Quantum mechanics was reformulated as an information theory involving a generalized kind of information, namely quantum information, in the end of the last century. Furthermore, quantum mechanics is the most fundamental physical theory referring to all claiming to be physical. Thus, any physical entity turns out to be quantum information in the final analysis.
That deduction can be reproduced very easily:
Any quantum state of any quantum system (what anything is) is a wave function, i.e. a point in the complex separable Hilbert space (which is the basic mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics). Then, any wave function can be represented as a series of quantum bits (qubits).
A quantum bit is the unit of quantum information, and it is a generalization of the unit of classical information, a bit, as well as the quantum information itself is a generalization of classical information. The philosophical meaning of the generalization from classical to quantum information
can be represented not less simply:
Classical information refers to finite series or sets while quantum information, to infinite ones. If a bit represents the choice between two equally probable alternatives, a qubit is the choice between an infinite set of alternatives. The definition of a qubit in quantum mechanics is different, but equivalent to the one suggested here.
Problem:
Quantum information as well as classical information is a dimensionless quantity. If it is the overall substance of anything claiming to be physical, one can question how different and dimensional physical quantities appear both originating from it and reducible to it.
Furthermore, quantum information can be considered as a “bridge” between the mathematical and physical. The standard and common scientific epistemology, on the contrary, grants the gap between the mathematical models and physical reality. The conception of truth as adequacy is what is able to transfer over that gap. One should explain how quantum information being a continuous transition between the physical and mathematical may refer to truth as adequacy and thus to the usual scientific
epistemology and methodology.A short comment to the problem:
The two fundamental theorems of Emmy Noether (1918) should be involved. They determine the links between what conserve, e.g. energy, and what change, e.g. time, in any physical system. The product of the former and latter has always the physical dimension of action (what the dimension of the fundamental Planck constant is) and thus, it can be interpreted as the physical quantity of action.
If what is changed is physical action, the theorems of Emmy Noether imply that what is conserved should be dimensionless. Quantum information seems to be an admissible applicant for the ounterpart of action.
Thesis:
Quantum information is conserved, being the counterpart of the changing action. If the change of action is uniform in time, energy is conserved. However, quantum information is conserved more universally for however the action is changed (i.e. not only uniformly), its counterpart of quantum information is conserved.
A few corollaries from the thesis:1. Quantum information is the real substance of the world for it is conserved always. That conclusion is consistent to the interpretation of any wave function as a value of quantum information and thus as the universal physical substance of the world.
2. What is changed, namely physical action, appears necessarily in virtue of Emmy Noether’s theorems as the counterpart of quantum information once it is conserved always, i.e. universally.
3. Generalizing philosophically, the being (or at least the physical being) appears necessarily in virtue of mathematical laws rather than randomly not needing any “creator” or other “ultimate cause” to be.
4. Quantum information and action are the same seen from two disjunctive viewpoints correspondingly as what is conserved and as what is changed. Thus, they do not need the concept of truth as adequacy necessary to link them over the gap for they are the same by themselves.
A few arguments for the thesis:
1. Noether’s theorems imply only that the counterpart of action has to be dimensionless as a physical quantity. Thus quantum information is not more than a possible applicant for it satisfies that condition. However, the contemporary science cannot suggest any other applicant fundamentally different.
2. The fundamentality of quantum mechanics reformulated successfully in terms of quantum mechanics is an argument for it, too.
3. The fundamental Planck constant having the physical dimension of action allows of any physical action to be juxtaposed a natural number, which can be interpreted as a number of bits of information. Quantum information by means of quantum bits can be interpreted as the choice of a certain number of bits among all natural numbers.
4. Quantum information meaning the number of choices among an infinite of alternatives can be interpreted as the conservation of openness for choice as the necessary condition of any physical change. That openness can be further identified as the openness of the present or in other words, as the availability of the present always as that, in which any physical change can occur.
Conclusions:1. Quantum information can be discussed as the counterpart of action.
2. Quantum information is what is conserved, action is what is changed.
3. The gap between mathematical models and physical reality, needing truth as adequacy to be overcome, is substituted by the openness of choice.
4. That openness in turn can be interpreted as the openness of the present as a different concept of truth recollecting Heidegger’s one as “unhiddeness”. Quantum information as what is conserved can be thought as the conservation of that openness.
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