An informal partial overview of information mechanics

Abstract

This article is concerned with the conceptual background of information mechanics (IM) and some of the consequences of axiomatization of IM, and touches on some examples as to instances in which IM might seem to have offered, within a single conceptual picture, interesting approaches to some questions which have variously been regarded as quite different. In IM, representation of information in physical systems is treated as a conceptual, computation, and design tool. Some examples touched on are an IM approximate relation among,h, c, m _e, G, and ∼α; particle masses and mass-charge relation; cosmological red shift without assuming that distant light sources are rapidly receding; gravity; and knowability of prediction. IM is then used as a tool for looking into making information processing “hardware” out of “software”, with information representations formed within extended region(s) of nearly homogeneous “medium(s)”.