Fumfer Physics 13: Information, Entropy, and the Universe’s Memory
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Vocal.Media
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/10/04
Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner explore the elusive meaning of information in the universe. Jacobsen frames physical impacts, like smashing a rock, as information exchanges, then asks how fluids, solids, and plasmas differ in recording such exchanges. Rosner notes humans treat information as news or signals, but cosmically, “it from bit” theorists see every quantum event as informational. Yet many events, like collisions or solar reactions, leave no lasting record. He compares this to consciousness, where micro-events are integrated into larger patterns. The dialogue highlights entropy, durability of records, and whether the universe meaningfully “remembers” its countless micro-events.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In an old thought experiment, we smashed a rock with a hammer. Another example is cutting a block of wood with an axe. The force impact, the shuffling around of atoms beyond their usual Brownian motion, can be thought of as an information exchange. What about the differences in information representation between fluids, solids, and plasmas?
Rick Rosner: At this point, I throw up my hands—we do not have a good universal definition of what information is. We know what human information tends to be: the news, local details about the world, sports scores, whether a traffic light is red or green, or whether someone is signalling they might be interested in being hit on. That is information in the human sphere.
Jacobsen: But what is information to the universe?
Rosner: The “it from bit” theorists claim every quantum event is an information event relevant to the structure of the universe. You can imagine a lifeless planet where a rock gets struck by another rock. That impact is still a kind of information exchange, even without observers.
The universe is self-consistent over time and space. If two rocks collide on a planet, that event is recorded in the material evidence. Send a camera there, and you would see traces of the collision. That means the event was durably recorded in the universe.
However, not every quantum event leaves a record. Take the Sun—quantum interactions happen constantly at its core, but most are obliterated. The Sun is far too hot and turbulent to keep records.
I have come to think that neither those solar events nor rocks hitting each other on a lifeless planet are especially relevant to the universe’s “understanding of itself.” They matter structurally, but they are micro-events the universe does not really “know,” in quotation marks.
It is similar to human consciousness. We do not register every microcognitive event that constitutes awareness. Our brains integrate them into larger patterns. Likewise, the universe as a whole may not “note” each micro or even macro event, such as a rock collision. If the universe is an information processor made up of ~10⁸⁵ particles, it seems implausible that it tracks every micro detail.
Jacobsen: That helps, at least a little. Typically, when there is a lot more movement internal to the system—say, in a cloud versus ice—that implies more entropy, correct?
Rosner: I have not thought of it precisely in those terms. Imagine two lifeless planets. One is entirely rocky, with no atmosphere. Events there are sparse: meteor strikes, cosmic ray impacts, erosion, and rocks falling. Now imagine another lifeless planet, but half covered with oceans. Suddenly, there is far more happening: turbulence, molecular exchanges, and constant dynamic change in the water.
Jacobsen: Does this difference—rocky stability versus fluid turbulence—affect the overall order or scale of order on those planets?
Rosner: I am not sure. On a lifeless planet with an ocean, most molecular movements in the water leave no durable record. Molecules constantly shift positions, stir around, and interact, but without cameras or instruments tracking them individually, their history is lost. You can infer movement indirectly—for example, by sediments deposited on the ocean floor—but you cannot reconstruct the path of each molecule.
As a result, you end up with two scenarios. On one planet, almost nothing happens. On the other hand, much happens, but leaves little trace. I am unsure of the informational implications of that.
Much of the universe seems to operate on implicate information—you know something happened, but you lack specifics. Everything is implied rather than explicitly recorded. I do not know the role information plays in the universe, but it seems important to figure out.
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