Energy & Information
Thermodynamics, computation, and the cost of knowing
Overview
Energy and information are linked by the thermodynamics of computation. Landauer's principle states that erasing one bit of information requires a minimum energy expenditure of kT ln 2, establishing that information processing is never free — it always has an energetic cost. Maxwell's demon, the famous thought experiment, shows that information about a system can be used to extract work, seemingly violating the second law of thermodynamics — until we account for the energy cost of acquiring and erasing that information. The energy-information nexus is where physics, computer science, and philosophy converge.
Central Tension
The central tension is between information as abstract pattern and information as physical, energetic reality. If information is purely abstract — a mathematical description of states — then it should have no energetic cost. But Landauer's principle and the resolution of Maxwell's demon show that information is physical: processing it requires energy, storing it requires energy, and erasing it dissipates energy as heat. This suggests either that the abstract-physical distinction is false, or that information occupies a unique ontological position bridging the two.
Key Philosophical Questions
- Is information fundamentally physical (requiring energy to exist), or is it an abstract pattern that can be instantiated in any energetic medium?
- Does Landauer's principle set a fundamental limit on computation, or will future physics reveal ways around the thermodynamic cost of information processing?
- Is entropy a measure of missing information, a measure of energy dispersal, or both simultaneously?
- Could a universe with infinite energy process infinite information — or are there informational limits independent of energy?
Schools of Thought
Information is physical and energetic; Landauer's principle and thermodynamics together show that information processing is a subset of physical energy dynamics. There is no information without energy.
The simulation runs on energy (at the substrate level) and processes information (at the simulation level). Energy is the fuel of computation, and information is its content; the universe is the output of this process.
Information is primary; energy is one of its dynamical expressions. The energy cost of information processing is a feature of our particular physical implementation, not a universal ontological constraint.
Energy and information are both aspects of process — the dynamic becoming of reality. Every energetic event is also an informational event, because every process carries and transforms patterns.
At the quantum level, energy and information are deeply entangled: quantum states carry information, energy quantizes into discrete packets, and the uncertainty principle links the precision of informational knowledge to energetic constraints.
God's sustaining power (energy) and God's Word (information) are both expressions of divine activity. The energetic cost of information reflects the created order's dependence on God's continuous provision; no creaturely knowledge is costless.
Synthesis
Energy and information are the dynamic duo of physical reality: energy is the capacity to do work, and information is the pattern that directs that work. Their thermodynamic linkage — through Landauer's principle, Maxwell's demon, and the entropy-information equivalence — reveals that knowing and doing are not separate activities but aspects of a single physical process. The cost of knowing is always paid in energy, and the direction of energy is always guided by information.