) (202C)
This third possibility that knowledge is “justified true belief ”
has come down to modern times as the three-part “traditional”
theory of knowledge. Although Socrates’ “negative” dialectic never
established any certain knowledge, Plato believed that Socrates’
method of inquiry (ἔλεγχος) is a way to achieve knowledge.
Nevertheless, the Theaetetus ends with Socrates’ utter rejection
of perception, true belief, or even true belief combined with rea-
sons or explanations as justification. Socrates says:
“And it is utterly silly, when we are looking for a definition of knowl-
edge, to say that it is right opinion with knowledge, whether of differ-
ence or of anything else whatsoever. So neither perception, Theaete-
tus, nor true opinion, nor reason or explanation combined with true
opinion could be knowledge (epistéme).”2
1 See chapter 3 on ontology.

2 Plato’s Theaetetus, (210A-B)
Aristotle
Aristotle revised his master Plato’s theory of Forms and Ideas.
Although he too sought the fundamental essences of things and
ideas (their Being - τὸ ὄν), for Aristotle all things were a combina-
tion of form (εἴδος) and matter (ὑλῆ), and understanding how real
physical things change (their Becoming) was as important as know-
ing their essences (their Being).
In his Metaphysics, Aristotle dealt with the problem of knowl-
Chapter 8
edge (epistemology) and with the question of Being (ontology of

both physical and abstract things). The opening line of Book I of
the Metaphysics is “All men desire knowledge by nature.” (πάντες
ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει.) He uses the word to know
(εἰδέναι ) based on “to have seen (the form).”
Aristotle sharpened the use of language (dialectic) and logic as
our means of knowing to a level still in use today. He analyzed sub-
ject-predicate sentences and puzzled over the relationship between
being or essence and the copula “is.” He elucidated the simplest
rules of logic - needed for the reasoning (συλλόγος) behind jus-
tification of knowledge - the Law of Identity (A is A), the Law of
Non-Contradiction, and the Law of the Excluded Middle. And he
developed the rules for logical inference, identifying many types of
syllogism. Socrates had already identified the simplest syllogism -
S is M, M is P, therefore S is P.
But Aristotle went beyond pure reason and the Platonic dialec-
tic. He added the need for demonstration (ἀποδειξις) to discover
the cause (ἀιτια) and find an explanation of a phenomenon. This
was the beginning of empirical knowledge, the observations and
experiments that form the basis of modern science, as opposed to
the kind of personal and subjective knowledge available directly to
our perception, intuition, or reflective introspection.
Aristotle identified four basic causes (material, formal, efficient,
and final) and said that chance might be a fifth cause. Not every-
thing happens of causal necessity, but some things are just as chance
will have it, he said.
Epistemology 107
He distinguished certain a priori knowledge, for example logic

and mathematics, which was true by necessity, from the merely
probable and contingent a posteriori knowledge of ethics and poli-
tics. He denied that the truth of a proposition about the future
entailed the necessity of a future event (as claimed by the actualist
Diodorus Cronus). The future is open and contingent.
For Aristotle, there were different methods of inquiry and dif-
ferent kinds of knowledge depending on the subject matter, for
example knowledge of the things themselves in the external world
Chapter 8
(ontology and metaphysics) that we would call today the physical
sciences, and knowledge about people (ethics and politics) that
today we would call the social sciences. We might add psychology,
especially the subjective and reflective knowledge of self by intro-
spection. And although he wanted to be more empirical than Plato,
he held onto some necessary truths or first principles that were self-
evident. He also recognized “theses” (θέσισ) and “axioms” (ἄξιος).
And Aristotle distinguished many kinds of logical argument.
When the premises are true and certain (he does not explain how
this can be the case except for those that are self-evident “first prin-
ciples” - ἀρχὴ or πρῶτων), and when the deductive syllogism is cor-
rect, the conclusions must follow. Aristotle calls this a demonstra-
tion, the truth of it is apodeictic (ἀπόδειξις), a logical proof. The
resulting knowledge is demonstrative knowledge (ἀποδεικτικὲω
ἐπιστήμην).
Aristotle realized that not all reasons given to justify beliefs could
themselves have reasons without an infinite regress or circular argu-
ment, so he proposed that some reasons could be “self-evident”
axioms, worth believing on their own merits or because they are
popular opinion.
Returning to Plato here, Aristotle says that all parts of this dem-
onstration - premises, deductions, and conclusions - are necessary.
When the premises are popular opinion, their truth merely prob-
able, the argument is dialectical. When the premises are false, the
argument is sophistical, and can prove anything. Much of modern
epistemology feels disturbingly sophistical.
Skeptics
Shortly after Aristotle, Pyhrro of Ellis reacted to the many
methods of inquiry (σκέπσις) and their knowledge claims by deny-
ing all of them. His skeptical followers argued that happiness and
serenity can be had by avoiding unjustified dogmatic knowledge
claims and simply follow traditional customs as a guide to life.
Plato’s Academy itself came to adopt skepticism under
Arcesilaus in the third century. Arcesilaus doubted that the senses
Chapter 8
could discover truths about the physical world. Skeptics, especially

Carneades, who followed Arcesilaus as leader of the Academy,
denied the claims of their opponent Stoics as mere dogmatism.
Philo of Larissa, the last leader of Academic Skepticism in
Athens, escaped the Mithradatic wars and went in 88 BCE to Rome
where he mentored Marcus Tullius Cicero. Cicero gave us per-
haps the best ancient comparison of the Stoic, Epicurean, and Skep-
tical schools of philosophy in his dialogue De Natura Deorum (On
the Nature of the Gods), which was David Hume’s model for his
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. and a source for his own
mitigated skepticism.
Aenesidemus, the first-century leader of Academic skepticism in
Alexandria, qualified the obvious self-referential error in the skepti-
cal claim that nothing could be known. He encouraged a return to
Pyrrho’s suspension (εποχή) of any judgment. Aenesidemus identi-
fied ten tropes or modes of knowing by perception through different
senses, which he showed can be mutually inconsistent. Epistemo-
logical justification of any absolute objective knowledge is therefore
impossible.
According to Sextus Empiricus,3 these ten tropes were reduced
by Agrippa to five
• Disagreement among the philosophers
• An infinite regress of justification
• Relativity - concepts are meaningful only in some context
• Hypotheses cannot be self-evident
• Circular reasoning
3 Outlines of Pyrrhonism, 1.164-77

Epistemology 109
And finally, Sextus Empiricus says (1.178-79) the reasons to

suspend judgment can be reduced to only the first two. He says that
nothing can be apprehended through itself (immediate knowledge)
or through another thing (mediate knowledge) is shown by the
controversies among the philosophers. And the infinite regress of
reasons is caused by the lack of a criterion for truth (κριτεριόν τῆσ
ἀληθείας). These two problems are still very much with us today,
An infinite regress arises when we ask what are the justifications
Chapter 8
for the reasons themselves.
For the reasons to count as knowledge, they must themselves be
justified with reasons for the reasons, etc., ad infinitum.
Stoics
Chrysippus, the greatest and most prolific of the Stoic leaders,
separated the idea of necessity in certain knowledge from necessity
in human actions, without denying the Stoic belief in physical deter-
minism and fate. He helped to develop propositional logic, a lan-
guage advance on Aristotle’s predicate logic that Gottlob Frege
revived in the nineteenth century as the propositional calculus.
Chrysippus saw logic as the core of a divine reason that rules
the universe. He saw Laws of Nature are synonymous with the
Laws of God, since Stoics identified God with Nature. In his time,
Chrysippus’ logic was considered superior to Aristotle’s.
The Search for Knowledge Turns Inward
“What can I know with certainty?” asked René Descartes.
What is it that cannot logically be doubted? Starting with his famous
“Cogito, ergo sum,” Descartes said he could not doubt his own
existence, then - since “God is no deceiver” - he could not be wrong
about his perceptions. This is despite Plato, who knew perceptions
can be illusions, such as the stick appearing bent in the water.
Descartes shifted the emphasis of knowledge from the external
world to his internal thoughts, and began an effort to find indubita-
ble truths as foundations for all knowledge. Descartes’ introspective
“quest for certainty” changed the focus of problem of knowledge
to what twentieth-century philosophy would come to call “founda-
tionalism and “internalism”.”
Even if Descartes could have arrived at subjective knowledge

that he personally could not doubt, such knowledge would be inac-
cessible to others. And others would be properly skeptical of his
egocentric knowledge claims.
Gottfried Leibniz argued that certainty could be had for neces-
sary truths that are “true in all possible worlds.” Leibniz’s Principle of
Sufficient Reason was a claim that knowledge of the physical future
was implicit in the fact that every event has a sufficient cause. This
Chapter 8
is despite Aristotle, who knew that future events might or might not
happen, for example, the famous “sea battle.”
David Hume, skeptical that anything could be proved true by
induction, declared causality to be simply a matter of repeated
conjunctions of apparent cause and effect. With his empirical
colleagues, John Locke and George Berkeley, he denied any
knowledge of the “things themselves” behind our perceptions. We
have only the sense impressions of Locke’s “secondary qualities.”
Hume, following Leibniz, admitted as knowledge only two things,
analytical mathematical logical reasoning, and empirical facts. This
is essentially the analytic-synthetic knowledge distinction.
“If we take into our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics,
for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concern-
ing quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reason-
ing concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Consign it then to the
flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”4
Despite his skepticism about causality, Hume’s “naturalism” con-
vinced him of the practical truth of strict causal determinism.
“What can I know?” asked Immanuel Kant. Faced with the
skepticism of Hume which put into doubt all phenomenal knowl-
edge gained by perception alone, Kant postulated a noumenal world
accessible to the mind by introspection. There the “things them-
selves” exist along with God, human freedom, and immortality. But
since they are outside the phenomenal world - the physical world
governed by strict causal deterministic laws of motion - Kant’s claim
to knowledge was as weak as Hume’s skeptical claim was strong.
4 Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section XII
Epistemology 111
Kant accepted Hume’s (and Aristotle’s) distinction between

abstract analytic a priori knowledge and experimental or empirical
synthetic a posteriori knowledge. But he claimed that the human
mind imposed certain categories of understanding on the world,
leading to some necessary empirical truths, or what he called syn-
thetic a priori knowledge. Among these are that space must neces-
sarily be Euclidean, that “7 + 5 = 12” is mathematically necessary,
and that the deterministic laws of Newton must be strictly true.
Chapter 8
Although all these “truths” have been found empirically to be
false, modern developmental psychology finds that some ideas are
indeed “built-in” to the mind, as Kant held. Infants are born able
to recognize continuity, contiguity, causality, and form. These con-
ceptual abilities are transmitted genetically and are immediately
available. They do not need a set of prior experiences from which
to abstract. Konrad Lorenz described them as the experiences of
our ancestors. What is a priori for ontogeny in the phenotype was
a posteriori for the phylogeny of the genotype. Thus Locke’s tabula
rasa dictum that everything that is known comes first through the
senses is wrong.
The nineteenth-century hermeneuticists Schleirmacher and Dil-
they argued for some knowledge accessible in non-scientific ways.
They claimed that cultural knowledge can only be appreciated and
understood by someone immersed in the culture.
Charles Sanders Peirce defined knowledge - truths about the
real world - as that knowledge that would eventually be agreed upon
“intersubjectively” by a community of inquirers who follow an open
scientific method of hypothesis, deduction, and experimental test-
ing of predictions by means of observations.
As to Descartes’ search for indubitable certain knowledge, Peirce
agreed that any knowledge should be doubted. But, explaining
Descartes’ two errors, Peirce says first that everything cannot be
doubted at the same time. And second, that nothing is ever certain
because the method of science always leaves open the possibility
for improvements in our knowledge. Peirce’s pragmatic “truth” is
something that is only asymptotically approached over time by the
intersubjective agreement of an open community of inquirers.
Peirce’s “pragmatic” philosophy identified truth with beliefs that

informed action and had valuable consequences. This led to John
Dewey’s idea of truth as “warranted assertability,” with the warrants
to be found in the empirical consequences.
Bertrand Russell declared that science is the only source of
knowledge, “What science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.”
This came to be called “scientism.”
Logical empiricists, following Russell’s student and colleague
Chapter 8
Ludwig Wittgenstein, could never agree on the method of jus-

tification. The Vienna Circle philosophers, Rudolf Carnap and
Moritz Schlick, never could get general agreement on what con-
stitutes the “verification” of a proposition about the world.
A. J. Ayer, who sat in on some Vienna Circle meetings, put their
ideas forward in his book Language, Truth, and Logic. He said (again
following Hume and Aristotle) that two kinds of propositions are
meaningful - analytic sentences (tautologies and definitions of lan-
guage terms) or statements that can be empirically verified.
Karl Popper denied that “verification” could ever lead to certain
knowledge, but argued that even one negative experimental result
can “falsify” a proposition.
In the early 1950’s, Willard van Orman Quine challenged the
ancient analytic-synthetic distinction, arguing that in the end the
“truth” of analytic statements, the proofs of mathematical theorems,
and the use of logic, also depend on some empirical verification.
The key idea of Quine’s empiricism is to deny the existence of any
a priori knowledge of the world (or of words - statements, proposi-
tions), whether analytic or synthetic. As Peirce had said, nothing is
logically and necessarily true of the physical world. Logical truths
like the Principles of Non-Contradiction and Bivalence (Excluded
Middle) might be true in all possible worlds, but they tell us nothing
about our physical world, unless they are applicable and empirically
verified.
Epistemology 113
Gettier Problems
In 1963, Edmund Gettier published two logical counterex-
amples to knowledge defined as justified true belief. His counterex-
amples were true, but not for the reasons cited as the evidence for
justification. So the result is a justified false belief, or perhaps simply
not knowledge.
The conditions postulated in Gettier-type examples are extraor-
dinarily unlikely to occur, but the mere possibility demonstrates the
Chapter 8
difficulty of making logical arguments about contingent real world
situations. The most sophisticated linguistic analysis is problematic
as a source of “truth” or justification.
There is a technical similarity between Gettier cases and Frank-
furt-type examples of an agent who apparently acts “freely” but a
counterfactual demon ensures that there is only one possibility for
action. In 1969 Harry Frankfurt developed logical counterex-
amples to the traditional idea that alternative possibilities are a pre-
requisite for free agency, because compatibilism had no alternatives.
Gettier cases artificially construct a “true” situation which is not
true for the apparent reasons. Frankfurt cases artificially construct
a “free” action in which the agent actually is not free to choose the
apparent alternative possibilities. Gettier and Frankfurt cases have
spawned a vast philosophical literature in the past few decades. But
they have produced little advance in understanding either knowl-
edge or freedom. They are little more than clever examples of the
sophistry in today’s analytic language philosophy.
Skepticism alone should have indicated that logical proofs of
knowledge, or logical analyses of any justification scheme for
knowledge, were bound to fail. Gettier and Frankfurt cases are
applied skepticism or sophistry that cast doubt on the likely valid-
ity of common sense justifications and knowledge, by developing
extremely unlikely if not implausible cases. They depreciate the
value of the central project of epistemology, which is to help us to
know (if only in a virtuous circle) when our arguments for knowl-
edge are as strong as we can make them.
Epistemology Returns to “Externalist” Justification

Until the 1960’s, debates in epistemology were primarily divided
between Cartesian foundationalist and coherentist theories of justi-
fication, both of which focused on egocentric subjective “internal-
ist” theories.
Until Descartes’s turn inward, theories of knowledge had assumed
that justification included the relation of beliefs to objects and events
in the world. Descarte’s “internalist” turn continued well into the
Chapter 8
twentieth century, with most epistemologists endorsing his “foun-

dationalist” theory of knowledge. They included C.I. Lewis (1946),
Roderick Chisholm, John Pollock (1986), Richard Foley (1987),
Paul Moser (1989), William P. Alston (1989), and Robert Audi
(1993).
But several philosophers moved toward an “external” view of
epistemology. As early as the 1920’s, Frank Ramsey had proposed
the idea of reliability, which depends on some kind of external
causal process. He said that a belief was knowledge if it was (i) true,
(ii) certain, and (iii) obtained by a reliable process.
In 1967, Alvin Goldman amplified the Ramsey view, endors-
ing both a “causalist” theory of knowledge and what he called
“reliabilism.”He claimed that justification for a belief is to be found
in the natural cause of the belief.
In 1971, Fred Dretske offered what he called “Conclusive Rea-
sons” as a form of justification. They included evidence, grounds,
and reasons.
In 1973, David Armstrong called for a return to what he called
“externalism,” defined as “a certain relation holding between the
believer and the world.” For example, one can not only believe, but
know, that the room is hot because the excessive heat one feels is the
cause of one’s belief. Armstrong further divided externalist theories
into “causal” (like Goldman) and “reliability” (like Dretske and
Ramsey) theories.
There are other externalist theories, including naturalism, evi-
dentialism, and evolutionary epistemology.
Epistemology 115
Epistemology Naturalized
In the late 1960’s, Willard van Orman Quine argued that
epistemology, the justification of knowledge claims, should be
“naturalized.” All knowledge claims should be reduced to verifi-
cation by the methods of natural science. “For suppose we hold,”
he says, “with the old empiricist Peirce, that the very meaning of a
statement consists in the difference its truth would make to possible
experience.” Quine wrote:
Chapter 8
“The Vienna Circle espoused a verification theory of meaning but did
not take it seriously enough. If we recognize with Peirce that the mean-
ing of a sentence turns purely on what would count as evidence for its
truth, and if we recognize with Duhem that theoretical sentences have
their evidence not as single sentences but only as larger blocks of theory,
then the indeterminacy of translation of theoretical sentences is the nat-
ural conclusion.
“Philosophers have rightly despaired of translating everything into
observational and logico-mathematical terms. They have despaired of
this even when they have not recognized, as the reason for this irreduc-
ibility, that the statements largely do not have their private bundles of
empirical consequences. And some philosophers have seen in this irre-
ducibility the bankruptcy of epistemology. Carnap and the other logi-
cal positivists of the Vienna Circle had already pressed the term “meta-
physics” into pejorative use, as connoting meaninglessness; and the
term “epistemology” was next. Wittgenstein and his followers, mainly
at Oxford, found a residual philosophical vocation in therapy: curing
philosophers of the delusion that there were epistemological problems.
“Epistemology, or something like it, simply falls into place as a chapter
of psychology and hence of natural science. It studies a natural phenom-
enon, viz., a physical human subject...
“The old epistemology aspired to contain, in a sense, natural science; it
would construct it somehow from sense data. Epistemology in its new
setting, conversely, is contained in natural science, as a chapter of psy-
chology. But the old containment remains valid too, in its way... There
is thus reciprocal containment, though containment in different senses:
epistemology in natural science and natural science in epistemology.”5
Although Quine’s reciprocal containment suggested that epis-
temology might still play a foundational role in scientific under-
standing, his work appeared to many to reduce epistemology to
psychology. Quine seemed to deny the normative role of traditional
epistemology to justify all knowledge, including scientific knowl-
edge. An information epistemology can restore that role.
5 Ontological Relativity and Other Essays 1969, pp.80-3
An Information Epistemology?
Second only to Kant‘s “scandal” that philosophers cannot
logically prove the existence of the external world, it is scandalous
that professional philosophers are in such profound disagreement
about what it means to know something. They may not all be wrong,
but few of them are likely to be right.
This is especially dismaying for those epistemologists who still
see a normative role for philosophy that could provide a founda-
Chapter 8
tion, perhaps even a priori, for scientific or empirical, a posteriori

knowledge.
Information epistemology avoids the traditional identification of
knowledge with “belief.” Belief is a psychological state that may be,
and often is, disjoint from knowledge. We may empirically verify
that a person knows something by analyzing her behavior, without
her consciously articulating or holding a belief in that knowledge.
A famous example is the difference between linguistic competence
and mere performance, knowing the grammatical rules for one’s
language without being able to state those rules. Those rules have
been learned tacitly, by multiple trials and errors, and stored in a
person’s mind, in our experience recorder and reproducer (ERR).6
Human knowledge is not only information stored in the mind. It
is also recorded in human artifacts like stories, books, buildings, and
internetworked computers. Knowledge is information that forms
the basis for human thoughts and actions. In information philoso-
phy, knowledge is information that is “actionable,” meaning that if
we act on the basis of the information, our actions will have fruitful
consequences. The validity or pragmatic “truth” of knowledge is to
be found in those consequences.
Since information is also stored in animal minds, we can reject
the exceptionalist fiction that only humans can have knowledge.
Where humans are indeed exceptional is their ability to communi-
cate their knowledge - and their reasons for their knowledge - sym-
bolically by means of language.
Information is stored or encoded in information structures.
Although structures in the material world build themselves,
6 See Appendix E for details.
Epistemology 117
following natural laws, they do not assemble themselves. This is the

material first world of information philosophy.
In our second world, biological systems are cognitive systems in
the sense that they also process and communicate knowledge (infor-
mation). They bring purpose into the universe. They are “teleo-
nomic.” They cannot be reduced to the laws of physics and chem-
istry. They are not machines, which must be assembled. Biological
systems assemble themselves, using their internal knowledge. This
Chapter 8
is the biological second world of information philosophy.
Structures in the mind are partly built by biological processes
and partly built by human intelligence, which is free, creative, and
unpredictable. The information in mental structures is uniquely
mobile. It is not confined to its structure. As knowledge, it is the
immaterial stuff of thought - our ideal third world.”
A majority of the Sum of unique human knowledge may now be
stored external to our minds. Even collectively, we don’t know (in
the sense of having it in mind) all that we know. But we (including
almost anyone in the world) can look it up extremely quickly.
Among the sources of knowledge are the theories and experiments
of natural scientists, who collaborate to establish our knowledge
of the external world, social scientists who study our cultures,
and psychologists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists, who
investigate our personal subjective worlds.
To the extent of the correspondence, the isomorphism, the one-
to-one mapping, between structures (and processes) in the world
and representative information structures in our minds, we can
claim to have knowledge of the world, and of other minds.
Such knowledge claims are not based on logical arguments about
justification, but on the pragmatic truth that the knowledge has
consequences that can be empirically or “naturally” confirmed.
Information epistemology is a naturalized epistemology.
Chapter 9
r s a l s
Unive

informationphilosopher.com/problems/one-many
Universals 119
Universals
A “universal” in metaphysics is a property or attribute that is
shared by many particular objects (or concepts). It has a subtle
relationship to the problem of the one and the many.
It is also the question of ontology.1 What exists in the world?
Ontology is intimately connected with epistemology - how can we
know what exists in the world?
Knowledge about objects consists in describing the objects
Chapter 9
with properties and attributes, including their relations to other
objects. Rarely are individual properties unique to an individual
object. Although a “bundle of properties” may uniquely charac-
terize a particular individual, most properties are shared with
many individuals.
The “problem of universals” is the existential status of a given
shared property. Does the one universal property exist apart from
the many instances in particular objects? Plato thought it does.
Aristotle thought it does not.
Consider the property having the color red. Is there an abstract
concept of redness or “being red?” Granted the idea of a concept of
redness, in what way and where in particular does it exist? Nomi-
nalists (sometimes called anti-realists) say that it exists only in the
particular instances, and that redness is the name of this property.
Conceptualists say that the concept of redness exists only in the
minds of those persons who have grasped the concept of redness.
They might exclude color-blind persons who cannot perceive red.
Realism is the view that a “reality” of physical objects, and pos-
sibly of abstract concepts like redness, exists in an external world
independently of our minds and perceptions.
Platonic Realism is the view that abstract things like numbers,
perfect geometric figures, and other things that Plato called the
Forms or the Ideas, have a real and independent existence, though
they are not material objects.
1 See chapter 3.
But for his student, Aristotle, these “universals” exist only in the
concrete objects which share some property. For him, the univer-
sal idea of a perfect circle is a shared property of the many actual
circles in nature.
Naive realists think that we can access concrete physical objects
directly and fully with our perceptual sense data. This is some-
times called the “copy theory.” Our perceptions are fully appre-
hending the physical objects, so that the content of a perception
is the same as the object of perception. In information philosophy
Chapter 9
terms, naive realism mistakenly assumes that the information in

the perceived sense data (or the representation in the mind) is
(quantitatively) equal to (a copy of) the information in the physi-
cal object. In the case of the abstract concept of redness, it may
be that the copy-theory is most tenable. The perception of a red
object may in a strong sense bring the concept of redness into
existence (at least in the observer’s mind).
Historically, realism is a metaphysical claim about this indepen-
dently existing world where redness might be found. Since Aristo-
tle’s Metaphysics, two kinds of metaphysical questions (ontologi-
cal and epistemological ) are raised - what exists, and how can we
know what exists.
The ontological status of abstract concepts is a completely dif-
ferent question from the ontology of concrete material objects,
though these questions have often been confounded in the history
of philosophy.
Information philosophy provides distinct answers to these two
ontological questions. Material objects exist in the world of space
and time. They are information structures embodied in matter
and interacting with energy. Abstract concepts (like redness) are
pure information, neither matter nor energy, although they need
matter for their embodiment and energy for their communica-
tion.
The contrast between physical objects and abstract concepts can
be illustrated by the difference between invention and discovery.
Universals 121
We discover physical objects through our perceptions of them.

To be sure, we invent our ideas about these objects, their descrip-
tions, their names, theories of how they are structured and how
they interact energetically - with one another and with us. But
we cannot arbitrarily invent the natural world. We must test our
theories with experiment. The experimental results select those
theories that best fit the data, the information coming to us from
the world. This makes our knowledge of an independent external
world scientific knowledge.
Chapter 9
By contrast, we humans invent abstract concepts like redness.
We know that these cultural constructs exist nowhere in nature as
physical structures. We create them. Cultural knowledge is rela-
tive to and dependent on the society that creates it.
However, some of our invented abstract concepts seem to
clearly have an existence that is independent of us, like the num-
bers and the force of gravity.
Critical realists, like scientists, start with observations and sense
data, but they add hypotheses and experiments to develop theo-
ries about the physical objects and the abstract concepts in the
external world. Nevertheless, the abstract representation in the
mind is (quantitatively) much less information than the informa-
tion in the physical object represented.
The idea of an independent reality claims that the reality known
exists independently of the knowledge of it.
The British empiricists John Locke and David Hume argued
that what we were “given” in our perceptions of sense data is lim-
ited to so-called “secondary qualities.” These are properties that
produce the sensations in the observer’s senses - color, taste, smell,
sound, and touch. Knowledge that comes from secondary quali-
ties does not provide objective facts about things “in themselves.”
Immanuel Kant described these secondary qualities as “phe-
nomena” that could tell us nothing about the “noumena,” which
the empiricists called the “primary qualities.” These are proper-
ties the objects have that are independent of any observer, such
as solidity, extension, motion, number and figure. These quali-
ties exist in the thing itself (Kant’s “Ding an sich”). Kant thought
that some of these qualities can be determined with certainty, as

“synthetic a priori” truths. Some of these qualities are analytic truths,
defined by the logical meanings of linguistic terms. For example, a
round circle cannot be a square.
The One and the Many
Some philosophers are monists, arguing that the world must
be a unity, one unchanging thing, and that all the multiplicity and
change that we see is mere illusion.
Chapter 9
Some are dualists, puzzled how the immaterial One (usually Mind
or the Ideal) can possibly interact with the material Many (the Body
or the World). There are other kinds of dualists, but the idealism/
materialism divide has a long history in philosophy under dozens of
different names through the ages.
Some philosophers prefer triads, triplicities, or trinities as their
fundamental structures, and in these we may find the most sensi-
ble way to divide the world as we know it into “worlds,” realms, or
orders.
Those who divide their philosophy into four usually arrange it
two by two (Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Derrida - who did it in jest,
and against Christian trinities). There are a few who think a pentad
has explanatory power. Another handful look to the mystical seven
(the number of planets and thus days of the week) for understand-
ing.
Since the Pythagoreans drew their triangular diagram of the tet-
ractus, ten has been a divine number for some. Aristotle found ten
categories. The neo-Platonist Kabalists have ten sephiroth. In string
theory, there are ten dimensions reflecting the components of Ein-
stein’s general relativity equations.
The most important philosopher since Aristotle, Kant, structured
his architectonic into twelve categories, arranged four by three.
We will scrutinize these architectures to see if the thinkers divide
their worlds the same way, whatever names they call their divisions.
There is a surprising amount of agreement among them, consider-
ing their disagreements on terminology.
Universals 123
Over the centuries many philosophers have seen a fundamental

dualism. Most have invented their own names for this dualism. Not
all have meant the very same things, but the great similarities allow
us to collect all these dualisms into a quasi-chronological table,
where similarities and slight differences become more clear.
Of course many have claimed to be monists. “All is One,” they
said, as they generally reduce the physical world to the ideal world,
or vice versa. “Neutral monists” argue that the ideal and physical
worlds are somehow both something else. But the underlying dual-
ism remains in these monistic claims.
Chapter 9
Many philosophers saw the need for the two sides to work
together.
Immanuel Kant wrote,
Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer.
Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind.
Charles Sanders Peirce rewrote this as,
If Materialism without Idealism is blind,
Idealism without Materialism is void.
With a nod to Kant and Peirce, we can say,
Concepts without Percepts are empty.
Percepts without Concepts are blind.
And although freedom and values are not a dualism, they too
require one another and we can observe
Freedom without Values is Absurd (as Continental Existentialists like
Jean-Paul Sartre thought).
Values without Freedom are Worthless (as British Utilitarians and later
Positivists may have thought).
The founder of quantum mechanics. Niels Bohr, saw the wave-
particle dual nature of quantum mechanics as connected to many
other “complementary” philosophical dualisms.
We have compiled a semi-chronological list of various philosoph-

ical terms used through the ages that seem highly correlated with
the fundamental ideal-material duality.
The ONE The MANY

Monism Pluralism
IDEALISM MATERIALISM
Being Becoming
Chapter 9
Necessity Contingency
Plato’s Divided Line
Theories (noesis) Techniques (pistis)
Hypotheses (dianoia) Stories (eikasia)
Eternal Ephemeral
ESSENCE EXISTENCE
Universals Accidentals / Particulars
Aristotle’s Four Causes
Final Cause Formal Cause Efficient Cause Material Cause
Realism Nominalism
Intelligible Sensible
Form Content
Universal Particular
Absolute Relative
RATIONALISM EMPIRICISM
MIND BODY
a priori a posteriori
Certainty Probability
Intellect - Innate Tabula Rasa - Learned
Nature Nurture
Analytic Synthetic
Universals 125
Kant’s Transcendental Critique

Noumena Phenomena
Concepts/Thoughts Percepts/Senses
Freedom Determinism
Subject Object
Dialectical IDEALISM Dialectical MATERIALISM
Superstructure Base
Chapter 9
Romanticism Positivism
Transcendentalism Pragmatism
Supernaturalism Naturalism
Phenomenology Behaviorism/Existentialism
Linguistic Analysis
Ideal Language Ordinary Language
Intension Extension
Sense/Semantic Meaning/Pragmatic
Autonomy Mimesis
Deduction Induction
Theory Experiment
Consistency Correspondence
Quantum Complementarity
WAVE PARTICLE
Possible Actual
Thought Action
Intension and Extension describe two ways of indicating the
meaning of a word or name. Intension assumes the word has an
intrinsic, essential meaning, perhaps simply by definition and thus
“analytic.”
Extension is the set of existing objects in the world to which the
word corresponds. There is a special kind of definition called “osten-
sive” which defines a word by pointing to those objects. Because
extension involves things in the world it is called “synthetic.”
The mathematician Gottlob Frege distinguished intension and

extension by the German words Sinn und Bedeutung (which usually
translate as Sense and Reference, though Denotation is better).
Vienna Circle philosophers, notably Rudolf Carnap, described
intension and extension as semantisch and pragmatisch (semantic
and pragmatic).
Willard van Orman Quine used the terms Meaning and Ref-
erence for intension and extension, conflicting with Frege’s terms.
But note that Frege conflicts with the ancient intelligible/sensible
Chapter 9
distinction. Words are ambiguous tools to describe objects. And

language should therefore not be the primary tool for philosophical
analysis.
Philosophical Triads
After dualisms, the next most popular philosophical architec-
tonic structures are triads, triplicities, or trinities.
Some philosophers describe their triads as three “worlds,” just as
dualism is often described in terms of an Ideal World and a Material
World. The deep philosophical (and scientific) question is - do these
divisions “carve nature at the joints,” as Plato put it in the Phaedrus,
(265e)?
We analyze examples, and find that the three worlds are most
often simply the canonical Ideal/Material dualism with an interpo-
lated third world corresponding to a human world (or more broadly,
the biological world), with its obvious connection to the world of
“subjective?” ideas above and the “objective” material world below.
Gottlob Frege’s Three Realms
An External Realm of Public Physical Things and Events
An Internal Subjective Realm of Private Thoughts
An “Objective” Platonic Realm of Ideal “Senses” (to which sentences
refer, providing their meaning)
Karl Popper’s Three Worlds (clearly influenced by Frege)
World I - “the realm of physical things and processes”
World II - “the realm of subjective human experience”
World III - “the realm of culture and objective knowledge” - of human
artifacts (our Sum)
Universals 127
Charles Sanders Peirce’s triad of Objects - Percepts - Con-

cepts is in the same order as Frege and Popper.
In information philosophy, we divide the world into three funda-
mental parts, the material, the ideal (ideas are the same kind of
abstraction as pure information), and the biological/human, a
middle world that combines ideality and materiality. In these three
worlds, information emerges in different ways. They are symbolized
in our tri-color I-Phi logo.
•The Physical/Material World (lower/green) - Ilya
Chapter 9
Prigogine’s “order out of chaos,” when the matter in
the universe spontaneously forms information struc-
tures.
•The Biological/Material World (middle/red) -
Erwin Schrödinger’s “order out of order,” when the biological
information structures form purposeful (“teleonomic”) self-repli-
cating organisms that depend on or “feed on” a negative entropy
stream from the sun.
•The Mental/Immaterial/Ideal World (upper/blue) - Bob Doyle’s
abstract “information out of order,” when organisms with minds
process and externalize information, communicating it to other
minds and storing it in the environment.
Merlin Donald’s three levels of Culture Emergence.
•Mimetic: the “copycat” or “monkey see, monkey do” ability of
primates facilitated transfer of learning, ritual
•Mythic: language in humans, mental/brain development is influ-
enced by social network of speakers generating symbols for ideas
•Informatic: External storage of knowledge - writing, printing,
computers, Internet
Three Sources for Authoritative Knowledge

•The Tradition - Knowledge is inherited, handed down, from
the great thinkers of the past (compare Frege’s “Objective” Platonic
Realm of Ideal “Senses” to which sentences “refer,” providing their
meaning)
•The Modern - Knowledge is created by Reason, by providing a
rational account (logos) of how things are, augmented by modern
empirical science since the Enlightenment
Chapter 9
•The Post-Modern - all knowledge is “relative” to the culture that

invented it. For conservative post-moderns, science can establish
knowledge about an objective external world. For radical post-
moderns, “anything goes”, even science “invents or creates reality.”
There are no grounds/foundations for cultural knowledge that can
“justify true beliefs.”
Types of Triads
Levels: Material - Biological/Human - Ideal
(physis - bios/nomos - logos)
Inner Levels: Body - Brain - Mind/Spirit
Plato: Truth - Goodness - Beauty
Aristotle/Kant: Epistemology - Ethics - Aesthetics
Number: One - Two/Many - All (unity - duality/plurality -
totality)
Person: I - You - We (self - other - society/community)
Truth: Correspondence - Coherence - Consistency
(empirical - conventional/pragmatic - logical)
Time: Past - Present - Future
Family: Father - Mother (chauvinists changed to Spirit) - Son
Dialectic: Thesis - Antithesis - Synthesis (Aufhebung new Thesis)
Hume’s Relations: Similarity - Contiguity - Causality
(form - space - time)
Universals 129
Medieval Trivium: Grammar - Rhetoric - Logic

Rhetoric: Simile - Metonym - Metaphor
Language - Syntax - Semantics - Pragmatics
Peirce: Objects - Percepts - Concepts
Peirce’s Semiotics: Icon - Index - Symbol
Peirce’s Symbol: Ground - Object - Interpretant
Peirce’s Science: Abduction (hypothesis) - Induction - Deduction
Chapter 9
Grounds: Tradition - Modern - Postmodern
Beliefs: Naturalism - Humanism - Spiritualism
Matter: Solid - Liquid - Gas (earth - water - air)
Time: Beginning - Middle - End (archos - physis/nomos - telos)
Journey: Eden - Fall - Atonement (home - travels - homecoming)
Life: Birth - Life - Death
A Few Tetrads
Classical kinds of matter: Earth - Water - Air - Fire
(anticipating today’s solid - liquid - gas - plasma)
Plato’s Divided Line: Stories - Techniques - Hypotheses - Theories
(eikasia - pistis - dianoia - noesis)
Aristotle’s Causes: Material cause - Efficient cause - Formal cause
- Final cause (He considered chance to be a possible fifth cause.)
Graeco-Roman Four Temperaments (or humors): Choleric
(yellow bile), Melancholic (black bile), Sanguine (blood), and Phleg-
matic (phlegm)
Medieval cosmology: Earth (below us) - Water (with us) - Air
(above us) - Stars (beyond us)
The medieval scholastic Quadrivium: Math - Geometry - Music -
Astronomy (number - space - time - motion)
Schopenhauer’s Fourfold Root of Sufficient Reason
Heidegger’s Geviert (2x2): Earth - Mortals - Heavens - Gods
Derrida’s Jeu des Cartes
Chapter 10
c t i o n
Indu

informationphilosopher.com/problems/induction
Induction 131
The Problem of Induction

Francis Bacon described “genuine Induction” as the new
method of science. Opposing his new idea to what he thought
Aristotle’s approach had been in his Organon (as misinterpreted
by the medieval Scholastics), Bacon proposed that science builds
up knowledge by the accumulation of data (information), which
is of course correct. This is simply the empirical method of col-
lecting piece by piece the (statistical) evidence to support a theory.
The “problem of induction” arises when we ask whether this
Chapter 10
form of reasoning can lead to apodeictic or “metaphysical” cer-
tainty about knowledge, as the Scholastics thought. Thomas
Aquinas especially thought that certain knowledge can be built
upon first principles, axioms, and deductive or logical reason-
ing. This certain knowledge does indeed exist, within a system of
thought such as logic or mathematics. But it can prove nothing
about the natural material world.
Bacon understood logical deduction, but like some proto-
empiricists among the Scholastics (notably John Duns Scotus
and William of Occam), Bacon argued in his Novum Organum
that knowledge of nature comes from studying nature, not from
reasoning in the ivory tower.
Bacon likely did not believe certainty can result from inductive
reasoning, but his great contribution was to see that (empirical)
knowledge gives us power over nature, by discovering what he
called the form of nature, the real causes underlying events.
It was of course David Hume who pointed out the lack of cer-
tainty or logical necessity in the method of inferring causality
from observations of the regular succession of “causes and effects.”
His great model of scientific thinking, Isaac Newton had cham-
pioned induction as the source of his ideas. This is as if his laws of
motion were simply there in the data from Tycho Brahe’s exten-
sive observations and Johannes Kepler’s elliptical orbits.
“Hypotheses non fingo,” Newton famously said, denying the laws
were his own ideas. Although since Newton it is a commonplace
that the gravitational influence (“action at a distance”) of the Sun

causes the Earth and other planets to move around their orbits,
Hume’s skepticism led him to question whether we could really
know, with certainty, anything about causality, when all we ever
see in our inductive study is the regular succession of events.
Thus it was Hume who gave us the “problem of induction” that
has bothered philosophers for centuries, spilling a great deal of
philosophical ink. Hume’s skepticism told him induction could
never yield a logical proof. But Hume’s mitigated skepticism saw
a great deal of practical value gained by inferring a general rule
Chapter 10
from multiple occurrences, on the basis of what he saw as the uni-

formity of nature. It is reasonable to assume that what we have
seen repeatedly in the past is likely to continue in the future.
While Hume was interested in causal sequences in time, his jus-
tification of induction also applies to modern statistical thinking.
We infer the frequency of some property of an entire population
in the future from the statistics of an adequately large sample of
that population in the present.
The information philosopher’s solution to this problem (more
properly a “pseudo-problem,” to use the terminology of twenti-
eth-century logical positivists, logical empiricists, and linguistic
analysts) is easily seen by examining the information involved
in the three (or four) methods of reasoning - logical deduction,
empirical induction, mathematical induction (actually a form of
deduction), and what Charles Sanders Peirce called “abduc-
tion,” to complete one of his many philosophical triads.
Mathematical induction is a method of proving some prop-
erty of all the natural numbers by proving it for one number, then
showing that if it is true for the number n, it must also be true
for n + 1. In both deduction and mathematical induction, the
information content of the conclusion is often no more than that
already in the premises. To be sure, the growth of our systems of
thought such as logic, mathematics, and perhaps especially geom-
etry, has generated vast amounts of new knowledge, new informa-
tion, when surprising new theorems are proved within the system.
Induction 133
And much of this information has turned out to be isomorphic

with information structures in the universe. But the existence of
an isomorphism is an empirical, not a logical, finding.
The principal role of deduction in science is to derive, logically
or mathematically, predictable consequences of the new theory
that might be tested by suitable experiments. This step simply
draws out information already present in the hypothesis. Theory,
including deductions and predictions, is all done in the realm of
ideas, pure information.
Chapter 10
Abduction is the creative formation of new hypotheses, one step
(rarely the first) in what some philosophers of science in the twen-
tieth century described as the scientific method - the hypothetico-
deductive-observational method. It can be described more simply
as the combination of theories and experiments. Observations
are very often the spur to theory formation, as the old inductive
method emphasized. A scientist forms a hypothesis about pos-
sible causes for what is observed.
Although the hypothesis is an immaterial idea, pure informa-
tion, the abduction of a hypothesis creates new information in the
universe, albeit in the minds of the scientists.
By contrast, an experiment is a material and energetic interac-
tion with the world that produces new information structures to be
compared with theoretical predictions. Experiments are Baconian
accumulations of data that can never logically “prove” a theory
(or hypothesis). But confirmation of any theory consists entirely
of finding that the statistical outcomes of experiments match the
theory’s predictions, within reasonable experimental “error bars.”
The best confirmation of any scientific theory is when it predicts
a phenomenon never before seen, such that when an experiment
looks, that phenomenon is found to exist.
These “surprising” results of great theories shows the extent to
which science is not a mere “economic summary of the facts,” as
claimed by Ernst Mach, the primary exponent of logical positiv-
ism in science.
Mach had a great influence on the young Albert Einstein, who

employed Mach’s idea in discovering his special theory of relativ-
ity. The positivists insisted on limiting science to “observable”
facts. Atoms were not (yet) observable, so despite the great chemi-
cal theories of John Dalton explaining molecules, the great sta-
tistical mechanical work of James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig
Boltzmann explaining thermodynamics, it remained for Einstein
to predict the observable effects of atomic and molecular motions
on the motions of visible particles like pollen seeds in a liquid.
The experimental measurements of those visible motions, with
Chapter 10
exactly the extent of motion predicted by Einstein, confirmed the

physical reality of atoms. The motions had been observed, almost
eighty years earlier, by Robert Brown. Einstein’s 1905 work was a
paradigmatic example of the scientific method - first a “free creation
of the human mind,” as he called it and his other extraordinary the-
ories - next the deduction of mathematically exact predictions from
the theory, and finally the 1908 confirming experiments by Jean
Perrin.
In information philosophy terms, the abstract immaterial infor-
mation in the Einstein theory of Brownian motion, was found to be
isomorphic to material and energetic information structures in the
universe.
In his early years, Einstein thought himself a disciple of Mach, a
positivist. He limited his theories to observable facts. Special relativ-
ity grew from the fact that absolute motions are not observable.
But later when he realized the source of his greatest works were
his own mental inventions, he changed his views. Here is Einstein
in 1936,
“We now realize, with special clarity, how much in error are those theo-
rists who believe that theory comes inductively from experience. Even
the great Newton could not free himself from this error (“Hypotheses
non fingo”)...
“There is no inductive method which could lead to the fundamental
concepts of physics. Failure to understand this fact constituted the basic
philosophical error of so many investigators of the nineteenth century. It
was probably the reason why the molecular theory and Maxwell’s theory
were able to establish themselves only at a relatively late date. Logical
thinking is necessarily deductive; it is based upon hypothetical concepts
Induction 135
and axioms. How can we expect to choose the latter so that we might
hope for a confirmation of the consequences derived from them?
“The most satisfactory situation is evidently to be found in cases where
the new fundamental hypotheses are suggested by the world of experi-
ence itself. The hypothesis of the non-existence of perpetual motion as
a basis for thermodynamics affords such an example of a fundamental
hypothesis suggested by experience; the same holds for Galileo’s prin-
ciple of inertia. In the same category, moreover, we find the fundamental
hypotheses of the theory of relativity, which theory has led to an unex-
pected expansion and broadening of the field theory, and to the super-
seding of the foundations of classical mechanics.”1
And here, Einstein wrote in his 1949 autobiography,
Chapter 10
“I have learned something else from the theory of gravitation: No ever
so inclusive collection of empirical facts can ever lead to the setting up
of such complicated equations. A theory can be tested by experience, but
there is no way from experience to the setting up of a theory. Equations
of such complexity as are the equations of the gravitational field can
be found only through the discovery of a logically simple mathemati-
cal condition which determines the equations completely or [at least]
almost completely.”2
Werner Heisenberg told Einstein in 1926 that his new quan-
tum mechanics was based only on “observables,” following the
example of Einstein’s relativity theory that was based on the
fact that absolute motion is not observable. For Heisenberg,
the orbital path of an electron in an atom is not an observable.
Heisenberg said of his first meeting with Einstein,
“Einstein himself discovered the transition probabilities between states
in the Bohr atom, ten years before this conversation with Heisenberg.
I defended myself to begin with by justifying in detail the necessity for
abandoning the path concept within the interior of the atom. I pointed
out that we cannot, in fact, observe such a path; what we actually record
are frequencies of the light radiated by the atom, intensities and tran-
sition-probabilities, but no actual path. And since it is but rational to
introduce into a theory only such quantities as can be directly observed,
the concept of electron paths ought not, in fact, to figure in the theory.
“To my astonishment, Einstein was not at all satisfied with this argument.
He thought that every theory in fact contains unobservable quantities.
The principle of employing only observable quantities simply cannot be
consistently carried out. And when I objected that in this I had merely
been applying the type of philosophy that he, too, had made the basis
1 “Physics and Reality,” Journal of the Franklin Institute, Vol.221, No.3, March,
1936. pp. 301, 307
2 “Autobiographical Notes,” in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, Ed. Paul
Arthur Schilpp, 1949, p.89
of his special theory of relativity, he answered simply “Perhaps I did use

such philosophy earlier, and also wrote it, but it is nonsense all the same.”
Thus Einstein had meanwhile revised his philosophical position on this
point. He pointed out to me that the very concept of observation was
itself already problematic. Every observation, so he argued, presupposes
that there is an unambiguous connection known to us, between the phe-
nomenon to be observed and the sensation which eventually penetrates
into our consciousness. But we can only be sure of this connection, if we
know the natural laws by which it is determined. If however, as is obvi-
ously the case in modern atomic physics, these laws have to be called in
question, then even the concept of “observation” loses its clear meaning.
In that case it is theory which first determines what can be observed.
Chapter 10
These considerations were quite new to me, and made a deep impression
on me at the time; they also played an important part later in my own
work, and have proved extraordinarily fruitful in the development of the
new physics.”3
Since philosophy has made the “linguistic turn” to abstract
propositions, the problem of induction for today’s philosophers is
subtly different from the one faced by David Hume. It has become
an epistemological problem of “justifying true beliefs” about propo-
sitions and thus lost the connection to “natural philosophy” it had
in Hume’s day. Information philosophy hopes to restore at least the
“metaphysical” elements of natural philosophy to the domain of
philosophy proper.
In contemporary logic, epistemology, and the philosophy of sci-
ence, there is now the problem of “enumerative induction” or uni-
versal inference, an inference from particular statements to general
statements. For example, the inference from the propositions p1,
p2,... pn, which are all F’s that are G’s, to the general inference that all
F’s are G’s.
This is clearly a purely linguistic version of the original problem.
Divorcing the problem of induction from nature empties it of the
great underlying principle in Hume, Mill, and other philosophers,
namely the assumption of the uniformity of nature, which alone can
justify our “true?” belief that the sun will come up tomorrow.
In information terms, the problem of induction has been reduced,
even impoverished, to become only relations between ideas. Perhaps
3 Encounters with Einstein, 1983, pp.113-4

Induction 137
“ideas” is too strong, much of philosophy has become merely logical

relations between statements or propositions. Because of the inher-
ent ambiguity of language, sometimes philosophy appears to have
become merely a game played using our ability to make arbitrary
meaningless statements, then critically analyze the resulting con-
ceptual paradoxes.
Karl Popper famously reprimanded Ludwig Wittgenstein’s
claim that there are no real philosophical problems, only puzzles
and language games.
Chapter 10
Induction and the Scientific Method
We can conclude that induction corresponds roughly to the
gathering of large numbers of observations or experiments, which
today are seen as the statistical basis for accepting a scientific theory.
Induction is supplemented today with abduction, which is the free
creation of theories or hypotheses to be tested against the results of
experiments. Deduction is a third tool that allows predictions to be
derived logically and mathematically from the theory.
Freely developed theories are then seen to generate predictions
about alternative possibilities and probabilities.
Experimental facts provide the statistical evidence that either
confirms or denies those predictions.
Theories are probabilities. Experiments are statistics.
Chapter 11
n i n g
Mea

informationphilosopher.com/knowledge/meaning
Meaning 139
The Problem of Meaning

The “meaning” of any word, concept, or object is different for
different individuals, depending on the information (knowledge)
about the word, concept, or object currently available to them. All
meaning is “contextual” and the most important context is what
is currently in the individual’s mind. This obviously includes the
immediate external context, for example, a puzzling word being
heard or read is surrounded by text, both explicitly and implicitly.
Explicit text includes the words preceding the word whose mean-
ing is not yet clear. Structural linguists call this the diachronic
Chapter 11
dimension. Implicit words are synonyms and other words that
might come to mind as substitutes for the questionable word. This
is the synchronic dimension - those alternative words that could
substitute with little change in meaning.
How exactly does our information-based model of the mind
generate meaning? It is the past experiences that are reproduced
(played back) from the experience recorder and reproducer (ERR)
that provide most of the meaningful context for a word or object.
For example, if the agent has had no past experiences that resem-
ble the current experience in some way, the agent may not find any
meaning at all. The simplest case would be a new word, seen for
the very first time. Worst case would be listening to an unknown
foreign language.
If the word is not isolated, the meanings of familiar surrounding
text may bring back their own past uses clearly enough to allow
the agent to guess the meaning of the new word, in that context.
In any case this fresh experience with the word will be stored away
along with that context for future reference.
The problem of the “Meaning of Meaning” has a rich history
in the past century or two of analytic language philosophy. Three
centuries ago, Gottfried Leibniz hoped for an ambiguity-free
ideal language with exactly one term for each concept. It would
reduce language to a kind of mathematics where the meaning of
complex combinations of terms could be “calculated” precisely. In
the middle of the nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill tried to

simplify proper nouns by insisting that they are just names for the
things we are talking about in sentences or propositions. Nouns
are subjects, predicates are the attributes of the subject.
Leibniz and Mill were inspirations for Bertrand Russell,
whose logical positivism imagined “logical atoms” of meaning
that could be combined following strict rules to form complex
concepts - “logical molecules.” But Russell and the great logician
Gottlob Frege tangled over exactly how words describe, denote,
or refer to concepts and objects. How do words mean?
Chapter 11
Is the absolute meaning to be found in the dictionary defini-

tions of how a word refers to an object, independent of the inten-
tions of a speaker or inferences of the hearer? Frege distinguished
between the straight reference of a word and what he called the
“sense.” Why does the statement “Aristotle is the author of De
Anima” carry more information than the identity statement “Aris-
totle is Aristotle.” Our information theory of meaning finds the
answer in the reader’s past experience (or none) of De Anima.
Russell’s young collaborator in early logical positivism, Ludwig
Wittgenstein, eventually broke with Russell and insisted that
meaning depends on the use to which a word is being put. There
is no objective independent meaning for a word as the object it
“stands for.” Wittgenstein’s relativism became more extreme when
Jacques Derrida showed how the meaning of a word can be
deferred and “disseminated,” shifting according to words follow-
ing it in time - in the diachronic dimension.
Charles Sanders Peirce, and the great linguist and inventor
of structuralism, Ferdinand de Saussure, had accepted straight-
forward connections between words and objects, like Peirce’s triad
“concept-percept-object” and Saussure’s dual “signifier/signified”
(s/S) for an arbitrary symbol and its object. These were captured
in the C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards book, “The Meaning of
Meaning,” as their “semantic triangle,” symbol (word), reference
(thought/concept), and object.
Meaning 141
Willard van Orman Quine thought he could escape ambi-

guities in meaning. In his book Word and Object, he urged the
“naturalizing” of epistemology by focusing on the empirical con-
nections made by speakers when they say what they mean. Favor-
ing extensionality over intentionality, he said to look at how a
speaker of another language shows what a word means, or how a
baby learns the meaning of new words, by a process of behavioral
conditioning and ostension (pointing at things). Quine said one
may not be a behaviorist in psychology, but cannot avoid being
a behaviorist in linguistics. But behaviorists are determinist and
materialist.
Chapter 11
Post-moderns like Derrida and Roland Barthes showed that
fundamental ambiguities of language cannot be removed, that the
dictionary definitions summarizing the past uses in a community
of discourse only trap meaning in a “circle of signifiers” without a
referent object (s/Z). New uses are always being created, a conse-
quence of our theory of humans as “co-creators” of our universe.
Are we then living in a Humpty Dumpty world of “When I
use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more
nor less.” H. P. Grice insisted that the intentions of the “utterer”
are carrying the meaning. Or do we need to consider the “reader
response” to any text, where meaning is generated by the reader
and any supposed author intentions are deliberately ignored.
In Claude Shannon’s theory of the communication of infor-
mation, the emphasis is on the new information arriving at the
receiver carried in the message from the sender. But Shannon
never claimed the meaning was carried in the message itself. So it
is with our information theory of meaning.
The information theory of meaning starts with the information
model of the mind, which asserts that the immaterial mind is the
abstract information being processed by the brain. The brain is a
material information structure, which works as a biological infor-
mation processor and experience recorder.1
The meaning in a message incoming to the mind (which could
be just a perception of sensations from the environment and not
1 See appendix E on the experience recorder and reproducer.
necessarily words from another human being with intentions) is

completely dependent on the past experiences of the agent that are
brought to mind by the content of the message. This nicely cap-
tures the subjectivism or relativism of meaning, since it so greatly
depends on the content of the individual’s mind.
Our model for the mind also gets close to answering Thomas
Nagel’s provocative question “What Is It Like To Be a Bat?”2 The
past experiences reproduced by the ERR, complete with their feel-
ings, depends on what has been recorded and what can be repro-
duced (played back). A frog cannot play back the experience of con-
Chapter 11
cave objects flying by, because the frog’s eye has filtered them out,
preventing them from reaching the frog’s brain and its experience
recorder.
The bat’s current experiences are beyond human comprehension
just because we lack the past experiences of what life has been like
for a bat.
Meaning in the Theory of Information
Although Shannon’s 1948 theory of the communication of infor-
mation explicitly denied that it had anything to do with the mean-
ing of the information communicated, other information theorists
made efforts to connect abstract information with real objects, with
their structural content, and even with concepts that humans use to
“represent” objects and concepts.
Donald MacKay, R.A. Fisher, and Dennis Gabor had inde-
pendently made efforts before Shannon, just at the end of World
War II, to define an “amount of information.”3
Gabor suggested that a signal occupying an elementary area of
Δf Δt = 1 could be regarded as a ‘unit of information’, which he
termed a ‘logon’. Multiplied by Planck’s constant h, this corresponds
to Heisenberg’s minimum uncertainty in a physical measurement.
Fisher had proposed a measure of ‘information’ in a statistical
sample, which in the simplest case amounted to the reciprocal of
the variance. MacKay interpreted Fisher’s measure as the “weight
of evidence,” proposing that for a probability of 1/2, it should be
termed a “metron.”
2 Mortal Questions, p.165
3 Information, Mechanism, and Meaning, pp. 4-5
Meaning 143
MacKay defined his “amount of information” as the number of

yes/no questions that need to be answered to extract the informa-
tion in a “representation,” which he defined as a structure which has
some abstract features in common with something else it purports
to represent. This is very close to our definition of intrinsic informa-
tion4 and somewhat similar to the idea of “logical atomism” that
knowledge is the total of true statements, if each provides one bit.
Of course, all these attempts to quantify intrinsic information
scientifically do not get close to the meaning or significance that
a Peircean interpretant may find in a perception or in a message,
given the surrounding context, as Roman Jakobson said would be
Chapter 11
needed to add meaning to Shannon’s theory.
We can use Shannon’s famous diagram on the communication of
information to integrate the thinking about meaning by many great
philosophers, linguists, and literary critics.
Figure 11-3. Claude Shannon’s communication of informtion diagram.
To begin with, we must think of the above flow of information

as another flow of negative entropy, the ultimate source of all value
in the universe.5 See appendix B on cosmic, solar, biological, and
human entropy flows and the second law of thermodynamics.
We need to see Shannon’s “information source” as a speaker or
writer creating a new message that has more than just the generic
meaning or “sense” that anyone familiar with the language would
interpret in the message. It also carries the intentions of the message
sender, which may or may not be clear to the receiver.
We must also interpret Shannon’s destination and observer as
something more than a communications device. It is an intelligent
4 See chapter 2 on identity as intrinsic information.
5 See chapter 5 on negative entropy as value.
agent who will find meaning in the message by interpreting it, draw-
ing inferences from the message content and context, which includes
knowing the sender and thus the sender’s possible implications.
Edmund Husserl, perhaps following Franz Brentano, said
meaning depends on the intentions, the implications, of a speaker.
Among twentieth-century logicians, C.I. Lewis insisted that the
meaning in logical implication must be more than the “material
implication” that Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, and Quine saw in
any “if p, then q” statement. In the Principia Mathematica, q is true
even if the antecedent p is false and totally unrelated to the conse-
Chapter 11
quent q. This turns out to work well for mathematics and computer
logic, but is bizarre and non-intuitive for human communications.
Lewis insisted that “strict implication” would be intensional, not
extensional. Quine fought Lewis and historically won the argument.
It was the greatest American logician, Charles Sanders Peirce,
who stressed the role of the message receiver, whom Peirce called the
interpretant. Post-modern literary critics have come to say all mean-
ing in a text depends only on the receiver, the “reader-response“
theory, but this clearly goes too far. Jacques Derrida’s idea that
the meaning of any word is diachronically deferred, his “differance,”
is actually quite insightful. We cannot discern the meaning until a
message is complete.
Most logicians follow Gottlob Frege’s distinction between the
reference (denotation, name) and the sense (meaning) of a word.
But few know that Frege limited the “sense” to the everyday meaning
attached to a word by the users of the language. Frege also described
the “idea” or “representation” (Vorstellung) that would form in the
mind of the message receiver. This, he said, would be different in
every mind, since it is dependent on the peculiar experiences of
each person. This fits perfectly with our experience recorder and
reproducer (ERR) as a model of mind, memory, and knowledge.
We revise Shannon’s diagram to center the “message” between
sender and receiver and also center it vertically between the context
below (e.g, an object) and the concept (the idea) above).
Meaning 145
Chapter 11
Figure 11-4. Shannon’s diagram enhanced with semiotic information flows.
This reflects our triad of worlds, material, biological, and ideal as

well as Peirce’s object, percept, and concept. The various flow arrows
represent recursive paths in the complicated process of extracting
meaning
Our information theory of meaning combines all three of Witt-
genstein’s theories - meaning as a picture (Peirce’s icon), meaning
as verification (Peirce’s abduction), and meaning as use (Peirce’s
interpretant). It is only weakly related to the logical empiricists (e.g.,
Carnap, Quine) who viewed the meaning of a word as the extension
of things in the world of which the term is “true” (independent of
any users) and to the modern logicians (e.g, Kripke and Putnam)
who think meaning is found in the necessity of naming.6
They could at most get Frege’s “sense,” not ideas in minds,7 which,
as materialists, they dismissed as “psychological.”
6 See chapter 2 on the metaphysics of necessity.

7 See chapter 12 on our information model of the mind.
Chapter 12
Mind

informationphilosopher.com/mind
Mind 147
Mind
Of all the problems that information philosophy may help to
solve, few are more important than the question of Mind. There is
little in philosophy and science that is more dehumanizing than
the logic chopping and sophistical word juggling that denies the
existence of both mind and consciousness.
Some of the earliest philosophers saw an immaterial mind as
the source of eternal truths about reality that could not be based
on mere phenomena - unreliable sensations emanating from
material bodies.
Chapter 12
René Descartes’ dualism left room for a non-mechanistic,
immaterial, and indeterministic human mind above and beyond
the deterministic limits set by the laws of nature, when the bodies
of all animals are reduced to living machines.
Immanuel Kant renamed the ancient division of sensible and
intelligible worlds. The sensible he called phenomena. He located
God, freedom, and immortality in a noumenal world.
Information philosophy hopes to show that information is itself
that immaterial “substance” above and beyond matter and energy
that the ancients, Descartes, and Kant were all looking for. Mind
is metaphysical, but not supernatural.
The Scandal in Psychology
It’s a scandal that psychology today is a science without a subject
- it has lost its mind! In the 19th century, positivism and material-
ism left the new science of psychology dis-spirited. In the 1920’s
psychology surrendered its soul to behaviorism. In the 1950’s it
gave up consciousness, when cognitive science found no “ghost
in the machine.” Since the 1970’s it has been replaced by cognitive
science and neuroscience.
Can there be a psychology without a psyche?
A survey of today’s four leading textbooks on psychology

finds only one that defines psychology as “the science of mind.”
Another has for its main index entry, “mind, theory of, see theory
of mind. A third, has “mind, see brain,” and the last has no entry at
all under “mind.” Today mind is a psychologist’s taboo.
The assault on the mind and the study of mind by introspection
was led by John B. Watson, who in the early twentieth century
applied positivist ideas to psychology, reducing it to objectively
possible observations and measurements of the motor behavior of
animals and humans.
Like the positivists, Watson and later B. F. Skinner, were mate-
Chapter 12
rialists and determinists who not only ruled out the mind and con-
sciousness, but also free will. Although behaviorism faded with
the retirement of Skinner, the basic position of denying free will,
consciousness, and mind continues as the fundamental stance of
cognitive science and neuroscience.
The most popular representational theory of mind today is the
computational mind model. Leading philosophers of mind claim
to prove that the “causal closure” of the physical world reduces
mental events to physical events. Eliminative materialism does
not bother to say the mind is an epiphenomenon. Mental states
simply do not exist. Consciousness cannot be explained. It is
explained away.
It is a scandal today that some academic psychologists are con-
vincing students that they are machines, their brains are comput-
ers, and their actions are completely determined.
Mind as Immaterial Information
Information philosophy views the mind as the immaterial
information in a brain. The material brain is seen as a biological
information processor. Mind is software in the brain’s hardware,
although it is altogether different from the logic gates, bit storage,
algorithms, computations, and input/output systems of the type of
Mind 149
digital computer that is used as a “computational model of mind”

by today’s cognitive scientists.
The “stuff ” of thought is pure information, neither matter nor
energy, though it needs matter for its embodiment and energy
for its communication. Information is the modern spirit, the soul
in the body, the ghost in the machine.
The Evolution of Information to Become Mind
How did material substances come to be able to think? Ancient
philosophers assumed that mind and thought must be primor-
dial, perhaps prior to the creation of matter. In recent centuries
Chapter 12
philosophers argued that mind must be an inherent “panpsy-
chist” property of all matter, because they could not identify a
time when material things acquired a mental property.
But we can now outline the creation and evolution of informa-
tion from an initial state of the universe (with minimal, essen-
tially zero information and the most elementary of particles and
radiation) to the “information age” of today.
The first proto-minds appear not long after the beginnings of
life. We identify the origin of life with the ability of some large
molecules to replicate and communicate information so as to har-
ness a cosmic flow of information-rich energy that we describe as
negative entropy.
Information philosophy makes the straightforward claim that
human beings, especially their minds, are the most highly evolved
form of information generating, processing, and communicat-
ing system in the known universe. Recognizing this simple fact
provides a radically new perspective on the central problems of
psychology and philosophy of mind.
In a very deep sense, we are information.
The story of evolution, from a minimal information universe
origin, through 4 billion years of biology, to the information-pro-
cessing brain/mind, now contemplating the universe, can be told
in three major emergences:
• the self-organization of elementary matter, quarks to protons

and neutrons etc., then atoms, then galaxies, stars, and planets, all
material information structures,
• the first appearance of life, information structures that create,
process, and communicate information inside an organism and
between generations by variation, natural selection, and heredity,
• the appearance of human minds, which create, process, and
store information external to their bodies.
With the appearance of life, purpose entered the universe. The
fundamental purpose of all life is to survive, at least long enough to
replicate. For most species, all of the information needed to survive
Chapter 12
is transmitted in the genes and the supporting biological machinery

of the cell. To benefit from the experiences of an ancestor, those
experiences must somehow be encoded genetically, so they show up
as a priori, built-in capabilities of the offspring. Konrad Lorenz
said that what is a priori for an individual (ontogeny) was a poste-
riori for its ancestors (phylogeny).1
The appearance of human minds marks the beginning of sig-
nificant amounts of knowledge stored extra-biologically. Externally
stored information needed for human survival is transmitted cul-
turally between the generations - parents teaching children. The
development of the highest forms of philosophical and scientific
thought would have been impossible without the externally stored
information we call the Sum. Arguably, even language itself could
not have developed. A child deprived of its senses for access to
human culture would never speak. According to Merlin Donald,
human culture did not develop because humans had acquired lan-
guage to communicate. We developed language to improve on the
primitive communication capabilities (grunting, miming, pointing,
signing) of pre-linguistic humans.2
An Information Mind Model
Our model of mind as pure information coincides with Plato’s
“Ideas” or “Forms” as pure form, with an ontology different from
that of matter. The immaterial Forms, seen by the intellect (nous),
illuminated by the Good, allow us to understand the world. If this
1 Evolution and Modification of Behavior.
2 A Mind So Rare.
Mind 151
theory of mind seems metaphysical, that is appropriate, but we do

not view the mind as non-physical. The mind is physical but it is not
material.
After all, the information stored in our experience recorder and
reproducer is embodied. Like the information embodied in matter,
it corresponds simply to a reorganization of the matter. So we can
also accept Aristotle’s more practical view. For him, Plato’s Ideas
were mere abstractions generalized from many existent particulars.
Form without matter is empty, matter without form is inconceiv-
able, unimaginable. Kant rewrote this pre-Socratic observation
somewhat obscurely as “Thoughts without content are empty, intu-
itions without concepts are blind.”3
Chapter 12
In our model of the mind, the great difference between the
mental and the material is that the information in a material object
is generally passive. The information in the mind is active, with real
causal power.4
But there are other characteristic differences between the mental
and the material world that modern science, even neuroscience,
may never fully explain. The most important is the internal and pri-
vate first-person point of view, the essential subjectivity, the “I” and
the “eye” of the mind, its capability of introspection and reflection,
its intentionality, its purposiveness, its consciousness. The mind
records an individual’s experiences as internal information struc-
tures in the ERR and then can play back these recordings to com-
pare them to new perceptions, new external events. The recordings
include an individual’s emotional reactions to past experiences, our
feelings. The reproduction of recorded personal experiences, stimu-
lated by similarities in current experience, provide the core of “what
it’s like to be” an individual.
The external and public physical world, by contrast, is studied
from the third-person point of view. Although putatively “objective,”
science in fact is the composite “intersubjective” view of the “com-
munity of inquirers,” as Charles Sanders Peirce put it. Although
this shared subjectivity can never directly experience what goes on
in the mind of an individual member of the community, science
is in some sense the collective mind of the physical world. It is a
pale record of the world’s experiences, because it lacks the emo-
3 Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd ed. Second Part, I, Transcendental Logic,
4 See the discussion of agent causality in chapter 4.
tional aspect of personal experience. The physical world itself has

no sense of its history. It does not introspect or reflect. It lacks con-
sciousness, that problem in philosophy of mind second only to the
basic mind-body problem itself. We see consciousness as based on a
highly evolved experience recorder and reproducer (ERR) that even
the lowest organisms may have.
Aristotle, in his Book III, Parts IV and V, of De Anima (On the
Soul), perhaps the most controversial and confusing part of his
entire corpus, says that the soul (psyche) or mind is immaterial. He
was right. For Aristotle, Intellect (nous) is that part of the soul whose
active thinking gives it a causal (aition) power (dynamis) over the
Chapter 12
material (hyle) body (soma). This claim anticipates the mind-body

problem of René Descartes. How exactly does an immaterial thing
(substance) or property exert a causal force on the material body?
It is sometimes forgotten that Descartes made the mind the locus
of undetermined freedom. For him, the body is a deterministic
mechanical system of tiny fibres causing movements in the brain
(the afferent sensations), which then can pull on other fibres to acti-
vate the muscles (the efferent nerve impulses). This is the basis of
stimulus and response theory in modern physiology (reflexology).
It is also the basis behind connectionist mind models. An appropri-
ate network need only connect the afferent to the efferent signals.
Descartes said no thinking mind is needed for animals (or comput-
ers where inputs completely determine outputs).
The popular idea of animals as machines included the notion
that man too is in part a machine - the human body is thought to
obey strictly deterministic causal laws. But for Descartes man also
has a soul or spirit that is exempt from determinism and thus from
what is known today as “causal closure.” But how, we must ask, can
the mind both cause something physical to happen and yet itself be
acausal, exempt from causal chains? This is the problem of mental
causation.5
Since Immanuel Kant, this problem has become even more
severe. The freedom in Kant’s noumenal world - outside space and
time - has no apparent connection with his deterministic phenom-
enal world. For Kant, causality is a category of understanding appli-
cable only to the phenomenal world. In a similar vein, the twenti-
5 See chapter 16.
Mind 153
eth-century philosopher Gilbert Ryle called the concept of mind

a “category mistake.”6
Information philosophy hopes to solve the mind/body prob-
lem, the “hard problem” of consciousness, the problem of other
minds, and the problem of mental causation, not by postulating a
non-physical world, but instead a world that answers to the ancient
description of “metaphysical,” because it is non-material. This meta-
physical world is the locus of everything Aristotle included in his
first philosophy, the laws of thought and today the laws of physics.
The metaphysical world of information is abstract, not concrete,
intangible, yet with causal power as Aristotle thought. The mate-
Chapter 12
rial world is made up in part of information structures. (We shall
see that most of the matter in the universe is chaotic and contains
little or no information.) But material information structures, from
the galaxies, stars, and planets, to all of life on the planet, can be
perceived because of their information content. What we see is
their abstract information which we then re-present as information
structures in the mind/brain. To the extent that the information in
the mind is isomorphic with the information in the object, we can
say that a subject has knowledge of the external world. To the extent
that information in other minds is isomorphic, we have intersubjec-
tive shared knowledge, something very difficult to show with words
or logic alone.
Information philosophy goes “beyond logic and language.”
6 The Concept of Mind.
Chapter 13
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M i n d
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Mind-Body 155
The Mind-Body Problem

Information philosophy views the mind as the immaterial
information in the brain, which is seen as a biological information
processor. Mind is software in the brain’s hardware.
The “stuff ” of thought is pure information. Information is nei-
ther matter nor energy, though it needs matter for its embodiment
and energy for its communication.
In ancient philosophy, mind and body formed one of the clas-
sic dualisms,1 like idealism versus materialism, the problem of the
one (monism) or the many (pluralism), the distinction between
Chapter 13
essence and existence, between universals and particulars,
between the eternal and the ephemeral.
When mind and body are viewed today as a dualism, it is
because the mind is considered to be fundamentally different
from the material brain, though perhaps not another “substance.”
We propose an easily understandable and critically important
physical difference between matter and immaterial information.
Whereas the total amount of matter is conserved, the universe
is continuously creating new information - by rearranging exist-
ing matter into new information structures. The total amount of
information (a kind of order) in the universe is increasing, despite
the second law of thermodynamics, which requires that the total
amount of disorder (entropy) is also increasing.2
Matter, along with energy (mc2), cannot increase. It is con-
served, a constant of the universe. Information is not conserved.
As information grows, it is the source of genuine novelty in the
universe. The future is not determined by the past and present,
because the future contains unpredictable new information. New
information is continuously created.
If mind and matter then are to be considered part of a dualism,
it will not be a “material substance” dualism, but it can still be
a “physical substance” dualism, since mind and matter are both
physical and are “substantial,” in the sense of having real causal
1 See chapter 3 for more on dualisms.
2 See appendices A and B for how this is possible.
power. We recognize that something immaterial with causal

power also fits the description of metaphysical. See chapter 2 on
metaphysics.
A mind-body dualism coincides with Plato’s “ideas” as pure
form, distinct from matter. The ontology and the nature of an idea
is different from that of matter. The ancients asked about the exis-
tential status of Platonic Ideas. On the other hand, monists may
see both mind and body as pure physicalism, since information
embodied in matter corresponds to a mere reorganization of the
matter. This was Aristotle’s more practical view. For him, Plato’s
Ideas were mere abstractions generalized from many existent par-
Chapter 13
ticulars.
Mind-body as a “problem” is generally traced to René Des-
cartes, who asked how the immaterial mind (or soul) could
influence the material body. Would not the interaction between
the two have to partake somehow of the character of both? Des-
cartes famously identified the tiny pineal gland as the point of
contact between mind and body.
Importantly, Descartes also made the mind the locus of free-
dom. He saw the body as a mechanical system of tiny fibres caus-
ing movements in the brain (the afferent sensations), which then
can pull on other fibres to activate the muscles (the efferent nerve
impulses). This is the basis of stimulus and response theory in
modern physiology(reflexology).
The popular idea of animals as machines included the notion
that man too is a machine - the body obeys strictly determinis-
tic causal laws - but that man has a soul or spirit that is exempt
from determinism and thus from what is known today as “causal
closure.” But how can the mind both cause something physical to
happen and yet itself be exempt from causal chains?
Interactionists
In modern times some philosophers and scientists have pro-
posed interactionist models and have also attempted to locate
specific parts of the brain (beyond Descartes’ pineal gland), for
example at the synapses between neurons, where quantum effects
Mind-Body 157
might be important. The neuroscientist John Eccles and philos-

opher Karl Popper considered such models in their articles and
books over many years.
Attempts to use the mysterious properties of quantum mechan-
ics to explain the mysterious problems of consciousness and
psycho-physical relations between mind and body have resolved
little, since they explain one mystery with another mystery.
Information philosophy identifies the (immaterial) mind with
the incredible biological information processing going on in the
brain. This processing operates on two levels.
At the macro level, the mind/brain is adequately determined to
Chapter 13
make its decisions and resulting actions in ways that are causally
connected with the agent’s character and values. It is everything
that determinist and compatibilist philosophers expect it to be.
At the micro level, the mind/brain leaves itself open to signifi-
cant thermal and quantal noise in its retrieval of past experiences.
This generates creative and unpredictable alternative possibilities
for thought and action. This is our best hope for a measure of lib-
ertarianism.
Our mind/brain model emphasizes the abstract information
content of the mind. Information is neither matter nor energy,
yet it needs matter for its concrete embodiment and energy for
its communication. Information is the modern spirit, the ghost in
the machine.
Because it is embodied in the brain, this mind can control the
actions of a body that is macroscopic and is normally unaffected
by its own quantum level uncertainty (excepting when we want to
be creative and unpredictable.
Thus our mind-body model explains how an immaterial, “free,”
unpredictable, and creative mind can control the adequately
determined material body through the self-determinate and
responsible actions selected by the will from an agenda of alterna-
tive possibilities.
Moreover, since some “mental events” are large enough informa-

tion structures to be adequately determined, these mental events
can act causally on lower biological and physical levels in the hierar-
chy, in particular, the mind can move the body and all its contained
physical particles, thus solving the mind-body problem.
A specific example of the mind causing an action, while not itself
being caused by antecedent events is the following. Faced with a
decision of what to do next, the mind considers several possible
alternatives, at least some of which are creatively invented based on
random ideas that just “come to mind.” Other possible alternatives
might be familiar options, even habits, that have frequently been
Chapter 13
done in earlier similar situations.

Some of these mental alternatives are new information that show
up as “neural correlates” - brain neurons firing. When the alterna-
tives are evaluated and one is selected, the selected action results
in still other neurons firing, some of which connect to the motor
cortex that signals muscles to move the body.
Apart from the occasional indeterministic generation of new
information in the creative new alternative ideas, this whole causal
process is adequately determined and it is downwardly causal.
Mental events are causing physical body events.
The Mind-Brain Identity Theory
In the mid-twentieth century a number of philosophers proposed
a monistic and physicalistic solution to the mind-body problem by
simply identifying the mind and brain as one physical thing, subject
to the normal laws of physics.
Holistic critics attacked this view as reducing the mind to the
brain, leaving the mind merely an epiphenomenon or illusion. This
fit well into the reductionist program of the logical empiricists of the
Vienna Circle, who promoted the idea of the Unity of Science. All
events should be reducible to physical events, and in particular, all
explanations should be traceable to causes originating in the physi-
cal material components of the universe.
Mind-Body 159
The first philosophers to argue for an identity of mind (or con-

sciousness) and brain include Ullin T. Place, Herbert Feigl, and
J.J.C.Smart (1959).
Place explicitly describes “consciousness as a brain process,” spe-
cifically as “patterns” of brain activity. He does not trivialize this
identity as a succession of individual “mental events and physical
events” in some kind of causal chain. He compares this identity to
the idea that “lightning is a motion of electrical charges.”3
Feigl’s work was independent of Place’s, but he said that the fun-
damental idea had been held by many earlier materialist (monist)
thinkers. He thought it was stated clearly by Vienna Circle philoso-
pher Rudolf Carnap in 1925. Feigl describes his own thesis:
Chapter 13
The identity thesis which I wish to clarify and to defend asserts that the
states of direct experience which conscious beings “live through” and
those which we confidently ascribe to some of the higher animals, are
identical with certain (presumably configurational) aspects of the neural
processes in these organisms.4
Smart clarified and extended the identity theory of Place.
When I say that a sensation is a brain process or that lightning is an
electric discharge, I am using “is” in the sense of strict identity. (Just as
in the — in this case necessary — proposition “7 is identical with the
smallest prime number greater than 5.”) When I say that a sensation is
a brain process or that lightning is an electric discharge I do not mean
just that the sensation is somehow spatially or temporally continuous
with the brain process or that the lightning is just spatially or temporally
continuous with the discharge.5
Smart is a strong materialist. He says “A man is a vast arrange-
ment of physical particles, but there are not, over and above this,
sensations or states of consciousness.” (ibid.) Compare Anthony
Cashmore, who says in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences that we are “just a bag of chemicals.”6
Eliminative Materialism
Philosophers who accept the idea that all laws of nature are deter-
ministic and that the world is causally closed still cannot under-
3 British Journal of Psychology, 47, pp.44-50 1956
4 Concepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body Problem , Feigl, 1958, p.150
5 Philosophical Review, 68 pp.141-156 (1959)
6 PNAS, vol. 107, no. 10, p. 4500
stand how an immaterial mind can be the cause of an action. On this

view, every physical event is reducible to the microscopic motions
of physical particles. The laws of biology are reducible to those of
physics and chemistry. The mind is reducible to the brain, with no
remainder.
These philosophers of mind are content to simply eliminate the
mind. Psychology without a psyche!
For these philosophers of mind, essentially no progress has been
made on the mind-body problem since Descartes. “Reductionists”
who accept “causal closure” think that every brain event must have
been determined by causes coming “bottom-up” from the brain’s
Chapter 13
atoms and molecules. Any additional mental cause should be

excluded, according to Jaegwon Kim.
Since the early twentieth century, quantum mechanics adds the
possibility that some processes are indeterministic, but random
quantum-mechanical events have generally been thought to be
unhelpful by philosophers of mind. Adding indeterminism to
mental events apparently would only make our actions random and
our desires the product of pure chance. If our willed actions are not
determined by anything, they say, we are neither morally respon-
sible nor truly free. Whether mental events are reducible to physi-
cal events, or whether mental events can be physical events with-
out such a reduction, the interposition of indeterministic quantum
processes apparently adds no explanatory power. And of course if
mental events are epiphenomenal, they are not causally related to
bodily actions. Epiphenomenal access to quantum physics would
not help.
Mental causation is a special case of the more general problem
of downward causation, for example the downward control of the
motions of a cell’s atoms and molecules by supervening biological
macromolecules. Is the molecular biology of a cell reducible to the
laws governing the motions of its component molecules, or are there
emergent laws governing motions at the cellular level, still different
laws at the organ level, at the organism level up to the mental level?
Emergent properties or laws at the higher levels of a physical-
chemical-based biological system would have to prevent those
higher levels from being reduced to the properties and laws of the
Mind-Body 161
base physical level? These emergent properties are not a new kind
of “stuff,” but they are nevertheless often described as an emergent
dualism, specifically a property dualism.
Is it illogical to deny reductionist ideas of bottom-up causa-
tion (because of indeterministic quantum noise) and yet to defend
adequately determined downward causation (because quantum
effects are averaged out by macroscopic objects)? The arguments
are subtle and depend on the complementary roles of determinism
(Schrödinger evolution of the wave function) and indeterminism
(wave-function collapse) in quantum physics.
Perhaps the most critically important emergent law of all is the
Chapter 13
abstract idea of determinism itself. Determinism in the macroscopic
world emerges from the indeterministic microscopic quantum
world by averaging over vast numbers of atoms and molecules. Even
before quantum mechanics, Ludwig Boltzmann knew that the
macroscopic gas laws were only adequately or statistically deter-
mined by the average motions of extremely large numbers of mole-
cules.
Figure 13-5. A taxonomy of philosophy of mind positions.
Idealism claims that all is mind, perhaps a Western panpsychism

or Eastern philosopical ideas like Advaita Vedanta or Mahayana
Buddhism? The neutral monism of William James, Ernst Mach,
and Bertrand Russell is closely related to Carl Jung’s “dual-

aspect” monism. They are looking for a basic underlying substance.
Baruch Spinoza claimed mind and body are one ontological
substance. The mind-brain identity theory of Herbert Feigl, J. J.
C. Smart, and U. T. Place is a materialism and an epiphenome-
nalism. Daniel Dennett, the Churchlands (Paul and Patricia),
Francis Crick, Christof Koch, and Jaegwon Kim are elimina-
tive materialists.
Donald Davidson’s anomalous monism may be a non-reduc-
tive physicalism? Property dualisms assume just one substance, so
are in a sense monistic. Karl Popper and John Eccles’ interac-
Chapter 13
tionism and Joseph Levine’s “explanatory gap” are modern forms

of Cartesianism.
Gottlieb Leibniz’s pre-established harmony is psycho-phys-
icalism or psycho-physical parallelism. It denies interactionism,
which remains unexplained. In later years, Leibniz’ monadology
leaned toward a monism. Occasionalists are parallelists who say
God creates an interaction when needed. Galen Strawson’s real-
istic physicalism or “realistic monism” resembles Arthur Stanley
Eddington’s panpsychism.
Panpsychists can hold that there is a material world, but that every
material object has some mentality. David Chalmers has leaned
toward panpsychism in recent years. Other panpsychists include
Michael Lockwood, William Lycan, and Thomas Nagel. They
argue that panpsychism removes the need to identify a time and
place for the emergence of the mind.
For over 20 years, Henry Stapp has attempted to reconcile
Werner Heisenberg’s quantum mechanics, especially the “free
choice” of the experimenter, with Alfred North Whitehead’s
idea that quantum theory and his process philosophy might explain
panpsychism. Today “Quantum Whiteheadians” include Stuart
Hameroff, Roger Penrose, and Abner Shimony.
Non-reductive physicalism is an emergent dualism in which
mental events are physical and have causal powers over brain events
and the material body.
Mind-Body 163
The information philosophy mind model is a dualist non-reduc-

tive physicalism. The mind is physical, but immaterial. Thoughts
have causal powers because they are considered as freely gener-
ated alternative possibilities for actions by a will that is adequately
determined by the agent’s reasons, motives, desires, feelings, etc. - in
short, by the agent’s character.
Mind/Body and the ERR
As opposed to the philosophers above who identify the mind
with the brain, we look to those philosophers and scientists such
as Popper and Eccles who have proposed interactionist models and
have also attempted to locate specific parts of the brain, for example
Chapter 13
at the synapses between neurons, where quantum effects might be
important.
But all the attempts to use the mysterious properties of quantum
mechanics to explain the mysterious problems of consciousness and
psycho-physical relations between mind and body have been just
that, explaining one mystery with another mystery.
Information philosophy identifies the immaterial mind with the
incredible biological information processing going on in the brain.
What we might call pre-processing is happening in the experience
recorder, which is growing new synapses in the brain where neurons
have fired in response to current experiences.
Abstract information, the stuff of the mind, is being embodied in
those newly wired neurons.
What we might call post-processing is when the experience repro-
ducer is stimulated to generate those older patterns of information
that most resemble current experience, because they lie in nearby
neurons of the brain.
Reproducing information is likely to be very noisy and thus the
source of genuinely new alternative possibilities.
The experience recorder and reproducer (ERR) is both mind and
body, both information and its embodiment. Although the ERR
implements both levels, it does not make them identical.
Chapter 14
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Consciousness 165
Consciousness
Consciousness can be defined in information terms as a prop-
erty of an entity (usually a living thing but we can also include
artificially conscious machines or computers) that interacts with
the information (especially reacting to any changes in the infor-
mation) in its environment and in itself.
We can define this as information consciousness.
Thus an animal in a deep sleep is not conscious because it ignores
changes in its environment. And robots may be conscious in our
sense. Artificial intelligence normally has artificial consciousness
in our sense. Even the lowliest control system using negative feed-
back (a thermostat, for example) is in a minimal sense conscious
Chapter 14
of (aware of, exchanging information about) changes in its envi-
ronment.
This definition of consciousness fits with our model of the mind
as an experience recorder and reproducer (ERR).1 The ERR model
stands in contrast to the popular cognitive science or “computa-
tional” model of a mind as a digital computer or connectionist
neural network modeled with logic gates. No algorithms or stored
programs are needed for the ERR model, although we do see mind
as software in the brain hardware.
Our consciousness model assumes that neurons that get wired
together during an organism’s experiences, in multiple sensory
and limbic systems, are such that later firing of even a part of
those wired neurons (caused by a new experience that resembles
an original experience in one or more ways) can stimulate firing
of all or part of the original complex.
If the neural correlate of consciousness is neurons firing, firing
them again can reproduce consciousness of the past.
Whereas Donald Hebb famously argued that “neurons that
fire together wire together,” our experience recorder and repro-
ducer (ERR) model assumes that “neurons that have been wired
together will fire together.”
1 See appendix E for details.
The Binding Problem

Neuroscientists are investigating how diverse signals from
multiple pathways can be unified in the brain. The ERR offers a
very simple and specific insight into this “binding” problem. We
also hope to shed some light on the question of philosophical
“meaning”2 of any given information structure, beyond the
obvious relevance (survival value) for the organism of remember-
ing past experiences.
There is a great deal of controversy about whether most living
things have some form of consciousness. Defining consciousness
as interactions, with exchanges of meaningful information, espe-
cially exchanges that involve coding and decoding and transla-
tions between symbolic systems, may allow applications to bio-
Chapter 14
logical subsystems like organs and organelles.

A higher-level conscious being is constantly recording informa-
tion about its perceptions of the external world, and most impor-
tantly for ERR, it is simultaneously recording its feelings. Sensory
data such as sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations
are recorded in a sequence along with pleasure and pain states,
fear and comfort levels, etc.
All these experiential and emotional data are recorded in asso-
ciation with one another. This means that when the experiences
are reproduced (played back in a temporal sequence), the accom-
panying emotions are once again felt, in synchronization.
The capability of reproducing experiences is critical to learning
from past experiences, so as to make them guides for action in
future experiences. We see the ERR model as the minimal mind
model that provides for such learning by living organisms.
The ERR model does not need a single “central processor unit”
(CPU) or even several “parallel processors.” It does not use com-
puter-like “data retrieval,” based on the “address” of the data, to
reproduce past experiences. All that is required is that past experi-
ences “play back” (are reproduced) whenever they are stimulated
by present experiences that resemble the past experiences in one
or more ways. When the organism repeats past experiences by
acting them out, they can become “habitual” behaviors, “subcon-
scious” information structures.
2 See chapter 11.
Consciousness 167
It is critical that the original emotions also play back, along with
any variations in current emotions that are experienced on play-
back. ERR might then become an explanatory basis for condition-
ing experiments, classical Pavlovian and operant conditioning,
and in general a model for associative learning.
Bernard Baars’s Global Workspace Theory uses the meta-
phor of a “Theater of Consciousness,” in which there is an audi-
ence of purposeful agents calling for the attention of the executive
on stage.3
In the ERR model, vast numbers of past experiences clamor for
the attention of the central executive at all times, whenever any-
thing in current experience has some resemblance.
Chapter 14
If we define “current experience” as all afferent perceptions plus
the current contents of consciousness itself, we get a dynamic self-
referential system with plenty of opportunities for negative and
positive feedback.
William James’s description of a “stream of consciousness”
together with a “blooming, buzzing confusion” of the unconscious
appear to describe the ERR model very well.
In the “blackboard” model of Allan Newell and Herbert
Simon, concepts written on the blackboard call up similar con-
cepts by association from deep memory structures. The ERR
model supports this view, and explains the mechanism by which
concepts (past experiences) are retrieved and come to the black-
board.
In Daniel Dennett’s consciousness model, the mind is made
up of innumerable functional homunculi, each with its own goals
and purposes. His mind architecture is an amalgam of ideas like
Marvin Minsky’s Society of Mind, Baars’ Global Workspace, and
the Simon-Newell “Blackboard.”
Dennett says
“There is no single, definitive “stream of consciousness,” because there
is no central Headquarters, no Cartesian Theater where ‘it all comes
together’ for the perusal of a Central Meaner. Instead of such a single
stream (however wide) there are multiple channels in which special-
ist circuits try, in parallel pandemoniums, to do their various things,
creating Multiple Drafts as they go.” 4
3 In the Theater of Consciousness.
4 Consciousness Explained, p.253.
Dennett describes the “binding problem” as a “single representa-

tional space in the brain” where the various results come together.5
In our consciousness model, the playback of all the combined sen-
sations of a past experience fire exactly the same neurons wherever
they were originally recorded, anywhere in the entire cortex, includ-
ing the association areas, for example.
Dennett says the idea has been around for several years that
human consciousness might be the activity of some sort of serial
virtual machine implemented on the parallel hardware of the brain.6
But our consciousness model is not a machine at all. It is simply
the idea that whatever we are aware of at any moment is stimulat-
ing the firing of the complex network of neurons that were wired
together in many similar past moments, giving the current moment
Chapter 14
a vast collection of contextual references that supply the informa-

tion needed for interpretation.
Like Dennett’s model, there is no Cartesian Theater for a “Central
Meaner.” In the ERR as mind model, we expect the mind would
interpret the new firing of multiply connected neurons coming
from visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile areas, as reproducing the
original experience (much more than a simple memory). These are
likely pale shadows, mere “gists” of the original conscious experi-
ence, and likely very noise-susceptible, but they provide context,
meaning, and emotional reactions to past actions.
David Chalmers is a philosopher of mind whose characterization
of consciousness as “the hard problem” has set a very high bar for
understanding the mind. Chalmers describes his position as a nat-
uralistic dualism. Chalmers says that the failure of supervenience
implies that materialism - as a monistic theory of the complete con-
tents of the world, that there is “nothing but” matter, and that the
world is “causally closed,” for example - is “false.” We agree with this
and believe that the reductionist arguments of Jaegwon Kim can be
shown wrong. Chalmers says:
5 ibid,, p.254.
6 ibid, p.258.
Consciousness 169
In our world, there are conscious experiences.

There is a logically possible world physically identical to ours, in which
the positive facts about consciousness in our world do not hold.
Therefore, facts about consciousness are further facts about our world,
over and above the physical facts.
So materialism is false.7
Chalmers suggests that the dualistic (non-physical) element
might be information. Indeed it might. With this idea, information
philosophy completely agrees. Mind/body is a property dualism
Chalmers says that “physical realization is the most common way
to think about information embedded in the world, but it is not the
only way information can be found. We can also find information
realized in our phenomenology.”8
He is quite correct. Information is neither matter nor energy. It
Chapter 14
needs matter to be embedded temporarily in the brain. And it needs
energy to be communicated. But information is immaterial.
Four “Levels” of Consciousness
• Instinctive Consciousness - by animals with little or no learn-
ing capability. Automatic reactions to environmental conditions
are transmitted genetically. Information about past experiences (by
prior generations of the organism) is only present implicitly in the
inherited reactions
• Learned Consciousness - for animals whose past experiences
guide current choices. Conscious, but mostly habitual, reactions
are developed through experience, including instruction by parents
and peers.
• Predictive Consciousness - The Sequencer in the ERR system can
play back beyond the current situation, allowing the organism to
use imagination and foresight to evaluate the future consequences
of its choices.
• Reflective (Normative) Consciousness– in which conscious delib-
eration about values influences the choice of behaviors.
All four levels are emergent, in the sense that they did not exist in
the lower, earlier levels of biological evolution.
7 The Conscious Mind, p.123
8 ibid. p.284
Chapter
Chapter
e l f a n d
S
1415
e
Th r Minds
Othe

informationphilosopher.com/mind/ego
The Self 171
The Self and Other Minds

Celebrating René Descartes, the first modern philosopher,
and his famous phrase Ego cogito, ergo sum, we call our model for
mind the Ego. It is implemented with our experience recorder and
reproducer (ERR).
Our two-stage model for free will we call the Cogito. Our model
for an objective value, independent of humanity and earthly bio-
ethics, we call Ergo. And our model for knowledge we call the Sum.
The Ego is more or less synonymous with the Self, the Soul, or
the Spirit - Gilbert Ryle’s “ghost in the machine.” We see it as
immaterial information. An immaterial self with causal power is
almost universally denied by modern philosophers as metaphysi-
1514
cal, along with related problematic ideas such as consciousness
Chapter
and libertarian or indeterministic free will.
Chapter
Descartes illustrated a mechanical reflex path, from a foot feel-
ing pain from a fire, up a nerve to the pineal gland in the mind,
and back down to pull away the foot.
It is important to note that Descartes made that gland the
locus of undetermined freedom
in humans. For him, the body
was a deterministic mechani-
cal system of tiny fibres causing
movements in the brain (the
afferent sensations), which then
can pull on other fibres to acti-
vate the muscles (the efferent
nerve impulses). This is the basis
of stimulus and response theory
in modern physiology (reflexol-
ogy). It is also the basis behind
simple connectionist theories
Figure 15-6. Descartes’ reflex arc. of mind. An appropriate neural
network (with all the necessary logical connections) need only
connect afferent to efferent signals. No thinking mind is needed
for animals. This “reflex arc” model is still common in biology.
Descartes’ suggestion that animals are machines included the

notion that man too is in part a machine - the human body obeys
deterministic causal laws. Although for Descartes man also has a
soul or spirit that is exempt from determinism and thus from what
is known today as “causal closure,” Cartesian dualism was the first
step to eliminative materialism.
Mind Over Matter?
But as all critics of Descartes do, we must ask, how can the mind
both cause something physical to happen and yet itself be acausal,?
How is it exempt from causal chains coming up from the body?
Descartes’ vision of undetermined freedom for the mind is real-
ized since our immaterial thoughts are free, whereas our actions
are adequately determined by our will. This combination of ideas
Chapter 15
is the basis for our two-stage model of free will.1 It is a model of

agent causation. New causal chains originate as ideas in our minds.
Once evaluated and chosen they are adequately determined to lead
to willed actions. This is a model for self-determination.
The “self ” or ego, the psyche or soul, is the self of this self-deter-
mination. Self-determination is of course limited by our control
over matter and energy, but within those physical constraints our
selves can consider ideas, decide to act on one and take full respon-
sibility for our actions.
The Self is often identified with one’s “character.” This is the basis
for saying that our choices and decisions are made by evaluating
freely generated alternative possibilities in accordance with our rea-
sons, motives, feelings, desires, etc. These are in turn often the con-
sequence of our past experiences, along with inherited (biologically
built-in) preferences. And this bundle of motivating factors is essen-
tially what is known as our character. Someone familiar with all of
those preferences would be able to predict our actions with some
certainty, though not perfectly, when faced with particular options
and the circumstances. The self is the agent that is responsible for
those actions.
1 See chapter 4.
The Self 173
The self is also often described as the seat of consciousness. Infor-

mation philosophy defines consciousness as attention to information
coming in to the mind and the resulting actions that are responsive
to the external stimuli (or bodily proprioceptions). Consciousness
thus depends in part on past experiences which are recalled by the
experience recorder and reproducer as responses to external stim-
uli. In this way, what it’s like to be a conscious agent depends on the
kinds of experiences that the agent can notice.
David Hume’s so-called “bundle theory” of the self is quite con-
sistent with the information philosophy view. His fundamental
ideas of causality, contiguity, and resemblance as the basis for the
association of ideas are essential aspects of the experience recorder
and reproducer. He said,
It is plain, that in the course of our thinking, and in the constant revolu-
Chapter 15
tion of our ideas, our imagination runs easily from one idea to any other
that resembles it, and that this quality alone is to the fancy a sufficient
bond and association. It is likewise evident that as the senses, in chang-
ing their objects, are necessitated to change them regularly, and take
them as they lie contiguous to each other, the imagination must by long
custom acquire the same method of thinking, and run along the parts of
space and time in conceiving its objects.2
The frog’s eye famously filters out some visual events (moving
concave images) while triggering strong reactions to others, like
sticking out a tongue to capture moving convex objects. What it’s
like to be a frog depends then on some experiences that are never
recorded and thus not meaningful to the frog. Hume might say such
perceptions have no resemblance to anything in the mind of the
frog. The frog’s self is simply not conscious of any sensations that are
filtered out of its perceptions.
The Problem of Other Minds
The problem of other minds is often posed as just one more
problem in epistemology, that is, how can we be certain about the
existence of other minds, since we can’t be certain about anything
in the external world. But it can also be seen as a problem about
meaningful communications and agreement about shared concepts
in two minds. This makes information philosophy an excellent tool
for approaching the problem.
2 A Treatise of Human Nature. 4.1, 2

For some philosophers, the problem of other minds is dis-solved

by denying the existence of the mind in general - as merely an epi-
phenomenon with no causal powers. Other philosophers identify
the problem with Hume’s claim that when he looked inside he saw
no self. Our positing the self as the immaterial information about
stored past experiences clearly helps here.
Still others admit that they have perceptions and sensations, but
how could they possibly know what another person is experiencing.
For example, I know when I feel pain, but I don’t know what is really
happening in another person who looks to be feeling pain.
The standard answer here is that other persons seem in most
respect to be similar to ourselves, and so by analogy their experi-
ences must be similar to ours. This analogical inference is weak
Chapter 15
because of its literal superficiality, because we don’t get an inside

view of the other mind.
For information philosophy, the problem of knowledge can
solved by identifying partial isomorphisms in external information
structures with the pure information in a mind. This suggests the
solution of other minds. Looked at this way, the problem of other
minds is easier to solve than the general epistemological problem.
The general problem must compare different things, the pure infor-
mation of mental ideas with the information abstracted from con-
crete external information structures. The problem of other minds
compares concepts in minds about similar things.
When, by interpersonal communications, we compare the pure
information content in two different minds, we are reaching directly
into the other mind in its innermost immaterial nature. To be sure,
we have not felt the same sensations nor had identical experiences.
We have not “felt the other’s pain.” But we can plant ideas in the other
mind, and then watch those ideas alter the other person’s actions in
a way totally identical to what that information, that knowledge, has
been used for in our own actions.
The Self 175
This establishes the existence, behind the external bodily (mate-

rial) behaviors of the other person, of the same immaterial, meta-
physical mind model in the other mind, as the one in our own.
Charles Sanders Peirce offered us a vision of an open “com-
munity of inquirers,” seeking “intersubjective agreement” to find
common ground, common ideas, and common information struc-
tures that are processing information in similar if not identical ways.
The very first item of intersubjective agreement in that commu-
nity should be to accept the existence of minds in all the members
of the community.
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
n t a l
Me ion
u s a t
Ca

informationphilosopher.com/mind/mental_causation
Mental Causation 177
Mental Causation
The Problem of Mental Causation is a major problem in the
Philosophy of Mind. It has been with us at least since René Des-
cartes claimed that mind and body are separate substances. If
the body is material, how can an immaterial mind possibly act on
the body. More importantly, how can a “mental” action or event in
the mind be the cause of a physical action by the body?
Mental causation is a specific case of the more general problem
of downward causation, for example the downward control of the
motions of a cell’s atoms and molecules by supervening biological
macromolecules. Is the molecular biology of a cell reducible to the
laws governing the motions of its component molecules, or are
there emergent laws governing motions at the cellular level, the
organ level, the organism level, and so on up to the mental level?
Chapter 16
Can emergent properties or laws at the higher levels of a phys-
ical-chemical-based biological system prevent those higher levels
from being reduced to the properties and laws of the base physical
level?1
In the 1960’s the neuroscientist Roger Sperry claimed that
higher levels in a hierarchy could act causally on the base level.
He cited a wheel rolling downhill as an example of what he called
“downward causal control.” The atoms and molecules are caught
up and overpowered by the higher properties of the whole. Sperry
compared the rolling wheel to an ongoing brain process or a pro-
gressing train of thought in which the overall properties of the
brain process, as a coherent organizational entity, determine the
timing and spacing of the firing patterns within its neural infra-
structure. A few years later (1974), Donald Campbell coined
the phrase “downward causation.”
The locus classicus of recent discussions of mental causation
is Donald Davidson’s 1970 essay “Mental Events,” which was
revisited in his 1993 essay, “Thinking Causes,” published together
with 15 critical essays on Davidson’s work in the 1993 book Mental
Causation, edited by John Heil and Alfred Mele.
1 See chapter 26 for more on emergence.
Davidson claimed three things:

• That mental events are causally related to physical events
• That causal relations are normally governed by strict (deter-
ministic) laws
• But that there are no such strict laws for mental events acting
on physical events
Davidson’s goal is to deny the reducibility of mental events to
physical events in the lower levels, especially to deny the physi-
cist’s reductionist claim that the motions of the atoms and mol-
ecules at the lowest level are causally determinative of everything
that happens at all higher levels.
Information is neither matter nor energy. It is sometimes
embodied in matter and sometimes communicated as pure
Chapter 16
energy. It is the scientific basis for an immaterial, yet causally effi-

cacious, mind that can control the body and affect the physical
world. Information is the modern spirit.
But prominent philosopher of mind Jaegwon Kim says that
Davidson’s goal of “non-reductive physicalism” is simply not pos-
sible. The physical world is “causally closed,” says Kim:
“what options are there if we set aside the physicalist picture? Leav-
ing physicalism behind is to abandon ontological physicalism, the
view that bits of matter and their aggregates in space-time exhaust the
contents of the world. This means that one would be embracing an
ontology that posits entities other than material substances — that is,
immaterial minds, or souls, outside physical space, with immaterial,
nonphysical properties.”2
Kim diagrams Davidson’s view of mental events M1 and M2
supervening on physical events P1 and P2, to illustrate his claim
that having both mental and physical causes would be “overde-
termination.” Mental causes are redundant and must be excluded.
M1 M2
supervenes on supervenes on
P1 - causes - P2
2 Physicalism, or Something Near Enough, p. 71

By causal closure of the physical world, Kim says it is the mental

events that are superfluous and must go.3
This view of the physical and biological world as made up of
isolatable and discrete events is much too simplistic. A physical
“event” is subjectively singled out by a human observer from a
practically infinite number of biological processes and material
events at the atomic and molecular level. The idea of a single
“cause” is arbitrarily abstracted from complex processes with
enormous numbers of possible causes. A mental event is embed-
ded in a biological system beyond “astronomical” in complexity.
The Problem of Mental Causation according to Kim
While the Cartesian mind-body problem was simply the puzzle
of how an immaterial mind could cause a material body to move,
lately the problem of mental causation has been recast as the logi-
Chapter 16
cal resolution of one basic premise and a conclusion, which we
might call the standard argument against mental causation:
• The only causes are physical causes. (These causes need not be
deterministic. An indeterministic quantum statistical event gives
us the probabilities for subsequent events, “causing” them in a way
that is not pre-determined.)
• Therefore, mental events cannot cause physical events.
But information philosophy sees mental activity just as physical
as bodily actions. The proper distinction between mind and body
is between the immaterial and the material.
The Emergence of Life from Matter and Mind from Life
According to British Emergentism, there is a hierarchy of levels
of organizational complexity of material particles that includes, in
ascending order, the strictly physical, the chemical, the biological,
and the psychological level. As we have seen, upper hierarchical
levels have the power to influence motion in ways unanticipated
by laws governing less complex kinds and conditions concern-
ing the arrangements of particles. Emergentism is committed to
the nomological possibility of what has been called “downward
causation,” control by an upper level of the component particles
3 Physicalism, or Something Near Enough., pp. 44-45
of the lower levels. We can now demonstrate that the emergentists’

hypothesis is actually realized in biological systems.4
An informational analysis of non-reductive physicalism must
show exactly how information does not move in the upward direc-
tion between hierarchical levels (fundamentally because noise in
the lower level makes motions incoherent), but that information
does move down as the higher-level information-processing system
manipulates individual physical particles (maintaining a high
signal-to-noise ratio in the upper level), as the British empiricists
imagined.
Some critics think the emergentists’ claim is illogical or maybe
physically impossible. How can causality be only “one way?” If there
are “top-down” causes, there must be “bottom-up” causes by sym-
metry, must there not? If the contents of the world were only the
Chapter 16
material particles of physics and chemistry, would not this be so?

The short answer is no. The hierarchical organization of material
systems, from the galaxies, stars, and planets, to everyday objects
like Sperry’s wheel, means that atoms and molecules are often con-
trolled by causes from above.
The reduction of biology to molecular biology sharpens the ques-
tion. How is it that some “living” molecules can have power, down-
ward causal control, over others?
We shall see that quantum and thermal noise breaks any upwardly
causal deterministic chains between the physics of the atomic and
molecular level and the biophysics of the organic world. It also
breaks any upward deterministic chains between the neurobiologi-
cal brain and the mind, replacing them with a statistical causality
that provides us with what William James called “some looseness
in the joints.”
We present two biological processes that exhibit randomness in
the component atoms and molecules, thus blocking any organized
upward influences. The first is present in every biological cell. The
other is critically important in the operation of neurons. The first
separates the living from the simply material. The latter is at the
mind/brain boundary.
4 See chapter 25 for details on emergence.
Ribosomes Select Randomly Moving Amino Acids

Twenty amino acids move about randomly in all cells at surpris-
ingly high speeds, the consequence of thermal and quantum noise.
Attached to some of them are lumps of transfer RNA, each with
three letters of the genetic code that identify a specific amino acid.
They bump randomly into the ribosome, a huge macromolecular
information processor built from a few strands of RNA and a com
plex of protein enzymes. The ribosome has just received a message
from the DNA in the cell nucleus and is busy decoding its meaning.
Chapter 16
Figure 16-7. A messenger RNA strand passes through the ribosome.
The nucleus had received a signal that a certain protein or enzyme

was now in short supply. The signal activated a transcription process
that locates the section in the DNA gene with the sequence of three-
letter codes that describes the needed protein. Another enzyme
called a synthetase moves along the DNA, reads the nucleotide code,
and builds a strand of messenger RNA encoded with the sequence
that tells the ribosome which protein is needed.
The long strand of messenger RNA moving through the ribo-
some above is a script, a text, sent from the cell nucleus, with the
intended purpose that the ribosome will replenish a protein. As the
thread of mRNA moves through the ribosome, each transfer RNA
adds one amino acid to the growing protein. The random motions
of the tRNAs shows us that no organized or coherent information is
present in the tRNAs that could cause something from the bottom
up to emerge at a higher level. The tRNAs do not know which pro-
tein they will soon be part of.5
5 See informationphilosopher.com/knowledge/mental_caustion.html/#ribo
Notice the absurdity of the idea that the random motions of the
transfer RNA molecules, each holding a single amino acid, are car-
rying pre-determined information of where they belong in the pro-
tein.
Chapter 16
Figure 16-8. A transfer RNA carries an amino acid for the growing protein.
Of course the DNA, the RNA enzymes encoding the message, and
the ribosome translating it, do not have the information-processing
power to reflect on or become conscious of what they are doing. But
their activities are at least proto-mental, because they are very simi-
lar to the more symbolic communications of human beings.
It is the information processing of the higher-level ribosome that
is in control. As the ribosome moves along the string of mRNA,
it reads the next three-letter codon and waits for a tRNA with the
matching anti-codon to collide randomly. With over 60 codons for
the 20 amino acids, it might be some time before the desired amino
acid shows up. It is the high speed of random motions that allows
this process to proceed rapidly. Consider the case of hemoglobin.
When a ribosome assembles 330 amino acids in four symmetric
polypeptide chains (globins), each globin traps an iron atom in a
heme group at the center to form the hemoglobin protein. This is
downward causal control of the amino acids, the heme groups, and
the iron atoms by the ribosome. The ribosome is an example of
Erwin Schrödinger’s emergent “order out of order,” life “feeding

on the negative entropy” of digested food.
When 200 million of the 25
trillion red blood cells in the
human body die each second,
300 million new hemoglobins
must be assembled in each of
200 million new blood cells.
With the order of a few thou-
sand bytes of information in
each hemoglobin, this is 10
thousand x 300 million x 200
million = 6 x 1020 bits of infor- Figure 16-9. Hemoglobin’s protein chains.
mation per second, millions of times more information processing
than today’s fastest computer CPU.
Chapter 16
The ribosome is an information-processing biological system that
has emerged from the lower level of chemistry and physics to exert
downward causation on the molecular components (amino acids)
needed to manufacture hemoglobin.
Ion Pumps in Neurons Select Individual Atoms
When a single neuron fires, the active potential rapidly changes
the concentration of sodium (Na+) ions inside the cell and potas-
sium (K+) ions outside the cell. Within milliseconds, thousands of
sodium-potassium ion transporters in the thin lipid bilayer of the
cell wall must move billions of those ions, two or three at a time
between inside and outside the cell wall, to get the neuron ready to
fire again.6
All the individual ions, atoms, and molecules in the cell are
moving rapidly in random directions. The indeterministic motions
of the ions randomly move some near a pump opening, where
quantum collaborative forces can capture them in a lock-and-key
structure. The idea that the physical/chemical base level contains
enough information in the motion of its atoms and molecules to
cause and thus explain the operations of the higher levels of life and
mind is simply absurd.
6 See informationphilosopher.com/knowledge/mental_caustion.html/#ion
The sodium-potassium ion pump is energized by a single ATP

(adenosine triphosphate) molecule to execute four steps. The first is
to capture three sodium (Na+) ions into lock-and-key matched posi-
tions (a quantum cooperative
phenomenon shown as spher-
ical shapes for sodium). The
complex of surrounding pro-
teins then changes its config-
uration, closing at the bottom
and opening at the top to
release the sodium ions out-
side the cell membrane.
The pump then attracts two Figure 16-10. The Na+/K+ ion pump
potassium ions (K+) from the extracellular fluid, capturing them in
the quantum cooperative bonding shapes shown scematically as
Chapter 16
triangular pyramids. When two potassiums are captured, the sur-

rounding protein complex again changes its configuration, closing
at the top and opening at the bottom to release the potassiums into
the cytosol.
In each four-step cycle, the available free energy (energy with
low entropy) of a single ATP molecule has moved three sodiums
and two potassiums across the lipid bilayer of the cell membrane.
The ATP has lost a single phosphate group and the depleted ADP
(adenosine diphosphate) must travel to an ATP synthase complex in
the cell wall of nearby mitochondria to be re-energized with a new
phosphate group attached.7
This emergent biological machinery of the sodium-potassium
pump has clearly exerted downward causation on the ions, powered
by ATP energy carriers feeding on negative entropy.
The sodium-potassium pump in our neurons is as close to a
Maxwell’s Demon evading the second law of thermodynamics as
anything we are ever likely to see.8
And when many motor neurons fire, innnervating excitatory
post-synaptic potentials (EPSPs) that travel down through the thal-
7 See chapter 28 for the working of ATP synthase.
8 See informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/maxwell/#demon
amus and the spinal cord where they cause muscles to contract, that
is as literal as downward causation gets between the mind and the
body. When the emergent immaterial mind decides to move the
material body, mental causation is realized as downward causation.
Information Solves the Problem of Mental Causation.
Information philosophy understands mental events as immate-
rial thoughts, which are normally only unrealized possibilities for
action. Thoughts are embodied in the neural information structures
of the brain, where they are stored along with memories of past
experiences in the experience recorder and reproducer (ERR). As
such, they are physical and are temporarily embodied and material,
in some sense.
But when thoughts are transferred (communicated) to other
parts of the brain, out to other minds, or for storage in the external
Chapter 16
environment, thoughts are converted from a material substrate to
various forms of energy. Temporarily, they are quite non-material,
as philosophers for centuries have imagined thoughts in an immate-
rial mind might be. Once stored, they are again embodied in matter.
Of course, thoughts or ideas can be unpredictably altered before
storage, by noise in the communication. They can also be altered
randomly by irreducibly indeterministic errors in the retrieval of
the information. Here lies the basis for creative mistakes, to be eval-
uated by a process of intelligent selection. (As Augustine noted,
the Latin intelligere means “to select.”)
The information solution to the mind-body problem can be inter-
preted as providing a non-reductive physical interpretation of mind.
This model of mind supervenes on the neural brain structures that
embody the information (while it is being stored). But the intel-
lectual content of the information is not the resultant of whatever
physical processes are coming from lower layers in a hierarchical
structure. The physical brain is a plastic storage medium adequately
determined to store the information content of these immaterial
thoughts, and normally to store it accurately.
With reference to popular (if flawed) computational theories of
mind, we note that the “software” contents of a computer program,
as well as the execution of the program, is in no way determined or
“caused” by the computer “hardware.” Similarly, ideas are not deter-

mined by the ink on a printed page or the pixels on a computer
screen, but by the human minds that put them there.
“Bottom-up” Physical Processes Are Not Deterministic
When small numbers of atoms and molecules interact, their
motions and behaviors are indeterministic, governed by the rules of
quantum mechanics.
However, when large numbers of microscopic particle get
together in aggregates, the indeterminacy of the individual particles
gets averaged over and macroscopic adequately deterministic laws
“emerge.”
Determinism is an emergent property that shows up in the mac-
roscopic world.
Chapter 16
The “laws of nature,” such as Newton’s laws of motion, are all

statistical laws, however close they appear to being certain. They
“emerge” when large numbers of atoms or molecules get together.
For large enough numbers, the probabilistic laws of nature approach
practical certainty. But the fundamental indeterminism of compo-
nent atoms never completely disappears.
It therefore follows that physical brain events are not pre-deter-
mined by the events in lower hierarchical levels, not events in the
base physical level, nor in the biological level.
And the world is not “causally closed” by deterministic physi-
cal laws of nature, as assumed by so many philosophers (e.g., Feigl,
Smart, Kim).
Moreover, since some “mental events” are large enough informa-
tion structures to be adequately determined, these mental events
can act causally on lower biological and physical levels in the hierar-
chy, in particular, the mind can move the body and all its contained
physical particles, thus solving the mind-body problem.
A specific example of the mind causing an action, while not itself
being caused by antecedent events is the following. Faced with a
decision of what to do next, the mind considers several possible

alternatives, at least some of which are creatively invented based on
random ideas that just “come to mind.” Other possible alternatives
might be familiar options, even habits, that have frequently been
chosen in many earlier similar situations.
All these alternatives show up as “neural correlates” - brain neu-
rons firing as the experience recorder and reproducer (ERR) plays
back past experiences that in some way resemble the current situ-
ation. When the alternatives are evaluated and one is selected, the
selected action results in still other neurons firing, some of which
connect to the motor cortex that signals muscles to move the body.
Apart from the occasional indeterministic generation of creative
new alternative ideas, this whole causal process is adequately deter-
mined and it is downwardly causal. Mental events are causing phys-
Chapter 16
ical body events.
Mind can move matter. Ideas can move mountains.
Molecular Machines
The ribosomes in every cell, the ion pumps in the neuron, and
ATP synthase in the mitochondria are examples of dozens of incred-
ibly tiny molecular machines that microbiologists have been discov-
ering over the past few decades.
Ribosomes produce quadrillions (1021) of bits of information per
second. Ion pumps move trillions of sodium and potassium ions per
second. And our mitochondria produce hundreds of trillions of the
ATP molecules. Each ATP synthase produces a few thousand ATP
molecules per minute, spinning at 10,000 RPM (faster than most of
our motors) to do so.
Mental causation depends on these incredible machines to con-
trol the motions of physical and chemical particles that philosophers
of mind have imagined might be exerting “bottom-up” causation on
the biological and psychological levels.
There simply is no such “causal closure of the physical world” that
is controlling our minds.
i o n o f
p re t at n i c s
r
Inte m Mech a
Chapter 17
u a nt u
Q

informationphilosopher.com/quantum/interpretation
Interpretation 189
Information Interpretation of
Quantum Mechanics
Our information interpretation is simply “standard quantum
physics” plus information being recorded irreversibly. Unlike
the Copenhagen Interpretation, we offer a visualization of what
is going on in quantum reality, with animations (on-line) of the
wave function evolution and the appearance of the particle, when
the wave function shrinks to its minimum possible size h3.
The information interpretation of quantum mechanics is based
on three simple premises:
1) Quantum systems evolve in two ways:
• The first is the wave function deterministically exploring all
the possibilities for interaction,
Chapter 17
• The second is the particle randomly choosing one of those
possibilities to become actual.
2) No knowledge can be gained by a “conscious observer”
unless new information has already been irreversibly recorded
in the universe. New information can be created and recorded in
three places:
• In the target quantum system,
• In the combined target system and measuring apparatus,
• It can then become knowledge in the observer’s mind.
3) The measuring apparatus is quantal, not deterministic or
“classical.” It need only be statistically determined and capable of
recording the irreversible information about an interaction. The
human mind is also only statistically or adequately determined.
• There is only one world.
• It is a quantum world, which only appears to be classical.
• The world only appears to be determined.
Ontologically, the quantum world is indeterministic, but in our
everyday common experience it appears be causal and determin-
istic, the so-called “classical” world. Information physics claims

there is only one world, the quantum world, and the so-called
“quantum to classical transition” occurs for any macroscopic
object of mass m that contains a large enough number of atoms.
For large enough systems, independent quantum events are “aver-
aged over.” The uncertainty in position x and velocity v of the large
object becomes less than the quantum indeterminacy
Δv Δx ≥ h / m goes to zero as h / m goes to zero.
The classical laws of motion, with their apparent determin-
ism and strict causality, emerge when objects are large enough so
that microscopic events can be ignored, but this determinism is
fundamentally statistical and physical causes are only probabilis-
tic, however near they seem to certainty.
Information philosophy interprets the wave function ψ as a
“possibilities” function. With this simple change in terminology,
Chapter 17
the mysterious process of a wave function “collapsing” becomes

a much more intuitive discussion of ψ evolving to explore all the
possibilities (with mathematically calculable probabilities), fol-
lowed by a single actualization, at which time the probabilities for
all non-actualized possibilities go to zero (they “collapse”) instan-
taneously.
Information physics is standard quantum physics. It accepts
the Schrödinger equation of motion, the principle of superposi-
tion, the axiom of measurement (now including the actual infor-
mation “bits” measured), and - most important - the projection
postulate of standard quantum mechanics (the “collapse” that so
many unorthodox interpretations deny).
But unlike some interpretations, the conscious observer of
the Copenhagen Interpretation is not required for a projection,
for the wave-function to “collapse”, for one of the possibilities to
become an actuality. What the collapse does require is an interac-
tion between systems that creates irreversible and observable, but
not necessarily observed, information.
Among the founders of quantum mechanics, almost every-
one agreed that irreversibility was a key requirement for a
Interpretation 191
measurement. Irreversibility introduces thermodynamics into a

proper formulation of quantum mechanics, and this is what the
information interpretation requires.
Information is not a conserved quantity like energy and mass,
despite the view of many mathematical physicists, who generally
accept determinism and think information is a constant.. The uni-
verse began in a state of equilibrium with minimal information,
and information is being created every day, despite the second law
of thermodynamics. Classical interactions between large macro-
scopic bodies do not generate new information. Newton’s laws of
motion imply that the information in any configuration of bodies,
motions, and the force laws, is enough to know all past and future
configurations. Classical mechanics conserves information.
In the absence of interactions, an isolated quantum system
evolves according to the unitary Schrödinger equation of motion.
Chapter 17
Just like classical systems, the deterministic Schrödinger equation
conserves information.
Unlike classical systems however, when there is an interaction
between quantum systems, the two systems become entangled
and there may be a change of state in either or both systems. This
change of state may create new information.
If that information is instantly destroyed, as in most interac-
tions, it may never be observed macroscopically. If, on the other
hand, the information is stabilized for some length of time, it may
be seen by an observer and considered to be a “measurement.” But
it need not be seen by anyone to become new information in the
universe. The universe is its own observer!
Compare Schrödinger’s Cat (chapter 23) as its own observer.
For the information (negative entropy) to be stabilized, the
second law of thermodynamics requires that an amount of posi-
tive entropy greater than the negative entropy must be transferred
away from the new information structure.
Exactly how the universe allows pockets of negative entropy
to form as “information structures” we describe as the “cosmic
creation process.” This core two-step process has been going on

since the origin of the universe. It continues today as we add infor-
mation to the Sum of human knowledge.
Note that despite the Heisenberg principle, quantum mechani-
cal measurements are not always uncertain. When a system is mea-
sured (prepared) in an eigenstate, a subsequent measurement (Pau-
li’s measurement of the first kind) will find it in the same state with
perfect certainty.
What are the normal possibilities for new quantum states? The
transformation theory of Paul Dirac and Pascual Jordan lets us
represent ψ in a set of basis functions for which the combination of
quantum systems (one may be a measurement apparatus) has eigen-
values (the axiom of measurement). We represent ψ as in a linear
combination (the principle of superposition) of those “possible”
eigenfunctions. Quantum mechanics lets us calculate the probabili-
Chapter 17
ties of each of those “possibilities.”

Interaction with the measurement apparatus (or indeed interac-
tion with any other system) may select out (the axiom of measure-
ment) one of those possibilities as an actuality. But for this event
to be an “observable” (a John Bell “beable”), information must be
created and positive entropy must be transferred away from the new
information structure, in accordance with our two-step informa-
tion creation process.
All interpretations of quantum mechanics predict the same
experimental results. The information interpretation is no excep-
tion, because the experimental data from quantum experiments is
the most accurate in the history of science.
Where interpretations differ is in the picture (the visualization)
they provide of what is “really” going on in the microscopic world
- so-called “quantum reality.” Schrödinger called it Anschaulichkeit.
He and Einstein were right that we should be able to picture quan-
tum reality.
However, the Copenhagen interpretation of Niels Bohr and
Werner Heisenberg discourages attempts to visualize the nature
of the “quantum world,” because they say that all our experience
Interpretation 193
is derived from the “classical world” and should be described in

ordinary language. This is why Bohr and Heisenberg insisted on
some kind of “cut” between the quantum event and the mind of an
observer.
The information interpretation encourages visualization. (See
our on-line animation of the two-slit experiment1, our EPR experi-
ment visualizations2, and Dirac’s three polarizers3 to visualize the
superposition of states and the projection or “collapse” of a wave
function.)
Bohr was of course right that classical physics plays an essential
role. His Correspondence Principle allowed him to recover some
important physical constants by assuming that the discontinuous
quantum jumps for low quantum numbers (low “orbits” in his old
quantum theory model) converged in the limit of large quantum
numbers to the continuous radiation emission and absorption of
classical electromagnetic theory.
Chapter 17
In addition, we know that in macroscopic bodies with enormous
numbers of quantum particles, quantum effects are averaged over,
so that the uncertainty in position and momentum of a large body
still obeys Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle, but the uncer-
tainty is for all practical purposes unmeasurable and the body can
be treated classically.
We can say that the quantum description of matter also converges
to a classical description in the limit of large numbers of quantum
particles. We call this “adequate” or statistical determinism. It is the
apparent determinism we find behind Newton’s laws of motion for
macroscopic objects. The statistics of averaging over many indepen-
dent quantum events then produces the “quantum to classical tran-
sition” for the same reason as the “law of large numbers” in prob-
ability theory.
Both Bohr and Heisenberg suggested that just as relativistic
effects can be ignored when the velocity is small compared to the
velocity of light (v / c → 0), so quantum effects might be ignorable
1 .informationphilosopher.com/solutions/experiments/two-slit_experiment/
2 informationphilosopher.com/solutions/experiments/EPR/
3 www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/experiments/dirac_3-polarizers/
when Planck’s quantum of action h → 0. But this is quite wrong,

because h is a constant that never goes to zero. In the information
interpretation, it is always a quantum world. As we saw, the con-
ditions needed for ignoring quantum indeterminacy are when the
mass of the macroscopic “classical” object is large.
Note that the macromolecules of biology are large enough to
stabilize their information structures. DNA has been replicating
its essential information for billions of years, resisting equilibrium
despite the second law of thermodynamics The creation of irre-
versible new information also marks the transition between the
quantum world and the “adequately deterministic” classical world,
because the information structure itself must be large enough (and
stable enough) to be seen. The typical measurement apparatus is
macroscopic, so the quantum of action h becomes small compared
to the mass m and h / m approaches zero.
Chapter 17
Decoherence theorists say that the measurement problem is our

failure to see quantum superpositions in the macroscopic world.
The information interpretation thus explains why quantum super-
positions like Schrödinger’s Cat are not seen in the macroscopic
world. Stable new information structures in the dying cat reduce
the quantum possibilities (and their potential interference effects)
to a classical actuality. Upon opening the box and finding a dead cat,
an autopsy will reveal that the time of death was observed/recorded.
The cat is its own observer.
The “Possibilities Function”
The central element in quantum physics is the “wave function” ψ,
with its mysterious wave-particle dual nature (sometimes a wave,
sometimes a particle, etc.). We believe that teaching and under-
standing quantum mechanics would be much simpler if we called ψ
the “possibilities function.” It only looks like a wave in simple cases
of low-dimensional coordinate space. But it always tells us the pos-
sibilities - the possible values of any observable, for example.
Given the “possibilities function” ψ, quantum mechanics allows
us to calculate the “probabilities” for each of the “possibilities.” The
calculation depends on the free choice of the experimenter as to
Interpretation 195
which “observables” to look for. If the measurement apparatus can

register n discrete values, ψ can be expanded in terms of a set of
basis functions (eigenfunctions) appropriate for the chosen observ-
able, say φn. The expansion is
ψ = ∑ cn φn
When the absolute squares of the coefficients cn are appropriately
normalized to add up to 1, the probability Pn of observing an eigen-
value n is
Pn = | cn |2 = | < ψ | φn > | 2
These probabilities are confirmed statistically by repeated iden-
tical experiments that collect large numbers of results. Quantum
mechanics is the most accurate physical theory in science, with
measurements accurate to fifteen decimal places.
In each individual experiment, generally just one of the possi-
Chapter 17
bilities becomes an actuality (although some experiments leave the
quantum system in a new superposition of multiple possibilities).
In our information interpretation, a possibility is realized or
actualized at the moment when information is created about the
new state of the system. This new information requires that positive
entropy be carried away from the local increase in negative entropy.
Note that an “observer” will not be able to make a “measure-
ment” unless new information exists to be “observed.” Information
must be (and is in all modern experimental systems) created and
recorded before any observer looks at the results. Measurements do
not depend directly on the mind of the observer, only indirectly
when the observer sets up the experimental apparatus and decides
what it will measure.
This is called the “free choice” of the experimenter.4
An information approach can help philosophers to think more
clearly about quantum physics. Instead of getting trapped in talk
about mysterious “collapse of the wave function,” “reduction of the
wave packet,” or the “projection postulate” (all important issues),
4 informationphilosopher.com/freedom/free_choice.html
the information interpretation proposes we simply say that one of

the “possibilities” has become “actual.”
It is intuitively obvious that when one possibility becomes actual,
all the others are annihilated, consigned to “nothingness,” as Jean-
Paul Sartre put it. And because the other possibilities may have
been extremely “distant” from the point of actualization, their
instantaneous disappearances looked to Einstein to violate his prin-
ciple of relativity, but they do not.
Quantum theory lets us put quantitative values on the “proba-
bilities” for each of the “possibilities.” But this means that quantum
theory is fundamentally statistical, meaning indeterministic and
“random.” It is not a question of our being ignorant about what is
going on (an epistemological problem). What’s happening is onto-
logical chance, as Einstein first showed, but as he forever disliked.
We can describe the “possibilities function” ψ as moving through
Chapter 17
space (at the speed of light, or even faster, as Einstein feared?),

exploring all the possibilities for wherever the particle might be
found. This too may be seen as a special kind of information. In
the famous “two-slit experiment5,” the “possibilities function” trav-
els everywhere, meaning that ψ passes through both slits, interfer-
ing with itself and thus changing the possibilities where the par-
ticle might be found. Metaphorically, ψ “knows” when both slits are
open, even if our intuitive classical view imagines that the particle
must go through only one. The slits being open changes the prob-
abilities associated with each of the possibilities.
Possibilities and Information Theory
It is of the deepest philosophical significance that information
theory is based on the mathematics of probability. If all outcomes
were certain, there would be no “surprises” in the universe. Infor-
mation would be conserved and a universal constant, as some math-
ematicians mistakenly believe. Information philosophy requires
the ontological uncertainty and probabilistic outcomes of modern
quantum physics to produce new information.
5 informationphilosopher.com/solutions/experiments/two-slit_experiment/
Interpretation 197
In Claude Shannon’s theory of the communication of informa-

tion, there must be multiple possible messages in order for infor-
mation to be communicated. If there is only one possible message,
there is no uncertainty, and no information can be communicated.
In a universe describable by the classical Newtonian laws of
motion, all the information needed to produce the next moment
is contained in the positions, motions, and forces on the material
particles.
In a quantum world describable by the unitary evolution of the
deterministic Schrödinger equation, nothing new ever happens,
there is no new “outcome.” Outcomes are added to standard quan-
tum mechanics by the addition of the “projection postulate” or “col-
lapse of the wave function,” when the quantum system interacts
with another system.
Information is constant in a deterministic universe. There is
Chapter 17
“nothing new under the sun.” The creation of new information is
not possible without the random chance and uncertainty of quan-
tum mechanics, plus the extraordinary temporal stability of quan-
tum mechanical structures needed to store information once it is
created.
Without the extraordinary stability of quantized information
structures over cosmological time scales, life and the universe we
know would not be possible. That stability is the consequence of an
underlying digital nature. Quantum mechanics reveals the architec-
ture of the universe to be discrete rather than continuous, to be digi-
tal rather than analog. Digital information transfers are essentially
perfect, whereas analog transfers are “lossy.”
It is Bohr’s “correspondence principle” of quantum mechanics for
large quantum numbers and the “law of large numbers” of statistics
which ensure that macroscopic objects can normally average out
microscopic uncertainties and probabilities to provide the statistical
or “adequate” determinism that shows up in all our classical “laws
of nature.”
There is no separate classical world and no need for a quantum-to-
classical transition. The quantum world becomes statistically deter-
ministic when the mass of an object is such that h / m approaches

zero. We conclude, contrary to the views of Bohr and Heisenberg,
that there is no need for a separate classical world. The classical laws
of nature emerge statistically from quantum laws. Quantum laws,
which are therefore universally applicable, converge in these two
limits of large numbers to classical laws. There is no “transition”
from the quantum world to a separate classical world. There is just
one world, where quantum physics applies universally, but its mys-
terious properties, like interference, entanglement, and nonlocality,
are normally invisible, averaged over, in the macroscopic world.
The problem for an informational interpretation of quantum
mechanics is to explain exactly how these two convergences (large
numbers of particles and large quantum numbers) allow continuous
and apparently deterministic macroscopic information structures
to emerge from the indeterministic and discontinuous microscopic
Chapter 17
quantum world.
We show how the determinism in the macroscopic world is only
a statistical or adequate determinism, the result of “averaging over”
the large number of independent quantum events happening in
a macroscopic object. And even more important, we must show
how the occasional magnification or amplification of microscopic
quantum events leads to new macroscopic information that makes
human beings the “authors of their lives”, that makes them “co-cre-
ators of our universe,” and that guarantees a genuinely open future
with alternative possibilities, not in inaccessible “parallel universes”
but in the one universe that we have.
Other Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics
Standard “orthodox” interpretations of quantum mechanics
include the projection postulate, the “collapse of the wave function.”
Today there appear to be about as many unorthodox interpreta-
tions that deny the collapse, as there are more standard views. We
characterize each interpretation as deterministic or not, local or
non-local reality, if they assume hidden variables, need a conscious
observer, and accept particles. Their proponents are in parentheses.
Interpretation 199
No-Collapse Interpretations
Statistical Ensemble - indeterministic, non-local, no observer -
(Einstein-Born- Ballentine)
Pilot-Wave Theory - deterministic, non-local, hidden variables,
no observer, particles - (de Broglie-Bohm, 1952)
Many-Worlds - deterministic, local, hidden variables, no observer
- (Everett-De Witt, 1957)
Time-Symmetric Theory - (Aharanov, 1964)
Decoherence - deterministic, local, no particles - (Zeh-Zurek,
1970)
Modal Interpretation - (van Frassen, 1972)
Consistent Histories - local - (Griffith-Omnès-Gell-Mann-Har-tle,
1984)
Chapter 17
Collapse Interpretations
Copenhagen Interpretation - indeterministic, non-local,
observer - (Bohr-Heisenberg-Born-Jordan, 1927)
Conscious Observer - indeterministic, non-local, observer -
(Von Neumann-Wigner)
Objective Collapse - indeterministic, non-local, no observer -
(Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber, 1986; Penrose, 1989)
Transactional Interpretation - indeterministic, non-local, no
observer, no particles - (Cramer, 1986)
Relational Interpretation - local, observer - (Rovelli, 1994)
Pondicherry Interpretation - indeterministic, non-local, no
observer - (Mohrhoff, 2005)Probabilities
Information Interpretation - Our interpretation is statistical,
indeterministic, non-local, and no observer is needed. It interprets
the “collapse” of the “possibilities” function according to Dirac’s
“projection postulate.” New is the requirement for the physical
recording of information before any “observation” can be made.
m e nt
s u re
Mea oblem
Chapter 18
Pr

informationphilosopher.com/problems/measurement
Measurement 201
The Measurement Problem

The “problem of measurement” in quantum mechanics has
been defined in various ways, originally by scientists, and more
recently by philosophers of science who question the “founda-
tions” of quantum mechanics.
Measurements are described with diverse concepts in quantum
physics such as:
• wave functions (probability amplitudes) evolving unitarily
and deterministically (preserving information) according to the
linear Schrödinger equation,
• superposition of states, i.e., linear combinations of wave func-
tions with complex coefficients that carry phase information and
produce interference effects (the principle of superposition),
• quantum jumps between states accompanied by the “collapse
Chapter 18
of the wave function” that can destroy or create information (Paul
Dirac’s projection postulate, John von Neumann’s Process 1),
• probabilities of collapses and jumps given by the square of the
absolute value of the wave function for a given state,
• values for possible measurements given by the eigenvalues
associated with the eigenstates of the combined measuring appa-
ratus and measured system (the axiom of measurement),
• the indeterminacy or uncertainty principle.
The original measurement problem, said to be a consequence of
Niels Bohr’s “Copenhagen Interpretation” of quantum mechan-
ics, was to explain how our measuring instruments, which are
usually macroscopic objects and treatable with classical physics,
can give us information about the microscopic world of atoms and
subatomic particles like electrons and photons.
Bohr’s idea of “complementarity” insisted that a specific experi-
ment could reveal only partial information - for example, a parti-
cle’s position or its momentum. “Exhaustive” or “complete” infor-
mation requires two complementary experiments. Measurement
of both a particle’s momentum and its position can only be within
the limits of Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. This

demands that the product of the indeterminacy in the position Δx
multiplied by the indeterminacy in the momentum Δp be equal to
or greater than Planck’s quantum of action h.
Some define the problem of measurement simply as the logical
contradiction between two laws describing the motion of quan-
tum systems; the unitary, information preserving, continuous,
and deterministic time evolution of the Schrödinger equation
versus the non-unitary, discontinuous, and indeterministic col-
lapse of the wave function. John von Neumann saw a problem
with these two distinct (indeed, logically opposing) processes.
The mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics provides
no way to predict when the wave function stops evolving in a uni-
tary fashion and collapses. Experimentally and practically, how-
ever, we can say that this occurs when the microscopic system
interacts with a measurement apparatus. or indeed just with
Chapter 18
another quantum system.

Others define the measurement problem as the failure to
observe macroscopic superpositions.
Decoherence theorists1 (e.g., H. Dieter Zeh and Wojciech
Zurek, who use various non-standard interpretations of quantum
mechanics, denying the projection postulate, quantum jumps, and
even the existence of particles), define the measurement problem
as the failure to observe superpositions such as Schrödinger’s Cat.
Unitary time evolution of the wave function according to the
Schrödinger wave equation should produce such macroscopic
superpositions, they claim.
Information physics treats a measuring apparatus quantum
mechanically by describing parts of it as in a metastable state
like the excited states of an atom, the critically poised electrical
potential energy in the discharge tube of a Geiger counter, or the
supersaturated water and alcohol molecules of a Wilson cloud
chamber. (The pi-bond orbital rotation from cis- to trans- in the
light-sensitive retinal molecule is an example of a critically poised
apparatus).
1 See chapter 22.
Measurement 203
Excited (metastable) states are poised to collapse when an elec-

tron (or photon) collides with the sensitive detector elements in
the apparatus. This collapse is macroscopic and irreversible2, gen-
erally a cascade of quantum events that release large amounts of
energy, increasing the (Boltzmann) entropy. But in a “measure-
ment” there is also a local decrease in the entropy. This negative
entropy corresponds to the information gained in the measure-
ment. The global entropy increase is normally orders of magni-
tude more than the small local decrease in entropy (an increase in
stable information or Shannon entropy) that constitutes the “mea-
sured” experimental data available to human observers.
The creation of new information in a measurement thus follows
the same two core processes of all information creation - quan-
tum cooperative phenomena and thermodynamics. These two are
involved in the formation of microscopic objects like atoms and
molecules, as well as macroscopic objects like galaxies, stars, and
Chapter 18
planets.
According to the correspondence principle, all the laws of
quantum physics asymptotically approach the laws of classical
physics in the limit of large quantum numbers and large numbers
of particles. Quantum mechanics can be used to describe even the
largest macroscopic systems.
Does this mean that the positions and momenta of macro-
scopic objects are uncertain? Yes, it does. Although the uncer-
tainty becomes vanishingly small for large objects, it is not zero.
Noting that the momentum p is the product of mass and veloc-
ity mv, Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle, Δp Δx > h, can be
rewritten as Δv Δx > h / m. It is thus not when h is small, but when
the mass m is large enough and h / m is small enough, that errors
in the position and momentum of macroscopic objects become
smaller that can be measured.
Niels Bohr used the uncertainty of macroscopic objects to
defeat Albert Einstein’s several objections to quantum mechan-
ics at the 1927 Solvay conference.
2 See chapter 25.
But Bohr and Heisenberg also insisted that a measuring appara-

tus must be a regarded as a purely classical system. They can’t have it
both ways. Can the macroscopic apparatus also be treated by quan-
tum physics or not? Can it be described by the Schrödinger equa-
tion? Can it be regarded as in a superposition of states?
The most famous example of macroscopic superposition is no
doubt Schrödinger’s Cat3, which is claimed to be in a superposi-
tion of live and dead cats, and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experi-
ment, in which entangled electrons or photons are in a superposi-
tion of two-particle states that collapse over macroscopic distances
to exhibit properties “nonlocally” at speeds faster than the speed of
light.
The radical treatments of macroscopic systems, by Schrödinger
and Einstein and his colleagues, were intended to expose inconsis-
tencies and incompleteness in quantum theory. The critics hoped to
restore determinism and “local reality” to physics. They resulted in
Chapter 18
some strange and extremely popular “mysteries” about “quantum

reality,” such as the “many-worlds” interpretation, “hidden vari-
ables,” and signaling faster than the speed of light.
We develop a quantum-mechanical treatment of macroscopic
systems, especially a measuring apparatus, to show how it can create
new information. If the apparatus were describable only by classical
deterministic laws, no new information could come into existence.
The apparatus need only be adequately determined, that is to say,
“classical” to a sufficient degree of accuracy.
As Landau and Lifshitz described it in their 1958 textbook,
“The possibility of a quantitative description of the motion of an elec-
tron requires the presence also of physical objects which obey classi-
cal mechanics to a sufficient degree of accuracy. If an electron interacts
with such a “classical object”, the state of the latter is, generally speaking,
altered. The nature and magnitude of this change depend on the state of
the electron, and therefore may serve to characterise it quantitatively...
“We have defined “apparatus” as a physical object which is governed,
with sufficient accuracy, by classical mechanics. Such, for instance, is
a body of large enough mass. However, it must not be supposed that
3 See chapter 23
Measurement 205
apparatus is necessarily macroscopic. Under certain conditions, the part

of apparatus may also be taken by an object which is microscopic, since
the idea of “with sufficient accuracy” depends on the actual problem
proposed.
“Thus quantum mechanics occupies a very unusual place among physi-
cal theories: it contains classical mechanics as a limiting case [corre-
spondence principle], yet at the same time it requires this limiting case
for its own formulation.”4
Von Neumann’s Two Processes
The measurement problem was analyzed mathematically in 1932
by John von Neumann. Following the work of Bohr and Heisen-
berg, he divided the world into a microscopic (atomic-level) quan-
tum system and a macroscopic (classical) measuring apparatus.
Von Neumann explained that two fundamentally different pro-
cesses are going on in quantum mechanics.
First, a non-causal Process 1, in which the measured electron
winds up randomly in one of the possible physical states (eigen-
Chapter 18
states) of the measuring apparatus plus electron.
This process came to be called the “collapse of the wave function”
or the “reduction of the wave packet.”
The probability for finding the electron in a specific eigenstate
is given by the square of the coefficients cn of the expansion of the
original system state (wave function ψ) in an infinite set of wave
functions φn that represent the eigenfunctions of the measuring
apparatus plus electron.
This is as close as we get to a description of the motion of the par-
ticle aspect of a quantum system. According to von Neumann, the
particle simply shows up somewhere as a result of a measurement.
Information physics says that the particle “shows up” only when
a new stable information structure is created, information that sub-
sequently can be observed.
So we can also add a Process 1b. The information created in von
Neumann’s Process 1 will only be stable if an amount of positive
entropy greater than the negative entropy in the new information
4 Quantum Mechanics, non-relativistic theory, pp.1-2
structure is transported away, in order to satisfy the second law of

thermodynamics.
Next, von Neumann’s causal Process 2, in which the electron
wave function ψ evolves deterministically according to Schröding-
er’s equation of motion for the wavelike aspect.
(ih/2π) ∂ψ/∂t = Hψ.
This evolution describes the motion of the probability ampli-
tude wave ψ between measurements. The wave function exhibits
interference effects. But the particle path itself can not be observed.
Interference is destroyed if the particle has a definite position or
momentum. The particle does not have a definite position between
measurements.
Von Neumann claimed there is another major difference between
his two processes. Process 1 is thermodynamically irreversible.
Process 2 is reversible. This confirms the fundamental connection
Chapter 18
between quantum mechanics and thermodynamics that informa-

tion physics finds at the heart of all information creation.
Information physics can show quantum mechanically how Pro-
cess 1 creates information. Something like Process 1 is always
involved when any information is created, whether or not the new
information is ever “observed” by a human being.
Process 2 is deterministic and information conserving.
Just as the new information recorded in the measurement appa-
ratus cannot subsist unless a compensating amount of entropy is
transferred away from the new information, something similar to
Process 1b must happen in the mind of an observer if the new infor-
mation is to constitute an “observation.”
It is only in cases where information persists long enough for a
human being to observe it that we can properly describe the obser-
vation as a “measurement” and the human being as an “observer.”
So, following von Neumann’s “process” terminology, we can com-
plete his theory of the measuring process by adding an anthropo-
morphic third process.
Measurement 207
Process 3 is a conscious observer recording new information in

a mind. For this we need two local reductions in the entropy (new
information in the measurement apparatus, new information in the
mind), both balanced by even greater increases in positive entropy
that must be transported away from the apparatus and the mind, so
the overall increase in entropy can satisfy the second law of thermo-
dynamics.
Designing a Quantum Measurement Apparatus
The first step is to build an apparatus that allows different com-
ponents of the wave function to evolve along distinguishable paths
into different regions of space, where the different regions corre-
spond to (are correlated with) the physical properties we want to
measure. We then can locate a detector in these different regions of
space to catch particles travelling a particular path.
We do not say that the system is on a particular path in this first
step. Knowing the position would cause the probability amplitude
Chapter 18
wave function to collapse. This first step is reversible, at least in prin-
ciple. It is deterministic and an example of von Neumann Process 2.
Let’s consider a birefringent crystal separating a beam of photons
into horizontally and vertically polarized photons.5
We need a beam of photons (and the ability to reduce the inten-
sity to a single photon at a time). Vertically polarized photons pass
straight through the crystal. They are called the ordinary ray. Hori-
zontally polarized photons, however, are deflected at an angle
though the crystal, then exit the crystal back at the original angle.
This is the extraordinary ray.
Figure 18-11. Separating horizontal and vertical polarized photons
Note that this first part of our apparatus accomplishes the

separation of our two states into distinct physical regions.
5 See http://www.informationphilosopher.com/problems/measurement/#design
for an animation of the birefringent crystal experiment
We have not actually measured yet, so a single photon passing

through our measurement apparatus is described as in a linear com-
bination (a superposition) of horizontal and vertical polarization
states,
| ψ > = ( 1/√2) | h > + ( 1/√2) | v > (1)
A Reversible Example of Process 2
To show that process 2 is reversible, we can add a second
birefringent crystal upside down from the first, but inline with the
superposition of physically separated states,
Figure 18-12. If we don’t measure, we can recombine the beams

Chapter 18
Since we have not made a measurement and do not know the

path of the photon, the phase information in the (generally com-
plex) coefficients of equation (1) has been preserved, so when they
combine in the second crystal, they emerge in a state identical to the
state they had before entering the first crystal.
An Irreversible Example of Process 1
But now suppose we insert something between the two crystals
that is capable of a measurement to produce observable informa-
tion. We need detectors that may locate the photon in one of the
two rays.
Let’s consider an ideal photographic plate capable of precipitat-
ing visible silver grains upon the receipt of a single photon (and
subsequent development). Today photography cannot detect single
photons, but detectors using charge coupled devices (CCDs) are
approaching this sensitivity.
We can write a quantum description of the plate as containing
two sensitive collection areas, the part of the apparatus measuring
horizontally polarized photons, | Ah > (shown as the upper spot),
Measurement 209
and the part of the apparatus measuring vertically polarized

photons, | Av > (shown as the lower spot).
Figure 18-13. Two possible paths become one actual when detected.
We treat the detection systems quantum mechanically, and say

that each detector has two eigenstates, e.g., | Ah0 >, corresponding to
• the jump of the probability amplitude wave function | ψ > of the
photon in equation (1) into the horizontally polarized state | h >.
• the quantum jump of the horizontal detector from | Ah0 > to
| Ah1 >.
Chapter 18
These two happen together, as the initial states of the detectors
are correlated with no photons, and the final state | Ah1 >, in which
the upper detector has registered a horizontal photon.
When we actually detect the photon, say in a horizontal polariza-
tion state with statistical probability 1/2, two “collapses” or “jumps”
occur. They are correlated with the states of the sensitive detectors
in the classical apparatus.
One can say that the photon has become entangled with the sensi-
tive horizontal detector area, so that the wave function describing
their interaction is a superposition of photon and apparatus states
that cannot be observed independently.
| ψ > + | Ah0 > => | ψ, Ah0 > => | h, Ah1 >
These jumps destroy (unobservable) phase information, raise the
(Boltzmann) entropy of the apparatus, and increase visible informa-
tion (Shannon entropy) in the form of the visible spot. The entropy
increase takes the form of a large chemical energy release when the
photographic spot is developed (or a cascade of electrons in a CCD).
Note that the birefringent crystal and the parts of the macroscopic
apparatus other than the sensitive detectors are treated classically.
We animate these irreversible and reversible processes on our

website.6
We see that our example agrees with Von Neumann Process 1.
A measurement which finds the photon in a specific state n is ther-
modynamically irreversible, whereas the deterministic evolution
described by Schrödinger’s equation is reversible.
We thus establish a clear connection between a measurement,
which increases the information by some number of bits (Shan-
non entropy), and the necessary compensating increase in the
(Boltzmann) entropy of the macroscopic apparatus, and the cosmic
creation process, where new particles form, reducing the entropy
locally, and the energy of formation is radiated or conducted away
as Boltzmann entropy.7
Note that the Boltzmann entropy can only be radiated away (ulti-
mately into the night sky to the cosmic microwave background)
because the expansion of the universe provides a sink for the
Chapter 18
entropy, as pointed out by David Layzer. Note also that this cosmic
information-creating process requires no conscious observer. The
universe is its own observer.
The Boundary between the Classical and Quantum Worlds
Some scientists, von Neumann and Heisenberg for example, have
argued that in the absence of a conscious observer, or some “cut”
between the microscopic and macroscopic world, the evolution
of the quantum system and the macroscopic measuring apparatus
would be described deterministically by Schrödinger’s equation of
motion for the wave function | ψ + A > with the Hamiltonian H
energy operator,
(ih/2π) ∂/∂t | ψ + A > = H | ψ + A >.
Our quantum mechanical analysis of the measurement appara-
tus in the above case allows us to locate the “cut” precisely at those
components of the “adequately classical and deterministic” appa-
ratus that put the apparatus in an irreversible stable state providing
new information to the observer.
6 informationphilosopher.com/problems/measurement/#birefringence
7 See appendix B for details
Measurement 211
John Bell drew a diagram to show the various possible locations

for what he called the “shifty split.” Information physics shows us
that the correct location for the boundary is the first of Bell’s possi-
bilities.
Chapter 18
Figure 18-14. John Bell’s illustration of the “shifty split.”
The Role of the Conscious Observer

In 1941, Carl von Weizsäcker described the measurement
problem as an interaction between a Subject and an Object, a view
shared by the philosopher of science Ernst Cassirer.
Fritz London and Edmond Bauer made the strongest case for
the critical role of a conscious observer in 1939:
“So far we have only coupled one apparatus with one object. But a cou-
pling, even with a measuring device, is not yet a measurement. A mea-
surement is achieved only when the position of the pointer has been
observed. It is precisely this increase of knowledge, acquired by obser-
vation, that gives the observer the right to choose among the different
components of the mixture predicted by theory, to reject those which
are not observed, and to attribute thenceforth to the object a new wave
function, that of the pure case which he has found.
“We note the essential role played by the consciousness of the observer
in this transition from the mixture to the pure case. Without his effective
intervention, one would never obtain a new function.” 8
In 1961, Eugene Wigner made quantum physics even more sub-
jective, claiming that a quantum measurement requires a conscious
observer, without which nothing ever happens in the universe.
“When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass
microscopic phenomena, through the creation of quantum mechanics,
Chapter 18
the concept of consciousness came to the fore again: it was not possible
to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way
without reference to the consciousness All that quantum mechanics
purports to provide are probability connections between subsequent
impressions (also called “apperceptions”) of the consciousness, and even
though the dividing line between the observer, whose consciousness is
being affected, and the observed physical object can be shifted towards
the one or the other to a considerable degree [cf., von Neumann] it
cannot be eliminated.” 9
Other physicists were more circumspect. Niels Bohr contrasted
Paul Dirac’s view, which stressed the randomness of the outcome,
with that of Heisenberg, who stresses the observer’s “free choice” of
what is to be measured:
‘The question was whether, as to the occurrence of individual effects, we
should adopt a terminology proposed by Dirac, that we were concerned
with a choice on the part of “nature,” or, as suggested by Heisenberg, we
should say that we have to do with a choice on the part of the “observer”
constructing the measuring instruments and reading their recording.
Any such terminology would, however, appear dubious since, on the one
8 Theory of Observation in Quantum Mechanics, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.251

9 Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169
Measurement 213
hand, it is hardly reasonable to endow nature with volition in the ordi-

nary sense, while, on the other hand, it is certainly not possible for the
observer to influence the events which may appear under the conditions
he has arranged. To my mind, there is no other alternative than to admit
that, in this field of experience, we are dealing with individual phenom-
ena and that our possibilities of handling the measuring instruments
allow us only to make a choice between the different complementary
types of phenomena we want to study.’ 10
Landau and Lifshitz said clearly that quantum physics was inde-
pendent of any observer:
“In this connection the ‘classical object’ is usually called apparatus, and
its interaction with the electron is spoken of as measurement. However,
it must be most decidedly emphasised that we are here not discussing
a process of measurement in which the physicist-observer takes part.
By measurement, in quantum mechanics, we understand any process
of interaction between classical and quantum objects, occurring apart
from and independently of any observer.” 11
David Bohm agreed that what is observed is distinct from the
observer:
Chapter 18
“If it were necessary to give all parts of the world a completely quantum-
mechanical description, a person trying to apply quantum theory to the
process of observation would be faced with an insoluble paradox. This
would be so because he would then have to regard himself as something
connected inseparably with the rest of the world. On the other hand,the
very idea of making an observation implies that what is observed is
totally distinct from the person observing it.” 12
And John Bell said:
“It would seem that the [quantum] theory is exclusively concerned
about ‘results of measurement’, and has nothing to say about anything
else. What exactly qualifies some physical systems to play the role of
‘measurer’? Was the wavefunction of the world waiting to jump for thou-
sands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared?
Or did it have to wait a little longer, for some better qualified system...
with a Ph.D.? If the theory is to apply to anything but highly idealised
laboratory operations, are we not obliged to admit that more or less
‘measurement-like’ processes are going on more or less all the time,
more or less everywhere? Do we not have jumping then all the time?” 13
10 Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, Niels Bohr, p.51

11 Quantum Mechanics, Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, p.2
12 Quantum Theory, David Bohm, p.584
13 “Against Measurement,” in Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics,
p. 216)
Three Essential Steps in a “Measurement” and “Observation”

We can distinguish three required elements in a measurement
that can clarify the ongoing debate about the role of a conscious
observer.
1) In standard quantum theory, the first required element is the
collapse of the wave-function. This is the Dirac projection postulate
and von Neumann Process 1.
However, the collapse might not leave a determinate record. If
nothing in the environment is macroscopically affected so as to
leave an indelible record of the collapse, we can say that no infor-
mation about the collapse is created. The overwhelming fraction of
collapses are of this kind. Moreover, information might actually be
destroyed. For example, collisions between atoms or molecules in a
gas that erase past information about their paths.
2) If the collapse occurs when the quantum system is entangled
Chapter 18
with a macroscopic measurement apparatus, a well-designed appa-

ratus will also “collapse” into a correlated “pointer” state.
As we showed above for photons, the detector in the upper half of
a Stern-Gerlach apparatus will fire, indicating detection of an elec-
tron with spin up. As with photons, if the probability amplitude | up
> in the upper half does not collapse as the electron is detected, it
can still be recombined with the probability amplitude | down > in
the lower half to reconstruct the unseparated beam.
When the apparatus detects a particle, the second required ele-
ment is that it produce a determinate record of the event. But this
is impossible without an irreversible thermodynamic process that
involves: a) the creation of at least one bit of new information (nega-
tive entropy) and b) the transfer away from the measuring apparatus
of an amount of positive entropy (generally much, much) greater
than the information created.
Notice that no conscious observer need be involved. We can gen-
eralize this second step to an event in the physical world that was
not designed as a measurement apparatus by a physical scientist,
but nevertheless leaves an indelible record of the collapse of a quan-
tum state. This might be a highly specific single event, or the macro-
scopic consequence of billions of atomic-molecular level of events.
Measurement 215
3) Finally, the third required element is an indelible determinate

record that can be looked at by an observer (presumably conscious,
although the consciousness itself has nothing to do with the mea-
surement).
When we have all three of these essential elements, we have what
we normally mean by a measurement and an observation, both
involving a human being.
When we have only the first two, we can say metaphorically that
the “universe is measuring itself,” creating an information record
of quantum collapse events. For example, every hydrogen atom
formed in the early recombination era is a record of the time period
when macroscopic bodies could begin to form. A certain pattern
of photons records the explosion of a supernova billions of light
years away. When recorded by the CCD in a telescope, it becomes
a potential observation at a later time when an astronomer looks at
the data.
Chapter 18
Craters on the back side of the moon have for billions of years
recorded collisions with solar system debris. But that could become
observations only when the first NASA Apollo mission circled the
moon.
Quantum Collapses Can Produce New Information
But they are not measurements, or even observations, until the
existence of a semi-permanent record has been made first.
And that permanence requires positive entropy to be carried
away from the event, whether in a physics lab, on the back of the
moon, in a distant supernova, or a photon emitted by an atom in the
cosmic microwave background.
If the positive entropy is not carried away, there is no permanent
(or semi-permanent) record to be observed.
In that case, the new information is simply destroyed. The vast
fraction of all quantum collapses do not produce lasting new infor-
mation. Just as the vast fraction of negative entropy streams avail-
able do not create any new information structures.14
14 See Appendix B for more details,
m i n i s m
e te r
Chapter 19

informationphilosopher.com/freedom/determinism.html
Determinism 217
Determinism
The “problem of determinism” looms large in philosophy, where
it appears as the powerful alternative to libertarian freedom in the
“problem of free will.”1
But determinism is equally powerful in physics today. It appears
to be the logical, the rational, even the metaphysical foundation of
classical Newtonian physics. The alternative of chance is thought
to be irrational. Chance cannot be a “reason” or an explanation,
which the Greeks called a “logos.” Chance is “alogos,” illogical. An
uncaused cause has long been considered oxymoronic by analytic
language philosophers who, to be sure, placed too much explana-
tory power in words.
Despite the fact that quantum physics seems to have shown that
the microscopic world at least is ontologically indeterministic, the
critics of quantum theory, who have developed several alternative
“interpretations” of quantum mechanics, are equally divided into
Chapter 19
those who accept the indeterminism and those, following Albert
Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, and many others, hope to show
that determinism can be restored to quantum theory by discover-
ing “hidden variables,” forces coming in “from outside space and
time,” or that there is only the “appearance” of randomness.
Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event or state
of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the inevi-
table and necessary consequence of antecedent states of affairs.
There is but one possible future.
More strictly, determinism should be distinguished from pre-
determinism, the idea that the entire past (as well as the future)
was determined at the origin of the universe.
Nor should determinism be confused with determination, the
idea that events (including human actions) can be adequately
determined by immediately prior events (such as an agent’s rea-
sons, motives, desires), without being pre-determined back to
before the agent’s birth or even back to the origin of the universe.
1 See chapter 4
Since modern quantum physics shows that the universe is inde-

terministic, with profound effects on microscopic processes at the
atomic scale, we will find it valuable to distinguish pre-determin-
ism from the adequate or statistical determinism that we have in
the real world. Adequate determinism, which may be arbitrarily
close to and indistinguishable from certainty, is the basis for the
classical physical laws that apply in the macrocosmos.
Determinism is a modern name (coined in the nineteenth-cen-
tury) for the ancient idea of Democritus that causal determinis-
tic laws control the motion of atoms, and that everything - includ-
ing human minds - consists merely of atoms in a void.
Democritus’ mentor and fellow materialist Leucippus said
absolute necessity leaves no room in the cosmos for chance.
“Nothing occurs at random, but everything for a reason and by neces-
sity.”
Determinism, especially the variation of “soft” determinism (cf.
William James) or compatibilism, is supported as a theory of free
Chapter 19
will by a majority of philosophers, each with special vested inter-

ests in one or more of the many determinisms.
Compatibilists accept determinism but argue that man is free as
long as his own will is one of the steps in the causal chain, even if
his choices are completely predetermined for physical reasons or
preordained by God.
And fatalism is a special form of determinism where every
event in the future is fated to happen. Fatalism does not normally
require that any causal laws or higher powers are involved. Que
sera, sera.
The core idea of determinism is closely related to the idea of
causality. But we can have causality without determinism, espe-
cially the “soft” causality that follows an “uncaused” event (a causa
sui) that is not predictable from prior events.
Aristotle called such events archai (ἀρχαί) - starting points
or “fresh starts” in new causal chains which break the bonds of
determinism.
Determinism 219
Despite David Hume’s critical attack on the necessity of causes,

many philosophers embrace causality and determinism strongly.
Some even connect it to the very possibility of logic and reason.
And Hume himself believed strongly, if inconsistently, in neces-
sity. “‘tis impossible to admit any medium betwixt chance and
necessity,”2 he said.
Bertrand Russell said causation may be a priori,
“The law of causation, according to which later events can theoreti-
cally be predicted by means of earlier events, has often been held to
be a priori, a necessity of thought, a category without which science
would not be possible.” 3
Indeterminism
The idea of indeterminism appears to threaten causality and
the basic idea of causal law. But it does not.
Indeterminism for some is simply an occasional event without
a cause. We can have an adequate causality without strict deter-
minism. Strict determinism means complete predictability (in
Chapter 19
principle, if not in practice) of events and only one possible future.
Adequate determinism provides statistical predictability, which in
normal situations for physical objects approaches statistical cer-
tainty.
An example of an event that is not strictly caused is one that
depends on chance, like the flip of a coin. If the outcome is only
probable, not certain, then the event can be said to have been
caused by the coin flip, but the head or tails result itself was not
predictable. So this causality, which recognizes prior events as
causes, is undetermined and the result of chance alone.
We call this “soft” causality. Events are caused by prior
(uncaused) events, but not determined by events earlier in the
causal chain, which has been broken by the uncaused cause.
Determinism is critical for the question of free will. Strict deter-
minism implies just one possible future. Chance means that the
future is unpredictable. Chance allows alternative futures and the
2 Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part I, Section XIV, p.171

3 Our Knowledge of the External World, p.179
question becomes how the one actual present is realized from these
alternative possibilities.
The departure required from strict determinism is very slight
compared to the miraculous ideas associated with the “causa sui”
(self-caused cause) of the ancients.
Even in a world that contains quantum uncertainty, macroscopic
objects are adequately, statistically determined to an extraordinary
degree. The macroscopic “laws of nature” are just statistical laws that
“emerge” when large numbers of atoms or molecules get together.
For large enough numbers, the probabilistic laws approach practical
certainty.
Determinism is an emergent property.4
Newton’s laws of motion are deterministic enough to send men
to the moon and back. Our two-stage model of free will5 is large
enough to ignore quantum uncertainty for the purpose of the
reasoning will. The neural system is robust enough to insure that
Chapter 19
mental decisions are reliably transmitted to our limbs.

We call this determinism, only ineffective for extremely small
structures, “adequate determinism.” It is adequate enough to pre-
dict eclipses for the next thousand years or more with extraordinary
precision.
Determination
Unlike his compatibilist predecessors, R.E.Hobart (the pseud-
onym of Harvard philosopher Dickinson S. Miller, a student of Wil-
liam James) explicitly does not endorse strict logical or physical
determinism. He uses the word “determination,” not determinism.
And he explicitly endorses the existence of alternative possibilities,
which can depend on absolute chance. Hobart is writing about six
years after the discovery of quantum indeterminacy.
He says:
I am not maintaining that determinism is true...it is not here affirmed
that there are no small exceptions, no slight undetermined swervings,
no ingredient of absolute chance.6
4 See chapter 26.

5 See chapter 4.
6 Mind, Vol XLIII, No. 169, January, 1934, p.2
Determinism 221
“We say,” I can will this or I can will that, whichever I choose “. Two
courses of action present themselves to my mind. I think of their conse-
quences, I look on this picture and on that, one of them commends itself
more than the other, and I will an act that brings it about. I knew that I
could choose either. That means that I had the power to choose either.7
Much later, Phillipa Foot argued that because our actions are
determined by our motives, our character and values, our feelings
and desires, in no way leads to the conclusion that they are pre-
determined from the beginning of the universe.
For instance, an action said to be determined by the desires of the man
who does it is not necessarily an action for which there is supposed to
be a sufficient condition. In saying that it is determined by his desires
we may mean merely that he is doing something that he wants to do, or
that he is doing it for the sake of something else that he wants. There is
nothing in this to suggest determinism.8
The presence of quantum uncertainty leads some philosophers to
call the world undetermined. But indeterminism is somewhat mis-
leading, with strong negative connotations, when most events are
overwhelmingly “adequately determined.” Nevertheless, speaking
Chapter 19
logically, if a single event is undetermined, then indeterminism is
true, and determinism false.
There is no problem imagining that the three traditional mental
faculties of reason - perception, conception, and comprehension -
are all carried on more or less deterministically in a physical brain
where quantum events do not interfere with normal operations.
There is also no problem imagining a role for randomness in
the brain in the form of quantum level noise. Noise can introduce
random errors into stored memories. Noise could create random
associations of ideas during memory recall. This randomness may
be driven by microscopic fluctuations that are amplified to the mac-
roscopic level.
Our macro mind needs the micro mind for the free action items
and thoughts in an agenda of alternative possibilities to be de-liber-
ated by the will. The random micro mind is the “free” in free will and
the source of human creativity. The adequately determined macro
7 ibid, p.8
8 “Free Will as Involving Determinism,” The Philosophical Review, vol LXVI,
(1957), p.441
mind is the “will” in free will that de-liberates, choosing actions for
which we can be morally responsible.
Determinism must be disambiguated from its close relatives cau-
sality, certainty, necessity, and predictability.
The Emergence of Determinism
Since the physical world is irreducibly indeterministic at the base
level of atoms and molecules, there is actually no strict determinism
at any “level” of the physical world.
With random motions at the base level, what emerges at the higher
level of the macroscopic physical world and the human mind is ade-
quate determinism. Determinism is an abstract theoretical idea that
simplifies physical systems enough to allow the use of logical and
mathematical methods on idealized abstract “objects” and “events.”
The apparent “determinism” of classical physics is the consequence
of averaging over extremely large numbers of microscopic particles.
Adequate determinism “emerges” when we have large enough
Chapter 19
objects to be averaging over vast numbers of atoms and molecules.

Determinism is an emergent property, just as the concept of
determinism emerged historically.
The History of Determinism9
The term (sic) determination is first attested in the late fourteenth
century, “to come to an end,” also “to settle, decide,” from O.Fr. deter-
miner (12c.), from L. determinare “set limits to,” from de- “off ” + ter-
minare “to mark the end or boundary,” from terminus “end, limit.”
Its sense of “coming to a firm decision” (to do something) is from
1450. Determination as a “quality of being resolute” dates from 1822.
Before the nineteenth century determinists were usually called
Necessarians. William Belsham contrasted them (favorably) with
the “incoherent” Libertarians in 1789. This was the first use of Lib-
ertarian. Libertarians were thought incoherent because liberty was
9 Sources, OED, Webster’s Third International

Determinism 223
thought to be unruly, random, unlawful, and - in a related term of

the day - libertine.
The noun “determinism” appears first in 1846 in Sir William
Hamilton’s edition of Thomas Reid’s works as a note on p.87.
“There are two schemes of Necessity - the Necessitation by efficient - the
Necessitation by final causes. The former is brute or blind Fate; the latter
rational Determinism.”
At about the same time, determinism is used by theologians to
describe lack of free will.
In 1855, William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) wrote,
“The theory of Determinism, in which the will is determined or swayed
to a particular course by external inducements and forced habits, so that
the consciousness of freedom rests chiefly upon an oblivion of the ante-
cedents of our choice.”
Ernst Cassirer claimed (mistakenly?) that determinism in the
philosophical sense of a “doctrine that everything that happens is
determined by a necessary chain of causation” dates from the work
Chapter 19
of Emil du Bois-Reymond in 1876.
Note that many ancient philosophers worried about this causal
chain (ἄλυσις), but those philosophers who allowed the existence
of chance, (Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, and Alexander of
Aphrodisias), denied such a causal chain, while maintaining that
human decisions were caused by neither chance nor necessity but
by a tertium quid - our autonomous human agency.
The adjective “determinist” appeared first in the Contemporary
Review of October 1874 - “The objections of our modern Deter-
minists.” In the Contemporary Review of March 1885, R. H. Hutton
described “The necessarian or determinist theory of human action.”
William James’s essay on “The Dilemma of Determinism”
appeared at about the same time, in 1884. In it he coined the terms
“soft determinism” (today’s compatibilism), and “hard determinism”
(strict determinism, indeed, pre-determinism from the beginning
of time).
o f t h e
a p s e
Col Function
l
Chapter 20
Wave

informationphilosopher.com/solutions/
experiments/wave-function_collapse/
Collapse 225
Collapse of the Wave Function

The probability amplitude wave function in quantum mechan-
ics and its indeterministic collapse during a measurement is with-
out doubt the most controversial problem in physics today. Of the
several “interpretations” of quantum mechanics, more than half
deny the collapse of the wave function1. Some of these deny quan-
tum “jumps” and even the existence of particles!
So it is very important to understand the importance of what
Paul Dirac called the projection postulate in quantum mechan-
ics. The “collapse of the wave function” is also known as the
“reduction of the wave packet.” This usually describes the change
from a system that can be seen as having many possible quantum
states (Dirac’s principle of superposition) to its randomly being
found in only one of those possible states.
Although the collapse is historically thought to be caused by
a measurement, and thus dependent on the role of a conscious
observer2 in preparing the experiment, collapses can occur when-
Chapter 20
ever quantum systems interact (e.g., collisions between particles)
or even spontaneously (radioactive decay).
The claim that a conscious observer is needed to collapse the
wave function has injected a severely anthropomorphic element
into quantum theory, suggesting that nothing happens in the
universe except when physicists are making measurements. An
extreme example is Hugh Everett III’s Many Worlds theory,
which says that the universe splits into two nearly identical uni-
verses whenever a measurement is made.
What is the Wave Function?
Perhaps the best illustration of the wave function is to show it
passing though the famous slits in a two-slit experiment. It has
been known for centuries that water waves passing through a
small opening creates circular waves radiating outward from that
opening. If there are two openings, the waves from each opening
1 See Other Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics on p.198
2 See The Role of the Conscious Observer on p.212
interfere with those from the other, producing waves twice as tall
at the crests (or deep in the troughs) and cancelling perfectly
where a crest from one meets a trough from the other.
When we send light waves through tiny slits, we see the same
phenomenon.
Most of the light that reaches light detectors at the back lands
right behind the barrier between the slits, which seems non-
intuitive. Most amazingly, at some places there are null points,
where no light at all appears in the interference pattern.
Chapter 20
Figure 20-15. Interfering waves show crests and troughs.
Since Einstein’s great hypothesis in 1905, we know that light

actually consists of large numbers of individual photons, quanta
of light. Our experiment can turn down the amount of light so
low that we know there is only a single photon, a single parti-
cle of light in the experiment at any time. What we see then is
the very slow accumulation of photons at the detectors, but with
exactly the same overall interference pattern. And this leads to
what Richard Feynman called not just a “mystery,” but actually
the “only mystery” in quantum mechanics. How can the particle
go through both slits to interfere with itself?
Collapse 227
We can show that a single particle does not interfere with itself.
It may only go through one slit, but with two slits open, its pos-
sible motions are different from the case with only one slit. Look
at the possibilities function with the right slit closed. We have a
completely different interference pattern.
Chapter 20
Figure 20-16. Many accounts say the interference fringes are lost, but there is still
interference between particles that come from different parts of the slit.
Information Physics Explains the Two-Slit Experiment

Although we cannot say anything about a single particle’s
whereabouts, information philosophy can help us to see clearly in
these two figures that while it may only go through one slit, what
goes through the two slits and what it is that interferes with itself is
abstract information, the mathematical probability of finding the
particle at each of the possible places it may go.
Neither matter nor energy, we call this abstract information the
“possibilities function.” The wave function is exploring all the pos-
sible locations where a particle may be found. So the quantum
wave going through the slit is an abstract number, neither mate-
rial nor energy, just a probability. It is information about where
particles of matter (or particles of light if we shoot photons at the
slit) will be found when we record them. Only large numbers of
experiments reveal the wave nature and its interference. The loca-
tion of a single particle is indeterminate, the result of ontological
chance.
But the average locations of millions of particles shows the wave-
like interference and demonstrates the causal power of the imma-
terial and abstract possibilities function. For example, no particle
lands at the null points!
Now information philosophy accepts that information needs
matter for its embodiment and energy for its communication. So
where is the “possibilities function” embodied? Before we explain
that, let’s first review why this function is said to “collapse.”
When Einstein first considered this problem in 1905, he thought
of the light wave as energy spread out everywhere in the wave. So it
was energy that he thought might be traveling faster than light, vio-
lating his brand new principle of relativity (published just two
months after his light quantum paper). Let’s visualize his concern.
Chapter 20
Figure 20-17. Once the particle appears anywhere, the possibilities of it appearing any-
where else must immediately vanish.
Collapse 229
Einstein assumed
the energy of a beam of light from a point source (according to the Max-
wellian theory of light or, more generally, according to any wave theory)
is continuously spread over an ever increasing volume... In accordance
with the assumption to be considered here, the energy of a light ray
spreading out from a point source is not continuously distributed over
an increasing space but consists of a finite number of energy quanta
which are localized at points in space, which move without dividing,
and which can only be produced and absorbed as complete units.3
The interfering probability amplitude waves disappear instantly
everywhere once the particle is detected, but we left a small frag-
ment of interfering waves on the left side of the figure to ask a ques-
tion first raised by Einstein in 1905.
What happens to the small but finite probability that the particle
might have been found at the left side of the screen? How has that
probability instantaneously (with “action-at-a-distance faster than
light speed) been collected into the unit probability at the dot?
The answer provided by information philosophy is that noth-
ing collapsed, nothing moved at any speed. The wave function is
Chapter 20
not energy or matter, it is only abstract information that tells us the
probabilities of various possibilities.
The idea of probability - or possibilities - “collapsing” is much
easier to understand than something material or energetic gather-
ing itself suddenly in one location. Probability and possibilities are
abstract ideas. They are immaterial.
It was at the Solvay conference in Brussels in 1927, twenty-two
years after Einstein first tried to understand what is happening
when the wave collapses, when he noted;
“If | ψ |2 were simply regarded as the probability that at a certain point
a given particle is found at a given time, it could happen that the same
elementary process produces an action ... assumes an entirely peculiar
mechanism of action at a distance.” 4
Einstein later came to call this spukhafte Fernwerkungen, “spooky
action at a distance.” It is now known as nonlocality.
3 “A Heuristic Viewpoint on the Production and Transformation of Light,” English
translation - American Journal of Physics, 33, 5, 367
4 Quantum Theory at the Crossroads, Bacciagaluppi and Valentini, 2009. p.442
Where Is Information About Probabilities Embodied?

Information philosophy can now answer this critical part of
the mystery. The information is not embodied in energy, as Ein-
stein finally realized. It is also not embodied in the matter of a par-
ticle, such as an electron. Einstein said that quantum mechanics is
“incomplete” because the particle has no definite position before a
measurement. He was right. But that is not because the particle is
distributed in space.
What is distributed in space is seen clearly in the figures above,
the waves of probability information. But where is that information
embodied? The answer is astonishingly simple. It is embodied in
the material of the experimental apparatus. It is in the “boundary
conditions” of the wall with its slits and the screen with its detectors.
The waves are simply the mathematical solutions of the
Schrödinger wave equation given the boundary conditions and the
wavelength of the particles. When one slit is closed, the abstract
“possibilities function” looks quite different from the two-slit open
Chapter 20
case. The mystery of how the particle going through one slit is aware
that the other slit is open or closed is completely solved.
We can regard those mathematical possibilities as the values of
what Einstein in 1921 called a “ghost field” or “leading field” that
predicts the probability of finding his light quanta. A few years later,
inspired by Einstein, Louis de Broglie called it a “pilot wave” in his
1924 thesis. Then in 1926, Max Born used Einstein’s idea as the basis
for a “statistical interpretation” of quantum mechanics. He wrote:
I shall recall a remark that Einstein made about the behavior of the wave
field and light quanta. He said that perhaps the waves only have to be
wherever one needs to know the path of the corpuscular light quanta,
and in that sense, he spoke of a “ghost field.” It determines the probabil-
ity that a light quantum - viz., the carrier of energy and impulse – fol-
lows a certain path; however, the field itself is ascribed no energy and
no impulse.
... from the complete analogy between light quanta and electrons, one
might consider formulating the laws of electron motion in a similar
manner. This is closely related to regarding the de Broglie-Schrödinger
waves as “ghost fields,” or better yet, “guiding fields.”
Collapse 231
... The paths of these corpuscles are determined only to the extent that
they are constrained by the law of energy and impulse; moreover, only a
probability that a certain path will be followed will be determined by the
function ψ. One can perhaps summarize this, somewhat paradoxically,
as: The motion of the particle follows the laws of probability, but the
probability itself propagates in accord with causal laws.5
The sudden change in probability also occurs in the Einstein-
Podolsky-Rosen experiments, where measurement of one particle
transmits neither matter or energy to the other “entangled” parti-
cle. Instead, new information has come into the universe instan-
taneously. That information, together with conservation of angular
momentum, makes the state of the coherently entangled second par-
ticle certain, however far away it might be after the measurement.6
The standard “orthodox” interpretation of quantum mechanics
includes the projection postulate. This is the idea that once one of
the possibilities becomes actual at one position, the probabilities
for actualization at all other positions becomes instantly zero. New
information has appeared, but there is no information transfer that
could be used to communicate that information.
Chapter 20
The principle of superposition tells us that before a measurement, a
system may be in one of many possible states. In the two-slit experi-
ment, this includes all the possible positions where |ψ(x)|2 is not
zero. Once the quantum system (the photon or electron) interacts
with a specific detector at the screen, all other possibilities vanish. It
is unfortunate that the word “collapse” was chosen, since it suggests
some physical motion, where nothing at all is moving when prob-
abilities change.
When we deny the appropriateness of the word “collapse,” we
do not deny the underlying indeterministic physics. Just as in
philosophy, where it is the language used that is often the source of
confusion, we find that thinking about the information involved,
rather than the words, clarifies the problem in physics.
5 Quantum mechanics of collision processes (Quantenmechanik der Stoßvorgänge),

Zeitschrift für Physik. 38 (1926), 803-827
6 See the next chapter for the two-particle wave function.
m e nt
n g l e
Enta
Chapter 21

informationphilosopher.com/problems/entanglement
Entanglement 233
Entanglement
Entanglement is a mysterious quantum phenomenon that is
widely, but mistakenly, described as capable of transmitting infor-
mation over vast distances faster than the speed of light. It has
proved very popular with science writers, philosophers of science,
and many scientists who hope to use the mystery to deny one or
more of the basic concepts underlying quantum physics.
Some commentators say that nonlocality and entanglement are
a “second revolution” in quantum mechanics, “the greatest mys-
tery in physics,” or “science’s strangest phenomenon,” and that
quantum physics has been “reborn.” They usually quote Erwin
Schrödinger as saying
“I would not call that one but rather the characteristic trait of quan-
tum mechanics,” the one that enforces its entire departure from clas-
sical lines of thought.”1
Schrödinger knew that his two-particle wave function could
not have the same simple interpretation as the single particle,
which can be visualized in ordinary three-dimensional configu-
Chapter 21
ration space. And he is right that entanglement exhibits a richer
form of the “action-at-a-distance” and nonlocality that Albert
Einstein had already identified in the collapse of the single par-
ticle wave function.
The main difference is that two particles instead of one acquire
new properties, and they do it instantaneously (at faster than light
speeds), just as in the case of a single-particle measurement, where
the finite probability of appearing at various distant locations col-
lapses to zero at the instant the particle is found somewhere. This
two-particle instantaneous interaction is nonseparability.
We can disagree with Schrödinger, who was enthusiastic about
the Einstein-Posolsky-Rosen attack in 1935 on quantum mechan-
ics as “incomplete” and who gave the phenomenon the name
“entanglement.” In fact, the entanglement of two indistinguishable
1 Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Volume 31,
Issue 04, October 1935, pp 555-563
particles can be completely understood with Paul Dirac’s prin-

ciple of superposition, his axiom of measurement, and his projec-
tion postulate. These three fundamentals of quantum mechanics
already explain the “mysterious” phenomena that are impossible
in classical mechanics, notably the one-particle mystery in the
two-slit experiment that Richard Feynman calls “the only mys-
tery” in quantum mechanics.
Information philosophy analyzes both the single-particle and
two-particle wave function “collapses” as a question of who knows
what when, that is, what information exists at each moment and
where about the particle(s).
Entanglement depends on two quantum properties that are
simply impossible in “classical” physics. One is called nonlocal-
ity. The other is nonseparability. Each of these might be consid-
ered a mystery in its own right, but fortunately information physics
(and the information interpretation of quantum mechanics) can
explain them both, with no equations, in a way that should be
understandable to the lay person.
Chapter 21
This may not be good news for the science writers and publish-
ers who turn out so many titles each year claiming that quantum
physics implies that there are multiple parallel universes, that the
minds of physicists are manipulating “quantum reality,” that there
is nothing “really” there until we look at it, that we can travel back-
wards in time, that things can be in two places at the same time,
that we can teleport material from one place to another, and of
course that we can send signals faster than the speed of light.
A second concern for Einstein was that the wave function ψ
for an isolated free particle evolves in time to occupy all space.
All positions become equally probable. Yet when we observe the
particle, it is always located at some particular place. This does
not prove that the particle had a particular place before the obser-
vation, but Einstein had a commitment to “elements of reality”
that he thought no one could doubt. One of those elements is
a particle’s position. He asked the question, “Does the particle
have a precise position the moment before it is measured?” The
Copenhagen answer was sometimes “no,” more often it was “we
don’t know,” or “Don’t ask?”
Entanglement 235
Einstein’s Discovery of Nonlocality and Nonseparability

Albert Einstein was the first to see the nonlocal character of
quantum phenomena. He may have seen it as early as 1905, the
same year he published his special theory of relativity. But it was
perfectly clear to him twenty-two years later (ten years after his
general theory of relativity and his explanation of how quanta of
light are emitted and absorbed by atoms), when he described non-
locality to a conference of physicists from around the world in
Belgium in 1927 at the fifth Solvay conference.
Then a few years later, in 1935, Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and
Nathan Rosen proposed a thought experiment (known by their
initials as EPR) to exhibit what they thought were internal contra-
dictions in the new quantum physics. Einstein hoped to show that
quantum theory could not describe certain intuitive “elements of
reality” and thus was either incomplete or, as he hoped, demon-
strably incorrect.
Einstein and his colleagues Schrödinger, Max Planck, David
Bohm, and others hoped for a return to deterministic physics, and
Chapter 21
the elimination of mysterious quantum phenomena like superpo-
sition of states and the “collapse” of the wave function. EPR contin-
ues to fascinate determinist philosophers of science who hope to
prove that quantum indeterminacy does not exist.
Beyond the problem of nonlocality, the EPR “thought experi-
ment” introduced the problem of “nonseparability.” This myste-
rious phenomenon appears to transfer something physical faster
than the speed of light. Actually there is merely an instantaneous
change in the immaterial information about probabilities or pos-
sibilities for locating the particles.
The 1935 EPR paper was based on a question of Einstein’s about
two electrons fired in opposite directions from a central source
with equal velocities. He imagined them starting at time t0 some
distance apart and approaching one another with high velocities.
Then for a short time interval from t1 to t1 + Δt the particles are in
contact with one another.
After the particles are measured at t1, quantum mechanics

describes them with a single two-particle wave function that is not
separable into the product of two independent single-particle wave
functions. Because electrons are indistinguishable particles, it is not
proper to say electron 1 goes this way and electron 2 that way. (Nev-
ertheless, it is convenient to label the particles, as we do in the illus-
trations below.) Until the next measurement, it is misleading to
think that specific particles have distinguishable paths. Either par-
ticle could be anywhere.
Einstein said correctly that at a later time t2, measurement of one
electron’s position would instantly establish the position of the other
electron - without measuring it explicitly.
Chapter 21
Figure 21-19. Einstein’s first explanation of “action-at-a-distance.”
In this first discussion of the problem, Einstein simply used con-

servation of linear momentum to calculate the position of the second
electron. Although conservation laws are rarely cited as the expla-
nation, they are the reason that entangled particles always produce
correlated results. If the results were not always correlated, the
implied violation of a fundamental conservation law would be a
much bigger story than entanglement itself, as interesting as that is.
Although Einstein mentioned conservation in the original EPR
paper, it is noticeably absent from later work. An exception is
Eugene Wigner, writing on the problem of measurement in 1963:
If a measurement of the momentum of one of the particles is carried out
— the possibility of this is never questioned — and gives the result p, the
state vector of the other particle suddenly becomes a (slightly damped)
plane wave with the momentum -p. This statement is synonymous with
Entanglement 237
the statement that a measurement of the momentum of the second par-

ticle would give the result -p, as follows from the conservation law for
linear momentum.2
This idea of something measured in one place “influencing”
measurements far away challenged what Einstein thought of as
“local reality.” He famously called nonseparability “spukhafte Fern-
wirkungen” or “spooky action at a distance.”
Einstein had objected to nonlocal phenomena as early as the
Solvay Conference of 1927, when he criticized the collapse of the
wave function as “instantaneous-action-at-a-distance.”
Oddly, Einstein’s criticism resembles the criticisms by René
Descartes and others about Newton’s theory of gravitation. New-
ton’s opponents charged that his theory was “action at a distance”
and instantaneous. Einstein’s general relativity shows that gravity is
not instantaneous. It travels at the speed of light and is mediated by
a gravitational field that can be viewed mathematically as curvature
in space-time.
But note that when a probability function collapses to unity in
one place and zero elsewhere, nothing physical is moving from one
Chapter 21
place to the other.
In 1964, John Bell showed how the 1935 “thought experiments”
of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) could be made into real
physical experiments. Bell put limits on the “hidden variables” that
might deny nonlocality and possibly restore a deterministic physics.
His test was in the form of what he called inequalities, the violation
of which would confirm standard quantum mechanics.
Since Bell’s work, many other physicists have defined other “Bell
inequalities” and developed increasingly sophisticated experiments
to test them. Every test has confirmed standard quantum mechan-
ics.
The first practical and workable experiments to test the EPR par-
adox had been suggested by David Bohm in 1952. Instead of only
linear momentum conservation, Bohm proposed using two elec-
trons that are prepared in an initial state of known total spin. If one
electron spin is 1/2 in the up direction and the other is spin down or
-1/2, the total spin is zero. The underlying physical law of impor-
2 “The Problem of Measurement,” in Quantum Theory and Measurement, Wheeler
and Zurek, p,340
tance is a second conservation law, in this case the conservation of

angular momentum. If electron 1 is prepared with spin down and
electron 2 with spin up, the total angular momentum is zero.
Figure 21-20. David Bohm changed EPR to measure electron spins.
Quantum theory says the two electrons are in a superposition of

combined spin up ( + ) and spin down ( - ) states,
| ψ > = 1/√2) | + - > - 1/√2) | - + > (1)
The principles of quantum mechanics say that the prepared
system is in a linear combination of these two states, and can pro-
Chapter 21
vide only the probabilities of finding the entangled system in either

the | + - > state or the | - + > state. Quantum mechanics does not
describe the paths or the spins of the individual particles. Note that
should measurements result in a | ++ > or | - - > state, that would
violate the conservation of angular momentum.
EPR tests can be done more easily with polarized photons than
with electrons, which require complex magnetic fields. The first of
these was done in 1972 by Stuart Freedman and John Clauser
at UC Berkeley. They used oppositely polarized photons (one with
spin = +1, the other spin = -1) coming from a central source. Again,
the total photon spin of zero is conserved. Their data, in agreement
with quantum mechanics, violated Bell’s inequalities to high statisti-
cal accuracy, thus providing strong evidence against local hidden-
variable theories and confirming quantum mechanics.
For more on superposition of states and the physics of photons,
see the Dirac 3-polarizers experiment in appendix B.
Clauser, Michael Horne, Abner Shimony, and Richard Holt
(known collectively as CHSH) and later Alain Aspect did more
Entanglement 239
sophisticated tests. The outputs of the polarization analyzers were

fed to a coincidence detector that records the instantaneous mea-
surements, described as + -, - +, + +, and - - . The first two ( + - and
- + ) conserve the spin angular momentum and are the only types
ever observed in these nonlocality/entanglement tests.
Figure 21-21. The CHSH teams looked for perfect synchronization.
Chapter 21
With the exception of some of Holt’s early results that were later
found to be erroneous, no evidence has so far been found of any fail-
ure of standard quantum mechanics. And as experimental accuracy
has improved by orders of magnitude, quantum physics has cor-
respondingly been confirmed to one part in 1016, and the speed of
any transfer of information between particles has a lower limit of
106 times the speed of light. There has been no evidence for local
“hidden variables.”
Nicolas Gisin and his colleagues have extended the polarized
photon tests of EPR and the Bell inequalities to a separation of 18
kilometers near Geneva. They continue to find 100% correlation
and no evidence of the “hidden variables” sought after by Einstein
and David Bohm.
Nevertheless, wishful-thinking experimenters continue to look
for possible “loopholes” in the experimental results, such as detec-
tor inefficiencies that might be hiding results favorable to Einstein’s
picture of “local reality.”
The Importance of Conservation Laws in Entanglement

Conservation laws are the consequence of extremely deep prop-
erties of nature that arise from simple considerations of symmetry.
We regard these laws as “cosmological principles.” Physical laws
do not depend on the absolute place and time of experiments, nor
their particular direction in space. Conservation of linear momen-
tum depends on the translation invariance of physical systems, con-
servation of energy the independence of time, and conservation of
angular momentum the invariance under rotations.
Recall that the EPR experiment starts with two electrons (or pho-
tons) prepared in an entangled state that is a linear combination of
pure two-particle states, each of which conserves the total angular
momentum and, of course, conserves the linear momentum as in
Einstein’s original EPR example. The initial information about the
linear and angular momenta is established by the state preparation
(a measurement).
Quantum mechanics describes the probability amplitude wave
function ψ of the two-particle system as in a superposition of two-
Chapter 21
particle states. It is not separable into a product of single-particle

states, and there is no information about the identical indistinguish-
able electrons traveling along distinguishable paths.
The probability amplitude wave function ψ travels from the
source (at the speed of light or less). Let’s assume that at t1 observer
A finds an electron (e1) with spin up.
After the “first” measurement, new information comes into exis-
tence telling us that the wave function ψ has “collapsed” into the
state | + - >. Just as in the two-slit experiment, probabilities have
now become certainties. If the “first” measurement finds electron 1
is spin up, so the entangled electron 2 must be found by observer B
to be in a “second” measurement with spin down to conserve angu-
lar momentum.
Notice that Einstein’s intuition is in part correct that the “second”
result seems already “determined” or “fixed” before the second mea-
surement. The result is determined by the law of conservation of
momentum that the total the spin must remain zero.
Entanglement 241
But the measurement by observer B was not pre-determined

before observer A’s measurement. It was simply determined by her
measurement. And conservation of linear momentum tells us that at
t1 the second electron is equidistant from the source in the opposite
direction.
As with any wave-function collapse, the probability amplitude
information “travels” instantly.
But unlike the single particle in the two-slit experiment, where
the collapse goes to a specific point in 3-dimensional configuration
space, the “collapse” here is a “projection” into one of the two pos-
sible 6-dimensional two-particle quantum states | + - > or | - + >.
Just as the single particle in the two-slit experiment did not have
a position before the measurement, the two particles, which just
before the measurement did not have positions, instantly acquire
their positions in a space-like separation after the measurement.
This makes “visualization” (Schrödinger’s Anschaulichkeit) more
difficult, but the parallel with the collapse in the two-slit case pro-
vides an intuitive insight of sorts.
Chapter 21
Schrödinger said that his “Wave Mechanics” provided more
“visualizability” than the “damned quantum jumps” of the Copen-
hagen school, as he called them. He was right.
But we must focus on the probability amplitude wave function
of the prepared two-particle state, and not attempt to describe the
paths or locations of independent particles - which is only possi-
ble after some measurement has been made. We must also keep in
mind the conservation laws that Einstein used to describe nonlocal
behavior in the first place. Then we can see that the “mystery” of
nonlocality for two particles is primarily the same mystery as the
single-particle collapse of the wave function. But there is an extra
mystery, one we might call an “enigma,” of the nonseparability of
identical indistinguishable particles.
In his 1935 paper (and his correspondence with Einstein),
Schrödinger described the two particles in EPR as “entangled” in
English, verschränkt in German, which means something like cross-
linked. It describes someone standing with arms crossed.
In the time evolution of an entangled two-particle state according

to the Schrödinger equation, we can visualize it (just as we visualize
the single-particle wave function) as collapsing when a measure-
ment is made. The discontinuous “jump” is also described as the
“reduction of the wave packet.” This is apt in the two-particle case,
where the superposition of | + - > and | - + > states is “projected” or
“reduced to one of these states, say | - + >, and then further reduced
to the product of two independent one-particle states, | - >| + >.
Measurement of a two-particle wave function simultaneously
measures both particles, reducing them to separate one-particle
wave functions, after which they are no longer entangled.
When entangled, the particles are nonseparable. Once measured,
they are separate quantum systems with their own wave functions.
They are no longer entangled.
In the two-particle case (instead of just one particle making an
appearance), when either particle is measured we know instantly
the now determinate properties of the other particle. They are the
properties that satisfy the conservation laws, including its location
Chapter 21
equidistant from, but on the opposite side of, the source, and the
complementary spin.
In the one-particle case, it has no definite position before the
experiment, then it appears somewhere. For two particles, neither
one has a position, then both appear simultaneously (in an appro-
priate frame of reference and with required opposite spins).3
Can a Special Frame Resolve the EPR Paradox?
Almost every presentation of the EPR paradox begins with some-
thing like “Alice observes one particle...” and concludes with the
question “How does the second particle get the information needed
so that Bob’s measurements correlate perfectly with Alice?”
There is a fundamental asymmetry in this framing of the EPR
experiment. It is a surprise that Einstein, who was so good at seeing
deep symmetries, did not consider how to remove the asymmetry.
3 For an animation of a two-particle measurement, see informationphilosopher.
com/solutions/experiments/EPR/EPR-collapse.gif
Entanglement 243
Consider this reframing: Alice’s measurement collapses the two-

particle wave function. The two indistinguishable particles simul-
taneously appear at locations in a space-like separation. The frame
of reference in which the source of the two entangled particles and
the two experimenters are at rest is a special frame in the following
sense.
As Einstein knew very well, there are frames of reference moving
with respect to the laboratory frame of the two observers in which
the time order of the events can be reversed. In some moving frames
Alice measures first, but in others Bob measures first.
If there is a special frame of reference (not a preferred frame in the
relativistic sense), surely it is the one in which the origin of the two
entangled particles is at rest. Assuming that Alice and Bob are also
at rest in this special frame and equidistant from the origin, we
arrive at the simple picture in which any measurement that causes
the two-particle wave function to collapse makes both particles
appear simultaneously at determinate places with fully correlated
properties (just those that are needed to conserve energy, momen-
tum, angular momentum, and spin).
Chapter 21
Figure 21-22. In this special frame the source and measurements are at rest and
both measurements are made at exactly the same time.
Clearly, the idea that different relativistic frames of reference

change the order of the measurements throws doubt on claims by
either observer to “measure first.”
We can also ask what happens if Bob is not at the same distance
from the origin as Alice. This introduces a positional asymmetry.
But there is still no time asymmetry from the point of view of the
two-particle wave function collapse.
Figure 21-23. Here Alice measures long before Bob’s measurement.
When Alice detects a particle (with spin up), at that instant the
other particle also becomes determinate (with spin down) at the
same distance on the other side of the origin. It continues, in that
determinate state, to Bob’s measuring apparatus.
Our idea of a special frame is not new.
Back in the 1960’s, C. W. Rietdijk and Hilary Putnam inde-
Chapter 21
pendently, but mistakenly, argued that physical determinism could

be proved true by considering the experiments and observers A and
B in the diagram below to be moving at high speed with respect to
one another. Roger Penrose developed a similar argument in his
book The Emperor’s New Mind, called the “Andromeda Paradox.”
Figure 21-24. Physicists have known about our “special frame” for decades.
Entanglement 245
Nicolas Gisin’s colleagues, Antoine Suarez and Valerio Sca-

rani, used this idea of hyperplanes of simultaneity to make what
they called “before-before” measurements.
Suarez and Scarani used the fact that for some relative speeds
between the two observers A and B, observer A could “see” the mea-
surement of observer B to be in his future, and vice versa. Because
the two experiments have a “space-like” separation (neither is inside
the causal light cone of the other), each observer thinks he does his
own measurement before the other.
Gisin tested the limits on this effect by moving mirrors in the
path to the birefringent crystals and showed that, like all other Bell
experiments, the “before-before” suggestion of Suarez and Scarani
did nothing to invalidate quantum mechanics.
But these experiments were able to put a lower limit on the speed
with which the information about probabilities collapses, estimat-
ing it as at least thousands - perhaps millions - of times the speed
of light and showed empirically that probability collapses are essen-
tially instantaneous.
Chapter 21
Despite all his experimental tests verifying quantum physics,
including the “reality” of nonlocality and entanglement, Nicolas
Gisin continues to explore the EPR paradox, considering the pos-
sibility that signals are coming to the entangled particles from “out-
side space-time.”
Do We Need Superdeterminism?
During a mid-1980’s interview by BBC Radio 3 organized by P.
C. W. Davies and J. R. Brown, John Bell proposed the idea of a
“superdeterminism” that could explain the correlation of results in
entangled two-particle experiments without the need for faster-
than-light signaling. The two experiments need only have been pre-
determined by causes reaching both experiments from an earlier
time.
Davies: I was going to ask whether it is still possible to maintain, in the
light of experimental experience, the idea of a deterministic universe?
Bell: You know, one of the ways of understanding this business is to say
that the world is super-deterministic. That not only is inanimate nature
deterministic, but we, the experimenters who imagine we can choose to

do one experiment rather than another, are also determined. If so, the
difficulty which this experimental result creates disappears.4
Bell’s superdeterminism would deny the important “free choice”
of the experimenter (originally suggested by Bohr and Heisenberg)
and later explored by John Conway and Simon Kochen. Conway
and Kochen claim that the experimenters’ free choice requires that
atoms must have free will, something they call their Free Will Theo-
rem.
In his 1996 book, Time’s Arrow and Archimedes’ Point, Huw
Price proposes an Archimedean point “outside space and time” as
a solution to the problem of nonlocality in the Bell experiments in
the form of an “advanced action.”
Rather than a “superdeterministic” common cause coming from
“outside space and time” (as proposed by Bell, Gisin, Suarez, and
others), Price argues that there might be a cause coming backwards
in time from some interaction in the future. Penrose and Stuart
Hameroff have also promoted this idea of “backward causation,”
sending information backward in time in the Libet experiments and
Chapter 21
in the EPR experiments.

EPR “Loopholes” and Free Will
Investigators who try to recover the “elements of local reality”
that Einstein wanted, and who hope to eliminate the irreducible
randomness of quantum mechanics that follows from wave func-
tions as probability amplitudes, often cite “loopholes” in EPR exper-
iments. For example, the “detection loophole” claims that the effi-
ciency of detectors is so low that they are missing many events that
might prove Einstein was right.
Most all the loopholes have now been closed, but there is one
loophole that can never be closed because of its metaphysical/philo-
sophical nature. That is the “(pre-)determinism loophole.”
4 The Ghost in the Atom, P.C.W. Davies and J. Brown, ch.3, p.47
Entanglement 247
If every event occurs for reasons that were established at the

beginning of the universe, then all the careful experimental results
are meaningless. Conway and Kochen have formalized this loop-
hole in what they call the Free Will Theorem.
Although Conway and Kochen do not claim to have proven free
will in humans, they assert that should such a freedom exist, then
the same freedom must apply to the elementary particles.
What Conway and Kochen are really describing is nothing more
than the indeterminism that quantum mechanics has introduced
into the world. Although indeterminism is a requirement for human
freedom, it is insufficient by itself to provide both “free” and “will”
as we saw in chapter 4.
We also need the adequate or statistical determinism in the second
stage of “free will” to ensure that whatever our “free choice” may be,
it has been made consistent with our reasons for the choice.
There are no such considerations of reasons, motives, feelings,
etc. going on at the quantum level for electrons. But Conway and
Kochen are right about the fundamental connection between quan-
Chapter 21
tum indeterminism and free will.
re n ce
co h e
De
Chapter 22

informationphilosopher.com/problems/decoherence
Decoherence 249
Decoherence
Decoherence is the study of interactions between a quantum
system (generally a very small number of microscopic particles
like electrons, photons, atoms, molecules, etc. - often just a single
particle) and the larger macroscopic environment, which is nor-
mally treated “classically,” that is, by ignoring quantum effects, but
which decoherence theorists study quantum mechanically. Deco-
herence theorists attribute the absence of macroscopic quantum
effects like interference (which is a coherent process) to interac-
tions between a quantum system and the larger macroscopic envi-
ronment.
They maintain that no system can be completely isolated from
the environment. Decoherence, they say, accounts for the disap-
pearance of macroscopic quantum effects, and is experimentally
correlated with the loss of isolation.
Niels Bohr maintained that a macroscopic apparatus used to
“measure” quantum systems must be treated classically. John von
Neumann, on the other hand, assumed that everything is made
Chapter 22
of quantum particles, even the mind of the observer. This led him
and Werner Heisenberg to say that a “cut” must be located
somewhere between the quantum system and the mind, which
would operate in a sort of “psycho-physical parallelism.”1
A main characteristic of quantum systems is the appearance of
wavelike interference effects. These only show up in large numbers
of repeated identical experiments that make measurements on
single particles at a time. Interference is never directly “observed”
in a single experiment. When interference is present in a system,
the system is called “coherent.” Decoherence then is the loss or
suppression of that interference.
Interference experiments require that the system of interest
is extremely well isolated from the environment, except for the
“measurement apparatus.” This apparatus must be capable of
recording the information about what has been measured. It can
1 Not to be confused with panpsychism.
be a photographic plate or an electron counter, anything capable

of registering a quantum level event, usually by releasing a cascade
of metastable processes that amplify the quantum-level event to
the macroscopic “classical” world, where an “observer” can see the
result.
This does not mean that specific quantum level events are deter-
mined by that observer (as noted by several of the great quantum
physicists - Max Born, Pascual Jordan, Erwin Schrödinger,
Paul Dirac, and textbook authors Landau and Lifshitz, Albert
Messiah, and Kurt Gottfried, among others). Quantum pro-
cesses are happening all the time. Most quantum events are never
observed, let alone measured, though they can be inferred from
macroscopic phenomenological observations.
To be sure, those quantum events that are “measured” in a phys-
ics experiment which is set up to measure a certain quantity are
dependent on the experimenter and the design of the experiment.
To measure the electron spin in a Stern-Gerlach experiment, for
example, the experimenter is “free to choose” to measure the
z-component of the spin, rather than the x- or y-component. This
Chapter 22
will influence quantum level events in the following ways:

The experimental outcome will produce a definite value for the
z-component of the spin (either +1/2 or -1/2)
The x-component of the spin after the measurement will be in a
linear combination/superposition of +1/2 or -1/2 states
| ψ > = (1/√2) | +1/2 > + (1/√2) | -1/2 >
It is in this sense that Bohr and Heisenberg described proper-
ties of the quantum world as not existing until we make a mea-
surement. We have a “free choice” which experiment we perform,
what we measure. If we measure position for example, the precise
position value did not exist immediately before the measurement.
On the other hand, we can not create the particular value for
the position. This is a “random choice made by nature,” as Dirac
put it.
Decoherence 251
The Decoherence Program

The “decoherence program” of H. Dieter Zeh, Erich Joos,
Wojciech Zurek, John Wheeler, Max Tegmark, and others
has multiple aims -
• to show how classical physics emerges from quantum physics.
They call this the “quantum to classical transition.”
• to explain the failure to see any macroscopic superpositions of
quantum states (e.g., Schrödinger’s Cat as a superposition of live
and dead cats).
• in particular, to identify the mechanism that suppresses
(“decoheres”) interference between states as something involving
the “environment” beyond the system and measuring apparatus.
• to explain the appearance of particles following paths (they
actually say there are no “particles,” and maybe no paths).
• to explain the appearance of discontinuous transitions between
quantum states (they say there are no “quantum jumps” either)
• to champion an Everett-style “universal wave function” (as a
superposition of states) that evolves in a “unitary” fashion (i.e.,
Chapter 22
deterministically) according to the Schrödinger equation.
• to clarify and perhaps solve the measurement problem, which
they define as the lack of macroscopic superpositions.
• to explain the “arrow of time.”
• to revise the foundations of quantum mechanics by changing
some of its assumptions, notably challenging the “collapse” of the
wave function.
Decoherence theorists say that they add no new elements to
quantum mechanics (such as “hidden variables”) but they do deny
one of the three basic assumptions - namely Dirac’s projection pos-
tulate. This is the method used to calculate the probabilities of
various outcomes, which probabilities are confirmed to several
significant figures by the statistics of large numbers of identically
prepared experiments.
Decoherence theorists accept (even overemphasize) Dirac’s

principle of superposition. Some decoherence theorists also accept
the axiom of measurement, although some of them question the link
between eigenstates and eigenvalues.
The decoherence program hopes to offer insights into several
other important phenomena:
• What Zurek calls the “einselection” (environment-induced
superselection) of preferred states (the so-called “pointer states”) in
a measurement apparatus.
• The role of the observer in quantum measurements.
• Nonlocality and quantum entanglement (which is used to
“derive” decoherence).
• The origin of irreversibility (by “continuous monitoring”).
• The approach to thermal equilibrium.
The decoherence program finds unacceptable the following
aspects of the standard quantum theory:
• Quantum “jumps” between energy eigenstates.
Chapter 22
• The “apparent” collapse of the wave function.

• In particular, explanation of the collapse as a “mere” increase of
information.
• The “appearance” of “particles.”
• The “inconsistent” Copenhagen Interpretation - quantum
“system,” classical “apparatus.”
• The “insufficient” Ehrenfest Theorems.
Decoherence theorists admit that some problems remain to
be addressed, especially the “problem of outcomes.” Without the
collapse postulate, it is not clear how definite outcomes are to be
explained.
As Tegmark and Wheeler put it:
The main motivation for introducing the notion of wave-function col-
lapse had been to explain why experiments produced specific outcomes
and not strange superpositions of outcomes...it is embarrassing that
Decoherence 253
nobody has provided a testable deterministic equation specifying pre-

cisely when the mysterious collapse is supposed to occur.2
Some of the controversial positions in decoherence theory,
including the denial of collapses and particles, come straight from
the work of Schrödinger, for example his 1952 essays “Are There
Quantum Jumps?” (Part I and Part II), where he denies the exis-
tence of “particles,” claiming that everything can be understood as
his waves alone.
Other important sources for decoherence theorists include:
Hugh Everett III and his “relative state” or “many world” inter-
pretation of quantum mechanics; Eugene Wigner’s article on the
problem of measurement; and John Bell’s reprise of Schrödinger’s
arguments against quantum jumps.
Decoherence advocates therefore look to other attempts to for-
mulate quantum mechanics. Also called “interpretations,” these are
more often reformulations, with different basic assumptions about
the foundations of quantum mechanics. Most assume the “univer-
sal” applicability of the unitary time evolution that results from the
Schrödinger wave equation. They include these formulations::
• DeBroglie-Bohm “pilot-wave” or “hidden variables”.
Chapter 22
• Everett-DeWitt “relative-state” or “many worlds”.
• Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber “spontaneous collapse”.
Note that these “interpretations” are often in serious conflict
with one another. Where Schrödinger thinks that waves alone can
explain everything (there are no particles in his theory), David
Bohm thinks that particles not only exist but that every particle has
a definite position that is a “hidden parameter” of his theory. H.
Dieter Zeh, the founder of decoherence, sees
one of two possibilities: a modification of the Schrödinger equation that
explicitly describes a collapse (also called “spontaneous localization”)
or an Everett type interpretation, in which all measurement outcomes
are assumed to exist in one formal superposition, but to be perceived
separately as a consequence of their dynamical autonomy resulting from
decoherence. It was John Bell who called Everett’s many-worlds picture
“extravagant,” While this latter suggestion has been called “extravagant”
2 Scientific American, February 2001, p.75.
(as it requires myriads of co-existing quasi-classical “worlds”), it is simi-

lar in principle to the conventional (though nontrivial) assumption,
made tacitly in all classical descriptions of observation, that conscious-
ness is localized in certain semi-stable and sufficiently complex subsys-
tems (such as human brains or parts thereof) of a much larger external
world. Occam’s razor, often applied to the “other worlds”, is a danger-
ous instrument: philosophers of the past used it to deny the existence
of the interior of stars or of the back side of the moon, for example. So
it appears worth mentioning at this point that environmental decoher-
ence, derived by tracing out unobserved variables from a universal wave
function, readily describes precisely the apparently observed “quantum
jumps” or “collapse events.”3
The information interpretation of quantum mechanics4 also has
explanations for the measurement problem, the arrow of time,
and the emergence of adequately, i.e., statistically determined clas-
sical objects. However, I-Phi does it while accepting the standard
assumptions of orthodox quantum physics.
We briefly review the standard theory of quantum mechanics and
compare it to the “decoherence program,” with a focus on the details
of the measurement process. We divide measurement into several
distinct steps, in order to clarify the supposed “measurement prob-
lem” (mostly the lack of macroscopic state superpositions) and per-
Chapter 22
haps “solve” it.

The most famous example of probability-amplitude-wave inter-
ference is the two-slit experiment. Interference is between the prob-
ability amplitudes whose absolute value squared gives us the prob-
ability of finding the particle at various locations behind the screen
with the two slits in it.
Finding the particle at a specific location is said to be a
“measurement.”5
In standard quantum theory, a measurement is made when the
quantum system is “projected” or “collapsed” or “reduced” into a
single one of the system’s allowed states. If the system was “pre-
pared” in one of these “eigenstates,” then the measurement will find
it in that state with probability one (that is, with certainty).
3 Decoherence and the Appearance of a Classical World in Quantum Theory, p.22
4 See chapter 17.
5 See chapter 18.
Decoherence 255
However, if the system is prepared in an arbitrary state ψa, it can

be represented as being in a linear combination of the system’s basic
energy states φn.
ψa = Σ cn | n >.
where
cn = < ψa | φn >.
It is said to be in “superposition” of those basic states. The prob-
ability Pn of its being found in state φn is
Pn = < ψa | φn >2 = cn2 .
Between measurements, the time evolution of a quantum system
in such a superposition of states is described by a unitary transfor-
mation U(t0,t1) that preserves the same superposition of states as
long as the system does not interact with another system, such as a
measuring apparatus. As long as the quantum system is completely
isolated from any external influences, it evolves continuously and
deterministically in an exactly predictable (causal) manner.
Whenever the quantum system does interact however, with
another particle or an external field, its behavior ceases to be causal
Chapter 22
and it evolves discontinuously and indeterministically. This acausal
behavior is uniquely quantum mechanical. Nothing like it is possi-
ble in classical mechanics. Most attempts to “reinterpret” or “refor-
mulate” quantum mechanics are attempts to eliminate this discon-
tinuous acausal behavior and replace it with a deterministic process.
We must clarify what we mean by “the quantum system” and “it
evolves” in the previous two paragraphs. This brings us to the mys-
terious notion of “wave-particle duality.” In the wave picture, the
“quantum system” refers to the deterministic time evolution of the
complex probability amplitude or quantum state vector ψa, accord-
ing to the “equation of motion” for the probability amplitude wave
ψa, which is the Schrödinger equation,
ih/2π δψa/δt = H ψa.
The probability amplitude looks like a wave and the Schrödinger
equation is a wave equation. But the wave is an abstract quantity
whose absolute square is the probability of finding a quantum parti-
cle somewhere. It is distinctly not the particle, whose exact position
is unknowable while the quantum system is evolving deterministi-

cally. It is the probability amplitude wave that interferes with itself.
Particles, as such, never interfere (although they may collide).
Note that we never “see” the superposition of particles in distinct
states. There is no microscopic superposition in the sense of the
macroscopic superposition of live and dead cats.6
When the particle interacts, with the measurement apparatus for
example, we always find a whole particle. It suddenly appears. For
example, an electron “jumps” from one orbit to another, absorbing
or emitting a discrete amount of energy (a photon). When a photon
or electron is fired at the two slits, its appearance at the photographic
plate is sudden and discontinuous. The probability wave instanta-
neously becomes concentrated at the location of the particle.
There is now unit probability (certainty) that the particle is
located where we find it to be. This is described as the “collapse”
of the wave function.7 Where the probability amplitude might have
evolved under the unitary transformation of the Schrödinger equa-
tion to have significant non-zero values in a very large volume of
phase space, all that probability suddenly “collapses” (faster than the
Chapter 22
speed of light, which deeply bothered Albert Einstein in 1905) to

the location of the particle.
Einstein said that some mysterious “spooky action-at-a-distance”
must act to prevent the appearance of a second particle at a dis-
tant point where a finite probability of appearing had existed just an
instant earlier.
Whereas the abstract probability amplitude moves continuously
and deterministically throughout space, the concrete particle moves
discontinuously and indeterministically to a particular point in
space.
For this collapse to be a “measurement,” the new information
about which location (or state) the system has collapsed into must
be recorded somewhere in order for it to be “observable” by a sci-
entist. But the vast majority of quantum events - e.g., particle colli-
sions that change the particular states of quantum particles before
6 See chapter 23.
7 See chapter 20.
Decoherence 257
and after the collision - do not leave an indelible record of their new
states anywhere (except implicitly in the particles themselves).
We can imagine that a quantum system initially in state ψa has
interacted with another system and as a result is in a new state φ,
without any macroscopic apparatus around to record this new state
for a “conscious observer.”
H. D. Zeh describes how quantum systems may be “measured”
without the recording of information.
It is therefore a plausible experimental result that the interference disap-
pears also when the passage [of an electron through a slit] is “measured”
without registration of a definite result. The latter may be assumed to
have become a “classical fact” as soon as the measurement has irrevers-
ibly “occurred”. A quantum phenomenon may thus “become a phenom-
enon” without being observed. This is in contrast to Heisenberg’s remark
about a trajectory coming into being by its observation, or a wave func-
tion describing “human knowledge”. Bohr later spoke of objective irre-
versible events occurring in the counter. However, what precisely is an
irreversible quantum event? According to Bohr this event can not be
dynamically analyzed.
Analysis within the quantum mechanical formalism demonstrates
nonetheless that the essential condition for this “decoherence” is that
Chapter 22
complete information about the passage is carried away in some objec-
tive physical form. This means that the state of the environment is now
quantum correlated (entangled) with the relevant property of the system
(such as a passage through a specific slit). This need not happen in a
controllable way (as in a measurement): the “information” may as well
form uncontrollable “noise”, or anything else that is part of reality. In
contrast to statistical correlations, quantum correlations characterize
real (though nonlocal) quantum states - not any lack of information. In
particular, they may describe individual physical properties, such as the
non-additive total angular momentum J2 of a composite system at any
distance.8
The Measurement Process
In order to clarify the measurement process, we separate it into
several distinct stages, as follows:
A particle collides with another microscopic particle or with a
macroscopic object (which might be a measuring apparatus).
8 Decoherence and the Appearance..., pp.13-14
In this scattering problem, we ignore the internal details of the

collision and say that the incoming initial state ψa has changed
asymptotically (discontinuously, and randomly, viz., wave-function
collapse) into the new outgoing final state φn.
Note that if we prepare a very large number of identical initial
states ψa , the fraction of those ending up in the final state φn is just
the probability
|< ψa | φn >|2.
The information that the system was in state ψa has been lost (its
path information has been erased; it is now “noise,” as Zeh describes
it). New information exists (implicitly in the particle, if not stored
anywhere else) that the particle is in state φn.
If the collision is with a large enough (macroscopic) apparatus, it
might be capable of recording the new system state information, by
changing the quantum state of the apparatus into a “pointer state”
correlated with the new system state.
“Pointers” could include the precipitated silver-bromide mole-
cules of a photographic emulsion, the condensed vapor of a Wilson
cloud chamber, or the cascaded discharge of a particle detector.
Chapter 22
But this new information will not be indelibly recorded unless the
recording apparatus can transfer entropy away from the apparatus
greater than the negative entropy equivalent of the new information
(to satisfy the second law of thermodynamics). This is the second
requirement in every two-step creation of new information in the
universe.
The new information could be meaningful to an information
processing agent who could not only observe it but understand it.
Now neurons would fire in the mind of the conscious observer that
von Neumann and Wigner thought was necessary for the measure-
ment process to occur at all.
Von Neumann (perhaps influenced by the mystical thoughts
of Niels Bohr about mind and body as examples of his
“complementarity”) saw three levels in a measurement;
Decoherence 259
• the system to be observed, including light up to the retina of the

observer.
• the observer’s retina, nerve tracts, and brain
• the observer’s abstract “ego.”
John Bell asked tongue-in-cheek whether no wave function
could collapse until a scientist with a Ph.D. was there to observe it.
He drew a famous diagram of what he called von Neumann’s “shifty
split.”
Bell shows that one could place the arbitrary “cut” (Heisenberg
called it the “Schnitt”) at various
levels without making any dif-
ference.
But an “objective” observer-
independent measurement
ends when irreversible new
information has been indelibly
recorded (in the photographic
plate of Bell’s drawing).
Chapter 22
Von Neumann’s physical and
mental levels are perhaps better
discussed as the mind-body
Figure 22-25. Bell’s “shifty split.”
problem.9 It is not really the
measurement problem in quantum physics.10
The Measurement Problem
So what exactly is the “measurement problem?”
For decoherence theorists, the unitary transformation of the
Schrödinger equation cannot alter a superposition of microscopic
states. Why then, when microscopic states are time evolved into
macroscopic ones, don’t macroscopic superpositions emerge?
According to H. D. Zeh:
Because of the dynamical superposition principle, an initial superposi-
tion Σ cn | n > does not lead to definite pointer positions (with their
empirically observed frequencies). If decoherence is neglected, one
9 See chapter 13.

10 See chapter 18.
obtains their entangled superposition Σ cn | n > | Φn >, that is, a state that
is different from all potential measurement outcomes.11
And according to Erich Joos, another founder of decoherence:
It remains unexplained why macro-objects come only in narrow wave
packets, even though the superposition principle allows far more “non-
classical” states (while micro-objects are usually found in energy eigen-
states). Measurement-like processes would necessarily produce nonclas-
sical macroscopic states as a consequence of the unitary Schrödinger
dynamics. An example is the infamous Schrödinger cat, steered into a
superposition of “alive” and “dead”.12
The fact that we don’t see superpositions of macroscopic objects
is the “measurement problem,” according to Zeh and Joos.
An additional problem is that decoherence is a completely uni-
tary process (Schrödinger dynamics) which implies time reversibil-
ity. What then do decoherence theorists see as the origin of irrevers-
ibility? Can we time reverse the decoherence process and see the
quantum-to-classical transition reverse itself and recover the origi-
nal coherent quantum world?
To “relocalize” the superposition of the original system, we need
only have complete control over the environmental interaction. This
Chapter 22
is of course not practical, just as Ludwig Boltzmann found in the

case of Josef Loschmidt’s reversibility objection.13
Does irreversibility in decoherence have the same rationale -
“not possible for all practical purposes” - as in classical statistical
mechanics?
According to more conventional thinkers, the measurement
problem is the failure of the standard quantum mechanical formal-
ism (Schrödinger equation) to completely describe the nonunitary
“collapse” process. Since the collapse is irreducibly indeterministic,
the time of the collapse is completely unpredictable and unknow-
able. Indeterministic quantum jumps are one of the defining char-
acteristics of quantum mechanics, both the “old” quantum theory,
where Bohr wanted radiation to be emitted and absorbed discon-
tinuously when his atom jumped between stationary states, and the
11 Decoherence and the Appearance... p.20

12 Decoherence and the Appearance...p.2. And see chapter 23.
13 See chapter 25.
Decoherence 261
modern standard theory with the Born-Jordan-Heisenberg-Dirac

“projection postulate.”
To add new terms to the Schrödinger equation in order to control
the time of collapse is to misunderstand the irreducible chance at the
heart of quantum mechanics, as first seen clearly, in 1917, by Albert
Einstein. When he derived his A and B coefficients for the emis-
sion and absorption of radiation, he found that an outgoing light
particle must impart momentum hν/c to the atom or molecule, but
the direction of the momentum can not be predicted! Neither can
the theory predict the time when the light quantum will be emitted.
Such a random time was not unknown to physics. When Ernest
Rutherford derived the law for radioactive decay of unstable
atomic nuclei in 1900, he could only give the probability of decay
time. Einstein saw the connection with radiation emission:
It speaks in favor of the theory that the statistical law assumed for [spon-
taneous] emission is nothing but the Rutherford law of radioactive
decay.14
But the inability to predict both the time and direction of light par-
ticle emissions, said Einstein in 1917, is “a weakness in the theory...,
that it leaves time and direction of elementary processes to chance
Chapter 22
(Zufall, ibid.).” It is only a weakness for Einstein, of course, because
his God does not play dice. Decoherence theorists too appear to
have what William James called an “antipathy to chance.”
We have several possible alternatives for eigenvalues. Measure-
ment simply makes one of these actual, and it does so, said Max
Born, in proportion to the absolute square of the probability ampli-
tude wave function ψn. In this way, ontological chance enters physics,
and it is partly this fact of quantum randomness that bothered Ein-
stein (whose relativity theories are deterministic) and Schrödinger
(whose equation of motion is deterministic).
What Decoherence Gets Right
Allowing the environment to interact with a quantum system, for
example by the scattering of low-energy thermal photons or high-
energy cosmic rays, or by collisions with air molecules, surely will
suppress quantum interference in an otherwise isolated experiment.
14 Abraham Pais,” “Subtle is the Lord...”, p.411
But this is because large numbers of uncorrelated (incoherent)

quantum events will “average out” and mask the quantum phenom-
ena. It does not mean that wave functions are not collapsing. They
are, at every particle interaction.
Decoherence advocates describe the environmental interaction
as “monitoring” of the system by continuous “measurements.”
Decoherence theorists are correct that every collision between
particles entangles their wave functions, at least for the short time
before decoherence suppresses any coherent interference effects of
that entanglement.
But in what sense is a collision a “measurement.” At best, it is a
“pre-measurement.”
It changes the path information that was present in the wave
functions before the collision. But the new information may not be
have been recorded anywhere (other than being implicit in the new
state of the system).
All interactions change the state of a system of interest, but not
all leave the “pointer state” of some measuring apparatus with new
information about the state of the system.
Chapter 22
So environmental monitoring, in the form of continuous colli-

sions by other particles, is changing the specific information content
of both the system, the environment, and a measuring apparatus (if
there is one). But if there is no recording of new information (nega-
tive entropy created locally), the system and the environment may
be in thermodynamic equilibrium.
Equilibrium does not mean that decoherence monitoring of every
particle is not continuing.
It is. There is no such thing as a “closed system.” Environmental
interaction is always present.
If a gas of particles is not already in equilibrium, they may be
approaching thermal equilibrium. This happens when any non-
equilibrium initial conditions (Zeh calls these a “conspiracy”) are
being “forgotten” by erasure of path information during collisions.
Information about initial conditions is implicit in the paths of all the
particles. This means that, in principle, the paths could be reversed
Decoherence 263
to return to the initial, lower entropy, conditions (the Loschmidt

paradox).15
Erasure of path information could be caused by quantum parti-
cle-particle scattering (our standard view) or by decoherence “mon-
itoring.” How are these two related?
What Decoherence Gets Wrong
Decoherence makes no testable predictions that differ from
standard quantum mechanics nor does it make calculations any
easier. In short, decoherence is just a way of talking about quantum
mechanics and especially the several interpretations that deny the
collapse of the wave function.16
Quantum Interactions Do Not Create Lasting Information
The overwhelming number of collisions of microscopic parti-
cles like electrons, photons, atoms, molecules, etc, do not result in
observable information about the collisions. The lack of observa-
tions and observers does not mean that there have been no “col-
lapses” of wave functions. The idea that the time evolution of the
deterministic Schrödinger equation continues forever in a unitary
Chapter 22
transformation that leaves the wave function of the whole universe
undecided and in principle reversible at any time, is an absurd and
unjustified extrapolation from the behavior of the ideal case of a
single perfectly isolated particle.
The principle of microscopic reversibility applies only to such an
isolated particle, something unrealizable in nature, as the decoher-
ence advocates know with their addition of environmental “moni-
toring.” Experimental physicists can isolate systems from the envi-
ronment enough to “see” the quantum interference (but again, only
in the statistical results of large numbers of identical experiments).
The Transition from Quantum to Classical World
In the standard quantum view, the emergence of macroscopic
objects with classical behavior arises statistically for two reasons
involving large numbers:
15 See chapter 25.
16 See chapter 20.
The law of large numbers (from probability and statistics)

When a large number of material particles is aggregated, proper-
ties emerge that are not seen in individual microscopic particles.
These properties include, solidity, classical laws of motion, gravita-
tional orbits, etc.
When a large number of quanta of energy (photons) are aggre-
gated, properties emerge that are not seen in individual light quanta.
These properties include continuous radiation fields with wavelike
interference.
The law of large quantum numbers. This is Bohr’s Correspondence
Principle, which he used to show quantum mechanics approaches
classical mechanics in the limit of large quantum numbers.
Decoherence and Standard Quantum Mechanics
Can we explain the following in terms of standard quantum
mechanics?
• the decoherence of quantum interference effects by the environ-
ment
• their measurement problem, viz., the absence of macroscopic
Chapter 22
superpositions of states
• the emergence of “classical” adequately determined macro-
scopic objects
• the logical compatibility and consistency of two dynamical laws
- the unitary transformation and the discontinuous “collapse” of the
wave function
• the entanglement of “distant” particles and the appearance of
“nonlocal” effects such as those in the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen
experiment
Let’s consider these point by point.
The standard explanation for the decoherence of quantum inter-
ference effects by the environment is that when a quantum system
interacts with the very large number of quantum systems in a mac-
roscopic object, the averaging over independent phases cancels out
(decoheres) coherent interference effects.17
17 Quantum Mechanics, Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, p.2
Decoherence 265
In order to study interference effects, a quantum system is iso-

lated from the environment as much as possible. Even then, note
that microscopic interference is never “seen” directly by an observer.
It is inferred from probabilistic theories that explain the statistical
results of many identical experiments. Individual particles are never
“seen” as superpositions of particles in different states. When a par-
ticle is seen, it is always the whole particle and nothing but the parti-
cle. The absence of macroscopic superpositions of states, such as the
infamous linear superposition of live and dead Schrödinger Cats, is
therefore no surprise.18
The standard quantum-mechanical explanation for the emer-
gence of “classical” adequately determined macroscopic objects is
that they result from a combination of a) Bohr’s correspondence
principle in the case of large quantum numbers. together with b)
the familiar law of large numbers in probability theory, and c) the
averaging over the phases. Heisenberg indeterminacy relations still
apply, but the individual particles’ indeterminacies average out, and
the remaining macroscopic indeterminacy is practically unmeasur-
able.
Chapter 22
Perhaps the two dynamical laws would be inconsistent if applied
to the same thing at exactly the same time. But the “collapse” of
the wave function (von Neumann’s Process 1, Pauli’s measurement
of the first kind) and the unitary transformation that describes the
deterministic evolution of the probability amplitude wave function
(von Neumann’s Process 2) are used in a temporal sequence.
When you hear or read that electrons are both waves and par-
ticles, think “either-or” - first a wave of possibilities, then an actual
particle. One process describes their continuous deterministic evo-
lution (while isolated) along their mean free paths to the next col-
lision or interaction. The other then describes what happens when
quantum systems interact, in a collision or a measurement, when
they make a discontinuous jump into a new state. One dynamical
law applies to the wave picture, the other to the particle picture.
The paradoxical appearance of nonlocal “influences” of one par-
ticle on an entangled distant particle, at velocities greater than light
18 See chapter 23.
speed, are a consequence of a poor understanding of both the wave

and particle aspects of quantum systems. The confusion usually
begins with a statement such as “consider a particle A here and a
distant particle B there.”19 When entangled in a two-particle prob-
ability amplitude wave function, the two identical particles are “nei-
ther here nor there,” just as the single particle in a two-slit experi-
ment does not “go through” one of the slits.
It is the single-particle probability amplitude wave that must “go
through” both slits if it is to interfere. For a two-particle probabil-
ity amplitude wave that starts its deterministic time evolution when
the two identical particles are produced, it is only the probability
of finding the particles that evolves according to the unitary trans-
formation of the Schrödinger wave equation. It says nothing about
where the particles “are.”
Now if and when a particle is measured somewhere, we can then
label it particle A. Conservation of energy and momentum tell us
immediately that the other identical particle is now symmetrically
located on the other side of the central source of particles. If the
particles are electrons (as in David Bohm’s version of EPR), con-
Chapter 22
servation of spin tells us that the now distant particle B must have
its spin opposite to that of particle A, since they were produced with
a total spin of zero.
Nothing is sent from particle A to B. The deduced properties are
the consequence of conservation laws that are true for much deeper
reasons than the puzzles of nonlocal entanglement. The mysterious
instantaneous values for their properties is exactly the same mystery
that bothered Einstein in 1905 about a single-particle wave function
having values all over a photographic screen at one instant, then
having values only at the position of the located particle in the next
instant, apparently violating his then very new theory of special
relativity.
To summarize: Decoherence by interactions with environment
can be explained perfectly by multiple “collapses” of the probabil-
ity amplitude wave function during interactions with environment
particles. Microscopic interference is never “seen” directly by an
19 See chapter 21 for details.
Decoherence 267
observer. Interference is deduced from the statistical results of large

numbers of experiments, each one of which has no superpositions.
We therefore never “see” macroscopic superpositions of live and
dead cats. The “transition from quantum to classical” systems is the
consequence of laws of large numbers. But there is only one world,
the quantum world. The “classical world” is how the quantum world
looks when there are a large number of particles, or even a single
atomic system when it is in a state with large quantum numbers,
according to Bohr’s correspondence principle.
The quantum dynamical laws necessarily include two phases or
processes, as John von Neumann showed, one needed to describe
the continuous deterministic motions of probability amplitude
waves and the other the discontinuous indeterministic motions of
physical particles.
The attempt by decoherence theorists to ignore the discontinuous
collapse of the wave function in a measurement is a failure, like all
other attempts since Hugh Everett, though it is a very popular one.
Chapter 22
n g e r ’s
rö d i
Sch Cat
Chapter 23

informationphilosopher.com/problems/schrodingerscat
Schrödinger’s Cat 269
Schrödinger’s Cat
Erwin Schrödinger’s goal for his infamous cat-killing box
was to discredit certain non-intuitive implications of quantum
mechanics, of which his wave mechanics was the second formula-
tion. Schrödinger’s wave mechanics is continuous mathematically,
and deterministic. Werner Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics is
discontinuous and indeterministic.
Schrödinger did not like Niels Bohr’s idea of “quantum jumps”
between Bohr’s “stationary states” - the different “energy levels” in
an atom. Bohr’s “quantum postulate” said that the jumps between
discrete states emitted (or absorbed) energy in the amount
hν = E2 - E1.
Bohr himself did not accept Albert Einstein’s 1905 hypoth-
esis that the emitted radiation is a discrete quantum of energy
hν, later known as a photon. Until well into the 1920’s, Bohr and
Max Planck, the original inventor of the quantum hypothesis
believed radiation was a continuous wave of the kind defended
by Schrödinger. This raised the question of wave-particle duality,
which Einstein saw as early as 1909.
Chapter 23
It was Einstein who originated the suggestion that the superpo-
sition of Schrödinger’s wave functions implied that two different
physical states could exist at the same time. This was a serious
interpretational error that plagues the foundation of quantum
physics to this day.
This error is found frequently in discussions of so-called
“entangled” states (see chapter 20).
Entanglement occurs only for atomic level phenomena and
over limited distances that preserve the coherence of two-particle
wave functions by isolating the systems (and their eigenfunctions)
from interactions with the environment.
We never actually “see” or measure any system (whether a
microscopic electron or a macroscopic cat) in two distinct states.
Quantum mechanics simply predicts a significant probability of
the system being found in these different states. And these prob-
ability predictions are borne out by the statistics of large numbers

of identical experiments.
The Pauli Exclusion Principle says (correctly) that two identical
indistinguishable (fermion) particles cannot be in the same place
at the same time. Entanglement is often interpreted (incorrectly)
as saying that a single particle can be in two places at the same
time. Dirac’s principle of superposition does not say that a particle
is in two states at the same time, only that there is a non-zero
probability of finding it in either state should it be measured.
Einstein wrote to Schrödinger with the idea that the random
decay of a radioactive nucleus could be arranged to set off a large
explosion. Since the moment of decay is unknown, Einstein
argued that the superposition of decayed and undecayed nuclear
states implies the superposition of an explosion and no explosion.
It does not. In both the microscopic and macroscopic cases, quan-
tum mechanics simply estimates the probability amplitudes for
the two cases.
Many years later, Richard Feynman made Einstein’s sugges-
tion into a nuclear explosion! (What is it about some scientists?)
Einstein and Schrödinger did not like the fundamental ran-
Chapter 23
domness implied by quantum mechanics. They wanted to restore

determinism to physics. Indeed Schrödinger’s wave equation pre-
dicts a perfectly deterministic time evolution of the wave function.
But what is evolving deterministically is only abstract probabilities
- pure information. And these probabilities are confirmed only in
the statistics of large numbers of identically prepared experiments.
Randomness enters only when a measurement is made and the
wave function “collapses” into one of the possible states of the sys-
tem.1
Schrödinger devised a variation on Einstein’s idea in which the
random radioactive decay would kill a cat. Observers could not
know what happened until the box is opened.
1 See chapter 20.
The details of the tasteless experiment include:

• a Geiger counter which produces a macroscopic avalanche of
electrons when an alpha particle passes through it,
• a bit of radioactive material with a decay half-life likely to emit
an alpha particle in the direction of the Geiger counter during a
time T,
• an electrical circuit, energized by the Geiger counter elec-
trons, which drops a hammer,
• a flask of a deadly hydrocyanic acid gas, smashed open by the
hammer.
The gas will kill the cat, but the exact time of death is unpredict-
able and random because of the irreducible quantum indetermi-
nacy in the time of decay (and the direction of the decay particle,
which might miss the Geiger counter!).
This thought experiment is widely misunderstood. It was meant
(by both Einstein and Schrödinger) to suggest that quantum
mechanics describes the simultaneous (and obviously contradic-
tory) existence of a live and dead cat.
Here is the famous paradox with a cat both dead and alive.
Chapter 23
Figure 23-26. What the statistics from multiple experiments give us is the
probability of finding a live or dead cat, in this case half the cats are found dead
and half alive, but we never see a macroscopic superposition of both.
But quantum mechanics claims only that the time evolution of

the Schrödinger wave functions will accurately predict the propor-
tion of nuclear decays that will occur in a given time interval.
Quantum “probability amplitudes” do allow interference between
the possible states of a quantum object, but not between macroscopic
objects like live and dead cats More specifically, quantum mechan-
ics provides us with the accurate prediction that if this experiment
is repeated many times, half of the experiments will result in dead
cats.
Note that this is a problem in epistemology. What knowledge is it
that quantum physics provides?
If we open the box at the time T when there is a 50% probability
of an alpha particle emission. The most a physicist can know is that
there is a 50% chance that the radioactive decay will have occurred
and the cat will be observed as dead or dying. Here is the famous
diagram with a cat both dead and alive.
If the box were opened earlier, say at T/2, there is only a 25%
chance that the cat has died. Schrödinger’s superposition of live and
dead cats would look like this.
Chapter 23
Figure 23-27. Here is the imaginary superposition of a mostly living cat

and the pale shadow of a dead one.
If the box were opened later, say at 2T, there is only a 25% chance
that the cat is still alive. Quantum mechanics is giving us only statis-
tical information - knowledge about probabilities.
Figure 23-28. And here a mostlly dead cat, a vision of something that simply does
not occur in macroscopic nature.
Schrödinger is simply wrong that the mixture of nuclear wave

functions in the quantum world that accurately describes decay can
be magnified to the macroscopic world to describe a similar mix-
Chapter 23
ture of live cat and dead cat wave functions and the simultaneous
existence of live and dead cats.
The kind of coherent superposition of states needed to describe an
atomic system as in a linear combination of states does not describe
macroscopic systems (see Paul Dirac’s explanation of the superposi-
tion of states using three polarizers in appendix C).
Instead of a linear combination of macroscopic quantum states,
with quantum interference between the states, i.e.,
| Cat > = ( 1/√2) | Live > + ( 1/√2) | Dead >,
quantum mechanics tells us only that there is 50% chance of find-
ing the cat in either the live or dead state, i.e.,
Cats = (1/2) Live + (1/2) Dead.
Just as in the quantum case, this probability prediction is con-

firmed by the statistics of repeated identical experiments, but no
interference between these macroscopic states is ever seen.
What do exist simultaneously in the macroscopic world are genu-
ine alternative possibilities for future events. There is the real possi-
bility of a live or dead cat in any particular experiment. Which one
is found is irreducibly random, unpredictable, and a matter of pure
chance.
Genuine alternative possibilities is what bothered physicists like
Einstein, Schrödinger, and Max Planck who wanted a return to
deterministic physics. It also bothers determinist and compatibilist
philosophers who have what William James calls an “antipathy to
chance.” Ironically, it was Einstein himself, in 1916, who discovered
the existence of irreducible chance, in the elementary interactions
of matter and radiation.
Until the information comes into existence, the future is indeter-
ministic. Once information is macroscopically encoded, the past is
determined.
How Information Physics Resolves the Cat Paradox?
Chapter 23
As soon as the alpha particle sets off the avalanche of electrons in

the Geiger counter (an irreversible event with an entropy increase),
new information is created in the world.
For example, a simple pen-chart recorder attached to the Geiger
counter could record the time of decay, which a human observer
could read at any later time. Notice that, as usual in information
creation, energy expended by a recorder increases the entropy more
than the increased information decreases it, thus satisfying the
second law of thermodynamics.
Even without a mechanical recorder, the cat’s death sets in motion
biological processes that constitute an equivalent, if gruesome,
recording. When a dead cat is the result, a sophisticated autopsy
can provide an approximate time of death, because the cat’s body is
acting as an event recorder. There never is a superposition (in the
sense of the simultaneous existence) of live and dead cats.
The cat paradox points clearly to the information physics solution

to the problem of measurement. Human observers are not required
to make measurements. In this case, information is in the cat’s body.
The cat is the observer.
In most physics measurements, any new information is captured
by an apparatus well before any physicist has a chance to read any
dials or pointers that indicate what happened. Indeed, in today’s
high-energy particle interaction experiments, the data may be cap-
tured but not fully analyzed until many days or even months of
computer processing establishes what was observed. In this case, the
experimental apparatus is the observer.
And, in general, the universe is its own observer, able to record
(and sometimes preserve) the information created.
The basic assumption made in Schrödinger’s cat thought experi-
ments is that the deterministic Schrödinger equation describing a
microscopic superposition of decayed and non-decayed radioactive
nuclei evolves deterministically into a macroscopic superposition of
live and dead cats.
But since the essence of a “measurement” is an interaction with
Chapter 23
another system (quantum or classical) that creates information to
be seen (later) by an observer, the interaction between the nucleus
and the cat is more than enough to collapse the wave function. Cal-
culating the probabilities for that collapse allows us to estimate the
probabilities of live and dead cats. These are probabilities, not prob-
ability amplitudes. They do not interfere with one another.
After the interaction, they are not in a superposition of states. We
always have either a live cat or a dead cat, just as we always observe a
complete photon after a polarization measurement and not a super-
position of photon states, as P.A.M. Dirac explains so simply and
clearly2 .
2 see appendix C
f Ti m e
w o
Arro
Chapter
Chapter
22 24

informationphilosopher.com/problems/arrow_of_time
Arrow of Time 277
The Arrow of Time

The laws of nature, except the second law of thermodynamics,
are symmetric in time. Reversing the time in the dynamical equa-
tions of motion simply describes everything going backwards.
The second law is different. Entropy must never decrease in time,
except statistically and briefly, as Ludwig Boltzmann showed.
Many natural processes are apparently irreversible. Irreversibility
is intimately connected to the direction of time. Identifying the
physical reasons for the observed irreversibility, the origin of
irreversibility, would contribute greatly to understanding the
apparent asymmetry of nature in time, despite nature's apparently
perfect symmetry in space.1
The Thermodynamic Arrow
In 1927, Arthur Stanley Eddington coined the term "Arrow
of Time" in his book The Nature of the Physical World. He con-
nected "Time's Arrow" to the one-way direction of increasing
entropy required by the second law of thermodynamics.2 This is
now known as the "thermodynamic arrow."
In his later work, Eddington identified a "cosmological arrow,"
Chapter 24
the direction in which the universe is expanding,3 which was dis-
covered by Edwin Hubble about the time Eddington first defined
the thermodynamic arrow.
There are now a few other proposed arrows of time, includ-
ing a psychological arrow (our perception of time), a causal arrow
(causes precede effects), and a quantum mechanical arrow (elec-
troweak decay asymmetries). We can ask whether one arrow is a
"master arrow" that all the others are following, or perhaps time
itself is just a given property of nature that is otherwise irreducible
to something more basic, as is space.
Given the four-dimensional space-time picture of special rela-
tivity, and given that the laws of nature are symmetric in space, we
may expect the laws to be invariant under a change in time direc-
tion. The laws do not depend on position in space or direction,
1 See chapter 25.

2 Nature of the Physical World, 1927, p.328-9
3 New Pathways in Science, 1937, p.328-9
they are invariant under translations and rotations, since space

is seen to be uniform and isotropic. But time is not just another
spatial dimension. It enters into calculations of event separations
as an imaginary term (multiplied by the square root of minus 1).
Nevertheless, all the classical dynamical laws of motion are sym-
metric under time reversal.
So the basic problem is - how can macroscopic irreversibil-
ity result from microscopic processes that are fundamentally
reversible?
Long before Eddington, scientists asked deep questions about
the direction of time. Perhaps the first to explore the connection
with physics was Boltzmann, who with James Clerk Maxwell
investigated the statistical motions of the atoms and molecules of
gases.
If the laws of nature are time symmetric, perhaps the "arrow of
time" is to be found in the "initial" conditions, although this may
be a circular concept, since "initial,"current," and "final" states are
all defined with respect to time. Since the dynamical laws are time
reversible, scientists as early as Isaac Newton understood that
Chapter
one could calculate all the motions of a system by assuming "final

conditions" and working backwards in time.
Chapter
Nevertheless, many if not most physicists have assumed the

22 24
universe must have begun in a highly ordered (low entropy) state

and it has been "running down" (entropy or disorder increasing)
ever since. In the nineteenth century, this was called the "heat
death" of the universe. This view has the unfortunate implication
that all the information in the current universe was present at the
beginning, which is friendly to some theological ideas like pre-
destination, but distinctly unfriendly to ideas of human free will.
Boltzmann assumed that the universe was infinitely old and
that our current state is the consequence of a massive statistical
fluctuation away from equilibrium and maximum entropy, a con-
dition to which we must ultimately return.
Would time itself be reversed if we could make the entropy
decrease? That is unlikely, since entropy decrease anywhere (cre-
ating negative entropy or negentropy, a term coined by Leon
Arrow of Time 279
Brillouin) must be accompanied by an increase elsewhere, to

satisfy the second law. Otherwise we could use the local reduction
in the entropy to build a perpetual motion machine.
Put another way, if we could reverse the time, would entropy
decrease? What can time reversal really mean? A thought experi-
ment suggests not. Consider a closed perfume bottle inside a large
empty container. Remove the bottle top and what would happen
assuming that time is flowing backwards? It seems likely that the
perfume molecules would leave the bottle whatever time is doing.
Figure 24-29. Information physics has shown that at each collision of a gas par-
ticle with another particle, the path information of where that particle has been is
erased, so that time reversal would not return all the perfume to the bottle. .
For Aristotle, time was a measure of motion and change and
Chapter 24
for practical purposes, many scientists have thought that time
reversal can be approximated by the reversal of all the velocities
or momenta of material particles at an instant, starting from their
current positions.
If we could perfectly reverse the motions of every material body
(a practical impossibility, and perhaps a violation of Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle), would that make the entropy decrease?
Boltzmann agreed that it might, but only for a while. His intuition
was that a system could not return to a highly ordered original
state, such as every molecule getting back in the perfume bottle.
J. Willard Gibbs thought otherwise, if the detailed path
information in all the macroscopic motions is still available as
microscopic information (if information is a conserved quantity),
then reversal of all the motions should be exactly like a movie
played backwards.
The fundamental question of information philosophy is cosmo-

logical and ultimately metaphysical. What is the process that creates
information structures in the universe?
Given the second law of thermodynamics, which says that any
system will over time approach a thermodynamic equilibrium of
maximum disorder or entropy, in which all information is lost, and
given the best current model for the origin of the universe, which
says everything began in a state of equilibrium some 13.75 billion
years ago, how can it be that living beings are creating and com-
municating new information every day? Why are we not still in that
state of thermal equilibrium?
It is perhaps easier for us to see the increasing complexity and
order of information structures on the earth than it is to notice
the increase in chaos that comes with increasing entropy, since the
entropy is radiated away from the earth into the night sky, then away
to the cosmic microwave background sink of deep space.
David Layzer is a Harvard cosmologist who in the early 1970's
made it clear that in an expanding universe the entropy would
increase, as required by the second law of thermodynamics, but
Chapter
that the maximum possible entropy of the universe might increase

faster than the actual entropy increase. This would leave room for
Chapter
an increase of order or information at the same time the entropy is

22 24
increasing!4
Layzer pointed out that if the equilibration rate of the matter
(the speed with which matter redistributes itself randomly among
all the possible states) was slower than the rate of expansion, then
the "negative entropy" or "order" (defined as the difference between
the maximum possible entropy and the actual entropy) would also
increase. Claude Shannon identified this negative entropy with
information, though visible structural information in the universe
may be much less than this "potential" information.
4 See appendix B for more on Layzer’s work.
Arrow of Time 281
The Historical Arrow

Layzer called the direction of information increase the "historical
arrow." In a 1975 article for Scientific American called “The Arrow
of Time,” he wrote:
the complexity of the astronomical universe seems puzzling. Isolated
systems inevitably evolve toward the featureless state of thermodynamic
equilibrium. Since the universe is in some sense an isolated system, why
has it not settled into equilibrium? One answer, favored by many cos-
mologists, is that the cosmological trend is in fact toward equilibrium
but that too little time has elapsed for the process to have reached com-
pletion... I shall argue that this view is fundamentally incorrect. The uni-
verse is not running down, and it need not have started with a marked
degree of disequilibrium; the initial state may indeed have been wholly
lacking in macroscopic as well as microscopic information.
Suppose that at some early moment local thermodynamic equilibrium
prevailed in the universe. The entropy of any region would then be as
large as possible for the prevailing values of the mean temperature and
density. As the universe expanded from that hypothetical state the local
values of the mean density and temperature would change, and so would
the entropy of the region. For the entropy to remain at its maximum
value (and thus for equilibrium to be maintained) the distribution of
energies allotted to matter and to radiation must change, and so must
the concentrations of the various kinds of particles. The physical pro-
cesses that mediate these changes proceed at finite rates; if these "equili-
Chapter 24
bration" rates are all much greater than the rate of cosmic expansion,
approximate local thermodynamic equilibrium will be maintained; if
they are not, the expansion will give rise to significant local departures
from equilibrium.5
This is Layzer's seminal theory of the growth of order in the
universe These departures represent macroscopic information; the
quantity of macroscopic information generated by the expansion is
the difference between the actual value of the entropy and the theo-
retical maximum entropy at the mean temperature and density.
5 Scientific American, December, 1975, p.68
In his 1989 book The Emperor's New Mind, Roger Penrose

speculated on the connection between information, entropy, and
the arrow of time.
Recall that the primordial fireball was a thermal state — a hot gas in
expanding thermal equilibrium. Recall, also, that the term 'thermal
equilibrium' refers to a state of maximum entropy. (This was how we
referred to the maximum entropy state of a gas in a box.) However, the
second law demands that in its initial state, the entropy of our universe
was at some sort of minimum, not a maximum!
What has gone wrong? One 'standard' answer would run roughly as
follows:
True, the fireball was effectively in thermal equilibrium at the begin-
ning, but the universe at that time was very tiny. The fireball repre-
sented the state of maximum entropy that could be permitted for a uni-
verse of that tiny size, but the entropy so permitted would have been
minute by comparison with that which is allowed for a universe of the
size that we find it to be today. As the universe expanded, the permit-
ted maximum entropy increased with the universe's size, but the actual
entropy in the universe lagged well behind this permitted maximum.
The second law arises because the actual entropy is always striving to
catch up with this permitted maximum.6
Penrose's "standard" answer is a clear reference to the pioneer-
Chapter
ing work of David Layzer.

Chapter
The Radiation Arrow

Whether they be electromagnetic waves or waves in water, we
22 24
only observe wavelike disturbances that propagate outwards in

space away from the disturbance. These waves are described by
what is called the retarded potential. In his 1909 discussion of
waves and particles, Albert Einstein described the very remote
possibility of incoming spherical waves:
According to our prevailing theory, an oscillating electron generates a
spherical wave that propagates outwards. The inverse process does not
exist as an elementary process. A converging spherical wave is math-
ematically possible, to be sure; but to approach its realization requires
6 The Emperor’s New Mind, p.328-9

Arrow of Time 283
a vast number of emitting entities. The elementary process of emission

is not invertible. In this, I believe, our oscillation theory does not hit the
mark. Newton's emission theory of light seems to contain more truth
with respect to this point than the oscillation theory since, first of all, the
energy given to a light particle is not scattered over infinite space, but
remains available for an elementary process of absorption.7
In 1945, John Wheeler and his student Richard Feynman
attempted to symmetrize Maxwell's equations for electromagnetic
fields with an "Absorber Theory of Radiation," that combined
retarded potentials (outgoing spherical waves) and advanced poten-
tials (incoming spherical waves) for radiation. They later described
the theory as a mistake. There are no incoming spherical waves.
The Cosmological Arrow
We can define a cosmological direction of time as the direction
in which the universe is expanding. There are excellent reasons for
seeing this as the most fundamental of all arrows, even the one driv-
ing some of the others. Without expansion, a static universe would
settle into thermal equilibrium and there would be no changes.
There would be no entropy increase to show Eddington's thermo-
dynamic arrow. There would be no information increase, as seen in
Layzer's historical arrow.
Chapter 24
Without the cosmological arrow, the thermodynamic, radiation,
and historical arrows could not have been realized.
7 “On the Development of Our Views Concerning the Nature and Constitution of
Radiation,” Einstein Collected Papers, vol.6, p.213
284 Great Problems in Philosophy Physics - Solved?
b i l i t y
Irre versi
Chapter 25

informationphilosopher.com/problems/reversibility
Irreversibility 285
Microscopic Irreversibility
In 1876, Josef Loschmidt criticized his younger colleague
Ludwig Boltzmann's 1866 attempt to derive from classical
dynamics the increasing entropy required by the second law of
thermodynamics. Loschmidt's criticism was based on the simple
idea that the laws of classical dynamics are time reversible. Con-
sequently, if we just turned the time around, the time evolution of
the system should lead to decreasing entropy.
This is the intimate connection between time and the second
law of thermodynamics that Arthur Stanley Eddington later
called the Arrow of Time.1
Microscopic time reversibility is one of the foundational
assumptions of both classical mechanics and quantum mechanics.
But a careful quantum analysis shows that reversibility fails even
in the most ideal conditions - the case of two particles in collision
- provided the quantum mechanical interaction with radiation is
taken into account.
Our proof of microscopic irreversibility provides a new justi-
fication for Boltzmann's assumption of "molecular disorder" and
strengthens his proof of H-Theorem.
Chapter 25
In quantum mechanics, microscopic time reversibility is
assumed to be true by some scientists because the deterministic
linear Schrödinger equation itself is time reversible. But the
Schrödinger equation only describes the deterministic time evo-
lution of the probabilities of various quantum events.
When a quantum event occurs, if there is a record of the event (if
new information enters the universe), the probabilities of multiple
possible events collapse to the occurrence of just one actual event.
This is the collapse of the wave function that John von Neumann
called process 1.2
An irreversible event that leaves a record (stable new
information) may become a measurement, if the new information
is observed. Measurements are fundamentally and irreducibly
irreversible.
1 See chapter 24
2 See chapter 20 and appendix C
When particles collide, even structureless particles should not

be treated as individual particles with single-particle wave func-
tions, but as a single system with a two-particle wave function,
because they are now entangled.3
Treating two atoms as a temporary molecule means we must
use molecular, rather than atomic, wave functions. The quantum
description of the molecule now transforms the six independent
degrees of freedom for two atoms into three for the molecule's
center of mass and three more that describe vibrational and rota-
tional quantum states.
The possibility of quantum transitions between closely spaced
vibrational and rotational energy levels in the "quasi-molecule'
introduces indeterminacy in the future paths of the separate atoms.
The classical path information needed to ensure the deterministic
dynamical behavior has been partially erased. The memory of the
past needed to predict the future has been lost.
Even assuming the practical impossibility of a perfect classical
time reversal, in which we simply turn the two particles around,
quantum physics requires two measurements to locate the two
particles, followed by two state preparations to send them in the
opposite direction.
Chapter 25
Heisenberg indeterminacy puts calculable limits on the accu-

racy with which perfect reversed paths can be achieved.
Let us assume this impossible task can be completed, and it
sends the two particles back along the reverse collision paths. On
the return path, there is only a finite probability that a "sum over
histories" calculation will produce the same (or reversed) quan-
tum transitions between vibrational and rotational states that
occurred in the first collision. Perfect reversal is not impossible
but extremely improbable.
Thus a quantum description of a two-particle collision estab-
lishes the microscopic irreversibility that Boltzmann sometimes
3 See chapter 21 on entanglement.
Irreversibility 287
described as his assumption of "molecular disorder." In his second

(1877) derivation of the H-theorem, Boltzmann used a statisti-
cal approach and the molecular disorder assumption to get away
from the time-reversibility assumptions of classical dynamics.
The Origin of Irreversibility
The path information required for microscopic reversibility
of particle paths is destroyed or erased by local interactions with
radiation and other particles.
Boltzmann’s dynamical H-Theorem (his 1872 Stosszahlansatz)
correctly predicts the approach to equilibrium. But this appar-
ent increase in entropy could be reversed, according to Josef
Loschmidt’s time-reversibility objection and Ernst Zermelo’s
recurrence objection. We show that the addition of electromag-
netic radiation adds an irreducible element of randomness to
atomic and molecular motions, erasing classical path information,
just as the addition of a small speck of material can thermalize a
non-equilibrium radiation field. Path erasure prevents reversibil-
ity and maintains a high entropy state indefinitely. Statistical fluc-
tuations from equilibrium are damped by path erasure.
Photon emission and absorption during molecular collisions
is shown to destroy nonlocal molecular correlations, justifying
Chapter 25
Boltzmann’s assumption of “molecular chaos” (molekular ungeord-
nete) as well as Maxwell’s earlier assumption that molecular veloci-
ties are not correlated. These molecular correlations were retained
in Willard Gibbs formulation of entropy. But the microscopic
information implicit in classical particle paths (which would be
needed to implement Loschmidt’s deterministic motion reversal)
is actually erased. Boltzmann’s physical insight was correct that his
increased entropy is irreversible.
It has been argued that photon interactions can be ignored
because radiation is isotropic and thus there is no net momentum
transfer to the particles. The radiation distribution, like the dis-
tribution of particles, is indeed statistically isotropic, but, as we
will show, each discrete quantum of angular momentum exchanged

during individual photon collisions alters the classical paths suffi-
ciently to destroy molecular velocity correlations.
Reversibility is closely related to the maintenance of path
information forward in time that is required to assert that physics
is deterministic. Indeterministic interactions between matter and
radiation erase all path information. The elementary process of the
emission of radiation is not time reversible, as first noted by Albert
Einstein in 1909. He argued that the elementary process of light
radiation does not have reversibility (“Umkehrbarkeit”). The reverse
process (“umgekehrte Prozess”) does not exist as an elementary pro-
cess, he said.
Macroscopic physics is only statistically determined. Macroscopic
processes are adequately determined when the mass m of an object
is large compared to the Planck quantum of action h (when there
are large numbers of quantum particles).
But the information-destroying elementary processes of emission
and absorption of radiation ensure that macroscopic processes are
not individually reversible.
When interactions with a thermal radiation field and rearrange-
ment collisions are taken into account, a quantum-mechanical treat-
Chapter 25
ment of collisions between material particles shows that a hypo-

thetical reversal of all the velocities following a collision would only
very rarely follow the original path backwards. Although the deter-
ministic Schrödinger equation of motion for an isolated two-parti-
cle material system is time reversible (for conservative systems), the
quantum mechanics of radiation interactions during collisions does
not preserve particle path information, as does classical dynamics.
Particle interactions with photons in the thermal radiation field and
rearrangement collisions that change the internal states of the col-
liding particles are shown to be microscopically irreversible for all
practical purposes. These quantum processes are equivalent to the
irreversible “measurements” that von Neumann showed increase
the entropy.4
4 See appendix C
Irreversibility 289
In classical physics, if we time reverse a collision, two particles

will reverse their vectors and go back along their original paths.
Figure 25-31. Classical particle collisions are perfectly time reversible.
Now consider a quantum collision between two atoms that results

in the emission of a photon, deflecting the classical paths.
Chapter 25
Figure 25-30. Quantum particle collisions are not time reversible.
At some time t after the collision, let’s assume we can reverse the
separating atoms, sending them back toward the reverse collision.
If there had been no photon emission, the most likely path is an
exact traversal of the original path. But since a photon was emitted,
traversing the original path requires us to calculate the probability

that at precisely the right time a photon of the same frequency is
absorbed by the quasi-molecule, corresponding to a quantum
jump back to the original rotational-vibrational state (conserving
energy), with the photon direction exactly opposite to the original
absorption (conserving momentum), allowing the colliding atoms
to reverse its original path. While this is not impossible, it is extraor-
dinarily improbable.
The uncertainty principle would prevent an experimenter from
preparing the two material particles with the precise positions and
reverse momenta needed to follow the exact return paths to the
collision point. Moreover, the Schrödinger equation of motion for
the two particles would only provide a probability that the particles
would again collide.
As to the photon, let us assume with Einstein that a light quantum
is “directed” and so could be somehow aimed perfectly at the colli-
sion point. Even so, there is only a probability, not a certainty, that
the photon would be absorbed.
We conclude that collisions of particles that involve radiation are
not microscopically reversible.
Detailed Balancing
Chapter 25
It is mistakenly believed that the detailed balancing of forward

and reverse chemical reactions in thermal equilibrium, including
the Onsager reciprocal relations, for example, depend somehow on
the principle of microscopic reversibility.
Einstein’s work is sometimes cited as proof of detailed balancing
and microscopic reversibility. (The Wikipedia article, for example.)
In fact, Einstein started with Boltzmann’s assumption of detailed
balancing, along with the “Boltzmann principle” that the probabil-
ity of states with energy E is reduced by the exponential “Boltzmann
factor,” f(E) ~ e-E/kT, to derive the transition probabilities for emission
and absorption of radiation. Einstein also derived Planck’s radiation
law and Bohr’s two “quantum postulates.” But Einstein distinctly
denied any symmetry in the elementary processes of emission and
absorption.
Irreversibility 291
As early as 1909, he noted that the elementary process is not

“invertible.” There are outgoing spherical waves of radiation, but
incoming spherical waves are never seen.
“In the kinetic theory of molecules, for every process in which only a few
elementary particles participate (e.g., molecular collisions), the inverse
process also exists. But that is not the case for the elementary processes
of radiation. According to our prevailing theory, an oscillating ion gen-
erates a spherical wave that propagates outwards. The inverse process
does not exist as an elementary process. A converging spherical wave
is mathematically possible, to be sure; but to approach its realization
requires a vast number of emitting entities. The elementary process of
emission is not invertible.”5
The elementary process of the emission and absorption of radia-
tion is asymmetric, because the process is “directed.” The apparent
isotropy of the emission of radiation is only what Einstein called
“pseudo-isotropy” (pseudoisotropie), a consequence of time aver-
ages over large numbers of events. Einstein often substituted time
averages for space averages, or averages over the possible states of a
system in statistical mechanics.
Detailed balancing is thus a consequence of averaging over
extremely large numbers of particles in equilibrium. This is the same
limit that produces the so-called “quantum to classical” transition.
And it is the same condition that gives us the “adequate” statistical
Chapter 25
determinism in the macroscopic, everyday world.
Neither detailed balancing nor the adequate determinism that
we see in classical Newtonian experiments does anything to deny
that at the microscopic quantum level, events are completely statis-
tical, involving ontological chance. The interaction of radiation with
matter has “a ‘chance’-dependent value and a ‘chance’-dependent
sign” (emission or absorption), said Einstein in 1917.6
5 “On the Development of Our Views Concerning the Nature and Constitution of
Radiation,” 1909, Einstein Collected Papers, vol.2, p.387
6 “On the Quantum Theory of Radiation,” Einstein Collected Papers, vol.6, p.213
re n ce
R ecur
Chapter 26

informationphilosopher.com/problems/recurrence
Recurrence 293
The Recurrence Problem

The idea that the macroscopic conditions in the world will
repeat after some interval of time is an ancient idea, but it plays a
vital role in modern physics as well.
Ancient middle eastern civilizations called it the Great Year.
They calculated it as the time after which the planets would realign
themselves in identical positions in the sky.
The Great Year should not be confused with the time that the
precession of the equinoxes takes to return the equinoxes to the
same position along the Zodiac - although this time (about 26,000
years) is of the same order of magnitude as one famous number
given by Babylonian astronomers for the Great Year (36,000 years).
Many societies have the concept of the Great Year, but none did
calculations as carefully as the Babylonians. But since the planets
orbital periods are not really commensurate, they kept increasing
the time for the Great Year searching for a better recurrence time.
The Greek and Roman Stoics thought the Great Year was proof
of law in nature and the God of reason that lies behind nature.
In modern philosophy, Friedrich Nietzsche described an
eternal return in his Also Sprach Zarathustra.
Chapter 26
Zermelo’s Paradox
Ernst Zermelo’ criticized Ludwig Boltzmann’s H-Theo-
rem, the attempt to derive the increasing entropy required by the
second law of thermodynamics from basic statistical mechanics.
It was the second “paradox” attack on Boltzmann. The first was
Josef Loschmidt’s claim that entropy would be reduced if time
were reversed. This is the problem of microscopic reversibility.1
Zermelo was an extraordinary mathematician. He was (in 1908)
the founder of axiomatic set theory, which with the addition of
the axiom of choice (also his work, in 1904) is the most common
foundation of mathematics. The axiom of choice says that given
any collection of sets, one can find a way to unambiguously select
one object from each set, even if the number of sets is infinite.
1 See chapter 25 on irreversibility.
Before this amazing work, Zermelo was a young associate of

Max Planck in Berlin, one of many German physicists who
opposed the work of Boltzmann to establish the existence of
atoms.
Zermelo’s criticism was based on the work of Henri Poincaré,
an expert in the three-body problem, which, unlike the two-body
problem, has no exact analytic solution.
Poincaré had been able to establish limits or bounds on the pos-
sible configurations of the three bodies from conservation laws.
Planck and Zermelo applied some of Poincaré’s thinking to the
n particles in a gas. They argued that given a long enough time,
the particles would return to a distribution in “phase space” (a
6n-dimensional space of possible velocities and positions) that
would be indistinguishable from the original distribution.
Thus, they argued, Boltzmann’s formula for the entropy would
at some future time go back down, vitiating Boltzmann’s claim to
have proved that entropy always increases - as the second law of
thermodynamics requires.
Boltzmann replied that his argument was statistical. He only
claimed that entropy increase was overwhelmingly more prob-
able than Zermelo’s predicted decrease. Boltzmann calculated the
probability of a decrease of a very small gas of only a few hundred
Chapter 26
particles and found the time needed to realize such a decrease is

many orders of magnitude larger than the presumed age of the
universe.
The idea that a macroscopic system can return to exactly the
same physical conditions is closely related to the idea that an agent
may face “exactly the same circumstances in making a decision.
Determinists maintain that given the “fixed past” and the “laws of
nature” that the agent would have to make exactly the same deci-
sion again.2
2 See chapter 5
Recurrence 295
The Extreme Improbability of Perfect Recurrence

In a classical deterministic universe, given enough time, the
universe can return to the exact circumstance of any earlier instant
of time, because it contains the same amount of matter, energy,
and information.
But, in the real universe, information expands from a minimum
at the origin, to ever larger amounts of information.
Arthur Stanley Eddington was probably the first to see that
the expanding universe with increasing information provides a
resolution to Zermelo’s objection to Boltzmann.
“By accepting the theory of the expanding universe we are relieved
of one conclusion which we had felt to be intrinsically absurd. It was
argued that every possible configuration of atoms must repeat itself
at some distant date. But that was on the assumption that the atoms
will have only the same choice of configurations in the future that
they have now. In an expanding space any particular congruence
becomes more and more improbable. The expansion of the universe
creates new possibilities of distribution faster than the atoms can work
through them, and there is no longer any likelihood of a particular
distribution being repeated. If we continue shuffling a pack of cards
we are bound sometime to bring them into their standard order — but
not if the conditions are that every morning one more card is added
to the pack.”3
And note that it is the failure of recurrence that makes all the
Chapter 26
arrows of time of chapter 24 into one-way arrows.
3 New Pathways in Science, 1939, p.68

g e n ce
E m e r
Chapter 27

informationphilosopher.com/knowledge/emergence
Emergence 297
Emergence
Information philosophy explains the reality of emergence,
because what emerges is new information. The universe began
with minimal information. For hundreds of thousands of years,
the only information structures were fundamental particles.
These were only the simplest matter and energy, and they are con-
served quantitities. In a deterministic universe, that initial infor-
mation would be all the information in the universe today and in
the future, because information would be conserved.
But information is not conserved. Because it is neither matter
not energy, information is immaterial. Matter can be converted to
energy (E = mc2), but their total is a constant. The only thing that
is new is information. Information is the only emergent.
A complex physical world of galaxies, stars, and planets has
emerged, a diverse biological world has emerged, and a mental
world of ideas has emerged, including the idea of emergence itself.
Emergence is the result of the cosmic creation process.1
And this process is fundamentally a rearrangement and trans-
formation of the fundamental particles of matter and energy.
The basic idea of emergence is that there are properties - per-
haps even “laws” - at the upper hierarchical levels of nature that
are not derivable from or reducible to the properties and laws of
the lower levels. Thus chemistry has properties not derivable from Chapter 27
physics, biology has properties not derivable from chemistry, and
psychology has properties not derivable from biology.
Emergence or Reduction?
Reductionism, by contrast, argues that everything can be
explained by (reduced to) the basic laws of physics. The world is
said to be “causally closed.” “Physicalism” is the idea that every-
thing that is caused has a physical cause, that everything that hap-
pens is caused by material particles in motion
Causal control is assumed to work “bottom-up.” The motions
and forces between the material particles are said to determine
1 See appendix F.
everything chemical, biological, and psychological. Information

theory would then require that the information content of every-
thing being done at the higher biological and mental levels is actu-
ally contained in the structure and motions of the atoms and mol-
ecules. We shall show that this reductionism is implausible
Causal closure implies that every thought in the mind is some-
how present in the paths or positions of the atomic particles them-
selves. Mental causation is then redundant. Mental events are epi-
phenomenal, non-existent, just an illusion.
Genuine emergence of new properties at the higher biological
and psychological levels, on the other hand, requires that those
properties can exert “top-down” causal control on the motions of
particles in lower levels. This is the notion of downward causa-
tion, the highest version of which is mental causation.2 It means
motions of the atomic particles must effectively be controlled by
the mind, which strikes many biologists and psychologists, who
are uncomfortable making claims about physics, as extravagant.
If the laws of nature control everything in the visible universe,
they say, how can they fail to control the mind?
Proving this “top-down” or mental causation is made doubly
difficult, since we would like to show that “bottom-up” causes on
the body and mind can somehow be blocked. It seems illogical or
even impossible to show that causation can flow downward but
Chapter 27
not upward.
But we can demonstrate emergent phenomena at the biological
and mental (neural) level that have exactly this emergent property
of what we can call “one-way causality.”
History of the Idea of Emergence
The idea of emergence was implicit in the work of John Stuart
Mill and explicit in the work of “emergentists” like George
Henry Lewes, Samuel Alexander, C. Lloyd Morgan, and
2 See chapter 15.
Emergence 299
C. D. Broad. Some wanted to explain the direct emergence of

mind from matter, to solve the mind-body problem, but as Alex-
ander put it, there are at least two distinct steps - mind emerges
from life, just as life emerges from the physical-chemical.
Mill discusses the Laws of Nature in his System of Logic, Book
III. Although Mill did not use the term “emergent,” he makes the
concept clear enough:
The chemical combination of two substances produces, as is well
known, a third substance with properties different from those of either
of the two substances separately, or of both of them taken together.
Not a trace of the properties of hydrogen or of oxygen is observable
in those of their compound, water. The taste of sugar of lead is not
the sum of the tastes of its component elements, acetic acid and lead
or its oxide; nor is the colour blue vitriol a mixture of the colours of
sulphuric acid and copper...If this be true of chemical combinations, it
is still more true of those far more complex combinations of elements
which constitute organized bodies; and in which those extraordinary
new uniformities arise, which are called the laws of life... To whatever
degree we might imagine our knowledge of the properties of the sev-
eral ingredients of a living body to be extended and perfected, it is
certain that no mere summing up of the separate actions of those ele-
ments will ever amount to the action of the living body itself.3
Lewes also used Mill’s example of the properties of water not
being reducible to those of oxygen and hydrogen. He coined the
term “emergent” in 1875:
Although each effect is the resultant of its components, the product of
Chapter 27
its factors, we cannot always trace the steps of the process, so as to see
in the product the mode of operation of each factor. In the latter case,
I propose to call the effect an emergent. It arises out of the combined
agencies, but in a form which does not display the agents in action.4
In his 1920 book Space, Time, and Deity, Samuel Alexander
cited Lloyd Morgan as his source of emergentism, and wrote:
much of what I have to say has been already said by Mr. Lloyd Morgan
in the concluding chapter of his work on Instinct and Experience. The
argument is that mind has certain specific characters to which there is
or even can be no neural counterpart...
3 A System of Logic, Book III, chapter VI

4 Problems of Life and Mind,(1875), vol. 2, p. 412
Mind is, according to our interpretation of the facts, an ‘emergent’ from

life, and life an emergent from a lower physico-chemical level of exis-
tence.5
Later, in his 1922 Gifford Lectures and 1923 book Emergent
Evolution, Lloyd Morgan saw even atoms and molecules as emer-
gent entities and introduced the related “top-down” concept of hier-
archical supervenience:
...in the physical world emergence is no less exemplified in the advent of
each new kind of atom, and of each new kind of molecule. It is beyond
the wit of man to number the instances of emergence. But if nothing
new emerge - if there be only regrouping of pre-existing events and
nothing more - then there is no emergent evolution.
Under emergent evolution there is progressive development of stuff
which becomes new stuff in virtue of the higher status to which it has
become raised under some supervenient kind of substantial gotogeth-
erness.6
Vitalists like Henri Bergson and Hans Driesch may not have
used the term emergence, but they strongly supported the idea of
teleological (purposeful), likely non-physical, causes, without which
they thought that life and mind could not have emerged from physi-
cal matter.
C. D. Broad’s view of the mind was emergentist and vitalist.
But Broad distinguished between what he called “Substantial
Vitalism” (a dualist theory of an immaterial substance as a vital force,
for example, Bergson’s élan vital) and what Broad called “Emergent
Chapter 27
Vitalism” (some kind of non-reductive materialism, in which the

vital property emerges from the body, and in the case of mind, from
the highest bodily level - the brain).
Broad says he borrowed the adjective “emergent” from Lloyd
Morgan and Alexander.
Broad contrasted the two forms of Substantial and Emergent
Vitalism with what he called “Biological Mechanism,” which is
essentially a reduction of biology to physics and chemistry. All the
emergentists were of course anti-mechanists or anti-reductionists.
5 Space, Time, and Deity (1920), vol. 2, p. 14
6 Emergent Evolution (1923), pp. 1-6
Emergence 301
Broad also mentioned Driesch, an anti-mechanist who developed

a sophisticated form of vitalism that he called “neovitalism.”
Driesch saw clear evidence of a kind of teleology in the ability of
lower organisms to rebuild their lost limbs and other vital parts. He
used Aristotle’s term “entelechy” (loosely translated as “having the
final cause in”) to describe the organism’s capacity to rebuild itself.
Driesch said this disproved the theory of preformation from a single
original cell. Driesch studied the original cells of a sea urchin, after
they had divided into two cells, then four, then eight. At each of
these stages, Driesch separated out single cells and found that the
separated cells went on to develop into complete organisms. This is
regarded as the first example of biological cloning.
Broad rejected Driesch’s idea of entelechy as a non-material, non-
spatial agent that is neither energy nor a material substance of a spe-
cial kind, but we should note that Driesch’s entelechy well describes
the information content of any cell by which it develops into a
complete organism. Driesch himself maintained that his entelechy
theory was something very different from the substance dualism of
older vitalisms. So what was Broad’s criticism of Driesch? Neither
thinker could produce a clear description of their vital element.
Broad was sophisticated in his discussion of emergence. He saw
that the kind of emergence that leads to water and its unique chemi-
cal properties, when compared to the properties of its molecular
components hydrogen and oxygen, has no element of purpose
or teleology. The emergence of life (and mind) from physics and Chapter 27
chemistry, however, clearly introduces a kind of design or purpose.
Modern biologists call it teleonomy, to distinguish it from a meta-
physical telos that pre-exists the organism. It comes as an essential
part of the organism.
It seems likely that both Driesch and Broad were trying to grasp
this teleonomy, which can be simply described as the built-in pur-
pose of each living cell to replicate its information. “The goal of
every cell is to become two cells.”
Three Kinds of Information Emergence

Note there are three distinct kinds of emergence, at the material,
biological, and mental levels:
1. the order out of chaos when the randomly distributed
matter in the early universe first gets organized into informa-
tion structures.
This was not possible before the first atoms formed about
400,000 years after the Big Bang. Information structures like the
stars and galaxies did not exist before about 400 million years.
As we saw, gravitation was the principal driver creating infor-
mation structures.
Nobel prize winner Ilya Prigogine discovered another
ergodic process that he described as the “self-organization” of
“dissipative structures.” He popularized the slogan “order out of
chaos” in an important book.7 Unfortunately, the “self ” in self-
organization led to some unrealizable hopes in cognitive psy-
chology. There is no self, in the sense of a person or agent, in
physical phenomena like convection cells and whirlpools.
Both gravitation and Prigogine’s dissipative systems produce
a purely physical/material kind of order. The resulting structures
contain information, with a “steady state” flow of information-
rich matter and energy through them. But they do not process
or communicate information. They have no purpose, no “telos.”
Chapter 27
Order out of chaos can explain the emergence of downward

causation on their atomic and molecular components. But this
is a gross kind of downward causal control. Explaining life and
mind as “complex adaptive systems” has not been successful.
We need to go beyond “chaos and complexity” theories to teleo-
nomic theories.
2. the order out of order when the material information struc-
tures form self-replicating biological information structures.
Some become information processing systems.
7 Order Out of Chaos. Shambhala, 1984.

Emergence 303
In his famous essay, “What Is Life?,” Erwin Schrödinger noted

that life “feeds on negative entropy” (or information). He called
this “order out of order.”
This kind of biological processing of information first emerged
about 3.5 billion years ago on the earth. It continues today on
multiple emergent biological levels, e.g., single-cells, multi-cel-
lular systems, organs, etc., each level creating new information
structures and information processing systems not reducible to
(caused by) lower levels and exerting downward causation on
the lower levels.
And this downward causal control is extremely fine. Biologi-
cal systems control the motions and arrangements of individual
atoms and molecules.
Biological systems are cognitive systems, using internal “sub-
jective” knowledge to recognize and interact with their “objec-
tive” external environment, communicating meaningful mes-
sages to their internal components and to other individuals
of their species with a language of arbitrary symbols, taking
actions to maintain themselves and to expand their populations
by learning from experience.8
With the emergence of life, “purpose” also entered the uni-
verse. It is not the pre-existent “teleology” of many idealistic phi-
losophies (the idea of “essence” before “existence”), but it is the
Chapter 27
“entelechy” of Aristotle, who saw that living things have within
them a purpose, an end, a “telos.” To distinguish this evolved
telos in living systems from teleology, modern biologists use the
term “teleonomy.”
3. the pure information out of order when organisms with
minds generate, store (in the brain), replicate, utilize, and then
externalize some non-biological information, communicat-
ing it to other minds and storing it in the environment. Com-
munication can be by hereditary genetic transmission or by an
advanced organism capable of learning and then teaching its
contemporaries directly by signaling, by speaking, or indirectly
by writing and publishing the knowledge for future generations.
8 See appendix G on Biosemiotics.

This kind of information can be highly abstract mind-stuff,

pure Platonic ideas, the stock in trade of philosophers. It is nei-
ther matter nor energy (though embodied in the material brain),
a kind of pure spirit or ghost in the machine. It is a candidate for
the immaterial dualist “substance” of René Descartes, though
it is probably better thought of as a “property dualism,” since
information is an immaterial property of all matter.
The information stored in the mind is not only abstract ideas. It
contains a recording of the experiences of the individual. In princi-
ple every experience may be recorded, though not all may be repro-
ducible/recallable. Information philosophy claims that everything
created since the origin of the universe over thirteen billion years
ago has involved just two fundamental physical processes that com-
bine to form the core of all creative processes at all three levels.9
This core creative process underlies the formation of microscopic
objects like atoms and molecules, as well as macroscopic objects like
galaxies, stars, and planets. (Note that the formation of self-orga-
nizing material systems in conditions far from equilibrium that are
the subjects of chaos and complexity theories are this basic, non-
teleonomic form of emergence.)
With the emergence of teleonomic (purposive) information in
self-replicating systems, the same core process underlies all biologi-
cal creation. But now some random changes in information struc-
Chapter 27
tures are rejected by natural selection, while others reproduce suc-

cessfully.
Finally, with the emergence of self-aware organisms and the cre-
ation of extra-biological information stored in the environment, the
same information-generating core process underlies communica-
tion, consciousness, free will, and creativity.
The physical processes in the core creative process are quantum
cooperative phenomena (involving the mysterious “collapse” of the
wave function necessary for the appearance of particles - see chapter
9 See appendix F for details on the cosmic creation process
Emergence 305
20) and thermodynamics, which requires the transfer of entropy

away from newly emergent information structures to ensure their
stability.10
Emergence in the Body
When a ribosome assembles
330 amino acids in four sym-
metric polypeptide chains (glo-
bins), each globin traps an iron
atom in a heme group at the
center to form the hemoglo-
bin protein. This is downward
causal control of the amino
Figure 27-32. Four protein chains of
acids, the heme groups, and the
hemoglobin. iron atoms by the ribosome. The
ribosome is an example of Erwin Schrödinger’s emergent “order
out of order,” life “feeding on the negative entropy” of digested food.
When 200 million of the 25 trillion red blood cells in the human
body die each second, in each of the new cells 100 million hemoglo-
bins cell must be assembled. With the order of a few thousand bytes
of information in each hemoglobin, this is 10 thousand x 100 mil-
lion x 200 million = 2 x 1020 bits of information per second, a million
times more information processing than today’s fastest computer
CPU. Red blood cells are 25% of body weight. Twenty percent of
Chapter 27
these are working in the brain to support mental information pro-
cessing.
When a ribosome produces a protein that does not fold properly,
a chaperone enzyme, shaped like a tiny trash can, opens its lid and
captures the protein. It then closes the lid and squeezes the protein.
Upon release, the protein then frequently folds properly. If it does
not, the chaperone captures it again and disassembles it back to its
amino acids. The chaperone is an emergent agent that is in no way
the result of “bottom-up” processes from its amino acid compo-
nents. It is also an extraordinary example of biological error detec-
tion and correction.
10 See appendix B on entropy and the second law
Emergence in the Brain

sium (K+) ions outside the cell. Within milliseconds, thousands
of sodium-potassium ion channels in the thin lipid bilayer of the
cell wall must move billions of those ions from one side to the
other. They do it with emergent biological machinery that exerts
downward causation on the ions, powered by ATP energy carriers
(feeding on negative entropy). Random quantum indeterministic
motions of the ions put some near the pump opening, where quan-
tum collaborative forces capture them in a lock-and-key structure.11
When many motor neurons fire, innnervating excitatory post-
synaptic potentials (EPSPs) that travel down through the thalamus
and the spinal cord and cause muscles to contract, that is as literal as
downward causation gets in the body.
When the emergent mind decides to move the body, that mental
causation is realized as downward causation.
When an emergent philosopher rearranges and communicates
ideas, verbally in lectures, or as written words in a published paper,
or as the bits of information in a computer memory, this is “informa-
tion out of order,” ultimately dependent on the body digesting food,
producing energy with negative entropy (“order out of order”), but
in no way controlled “bottom-up” by the molecules of body or food
Chapter 27
material, or by the energy consumed.

The Emergence of Immaterial Information Processing
Can information provide the basis for a different kind of mental
substance, one that emerged?
Abstract information is neither matter nor energy, yet it needs
matter for its concrete embodiment and energy for its communica-
tion. Information is immaterial.
It is the modern spirit, the ghost in the machine.
Immaterial information is perhaps as close as a physical or bio-
logical scientist can get to the idea of a soul or spirit that departs
the body at death. When a living being dies, it is the maintenance of
biological and mental information that ceases. The matter remains.
11 See “Ion Pumps in Neurons Select Individual Atoms” on page 183
Emergence 307
Information philosophy proposes a mind-body dualism in which

thoughts (pure information processing) in our minds have genuine
causal power over the body. This might be considered a metaphysical
mind, but it is purely biological and entirely dependent on the brain.
There are multiple realizations of physical/material “hardware” that
can implement the “software” of our ideas.
For example, when one person teaches another some new tech-
nique, or transmits some purely intellectual knowledge, the other
person is another physical realization, different hardware now run-
ning the same software.
To make this case, we need to establish the following:
• that the information in a mind can be regarded as an immaterial
substance.12
• that the information in a mind, while dependent on the body,
has genuine causal (adequately determined) power over the body.13
• that the information in a mind has not been pre-determined
by the sum of genetic inputs and life experiences, but has at least in
part been created by the agent, with inputs from some indetermin-
istic processes.14
The Emergence of Determinism
When small numbers of atoms and molecules interact, their
motions and behaviors are indeterministic, governed by the rules
of quantum mechanics. But when large numbers of particles gather Chapter 27
into large material objects, they are statistically determined. This is
called the “quantum to classical transition.”
Werner Heisenberg’s principle of indeterminacy (mistakenly
called “uncertainty,” as if the problem is epistemic/subjective and
not ontological/objective) gives us the minimum error in simulta-
neous measurements of position x and momentum p, for any object,
large or small,
Δp Δx ≥ h,
where h is Planck’s constant of action.
12 See appendix A on information

13 See chapter 16 on mental causation
14 See chapter 4 on the two-stage model of free will.
To see how “adequate” determinism emerges for large numbers

of particles, note that the momentum p = mv (the product of mass
and velocity), so we can write the indeterminacy principle in terms
of velocities and positions as
Δv Δx ≥ h / m.
When large numbers of microscopic particles get together in
massive aggregates, the mass increases and h / m approaches zero,
the indeterminacy of the individual particles gets averaged over and
macroscopic “adequately” deterministic laws “emerge.” The posi-
tions and velocities of large massive objects can therefore be “deter-
mined” to a high degree of accuracy, in fact beyond our ability to
measure.
Determinism is thus an emergent property for an object made up
of large numbers of material particles,.
The “laws of nature,” such as Newton’s laws of motion, are all sta-
tistical in nature. They also “emerge” when large numbers of atoms
or molecules get together. For large enough numbers, the probabilis-
tic laws of nature approach practical certainty. But the fundamental
indeterminism of component atoms never completely disappears.
There Was a Time with No Determinism
So determinism “emerges” today from microscopic quantum sys-
tems as they become a part of larger and more classical systems.
Chapter 27
But we can say that determinism also emerged in time. In the earli-
est years of the universe, large massive objects did not yet exist. All
matter was microscopic and quantal.
We can now identify that time in the evolution of the universe
when determinism first could have emerged. Before the so-called
“recombination era” at about 380,000 years, when the universe
cooled to a few thousand degrees Kelvin, a temperature at which
atoms could form out of sub-atomic particles (protons, helium
nuclei, and electrons), there were no “macroscopic objects” to
exhibit deterministic behavior.
Emergence 309
The early universe was filled with positive ions and negatively
charge electrons. The electrons scattered light photons, preventing
them from traveling very far. The universe was effectively opaque
past very short distances. When the temperature fell to about 3000
degrees K, the charged particles combined to form neutral atoms
(hydrogen and helium). With the scattering electrons now bound
into atoms, the photons suddenly could “see” (travel) to enormous
distances. This produced the transparent universe that we take for
granted today (on cloudless nights).
Those 3000 degrees K photons have been red-shifted as a result
of the universe expansion and now appear to us as the 2.7 degree
K “cosmic microwave background” radiation left over from the big
bang. We are looking at a moment in time when “classical” objects
obeying apparently deterministic causal laws did not yet exist.
After a few hundred million years, large material objects
could begin to form. Only then could anything “classical”” or
“deterministic” come into existence, could “emerge.”
Emergence Denied
Some prominent philosophers of science, logical empiricists who
were committed to the ability of physical science to explain every-
thing as “unified science,” were confident that “emergence” would
go the way of “holism” and “vitalism.”
For example, the former member of the Vienna Circle and lead-
ing reductionist Herbert Feigl wrote in 1958: Chapter 27
Inseparably connected with holism and the Gestalt philosophy is the
doctrine of emergence. This is indeed my own, admittedly risky and
speculative, guess; that is to say, I believe that once quantum dynamics
is able to explain the facts and regularities of organic chemistry (i.e. of
non-living, but complex compounds) it will in principle also be capable
of explaining the facts and regularities of organic life.15
15 “The ‘Mental’ and the ‘Physical’”, in Concepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body
Problem, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol.2, p. 414
o f L i fe
r i g i n s n
Th e O r m a t i o
d I n fo
a n
Chapter 28

informationphilosopher.com/introduction/biology
Origins 311
Origins of Life and Information

Despite many controversies about the role of information in
biology over the past several decades, we can now show that the
creation of information is not only necessary to understand biol-
ogy, but that biology is a proper subset of information creation
in the universe, including the evolution of human minds, which
have created the knowledge about how abstract immaterial infor-
mation and concrete information structures (matter and energy
with low entropy) have been and are now being created in the
universe.
A new story of biological evolution is needed, integrating it into
the cosmological story and illustrating the total dependence of life
on cosmological sources of negative entropy (information). We
cannot appreciate the origin of life without first understanding the
origin of information.
The first information structures formed in the early universe.
Elementary particles, atoms and molecules, galaxies, stars, and
planets, are all the result of microscopic quantum cooperative
phenomena and macroscopic gravitational forces. These are the
very special anti-entropic processes that we call ergodic (informa-
tion creating) .
But it is not until the emergence of life that information
replication, information processing, and information communica-
tion begins. Living things are biological information processors, Chapter 28
forms through which matter and energy flows, with capabilities
far beyond the electronic digital computers that cognitive scien-
tists think provides a “computational theory of mind.”
Most important, living things have “purposes.” They engage
in high level communications of information with other living
things and with the environment. Their messaging is meaningful,
allowing them to be active users of information, compared to pas-
sive material things, whose structural information is largely inert
and meaningless. Living things also have histories, unlike physics
and chemistry.
History and Evolution in the Universe

Long before there was life, the galaxies, stars, and planets had
a rich developmental or evolutionary history of their own. Astro-
physics tells us that stars radiated energy into space as they dissi-
pated the energy of gravitational collapse (the photons carried away
positive entropy to balance the new spherically symmetric order).
The stars paused their collapsing when their interiors reached tem-
peratures high enough to initiate thermonuclear reactions, which
convert the lightest elements (hydrogen and helium) into heavier
elements. When the fuel is exhausted, the stars resume collapsing,
some exploding catastrophically and spewing out into interstellar
space their newly formed elements, especially the heavy elements
needed for life.
Geophysics tells us that the surfaces of planets also go through
heating, then cooling, as they radiate away the energy of gravita-
tional binding. Chemical processes produce ever more complex
molecules on planetary surfaces, and astrobiology now finds pre-
biological organic molecules everywhere in space.
Chapter 28
Figure 28-1. Photons are the major source of negative entropy on the earth.
When a planet is bathed by radiation from a nearby star, the radi-

ation field is far from equilibrium. The high-temperature photons
leaving the solar surface (5800K) are spread out over a huge volume
of space. The energy density of the radiation falling on the Earth
corresponds to a much lower temperature (300K), but the high-
Origins 313
color-temperature photons cannot cool down without interacting

with matter.
When they do interact with the planetary surface, photons
provide the necessary stream of free energy to form even more
complex information structures, the macromolecules that are the
chemical basis for life. An alternative stream of free energy with
negative entropy comes from inside the cooling planet.
Whether from the Sun or high-temperature vents in the plan-
etary surface, it is these out-of-equilibrium conditions that lead to
the first living things. They are negative entropy flows which are
potential new information generators.
The Origin of Life
Early theories of the origin of life were based solely on phys-
ics and chemistry, from the 1920’s hypotheses of A.I. Operin and
J.B.S. Haldane that the early atmosphere of the Earth was reduc-
ing (hydrogen and not oxidizing), to Melvin Calvin’s 1930’s
suggestion for autocatalytic cycles, and the famous 1950’s experi-
ments of Harold Urey and Stanley Miller that showed many
organic molecules could form spontaneously (especially critical
amino acids, the building blocks of proteins) in Haldane’s “prebi-
otic soup.”
In the last several decades, theories of chaos and complexity
have led to the idea of “self-organizing” complex adaptive systems
that combine various autocatalytic cycles, for example, the hyper- Chapter 28
cycles of Manfred Eigen. The Nobel-prize-winning physical
chemist Ilya Prigogine identified irreversible processes in sys-
tems away from thermal equilibrium that he called “dissipative.”
Examples of “dissipative systems” include whirlpools and
Bénard convection cells. They exhibit what Prigogine called
“order out of chaos” and are an example of “emergence.”1 All living
systems are “dissipative,” so Prigogine and the complex adaptive
system advocates thought they might explain the nature of life.
Complexity theories were popular because they added an ele-
ment of unpredictability to otherwise deterministic physics, with-
out accepting the indeterminism and ontological chance of quan-
tum physics.
1 See chapter 27 for the three kinds of emergence.
All these complex, dissipative, autocatalytic processes depend on

a stream of free energy and negative entropy for their operation. But
if all that they produce is a “passive” information structure, it is the
just the same kind of “order out of chaos” that gravitation produces
in the galaxies, stars, and planets. It is not yet life.
The most sophisticated example of an autocatalytic system is one
that can generate large quantities of prebiotic molecules, such as the
amino acids that combine to form proteins. This is the citric acid
cycle (or Krebs cycle) used by all living systems today. It was almost
certainly a precursor of life, before the information replication we
associate with complex nucleotides and genetic code (DNA and
RNA).
Metabolic cycles do not use information in the sense of process-
ing it, but they do use the negative entropy flow to increase informa-
tion in the form of the amino acids. A large quantity of amino acids
can create proteins, but only randomly. Proteins cannot recreate
themselves precisely. They cannot transfer hereditary information.
So alongside a working metabolic cycle we need information
replication. The earliest such information structures were prob-
ably duplicated on an external template (a catalyst). Before DNA
appeared, there was an RNA world in which RNA could perform
the enzyme functions that proteins perform today, as well as the
self-replication that DNA gives us.
The central dogma of biology today is that DNA generates RNA
Chapter 28
which generates the proteins from amino acids. And today we see
the clear central role of information, specifically the messaging and
processing of information via “messenger RNA” and “transfer RNA.”
To be considered life, information philosophy expects an “active”
information structure that is processing information, communicat-
ing messages among the components to maintain its structure.
The first person to articulate the information processing aspect of
life was Lila Gatlin, who wrote in 1971
Life may be defined operationally as an information processing system—
a structural hierarchy of functioning units—that has acquired through
evolution the ability to store and process the information necessary for
Origins 315
its own accurate reproduction. The key word in the definition is infor-
mation.2
At some moment, a primitive macromolecule replicated itself. To
do this, it created new (duplicate) information, so positive entropy
equal to or greater than the new negative entropy must have been
carried away from the new information structure (for it to be stable).
Mere replication should not yet be seen as life. And anything like
metabolism would just be the flows of the low entropy solar photons
or geothermal free energy that get degraded in the process of pro-
viding the available energy needed to form the new molecule. But
we might anthropomorphize a bit and say that the apparent purpose
of the molecule appears to be replicating itself, increasing its own
kind of information structure in the universe.
Now at some point the replication might have been less than per-
fect (note the element of chance here).
Imagine now that the new molecule might be even more efficient
than the original molecule at replicating itself (it has greater repro-
ductive success). Note that the new molecule has more, or at least
different, information in it than the original. Now we might say that
this is the beginning of Darwinian evolution, which appears to have
a goal of building richer, more robust, living information structures.
We now have both primitive inheritance (of the information) and
a form of variability. Some of these molecules might not only be
more successful replicators, they might have chemical properties
that allow them to resist being destroyed by environmental condi- Chapter 28
tions. The energetic extreme-ultraviolet photons, for example, or
destructive cosmic rays, which might have been the source of the
original variations.
The result might be a runaway exponential explosion of the con-
centration of those molecules (an important characteristic of living
systems) as well as alteration of their environment. Early life gener-
ated an oxygen atmosphere that protected it from the ionizing ultra-
violet rays that may have led to life in the first place.
Replication could lead to populations of the molecule that are well
beyond the normal populations that would be expected in chemical
2 Information Theory and the Living System, p.1
equilibrium. Chemists might view this as simply an autocatalytic

process, in which the molecule catalyzes its own production. But
because it is information replicating itself, it is qualitatively different
from mere chemical autocatalysis.
At the atomic level, it will be quantum cooperative phenomena
that pull the constituent atoms into the desired molecular positions.
It is the overall shape (form, information) that produces a dynami-
cal interactive constraint well beyond the mere aggregation of indi-
vidual atoms.
Loosely speaking, the new, more successful species of molecule
has “learned” something, storing the new information internally
and passing it on to the next generation.
Jumping now to human evolution, we see a species of multi-
molecular, multi-cellular organism that has found a way to external-
ize information, storing it in the environment (culture), where it can
be shared with new generations of humans, who continue to add to
this external store of knowledge we call the Sum, enabling them to
dominate the planet, for better or worse.
The Origin of Information
Passive information structures formed in the universe from the
first few moments of time. But these elementary particles could
not even form a lasting atomic structure until nearly 400,000 years
after the expansion of the universe had begun. The universe had to
Chapter 28
cool significantly more, taking millions of years, before the galaxies,

stars, and planets could form.
Although these magnificent astronomical bodies are the domi-
nant contents of the universe, their information is essentially inert
and meaningless until astronomers have appeared to study them,
extracting their information. It is said that an astronomer is one gal-
axy’s way of knowing about other galaxies, the universe’s means of
self-contemplation. These of course are mere metaphors, because
the flow of information is one way, from the passive structures to
the information-processing minds.
Origins 317
Claude Shannon3 analyzed the communication of informa-

tion in terms of senders and receivers, exchanging coded messages
through noisy channels. It applies to the extraction of any kind of
information, for example the yes/no answers to questions put to the
physical world by scientists making quantum measurements.4
We can think of the Sun as sending its photons to Earth, although
since they go out in all directions, less than one in a billion is
received here. But where astronomers do not return any informa-
tion to the stars and galaxies they study, even the smallest organism
interacts with its environment and exchanges information in mean-
ingful ways. All organisms and their components are “interactors”
exchanging information.
All life draws its nourishment from the stream of negative
entropy, the matter and free energy that flows though every organ-
ism. But living things also excrete matter and degraded energy into
their environment, a return information flow that alters, in many
ways creates, their local world - the biosphere.
Information in Biology
The major question for information in biology is this, are the com-
munications between biological systems (organisms) and between
their components (cells, organelles, macromolecules) semiosis, the
exchange of signs?
Major textbooks on biology have always used terms like signal-
ing, coding, transcribing, translating, communicating, messengers, Chapter 28
recognition, even language, but they almost always insist that these
are only metaphors, that they are not the kind of intentional and
meaningful exchanges of signs that humans use.5
Consider what happens in a cell when a particular protein or
enzyme is in short supply. A messenger enters the nucleus with a
signal that more of the protein is needed. Responding to the signal,
an enzyme (synthetase) travels to the exact segment of the DNA
that contains the sequence of nucleotides for the needed protein.
3 The Mathematical Theory of Communication, 1948
4 See ”Meaning in the Theory of Information” on page 142
5 See appendix G for the story of Biosemiotics.
The synthetase moves along the DNA, transcribing the sequence of

nucleotide triplets (called codons) into a growing RNA with a mes-
sage intended for the ribosome that manufactures proteins. Each
codon refers to a specific amino acid in the protein.
The “messenger RNA” detaches itself from the DNA and travels
through the nuclear membrane into the cell cytoplasm where ribo-
somes and a supply of amino acids is located. The amino acids are
moving about randomly and very rapidly as a result of thermal and
quantal noise. The long thread of mRNA enters the ribosome, which
stops it to wait for the arrival of a “transfer RNA” carrying an amino
acid and the three-letter “anticodon” that matches the codon in the
mRNA for the next amino acid needed in the polypeptide chain.
When the one-dimensional linear protein leaves the ribosome,
it folds itself into a three-dimensional shape that has enzymatic
activity. If it does not fold correctly, it is swallowed by tiny “trash-
can” shaped structures called “chaperones.” The chaperone closes its
cover and squeezes the protein, encouraging it to fold correctly.
If it does not, the protein is broken up into its amino acids. This is
an amazing degree of error detection and correction.
The whole chain of communications between the signal that
entered the nucleus, the syntax of the message, the semantic decod-
ing of the mRNA by the ribosome, which refers to exactly the right
amino acids as they fly around at high speeds connected to trans-
fer RNA, looks like interpretation of the message, with reference to
Chapter 28
the amino acids. The message has pragmatic significance, leading to

meaningful action (production of the protein). The later Wittgen-
stein tells us that “meaning is use.” The cell is using all this commu-
nication of information for the purpose of staying alive!
Information philosophy looks at all this as the primitive proto-
type of the information communication and processing that we
have today in human beings. In human language, the fundamen-
tal elements are syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and morphology
(the shapes of the signs). Are not all of these already present in our
smallest organisms?
Origins 319
Despite many calls to recognize the reality of information in biol-

ogy, the reductionist view that biology is nothing but the result of
physics and chemistry has prevented it. Here are some important
calls over the years to accept information in biology.
“Life may be defined operationally as an information processing sys-
tem—a structural hierarchy of functioning units—that has acquired
through evolution the ability to store and process the information nec-
essary for its own accurate reproduction. The key word in the definition
is information. This definition, like all definitions of life, is relative to the
environment. My reference system is the natural environment we find
on this planet. However, I do not think that life has ever been defined
even operationally in terms of information. This entire book constitutes
a first step toward such a definition.”6
“Evidently nature can no longer be seen as matter and energy alone. Nor
can all her secrets be unlocked with the keys of chemistry and physics,
brilliantly successful as these two branches of science have been in our
century. A third component is needed for any explanation of the world
that claims to be complete. To the powerful theories of chemistry and
physics must be added a late arrival: a theory of information. Nature
must be interpreted as matter, energy, and information.”7
“A central and fundamental concept of this theory is that of ‘biological
information,’ since the material order and the purposiveness character-
istic of living systems are governed completely by information, which
in turn has its foundations at the level of biological macromolecules .
The question of the origin of life is thus equivalent to the question of the
origin of biological information.”8
“Information as the central concept in molecular biology:..Information,
transcription, translation, code, redundancy, synonymous, messenger,
editing, and proofreading are all appropriate terms in biology. They take Chapter 28
their meaning from information theory (Shannon, 1948) and are not
synonyms, metaphors, or analogies.”9
Biological Machines
We have seen that biological communications, the informa-
tion exchanged in messages between biological entities, is far
more important than the particular physical and chemical entities
themselves. These material entities are used up and replaced many
6 Information Theory and the Living System, (1971) Lila Gatlin, p.1
7 Grammatical Man, (1982) Jeremy Campbell, p.16, inspired by Gatlin
8 Information and the Origin of Life, (1990) Bernd-Olaf Küppers, p.xvii
9 Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life, (2005) H. Yockey, p.6
times in the life cycle of a whole organism, while the messaging has
remained constant, not just over the individual life cycle, but that of
the whole species.
In fact most messages, and the specific molecules that embody
and encode those messages, have been only slowly varying for bil-
lions of years.
As a result, the sentences (or statements or “propositions”) in bio-
logical languages may have a very limited vocabulary compared to
human languages. Although the number of words added to human
languages in a typical human lifetime is remarkably small.
Biological information is far more important than matter and
energy for another reason. Beyond biological information as “ways
of talking” in a language, we will show that the messages do much
more than send signals, they encode the architectural plans for bio-
logical machines that have exquisite control over individual mol-
ecules, atoms, and their constituent electrons and nuclei.
Far from the materialist idea that fundamental physical elements
have “causal control” over living things, we find that biological
information processing systems are machines, intelligent robotic
machines, that assemble themselves and build their own replace-
ments when they fail, and that use the flow of free energy and mate-
rial with negative entropy to manipulate their finest parts.
Coming back to the great philosopher of logic and language
Ludwig Wittgenstein, who briefly thought of “models” as explan-
Chapter 28
atory tools that can “show” what is difficult or impossible to “say” in

a language, we offer still pictures of a few biological machines, with
links to dynamic animated models on the I-Phi website.
The amazing operations of these machines are so far beyond
man-made machines that it has called into question the ability of
Darwinian evolution to create them by random trials and errors.
But the most complex of these machines have been shown to be
composed of dozens of smaller and simpler parts that did and still
do much simpler tasks in the cell.
The five biological machines that we chose are
Origins 321
• the ribosome, a massive factory that manufactures thousands of

different possible proteins when messenger RNA carries a request
for one of them from the nuclear DNA,
• ATP synthase, which packages small amounts of energy into a
nucleotide molecule that carries energy to any place in the organism
that needs power to perform its function,
• the flagellum, a high-speed motor that moves bacterial cells to
sources of matter and energy in their environment,
• the ion pump, which moves calcium and potassium ions to rap-
idly recharge the activation potential of a neuron so it is ready to fire
again in a fraction of a second so the mind can make its decisions
and take actions to move the body,
• the chaperone, an error detection and correction system beyond
the ability of our finest computers to protect memories from noise.
Biology cannot prevent the occurrence of random errors. Indeter-
ministic chance is the original source of variability in our genes that
led to the incredible diversity of life forms, including us humans.
But the nearly perfect operation of our biological machines and
the phenomenal fidelity of copying our many genetic codes over
billions of years shows the stability and “adequate determinism” of
biology in the presence of ontological chance, a consequence of the
noise-immune digital nature of biological information.
Ribosomes Chapter 28
Figure 28-2. The ribosome waits for the right tRNA and amino acid to
collide, then captures it to be added to the growing protein
The linear messenger RNA is a sequence of three-letter nucleo-

tide “codons,” each of which codes for one of twenty possible amino
acids. The transfer RNAs are flying around randomly in the cell car-
rying an amino acid with the complementary anti-codon. When an
incoming tRNA colliding with the ribosome is a match, the mRNA
captures it and moves three letters into the ribosome. The amino
acid is detached from the tRNA and attached to the growing pep-
tide chain, and the mRNA advances three more letters, releasing the
outgoing, now empty tRNA, who will capture a replacement amino
acid.
Notice that the tRNAs are moving quickly and randomly, so a
large number of incorrect tRNAs bang into the next position on the
mRNA while it waits for the correct match. Nothing in the path of
the tRNA is determining the new sequence, as some physical chem-
ists think. Which particular tRNA and amino acid of the right kind
is added next is pure chance.
The ribosome is an ancient machine, going back to the last uni-
versal common ancestor (LUCA) of the three domains of life - bac-
teria, archaea, and eukaryotes. It is built from a few RNA molecules
that self-fold to become enzymes (ribozymes) and a number of pro-
teins that provide a supporting structure for the RNA. The longest
of these RNAs is at the middle step when the amino acid is released
from the tRNA and attached to the growing peptide chain.
Comparing modern ribosomes in the three domains, the micro-
Chapter 28
biologist George Fox, who with Carl Woese identified the archaea
domain, reconstructed the likely earliest version of the ribosome, an
important component of the RNA world’s transition to DNA.
We shall see that reconstructing the earliest versions of important
biological components, especially the biological machines, can pro-
vide deep insights into the origin of life.
By comparison, the efforts of complex adaptive systems theorists
to guess at the earliest auto-catalytic chemical systems have largely
been fruitless, since chemical systems do not process information
about the different chemicals.
Origins 323
ATP Synthase
Figure 28-3. The rotating motor embedded in the membrane spins at 10,000 rpm.
The source of power for most biological machines is the ATP

(adenosine triphosphate) molecule. Adenosine is one of the four
nucleotides in the genetic code (G, C, A, T). The ATP synthase
machine above adds an inorganic phosphate group Pi back to a
depleted diphosphate ADP, powered by “chemiosmosis,” a flow of Chapter 28
protons (hydrogen ions) across the semi-permeable cell membrane.
As each proton enters the top of the synthase complex, the top
rotates by one of its segments. A fixed shaft (on the right) holds the
lower part of the synthase in place while the rotating center shaft
pushes lower segments to open and close, providing the energy to
add back a Pi to the ADP.
ATP contributes a jolt of power to other machines (see the ion
pumps below) when the third phosphate group is detached and
energetic ATP becomes depleted ADP.
But what was the basic power source before complex biological
machines like ATP came into existence?
The Flagellum
Figure 28-4. This motor can instantly switch into reverse, the bacterium tumbles
randomly, then switches back to forward motion in a new direction.
Another rotating system embedded in a cell wall is the reversible
motor that drives the flagella of mobile bacteria. The rotor has been
Chapter 28
measured at an incredible tens of thousands of rotations per minute.

This system is so amazing it is considered the “poster child” of intel-
ligent design advocates, but of its fifty protein parts, over forty have
been identified as having simpler, but similar, functions that have
“exadapted “ for their role in the flagellum motor.
Bacterial flagella are powered by a flow of protons just like the
rotating part of the ATP synthase, others by a flow of sodium ions,
and some are powered by ATP flows. Some organisms have flagella
only in their earliest development phase, for example, spermatazoa.
But we can ask what produced the flow of protons before there was
a molecule as advanced as ATP?
Origins 325
Ion Pumps
Figure 28-7. The ion pump uses ATP as its power source.

sium (K+) ions outside the cell. Within milliseconds, thousands of
sodium-potassium ion channels in the thin lipid bilayer of the cell
wall must move billions of those ions from one side to the other.
They do it with emergent biological machinery that exerts down-
ward causation on the ions, powered by ATP energy carriers (feeding
on negative entropy). Random quantum indeterministic motions of
the amino acids drive them near the pump opening, and quantum Chapter 28
collaborative forces capture them in a lock-and-key structure.
ATP hydrolysis provides the energy for a full cycle of opening
and closing the pump, which pumps three sodium ions out of the
cell for every two potassium ions pumped in. In neurons, the pump
uses about 2/3 of the energy expenditure in the cell.
Before there were ion channels powered by ATP, could some
primitive proteins have evolved to move specific ions across a mem-
brane and create an electrochemical potential?
Chaperones
Figure 28-5. The error-correcting chaperone also uses ATP.
When a newly manufactured protein leaves the ribosome, it

sometimes fails to fold properly to become an active enzyme that
carries out its proper function in the cell. A well-folded protein
hides away all its oily hydrophobic sites, exposing it hydrophylic
sites to the water-based solution in the cell.
The incorrectly folded protein’s hydrophobic sites are attracted
to hydrophobic locations inside a chaperone. Once inside a cap is
attached to the top and forces inside the chaperone encourage it to
fold properly, in which case the cap opens and the normal protein is
released. Once again, it is ATP that powers the chaperones.
Motive Power?
What ultimately powers all these machines? Of course it is ulti-
mately free energy in a negative entropy flow, but what is the spe-
cific chemistry? If it starts with sunlight, it will be photosynthesis
Chapter 28
that extracts energy in the photons via redox reactions (simulta-

neous reduction and oxidation) that produce electrons and ions.
For example water becomes H+ and OH-, with transfer of H+ ions
(protons) across plant cell membranes. In mitochondria, it is the
breakdown of food (sugars) in the citric acid cycle, with transfer of
protons across the inner mitochondrial membrane.
In either case, an electrochemical gradient across a membrane is
like a battery voltage (a tiny tenth of a volt) that powers all of life.
It may have originated with amino acids randomly assembled into
proteins that penetrated the bilayer phospholipids of proto-cells to
act as proto-ion-pumps.
Origins 327
Life, Love, and Death

A few speculations about three topics - bios, eros, and thanatos10 -
that often raise origin questions - why are we living?, why sex?, and
why do we die?
From the standpoint of information philosophy, biology seems to
have been a series of cosmic accidents, some of which in retrospect
can be seen as highly unlikely. Against the arguments that given
the right conditions, life is highly probable, we can note that life
remained unicellular for the first few billion years. The endosymbio-
sis of bacterial cells being hosted by an archeon, to form the eukary-
otes who became multicellular, suggests that this critical step for the
possibility of intelligent life was highly improbable.
The importance of chance is evident from the evolution of the
deliberate randomization of genes in sexual reproduction, which
seems to aim at creating unique individuals.
As human life is about to take control of the evolution of the
human genome, a major objective may be to eliminate the chance
elements that lead to cell death.
Working Backwards in Time
We saw in chapters 12 to 16 how philosophers of mind attempt to
reduce mental states to bottom-up deterministic causation by the
laws of physics and chemistry at work in the brain.
Most biologists today are also reductionists, feeling more com- Chapter 28
fortable with the materialist laws of the physical sciences than with
immaterial ideas like emergence, purpose, and information. Most
cognitive scientists and neuroscientists share this traditional and
conservative view.
But information philosophers and scientists today should make
the strong case that life is more than the conserved quantities of
matter and energy, and more than the deterministic laws of classical
physics and chemistry.
Life is matter and energy - plus information. Life is quantum
physics and chemistry - plus the new information in the universe
that would be impossible without the ontological chance of quantal
indeterminism.
10 Or at the cellular level - mitosis, meiosis, and apoptosis.
Unlike physics and chemistry, life has a history - an information

history. We are more likely to figure out the origin of life by work-
ing backwards to guess the most primitive elements of today’s most
universal parts (e.g., the citric acid cycle), than by trying to work
forward from primitive chemical reactions of atoms and molecules
that know nothing, that always lose any information about where
they have been in the past.
We consider the origins of four increasingly sophisticated infor-
mation-controlled processes - the metabolic cycle, chemiosmosis,
the ribosome, and the genetic code. Our technique will be to strip
them down to their primitive core elements. By reducing the amount
of information in each process, we are working backward in time.
The current eight-step metabolic cycle uses sophisticated ATP as
a catalyst. The earliest cycle would eliminate those steps.
Chemiosmosis moves protons or other ions across a membrane
to create electrochemical potentials. This is done by multiple pro-
tein complexes in the current electron transfer chain. Today’s pro-
teins are produced by the ribosome, with RNA messages from the
DNA. Let’s work back to a time without either of these. It will still
be proteins separating the electrons from the protons. They must do
it without ATP, because they provide the power to create ATP. So
let’s look for the simplest components of today’s proteins that can
do this.
There are several different such complexes. The largest one uses
Chapter 28
a string of connected iron-sulfur clusters, each of which takes a

small amount of energy from the electron and passes it, perhaps by
quantum tunneling, to the next cluster. The presence of these FeS2
clusters points to Günter Wächtershäuser’s iron-sulfur world
hypothesis of life forming on mineral surfaces near hydrothermal
vents in the deep sea. Membranes over pores in rock surfaces would
later become modern cells in the RNA world.
It was a study of the different ribosomes in bacteria, archaea, and
eukaryotes that led to Carl Woese’s discovery of the three domains
of life. Woese’s colleague George Fox and Hyman Hartman of
MIT have worked backward in time to the most ancient parts of
Origins 329
the ribosome, specifically a central RNA molecule that encloses

the center where a new amino acid is added to the growing peptide
(protein) chain.
The current genetic code uses three nucleotides out of four RNA
possibilities (G, C, A, U), giving 64 codes to choose one of twenty
amino acids. But the third nucleotide often has no relevance for the
amino acid. As long as the first two are GG, any one of the four will
still code for glycine. GCx codes for alanine, CGx for arginine, and
CCx for proline. All four of these amino acids are very common.
Could there have been an early time when there was a simpler, two-
base code and only four amino acids in the first proteins to be coded
for, probably in a ribozyme with the hereditary information?
Hartman has connected this hypothesis back to the reversed citric
acid cycle that was likely in the early earth’s reducing atmosphere.
He estimated the number of extra steps beyond the metabolic cycle
needed to produce each amino acid, identifying the easiest to man-
ufacture. Alanine, glycine, aspartic acid, and glutamic acid are one
step away. Glutamine, asparagine, and serine are two steps away.
Between those with the simplest codes and those with the mini
mum number of steps to produce them, glycine and alanine were
likely the earliest amino acids to enter the genetic code.
Chapter 28
Figure 28-6. Was there an earlier time when only two nucleotides coded for
fewer amino acids?
at i o n
I n fo r m
Appendix A

informationphilosopher.com/introduction/information
Information 331
Information
Information is the fundamental metaphysical connection
between idealism and materialism.
Information is the form in all concrete objects as well as the
content in non-existent, merely possible, abstract entities. It is the
disembodied, de-materialized essence of anything.
Information philosophy goes beyond a priori logic and its
puzzles, beyond analytic language and its games and paradoxes,
beyond philosophical claims of necessary truths, to a contingent
physical world that is best represented as made of dynamic, inter-
acting information structures. Models of these structures can best
represent the fundamental metaphysical nature of reality.
Knowledge begins with information structures in minds that
are partial isomorphisms (mappings) of the information structures
in the external world. Information philosophy is the ultimate
correspondence theory.
But I-Phi shows that there is no isomorphism, no information
in common, no necessary connection, between words and objects.
Although language is an excellent tool for human communica-
tion, its arbitrary and ambiguous nature makes it ill-suited to rep-
resent the world directly. Language does not picture reality. Is is
not the best tool for solving philosophical problems.
The extraordinarily sophisticated connection between words Appendix A
and objects is made in human minds, mediated by the brain’s
experience recorder and reproducer (ERR).1 Words stimulate
neurons to start firing and to play back relevant experiences that
include the objects.
By contrast, a dynamic information model of an information
structure in the world is presented immediately to the mind as
a look-alike and act-alike simulation, which is experienced for
itself, not mediated through words.
1 See appendix E on the experience recorder and reproducer..

Without words and related experiences previously recorded in

your mental experience recorder, you could not comprehend
spoken or written words. They would be mere noise, with no
meaning. Compare these two representations of a cat.
Compared to a spoken or printed word, a photograph or a

moving picture with sound can be seen and mostly understood by
human beings, independent of their native tongue.
The elements of information philosophy, dynamical models of
information structures, go far beyond logic and language as a rep-
resentation of the fundamental, metaphysical, nature of reality.
Models “write” directly into our mental experience recorders.
They are not mediated through ambiguous language.
Computer animated models must incorporate all the laws of
nature, from the differential equations of quantum physics to the
myriad processes of biology. At their best, simulations are not only
our most accurate knowledge of the physical world, they are the
best teaching tools ever devised. We can transfer knowledge non-
verbally to coming generations and most of the world’s population
via the Internet and ubiquitous smartphones.
Appendix A
If you think about it, everything you know is pure abstract

information. Everything you are is an “information structure,” a
combination of matter and energy that embodies and communi-
cates your information. And everything that you value contains
information.
You are a creator of information, part of a cosmic creation
process. Your free will depends on your unique ability to create
alternative possibilities for your willed decisions and responsible
actions.
The simple definition of information is the act of informing -
the communication of knowledge from a sender to a receiver that
informs (literally shapes) the receiver.
Information 333
By information we mean a quantity that can be understood

mathematically and physically. It corresponds to the common-
sense meaning of information, in the sense of communicating or
informing. It is like the information stored in books and comput-
ers. But it also measures the information in any physical object,
like a snow crystal or a star like our sun, as well as the information
in biological systems, including the genetic code, the cell struc-
ture, and the developmental learning of the phenotype.
Although some commentators would like to limit the term
“information” to messages sent with an intended purpose, physi-
cal scientists have long included the structure in physical objects
as something that can be measured by an observer and thus is also
information. Information philosophy recognizes material objects
as “information structures,” from which pure information con-
tent can be abstracted as meaningful knowledge, even though the
object itself may have no purpose.
The sender of information need not be a person, an animal, or
even a living thing. It might be a purely material object, a rainbow,
for example, sending color information to your eye.
The receiver, too, might be merely physical, a molecule of water
in that rainbow that receives too few photons and cools to join
the formation of a crystal snowflake, increasing its information
content.
Information theory, the mathematical theory of the commu-
nication of information, says little about meaning in a message,
Appendix A
which is roughly the use to which the information received is put.
Information philosophy extends the information flows in human
communications systems and digital computers to the natural
information carried in the energy and material flows between all
the information structures in the observable universe.
A message that is certain to tell you something you already
know contains no new information. It does not increase your
knowledge, or reduce the uncertainty in what you know, as infor-
mation theorists put it.
Information in the Universe

Information in physical systems was connected to a measure of
the structural order in a system as early as the nineteenth century by
William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) and Ludwig Boltzmann,
who described an increase in the thermodynamic entropy as “lost
information.”
In 1877, Boltzmann proved his “H-Theorem” that the entropy or
disorder in the universe always increases.2
He defined entropy S as the logarithm of the number W of possi-
ble microscopic states of a physical system, an equation now known
as Boltzmann’s Principle,
S = k log W.
In 1929, Leo Szilard showed the mean value of the quantity of
information produced by a 1-bit, two-possibility (“yes/no”) mea-
surement as S = k log 2, where k is Boltzmann’s constant, connecting
information directly to entropy.
Following Szilard, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Erwin
Schrödinger, Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon, Warren
Weaver, John von Neumann, and Leon Brillouin, all expressed
similar views on the connection between physical entropy and
abstract “bits” of information.
Schrödinger said the information in a living organism is the
result of “feeding on negative entropy” from the sun. Wiener said
“The quantity we define as amount of information is the negative of
Appendix A
the quantity usually defined as entropy in similar situations.”

Brillouin created the term “negentropy” because he said, “One
of the most interesting parts in Wiener’s Cybernetics is the discus-
sion on “Time series, information, and communication,” in which
he specifies that a certain “amount of information is the negative of
the quantity usually defined as entropy in similar situations.”
Shannon, with a nudge from von Neumann, used the term entropy
to describe his estimate of the amount of information that can be
2 Boltzmann’s critics objected to his proof, but we have shown how to overcome
their objections in chapters 24 and 25.
Information 335
communicated over a channel, because his mathematical theory of

the communication of information produced a mathematical for-
mula identical to Boltzmann’s equation for entropy, except for a
minus sign (the negative in negative entropy).
Shannon described a set of i messages, each with probability pi .
He then defined a quantity H,
H = k Σ pi log pi
where k is a positive constant. Since H looked like the H in
Boltzmann’s H-Theorem, Shannon called it the entropy of the set of
probabilities p1, p2, . . . , pn.
To see the connection, we can note that Boltzmann assumed
that all his probabilities were equal. For n equal states, the
probability of each state is p = 1/n. The sum over n states,
Σ pi log pi,, is then n x 1/n x log (1/n) = log (1/n) = -log n. If we set n
= W, we get Boltzmann’s entropy with a minus sign,
H = - k log W.
Shannon’s entropy H is simply the negative of Boltzmann’s S.
Shannon showed that a communication that is certain to tell you
something you already know (one of the messages has probability
unity) contains no new information. The logarithm of 1 is 0.
If everything that happens was certain to happen, as determin-
ist philosophers claim, no new information would ever enter the
universe. Information would be a universal constant. There would
be “nothing new under the sun.” Every past and future event could Appendix A
in principle be known (as Pierre-Simon Laplace suggested3) by a
super-intelligence with access to such a fixed totality of information.
It is of the deepest philosophical significance that information is
based on the mathematics of probability. If all outcomes were cer-
tain, there would be no “surprises” in the universe. Information
would be conserved and a universal constant, as some mathemati-
cians mistakenly believe it is. Information philosophy requires the
ontological chance and probabilistic outcomes of modern quantum
physics to create new information structures.
3 See “Laplace’s Demon” on page 28

But at the same time, without the extraordinary stability of quan-

tized information structures over cosmological time scales, life and
the universe we know would not be possible. Quantum mechanics
reveals the architecture of the universe to be discrete rather than
continuous, to be digital rather than analog. And digital provides
extraordinary stability.
Creation of information structures means that in parts of the uni-
verse local entropy is actually going down. Creation of a low-entropy
system is always accompanied by radiation of energy and entropy
away from the local structure to the night sky and the cosmic back-
ground radiation.
From Newton’s time to the start of the 19th century, the Lapla-
cian view coincided with the notion of the divine foreknowledge of
an omniscient God. On this view, complete, perfect and constant
information exists at all times that describes the designed evolution
of the universe and of the creatures inhabiting the world.
In this God’s-eye view, information is a constant of nature. Some
mathematicians argue that information must be a conserved quan-
tity, like matter and energy. They are wrong. In Laplace’s view, infor-
mation would be a constant straight line over all time, as shown
along the top of the figure.
information
Laplace’s Demon (1814)
A Laplace Demon has all the information - forces, positions, velocities -
Appendix A
for all the particles in the universe.
All times, past and future, are present to the Laplace Demon,
as to the eyes of God. In a deterministic universe, information is constant.
information
Mathematical physicists, like Laplace, believe that the conservation of information

is as much a conservation law as that of matter and energy.
There is no chance. The randomness we see is simply epistemic, a consequence

of human ignorance about physical details that his demon and God can know.
time
(Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, 1814)
Figure 29-1. Constant information in a deterministic universe

Information 337
If information were a universal constant, there would be “nothing

new under the sun.” Every past and future event can in principle be
known by Laplace’s super-intelligent demon, with its access to such
a fixed totality of information.
entropy
entropy/information
Lord Kelvin’s Heat Death (1852)

Following the discovery of the laws of thermodynamics,
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) claimed that the universe would
“run down,” all the energy ultimately dissipated into thermal motions,
which Herman Helmholtz called a “heat death.”
Mathematicians would say the information lost to entropy is still information
available microscopically, recoverable if time was reversed.
time
(William Thomson, "On a Universal Tendency in Nature to the Dissipation of Mechanical Energy")
Figure 29-2. The second law predicts a heat death of the universe
But midway through the nineteenth century, Lord Kelvin (Wil-

liam Thomson) realized that the newly discovered second law of
thermodynamics required that information could not be con-
stant, but would be destroyed as the entropy (disorder) increased.
Hermann Helmholtz described this as the “heat death” of the
universe. Appendix A
Mathematicians who are convinced that information is always
conserved argue that macroscopic order is disappearing into micro-
scopic order, but the information could in principle be recovered, if
time could only be reversed.
This raises the possibility of some connection between the
increasing entropy and what Arthur Stanley Eddington called
“Time’s Arrow.” 4
Kelvin’s claim that information must be destroyed when entropy
increases would be correct if the universe were a closed system. But
in our open and expanding universe, my Harvard colleague David
Layzer showed that the maximum possible entropy is increasing
4 See chapter 24.
faster than the actual entropy. The difference between maximum

possible entropy and the current entropy is called negative entropy,
opening the possibility for complex and stable information struc-
tures to develop.
Figure 29-3. Growth of information and entropy in the universe
We can see from the figure that it is not only entropy that
increases in the direction of the arrow of time, but also the informa-
tion content of the universe. We can describe the new information
as “emerging.” 5
Appendix A
The expanding universe is the source of possibilities

Despite the second law of thermodynamics, stable and lawlike
information structures evolved out of the initial chaos. First, quan-
tum processes formed microscopic particulate matter – baryons,
nuclei - from the fundamental quarks and electrons. Eventually
these became atoms. Later, under the influence of gravitation, they
coalesced into macroscopic galaxies, stars, and planets.
5 See chapter 27.
Information 339
Every new information structure reduces the entropy locally, so

the second law requires an equal (or generally much greater) amount
of entropy to be carried away. Without the expansion of the uni-
verse, this would be impossible.
Figure 29-4. Two entropy flows
The positive entropy carried away (the big dark arrow on the
left) is always greater than and generally orders of magnitude larger
than the negative entropy in the created information structure (the
smaller light arrow on the right).
See appendix B for the other negative entropy flows that ulti-
mately lead to human life.
Information is emergent, because the universe began with min-
imal, essentially zero, information. It was in a state of thermody-
namic equilibrium, maximum disorder.
And there are three distinct kinds of information emergence:
Appendix A
• the “order out of chaos” when the matter in the universe formed
cosmic information structures. This is also Ilya Prigogine’s chaos
and complexity theory.
• the “order out of order” when the material information struc-
tures form self-replicating biological information processing sys-
tems. This is what Erwin Schrödinger described as life “feeding
on negative entropy.”
• the pure “information out of order” when organisms with minds

create, process, and externalize information, communicating it to
other minds and storing it in the environment, sharing it with all
humanity as the Sum of human knowledge.
Information philosophy explains how new information is con-
stantly being created, by nature and by humanity. We are co-creators
of our universe.
Information theory is the mathematical quantification of commu-
nication to describe how information is transmitted and received, in
human language, for example.
Information science is the study of the categorization, classifica-
tion, manipulation, storage, and retrieval of information.
Cognitive science is the study of the mental acquisition, reten-
tion, and utilization of knowledge, which we can describe as the
recording and reproduction of experiences as guides for action.
Information philosophy is an attempt to examine some classic
problems in philosophy from the standpoint of information.
What is information that merits its use as the foundation of a new
philosophical method of inquiry?
Abstract information is neither matter nor energy, yet it needs
matter for its concrete embodiment and energy for its communica-
tion. Information is immaterial.
Information is the modern spirit, the ghost in the machine.
Appendix A
Immaterial information is perhaps as close as a physical or bio-

logical scientist can get to the idea of a soul or spirit that departs
the body at death. When a living being dies, it is the maintenance of
biological information that ceases. The matter remains.
Biological systems are different from purely physical systems pri-
marily because they create, store, and communicate information.
Living things store information in a memory of the past that they
use to shape their future. Fundamental physical objects like atoms
have no history.
Information 341
And when human beings export some of their personal informa-

tion to make it a part of human culture, that information moves
closer to becoming immortal.
Human beings differ from other animals in their extraordinary
ability to communicate information and store it in external artifacts.
In the last decade the amount of external information per person
may have grown to exceed an individual’s purely biological informa-
tion.
Information is an excellent basis for philosophy, and for science
as well, capable of answering questions about metaphysics (the
ontology of things themselves), epistemology (the existential status
of ideas and how we know them), idealism (pure information), the
mind-body problem, the problem of free will, and the “hard” prob-
lem of consciousness.
Actionable information has pragmatic value.
In our information philosophy, knowledge is the sum of all the
information created and preserved by humanity. It is all the infor-
mation in human minds and in artifacts of every kind - from books
and internetworked computers to our dwellings and managed envi-
ronment.
We shall see that all information in the universe is created by a
single two-part cosmic creation process, the only one capable of
generating and maintaining information in spite of the dread second
law of thermodynamics, which describes the irresistible increase in Appendix A
disorder or entropy. We call this anti-entropic process ergodic. It
should be appreciated as the creative source of everything we can
possibly value, and of everything distinguishable from chaos and
therefore interesting.
Enabled by the general relativistic expansion of the universe,
the cosmic creative process has formed the macrocosmos of gal-
axies, stars, and planets. It has also generated the particular forms
of microscopic matter - atoms, molecules, and the complex macro-
molecules that support biological organisms. It includes all quan-
tum cooperative phenomena.
Quantum phenomena control the evolution of life and human

knowledge. They help bring new information into the universe in a
fundamentally unpredictable way. They drive biological speciation.
They facilitate human creativity and free will.
Although information philosophy looks at the universe, life, and
intelligence through the single lens of information, it is far from
mechanical and reducible to a deterministic physics. The growth of
information over time - our principle of increasing information - is
the essential reason why time matters and individuals are distin-
guishable.
Information is the principal reason that biology is not reducible
to chemistry and physics. Increasing information (a combination
of perfect replication with occasional copying errors) explains all
emergent phenomena.”
In information philosophy, the future is unpredictable for two
basic reasons. First, quantum mechanics shows that some events
are not predictable. The world is causal, but not pre-determined.
Second, the early universe does not contain the information of later
times, just as early primates do not contain the information struc-
tures for intelligence and verbal communication, and infants do not
contain the knowledge and remembered experience they will have
as adults.
In the naive world of Laplace’s demon and strict determinism, all
the information in the universe is constant at all times. But “deter-
minism” itself is an emergent idea, realized only when large num-
Appendix A
bers of particles assemble into bodies that can average over the irre-
ducible microscopic indeterminacy of their component atoms.
Information and Entropy
In our open and expanding universe, the maximum possible
entropy is increasing faster than the actual entropy. The difference
between maximum possible entropy and the current entropy is
called negative entropy. There is an intimate connection between
the physical quantity negative entropy and information.6
6 See appendix B for more on entropy and the second law.

Information 343
To give this very positive quantity of “negative” entropy a positive

name, we call it “Ergo” and describe processes capable of generating
negative entropy “ergodic.”
Ergodic processes provide room to increase the information
structures in the universe. As pointed out by David Layzer, the
Arrow of Time7 points not only to increasing disorder but also to
increasing information.
The increase of biological information is primarily by perfect rep-
lication of prior existing information, but it is critically important
that replication errors occur from time to time. They are the source
of new species and creative new ideas.
The universe is creative. Information structures and processes
are emergent. Some laws of nature are emergent. Adequately deter-
ministic phenomena are emergent. The very idea of determinism is
emergent.8 Knowledge of the present did not all exist in the past. We
have only a rough idea of the exact future.
The creative process continues. Life and humanity are a part of
the process. What gets created is in part our responsibility. We can
choose to help create and preserve information. Or we can choose
to destroy it. We are free to create our own futures.
Why Information? Information is neither Matter nor Energy,
But it needs Matter for its Embodiment,
And it needs Energy for its Communication.
Information is the modern Spirit. Appendix A
It is the Ghost in the Machine.
It is the Mind in the Body.
It is the Soul, and when we Die,
It is our Information that Perishes,
unless we Publish it to the World and Posterity.
Therefore, we publish this book and the accompanying website,

whose contents are freely usable according to a Creative Commons
license, because information wants to be free.
7 See chapter 24 for the arrow of time.

8 See chapter 27 on emergence.
py a n d
t ro
En nd Law
Seco
Appendix B

informationphilosopher.com/introduction/physics
Entropy and Second Law 345
Entropy and the Second Law

Every scientist who made a major contribution to the probabi-
listic nature of the world had some doubts as to whether the use
of probability implies that chance is real. Is the appearance of ran-
domness just a consequence of the limits on human knowledge
and merely epistemological? Or is randomness a fundamental
part of the external world and thus ontological? Quantum physics
says chance is ontological and the laws of physics are statistical.
In 1860, James Clerk Maxwell was the first physicist to use
statistics and probability. He discovered the distribution of veloci-
ties of atoms or molecules in a gas. Although there was no real
evidence for the existence of atoms until Albert Einstein’s work
on Brownian motion in 1905, Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann
showed that the macroscopic laws of thermodynamics could be
explained if gases consist of microscopic atoms in motion. They
used the calculus of probabilities to reduce thermodynamics to sta-
tistical mechanics.
This is despite the fact that they knew next to nothing about the
details of processes at the atomic level.
Paradoxically, ignorance of microscopic details is overcome by
the power of averages over large numbers of cases. The average
value of any property gets more and more accurate as the number
of independent events gets large. The number of gas particles in a
cubic centimeter of air is truly astronomical, close to the number Appendix B
of stars in the observable universe. For this reason, thermody-
namic gas laws like PV = NkT derived from statistical mechanics
are highly accurate, well beyond experimental error. This accuracy
suggests the laws are deterministic. But they are only adequately
or statistically deterministic. Determinism is an illusion.1
Discrete Particles
To refine a famous comment by Richard Feynman, if there is
just one fact that could survive the destruction of knowledge, so as
to give future scientists the fastest recovery of physics, it would be
1 See chapter 19.
that the contents of the universe are made up of discrete particles,

not fields. This is now the standard model of particle physics. It
grew out of the study of ordinary gases.
Figure 30-5. The perfume molecules dissipate until they are uniformly distributed.
Classical statistical physics mistakenly claims that if the velocities of all the particles
were reversed at an instant, the molecules would return to the bottle. It assumes that the
complete path information needed to return to the bottle is preserved. But information
is not conserved. It can be created and it can be destroyed. We shall show why such
microscopic reversibility is extremely unlikely.
Gas particles are distributed in ordinary coordinate space (x, y,

z) and in a conjugate momentum (p = mv, mass times velocity)
space (px, py, pz).
These two spaces are combined to form a six-dimensional
space called a “phase space,” one element of which is Δx Δy Δz
Δpx Δpy Δpz. At equilibrium, when average density is the same
everywhere, particles are found distributed in proportion to the
volume of those spaces. But phase space elements are weighted
by an exponential factor that reduces the probability of particles
Appendix B
being found in higher energy spaces. The factor is

e - p2/2mkT = e - E / kT, today known as the “Boltzmann factor,”
though it was first found by Maxwell.
E is the particle energy, p is the particle momentum, T is the
absolute temperature (in degrees Kelvin), e is the base of natu-
ral logarithms, and k is Boltzmann’s constant (so named by Max
Planck). As E increases, the probability of finding particles with
that energy decreases exponentially. But as the temperature T
rises, the probability of finding particles with any given energy
E increases.
With the hindsight of quantum physics, we can envision the dis-

tribution of particles as the integer number (“occupation number”)
of particles in the smallest possible volumes of this 6-dimensional
“phase space” allowed by quantum mechanics. These have the
dimensions of h3, where h is Planck’s constant. h has the dimensions
of action (momentum times position). It’s called the “quantum of
action.”
This minimum phase space volume of h3 can be understood as
the result of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle for each dimension,
Δp Δx = h. It is as if space itself is divided into these small “cells.” But
space is continuous, like time. Space and time are abstract tools for
assigning numbers to particle properties like location and motion.
The minimum volume h3 corresponds to locations and momenta
where there is a non-zero probability of finding a discrete particle.
Although classical statistical mechanics did not include these
quantum volumes, Boltzmann did divide phase space into discrete
“coarse-grained” volumes for calculation purposes. This important
new insight of classical statistical mechanics was accepting the rad-
ical idea of the ancient Greeks Democritus and Leucippus that
matter comes in indivisible discrete discontinuous lumps.
Appendix B
Figure 30-6. The number of particles with a given velocity at different temperatures.
Maxwell not only accepted the idea of atoms and molecules, he

deduced their distribution among different velocities,
2
N(v) = (2πmkT)-3/2 4πv2 e-mv /2kT
When heat is added and the temperature rises, the average veloc-
ity gets higher and there are fewer particles with low velocities,
since the total number of molecules is a constant. Note that it was
Maxwell who first found the exponential decay at higher energies
2
e-mv /2kT, now called the “Boltzmann factor.”
Maxwell did not know about the future Boltzmann’s constant k
and its relationship to temperature, but he knew that the exponen-
tial term is a measure of the average velocity squared, and so of the
average energy (mv2/2).
The Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution has two distinct
regions which were critically important in Max Planck’s attempt
to discover the distribution of electromagnetic radiation. For very
low energies, the number rises as the square of the velocity. It turns
around at a maximum near the average velocity. It then declines
slowly like the long exponential tail of the normal distribution of
errors because of the Boltzmann factor.
Boltzmann explained that probabilities can give definite results
because of the large number of particles in a gas, but that the use of
probabilities does not imply any uncertainty. He wrote:
The mechanical theory of heat assumes that the molecules of a gas are
not at rest, but rather are in the liveliest motion. Hence, even though
Appendix B
the body does not change its state, its individual molecules are always
changing their states of motion, and the various molecules take up many
different positions with respect to each other. The fact that we neverthe-
less observe completely definite laws of behaviour of warm bodies is to
be attributed to the circumstance that the most random events, when
they occur in the same proportions, give the same average value. For the
molecules of the body are indeed so numerous, and their motion is so
rapid, that we can perceive nothing more than average values.
Boltzmann refers One might compare the regularity of these aver-
to the social age values with the amazing constancy of the
average numbers provided by statistics, which are
statistics of Buckle
also derived from processes each of which is
and Quételet determined by a completely unpredictable inter-
action with many other factors. The molecules are likewise just so many
individuals having the most varied states of motion, and it is only
because the number of them that have, on the average, a particular state
of motion is constant, that the properties of the gas remain unchanged.
The determination of average values is the task of probability theory.
Hence, the problems of the mechanical theory of heat are also problems
of probability theory.
It would, however, be erroneous to believe that the mechanical theory of
heat is therefore afflicted with some uncertainty because the principles
of probability theory are used. One must not confuse an incompletely
known law, whose validity is therefore in doubt, In the 1870’s,
with a completely known law of the calculus of Boltzmann clearly
probabilities; the latter, like the result of any other saw probability
calculus, is a necessary consequence of definite
premises, and is confirmed, insofar as these are cor- as completely
rect, by experiment, provided sufficiently many deterministic.
observations have been made, which is always the case in the mechani-
cal theory of heat because of the enormous number of molecules
involved.2
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
Beyond his ability to visualize the above “liveliest states of motion”
for atoms, Boltzmann’s greatest work was his attempt to prove the
second law of thermodynamics. The second law says that isolated
systems always approach thermal equilibrium. Entropy or disor-
der always increases. Boltzmann showed that if the velocities of gas
molecules were initially not in the Maxwell distribution above, they
would always approach that distribution, and do it rapidly at stan-
dard temperatures and pressures (as we all know from experience).
Boltzmann then developed a mathematical expression for entropy
Appendix B
(he called it H), the quantity in classical thermodynamics that is a
maximum for systems in thermal equilibrium.
At first Boltzmann tried to do this with the dynamical theories
of classical mechanics. The particles in his system would move
around in phase space according to deterministic Newtonian laws.
They collide with one another as hard spheres (elastic collisions). He
included only two-particle collisions, assuming three-particle colli-
sions are rare. As it turns out, three-particle collisions are essential
for proving Boltzmann’s insights, but calculations are difficult.
2 “Further Studies on the Thermal Equilibrium of Gas Molecules,”
Vienna Academy of Sciences, 1872
But Boltzmann’s mentor, Josef Loschmidt, criticized the results.

Any dynamical system, he said, would move in reverse if all the par-
ticles could have their velocities reversed. Apart from the practical
impossibility of doing this, Loschmidt had shown that systems could
exist for which the entropy should decrease instead of increasing.
This is called Loschmidt’s Reversibility Objection, or the problem of
microscopic reversibility.3
Loschmidt’s criticism forced Boltzmann to reformulate his proof
of the second law with purely statistical considerations based on
probability theory.
He looked at all the possible distributions for particles in phase
space consistent with a given total energy. Since phase space is
continuous, there is an infinity of positions for every particle. So
Boltzmann started by limiting possible energy values to discrete
amounts ε, 2ε, 3ε, etc. He thought he would eventually let ε go to
zero, but his discrete “coarse-graining” gets him much closer to
modern quantum physics. He replaced all his integrals by discrete
sums (something the “founders of quantum mechanics” in the nine-
teen-twenties would do).
Boltzmann then found the following expression that when
summed over all the possible discrete energy states has the desired
property of irreversible statistical increase,
Σ f(E) log f(E), where f (E) is the fraction of states with energy E.
In 1948, Claude Shannon found a similar expression to describe
Appendix B
the amount of information, Σi pi log pi , thus connecting his commu-

nication of information to Boltzmann’s entropy
Today scientists identity Boltzmann’s expression with the ther-
modynamic entropy S, defined as the change of heat Q added to a
system, divided by the temperature T,
dS = dQ/T.
3 See chapter 25 on irreversibility.
In terms of a sum over possible states, S is now written as the

logarithm of the total number of possible states W multiplied by
Boltzmann’s constant,
S = k log W.
Boltzmann was discouraged to find that a group of scientists, who
still hoped to deny the existence of atoms, continued to criticize his
“H-Theorem.” They included Henri Poincaré, an expert on the
three-body problem, Max Planck, who himself hoped to prove
the second law is not statistical but absolute, and a young student of
Planck’s named Ernst Zermelo who was an extraordinary math-
ematician, later the founder of axiomatic set theory.
Poincaré’s work on the three-body problem suggested that,
given enough time, a bounded world, governed only by the laws of
mechanics, will always pass through a state very close to its initial
state. Zermelo accepted Boltzmann’s claim that a system will most
likely be found in a macrostate with the largest number of micro-
states, but he argued that given enough time it would return to a
less probable state. Boltzmann’s H-Theorem of perpetual increase
of entropy would therefore be incorrect sometime in the long run.
Information physics has shown that, when quantum physics and
the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter are taken
into account, Loschmidt’s reversibility objection and Zermelo’s
recurrence objection fail to prevent entropy from increasing indefi-
nitely in our open universe.4
Appendix B
Unfortunately for Boltzmann, he died just before the significance
of radiation and the quantum were appreciated, and just as Ein-
stein proved the existence of his atoms. And ironically, it was Max
Planck, Zermelo’s mentor and one of those strongly opposing both
Boltzmann’s ideas of atoms and his use of statistics, who was to cor-
rectly guess the distribution law for electromagnetic radiation.
Adding to the injustice, to develop his radiation law, Planck used
Boltzmann’s own statistical ideas, his assumption about discrete
4 See chapter 25 on irreversibility and 26 on the recurrence problem.
energies, coarse graining, and his ideas about entropy. The radia-
tion distribution has almost exactly the same shape as the Maxwell-
Boltzmann distribution for particle velocities. You can see the initial
rise as the square of the radiation frequency ν, and after the maxi-
mum the decline according to the Boltzmann factor e - hν / kT, where
the energy E = hν is Planck’s new constant h times the radiation
frequency. The reason for the similarity is profound, electromag-
netic radiation - light is also made of particles, as Einstein brilliantly
hypothesized in 1905.
B (ν) = 8πhν3/ c3 (ehν/kT -1)-1
Figure 30-5 shows the number of photons with a given frequεncy
at different temperatures. When heat is added and the temperature
rises, the average energy gets higher at all frequencies. The frequency
at which energy is a maximum moves to higher frequencies. Unlike
the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution above (Figure 30-4), where
the total number of molecules is a constant, additional heat shows
up as more photons at all frequencies. The number of photons is not
conserved. So the area under the radiation curve grows with tem-
perature, where the area under the particles curve is a constant.
Appendix B
Figure 30-7. Planck’s radiation distribution law is often presented as a function of wave-
length rather than frequency, but this masks the similarity with the Maxwell-Boltzmann
distribution of particles.
Compounding the irony and injustice for Boltzmann still further,

Planck, who was long the opponent of discrete particles and statisti-
cal mechanics, used Boltzmann’s assumption that energies come in
discrete amounts, ε, 2ε, 3ε, etc. Planck called them quanta of energy
hν, 2hν, 3hν, proportional to frequency ν, where h is a new constant,
now named for Planck. He thereby named and launched the twen-
tieth-century development of quantum mechanics, without really
understanding the full implications of quantizing the energy. Planck
thought quantization was just a mathematical trick to get the right
formula for the blackbody radiation law.
Albert Einstein said that “the formal similarity between the curve
of the chromatic distribution of thermal radiation and the Max-
wellian distribution law of velocities for gas particles is so striking
that it could not have been hidden for long.” But for over twenty
years few others than Einstein saw so clearly the implication that
light itself is a localizable quantized discrete particle just as any par-
ticle of matter! Planck refused to believe this for many years.
So did Niels Bohr, despite his famous 1913 work that quantized
the energy levels for electrons in his Bohr model of the atom.
Bohr postulated two things, 1) that the energy levels in the atom
are discrete and 2) that when an electron jumps between levels it
emits or absorbs energy E = hν, where the radiated energy E is the
difference between the two energy levels in the atom, E = En - Em.
After independently developing the theory of statistical mechan-
ics in 1902-1904, extending it well beyond Boltzmann, Einstein
Appendix B
hypothesized in 1905 that light comes in bundles of localized energy
that he called light quanta (now known as photons). Although it is
hard to believe, Bohr denied the existence of discrete photons well
into the nineteen-twenties, although today’s textbooks teach that
quantum jumps in the Bohr atom emit or absorb photons (a grave
this case an injustice to Einstein. Bohr insisted until the middle
1920’s that the radiation in his discrete quantum jumps is a continu-
ous wave. He was most reluctant to accept Einstein’s work, to depart
from Maxwell’s classical laws of electromagnetism.
Einstein had told friends that his hypothesis of light quanta was
more revolutionary than his theory of special relativity published
the same year. It was Einstein, not Planck or Bohr or Heisenberg,
who should be recognized as the father of quantum theory. He first
saw mysterious aspects of quantum physics like wave-particle dual-
ity, nonlocality, entanglement, and the ontological nature of chance,
perhaps more deeply than any other physicist has ever seen them.
Einstein famously abhorred chance (“God does not play dice”),
but he did not hesitate to tell other physicists that chance seems to
be an unavoidable part of quantum theory.
Entropy Flows in the Universe
Creation of information structures means that in parts of the
universe the local entropy is actually going down. Creation of a
low entropy system is always accompanied by transfer of positive
entropy away from the local structures to distant parts of the uni-
verse, into the night sky for example.
My Harvard colleague Eric Chaisson studied energy rather
than entropy. He saw energy consumption or production per gram
a better measure of complexity in cosmic evolution. He wrote,
When examined on a system-by-system basis, information content can
be a slippery concept full of dubious semantics, ambivalent connota-
tions, and subjective interpretations. Especially tricky and controversial
is meaningful information, the value of information...The conceptual
idea of information has been useful, qualitatively and heuristically, as
an aid to appreciate the growth of order and structure in the Universe,
Appendix B
but this term is too vague and subjective to use in quantifying a specific,
empirical metric describing a whole range of real-world systems. 5
But information philosophy sees matter and energy as conserved
quantities that need information concepts to explain how they do
what they do. As the universe expands, both positive and nega-
tive entropy are generated.6 The normal thermodynamic entropy is
known as the Boltzmann Entropy. The negative entropy, often called
the Shannon Entropy, is a measure of the information content in the
open and evolving universe.
5 Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature, p.132.
6 As shown by our common mentor at Harvard, David Layzer.
Figure 30-8. David Layzer’s growth of information in the universe
“Negative entropy” is simply the difference between the maxi-

mum possible entropy (where all the particles in a physical system
would be in a maximum state of disorder, there would be no visible
structure) and the actual entropy.
For matter in thermodynamic equilibrium, there is only motion
of the microscopic constituent particles (“the motion we call heat”).
The existence of macroscopic structures, such as the stars and plan- Appendix B
ets, and their motions, is a departure from thermodynamic equilib-
rium. And that departure we call the “negative entropy.”
The second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy (or dis-
order) of a closed physical system increases until it reaches a maxi-
mum, the state of thermodynamic equilibrium. It requires that the
entropy of the universe is now and has always been increasing. This
established fact of increasing entropy led many scientists and phi-
losophers to assume that the universe we have is “running down” to
a “heat death.” They think that means the universe began in a very
high state of information, since the second law requires that any
organization or order is susceptible to decay. The information that

remains today, in their view, has always been here.
But Harvard cosmologist David Layzer showed that the uni-
verse is not a closed system (see Figure 30-4). It is in a dynamic
state of expansion that is moving away from thermodynamic equi-
librium faster than entropic processes can keep up. The maximum
possible entropy is increasing much faster than the actual increase
in entropy. The difference between the maximum possible entropy
and the actual entropy is potential information.
Positive and Negative Flows
There are two information/entropy flows. In any process, the pos-
itive entropy increase is always at least equal to, and generally orders
of magnitude larger than, the negative entropy in any created infor-
mation structures, to satisfy the second law of thermodynamics.
Figure 30-9. Information flows into Boltzmann and Shannon Entropy.

Appendix B
Material particles are the first information structures to form in

the universe from the primordial quarks and electrons. They are
baryons, the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei, which com-
bine with electrons to form atoms and eventually molecules, when
the temperature is low enough. After hundreds of millions of years,
these particles are attracted by the force of gravitation to form the
gigantic information structures of the galaxies, stars, and planets.
Figure 30-10. Cosmological information flows.
Microscopic quantum mechanical particles and huge self-gravi-

tating systems are stable and have extremely long lifetimes, thanks
in large part to quantum stability.
Stars are another source of radiation, after the original Big Bang
cosmic source, which has cooled down to 3 degrees Kelvin (3K) and
shines as the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Appendix B
Figure 30-11. Sun to Earth information flow.
Our solar radiation has a high color temperature (5000K) and a

low energy-content temperature (273K). It is out of equilibrium and
it is the source of all the information-generating negative entropy
that drives biological evolution on the Earth. Note that the fraction
of the light falling on Earth is less than a billionth of that which
passes by and is lost in space.
A tiny fraction of the solar energy falling on the earth gets con-
verted into the information structures of plants and animals. Most
solar energy is radiated away as waste energy to the night sky.
Appendix B
Figure 30-12. Information flows into life.
Every biological structure is a quantum mechanical structure.

DNA has maintained its stable information structure over billions
of years in the constant presence of chaos and noise.
The extraordinarily stable information content of a human being,
from the DNA in every cell to the memories in the Experience
Recorder and Reproducer,7 survives many changes in the material
content of the body during a person’s lifetime. Only with death does
the mental information (spirit, soul) dissipate - unless it is saved
somewhere. 8
7 See appendix E for the ERR
8 See chapter 2 for identity over time.
Figure 30-13. Information flows in a human being.
The total mental information in a living human is orders of

magnitude less than the information content and information pro-
cessing rate of the body. But the information structures created by
humans outside the body, in the form of external knowledge like
this book, and the enormous collection of human artifacts, rival the
total biological information content of one individual human.
Information increases and we are co-creators of the universe
Creation of information structures means that today there is more
information in the universe than at any earlier time. This fact of
increasing information fits well with an undetermined universe that
is still creating itself. In this universe, stars are still forming, biologi-
cal systems are creating new species, and intelligent human beings
are co-creators of the world.
All this creation is the result of the two-step core process that
Appendix B
creates all information.9 It is a combination of two distinct physical
processes, one quantum mechanical, the other thermodynamic.
Understanding this core creative process is as close as we are
likely to come to understanding the reality behind the popular idea
of an anthropomorphic creator of the universe, a still-present divine
providence, the cosmic source of everything good and evil.
Information philosophy hopes to replace beliefs with knowledge.
The “miracle of creation” is happening now, in the universe and in
you and by you.
9 See appendix F on the cosmic creation process.
hys i c s
t u m P
Qu a n
Appendix C

informationphilosopher.com/quantum/
Quantum Physics 361
Quantum Physics
In the classical Newtonian picture of matter in motion, there is
only one possible future, determined completely by the distribu-
tion and motion of matter at any moment. The future is certain
and “causally closed.” Complete information about the future
exists today, even if unknowable.
In the quantum picture, there are many possible futures. Quan-
tum mechanics lets us exactly calculate the probability for the dif-
ferent futures, but it cannot tell us the actual future that will be
realized. The actual future is uncertain. New information about
the future is being created every day and we are co-creators of that
information. The future is open.
It is important to understand that new information generated
by quantum mechanics is not necessarily permanent. New infor-
mation must be stably recorded and protected from erasure by the
destructive forces of entropy.
As we saw in appendix B, this requires that more positive
entropy must be transferred away from the information structure
than its new negative entropy, to satisfy the second law.
Max Planck derived the distribution of radiation at different
frequencies (or wavelengths) just as Maxwell and Boltzmann had
derived the distribution of velocities (or energies) of the gas par-
ticles.1 Both curves have a power law increase on one side up to a
maximum and an exponential decrease down the other side from
the maximum (the “Boltzmann factor” of e - E / kT)). This is because
Appendix C
both curves describe particles, one matter, the other light.

Planck’s assumption that the energy of the oscillators is “quan-
tized” was the beginning of quantum mechanics, but he did not
actually believe that radiation came in the form of discrete par-
ticles, as we do today. It was Albert Einstein in 1905 who made
the hypothesis that light comes in highly localized discrete par-
ticles, subsequently called “photons.” Later, Einstein showed that
each photon, although massless, must have an associated momen-
tum p = hν/c = h/ λ, another fundamental connection between
matter and light deriving from his most famous equation, E = mc2.
1 See Figure 30-2 in appendix B.
But Einstein was puzzled and deeply concerned about the con-
nection between the wave properties of light and his new insight
that light consists of particles. In classical electrodynamics, elec-
tromagnetic radiation (light, radio) is well known to have wave
properties, such as interference. When the crest of one wave meets
the trough of another, the two waves cancel one another. How, he
wondered, could discrete particles show interference effects?
Like water surface waves, light goes off in all directions as out-
going spherical waves. But if the energy of light fills a large spheri-
cal volume, Einstein wondered, how does the energy get itself col-
lected together instantaneously to be absorbed by a single electron
in a particular atom? Does the widely distributed energy move
faster than the speed of light when it collapses to a single point?
In 1905, Einstein published his special theory of relativity
denying that possibility. That same year he proved the existence
of Boltzmann’s atoms with his explanation that the Brownian
motions of visible particles in a liquid are caused by invisible
atoms or molecules. His concerns about light waves versus light
particles also appeared the same year, in his paper on the photo-
electric effect (for which he was awarded the Nobel prize).
When ultraviolet light shines on a metal surface and ejects a
single electron from one of the atoms in that metal, Einstein
showed that some energy in the light beam acts like a single par-
ticle of light getting absorbed by a single ejected electron.
Einstein assumed there is
Appendix C
a “work function” or poten-

tial energy P that must be
overcome to release an elec-
tron and that the energy of
a photon must exceed that
energy. Any excess energy
Ee should show up as kinetic Figure 31-1. The photoelectric effect
energy in the liberated elec-
tron.
Ee = hν - P.
Quantum Physics 363
Some part of the incoming photon energy, P, is used to release

the electron. Einstein predicted the other part would show a linear
relationship between the kinetic energy Ee of the electron and the
frequency ν. It was over ten years before Einstein’s predictions
were experimentally confirmed.
Figure 31-2. Millikan confirmed Einstein’s relation between the photon energy hν
and the energy of the ejected electron.
Turning up the intensity (more photons) of light with less
energy (longer wavelengths) cannot eject an electron. And once
the light has high enough frequency (energy), it does not matter
how low the intensity of the light, electrons continue to be ejected.
It is thus the energy of a single quantum of light that becomes
energy in a single electron. At this moment in 1905, Einstein was
Appendix C
grappling with two problems that the “founders” of quantum

mechanics would themselves not see for another twenty years.
The first problem is the apparent “collapse” of the light wave.
The second is called “nonlocal” behavior. Einstein’s great field
theories like gravitation require what he called “local reality.”
If we can see these problems through Einstein’s young eyes,
which many great quantum physicists could not, we may also see
the most plausible solutions to those two problems and perhaps
more. A third Einstein insight will help us understand “wave-par-
ticle duality.” A fourth will clarify “entanglement.”
In 1913, Niels Bohr developed his radical model of the atom

incorporating Planck’s quantum conditions. Where classical elec-
trodynamic theory says that electrons orbiting a central nucleus
would continuously radiate energy at the orbital frequency (and the
loss of energy would cause the electron to spiral in to the nucleus),
Bohr postulated the atom has “stationary states” and that transitions
(discontinuous “quantum jumps”) between those states result in the
emission or absorption of energy with a frequency ν, according to
Planck’s relation hν = Em - En , where Em and En are the energies of
the two states.
Einstein had confirmed the relation E = hν in his photoelectric
paper, but Bohr did not mention it. Bohr’s theory agreed perfectly
with the frequencies of known spectral lines in the hydrogen atom
and predicted many more lines that were subsequently found.
Einstein called Bohr’s theory an “enormous achievement” and
“one of the greatest discoveries,” but Bohr did not accept Einstein’s
hypothesis of discrete light particles. The quantum jumps are dis-
continuous, but the emitted radiation is continuous, said Bohr.
Bohr was asked in 1913 by Lord Rutherford how we know to
which other state a quantum jump will go. He replied that we do
not know. A few years later, Einstein calculated the probabilities for
electronic transitions between Bohr’s energy levels. He confirmed
that it quantum jumps are a matter of chance, just as we cannot
predict the time or direction of a particle ejected from a decaying
radioactive nucleus. Quantum theory is a statistical theory.
Appendix C
In the 1920’s, Louis de Broglie argued that if photons, with

their known wavelike properties, could be described as particles,
perhaps particles like electrons might show wavelike properties
with a wavelength λ inversely proportional to their momentum p =
mev. De Broglie’s formula for a particle’s wavelength, λ = h/p, is the
same as Einstein’s formula for the momentum of a photon, p = hν/c,
because λν = c.
Experiments confirmed de Broglie’s assumption and led Erwin
Schrödinger to derive a “wave equation” to describe the motion of
Quantum Physics 365
de Broglie’s waves. For elementary particles, Schrödinger’s quantum

equation replaces the classical Newton equations of motion.
Note that Schrödinger’s equation describes the motion of only
the wave aspect, not the particle aspect, and so it includes interfer-
ence effects in the waves. Note also that it is fully deterministic and
continuous, just like Newton’s equations. Schrödinger thought par-
ticles are not real, but could be explained as point-like singularities
in his continuous waves.
There was some hope, particularly by Einstein, that Schrödinger’s
continuous equation would return determinism to physics, elimi-
nating chance. It was not to be.
Schrödinger attempted to interpret his “wave function” for the
electron as a probability density for electrical charge, but charge
density would be positive everywhere and thus unable to interfere
with itself. Moreover, fractions of the electron spread out in the
wave are never found. Fractions of the energy would have different
(lower) energies and frequencies.
Long before the work of de Broglie and Schrödinger, Einstein
had suggested that light waves might be thought of as a “ghost field”
(Gespensterfeld) or a “leading field (Führungsfeld) that guides the
motion of the light particles. Einstein suggested that waves indicate
the probable locations of his light quanta, although few physicists
accepted his radical hypothesis.
The information about probabilities and possibilities in the wave
function is immaterial, but that abstract information has real causal
powers. The wave’s interference with itself predicts null points where
Appendix C
no particles should be found. And experiments confirm that no par-

ticles are found there. Information philosophy views information as
a kind of modern “spirit.”
Max Born applied Einstein’s suggestion about light to matter. He
shocked the world of physics by suggesting that the absolute values
of the square of the wave function ψ (|ψ|2) can be interpreted as the
probability of finding an electron in various position and momentum
states - if a measurement is made. This allows the probability ampli-
tude ψ to interfere with itself, producing non-intuitive phenomena
such as the two-slit experiment. It is an immaterial wave of informa-

tion about possible locations that passes through both slits.
Despite the immaterial probability amplitude going through two
slits and interfering with itself, experimenters never find parts of
electrons. They are always found whole.
Born’s statistical interpretation of the wave function (“Born rule”)
says that the motion of the immaterial probabilities wave function
is continuous and deterministic, but the motion of the material par-
ticles themselves is discontinuous and probabilistic.
Einstein and Schrödinger could never accept this.
Interpreters of quantum mechanics have found it hard to recon-
cile this combination of determinism and indeterminism, of con-
tinuous wavelike possibilities and discontinuous particle-like actu-
alizations. The information interpretation of quantum mechanics
attempts that reconciliation. (See chapter 16.)
Note the connection between alternative possibilities for action
in the mind and adequately determined actions. (Chapter 4.)
Basic Quantum Mechanics
The basic ideas of quantum mechanics are hopelessly non-intui-
tive. They describe quantum phenomena that are simply impossible
to imagine in classical physics. This does not mean that they cannot
be visualized, by which we mean illustrated, even animated with
tools now available for web pages, which are much more powerful
than images on a static printed page.
Appendix C
We hope that watching the animations will help you to develop

new intuitions about the way the quantum world works. The clas-
sical world we experience is just the quantum world as seen at our
macroscopic level, where it is averaged over a vast number of inde-
terministic quantum events to produce an adequately (or statisti-
cally) determined world.
We present the fundamental ideas of quantum mechanics fol-
lowing two great mathematical physicists, Paul Dirac and John
von Neumann. Von Neumann proposed that quantum mechan-
ics consists of just two basic processes. Dirac said the basics can be
Quantum Physics 367
summarized in just three definitions, a principle of superposition, an

axiom of measurement, and a projection postulate. Let’s start with
Dirac’s three definitions, then see how they are realized in von Neu-
mann’s processes.
Finally, we present Dirac’s application of the three definitions in
the very simple case of a quantum system in a superposition of just
two quantum states. This example of three polarizers also demon-
strates von Neumann’s two processes.
Almost all the conflicting interpretations of quantum mechanics
today depend on either denying one or more of these basic elements
of quantum mechanics or extending them to situations where they
do not apply.
These three definitions and two processes are used throughout
the physics chapters in support of the proposed solutions to great
problems in physics.
The Principle of Superposition
The fundamental equation of motion in quantum mechanics is
Schrödinger’s famous wave equation that describes the evolution in
time of his wave function ψ,
ih/2π δψ/δt = Hψ.
For a single particle in idealized complete isolation, and for a Ham-
iltonian H that does not involve magnetic fields, the Schrödinger
equation is a unitary transformation that is time-reversible.2
Max Born interpreted the square of the absolute value of
Appendix C
Schrödinger’s wave function as providing the probability of finding

a quantum system in a certain state ψn (the “Born rule”).
The quantum (discrete) nature of physical systems results from
there generally being a large number of solutions ψn(called eigen-
functions) of the Schrödinger equation in its time-independent
form, with energy eigenvalues En.
Hψn = Enψn,
2 See the principle of microscopic reversibility in chapter 24.

The discrete energy eigenvalues En limit interactions (for exam-

ple, with photons) to the energy differences En - Em, as assumed by
Bohr. Eigenfunctions ψn are orthogonal to one another,
< ψn | ψm > = δnm,
where δnm is the Dirac delta-function, equal to 1 when n = m, and
0 otherwise. The sum of the diagonal terms in the matrix < ψn | ψm >,
when n = m, must be normalized to 1 to be meaningful as Born rule
probabilities.
Σ Pn = Σ < ψn | ψn >2 = 1.
The off-diagonal terms in the matrix, < ψn | ψm >, are interpre-
table as interference terms. When the matrix is used to calculate
the expectation values of some quantum mechanical operator O,
the off-diagonal terms < ψn | O | ψm > are interpretable as transition
probabilities - the likelihood that the operator O will induce a tran-
sition from state ψn to ψm.
The Schrödinger equation is a linear equation. It has no quadratic
or higher power terms, and this introduces a profound - and for
many scientists and philosophers a disturbing - feature of quantum
mechanics, one that is impossible in classical physics. This is the
principle of superposition of quantum states. If ψa and ψb are both
solutions of the equation, then an arbitrary linear combination of
these, ψ = caψa + cbψb, with complex coefficients ca and cb, is also a
solution.
Together with Born’s statistical interpretation of the wave func-
tion (remember this was Einstein’s original idea), the principle of
Appendix C
superposition accounts for the major mysteries of quantum theory,

some of which we hope to resolve, or at least reduce, with an objec-
tive (observer-independent) explanation of information creation
during quantum processes, which can often be interpreted as mea-
surements.
The Axiom of Measurement
The axiom of measurement depends on the idea of “observables,”
physical quantities that can be measured in experiments. A physical
observable is represented as a Hermitean operator A that is self-
adjoint (equal to its complex conjugate, A* = A).
Quantum Physics 369
The diagonal elements < ψn | A | ψn > of the operator’s matrix

are interpreted as giving the expectation value for An (when we
make a measurement). The off-diagonal n, m elements describe the
uniquely quantum property of interference between wave functions
and provide a measure of the probabilities for transitions between
states n and m.
It is these intrinsic quantum probabilities that provide the ulti-
mate source of indeterminism, and consequently of irreducible
irreversibility (see chapter 25). The axiom of measurement is then
that a large number of measurements of the observable A, known to
have eigenvalues An, will result in the number of measurements with
value An being proportional to the probability of finding the system
in eigenstate ψn with eigenvalue An.
The Projection Postulate
The third novel idea of quantum theory is often considered the
most radical. It has certainly produced some of the most radical
ideas ever to appear in physics, in attempts to deny it (as the deco-
herence program appears to do, as do also Everett relative-state
interpretations, many worlds theories, and Bohm-de Broglie hidden
variables). The projection postulate is actually very simple, and argu-
ably intuitive as well. It says that when a measurement is made, the
system of interest will be found in one of the possible eigenstates
ψn of the measured observable, with the eigenvalue An.
We have several possible alternatives for eigenvalues An. Measure-
ment simply makes one of these eigenvalues actual, and it does so,
Appendix C
said Max Born, in proportion to the absolute square of the probabil-

ity amplitude wave function |ψn |2. In this way, ontological chance
enters physics, and it is partly this fact of quantum randomness
that bothered Einstein (“God does not play dice”) and Schrödinger
(whose equation of motion is deterministic).
When Einstein derived the expressions for the probabilities of
emission and absorption of photons in 1916, he lamented that the
theory seemed to indicate that the direction of an emitted photon
was a matter of pure chance (Zufall), and that the time of emission
was also statistical and random, just as Ernst Rutherford had
found for the time of decay of a radioactive nucleus. Einstein called

it a “weakness in the theory.”
Most “interpreters” of quantum mechanics do not accept this
postulate, with its idea of a “collapse.” 3
Von Neumann’s Two Processes
In 1932, John von Neumann explained that two fundamentally
different processes are going on in quantum mechanics.
Process 1: A non-causal process, in which a measured electron
winds up randomly in one of the possible physical states (eigen-
states) of the measuring apparatus plus electron.
The probability for each eigenstate is given by the square of the
coefficients cn of the expansion of the original system state (wave
function ψ) in a set of wave functions φn that represent the eigen-
functions of the measuring apparatus plus electron.
ψ = Σn cn | φn >
cn = < φn | ψ >
Process 1 corresponds exactly to Dirac’s projection postulate.
It also describes the “collapse” of the wave function. It introduces
indeterminism and ontological chance.
This is as close as we get to a description of the discontinuous
motion of the particle aspect of a quantum system. According to von
Neumann, the particle simply “shows up” somewhere as a result of
a measurement. The information interpretation of quantum physics
says it can only “show up” if a new stable information structure is
Appendix C
created that can be seen by an observer, after which it may constitute

a measurement.
Paul Dirac explained process 1 with a very simple quantum
system that has only two states, horizontal and vertical polariza-
tion. We will describe it below.4 It exhibits properties of quantum
mechanics that are impossible for a classical system.
Process 2: A causal process, in which the electron wave func-
tion ψ evolves deterministically according to Schrödinger’s equa-
tion of motion for the wavelike aspect. This evolution describes the
3 See chapter 19.
4 See p.374.
Quantum Physics 371
continuous motion of the probability amplitude wave ψ between

discontinuous measurements,
(ih/2π) ∂ψ/∂t = Hψ.
Von Neumann claimed there is another major difference between
these two processes. He said Process 1 is thermodynamically irre-
versible. (See chapter 24.) Process 2 is reversible. This confirms the
fundamental connection between quantum mechanics and thermo-
dynamics that is explainable by the information interpretation of
quantum physics.
Information physics establishes that an experiment may create
irreversible new information. If it does not, no observation and thus
no measurement is possible. Most processes in the universe that
create new information are never observed. Process 2 is in principle
reversible, in practice maybe not. If so, it preserves information. The
figure is an example of a reversible process.
Dirac’s Three Polarizers
In his 1930 textbook The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, Dirac
introduced the uniquely quantum concepts of superposition, mea-
surement, projection/collapse, and indeterminacy using polarized
photons. Einstein said of Dirac,
“Dirac, to whom, in my opinion, we owe the most perfect exposition,
logically, of this [quantum] theory, rightly points out that it would prob-
ably be difficult, for example, to give a theoretical description of a photon
such as would give enough information to enable one to decide whether
it will pass a polarizer placed (obliquely) in its way or not.”5
Appendix C
Dirac’s example with an “oblique” polarizer suggests a very simple
and inexpensive experiment to demonstrate the superpositions of
quantum states, the projection or representation of a given state
vector in another basis set of vectors, the preparation of quantum
systems in states with known properties, and the measurement of
various properties.
Any measuring apparatus is also a state preparation system. We
know that after a measurement of a photon which has shown it to
be in a state of vertical polarization, for example, a second mea-
surement with the same (vertical polarization detecting) capabil-
ity will show the photon to be in the same state with probability
unity. Quantum mechanics is not always uncertain. There is also no
5 Ideas and Opinions, p.270
uncertainty if we measure a vertically polarized photon with a hori-

zontal polarization detector. There is zero probability of finding the
vertically polarized photon in a horizontally polarized state.
Since any measurement increases the amount of information,
there must be a compensating increase in entropy absorbed by or
radiated away from the measuring apparatus.
The natural basis set of vectors is usually one whose eigenvalues
are the observables of our measurement system. In Dirac’s bra and
ket notation, the orthogonal basis vectors in our example are | v >,
the photon in a vertically polarized state, and | h >, the photon in a
horizontally polarized state. These two states are eigenstates of our
measuring apparatus.
The interesting case to consider is a third measuring apparatus
that prepares a photon in a diagonally polarized state 45° between
| v > and | h >, the “oblique” polarizer.
Dirac tells us this diagonally polarized
photon can be represented as a superposition
of vertical and horizontal states, with complex
number coefficients that represent “probabil-
ity amplitudes,” as shown in equation 1.
| d > = ( 1/√2) | v > + ( 1/√2) | h > (1)
Note that vector lengths are normalized to unity, and the sum of
the squares of the probability amplitudes is also unity. This is the
orthonormality condition needed to interpret the (squares of the)
wave functions as probabilities, as proposed by Max Born, follow-
Appendix C
ing Einstein’s idea that waves show the probable locations for light
quanta.
When these complex number coefficients are squared (actually
when they are multiplied by their complex conjugates to produce
positive real numbers), the numbers represent the probabilities of
finding the photon in one or the other state, should a measurement
be made. Dirac’s bra vector < | is the complex conjugate of the cor-
responding ket vector | >.
Quantum Physics 373
It is the probability amplitudes that interfere in the two-slit exper-

iment. To get the probabilities of finding a photon, we must square
the probability amplitudes. Actually we must calculate the expecta-
tion value of some operator that represents an observable. The prob-
ability P of finding the photon in state |ψ> at a position (in configu-
ration space) r is
P(r) = < ψ | r | ψ >.
No single experiment can convey all the wonder and non-intui-
tive character of quantum mechanics. But we believe Dirac’s simple
examples of polarized photons can teach us a lot. He thought that
his simple examples provide a good introduction to quantum phys-
ics and we agree.
We use three squares of polarizing sheet material with white labels
A, B, and C to illustrate Dirac’s explanation of quantum superposi-
tion of states and the collapse of a mixture of states to a pure state
upon measurement or state preparation.
Here are the three polarizing sheets.
They are a neutral gray color because they
lose half of the light coming though them.
The lost light is absorbed by the polarizer,
converted to heat, and this accounts for the
(Boltzmann) entropy gain required by our
new information (Shannon entropy) about
the exact polarization state of the transmit-
ted photons.
Appendix C
Here polarizers A and B are superimposed to show that the same

amount of light comes through two polarizers, as
long as the polarizing direction is the same. The
first polarizer prepares the photon in a given state
of polarization. The second is then certain to find it
in the same state. Let’s say the direction of light
polarization is vertical when the letters are upright.
If one polarizer, say B, is turned 90°, its polariza-

tion direction will be horizontal and if it is on top
of vertical polarizer A, no light will pass through
it, as we see in figure 3. We can still see half of the
unpolarized light from letter A.
The Wonder and Mystery of the Oblique Polarizer
As you would expect, any quantum mechanics experiment must
contain an element of “Wow, that’s impossible!” or we are not get-
ting to the non-intuitive and unique difference between quantum
mechanics and the everyday classical mechanics. So let’s look at the
amazing aspect of what Dirac is getting to, and then we will see how
quantum mechanics explains it.
We turn the third polarizer C so its polarization is along the diag-

onal. Dirac tells us that the wave function of light passing through
Appendix C
this polarizer can be regarded as in a mixed state, a superposition of

vertical and horizontal states. As Einstein agreed, the information
as to the exact state in which the photon will be found following a
measurement does not exist.
We can make a measurement that detects vertically polarized
photons by holding up the vertical polarizer A in front of the oblique
polarizer C. Either a photon comes through A or it does not. Simi-
larly, we can hold up the horizontal polarizer B in front of C. If we
see a photon, it is horizontally polarized.
Quantum Physics 375
From equation (1) we see that the probability of detecting a photon

diagonally polarized by C, if our measuring apparatus (polarizer B)
is measuring for horizontally polarized photons, is 1/2. Similarly,
if we were to measure for vertically polarized photons, we have the
same 50% chance of detecting a photon.
Going back to polarizers A and B crossed at a 90° angle, we know
that no light comes through.
And if we hold up polarizer C along the 45 degree diagonal
and place it in front of (or behind) the crossed polarizers, nothing
changes. Still no light is getting through.
But here is the amazing, impossible part. If you insert polarizer
C between A and B at that 45 degree angle, some light now gets
through. Note that C is slipped between A (in the rear) and B (in
front).
If B, crossed 90° with A, blocks all light, how can adding another
polarization filter add light? It is somewhat less light than through
C alone, and we shall see why.
The Quantum Physics Explanation
Let’s start with the A polarizer in the back. It prepares the photons
in the vertical polarization state | v >. If we now had just polarizer
B, it would measure for horizontal photons. None through A are
horizontal, so no photons get through B.
Measurements are von Neumann process 1.
When we interpose C at the oblique angle, it measures for diago-
Appendix C
nal photons. The vertically polarized photons coming through A

can be considered in a superposition of states at a 45 degree angle
and a -45 degree angle. Photons at -45 degrees are absorbed by C.
Those at +45 degrees pass through C.
C makes a measurement of 45 degree photons. It can also be
viewed as a preparation of 45 degree photons. Only half the photons
come through polarizer C, but they have been prepared in a state of
diagonal polarization | d >.
The original vertical photons coming through A had no chance of

getting through B, but the diagonal photons passing through C (half
the original photons) can now be regarded as in a linear superposi-
tion of vertical and horizontal photons, and the horizontal photons
can now pass through B. Those vertically polarized will get absorbed
by B, as usual.
Recall from equation (1) that | d > is a superposition of the basis
vectors | v > and | h >, with coefficients 1/√2, which when squared
give us probabilities 1/2. Fifty percent of these photons emerging
from C will pass though B. One quarter or 25% of the original A
photons make it through.
This happens if we send just one photon through at a time, just as
with the two-slit experiment. Just as we can not say that the photon
passes through slit A or B (only probabilities are moving in von
Neumann’s process 2), we cannot say that our photons are in one
state or another. They are in the mysterious linear combination that
can collapse instantaneously into one state when a measurement is
made.
Einstein and Quantum Physics
It was Albert Einstein in 1916 who first saw that quantum
mechanics involves chance. Because he did not like chance
(“God does not play dice” was his oft-repeated claim), he called
it a “weakness in the theory.” But his insight into chance is much
clearer than that of Werner Heisenberg and Max Born. Seeing
chance through Einstein’s eyes may convince many philosophers
Appendix C
and scientists who are now confused by disagreements between the

various “interpretations” of quantum mechanics.6
Paradoxically, ironically perhaps, and even tragically, almost no
scientists and philosophers recognize the full range of Einstein’s
contributions to quantum mechanics, primarily because he
disavowed his own quantum discoveries as contrary to his
fundamental beliefs about the workings of the universe.
Besides quantizing light energy and seeing its interchangeability
with matter, E = mc2, Einstein was the first scientist to see many
of the most fundamental aspects of quantum physics - the quantal
derivation of the blackbody radiation law, nonlocality and instanta-
6 informationphilosopher.com/introduction/physics/interpretations
Quantum Physics 377
neous action-at-a-distance (1905), the internal structure of atoms

(1906), wave-particle duality and the “collapse” of the wave aspect
(1909), transition probabilities for emission and absorption pro-
cesses that introduce indeterminism whenever matter and radiation
interact, making quantum mechanics a statistical theory (1916-17),
the indistinguishability of elementary particles with their strange
quantum statistics (1925), and the nonseparability and entangle-
ment of interacting identical particles (1935).
It took the physics community eighteen years to accept Einstein’s
light-quantum hypothesis. He saw wave-particle duality fifteen years
before deBroglie, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, and Bohr. He saw inde-
terminism a decade before the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. He
saw nonlocality as early as 1905, presenting it formally in 1927, but
was ignored. In the 1935 Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper, he added
nonseparability, which was dubbed “entanglement” by Schrödinger.
Information philosophy sees immaterial information as a kind of
modern “spirit.” Einstein himself described the wave as a “ghostly
field” (Gespensterfeld) and as a “guiding field” (Führungsfeld). This
idea was taken up later by Louis de Broglie as “pilot waves”
and by Erwin Schrödinger, who developed the linear equation
that describes how the probability wave function moves through
space deterministically. This restoration of some determinism was
a brief bright moment for Einstein. He saw a possible return to a
deterministic theory for quantum mechanics and his continuous
field theory. But it was not to be, despite the large number of present-
day physicists who are still pursuing Einstein’s and Schrödinger’s
Appendix C
dreams, by denying indeterminism and “quantum jumping.”

Einstein even made the original suggestion to Schrödinger
that a microscopic superposition might become a macroscopic
superposition, the idea that Schrödinger made famous as his cat
paradox.
The problems raised by Einstein are usually presented as arising
after the “founders” of quantum mechanics and their Copenhagen
Interpretation in the late 1920’s. Modern attention to Einstein’s work
on quantum physics often starts with the EPR paper of 1935, when
his mysteries of nonlocality, nonseparability, and entanglement
were first being clearly understood by his opponents.
a n ce
Ch
Appendix D

informationphilosopher.com/chance
Chance 379
Chance
Is chance ontological and real or epistemic and the result of
human ignorance. Information philosophy answers this question.
For most of the history of philosophy, ontological chance has
been strictly denied. Leucippus (440 BCE) stated the first dogma
of determinism, an absolute necessity.
“Nothing occurs by chance (maton), but there is a reason (logos) and
necessity (ananke) for everything.”
Chance is regarded as inconsistent with causal determinism
and with physical or mechanical determinism.
The first thinker to suggest a physical explanation for chance in
the universe was Epicurus. Epicurus was influenced strongly by
Aristotle, who regarded chance as a fifth cause. Epicurus said
there must be cases in which the normally straight paths of atoms
in the universe occasionally bend a little and the atoms “swerve” to
prevent the universe and ourselves from being completely deter-
mined by the mechanical laws of Democritus.
For Epicurus, the chance in his atomic swerve was simply a
means to deny the fatalistic future implied by determinism (and
necessity). As the Epicurean Roman Lucretius explained the
idea,
“...if all motion is always one long chain, and new motion arises out
of the old in order invariable, and if the first-beginnings do not make
by swerving a beginning of motion such as to break the decrees of
fate, that cause may not follow cause from infinity, whence comes this
freedom in living creatures all over the earth.”1
Epicurus did not say the swerve was directly involved in deci-
Appendix D
sions so as to make them random. His critics, ancient and modern,

have claimed mistakenly that Epicurus did assume “one swerve -
one decision.” Some recent philosophers call this the “traditional
interpretation” of Epicurean free will, an unfortunate error.
On the contrary, following Aristotle, Epicurus thought
human agents have an autonomous ability to transcend the neces-
sity and chance of some events. He stated clearly that this special
ability makes us morally responsible for our actions.
1 De Rerum Natura, Book 2, lines 251-256
Epicurus, again following Aristotle, finds a tertium quid,

between and beyond the other two options, necessity (Democri-
tus’ determinism) and chance (Epicurus’ swerve).
The tertium quid is agent autonomy. Epicurus wrote:
“...some things happen of necessity (ἀνάγκη), others by chance (τύχη),
others through our own agency (παρ’ ἡμᾶς)...necessity destroys
responsibility and chance is uncertain; whereas our own actions are
autonomous, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach.”2
Despite abundant evidence, many philosophers deny that real
chance exists. If a single event is determined by chance, then inde-
terminism would be “true,” they say, and undermine the very pos-
sibility of certain knowledge. Some go to the extreme of saying
that chance makes the state of the world totally independent of
any earlier states,3 which is nonsense, but it shows how anxious
they are about chance.
The Stoic Chrysippus (200 BCE) said that a single uncaused
cause could destroy the universe (cosmos), a concern shared by
some modern philosophers, for whom reason itself would fail. He
wrote:
“Everything that happens is followed by something else which
depends on it by causal necessity. Likewise, everything that happens is
preceded by something with which it is causally connected. For noth-
ing exists or has come into being in the cosmos without a cause. The
universe will be disrupted and disintegrate into pieces and cease to be
a unity functioning as a single system, if any uncaused movement is
introduced into it.”
The core idea of chance and indeterminism is closely related to
the idea of causality. Indeterminism for some is simply an event
without a cause, an uncaused cause or causa sui that starts a new
Appendix D
causal chain. If we admit some uncaused causes, we can have

an adequate (statistical) causality without the physical necessity
of strict determinism - which implies complete predictability of
events and only one possible future.
2 Letter to Menoeceus, §133
3 Compare perdurantism on p.40
Chance 381
An example of an event that is not strictly caused is one that

depends on chance, like the flip of a coin. If the outcome is only
probable, not certain, then the event can be said to have been
caused by the coin flip, but the head or tails result itself was not pre-
dictable. So this “soft” causality, which recognizes prior uncaused
events as causes, is undetermined and the result of chance alone.
The Calculus of Probabilities
The great mathematical theorists of games of chance found
ways to argue that the chance they described was somehow neces-
sary, that chance outcomes were actually determined by “laws.”
The greatest of these, Pierre-Simon Laplace, preferred to call
his theory the “calculus of probabilities.” With its connotation of
approbation, probability is a more respectable term than chance,
which has associations of gambling and lawlessness. For Laplace,
the random outcomes were not predictable only because we lack
the detailed information needed to predict. As did the ancient
Stoics, Laplace explained the appearance of chance as the result of
human ignorance. He said,
“The word ‘chance,’ then expresses only our ignorance of the causes of
the phenomena that we observe to occur and to succeed one another
in no apparent order.”
Appendix D
Figure 32-1. C.S.Peirce called the distribution of random events “normal.”

Decades before Laplace, Abraham de Moivre discovered the

normal distribution (the bell curve) of outcomes for ideal random
processes, like the throw of dice. Perfectly random processes pro-
duce a regular distribution pattern for many trials (the law of large
numbers). Inexplicably, the discovery of these regularities in vari-
ous social phenomena led the great thinkers to conclude that the
phenomena were determined, not random. They simply denied the
existence of chance in the world.
In 1718 De Moivre wrote a book called The Doctrine of Chances.
It was very popular among gamblers. In the second edition (1738)
he derived the mathematical form of the normal distribution of
probabilities, but he denied the reality of chance. Because it implied
events that God could not know, he labeled it atheistic.
“Chance, in atheistical writings or discourse, is a sound utterly insignifi-
cant: It imports no determination to any mode of existence; nor indeed
to existence itself, more than to non existence; it can neither be defined
nor understood.”
As early as 1784, Immanuel Kant had argued that the regulari-
ties in social events from year to year showed that they must be the
consequence of underlying deterministic laws.
“Thus marriages, the consequent births and the deaths, since the free
will seems to have such a great influence on them, do not seem to be
subject to any law according to which one could calculate their number
beforehand. Yet the annual (statistical) tables about them in the major
countries show that they occur according to stable natural laws.”
In the early 1800’s Adolphe Quételet and Henry Thomas
Buckle argued that these regularities in “social physics” proved
that individual acts like marriage and suicide were not “free,” but
determined by an unknown natural law.
Appendix D
The possibility that chance is more than human ignorance

entered physics when Ludwig Boltzmann showed in 1877 that
random collisions between atomic particles in a gas could explain
the increase in entropy that is the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
In 1866, when Boltzmann first derived Maxwell’s velocity distri-
bution of gas particles, he did it assuming that the physical motion of
Chance 383
each particle (or atom) was determined exactly by Newton’s laws. And
in 1872, when he attempted to show how his kinetic theory of gases
could explain the increase in entropy, he again used strictly deter-
ministic physics. But Boltzmann’s former teacher Josef Loschmidt
objected to this derivation of the second law. Loschmidt said that
if time was reversed, the deterministic laws of classical mechanics
require that the entropy would then go down, not up.4
So in 1877 Boltzmann reformulated his derivation, assuming
that each collision of gas particles was not determined, but statisti-
cal and random. He assumed that the directions and velocities of
particles after a collision depended on chance, as long as energy and
momentum were conserved. He could then argue that the particles
would be located randomly in “phase space” based on the statistical
assumption that individual cells of phase space were equally prob-
able. His H-Theorem produced a quantity which would go only up,
independent of the time direction. Laws of nature became statisti-
cal.
Boltzmann’s student Franz S. Exner defended the idea of abso-
lute chance and indeterminism as a hypothesis that could not be
ruled out on the basis of observational evidence. Exner did this in
his 1908 inaugural lecture at Vienna University as rector (two years
after Boltzmann’s death), and ten years later in a book written during
World War I. But Exner’s view was not the standard view. Ever since
the eighteenth-century development of the calculus of probabilities,
scientists and philosophers assumed that probabilities and statisti-
cal phenomena, including social statistics, were completely deter-
mined. They thought that our inability to predict individual events
was due simply to our ignorance of the details.
Appendix D
In his own 1922 inaugural address at the University of Zurich,

What Is a Law of Nature?, Erwin Schrödinger said about his
favorite teacher,
“It was the experimental physicist, Franz Exner, who for the first time,
in 1919, launched a very acute philosophical criticism against the taken-
for-granted manner in which the absolute determinism of molecular
processes was accepted by everybody. He came to the conclusion that
4 See chapter 25.
the assertion of determinism was certainly possible, yet by no means

necessary, and when more closely examined not at all very probable.
“Exner’s assertion amounts to this: It is quite possible that Nature’s laws
are of thoroughly statistical character. The demand for an absolute law
in the background of the statistical law — a demand which at the present
day almost everybody considers imperative — goes beyond the reach of
experience.”
Ironically, just four years later, after developing his continuous
and deterministic wave theory of quantum mechanics, Schrödinger
would himself “go beyond the reach of experience.” He searched for
deterministic laws underlying the discontinuous, discrete, statistical
and probabilistic indeterminism of the Bohr-Heisenberg school, to
avoid the implications of absolute chance in quantum mechanics.
Planck and Einstein too were repulsed by randomness and chance.
“God does not play dice,” was Einstein’s famous remark.
A major achievement of the Ages of Reason and Enlightenment
was to banish absolute chance as unintelligible and atheistic. Newton’s
Laws provided a powerful example of deterministic laws govern-
ing the motions of everything. Surely Leucippus’ and Democritus’
original insights had been confirmed?
Franz Exner was not alone in defending chance before quantum
physics. In the nineteenth century in America, Charles Sanders
Peirce coined the term “tychism” for his idea that absolute chance
was the first step in three steps to “synechism” or continuity.
Peirce was influenced by the social statisticians, Buckle and Qué-
telet, by French philosophers Charles Renouvier and Alfred
Fouillée, who also argued for some absolute chance, by the physi-
cists Maxwell and Boltzmann, but most importantly Peirce was
Appendix D
influenced by the philosophers Kant and Hegel, who saw things

arranged in the triads that Peirce so loved.
Quételet and Buckle thought they had established an absolute
deterministic law behind all statistical laws. Buckle went so far as to
claim it established the lack of free will.
Chance 385
Renouvier and Fouillée introduced chance or indeterminism

simply to contrast it with determinism, and to discover some way,
usually a dialectical argument like that of Hegel, to reconcile the
opposites. Renouvier argues for human freedom, but nowhere
explains exactly how chance might contribute to that freedom,
other than negating determinism.
Maxwell may have used the normal distribution of Quételet and
Buckle’s social physics as his model for the distribution of molecular
velocities in a gas. Boltzmann also was impressed with the distribu-
tion of social statistics, and was initially convinced that individual
particles obeyed strict and deterministic Newtonian laws of motion.
Peirce does not explain much with his tychism. And, with his
view that continuity and evolutionary love is supreme, may have
had doubts about the importance of chance. He did not propose
chance as directly or indirectly providing free will. He never men-
tions the ancient criticisms that we cannot accept responsibility
for chance decisions. And he does not really care for chance as the
origin of species, preferring a more deterministic and continuous
lawful development, under the guidance of evolutionary love. He
called Darwinism “greedy? But Peirce does say clearly, well before
Boltzmann and Exner, that the observational evidence simply does
not establish strict determinism.
It remained for William James, Peirce’s close friend, to assert
that chance can provide random unpredictable alternatives from
which the will can choose or “determine” one alternative. James was
the first thinker to enunciate clearly a two-stage decision process,
with chance in a present time of random alternatives, leading to a
Appendix D
choice which selects one alternative and transforms an equivocal

ambiguous future into an unalterable determined past.
Free will consists of undetermined alternatives followed by
adequately but statistically determined choices.
“The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea
of chance...This notion of alternative possibility, this admission that any
one of several things may come to pass is, after all, only a roundabout
name for chance...
“What is meant by saying that my choice of which way to walk home

after the lecture is ambiguous and matter of chance?...It means that both
Divinity Avenue and Oxford Street are called but only one, and that one
either one, shall be chosen.”5
Chance is critically important for the question of free will because
strict necessity implies just one possible future. Absolute chance
means that the future is fundamentally unpredictable at the levels
where chance is dominant. Chance allows alternative futures and
the question becomes how the one actual present is realized from
these potential alternative futures.
The amount of chance and the departure from strict causal-
ity required for free will is very slight compared to the miraculous
ideas often associated with the “causa sui” (self-caused cause) of
the ancients. For medieval philosophers, only God could produce a
causa sui, a miracle. Modern quantal randomness, unless amplified
to the macroscopic world, is often insignificant, not a miracle at all.
Despite David Hume’s critical attack on causality, many phi-
losophers embrace causality strongly, including Hume himself in
his other writings, where he dogmatically asserts “’tis impossible to
admit of any medium betwixt chance and an absolute necessity.”
Since Chrysippus twenty-two centuries ago, philosophers still
connect causality to the very possibility of logic and reason.
Bertrand Russell said “The law of causation, according to
which later events can theoretically be predicted by means of earlier
events, has often been held to be a priori, a necessity of thought, a
category without which science would not be possible.”6 Although
he felt some claims for causality might be excessive, Russell was
unwilling to give up strict determinism, saying “Where determin-
Appendix D
ism fails, science fails.”7 And, “what science cannot discover, man-
kind cannot know.”
The great polymath Henri Poincaré said
“Every phenomenon, however trifling it be, has a cause, and a mind
infinitely powerful and infinitely well-informed concerning the laws of
5 “The Dilemma of Determinism,” in The Will to Believe, 1897, p.155
6 Our Knowledge of the External World, p.179
7 Determinism and Physics, p.18
Chance 387
nature could have foreseen it from the beginning of the ages. If a being
with such a mind existed, we could play no game of chance with him;
we should always lose. For him, in fact, the word chance would have no
meaning, or rather there would be no such thing as chance.”
Max Planck, along with Einstein, Schrödinger and others,
opposed indeterminism. Einstein called chance a “weakness in the
theory.” Planck remained convinced that determinism and strict
causality are essential requirements for physical science and so must
be true.
“Just as no physicist will in the last resort acknowledge the play of chance in human
nature, so no physiologist will admit the play of chance in the absolute sense.”
“the assumption of chance in inorganic nature is incompatible with the working
principle of natural science.”
“We must admit that the mind of each one of our greatest geniuses — Aristotle,
Kant or Leonardo, Goethe or Beethoven, Dante or Shakespeare — even at the moment
of its highest flights of thought or in the most profound inner workings of the soul, was
subject to the causal fiat and was an instrument in the hands of an almighty law which
governs the world.”8
Ernest Rutherford studied the emission of particles from

decaying radioactive atoms. He called them α and β rays. The alpha
particles are helium nuclei stripped of electrons. The beta particles
are electrons. It was Niels Bohr who told Rutherford that the α and
β rays were coming from the central nucleus that Rutherford had
discovered in 1911, not from the surrounding electron cloud as had
been thought.
Rutherford said the emission of rays is a chance process. There
seemed to be no way to predict the time or direction of such events.
He could only discover a characteristic time or “half-life” after which
50% of the original radioactive elements would be left.
Appendix D
When Bohr showed two years later that the electron cloud could
be organized into circular orbits, and the electrons were jumping
from one orbit to another with the emission or absorption of light
quanta, Rutherford’s question to Bohr was, “How do the electrons
know which orbit they are going to jump to?”Bohr did not know.
8 Where Is Science Going?, pp.147, 154, 156

Einstein answered that question in 1916 when he showed it is

purely a matter of chance. Einstein derived A and B coefficients
describing the absorption, spontaneous emission, and (his newly
predicted) stimulated emission of radiation. In two papers, “Emis-
sion and Absorption of Radiation in Quantum Theory,” and “On
the Quantum Theory of Radiation,” he derived the Planck law (for
Planck it was mostly a heuristic guess at the formula), he derived
Planck’s postulate E = hν, and he derived Bohr’s second postulate
Em - En = hν. Einstein did this by exploiting the obvious relationship
between the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of gas particle veloci-
ties and the distribution of radiation in Planck’s law. He wrote:
“The formal similarity between the chromatic distribution curve for
thermal radiation and the Maxwell velocity-distribution law is too strik-
ing to have remained hidden for long. In fact, it was this similarity which
led W. Wien, some time ago, to an extension of the radiation formula in
his important theoretical paper, in which he derived his displacement
law...Not long ago I discovered a derivation of Planck’s formula which
was closely related to Wien’s original argument and which was based
on the fundamental assumption of quantum theory. This derivation dis-
plays the relationship between Maxwell’s curve and the chromatic dis-
tribution curve and deserves attention not only because of its simplicity,
but especially because it seems to throw some light on the mechanism of
emission and absorption of radiation by matter, a process which is still
obscure to us.”9
But the introduction of Maxwell-Boltzmann statistical mechani-
cal thinking to electromagnetic theory produced what Einstein
called a “weakness in the theory.” It introduces the reality of irre-
ducible objective chance!
If light quanta are particles with energy E = hν traveling
at the velocity of light c, then they should have a momentum
Appendix D
p = E/c = hν/c. When light is absorbed by material particles, this

momentum will clearly be transferred to the particle. But when light
is emitted by an atom or molecule, a problem appears.
9 “On the Quantum Theory of Radiation,” Sources of Quantum Mechanics, B. L.
van der Waerden, Dover, 1967, p.63
Chance 389
The “statistical interpretation” of Max Born (“Born rule”) tells

us the outgoing wave is the probability amplitude wave function Ψ,
whose absolute square is the probability of finding a light particle in
an arbitrary direction.
Conservation of momentum requires that the momentum of the
emitted particle will cause an atom to recoil with momentum hν/c in
the opposite direction. However, the standard theory of spontane-
ous emission of radiation is that it produces a spherical wave going
out in all directions. A spherically symmetric wave has no preferred
direction. In which direction does the atom recoil?, Einstein asked:
“Does the molecule receive an impulse when it absorbs or emits the
energy ε? For example, let us look at emission from the point of view of
classical electrodynamics. When a body emits the radiation ε it suffers a
recoil (momentum) ε/c if the entire amount of radiation energy is emit-
ted in the same direction. If, however, the emission is a spatially symmet-
ric process, e.g., a spherical wave, no recoil at all occurs. This alternative
also plays a role in the quantum theory of radiation. When a molecule
absorbs or emits the energy ε in the form of radiation during the transi-
tion between quantum theoretically possible states, then this elementary
process can be viewed either as a completely or partially directed one in
space, or also as a symmetrical (nondirected) one. It turns out that we
arrive at a theory that is free of contradictions, only if we interpret those
elementary processes as completely directed processes.”10
An outgoing light particle must impart momentum hν/c to the
atom or molecule, but the direction of the momentum can not be
predicted! Neither can the theory predict the time when the light
quantum will be emitted. Einstein called this weakness by its
German name - Zufall (chance).
He recalled that Rutherford’s law for radioactive decay of unstable
atomic nuclei could only give the probability of decay time. Einstein
Appendix D
saw the connection with radiation emission:

“It speaks in favor of the theory that the statistical law assumed for
[spontaneous] emission is nothing but the Rutherford law of radioactive
decay.”11
10 On the Quantum Theory of Radiation, p.65
11 “Subtle is the Lord...”, A. Pais, p.411
But the inability to predict both the time and direction of light
particle emissions, said Einstein in 1917, is “a weakness in the
theory..., that it leaves time and direction of elementary processes to
chance (Zufall, ibid.).” It is only a weakness for Einstein, of course,
because his God does not play dice.
Einstein clearly saw, as none of his contemporaries did, that since
spontaneous emission is a statistical process, it cannot possibly be
described with classical physics. Einstein had probably known this
since 1905, but he deeply disliked the idea of chance in physics.
But Einstein’s dislike of quantum physics did not prevent him from
seeing its necessity.
“The properties of elementary processes required...make it seem almost
inevitable to formulate a truly quantized theory of radiation.”12
Einstein may not have liked this conceptual crisis, but his insights
into the indeterminism involved in quantizing matter and energy
were known, if largely ignored, over a decade before Heisenberg’s
quantum theory introduced his famous uncertainty principle in
1927. Heisenberg states that the exact position and momentum of
an atomic particle can only be known within certain (sic) limits. The
product of the position error and the momentum error is greater
than or equal to Planck’s constant h/2π.
ΔpΔx ≥ h/2π
Indeterminacy (Unbestimmtheit) was Heisenberg’s original name
for his principle. It is a better name than the more popular uncer-
tainty, which connotes lack of knowledge. Quantum indeterminacy
is ontological as well as epistemic lack of information.
Heisenberg declared that the new quantum theory disproved cau-
Appendix D
sality, using facts that were first described by Einstein years earlier.
But Heisenberg did not reference Einstein’s landmark 1916 work on
the breakdown of causality.
12 Pais, ibid.
Chance 391
Heisenberg simply says:

“We cannot - and here is where the causal law breaks down - explain why
a particular atom will decay at one moment and not the next, or what
causes it to emit an electron in this direction rather than that.”
Indeed, Heisenberg (and possibly Bohr) were still not convinced
about Einstein’s light quanta as late this remark in 1926!
He told Einstein directly in a personal meeting,
“Whether or not I should believe in light quanta, I cannot say at this
stage. Radiation quite obviously involves the discontinuous elements to
which you refer as light quanta. On the other hand, there is a continu-
ous element, which appears, for instance, in interference phenomena,
and which is much more simply described by the wave theory of light.
But you are of course quite right to ask whether quantum mechanics has
anything new to say on these terribly difficult problems. I believe that we
may at least hope that it will one day.”13
It is important to note that Einstein’s indeterminism of time and
direction is an intrinsic property of the interaction of radiation
with matter. It does not depend on limits put on measurements,
as Heisenberg’s “uncertainty” suggested, nor on the presence of a
conscious observer, as Bohr’s Copenhagen Interpretation seems
to imply. Where Bohr and Heisenberg describe epistemic limits to
knowledge, Einstein’s light quanta shows us an ontologically inde-
terministic world, independent of any observation or measurement.
Einstein says:
“If the molecule suffers a loss of energy in the amount of hν without
external stimulation, i.e., by emitting the energy in the form of radiation
(spontaneous emission), then this process too is a directional one. There
is no emission of radiation in the form of spherical waves. The molecule
suffers a recoil in the amount of hν/c during this elementary process of
emission of radiation; the direction of the recoil is, at the present state of
Appendix D
theory, determined by “chance”...

“The weakness of the theory is, on the one hand, that it does not bring
us closer to a link-up with the undulation theory; on the other hand, it
also leaves time of occurrence and direction of the elementary processes
a matter of “chance.” Nevertheless, I fully trust in the reliability of the
road taken.”14
13 “Quantum Mechanics and a Talk with Einstein,” Physics and Beyond, p.67
14 On the Quantum Theory of Radiation, p.76
Chance and Free Will

Our two-stage model for free will15 sees a role for chance in the
brain in the form of quantum level noise (as well as pre-quantal ther-
mal noise). Noise can introduce random errors into stored memo-
ries. Noise can create random associations of ideas during memory
recall. Many scientists have speculated that randomness in the brain
may be driven by microscopic fluctuations that are amplified to the
macroscopic level. This would not happen in some specific location
in the brain. It is most likely a general property of all neurons.
We can distinguish seven increasingly sophisticated ideas about
the role of chance and indeterminism in the question of free will.
Many libertarians have accepted the first two. Determinist and com-
patibilist critics of free will make the third their central attack on
chance, claiming that it denies moral responsibility. But very few
thinkers appear to have considered all seven essential requirements
for chance to contribute to libertarian free will.
• Chance exists in the universe. Quantum mechanics is correct.
Indeterminism is true, etc.
• Chance is important for free will because it breaks the causal
chain of determinism.
• But chance cannot directly cause our actions. We cannot be
responsible for random actions.
• Chance can only generate random (unpredictable) alternative
possibilities for action or thought. The choice or selection of one
action must be adequately determined, so that we can take respon-
sibility. And once we choose, the connection between mind/brain
and motor control must be adequately determined to see that “our
Appendix D
will be done.”
• Chance, in the form of noise, both quantum and thermal noise,
must always be present. The naive model of a single random micro-
scopic event, amplified to affect the macroscopic brain, never made
sense. Under what ad hoc circumstances, at what time, at what place
in the brain, would it occur to affect a decision?
15 See chapter 4 for details.
Chance 393
• Chance must be overcome or suppressed by the adequately

determined will when it decides to act, de-liberating the prior free
options that “one could have done.”
• To the extent that chance is not completely suppressed by the
will, the resulting choice can be considered to have an element of
randomness. The agent can still take responsibility for allowing the
choice to be partially or completely random, the equivalent of flip-
ping a mental coin, if no available option is clearly best.
Of those thinkers who have considered most of these aspects of
chance, a small fraction have also seen the obvious parallel with bio-
logical evolution and natural selection, with its microscopic quan-
tum accidents causing variations in the gene pool and macroscopic
natural selection of fit genes by their reproductive success.
Our two-stage model of free will needs chance for the free gener-
ation of action items and thoughts in an agenda of alternative possi-
bilities to be de-liberated by the will. Chance is the “free” in the first
stage of free will and the source of human creativity. The adequately
determined second stage is the “will” in free will that de-liberates,
choosing actions for which we can be morally responsible.
Appendix D
o rd e r
ce R e c
e r i e n u ce r
Exp d Reprod
an
Appendix E

informationphilosopher.com/knowledge/ERR
ERR 395
Experience Recorder
and Reproducer
The experience recorder and reproducer (ERR) is our functional
basis for an information mind model. The ERR is simpler, but
superior to, computational models of the mind popular in today’s
neuroscience and cognitive science. Mind is immaterial informa-
tion, software in the brain hardware. ERR provides deep insight
into both the problem of “meaning” and the “hard problem” of
consciousness.
Man is not a machine. And the mind is not a computer.
Our specific mind model grows out of the biological question
of what sort of “mind” would provide the greatest survival value
for the lowest (or the earliest) organisms that evolved mind-like
capabilities.
We propose that a minimal primitive mind would need only
to “play back” past experiences that resemble any part of current
experience. Remembering past experiences has obvious relevance
(survival value) for an organism. But beyond survival value, the
ERR touches on the philosophical problem of “meaning.” We sug-
gest the epistemological “meaning” of information perceived is to
be found in the past experiences that are reproduced automati-
cally by the ERR.
The ERR reproduces the entire complex of the original sensa-
tions experienced, together with the emotional response to the
original experience (pleasure, pain, fear, etc.). Playback is stimu-
Appendix E
lated by anything in the current experience that resembles some-

thing in the past experiences, in the five dimensions of the senses
(sound, sight, touch, smell and taste), as well as unique emotional
experiences.
The ERR model stands in contrast to the popular cognitive
science models of a mind as a digital computer with a “central
processor” or even many “parallel processors.” No algorithms or
stored programs are needed for the ERR model. There is nothing
comparable to the addresses and data buses used to stored and
retrieve information in a digital computer.
An approximation might be a non-linear random-access

data recorder, where data is stored using “content-addressable”
memory (the memory address - a string of bits in a digital com-
puter - would be the data content itself).
Much simpler than a computer with stored data structures, a
better technological metaphor for ERR might be a multi-channel,
multi-track analog video and sound recorder, enhanced with
the ability to record smells, tastes, touches, and most important,
feelings. Imagine one channel for each sense, one track for each
neuron. But of course machines currently do not smell or taste
and have no feelings, so could not reproduce them.
Although there is really no comparison between any current
technology and the ERR, the closest thing in speed and complete-
ness of recall, with the precision that recalled items are relevant,
is state-of-the-art search and retrieval engines like that of Google.
But even Google pales in comparison with your ability to
instantly recall the arrangement of rooms in your house when you
were a teenager. You can visualize the surroundings of your home,
maybe the color of the house, the direction to the nearest bus stop,
etc.
And compared to the worldwide network of computers and
databases that is Google, the biological and neurological basis for
ERR is very straightforward.
No modern computer can surpass the amazing information
storage capability and rapidity of search and retrieval of informa-
tion as that of the human neocortex.
Unlike most of the brain, the neocortex randomly grows its
Appendix E
over 10 billion axons, each with 10,000 dendritic connections.

As can be seen in Ramón y Cajal’s drawings made at the end
of the nineteenth century, the neocortex consists primarily of six
horizontal layers segregated principally by cell type and neuronal
connections.
ERR 397
The neurons are arranged in

vertical structures called corti-
cal columns, with a diameter
of about 1mm. A given column
may respond to a sensory
stimulus coming from a cer-
tain body part or region of
sound or vision. These col-
umns are similar, and can be
thought of as the basic repeat-
ing functional units of the
neocortex. In humans, a
column contains approxi-
mately 70,000 neurons and the
neocortex consists of about Figure 33-1. Cajal’s extraordinary drawings.
500,000 columns.
The neuroscientist Donald Hebb said in 1949 that “neurons
that fire together wire together.” Our ERR mind model is based on
the simple extension of the Hebb idea to the notion that “neurons
that have been wired together will fire together.”
• The ERR Recorder: Neurons become wired together (strength-
ening their synaptic connections to other neurons) during an
organism’s experiences, across multiple sensory and limbic sys-
tems.
• The ERR Reproducer: Later firing of even a part of the previ-
ously wired neurons stimulates firing of all or part of the original
complex, thus “playing back” the original experience (including
Appendix E
the emotional reaction to the experience).

The ERR mind model hypothesizes that related experiences are
likely stored “nearby” (in the many “dimensions” of visual cortex,
hearing pathways, olfactory nerves, etc., etc., plus the amygdala).
The ERR model might then nicely explain the philosophical

notion of association of ideas. If it is neighboring neurons that fire,
they will likely be closely related in some way (since they were stored
based on the fundamental pattern of information in the experience).
Similar experiences are likely stored in adjacent neurons. Note that
a particular smell could cause the recall of experiences where that
smell was present, and similarly for other senses.
The Binding Problem
Neuroscientists are investigating how diverse signals from mul-
tiple pathways can possibly be unified in the brain. The ERR model
offers an extremely simple insight into this so-called “binding prob-
lem.” There is an intrinsic binding of the multiple sensory and limbic
systems present in the original wiring or “recording” of a complex
experience. So the “binding” of all the original senses and emotion
in each recalled thought or experience is simply the result of the
Hebbian “wiring” of neurons during the original experience
We assume that whenever a particular experience plays back, it
refreshes and strengthens the synaptic connections. It might also
be the case that the current conditions can modify the connections
somewhat, both slightly modifying the memories of the experience
and the emotions associated with the experience. ERR might then
become an explanatory basis for conditioning experiments, classi-
cal Pavlovian and operant conditioning, and in general a model for
associative learning.
The capability of reproducing experiences is critical to learn-
ing from past experiences, so as to make them guides for action in
future experiences. The ERR model is the minimal mind model that
Appendix E
provides for such learning by living organisms. It is critical that the

original emotions also play back, along with any differences from
past emotions that are newly experienced during playback.
ERR 399
Speed and Power of the ERR

You might not normally notice the speed with which you can
recall the name of a sixth-grade teacher or childhood friend that
has not occurred to you for decades. Or that a few notes might bring
back music and lyrics of a song not sung for many years. An odd
smell might evoke memories of a foreign country. A taste might
bring on feelings of nausea first experienced long ago. All the senses,
not just visual stimulation, can replay complex, multi-sensory origi-
nal events. How does it work so fast?
Sometimes when you consciously try to recall a particular name,
it does not come immediately to mind, but you can feel it on “the
tip of your tongue.” Then hours, even days later the forgotten name
just “pops into your head.” It suggests unnoticeable “unconscious”
information processing by the experience recorder and reproducer.
To make a crude estimate of the speed and power of the brain as a
biological information processor, we can calculate the information
creation going on in the body overall. Estimating how much power
the body consumes (metabolizing of food as negative entropy), we
can then use the fact that the brain uses about 20 percent of that
energy.
We can take just one bodily process that is also vital to thought,
the continuous replacement of red blood cells, which consumes a
significant fraction of available energy. When 200 million of the 25
trillion red blood cells in the human body die each second, 300 mil-
lion new hemoglobins must be assembled in each of 200 million
new blood cells . With the order of a few thousand bytes of informa-
tion in each hemoglobin, this is 10 thousand x 300 million x 200
million = 6 x 1020 bits of information per second, a million times
Appendix E
more information processing than today’s fastest computer CPU.

What is the brain doing with such immense power consumption
and potential information generation. It could be the “blooming,
buzzing, confusion” that William James imagined gong on just
below his “stream of consciousness.”
How can the mind “focus attention,” as James put it? Think of
how the eye can instantly be drawn to a tiny dark speck moving in
our peripheral vision, or how quickly it can recall a specific fact not
thought about for many years.
How the ERR works
The ERR’s operation is nothing like the way a computer searches
and retrieves information. ERR does not decide what to search for
and then look systematically through all the information structures
to find it.
We can compare Google’s “distributed search” algorithms, which
send a search phrase to hundreds of thousands of computers in cen-
ters around the world. After vast amounts of “parallel distributed
processing,” each computer returns its relevant pages within a frac-
tion of a second. These are then assembled into the Google “results”
pages.
By contrast, in the ERR, the current experience travels into the
brain on neurons which process it in the normal way for storage,
based on its analysis (breakdown) of the multi-sensory content of
the image. At the same time, the neurons that are firing together are
stimulating those nearby to fire, reproducing a vast number of past
experiences that were (at least partially) recorded in neurons nearby
the newly firing neurons.
It may sound absurd to suggest that the mind can pick anything
useful out of such a cacophony. But it is precisely the past experi-
ences found that provide the context for the current experience to
be “meaningful.” If there were nothing played back, like the infant
brain, there would be no “meaning” in the experience. In the adult
Appendix E
mind, a lifetime of experience is available, usually instantly played

back unconsciously, without our ever having to consciously ask for
it.
We can say that “what it’s like to be” a certain animal depends
entirely on what its ERR chooses to record and reproduce. A frog,
for example, famously allows only the signals from certain shapes
ERR 401
to go beyond the frog’s eye to its brain. In our ERR model, the frog
has no experience recorded of concave-shaped objects moving in its
visual field. Such information then is literally “meaningless.”
What would the neurophysiological evidence look like that could
confirm or deny the ERR model?
In part, it will be the discovery by neuroscientists of the physi-
cal locations where memories are stored. Eric Kandel has spent
decades in search of our memory systems.1 Theories range from
the relatively large synaptic structures that connect the neurons, to
absurdly small sub-cellular components like the microtubules that
form the cytoskeletal structures holding up the cell walls.
Better evidence will come from advances in the speed and res-
olution of tools that image brain activity. They are currently very
slow, reacting to gross blood flows in the active areas. These will be
combined with traditional studies of mental associations, present-
ing a subject with elemental experiences like images, sounds, and
smells and watching where the brain is active as it elicits playback of
important experiences.
The ERR and Consciousness
Humans are conscious of our experiences because they are
recorded in (and reproduced on demand from) the information
structures in our brains. Mental information houses the content of
an individual character - the fabric of values, desires, and reasons
used to evaluate alternatives for action and thus to make choices.
The information in a human brain vastly exceeds our genetic infor-
mation. Because humans store and retrieve information outside
their minds, it has allowed human beings to dominate the planet.
Appendix E
Animals may exceed us in strength and speed, but we have experi-

ence, memory, wisdom, and skills that have accumulated over thou-
sands of generations.
The relatively small amount transmitted genetically is tiny com-
pared to that stored in the experience recorder and reproducer of
a single human mind. But even that enormous amount is being
rivalled by the total knowledge stored externally (we call it the Sum)
1 Kandel, et al. 2012
now becoming available to all humans because it is being stored on

the world-wide web and Internet.
Consciousness can be defined in information terms as a property
of an entity (usually a living thing but we can also include artificially
conscious machines or computers) that reacts appropriately to the
information (and particularly to changes in the information) in its
environment.
In the context of information philosophy, the experience recorder
and reproducer can provide us with what we can define as informa-
tion consciousness.
An animal in a deep sleep is not conscious because it ignores
changes in its environment. By contrast, an inanimate robot may
be conscious in our sense. Even the lowliest control system using
negative feedback (a thermostat, for example) is in a minimal sense
conscious of (aware of, exchanging information about) changes in
its environment.
This definition of consciousness fits with our model of the mind
as an experience recorder and reproducer (ERR). Can we say that an
organism is “unconscious” If no past experiences are playing back
during its current experiences? Can we say that a frog is “not con-
scious” of the concave objects flying by?
A conscious being is constantly recording information about its
perceptions of the external world, and most importantly for ERR,
it is simultaneously recording its feelings. Sensory data such as
sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations are recorded in
a sequence along with pleasure and pain states, fear and comfort
levels, etc. We sometimes speak of a “heightened” consciousness
Appendix E
that excels at this recording.

All these experiential and emotional data are recorded in associa-
tion with one another. This means that when the experiences are
reproduced (played back in a temporal sequence), the accompany-
ing emotions are once again felt, in synchronization. Although past
experiences played back internally are not the same as the current
external, they can make us currently “conscious” of past pleasure
and pain states, fear and comfort levels, and so forth.
ERR 403
Bernard Baars’s Global Workspace Theory uses the metaphor

of a “Theater of Consciousness,” in which there is an audience of
purposeful agents calling for the attention of the executive on stage.
In the ERR parallel, vast numbers of past experiences are clamor-
ing for the attention of the conscious mind at all times, whenever
anything in current experience has some resemblance to past expe-
riences. If we define “current experience” as all afferent perceptions
plus the current contents of consciousness itself, we get a dynamic
self-referential system with plenty of opportunities for negative and
positive feedback.
The “Blackboard model” of Allan Newell and Herbert Simon
imagines pictures or words (concepts, say) being written on a
mental blackboard by our current perceptions. Deep memory struc-
tures are watching what is written on the blackboard. They call up
similar concepts by association and write them to the blackboard,
which is visible to our conscious mind selecting the next things to
think about. The ERR model clearly supports this view and explains
the neural mechanism by which concepts (past experiences) are
retrieved and come to the blackboard.
In Daniel Dennett’s consciousness model, the mind is made
up of innumerable functional homunculi, each with its own goals
and purposes. Some of these homunculi are information structures
in the genes, which transmit “learning” or “knowledge” from gen-
eration to generation by heredity alone. Others are environmentally
and socially conditioned, or consciously learned through cultural
transmission of information.
Four “Levels” of the ERR
Appendix E
We identify four evolutionary stages in the development of the

experience recorder and reproducer.
• Instinct. These are animals with little or no learning capabil-
ity. Reactions to environmental conditions have been transmitted
genetically. Information about past experiences (by prior genera-
tions of the organism) is “built in” as inherited reactions.
• Learning. Here past experiences of animals guide their current

choices. Conscious, but mostly habitual, reactions are developed
through recorded experiences, including instruction by parents and
peers.
• Prediction. - A Sequencer in the ERR system can play back
beyond the current situation, allowing the organism to use imagina-
tion and foresight to evaluate the future consequences of its choices.
• Reflection. Here conscious deliberation about values influences
the choice of behaviors. The ERR plays back a range of similar expe-
riences including the reactions and feelings expressed by others to
those experiences.
All four levels are emergent, in the sense that they did not exist in
the lower, earlier levels of biological evolution.
Even the most primitive of biological systems are cognitive, in
the sense that they use their internal information structure to guide
their actions. Some of the simplest organisms can learn from expe-
rience. The most primitive minds are the earliest experience record-
ers. They reproduce past experiences as alternative possibilities for
current actions.
In humans, the information-processing structures create new
actionable information (knowledge) by consciously and uncon-
sciously reworking the experiences stored in the mind.
Emergent higher mental levels exert downward causation
on the contents of the lower bodily levels, ultimately support-
ing mental causation and free will.
What It’s Like To Be A...
Appendix E
There are characteristic differences between the mental and the

physical that modern science, even neuroscience, may never fully
explain. The most important is the internal and private first-person
point of view, the essential subjectivity, the “I” and the “eye” of the
mind, its capability of introspection and reflection, its intentional-
ity, its purposiveness, its consciousness. The mind records an indi-
vidual’s experiences as internal information structures and then can
ERR 405
play back these recordings to compare them to new perceptions,

new external events. The recordings include an individual’s emo-
tional reactions to past experiences, our feelings. The reproduction
of recorded personal experiences, stimulated by similarities in cur-
rent experience, provide the core of “what it’s like to be” a specific
individual.
The external and public physical world, by contrast, is studied
from the third-person point of view. Although putatively “objective,”
science in fact is the composite “intersubjective” view of the “com-
munity of inquirers,” as Charles Sanders Peirce put it. Although
this shared subjectivity can never directly experience what goes on
in the mind of an individual member of the community, science is
in some sense the collective mind of the physical world. It is a pale
record of the world’s experiences, because it lacks the emotional
aspect of personal experience.
The world of chemistry and physics has no sense of its history.
It does not introspect or reflect. It lacks an ERR and so lacks con-
sciousness, that problem in philosophy of mind second only to the
basic mind-body problem itself.
Mental States?
The ERR avoids the vague idea of a “mental state,” whatever that
may be. The ERR stores specific information in the brain’s neural
networks about all the perceptual elements (sight, sound, touch,
taste, smell) of an experience, along with emotions felt during the
experience. They automatically are stored in whichever neurons fire
together.
Later, any new perceptual element that fires the some part of
Appendix E
those neurons can activate the neural network to replay the original
experience, complete with its emotional content. The unconscious
mind is a “blooming, buzzing confusion” playing back many similar
experiences, to some of which we focus our attention, as William
James pointed out.
This rich spectrum of past experiences provides the “alternative
possibilities” for action that James said was the first stage in his two-
stage model of free will.
Instead of a general idea of a “mental state,” ERR describes a mind

full of many possible specific mental states simultaneously, any one
of which may be focused on as the free thought that leads to the next
action “self-determined” by the mind, brain, and body.
ERR finds support in the idea of empathy and the recent discov-
eries of “mirror neurons” in higher primates. Observing another
being having an experience fires similar patterns of neurons that
play back the observer’s similar experiences, along with emotional
reactions to those earlier experiences.
Different emotional reactions can explain how different individu-
als can be attracted to or repulsed by otherwise similar experiences.
Summary
The biological model for the experience recorder and reproducer
is neurons that wire together during an animal’s experiences, in
multiple sensory and limbic systems, such that later firing of even
a part of the wired neurons can stimulate firing of all or part of the
original complex. Where Donald Hebb famously argued that “neu-
rons that fire together wire together,” our experience recorder and
reproducer ERR model assumes that “neurons that have been wired
together will fire together.”
Neuroscientists are investigating how diverse signals from mul-
tiple pathways can be unified in the brain. We offer a simple insight
into this “binding” problem. There is an intrinsic binding of the
multiple sensory and limbic systems present in the original wiring
or “recording” of a complex experience. So the “binding” of all the
original senses and emotion in each new experience is partly the
result of the Hebbian “wiring” of neurons during a similar original
Appendix E
experience
ERR 407
Beyond the obvious relevance (survival value) for an organism of

remembering past experiences, we suggest the “meaning” of infor-
mation is found in the experiences reproduced by the ERR, when
presented with that information.
A conscious being is constantly recording information about its
perceptions of the external world, and most importantly for ERR,
it is simultaneously recording its feelings. Sensory data such as
sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations are recorded in
a sequence along with pleasure and pain states, fear and comfort
levels, etc.
All these experiential and emotional data are recorded in associa-
tion with one another. This means that when the experiences are
reproduced (played back in a temporal sequence), the accompany-
ing emotions are once again felt, in synchronization.
The capability of reproducing experiences is critical to learn-
ing from past experiences, so as to make them guides for action in
future experiences. The ERR is the minimal mind model that pro-
vides for such learning by living organisms.
Something like an ERR is obviously present in all the higher pri-
mates and it is unclear how primitive an animal must be before it
cannot learn something from its experiences.
Appendix E
e at i o n
ic Cr
Cosm
Appendix F

informationphilosopher.com/introduction/creation
Cosmic Creation 409
The Cosmic Creation Process

The Fundamental Question of Information Philosophy
Our fundamental philosophical question is cosmological and
ultimately is profoundly metaphysical.
What are the processes that create emergent information
structures in the universe?
Given the second law of thermodynamics, which says that any
system will over time approach a thermodynamic equilibrium of
maximum disorder or entropy, in which all information is lost,
and given the best current model for the origin of the universe,
which says everything began in a state of thermodynamic equilib-
rium some 13.75 billion years ago, how can it be that living beings
are creating and communicating vast amounts of new informa-
tion every day?
Why are we not still in that original state of equilibrium?
Broadly speaking, there are only four major phenomena or
processes that can reduce the entropy locally, while of course
increasing it globally to satisfy the second law of thermodynamics.
Three of these do it “blindly,” the fourth does it with a built-in
“purpose,” or telos.”
• Universal Gravitation
• Quantum Cooperative Phenomena (e.g., crystallization, the
formation of atoms and molecules)
• “Dissipative” Chaos (Non-linear Thermodynamics)
• Life
Appendix F
None of these processes can work unless they have a way to get
rid of the positive entropy (disorder) and leave behind a pocket
of negative entropy (order or information). The positive entropy
is either conducted, convected, or radiated away as waste matter
and energy, as heat, or as pure radiation. At the quantum level, it
is always the result of interactions between matter and radiation
(photons). Whenever photons interact with material particles,
the outcomes are inherently unpredictable. As Albert Einstein
discovered ten years before the founding of quantum mechanics,
these interactions involve irreducible ontological chance.
Information philosophy (actually information physics) has

now identified the exact steps needed to create any new informa-
tion structures in the universe. This includes the first matter - ele-
mentary particles like quarks, gluons, photons, and electrons. It
also includes the first atoms and molecules (which did not appear
until at least 380,000 years after the origin of the universe).
Figure 34-1. An artist’s rendering of the cosmic expansion.
The very same steps are needed to form the galaxies, stars, and
planets, which were starting to form about 400 million years after
the origin. All these cosmic information structures are informa-
tionally passive. Their interactions follow the relatively simple
laws of physics and chemistry. They do not process or communi-
cate information.
Although we call it cosmic creation, the very same steps create
all life on Earth. But biological structures are far from informa-
Appendix F
tionally passive. They have the extraordinary active and emergent

capability of replicating, communicating, and processing infor-
mation. They are cognitively aware of their environment. They
exhibit purposeful, teleonomic behavior.
Finally, those same two steps are involved in our minds when we
create a new idea! Information philosophy tells a story of cosmic
and biological evolution that is one creation process all the way
Cosmic Creation 411
from the original cosmic material to the immaterial minds that

have now explained the creation process itself!
Sadly, cosmic creation is horrendously wasteful. In the existen-
tial balance between the forces of destruction and the forces of
construction, there is no contest. The dark side is overwhelming.
By quantitative physical measures of matter and energy content,
there is far more chaos than cosmos in our universe. But it is the
cosmos that we prize.
Information philosophy focuses on the qualitatively valuable
information structures in the universe. The destructive forces are
entropic, they increase the entropy and disorder. The constructive
forces are anti-entropic. We call them ergodic. They increase the
order and information.
By information we mean a quantity that can be understood
mathematically and physically. It corresponds to the common-
sense meaning of information, in the sense of communicating or
informing. It also corresponds to the information stored in books
and computers. But it also measures the information in any physi-
cal object, like a stone or a snowflake, in a production process like
a recipe or formula, and the information in biological systems,
including cell and organ structures and the genetic code.
The Two Steps in Cosmic Creation
For some years, we have argued that the creation of any new
information structure requires two fundamental steps. The first
involves quantum mechanics, the second thermodynamics. But
the thermodynamics is not the usual entropy-producing kind. It
must produce negative entropy, the “order out of chaos” that is
new information. We call such a process ergodic and find that it
Appendix F
works differently in the material, biological, and mental domains

Furthermore, the quantum mechanics of information creation
raises metaphysical questions that suggest further analysis might
be helpful. So we may have to break down each of these steps as
needed for the best explanation.
The first step in the creation of new information needs the meta-
physical existence of multiple future possibilities as a precondition.
In a deterministic universe such possibilities do not exist. There is
but one possible future. We thus need an ontological commitment
to the existence of multiple possibilities, which like any “ideas” have
questionable existential status.
For example, where do such possibilities go when one of them
is actualized? When one “becomes” and now has “being,” are the
others destroyed? Have they become “nothingness,” as existential-
ists claimed?
In a deterministic universe no new information is ever created.
Information is a conserved quantity, like matter and energy, say
many mathematical physicists and theologically minded philoso-
phers, who think constant information fits well their idea of an
omniscient god, for whom there is “nothing new under the sun.”
Quantum physics provides us with a model for the first step. A
quantum system has possible states. The wave function provides
calculable probabilities for each state. And the wave function may
“collapse,” instantaneously and randomly, into one actual state if
and when there is an interaction with another system. Some inter-
actions may project the system into a different linear combination
(a “superposition”) of possible states, but we shall ignore that here.
Because the “collapse” is genuinely random, quantum physics is
the origin of ontological chance in the universe, as first discovered
by Albert Einstein, many years before the “founders” of quantum
mechanics and the “uncertainty principle.”1
The inventor of the mathematical theory of the communication
of information, Claude Shannon, explained how there would be
Appendix F
no communication of new information without the existence of

possible alternative messages.
A deterministic universe is one in which all messages from the
past contain only the fixed totality of information in the past,
nothing is ever “new.” So the indeterminism of quantum mechan-
ics opens possible futures and gives us humans the chance to be
creative authors of our lives.
1 See Appendix D.
Cosmic Creation 413
So why do we need a second step in the creation of information?

The short answer is irreversibility.2
A quantum event may be reversible. It may not leave a permanent
record in the universe.3 Until it does, we have nothing new. For the
many scientists and philosophers of science who deny the collapse
of the quantum-mechanical wave function, the universe is left for-
ever in a superposition of states. Nothing ever “happens.” Claims
of decoherence theorists that explain the appearance of something
happening are incoherent.4
Making a quantum event irreversible is the job for thermodynam-
ics in our second step. But thermodynamics is a two-edged sword.
Every thermodynamic process is irreversible. Thermodynamicists
invent hypothetical reversible processes to calculate the efficiency
of engines, but in practice, as Ludwig Boltzmann showed, there
is always an increase in the entropy. So irreversibility alone cannot
help us with the creation of information, which we identify with
local reductions in the entropy. The creation of information requires
the creation of local negative entropy, in the form of an information
structure.
There are just a few natural processes that can create informa-
tion structures. One is gravitation, which can attract matter from
random distributions of dust and gas into structures with spheri-
cal or circular symmetry like planets, stars, and galaxies. Another
is crystallization, when a snowflake with elaborate hexagonal sym-
metry forms from amorphous water vapor. But the most important
ergodic processes are life and mind.
In order to satisfy the second law of thermodynamics, which
demands that the overall entropy of the universe must increase,
these anti-entropic or ergodic processes must transfer an amount
Appendix F
of positive entropy (we can call Boltzmann entropy) away from the
new information structure with local negative entropy (that we can
also call Shannon entropy).5
2 See chapter 25.
3 See appendix C for a reversible quantum experiment.
4 See chapter 21.
5 See Appendix B for entropy and the second law.
Shannon’s information is mathematically the negative of the

Boltzmann formula for entropy. For Shannon it was the logarithm
of the number of messages, weighted by their probabilities. For
Boltzmann it was the logarithm of the number of possible distribu-
tions of gas particles in phase space.6
Should we consider the transfer away of positive entropy only a
part of the second step? The means by which the transfer occurs is
somewhat different in material, biological, and mental information
processes.7
The Flatness Problem in Cosmology
The universe is very likely flat because it was created flat. A flat
universe starts with minimal information, which is fine since our
cosmic creation process can create all the information that we have
today. Leibniz’ question, “Why is there something rather than noth-
ing?” might be “the universe is made out of something and the
opposite of that something.”
When I was a first-year graduate student in astrophysics at
Harvard University in 1958, I encountered two problems that
have remained with me all these years. One was the fundamental
problem of information philosophy - “What creates the information
structures in the universe?” The other was the flat universe.
At that time, the universe was thought to be positively curved.
Edwin Hubble’s red shifts of distant galaxies showed that they
did not have enough kinetic energy to overcome the gravitational
potential energy. Textbooks likened the universe to the surface of
an expanding balloon decorated with galaxies moving away from
one another.
Appendix F
That balloon popped for me when Walter Baade came to

Harvard to describe his work at Mount Wilson. Baade took many
images with long exposures of nearby galaxies and discovered there
are two distinct populations of stars. And in each population there
was a different kind of Cepheid variable star. The period of the
6 See appendix A for the mathematics.
7 See chapter 28.
Cosmic Creation 415
Cepheid’s curve of light variation indicated its absolute brightness,

so they could be used as “standard candles” to find the distances to
star clusters in the Milky Way.
Baade then realized that the Cepheids being used to calculate the
distance to Andromeda were 1.6 magnitudes brighter than the ones
used in our galaxy. Baade said Andromeda must be twice as far away
as Hubble had thought.
As I listened to Baade, for me the universe went from being
positively curved to negatively curved. It jumped right over the flat
universe! I was struck that we seemed to be within observational
error of being flat. Some day a physicist will find the reason for
perfect flatness, I thought.
I used to draw a line with tick marks for powers of ten in density
around the critical density ρc to show how close we are. Given so
many orders of magnitude of possible densities, it seemed improb-
able that we were just close by accident. We could increase the den-
sity of the universe by thirty powers of ten before it would have the
same density as the earth (way too dense!). But on the lighter side,
there are an infinite number of powers of ten. We can’t exclude a
universe with average density zero, which still allows us to exist, but
little else in the distance.
In the long run we are approaching a universe with average den-

sity zero. Some say all the non-gravitationally bound systems will
slip over our light horizon as the expansion takes more and more
of them faster than the velocity of light. At this time, galaxies with a
Appendix F
redshift greater than z = 1.8 are already over our light horizon. We
can never exchange signals with them.
But note that we may always be able to see back to the cosmic
microwave background, all the same contents of the universe that
we see today will always be visible, just extremely red-shifted!
What evidence could there be for a perfectly flat universe?
First, there is the problem of the “missing mass” needed to slow

down the cosmic expansion so that it will never stop, except at an
infinite time, when there will be no kinetic enrgy left over
Second, there is evidence for acceleration of the cosmic expansion.
It depends on observations of a single kind of “standard candle,” the
type 1a supernovae.
It is essential that some other visible bodies at extreme redshifts
can be used to show acceleration. The type 1a supernovae that
exploded at the earliest times might have some systematic difference
from those that exploded later.
Beyond any obdervations, there is pure theory. When Alan Guth
presented his inflation thesis at Harvard in the 1980’s, I asked him
why not assume the universe has always been exactly flat. He replied,
“That’s too easy.” The great cosmologist Steven Weinberg agrees that
it is easy. He wrote
“The simplest solution to the flatness problem is just that we are in a
spatially flat universe, in which K = 0 and ρ is always precisely equal to
ρcrit.” 8
The Problem of Missing Mass
Given our assumption that the universe is exactly flat, the missing
mass problem is that there is not enough observable material so
that in Newtonian cosmology the gravitational binding energy can
exactly balance the kinetic energy. The visible (luminous mass)
accounts for only about 4-5 percent of the needed mass. Studying
the rotation curves of galaxies and galaxy clusters reveals an invis-
ible mass (called dark matter) contained inside the galaxies and
clusters that amounts to perhaps 6 times the visible matter, which
accounts for about 30 percent of the critical mass density needed
Appendix F
to make the universe exactly flat. Current theory accounts for the
balance by “dark energy,” an interpretation of the cosmological con-
stant Einstein considered adding to his equations as a pressure to
keep it from collapsing (known as “vacuum energy”). But the miss-
8 Cosmology, p.39
Cosmic Creation 417
ing mass could just be more dark matter between the galaxies and
clusters. About three times their dark matter would do.
This much material can close the universe and explain its flatness.
But it would not explain the apparent expansion acceleration seen
in Type 1a supernovae. This might be an artifact of the assumption
they are perfect “standard candles.” Recent evidence suggests that
distant Type 1a supernovae are in a different population than those
nearby, something like Baade’s two populations.
It seems a bit extravagant to assume the need for an exotic form
of vacuum energy on the basis of observations that could have
unknown but significant sources of error. And I am delighted that
observations are within a factor of three of the critical density ρc.
When Baade showed the universe was open in the 1950’s, we
needed thirty times more matter for a flat universe. Now we need
only three times more. More than ever, we are obviously flat!
The Horizon Problem
The horizon problem arises from the perfect synchronization of
all the parts of our visible universe, when there may never have been
a time in the early universe that they were close enough together to
send synchronization signals.
We propose a solution to the horizon problem based on Einstein’s
insight that in the wave-function collapse of entangled particles,
something is “traveling” faster than the speed of light. That some-
thing is information about possibilities. When the universal wave
function Ψ collapsed at t = 0, parts of the universe that are outside
our current light horizon may have been “informed” that it was time
to start, no matter the physical distance.
Appendix F
This radical idea is consistent with Richard Feynman’s path

integral (or “sum-over-histories”) formulation of quantum mechan-
ics. In calculating the probability of a quantum event, the path inte-
gral is computed over all the possible paths of virtual photons, many
travelling faster than the speed of light.
i o t i c s
Bi osem
Appendix G

informationphilosopher.com/presentations/biosemiotics
Biosemiotics 419
Biosemiotics
Biosemiotics is the thesis that the essence of biology involves
the creation, processing, and communication of information, in
the form of a language that uses arbitrary symbols, inside cells,
between cells, and between all organisms and their environment.
Information philosophy sees a continuous evolutionary devel-
opment from the earliest communications inside cells over three
billion years ago to the creation and communication of informa-
tion by human beings today. When we say that information phi-
losophy goes “beyond logic and language” we mean that many
philosophical problems are not soluble with the particular human
inventions of logic and languages today.
All life uses negative entropy for its maintenance and
information as a guide to action, representing a repertoire of
behaviors. All living things are communicating with signs. Biose-
mioticians believe that semiosis is coextensive with life.
We can define semiosis (Greek: σημείωσις, sēmeíōsis, from
σημειῶ, sēmeiô, “to mark”) as any form of activity, conduct, or
process that involves signs, including the production of meaning.1
The term was introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce to describe
a process he called semiotics that interprets signs as referring to
concepts and objects, about the same time that Gottlob Frege
studied denotation and meaning.
We see this essential nesting of concepts.
Information>Biology>Communication>Language>Semiosis
In language we include syntax, semantics, pragmatics, morphol-
ogy (graphology and phonology, but also smells, tastes, touches,
Appendix G
as well as emotive expressions, body “language,” sub-linguistic

communications to the “mirror neurons” in others, etc.)
Even though intra- and inter-cellular communication using
multiple molecules over diverse pathways is getting better and
better understood, biologists have remained wary for decades of
accepting the idea of “information” in biology, with its connotation
1 See chapter 11.
of a conscious intentional sender “informing” a conscious inter-

pretational receiver. Quantum physics too is plagued by concerns
over the role of “conscious observers.” And of course philosophers
do not yet use information as a tool for philosophical analysis. The
philosophy of information is not information philosophy, just as
the philosophy of language is not analytic language philosophy.
If we define “conscious” as being aware of incoming informa-
tion and reacting to it with behaviors/actions that indicate the
information is being interpreted and used correctly, we have a
very broad definition of mindfulness that can apply to almost the
whole of biology as well as to the computing and communicating
machines that humans have built.2
Will Biologists Accept Biosemiotics?
Biosemiotics is as legitimate a science as bioethics, bioinformat-
ics, biolinguistics, biomathics, and code biology, to name a few at
the boundaries of biosemiotics. The established professional soci-
eties in each of these subdisciplines, with journals, international
meetings, etc., are signs of a Peircean open community of inquir-
ers that is the hallmark of a science.
The greatest barrier to acceptance of semiotics in biology
may be the devotion of biosemioticians to the work of Charles
Sanders Peirce. Peirce’s great contributions to logic and science
are extraordinary, but he sometimes produced nonsense, wishful
thinking that some of his ideals are actually in the world.
Peirce’s greatest mistake was his triadic analysis of 1) thesis and
firstness of Tychism/chance, setting it “over against” 2) the antith-
esis and secondness of Ananchism/necessity. The ultimate blow
was his Hegel-inspired 3) Aufhebung and thirdness of Synechism/
Appendix G
continuity, his perhaps deeply Christian hope for “evolutionary

love” to blunt the “greedy” nature of chance in Darwin.
Biosemioticians need to decide between being disciples of
Peirce or a subdiscipline of biology. Ferdinand de Saussure’s
dyadics may fall short of Peirce’s interpretant, but as a linguist he
was as great as Peirce and his move to synchronic structure as
2 See chapter 14 on consciousness.
Biosemiotics 421
a diagnostic tool to understand diachronic function and his great

insistence that signs (symbols) are arbitrary inventions may be as
important for communications in molecular biology as Peirce’s
insistence on interpretation.
Indeed, signaling in biology generally has very little interpreta-
tion in the sense of Shannon’s entropy/uncertainty before a message
is received, which becomes information after receipt. This is because
evolution has for the most part reduced the message “possibilities,”
for example with an artful combination, perhaps left over from the
RNA world, of editing in advance of protein creation (especially in
eukaryotes) and aggressive “error” detection and correction after-
wards. A major task for biosemiotics is to find specific examples in
biology of signaling as signing, i.e. with interpretations of the sign.
Examples in the case of a neurotransmitter being interpreted - in
a context, which Roman Jakobson3 added to Shannon’s informa-
tion communication - in more than one way. We can summarize the
foundations of biosemiotics in the form of a flow chart.
Appendix G
3 “Linguistics and Poetics,” in Style in Language, ed. T. Sebeok, 1960, p.350

ra p hy
ib l i o g
B
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Index as language game 17, 103, 331

attack on metaphysics 53
causa sui an oxymoron 217–220
A not philosophy of language 420
abduction 132–137, 145 paradoxes of xiii
absorber theory of radiation 283 pseudo problems of 132
abstract entities Annas, Julia 69
epistemology and 103 a posteriori 29, 111–115, 150
information as 5–6, 57, 331–334 a priori
in the mind 157, 304 as science foundation 116
metaphysics and 17, 25 Bertrand Russell on 219
ontology and 55 epistemology and 107–111
universals as 120 information philosophy and xiii, 331–334
acausality 71–77, 152, 172, 255 Kant and 111
action-at-a-distance 132–137, 233, 377 metaphysics and 18–19, 28
actualism 23, 28–30, 107–117 mind and 150
actual possible 25–27 Aquinas 131
adenosine triphosphate (ATP) 323–326 Arcesilaus 108
adequate determinism Aristotle
as result of averaging 7, 198, 308 determinism and 218, 223
as statistical 219 entelechy and 12
detailed balancing and 291 epistemology and 104
free will and 71-72 70–77, 163, 172, 247, 385 mind and 151–153, 156
mental causation and 187 on being 19
mind and 157, 189–198 on chance and free will 71-74, 379
physical laws and 218 on essentialism 41–42
Aenesidemus 108 on metaphysics 35–39, 50
agent causality 63, 75–77, 172 on the good 80
Alexander, Samuel 298 on time 279
Allen, Woody 101 ontology and 55
Alston, William 114 on universals 119
alternative possibilities Armstrong, David 114
animals have 82 Arrow, Kenneth 92
as agenda in mind 221–222 arrow of time
as metaphysical 27 cosmological arrow 277, 283
come to mind 187 decoherence and 251, 254–257
free will and 22, 73–77, 332–335, 392–393 growth of information 338, 343
Harry Frankfurt denied 113 historical arrow 281
in cosmic creation 412–415 irreversibility and 285
past experiences as 405–407 radiation arrow 282
quantum chance and 66, 157, 163 thermodynamic arrow 277
R. E. Hobart and 220–221 Aspect, Alain 238
Schrödinger’s cat and 274 association of ideas 167, 173, 398
Index
Index
the will evaluating 172 atheism 71, 99, 382, 384

William James on 385 ATP synthase 184–187, 321–329
amino acids 181 Augustine 185
analytic language philosophy autocatalytic 314–317
analytic-synthetic distinction 110, 122 axiom of measurement 190, 192, 201, 234,
as ambiguous 20 252–255, 367–372
Index 437
Ayer, A. J. xi, 112–116 Boltzmann entropy
arrow of time and 277
B cosmic creation and 413
Baade, Walter 414–417 flows of 354
Baars, Bernard 72,73, 167, 403 measurement and 203, 209
Bacon, Francis 83–89, 131 recurrence and 294
Barthes, Roland 141 Shannon entropy and 350
Bauer, Edmond 212 Boltzmann, Ludwig
becoming 19 arrow of time and 277
behaviorism 141, 148 Boltzmann factor and 290, 346, 352, 361
being 19, 41, 50–52, 106 Boltzmann principle 290
Bell inequalities 237, 238 H-Theorem of 93, 285, 334–337
Bell, John Stewart Loschmidt reversibility and 260–267
decoherence and 253–256 on entropy increase 413–416
on entanglement 245–247 on existence of atoms 46, 52–53, 134, 362
on his inequalities 237 on gas laws 161, 345, 382
on measurement 213 Born, Max 230, 250–253, 365, 376, 383
on observables and beables 192 Born rule 367–368
on the shifty split 211, 259 bottom-up 160, 180, 186, 297, 306
Belsham, William 222 Brahe, Tycho 131
Bergson, Henri 300 Brentano, Franz 144
Bertalanffy, Ludwig von 334–337 Brillouin, Leon 278, 334–337
beyond logic and language 153, 419–421 British empiricists 121, 180
binding problem 166, 168, 398 Broad, C.D. 299
biocommunications 41, 319–322, 419–421 Brownian motion 345
biological information processor 12–13, 141, Brown, Robert 134
148, 311–314, 320–323 Buckle, Henry Thomas 348, 382
biological machines 319–329 Burke, Michael 34
biosemiotics 20, 63, 419–421
birefringent crystal 207–212 C
blackboard model 72 167 Cajal, Santiago Ramón y 396
Black, Max 32 calculus of probabilities 345, 381
Bohm, David 213, 235, 237, 239, 253–256, Calvin, Melvin 313
266–267 Campbell, Donald 64, 177
Bohr atom 135, 364, 387 Campbell, Jeremy 319
Bohr, Niels Carnap, Rudolf 52–53, 112–116, 126, 144, 159
and Lord Rutherford 387 Carneades 108
denied light quanta 353 Cartesian theater 167
measurement problem and 212 carving nature at joints 44, 58, 126–129
on Copenhagen Interpretation 192, 201 Cassirer, Ernst 211, 223
on Correspondence Principle 193, 198 causal closure
on decoherence 249–252, 258–261 bottom up 186, 297–298
on free choice of experimenter 246–247 eliminative materialism and 172
Index
on universals 123 mental causation and 187

quantum postulates of 269 of physical world xi
uncertainty principle and 203 philosophy of mind and 148
von Neumann processes and 205 causality
Bois-Reymond, Emil du 223 agent. See agent causality
Boltzmann constant 334, 351 Aristotle on 106
determinism and 218 decoherence and 252–257
event. See event causality Einstein and 363
mind as causal force 21, 57, 155 entanglement and 233, 235, 237, 240
causa sui 72, 217, 218, 380, 386 irreversibility and 285
certainty 18–53, 110–114, 122–129, 190–195, many worlds split by 29
218, 231 measurement and 201
Chaisson, Eric 354 von Neumann process and 205
Chalmers, David 22, 162, 168 colocation 33–35
chance 379–393 communication 10, 19
as atheistic 71, 99 community of inquirers 405–407
as fifth cause 106, 129, 379 compatibilism 70, 75–77, 157, 218, 223
as greedy in Darwin 420 complementarity 123–129, 201
as ontological 196–199, 335, 354, 409 complex adaptive system 313
as real 5, 345 composition 39, 43
calculus of probabilities and 381 Compton, Arthur Holly 69-71
cosmic creation and 412 computational mind 148, 185, 311–314,
C. S. Peirce and 420 395–398
De Moivre doctrine of 382 computer model 332–335
determinism and 217 Comte, August 52
Einstein’s discovery of 291, 354, 369, 376, 388 concept of mind 153
Epicurus on 379 conceptual analysis 20–53
free will and 69, 75–77, 392 connectionist 165, 171
God and 99 consciousness 165–169
metaphysics and 15 binding problem and 166
ontology and 57 emergence of 304
open future and 219 ERR and 395–398, 401–404
origin of life and 315, 322–325 hard problem of 3, 22, 153, 341
physicists on 261, 365 measurement and 212
Schrödinger’s cat and 272 mind and 147, 151
second law and 382 mind-body and 157
von Neumann process and 370 self and 171, 173
chaperone 305, 318–329 Theater of 72
character 65, 73, 157, 163, 172, 221, 401 conscious observer
chemiosmosis 323, 328 biosemiotics and 420
Chisholm, Roderick 34, 40, 63, 114 dependence on 391
Chrysippus 34, 71, 109–113, 380 measurement by 189, 207, 210–214, 257–258
Churchlands, Paul and Patricia 162 required 190, 198–199, 225
Cicero, Marcus Tullius 108 conservation laws 240–243
citric acid cycle 314, 329 constitution 43, 44
Clarke, Randolph 63 content-addressable memory 396
Clauser, John 238 contingency xiii, 23–25, 29, 49, 331–334
coarse-grained 347, 350, 352 continuity 7, 43, 46, 48, 58, 377
codon 318 or discreteness 58
Index
Index
Cogito 66, 109–113, 171 Conway, John 246–247

cognitive science 12, 147, 340 Copenhagen interpretation 189, 190, 192–195,
coinciding objects 33–35 201, 241, 252–255, 377, 391
collapse of the wave function 225–231 copy theory 120
actualizing a possibility 25, 190, 195–196 correspondence principle 193, 197, 203–206,
cosmic creation and 412 267
Index 439
correspondence theory xiii, 6, 331–334 detailed balancing 290
cosmic creation process 409–417 determination 217
all information created by 10, 341 determinism 217–223
emergence and 297, 304 adequate. See adequate determinism
free will and 332 chance and 379, 392
God and 98, 98–101 decoherence and 255
information structures and 191–192 determination and 220
measurement and 210–213 emergence of 186, 222, 297, 307, 342
mind and 149 free will and 70-73
mind-body and 155 history of 222
value and 86 illusion of 5
cosmology 50 indeterminism and 219
flatness problem 414 in physics 48–49
horizon problem 417 laws of motion and 190
missing mass 416 measuring apparatus and 189
creativity 11–13, 64, 71–77, 81–89, 133–137, one future of. See one possible future
157, 304 philosophers on 28, 110–114
Crick, Francis 162 return of 204, 365, 377
criterion Schrödinger’s cat and 269
for essence 32 statistical. See statistical determinism
for identity 31 superdeterminism and 245
crystallization 413 time when no 308
cybernetics 334 Dewey, John 112
DeWitt, Bryce 253
D Diodorus Cronus 28, 107–111
Dalton, John 134 Dion and Theon 15, 34–36
Darwin, Charles 80–89 Dirac 3-polarizers 193, 238, 273, 275
Davidson, Donald 162, 177 Dirac, P.A.M.
Davies, P. C. W. 245 projection postulate of 201, 214, 225, 234, 261
De Broglie, Louis 230, 364, 377 quantum mechanics and 250–253, 366–374
decoherence 249–267 superposition and 270
cosmic creation and 413 discovery 18, 21, 56, 98–101, 120–129
denies projection postulate 369 discreteness 58, 336. See also continuity
measurement and 194, 202 dissipative systems 313, 409–412
what’s right with 261 DNA 80–89, 181–187, 194, 314–317
what’s wrong with 263 Donald, Merlin 127, 150
deduction 132 downward causation 160, 177, 187, 298, 303,
de-liberation 71 305
Democritus 218, 347, 379 Dretske, Fred 114
De Moivre, Abraham 382 Driesch, Hans 300
Dennett, Daniel 28, 69-72 162, 167, 403 dual-aspect 162
Derrida, Jacques 122, 140, 144 dualisms 155, 162, 172, 304
Descartes, René in metaphysics 49–50
Index
knowledge and 51, 109 Duns Scotus, John 51–53

mind-body and 152, 156, 160 dynamic information model 6, 7, 48, 332–335
on Newton 237
reflex arc and 171 E
substances and 177, 304 Eccles, John 66, 157, 162
value as Ergo and 83–84 Eddington, Arthur Stanley 277, 285, 295,
337–340
Edwards, Jonathan 42 ERR and 404
Ego 171, 259–262 higher-level properties and 160
Ehrenfest Theorems 252 laws of motion and 190–193
Eigen, Manfred 313 major emergences 149–150
eigenstate 192, 205–208 mental causation and 177
einselection 252 mind from matter as 179–180
Einstein, Albert of determinism 186
atoms existence proven by 46, 52 origin of life as 311
blackbody radiation and 353, 376 thoughts as emerging 63
Bohr and 203 three kinds of 339
Bohr atom and 364 emotions 167
Born rule and 366 empiricism
Brownian motion and 345 British 51, 180
critic of quantum theory, as 217 logical 112, 132
determinism return and 365 naturalism and 19
discoveries in quantum mechanics 235 endurance 60
entanglement and 233, 377 energy
father of quantum theory, as 354 ATP carriers of 321–325
fluctuations and 93 Boltzmann factor and 352
ghost field 230, 365, 377 communicates information 16, 343
God and dice and 261, 354, 369, 384 conserved 12, 16, 55, 155, 240
incoming spherical waves and 282 flows 354
induction failure and 134 free 313
light quantum hypothesis of 361–364, 377 levels in Bohr atom 269, 353, 364
local reality and 234 matter converted to 43
Maxwell-Boltzmann and 353 mental causation and 185
nonlocality and 229 momentum and 388
nonseparability and 234, 377 quanta of 353, 361, 363
on faster than light 256 solar 358
ontological chance and 99, 196, 261, 412–415 entanglement 233–247
photoelectric effect and 362 decoherence and 252, 264
Podolsky and Rosen and 235, 264 Einstein’s discovery of 377
quantum statistics and 377 instantaneous information and 231
Schrödinger’s cat and 269 Schrödinger’s cat and 269–270
transition probabilities and 377 entelechy 12, 45, 301, 303
visualization of reality and 192 entropy
wave-particle duality and 363, 377 arrow of time and 277–283
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen 204, 231, 233, 237, Boltzmann. See Boltzmann entropy
240 information and 334–337, 342
electrochemical gradient 326 irreversibility and 288
electron transfer chain 328 mind-body and 155
eliminative materialism 17, 23, 55, 148, negative. See negative entropy
159–163, 172 second law and 7–9, 345–359
Index
Index
embodiment 92–95, 155, 163, 178, 185, Shannon. See Shannon entropy

332–335 value and 81–89
emergence 297–309 Epicurus 69, 223, 379
biological machines as 184 epiphenomenal 148, 160, 162, 174, 298
determinism as 220, 222, 307–308 epistemology 103–117
dualisms and 162 history of 104
Index 441
internalist 109 external world
metaphysics and 17, 106 alternative possibilities and 74
naturalized 115, 141 epistemology and 107, 116, 153
other minds and 174 metaphysics and 21
Schrödinger’s cat and 272 ontology and 56
equilibrium 409 self and 173
Ergo 83–89, 100, 171, 343 extrinsic information 30–35
Ergod 83–89, 100
ergodic 84–89, 100, 311–314, 341, 411–414
F
ERR. See experience recorder and reproducer faster-than-light 61, 204–207, 230, 233, 234,
error detection 421 235, 256
essentialism 16, 32, 42, 45–47, 331–334 fatalism 218
ethics 79–89 Feigl, Herbert 159, 162, 186, 309
event causality 63 Feynman, Richard 226, 234, 270, 283, 345, 417
Everett III, Hugh 29, 42, 76, 225, 253–256, Fischer, John Martin 69
267, 369 Fisher, R.A. 142
Evil 91–95, 98 Fitch, F. B. 24
evolution flagellum 321–329
chance element in 315–318 flatness problem 414
emergent 303 flows
ERR and 403 communicating information 145, 333
metaphysics and 22 matter and energy 9, 12, 311, 317
mind and 149 negative and positive entropy 313, 339, 354
story of 311–314 Foot, Phillipa 220
teleonomy in 41 form 5–8, 91, 119, 331–334
universe and 312 Fouillée, Alfred 384
excluded middle 106 Fox, George 328
existentialism 79–89 Frankfurt cases 113
Exner, Franz 383 Frankfurt, Harry 113
experience recorder and reproducer 395–407 free choice of experimenter 195, 246, 250–253
binding problem and 398 free creation 71, 137
consciousness and 165, 401 of human mind xvii, 134
Donald Hebb and 6 Freedman, Stuart j. 238
epistemology and 116 freedom 71
free will and 63, 73 free energy 311–313, 354–357
ideas and 33 free will 63–77
material change and 358 alternative possibilities and 74
meaning and 139, 141, 144 behaviorists denied 148
meanings of words and 48 chance and 385, 392
mind and 151, 405 creativity and 77
mind-body and 163 determinism and 217–220
neural correlates and 187 emergence and 304
self and 171–173 information and 332, 342
Index
speed and power of 399 neuroscientific evidence for 66

value and 82 temporal sequence in 71
what it’s like to be 405 two-stage model of 64
workings of 400 Free Will Theorem 246–247
extensionalism 32, 141, 145 Frege, Gottlob 9–13, 33, 126, 140, 144,
419–421
fundamental question 280, 409–412
G H
Gabor, Dennis 142 Hadamard, Jacques 69
galaxies, stars, and planets Haldane, J.B.S. 313
cosmic creation and 11, 410–413 Hameroff, Stuart 162
downward causation and 180 Hamilton, Sir William 223
emergence of 304 hard determinism 73
entropy and 341, 356 hard problem. See consciousness
measurement and 203 Hartman, Hyman 328
mind and 153 heat death 337–340, 355
open universe and 8 Hebb, Donald 6, 165, 397, 406–407
origins of 311–314, 316 Heidegger, Martin 21, 69, 122
self-organization of 150 Heil, John 177
Gatlin, Lila 314 Heisenberg, Werner
Geiger counter 202, 271 on classical world 198
genetic code 328 on free choice 162, 212
geophysics 312 on observables 135
Georgescu-Roegen, Nicolas 89 on the cut (Schnitt) 193, 210, 249–252
Gettier, Edmund 113–114 on visualization 192
Gettier problems 113 uncertainty principle of 202, 205, 307, 390
ghost in the machine 147, 157, 171, 304, 340 Helmholtz, Hermann 337–340
Gibbs, J. Willard 279, 287 hidden variables 198, 204–207, 217, 237, 238,
Gifford Lectures 300 369
Gisin, Nicolas 239, 245 history 9
Global Workspace Theory 72, 167, 403 Holt, Richard 238
God 97–101 Homer 101
Aristotle’s 50–53 horizon problem 417
causa sui and 386 Horne, Michael 238
chance and 68, 382 H-Theorem 93, 285–291, 287, 334–337, 351,
determinism and 218 383
Ergod and 99 Hubble, Edwin 277, 414–417
existence of 98 human ignorance xvii, 99, 379, 381, 382
foreknowledge of 336 Hume, David
Kant and 147 on bundle theory of self 173–174
occasionalists and 162 on causality 219
omniscience of 99 on chance and necessity 386
theodicy and 98 on induction 131
value and 79 on metaphysics 110
God does not play dice 261, 354, 369, 376, 390 on naturalism and determinism 21, 84
Goldman, Alvin 114 on “ought” from “is” 79
Good 79, 91–95, 97, 150 on primary and secondary experience 121
Google xviii, 396–399 on religion 108
Gottfried, Kurt 250–253 on uniformity of nature 136
Index
Index
Great Year 293 Husserl, Edmund 32, 144

Grice, H. P. 141 hydrophobic 326
Growing Argument 15 hydrophylic 326
Guth, Alan 416 hypothetico-deductive method 133
Index 443
I von Neumann Process 1 and 370

indistinguishable 236, 240, 266–267, 270
icon 145
induction 110–117, 131–137
idealism 16–19, 49–50, 92, 155, 331–334
information 331–343
identity
age 149
Aristotle on 106–107
consciousness 165, 402
criterion for 31
generation 191, 313–316
relative 30
immortality and 101
self- 30
in biology 317–326, 419–421
transworld 24
intrinsic and extrinsic 30
illusion
negative entropy and 334, 342
determinism as 5, 345
not a conserved quantity 155, 191
free will as 76
objective value as 84
metaphysics as 51
ontology and 55
mind as 158, 298
origins of 311
Immanuel Kant
out of order 306, 340
on noumena and phenomena 147
processing xi, 82
immaterial
science 340
abstract entities as 57
theory 340
arrangement as 16
information interpretation of quantum
concepts, thoughts as 86, 172
mechanics 189–199, 234, 254–257
Ego or self as 171
information philosophy
God as 97
defined 3–4
human spirit as 52
three worlds of 9–13
hypothesis as 133
information structures
information as xiii, 3, 117, 306
arrangements of matter 155
mind as 63, 141, 147, 150, 155
as objective value 85–89, 92
Plato’s forms as 91
biological machines as 319
probability and possibilities as 366
brain as 141, 185
soul and spirit as 377
chaperones as 326
immortality 52–53, 86–89, 97–101, 147
creation of 13, 94, 354–356, 411–414
indeterminacy
dynamic models of 7, 48, 331–338
causa sui and 72
elementary particles as 356
Heisenberg principle and 201, 265, 286, 307
emergence of 11, 198, 297, 302
ontological chance and 390
ERR and 151, 166, 400
indeterminism 219–220
experiments and 133, 370
alternative possibilities and 74–75
fundamental question and 280, 409
as averaged over 198
galaxies, stars, planets as 8, 46, 150, 153
as “true” 71, 380, 392
good as embodied in 92
Dennett rejects 66
guides to action 404
Descartes on 147
in measurements 192–193
determinism and 217
knowledge in mind as 21, 117, 158, 174, 185
Einstein and 377, 387, 391
life as 150
Index
free will and 74-75, 247

material objects as 120
in biology 321
negative entropy as 191–192
open futures and 412
origins of 311–316
quantum mechanics and 189
recorded experiences as 166
self and 171
value to preserve 83
some physicists deny 377
instinct 82, 169, 299, 403
unhelpful in mind 160
intention 141, 333–336, 404–407 K
interactionism 156, 162, 163
Kane, Robert 72, 75–77
interactor 48–49, 317
Kant, Immanuel
internalism 109–113, 114
on a priori reason 52
interpretant 144, 145
on deterministic social laws 382
interpretations
on Hume skepticism 110–111
Copenhagen. See Copenhagen interpretation
on noumena and phenomena 91, 121, 152
of signs. See biosemiotics
on scandal in philosophy 116
other, of quantum mechanics 198
Kelvin, Lord 223, 334–337
statistical. See statistical interpretation
Kepler, Johannes 131
intersubjective agreement 48, 111–117, 175
Kim, Jaegwon 15–53, 160, 162, 178, 186
intrinsic information 30–35, 49
kleos 101
introspection 106–107, 110, 148, 151, 404. See
knowledge 5, 103–117, 119, 139, 331–334
also reflection
Koch, Christof 162
invention 15, 18, 21, 56, 120–129
Kochen, Simon 246–247
ion pump 183, 306, 321–324
Kosslyn, Stephen 69
iron-sulfur 328
Kripke, Saul 24–27, 32, 34, 76, 145
irreversibility 285–291
Küppers, Bernd-Olaf 319
cosmic creation and 413 L
decoherence and 252–255, 257–260 Landau, Lev 204, 213, 250–253
in measurements 208 language
Loschmidt objection to 351 ambiguity-free 4, 48, 137, 139
quantum mechanics and 189 as game 17, 103, 331–334
von Neumann Process and 371 biosemiotics and 317–320
isomorphism philosophy. See analytic language philosophy
as experimental evidence 133 Laplace, Pierre Simon, Marquis de 335–338,
as metaphysical facts 21 381
correspondence theory and 117 Laplace’s demon 28, 335–338, 342
epistemology and 103 large quantum numbers 203, 265–267
in concepts 33 law of large numbers 193, 198
knowledge as 5, 17, 153, 174, 331–334 laws of nature 21, 71, 186, 197, 220, 299, 343,
representation as 56 383
J Layzer, David 69, 210, 280, 337–340, 356
learning 404
Jakobson, Roman 143, 421
Lehrer, Keith 63
James, William
Leibniz, Gottfried 4, 18–53, 48, 48–51,
on alternative possibilities 385
110–114, 139
on antipathy to chance 261, 274
Leśniewski, Stanislaw 39
on compatibilism 218
Leucippus 218, 347, 379
on dilemma of determinism 223
Lewes, George Henry 298
on loosemess in joints 180
Lewis, C.I. 114, 144
on neutral monism 161
Index
Index
Lewis, David 23, 25, 29, 42–44, 46, 47, 60, 76

on stream of consciousness 167, 399
libertarian 70, 75–77, 157, 171, 222–223
on two-stage model of free will 69
Libet, Benjamin 66-68
on unconsciousness 405
life
Joos, Erich 251–254, 260–267
Jordan, Pascual 192, 250–253 emergence of 150
information in 12
love and death and 327
origin of 311–329
Index 445
light quantum hypothesis 269, 353, 361–367 problem of 4, 139
linguistic analysis. See analytic language reference and 126
philosophy sense and 9, 33, 126
linguistic turn 136 measurement
Lloyd Morgan, C. 298 apparatus 189, 202, 249
Locke, John 51–53, 121 axiom of. See axiom of measurement
logical empiricism 132 collapse and 215, 225
logical positivism 132 conscious observer and 211, 214
logical puzzles 17–21, 37, 103, 331–334 in decoherence 251
London, Fritz 212 in Dirac 3 polarizers 375
Long, Anthony 69 in entanglement 234
loopholes 239, 246–247 in quantum physics 3
Lorenz, Konrad 111, 150 irreversible 208, 288
Loschmidt, Josef 260–267, 285, 293, 350, 383 observation and 214
Loschmidt paradox 263–267, 287, 293 . problem of 201–215
Lowe, E. Jonathan 22, 34, 63, 69 von Neumnn Processes and 205
LUCA (last universal common ancestor) 322 measurement apparatus 189, 202–205,
Lucretius 69-70, 379 207–210, 249–252
measurement problem 201–215, 251–264, 275
M Mele, Alfred 68-69, 177
Mach, Ernst 52–53, 133, 161 mental causation 177–187
MacKay, Donald 142 adequately determined 186
MacLeish, Archibald 99 as downward causation 158, 160, 298
macroscopic superpositions 251 emergence of 179
man not a machine 152, 395 ion pumps and 183
many worlds 49, 204, 225, 253–256 Kim on 179
Marcus, Ruth Barcan 24, 47 molecular machines and 187
Margenau, Henry 69 problem of 152
master argument 28 mental event 177, 186
material 11–13, 19–20, 151, 179–180 mental state 405–407
materialism mereological essentialism 40
eliminative. See eliminative materialism mereological nihilism 40, 47
idealism and 49, 92, 155, 331 mereological universalism 39, 47–50
in metaphysics 15–18 messages 141, 144, 311–314, 314–317,
Maxwell-Boltzmann 348, 352, 388 317–320, 333
Maxwell, James Clerk 134, 278, 345, 361 messenger RNA 318
Maxwell’s Demon 184 Messiah, Albert 250–253
Mayr, Ernst 41 metabolic cycle 314, 328
McCall, Storrs 69 metaphysicians 21
meaning 139–145 metaphysicist 21, 22
as use 20, 140, 145, 318, 333 metaphysics 15–53
epistemology and 115 actualism and 28
ERR and 395 Aristotle’s 35, 106, 120
Index
in biosemiotics 419–421 coinciding objects and 33

information and 333 composition and 39
intension and extension as 125 cosmic creation and 411
of meaning 139–140 epistemology and 17, 106
of messages 311, 317 essentialism in 45
of words 332 history of 49–52
Hume on 110 Wittgenstein’s xiii
identity and 30 modern 128
immaterial information and 3, 331 molecular disorder 285, 287
mind and 147, 151, 153, 156, 307 monadology 162
modal logic is not 47 Monod, Jacques 41
naming and 24 Moore, G. E. xi
nature of reality and 15 moral responsibility 74–77, 75–77
ontology and 56 morphology 318, 419–421
panicky 53, 63 motion we call heat 355
possibilities in 5, 19 motive power 326
possible worlds and 22 mysteries
puzzles in 37 of entanglement 233, 266
self and 171, 175 of nonlocality 241
Stoics and 35–37 of quantum mechanics 157, 204, 226, 234
temporal parts in 42
universals and 119
N
microscopic reversibility 263 Nagel, Thomas 142
Miller, Stanley 313 naturalism 19, 52–53
Mill, John Stuart 84–89, 140, 298 naturalized epistemology 117, 141
mind 147–153 natural kinds 32, 45–49, 58
as immaterial 147, 148, 155 necessity. See also possibilities
causal closure of 152 Aristotle and 107
computational 148, 185, 311, 395 chance and 19, 379
ERR and 163 contingency and 24
identical to brain 158–163 determinism and 223
information evolved to 149 Hume on 219
mind-body and 155–163 in natural world none 18, 49
model of 63, 150–151, 166, 175, 395 Leucippus on 218
not a computer 395 metaphysical 47
of conscious observer 206–209 modal logic and 47
other minds and 173 necessitism and 25
over matter 172 of identity 5, 24, 49
philosophy of 149, 152, 161, 177, 405 of naming 24, 145
scandal in psychology 147 parts as 45
mind-body problem 91, 155–163, 186 true in all possible worlds 49
mind-brain identity 158, 162, 163 truth and xiii, 331
Minsky, Marvin 167 negative entropy
mirror neurons 406, 419–421 as objective good 92
missing mass 416 as providence 86
mitochondria 184–187 as Shannon entropy 335
Mnesarchus 35, 38 as value 8, 89
modal logic 47–53 biosemiotics and 419
models. See two-stage model; mind, model of communications and 143
Index
Index
as knowledge representation 48 cosmic creation and 409–414

as visualizations 4 decoherence and 258–261
biological machine 320–329 dissipative processes and 313–316
connectionist 152 emergence of 338
dynamical 6 Ergod and 100
of information structures 331 flows of 94, 143, 339, 355–359
Index 447
in economics 89 omniscience 97
information as 8, 191 one possible future 5, 23, 28, 70, 217, 219, 361,
Layzer on 280 386
life feeds on 183, 303, 334 ontological chance 196, 345, 412–415
measurement and 215 ontology 17–23, 50, 55–61, 119, 150
moral code and 84 open future 70, 217, 361, 380
negentropy or 278 Operin, A.I. 313
order out of order 306 order
quantum physics and 361 out of chaos 11, 61, 302, 313–316, 339–342
neural correlates 158, 165, 187 out of order 183, 303, 306, 339–342
neurons origin of information 311–329
ion pumps in 183, 325 origin of life 311–329
mirror 406, 419 other minds 173–175
wired together 165, 406 otherwise 23, 70
neuroscience 147, 177 ought from is 79
evidence for free will 66-68 outside space and time
neutral monism 161 as solution to nonlocality 246
Newell, Allan 72, 167, 403 determinism restored 217
Newton, Isaac 84, 131, 278 ideal world as 9
Nietzsche, Friedrich 21, 293 information not 16
noise 157, 258, 332–335, 392 Kant’s noumena as 152
nominalism 119 Plato’s forms as 91
non-contradiction 106 truth as 19, 49
non-existent objects 58
nonlocality P
as mystery 241 pain 174
decoherence and 252 panicky metaphysics 53, 63
Einstein’s discovery of 233–236, 363, 376 panpsychism 149, 161, 162
in entanglement 265–266 paradoxes 331
in quantum world 198 parallel universes 198, 234
of entangled particles 233 Parmenides 19, 50–53
of single particle 229 part 44
outside space and time 246 path 206
non-reductive physicalism 163, 185 path information
nonseparability 377 collisions erase 258, 262–263
Einstein’s discovery of 235–237, 377 determinism conserves 288
in entanglement 234, 241 irreversibility and 287–290
normal distribution 382 unobservable 135, 206
nothingness 412 Pauli exclusion principle 270
noumenal 21, 91–95, 121–129, 147 peculiar qualifications 30, 36
nucleotide 318–321 Peirce, Charles Sanders 10, 132, 384, 405–407,
O 419–421, 420–421
Penrose, Roger 69, 162, 244, 282
Index
objective value 89 perdurance 60

observable 135 Perrin, Jean 134
Occam’s Razor 43 persistence condition 35, 42, 60
Occam, William of 131 phase space 346–351, 383
O’Connor, Timothy 63 phenomena 21, 91–95, 121–129, 147
Ogden, C.K. 140 Philo of Larissa, 108
omnipotence 97–99
philosophy prediction 404
of information 420 Presocratics 104
of language 3, 420 Price, Huw 246
of mind 177 Prigogine, Ilya 313
photons principle of sufficient reason 110
as fundamental particles 10, 410 principle of superposition
as light quanta 361 as standard quantum physics 190, 367–372
Einstein’s discovery of 361 collapse and 225, 231
in cosmic background 309 decoherence and 252–255
in EPR tests 238 entanglement and 234–235
measurement of 207 in Dirac 3 polarizers 371–375
photosynthesis and 326 measurement and 201, 208
solar 94, 312, 317 Schrödinger’s cat and 270
waves large numbers of 264 probabilities
physicalism 15, 156, 297 calculus of 345, 381
picture of reality 48, 145, 331–334 for each possibility 196
Pittendrigh, Colin 41 near certainty 71
Place, U.T. 159 probability amplitude
Planck constant 142, 193, 202–205, 288, 307, as immaterial 366
347 Born rule 366, 389
Planck, Max 235, 269, 274, 294, 346–353, 361, collapses 225
387 entanglement and 240
Plato 19, 80–89, 91, 104–109, 119, 151 evolving deterministically 255, 371
Platonic ideas 5, 16, 119, 156 for two particles 266
Plutarch 36 in decoherence 254
Podolsky, Boris 235 interference with itself 272, 229–230
Poincaré, Henri 69, 294, 351, 386 in two-slit experiment 229
pointer states 258–261, 262–267 measurement and 201
Popper, Karl 9–13, 112–116, 126, 137, 157, wave function as 29
162 problems
positivism 52–53 measurement. See measurement problem
possibilism 25, 49 metaphysical. See metaphysics
possibilities. See alternative possibilities mind-body. See mind-body problem
actualization of 189, 195 of evil. See evil
existence of 5, 412 of free will. See free will
free will and 71–77 of induction. See induction
function 190, 196 of knowledge. See epistemology
in horse race 229 of meaning. See meaning
in mental causation 185 processes, von Neumann
in metaphysics 15, 19, 22 process 1 205, 208, 214, 265–267, 285, 370
metaphysical 19–20 process 2 206, 265–267
possible worlds and 22, 49 process 3 207
truths not basis for 47 projection postulate 367–371. See
Index
Index
universe expansion and 16 also collapse of the wave function

wave function as 265 actualization of possibilities 195–196
possible worlds 18, 47, 49, 53, 76, 112–117 as standard quantum physics 190, 197, 231
post-modern 128, 141 decoherence and 202, 251–254, 261–262
pragmatics 318, 419–421 entanglement and 234
pre-determinism 70, 186, 217, 223, 241, 307 in measurement 201, 214
Index 449
proper part 41–43, 44 R
propositions 103, 136
radiation distribution law 352–353
Protagoras 95
Ramsey, Frank 114
Providence 21, 81–89, 99
randomness 71, 189, 217, 304, 325–328. See
pseudo-isotropy 291
pseudo-problems 132
also chance; indeterminism
psychology reader-response theory 144
behaviorism in 141 receiver 144, 332–335
recurrence
information in 3
entropy and 351
metaphysics and 51
extreme improbability of 295
reduction of epistemology to 115
problem of 293–295
scandal in 147
Zermelo and 351
two-stage model in 64
red blood cells 183, 305
without a psyche 147
redistribution 85
psychology without a psyche 147, 160
reductionism
psycho-physical parallelism 162, 163, 249–252
bottom-up 161
purpose. See also teleonomy
causal closure and 160
in artifacts 41, 44
emergence vs 297
in biology 181, 301–304, 311, 318, 409
mental causation and 177
in the universe 12, 20, 117, 150, 315
of biology to molecules 180, 319
Putnam, Hilary 244
of life to machines 147
Pyhrro of Ellis 108
of mind to brain 158
Q to physics and chemistry 117
quantum cooperative phenomena 311–314 reduction of the wave packet 195, 205, 225,
quantum jumps 241, 242, 252–259, 269 254–257
quantum mechanics 361–377 reflection 151, 404. See also introspection
basics of 366 reflex arc 171
determinism and 217 reflexology 171
Dirac’s 3 polarizers in 371 Reid, Thomas 63, 223
Einstein’s discoveries in 376–377 relative identity 30–33, 58
entanglement and 233 Renouvier, Charles 384
foundations of 251 representation 332–335
God and 99 dynamical model as 6
information interpretation of 189–199 Frege on 33, 144
irreversibility in 285 information as 47–53
measurement problem in 201 in mind 120, 153
other interpretations 198 isomorphism as 56
quantum of action 347 possible world as 76
quantum-to-classical transition 190–193, reproductive success 315
251–254, 263–267, 291, 307 responsibility
quantum world 198 free will and 65, 332–335
quasi-molecule 286 information creation and 343
Index
Quételet, Adolph 348, 382 moral 72, 222

Quine, Willard Van Orman 24–53, 60, self and 172
112–116, 126, 141, 144 ultimate 75
ribosome 181–187, 305, 318, 321–324, 328
Richards, I.A. 140
Rietdijk, C.W. 244
RNA 181–187, 314–317, 328
Rosen, Nathan 235 self 171–175
Russell, Bertrand xi, 53, 112–116, 140, 144, self-contemplation 316
162, 219, 386 self-determination 172
Russell’s Residue xiv self-identity 30–35
Rutherford, Lord Ernest 261–267, 369, 387 self-organization 304
Ryle, Gilbert 153 self-replication 304, 315–318
semantics 27, 76, 318, 419–421
S semiosis 317, 419–421
Santa Claus 97 sender 144, 332–335
Sartre, Jean-Paul 123, 196 sense. See meaning
Saussure, Ferdinand de 140, 420–421 reference and 126, 140, 144
scandal teleonomic 44
in philosophy 63, 65, 116 Sextus Empiricus 108
in psychology 147 Shannon, Claude 141, 197, 280, 317–320,
Scarani, Valerio 245 334–337, 350, 412
Schlick, Moritz 52–53, 112–116 Shannon entropy 143, 203, 209, 350, 421
Scholastics 131 shifty split 211–214, 259
Schopenhauer, Arthur 122 Shimony, Abner 162, 238
Schrödinger equation Simon, Herbert 72, 167, 403
decoherence and 251, 255, 263 Simonton, Dean Keith 64
determinism and 7, 259–263 simulations 332
evolving deterministically 197 Skeptics 34, 41, 58, 104, 108–112
in metaphysics 29 Skinner, B. F. 148
interference and 365 Smart, J.J.C. 159, 186
measurement and 201–207, 210 smartphone 7, 83–89, 97, 332–335 Smith,
reversibility and 285, 288–289, 367 Adam 84
standard quantum physics 190–193 social contract 87–89
visualization of 242 Socrates 105
Schrödinger, Erwin software in the hardware
decoherence and 250, 253 free will and 63
no particles or quantum jumps 253 ideas as 18
on determinism 217, 383–384 information as 61
on entanglement 233–235, 241 mind as 57, 155, 165, 185
on entropy and information 334 multiply realizable 307
on indeterminism 377 Solvay conference 203, 229, 235
on order out of order 127, 183, 303, 305 soul
physical laws are statistical 383 Aristotle on 152
Schrödinger’s cat 269–275 as immaterial 15
visualization and 192, 241 Descartes and 156
wave equation of 230, 364–365 information and 52, 149, 306, 340, 343
What Is Life? 303 non-physical 178
Schrödinger’s cat 191, 202, 204, 251–254, psychologists deny 147
256–259, 269–275 self or ego as 171–172
Index
Index
Scientific American 281 space and time 16

scientific method 137 outside of. See outside space and time
Searle, John 69 special frame 242–245
second law of thermodynamics. special theory of relativity 28, 134, 235, 277,
See thermodynamics, second law of 362
Sedley, David 69 Sperry, Roger 177
Index 451
spirit 171, 306, 340, 343, 365, 377 T
spooky action at a distance 229, 237, 256–259
tautology 112
standard argument against free will 65, 74–77
Tegmark, Max 251, 252–255
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy xviii
teleology 300
Stapp, Henry 162
teleonomy
statistical determinism. See adequate
as purpose in artifacts 46
determinism; quantum-to-classical
as purpose in biology 12, 304
transistion
as purpose in metaphysics 41
close to certainty 218
emergence of 303
decoherence and 254–257
epistemology and 117
emergence of 307
in biocommunications 410–413
for large objects 71, 288
in metaphysics 44
laws of nature and 7
teleology and 20
mind and 189
telos 41, 44, 46, 409–412
quantum theory and 364
temporal parts 42–45, 60
statistical interpretation
temporal sequence 71–77
Born rule 366, 389
tetrads 129
Einstein’s original idea 368
Theater of Consciousness 72-73, 167, 403
statistics 377
theodicy. See evil
Statue and the Clay 15, 34
theology
Stern-Gerlach 214, 250–253
good and 80
stimulated emission 388
ideas about 97
Stoics 34–38, 41, 109–113
in metaphysics 50
Strawson, Galen 74–77, 162
theory 376, 377
Strawson, P.F. 53, 63
thermodynamic equilibrium 262, 280
Suarez, Antoine 245
thermodynamics
subjectivity 151
substance
good and evil and 93
Descartes’ immaterial 147, 177, 304
information and 143
dual aspect 162
mind-body and 155
in Aristotle’s metaphysics 35
value and 81
in chemistry 299
thermodynamics, second law of
in mind-body problem 155, 307
chance in 382–384
in vitalism 300
cosmic creation and 413
Stoics on 59
entropy and 7, 345–359
Sum of human knowledge 83, 85–89, 104, 150,
equilibrium and 280
171, 401
Ergod and 100–101
Sun 91, 94, 132, 197, 317–320
information creation and 191–194, 338
superdeterminism 245
irreversibility and 285
supernatural 21, 147
Maxwell’s Demon and 184
superposition. See principle of superposition
thermonuclear reactions 312
supervenience 160, 185, 300
thermostat 402
swerve 379
Index
Thomson, William 223

syntax 318, 419–421
Tibbles, the Cat 34–37
synthetic a priori 111, 122–129
time. See arrow of time
Szilard, Leo 334
working backwards in 327–329
top-down 180, 298
tradition 128
transcription 317
transfer RNA 318 wave function. See collapse of the wave
translation 317 function
transworld identity 26, 27 Schrödinger’s equation for 377
triads 128, 126–129 visualization of 189, 225–229
truth 18–53, 79–89, 103, 111–117, 147 wave-particle 377
two-particle state 233, 236, 240–243, 245, wave-particle duality 123, 194–197, 269
266–267, 269 way of talking 38
two-slit experiment 99, 196, 225–226, Weaver, Warren 334–337
227–229 Weinberg, Steven 416
two-stage model 63–77, 171, 172, 220, 385, Weizsäcker, Carl von 211
392 what it’s like to be 404–407
two-step creation process 258–261 Wheeler, John 251–254, 252–255, 283
Whitehead, Alfred North 42, 162
U whole 44
ultimate responsibility 75 Wiener, Norbert 83–89, 99, 334
uncertainty 157 Wiggins, David 22, 24, 34
uncertainty principle 201, 279, 390, 412–415 Wigner, Eugene 212, 258–261
undetermined liberty 66, 171 Wikipedia 101, 290
Unger, Peter 40 Williamson, Timothy 47
uniformity of nature 132, 136 Wilson cloud chamber 202, 258–261
universals 119–129, 155 Wittgenstein, Ludwig
universe on logical empiricism 112
Einstein on 376 on logical positivism 53
heat death of 337, 355 on material implication 144
universe of discourse 22 on meaning as use 20, 140, 318–321
Urey, Harold 313 on models of reality xiii, 320–323
use, meaning as 20–53, 140, 145, 318–321 on science as true propositions 48
V Popper on 137
Woese, Carl 322, 328
value 79–89 words and objects, connections in ERR 6, 331
Ergo as 171 worlds
information as basis for 3, 332, 341 biological 12
van Inwagen, Peter 40, 46 ideal 13
verification 145 many. See many worlds
Vienna Circle 53, 112, 115, 158, 309 material 11
visualization 4, 49, 189, 192, 241, 366 Popper’s three worlds 126
vitalism 300 possible. See possible worlds
von Neumann, John quantum. See quantum world
Bell shifty split and 258–261
decoherence and 249–252 Y
irreversibility and 285 Yockey, H. 319
measurement problem and 202
on entropy and information 334–337 Z
Index
Index
projection postulate and 201 Zarathustra 100

processes of. See processes, von Neumann Zeh, H.D. 202, 251–263
Zermelo, Ernst 287, 293, 351
W Zermelo paradox 287, 293
Wächtershäuser. Günter 328 Zufall 261–267, 369, 389
Watson, John B. 148 Zurek, Wojciech 202, 251–255
453
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Books by Bob Doyle
Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy (2011)
Great Problems in Philosophy and Physics Solved? (2016)
Metaphysics: Problems, Puzzles and Paradoxes, Solved? (2016)
My God, He Plays Dice! How Albert Einstein Invented Most
of Quantum Mechanics (2017)
Mind: The Scandal in Psychology (2017)
Chance: The Scandal in Physics
Life: The Scandal in Biology
Value: The Scandal in Economics, Sociology, Politics, and Ethics
PDFs of all of Bob’s books will be available for free on the I-Phi
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Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

Names: Doyle, Bob, 1936-

13. The Mind-Body Problem 155

26. The Recurrence Problem 293

Figure 1. A taxonomy of problems in physics and philosophy.

The figure on the left arranges these great philosophy problems

Returning to Russell’s pioneering text, we can say he simply was

“questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in

4 The Problems of Philosophy, 1912, p.155

Chapter 3 explores meta-ontological questions about the

We show in chapter 18 that unless new information is created,

There is no strict determinism and thus no pre-determinism. In

In chapter 28, we show that the story of biological evolution is

Google Analytics reports that Information Philosopher has tens

How To Use This Book With The I-Phi Website

Figures in the text often link to full-color animated images on the

Although the tagline of information philosophy is “beyond

The New Ideas of Information Philosophy

(a mapping) of an information structure in the external world.

4) Beyond language. But there is no isomorphism, no informa-

Figure 1-1. Linguistic and picture/model representations compared.

Compared to a spoken or printed word, a photograph or a

says that, left to itself, a closed system approaches a state of maxi-

outside the system.

2 See appendix F for more details.

and electron, a complex physical measurement like discovering

Charles Sanders Peirce proposed a triad of Objects, Percepts,

Frege and Popper.

Information Creation in the Material World

Information Creation in the Biological World

Information Creation in the World of Ideas

This chapter on the web

A formalist or idealist metaphysics asks about the arrangement

in space and time. Information philosophy defends a Platonic

we will show use a meaningful biological language, consisting of

Abstract information is the foundation – the metaphysical

ὑποκείμενον - the “underlying.” It gives matter its form and shape.

Many unchanging abstract entities share a property that the

information, which metaphysicians and scientists analyze to

all living things.

Information philosophy restores the metaphysical existence of

The causal force of ideas, combined with the existence of alter-

What are we to say about a field of human inquiry whose major

contingency. Propositions in modal logic are required to be true or

have been otherwise, in any of these possible worlds. Every world

There is simply no necessity in the physical world, neither the

who maintained that his semantics could be used to describe vari-

4 Naming and Necessity, p. 15, 18

In H1, the proposition “Alice accepts admission to Harvard

In the future of world H3, a mature Alice returns to school,

a posteriori). For them, necessity included events or concepts

We distinguish the intrinsic information inside the object (or

We can rewrite these observations in terms of information phi-

can be predicated in propositions about an object a. Ea is the set of

If Ia + Ea = Ib + Eb, then a and b are one and the same object.

the concept is isomorphic to that subset. By “picking out” differ-

ANOTHER occasion the mind often takes of comparing, is the very

6 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Of Identity and Diversity, Book II,