Klaus Jaffe

The literature contains many contradictory conceptual descriptions of therelation between Energy and Information. Here I argue that Information is not energy.Information is a representation or description of spatiotemporal arrangements (order)of matter and energy, encoded onto a physical substrate. Known substrates includeelectromagnetic waves, material structures, chemical molecules, and neural networks—whether in brains or computers. In quantum mechanics, when information pertainsto elementary particles, the object of study and the substrate encoding the informationcoincide. This leads to view energy and information as the same phenomenon, leadingto counterintuitive and often perplexing interpretations of reality. The proposeddefinition distinguishes between thermodynamic entropy and information entropy,enabling a consilient bridge between quantum and classical mechanics, geneticinformation, human knowledge, personal models of the world, consciousness andempathy. It facilitates the study of different kinds of information—especially the kindthat generates free energy and enables useful work, as studied by infodynamics. Thecentral insight is that energy and information are distinct, irreducible properties of theuniverse. Understanding their interplay requires considering four foundationalelements: spacetime, matter, energy, and information. These clarifications arefundamental for research in natural and artificial intelligence

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