Day 2, Book 2: Why Information Grows
For fun, I’m reading a book a day, for a week.
Today’s Book:
My 30 Second Takeaway:
Everything contains information. All physical matter.
One of the coolest reasons information grows is because matter computes. Example: trees are computers — they have input information (light) and compute (photosynthesis) to create oxygen.
Our society is a collective computer augmented with the products we create to compute new and more information.
Overall cool book.
The Notes (as I listened):
Size, energy, matter is condensed in many places in the universe (stars, black holes, etc.) but nowhere that we know is Information so condensed than in Earth.
Information and meaning are fundamentally different concepts.
Meaning comes from context, interpretation, and people.
Information is the only thing we produce. Everything contains information.
Physical order is information.
No computer has ever designed that is aware of what it is doing.
Knowledge: relationships between entities.
Know how: involved capacity to perform actions. I can recognize a face (know how) but don’t have the knowledge of how. It’s tacit knowledge: difficult to transfer to another person (that doesn’t know it).
Information is the minimum amount of arrangements to convey a message.
States move from order to disorder.
Matter computes. A tree is a computer powered by sunlight. It processes information.
Chemical processes is another example of matter computing.
Objects are physical embodiments of Information.
The world is a canvas for our imagination.
Complex items were first orders of information in someone’s imagination.
When buying toothpaste we not only pay for the product but for access to the know-how of people who built the toothpaste.
Products augment us.
Guitars allow us to sing with our hands.
Economy: knowledge and know-how amplifier.
Social networks drive allocations of jobs.
How do social networks form? From:
- Shared social focus
- Triadic closure: links are more likely to form amongst people with mutual friends.
- Homophily: links form among people with similar interests or characteristics.
Trust enables formation of networks.
Learning is experiential.
Economies can also be described in terms of energy, matter, information.
Spontaneous emergence of order happens in physical systems.
Our society is a collective computer augmented with the products we create to compute new and more information.
Hope you learned something cool or useful!
We are what we repeatedly do. I’m also doing this while improving across 15 areas each week.
This is one of my Re Human project experiments.
Read my notes on the next book. Read my notes on the previous book.
