Indestructibility of information

[askandanswer]

From Scientific American website, copied 10 January 2016.

 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22930554-300-supermassive-black-holes-might-be-hiding-entire-universes-inside/

 

Quantum mechanics says that information cannot be destroyed

 

Can someone explain to me what this means please? LDS theology says that matter and intelligence cannot be destroyed. There are not too many classes of things that have this property of indestructibility so it makes me wonder, when we do come across this property, whether we are seeing just one thing, or two different aspects, or manifestations of, the same thing, but calling it by two different names.

[Crypto]

Anything that has state, is information.

The direction a mass is moving etc conveys information. Same with energy, the frequency, amplitude...
It's like saying two sides of an equation have to remain equal.

[Guest]

I can't read the article without signing up to yet another website.  So, I can't be certain it is the article I'm thinking of.  But you've asked two questions.  So, two different answers.

 

Why is light information?  That should be self-evident.  We get information from our senses.  Light is received mainly through our eyes.  We see.  We understand.  Seeing is believing.  And when we see some light from an astronomical object, we have information about it that we can extrapolate into other useful data.

 

Black holes absorb light.  For all intents and purposes, it is destroyed.  Quantum mechanics says that the event horizon is not really the end.  It is merely held there and later released.  When it is released, there is always something about it that we can distinguish and therefore theorize as to its origins prior to being absorbed by the event horizon.

 

Then there is a third theory involving a warping of space-time along the periphery that will cause two effective horizons to fluxuate between each other.  But that gets into areas that you're not asking about (matter and intelligence).

 

 

******************************************************

 

How are things indestructible.  You've essentially answered the question.

 

1st Law of Thermodynamics:  Matter and energy cannot be destroyed nor created -- Only changed from one form to another.

 

Whatever the basic "stuff" of the universe is, it is interchangeable.  Matter, energy, spirit, intelligence, power, glory, faith... The list could go on and on.  I know of no word in human tongues that describes that category of "stuff" that covers all these except perhaps "existence".  But that "stuff" can be changed from one form to another.

************************************************************

 

Indestructibility:  I'll give three examples.

 

(Example 1: False destruction) When wood burns, it is easy to believe that much of the matter "disappears".  It does not.  The bulk of the wood is cellulose which consists of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.  The H and O are removed as water vapor.  The C combines with oxygen in the air and creates CO2.  All these float off as a gas and are therefore, unseen.  But it does not disappear.

 

(Example 2: Annihilation) When matter and anti-matter (electrons and positrons for example) combine, they seem to disappear.  But the reality is that the mass of both particles are changed into energy and therefore invisible.  Still nothing disappears.  It simply changes from one form to another.

 

(Example 3: Oblivion:  Possibly Space-time vs. Eternity)  I don't know if there really are any "official" Church pronouncements on the true nature of eternity.  We usually talk about it as if it is forever.  But hints from various apostolic statements leads me to believe that space and time as we know them are merely constructs for the purposes of our temporal sojourn.  When the Earth is brought into its Eternal, Celestial state, time and space will take on a whole new meaning.  So, it is plausible that space and/or time may not be in the same category of these "indestructible" concepts.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Guest

[LeSellers]

Is "information" "truth"?

Truth cannot be destroyed: it is the knowledge of things as the are, as they were, and as they will be.

If information is merely data, then that may be transitory.

Lehi