Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information

by Vlatko Vedral

In Decoding Reality , Vlatko Vedral offers a mind-stretching look at the deepest questions about the universe--where everything comes from, why things are as they are, what everything is.

The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, he writes, but information--and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena. This view allows Vedral to address a host of seemingly unrelated Why does DNA bind like it does? What is the ideal diet for longevity? How do you make your first million dollars? We can unify all through the understanding that everything consists of bits of information, he writes, though that raises the question of where these bits come from. To find the answer, he takes us on a guided tour through the bizarre realm of quantum physics. At this sub-sub-subatomic level, we find such things as the interaction of separated quantum particles--what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance." In fact, Vedral notes, recent evidence suggests that quantum weirdness, once thought to be limited to the tiniest scale, may actually reach into the macro world and make teleportation a real possibility. It is in quantum physics, he writes, that we really can find the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.

Vlatko Vedral is one of the key researchers in quantum science. In this book, he offers a mind-bending account of this leading-edge field.

Genres: Science, Physics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Popular Science, Audiobook, Quantum Mechanics

240 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2010

About the author

Vlatko Vedral is a Serbian born (and naturalised British Citizen) Physicist and Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore and a Fellow of Wolfson College. He is known for his research on the theory of Entanglement and Quantum Information Theory. As of 2010 he has published over 150 research papers in quantum mechanics and quantum information and was awarded the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2007. He has held a Professorship at Leeds, visiting professorships in Vienna and Singapore (NUS) and at Perimeter Institute in Canada. As of 2010, there were over 7,500 citations to Vlatko Vedral's research papers. He is the author of several books, including Decoding Reality.

Reviews

[Gendou · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is mostly about application of Shannon's information theory in a variety of areas.
It also includes a layman's introduction to:

√ Shannon's information theory
√ Self-replication and genetics
√ Boltzmann's entropy formula
√ Maxwell's Demon
√ Laplace's demon
√ Quantum computing
√ Quantum cryptography
√ Holographic principle

I have a HUGE problem with the discussion on Global Warming!!!
Vedral argues all activities that use energy to do work produce waste heat.
This is true, but he implies this causes (anthropogenic) Global Warming!
Global Warming is caused by gasses emitted into the Earth's atmosphere.
Greenhouse heat forcing from the emissions of burning fossil fuel TREMENDOUSLY dwarfs the associated waste heat.

I really liked his introduction to the holographic principle.
He tied it into quantum information theory quite well.
Though I was very skeptical of his attempt to explain gravity using quantum mechanics plus the holographic principle... seemed like hand-waving to me.

Vedral tends to wander in his argument, which is distracting.
His conclusions are sometimes non sequitur to the topic of discussion.

The last chapter read a little bit like Deepak Chopra. He talks about how we can "construct our whole reality" from information theory. Sometimes, it sounds like he's mistaking the map for the territory. He also throws in some references to religious philosophy that are simply out of place in a science book. Not to mention the stink of vagueness & confirmation bias.

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm used to science writing by people who are first and foremost authors, so reading this - written by a Physics professor at Oxford and the National University of Singapore - was quite jarring. Vedral has boundless enthusiasm for his subject matter, but lacks any sense of style (you can almost hear the cadence of his native Serbia in his prose), tends towards weak jokes, and sometimes takes for granted the reader's understanding of quite difficult, unfamiliar concepts. (The concept of entanglement, for example, is not explained once. I thought it was the same as superposition.)

So there were parts of this book that went above my head, but the thrust of it is three ideas. First, the role of information as the defining, interdisciplinary quantity of all the sciences. The building blocks of everything in the universe are information, be it physical matter, biological (DNA), or social. He outlines Claude Shannon's theory of information and "entropy" (an apocryphal tale has John von Neumann suggesting the name to him on the grounds that no-one understands what it means). Secondly, the quantum phenomena of uncertainty exhibited at the subatomic level, and the possibilities of quantum information (a quantum bit is called, quite Biblically, the "qubit") in computing and in broader contexts (teleportation, for one).

Lastly, in a speculative third section, he muses on quantum information theory's ability to answer the problem of creation ex nihilo, avoiding the problem of infinite regress (who moves the first mover?) by suggesting that a chance differentiation in an original Void could at one fell swoop create physical information and the laws which govern it. Seeing as the laws are created by our interactions with nature, ever susceptible to Popperian falsification, and nature exists according to the laws, the two exist in a cycle, in which an observer is necessary to both measure matter and to cause it to exist. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the amount of order in the universe tends ever downward, yet life, through natural selection fights against that entropy every day. Professor Vedral suggests that during the lifetime of that struggle, we may glimpse far enough back to see the origins of our universe and its physical laws as parts of a giant computer, slowly spinning through its finite information, on the path from and to nothingness.

[György · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" – wonders Kraus too, and he argues existence arose from nothingness, attributing this mysterious behavior to quantum fluctuations of the void.

Profesor Vedral’s Decoding Reality is arguing that the Creation Ex-nihilo and Destruction Ab Toto, all from nothing and nothing from all is the “flip-flop”/ flip-flop is the 1 and 0, the ON and OFF, 2B and NOT 2B, the + and the – etc/ way of our perceiving information, processing information and creating reality.
Professor Vedral will postulate the premise that the entire reality is just a flow of information exchange between the void, the darkness, where the void is a source, and the realm is that we create by processing information the void is emitting to us. (Wooow sounds good, but not sure if my definition is purely covering the essence of Author’s speculations. Don’t take me wrong, I did really enjoy these speculations. I just couldn't not to recall Tesla’s claim when he said something like – “I’m just a receiver of information Universe is emitting to me!”
Professor Vedral will invite the reader to join the table of Calvino’s card game. The moment the reader arrives to the big table of Nature, he /she/ becomes the vital part of the game. She /He/ will actually as the scientific part of the humanity during the history will be facing Nature’s main players, the basic aspects, the 7 pillars of our reality: Biology; Thermodynamics; Economics; Sociology; Quantum physics; Computer science; and Philosophy. No doubt, the Author is confident in presenting the main principle from Creation Ex Nihilo and I was delighted the way he touches humanities main concerns through the 7 pillars lined up. I personally enjoyed the lectures from Thermodynamics explaining global warming. Few understand really, the 1st and the essence of 2nd laws. I know, openly claiming that it is not the 2nd law that will kills us then this will be the 1st, is a bit grotesque and weird and perhaps I’ll sound like some serial killer, but can’t not to think of many of nowadays kids when stating they just can’t find purpose of their life while by the 1st conservation law we are running out of, NOT of energy, but just forms the energy of the planet is stored and available for our use. A few know, the Nature’s tendency to ruin our reality into a chaos and disorder is damn dangerous, but while we have available energy to use for keeping ourselves in high order, the Entropy is not the first concern. I enjoyed DNA class, the lecture of the way Nature is coding DNA… we use binary, and Nature could do so, but Nature will never ever allow anything to be left to the mercy of Randomness. To ensure the DNA integrity is fully preserved, Nature uses 4 bit coding… but, the Reader will say, Okay, but this is all known. Yes, it is, but this time all the knowledge we are getting is, in information-centric way, that is presenting the two-way communication between Nature and us. Aaand that's the essence of what is Professor Vedral conveying to us.
If trying to put this way, no need to bother with law without law, then the issue with infinite regression is avoided. However, there is a Void, the Darkness we claim information are arriving from to us, and we, by processing these information using inductive method as the basis of constructing physical theories. And I can't stop wondering and pretending the source where the information are arriving from is Nothing, 0 bit in terms of informatics. Sorry, I just can't do that. :) However, I can accept that saying NO, saying something is NOT is the key to building better and better models of the world. Physical laws are usually more fundamental the more they rule out: ‘no such process exists, where so and so would happen’ is a typical way of formulating it. (Two examples are the Cappadocian Fathers in early Christianity and Advaita Vedanta in Hinduism. /My personal note: I wish Christianity remained on Cappadocian level of thinking about the Creator.)
I really enjoyed professor Vedral’s way of thinking of explaining the general way how we actually create our reality from the information the Nature is sending to us. But, still we need events first that will enable us deriving laws. I still found the dilemma of it was first the Event or it was first the Law, remained provoking me:
“The Universe starts empty but potentially with a huge amount of information. The key event that gives the Universe some direction is the first act of ‘Symmetry Breaking’, the First Cut of the Sculptor. This act, which we consider as completely random, i.e. without any prior cause, just decides on why one tiny aspect in the Universe is one way rather than another. This first event sets in motion a chain reaction in which, once one rule has been decided, the rest of the Universe needs to proceed in a consistent manner. Just like in Calvino’s card game, the next piece of the story must be consistent with the previous.”
I think of Symmetry as of the state of singularity, nothingness, but as still of the potential for everything (creation Ex Nihilo). All I can accept including the end, the Destruction ab toto, but not before the Symmetry breaking, the First cut, the Prior Cause is explained.

Staggering and beautiful book, Sir! I love it!

[Dijana · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐

Ne znam iskreno šta mi bi da sada uzmem ovo. Interesantni koncepti, neke ideje premalo a neke previše objašnjene. Malo mi se odužilo pri samom kraju, verujem da bih zaokružila na gore da je autor bio malo koncizniji.

[Bob Finch · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a book about information, this one contains remarkably little. Too bad, because the author touches on some very interesting issues. But every time he would seem to get to some point, he leaves off and moves to another topic or analogy. There are more substantive books and original papers about the role of information in (understanding) the universe. In fact, the author provides several good references. I would suggest reading those.

[Mohammed · Rating 4 out of 5]

"إن الهدف الرئيسي من هذا الكتاب،هو كيفية فهم الواقع بدلالة المعلومات.وفي هذا الجانب يصح النظر إلى الكون كحاسوب كمومي،باعتبار أن ذلك هو أدق توصيف نستطيعه."

"The main aim of this book is how to understand reality in terms of information. In this respect it is appropriate to view the whole Universe as a quantum computer, given that this is our most accu-rate description."

[ياسر · Rating 3 out of 5]

تفكيك شفرة الواقع

العالم بالنسبة لعالم الفيزياء هو المعلومات، والكون وسلوكه هي موجات مد وجزر للمعلومات. ونحن جميعا نماذج مرحلية من المعلومات، ننتقل وفقًا لوصفة محددة من صورنا الأساسية إلى أجيال مستقبلية مستعملين شفرة رقمية تسمّى، الـ DNA.
فلاتكو فيدرال

كل شيء عبارة عن معلومات، صفاتنا البيولوجية معلومات مشفرة في جزيء الDNA، والكون معلومات، حتى الظواهر الاقتصادية والاجتماعية يمكن التعامل معها في صورة معلومات. فالمعلومات، وليست المادة أو الطاقة هي اللبنات التي يقوم عليها كل شيء.
وفي هذا الكتاب الجميل، "الواقع الذي نحياه، وكيف نفكك شفرته.. نظرة للكون كمعلومات كمومية"، نجد شرحًا وافيًا، في رحلة ممتعة في الجوانب المختلفة للمعلومات واستخدامها.
Decoding reality: The universe as quantum information, Vlatco Vedral, 2010
والكاتب "فلاتكو فيدرال"، هو عالم فيزيائي وأستاذ بجامعة أكسفورد منذ عام 2009، وله أبحاث عديدة في ميكانيكا الكوانتم.
الكتاب مُقسم لثلاثة عشرة فصلا، منهم فصلا في البداية يمكن اعتبارهما مقدمة على موضوع المعلومات بوجه عام، وبها نظرة البشر الفطرية للمعلومات، والميل الدائم للاختزال، ويشترك في هذا العلم والدين، فالدين يختزل كل الأسباب لسبب واحد هو الإله، والعلم يحاول أن يختزل كل النظريات في نظرية واحدة هي نظرية كل شيء الجامعة.
أمّا باقي الفصول، فيفصّل فيها الكاتب كيف تتمثل المعلومات في كل فرع من فروع المعرفة، فمثلا ينظر فيه لعلم البيولوجيا وظواهر نظرة معلوماتيه كما قلنا في البداية، فعلم الجينات يقول بأننا معلومات في الأساس، ونحن نتكاثر بحفظ تلك المعلومات ونقلها للأجيال التالية.
وكذلك الفيزياء، وعلم الاقتصاد وقواعد المقامرة، وحتى العلاقات الاجتماعية التي تظهر فيها المعلومات بأثواب متعددة، مثل العلاقات بين الأفراد، وتبادل المعلومات بينهم من خلال الاتصال الذي تتيحه الل��ة.
بعد ذلك، يخصص جزءًا كاملا من الكتاب يشرح فيه نظرة جديدة للكون باستخدام نظرية الكوانتم، يبدأه بوصف موجز للتأثيرات الغريبة التي تحدث على المستوى الكمومي (أي مستوى ما تحت الذرة)، مثل الجزافية (فنحن لا نستطيع في معظم الحالات أن نقول ماذا ستفعل منظومة كمومية ما حتى عندما نكون على بينة من كل شيء خاص بها)، وإمكانية وجود جسيم في أكثر من حالة في نفس الوقت، واستخدام تلك النظرية في تطبيقات معلوماتية جديدة مثل تشفير الاتصالات، والحواسيب الكمومية.

نحن نعتقد أن البرهان حاسم بما فيه الكفاية على أن أي جسيم في الكون يمكن أن يتواجد في العديد من المواضع في نفس الوقت.
فلاتكو فيدرال

الحقيقة الكتاب جميل، ولكن يحتاج لتركيز كبير، إعادة قراءة الفقرات والربط بين الموضوعات البيولوجية والفيزيائية والاجتماعية في سياق واحد.
الترجمة جيدة، وربما يكون من الطريف هنا أن نقول أن من مميزات الترجمة أيضًا أن المترجم التزم بما هو موجود في الكتاب الأصلي، وترجمه على علّاته (كما قال)، وهو الأمر الذي كان من المفترض أن يكون بديهيًا، ولكن ما نراه في بعض الترجمات التي تتعرض لموضوعات علمية لها علاقة بأبعاد دينية، يجعلنا نثني على هذا.

[Luka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Чуди ме да је овако популарно написана с обзиром на веома високу квалификованост аутора. Најзначајнија реченица ми је била та да догађај који је мање вероватан да се деси носи више информација, а догађај који је вероватније да се деси носи мање информација.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating insights presented in a somewhat tedious way.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Excellent on all counts."

The author takes a very complicated subject and makes it understandable. He tells you what he's going to tell you, says it and then tells you what he said. He really does connect the dots between information and quantum theory. As he says, "information is physical" and explains what he means by that.

[Julian Sale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written for the lay reader. Vedral does a pretty good job of distilling a hugely complex subject in a readable book. Although I read with anticipation of the next revelation or mind bending thought right to the last page but somehow was left not fully satisfied.

[Benjamin Babeshkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Has a very good explanation for Information theory. And really changes your view of the universe and the Big Bang.

[Ahmad Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

أول كتاب علمي فلسفي أقع عليه في بداية السنة الجديدة يصف فيه الفيزيائي فلاتكو فيدرال الكون والوجود بمنظور المعلومات فلطالما الانسان منذ فجر التاريخ حاول تفسير الكون وهذا يذكرنا ببدايات الاغريق وتحديدا الفيثاغورثيين الذين وصفوا بناء الكون بانّه اشكال هندسية اذا ما تعمقنا وسبرنا اغواره في النهاية ثم جاء بعدهم غاليلو ونيوتن الذين كان الكون في عصرهما عبارة عن ألة ميكانيكية تحكمه قوانين حتمية يتجلى دور الاله فيه بتعيير هذه الالة ثم يستريح كي يرى عمل هذه القوانين دون ان يكون للانسان اي ارادة حرة في خضم هذه الحتمية الميكانيكية الجبارة امّا الآن وفي العصر الحديث فلابد لنا ان نفهم الكون وننظر اليه بمنظار اعمق انطلاقا من التطور العلمي وفهمنا للقوانين فمع ميكانيك الكم لم تعد الحتمية تاخذ المشهد كله انما يقول لنا ان العشوائية هي اساس التي تحكم العالم الكمومي الميكروسكوبي وهنا يعود لنا الامل للتحدث عن حرية الارادة ..حسنا يبدأ فلاتكو بشرح نظرية المعلومات تمهيدا لهذا الفهم العميق للوجود فالمعلومات بتعريفها العلمي هي الاحداث التي تعطي قدرة اكبر على الاندهاش ومن هنا كان القانون العلمي لها بان معلومات اي منظومة ا تتناسب مع لوغارتم مقلوب امكانية وقوع احداثها وهذا يذكرنا بقانون الانتروبي فيوجد بين القانونين صلة عميقة جدا علمية وكونية فهذا القانون الثاني في الديناميكا الحرارية يقول ان اي منظومة مغلقة تتجه للعشوائية وبما ان الكون منظومة مغلقة فهو يتجه الى مزيد من العشوائية ومن هنا اتت الرابطة بين القانونين حيث ان المعلومات بالكون الى مزيد من التراكم والازدياد وهنا تتناسب الانتروبي مع كمية المعلومات ..حسنا وما علاقة ذلك بالطاقة والمادة يقول فلانكو بان الانتروبي تتناسب عكسا مع الحرارة وبما انه لا يمكن الوصول لدرجة الصفر المطلق فنحن ككائنات حية تقاوم الزيادة في الانتروبي على حساب زيادتها بباقي اجزاء الكون فشبح مكسويل الذي يقاوم العشوائية ويرتب الذرات مستحيل علمياً فمصيرنا مع الكون هو الموت بتراكم المعلومات والوصول الى اقصى حد من العشوائية ..وبعدها يتكلم في الفصول التالية عن تقنية الهولوغرام وكيف ان الكون يمكن حساب معلوماته وذلك باعتبار ان المعلومات تتناسب مع السطح ونحن البشر نتيجة لصراع سهمين الاول نحاول من خلاله ترتيب المعلومات التي تاتينا من الكون والتي تعتمد على طريقة رصدنا للطبيعة والاخر يزيد فيه معلومات الكون العشوائية ..اذن كوننا هو شذرات من المعلومات اي بيتات اصفار وواحدات ان الشيفرة الكونية مكتوبة بلغة الاصفار والواحدات وحتى البيولوجيا مكتوبة بشيفرة من اربع احرف مكونة لشريطا الدنا فكل مجال علمي يمثل لاعب في لعبة ورق نراقبه ونستقي منه القوانين من الفيزياء المكتوبة بشذرات وبميكانيك الكم اكتشفنا انه كيوباتات تاخذ حالتين مختلفتين الى البيولوجيا التي تدمج المعلومات الحيوية بالشيفرة الجينية بما يتناسب مع تكيفها البيئي حتى الاقتصاد في سوق الاوراق المالية والعلوم الاجتماعية ..فقد ننظر الى انسان على انه كيان مستقل وحرية ارادة وهنا تكمن العشوائية لكن اذا نظرنا للمجتمع ككل يمكننا التنبؤ بسلوكه وهذا يذكرنا بسلوك الذرات المفردةالتي لايمكننا التنبؤ بسلوكها لكنها مكونة لاجسام يمكننا حساب ومعرفة سلوكها بقوانين حتمية ...ما اشبه البشر بظواهر الكون وكيف لا ونحن ابناء هذه القوانين ويبقى السؤال هل وجدت القوانين اولا ام المعلومات وهل انبثقت فعلا من العدم كما في مجموعات فون نيومان الخاوية ...ينتهي الكتاب بمقاربات فلسفية عن وحدة الوجود وفلسفة العلم حيث اننا نستكشف القوانين بطرح الاسألة والتفنيد وهذا يتشابه مع الديانات الشرقية الهندوسية التي تفند وجود الاله كي تفهم وجوده ولعل فهمنا لظواهر الكون لا يتم الا بعلائقية اي لا يوجود شيء مستقل بذاته وذو مفهوم مستقل الا باطار علاقته وتبادله معلومات مع البيئة اي الكون وهنا نصطدم بوحدة الوجود ..وربما كانت هذه العلائقية مفروضة علينا من برنامج كوني كما في فيلم المصفوفة لكننا لا نريد ان نعود الى سلسلة لا نهائية قد يكون الانبثاق من العدم هو الحل ...
كتاب فوق الرائع ..تعاد قرائته في كل المجالات .

[Steve]

I enjoyed this book a great deal. This idea that the universe is information or course appeals to a computer geek such as myself, as well as the idea that the universe is a holographic projection from 2d information. When you look at the most recent discoveries in quantum mechanics that seem to be pointing to the idea that different observers can see the same quantum information differently, it seems that the universe we live in is far weirder than we knows, and pushes everything we sense via our human body into the realm of subjective reality.

So much work to be done here. I imagine there will be many more works in this area (if there are not already)

[Swapnam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reminder to myself : Stop reading popular science hogwash and pick up the damn textbook.
P.S. Make an exception for Roger Penrose.

[Mengsen Zhang · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a couple reasons that make me feel like I'm not an appropriate audience for this book: (1) it's SO watered down for my taste. I'd probably enjoy it much more if it's only 30 pages. (2) materials are listed in a narrative way rather than connected in a logical way. I need to read how ideas/concepts/laws etc. are logically derived from one another, not just listing the statements in different domains of study and claim a victory. (3) no proper figures. Actually, no figures at all, on which I'm not sure if it's because of the publisher requirement or such. Many concepts are much easier to illustrate if done geometrically.
These are more about personal preferences and motivations rather than about the book itself. You may say I'm asking too much from a book for lay persons. Well, I am a lay person. Feynman wrote for lay persons too, and I can guarantee you that he did a much more informative, logical explanation with very clear figures about, for example, experiments with beam-splitters.
More detailed comments are as follows:
The book has three parts.
PART I: Vedral made a basic introduction of Shannonian Information Theory, and summarized its application in bio- and social informatics. For personal interest, I pay more attention to the use of Info Theory in studying social dynamics, but I found the arguments made about mutual information and phase transition is quite a over-simplification. Also, in these arguments he kind of used correlation in individual activity and mutual information interchangeably. However, mutual information is one metric among many others to quantify this correlation. I don't understand how it is superior than other measurements in network analysis. I didn't found a good reference on this topic in the bibliography.
PART II: He went beyond Shannon to Quantum Information. He clearly explained the difference between classical info theory and quantum info theory in terms of the additiveness of bits. But he really used too many pages for what I found could be condensed into one page (P131 if you will).
PART III: I found this part more informative than the previous two, especially how he connected quantum info to relativity and introduced the surface area metric. I wanted to find a citation of his own formal work but again no relevant reference in bibliography. About he's philosophical discussions, I entertained many conclusions but the flow of the text was very repetitive. I disagree on his interpretation of emptiness in eastern philosophy and the translation of Tao Te Ching on the last page was not very good.

Anyways, he's a very successful scientist and wrote this book with good effort and intention. He's also a very funny writer. I'm just the kind of awkward lay person who know too much to find the book informative and know too little to appreciate how difficult it is to boil down what he studies into this level. It would be more interesting to discuss about the topics in the book with him in a pub than reading this book.

[Mangoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that concurs to the trend of interpreting reality in terms of information, specifically claiming that only information can break away from the infinite regress of the origin of reality and its physical laws. According to the author - who is part of the Oxford academic congregation, and is heavily inspired by David Deutsch in its subscription to Popperian logic behind objective knowledge and its growth, besides its attention to quantum physics and its implications - the key insight comes from quantum information theory, which expands the classical (Shannon's) theory and crucially contemplates the notion of pure randomness and its acausality: randomness exists and it does not need to have a cause, hence randomness and its information content can be at the origin of the appearance of information out of nothingness. From this mere beginning, information can grow relationally by the interplay of entities (card playing is an explicit metaphor borrowed from Calvino here), so that mutual information is in fact the key. After first reviewing classical information and quantum information in the first and second part, the author ventures in speculation in the third, and that's where things get both more fascinating and confusing, as he seems to merge at times objective and subjective explanations of reality, in other words objective and subjective reality. Discerning physical laws is what science does, a thought that is not here first conceived, and this amounts to information compression; in turn, the laws can be used to simulate reality (in a quantum computer). The two trends are interrelated, as better adherence of the model to objective reality can enable unforeseen tools to improve the distillation of the laws, which in turn can enable better models and tools. However, this view inherently involves observers and does mix our representation and explanation of reality with the reality itself. The thought of reality as a quantum simulator of itself is not new (Seth Lloyd comes to mind); but more importantly, it does not imply that it is correct (for multiple reasons, including that quantum physics is most likely not the ultimate physical theory, just like classical physics turned out not to be), nor it implies that the reality out there is just busy in distilling its own laws - unless we acknowledge the observers as part of that very reality (as Wheeler proposed in his participatory view, and that also the author shares), which still raises the question of what happened until the first observer appeared (and whether (s)he needed to have a PhD, to quote the criticism of John Bell).
Nevertheless, a book that triggers such thoughts is to be commended. The book would have been improved by a more technical treatment (in notes or in appendices, for the expert audience) and by a proper body of references to the technical works supporting the main text, in tandem with the general additional reading suggested in the notes at the end of the book.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to do a deep dive into physics, and I picked up Decoding Reality at the library. When I was scanning the large pile of books, deciding which to take home, I read the prologue. The author captured me when he wrote that three words in a book had changed his life in 1994: information is physical.

Although the book is meant for a general audience, it was hard going at times. It covers classical physics - what we might call Einstein physics - and then winds up with a terrific explanation of quantum physics.

Vedral provides good examples and stories to keep me interested, and he moved the information along at the right pace. Some sections I had to reread twice to understand, but they were worth the extra effort.

I had no idea until I read this book that Claude Shannon, of Bell Labs, had been such an influence on physics with his work on securing telecommunications. I also got very excited, as a huge fan of the Bobiverse books, to read about Von Neumann who also had an outsized influence on modern physics.

My only complaints are there are an extraordinary number of exclamation points in this book and a couple of grammar issues here and there. I’m surprised that the Oxford Press didn’t do a better job of line editing. But that’s a very small nit to pick.

Some of my favorite quotes (a number are from the end where the author discusses how quantum physics may or may not intersect with spirituality):

"The concept of information is so ubiquitous nowadays that is simply unavoidable. It has revolutionized the way we perceive, the world, and for someone not to know that we live in the information age would make you wonder where they’ve been for the last 30 years. In this information age, we are no longer grappling with steam engines or locomotives; we are now grappling with understanding and improving our information processing abilities— to develop faster, computers, more efficient ways to communicate across faster, distances, more balance, financial markets, and more efficient societies. A common misconception is that the Information Age is just technological. Well, let me tell you for once, and for all that it is not! The information age is at its heart about affecting and better understanding just about any process nature throws of us: physical, biological, sociological, whatever you name it – nothing escapes." p25

"Ancient Greek philosophers said the more surprising an event, the more information it carries. So the less probable a piece of news is, the more information it carries."

“Interestingly enough, there is a very close theological position to the general Popperian philosophy of science and this position is known as the Via Negativa (or the negative way). It was apparently held originally by the Cappadocian Fathers of the fourth century, who based their whole world view on questions which cannot be answered. For example, they proclaim that, while they believed in God, they did not believe that God exists. This may appear to be a great contradiction, but it really is not.
As a matter of fact, the negative way was also well known in the East. In Hinduism, the idea of approaching god in terms of Neti, Sanskrit, for ‘not this’, is very well established and documented from several ancient traditions, including Advaita Vendanta (which also specifies the Universe as single and inseparable, Brahmen, whose features can only be grasped in the negative way).
The Cappadocian Fathers believed that one should describe the nature of God by focusing on what God is not rather than our what God is. The basic premise of this ‘negative’ (also called apophatick, for Greek ‘what is not’) theology is that God is so far beyond human understanding, and experience that the only hope we have of getting close to the nature of God is to list all his negative features. And therefore we cannot say that God exists, because existence is a human notion, and is such may not apply to God.” P193-194

“Eastern religion and philosophy have a strong core of relational thinking. In Buddhism, in particular, there is the notion of ‘emptiness’ that is a kin to von Neumann‘s empty set. What emptiness means in Buddhism is that ‘things’ do not exist in themselves, but are only possible in relation to other ‘things’. For example, think of a chair. What is it really? There is a whole branch of philosophy, known as ontology, devoted to the questions such as ‘What does it mean to be?’, or ‘What exists and in what sense is it real?’.”p199

"Everything that exists, exists by convention and labelling and is therefore dependent on other things. So, Buddhists would say that their highest goal - realizing emptiness - simply means that we realize how inter-related things fundamentally are. Exactly the same is true in other Eastern religions. Less well known in the West is Advaita Vedanta - a Hindu philosophy that emphasizes the total oneness of the Universe. In this view our perceptions of separate entities is just an illusion - Maya. Even the Universe as a whole only exists by labelling and not by itself. Our reality is that which is the sum total of all the observations and facts humanity has gathered so far'!”p201

“This is the darkness of reality! Anything that exists in this Universe, anything to which you can attribute any kind of reality, only exists by virtue of the mutual information it shares with other objects in the universe. Underneath this, nothing else exists, nothing else has any underlying reality, and hence there is no infinite regression. It just has to be this way, as otherwise we are asking a finite Universe to contain an infinite amount of information — and this is clearly not possible!" p204

"But we can say, following the logic presented in this book, is that outside of our reality there is no additional description of the universe that we can understand, there is just emptiness. This means that there is no scope for the ultimate law or supernatural, being - given that both of these would exist outside of our reality and in the darkness. Within our reality, everything exists through an interconnected web of relationships and the building blocks of this web are bits of information. We process, synthesize, and observe this information in order to construct the reality around us. As information spontaneously emerges from the emptiness, we take this into account to update our views of reality. The laws of nature are information about information and outside of it there is just darkness. This is the gateway to understanding reality.
And I finish with a quote from the Tao Te Ching teaching, which some 2500 years earlier, seems to have beat me to the punchline:
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of the 10,000 things. Ever Desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, once sees the manifestations. These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery." p218

[Yasser Mohammad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first time I give any book I read a single star. It was really hard to finish this book.
First of all, the main thesis of the book is an understanding of the universe as a quantum information processor and the book starts with this wonderful game with cards that change "our information" about reality but ends with a very strange trial to just equate our information with objective information which is something that seems very fishy for me.

The first part of the book is supposedly introducing information theory then shows how information "underlies" biology, sociology, physics and everything. The introduction to information theory is nice and the description of von neumann's self replicating automatons is one of the best parts of this book. Nevertheless, the word information is used in too many different meanings to count in this part that makes you think that anything passes as information for the author. Also the exact meaning of what "underlies" means never becomes clear.

For example, information theory is based on probability theory and the later is based on set theory, arithmetics, and logic. If the ubiquitous usefulness of information theory is enough to say that the universe is "information" then we can even more forcibly argue that it is made out of "numbers".

In many parts the author digresses to useless discussions about topics that are not related to what is at hand and I think the book could have been compressed to like 10% of its size.

The last part of the book is over-speculative. I do see something in the idea that the connection between entropy and area rather than volume is somehow related to the concept of quantum information but I cannot swallow the use of the Emptiness buddhist concept (let alone that the definition given for it is far from accurate) or the final analogy with the card game with no cards. It seems at the end that we are back with the fluctuation solution to the universe from nothing problem but again without any defense against the problem of Boltzman's brain.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazon.com Review
For a physicist, all the world is information. The Universe and its workings are the ebb and flow of information. We are all transient patterns of information, passing on the recipe for our basic forms to future generations using a four-letter digital code called DNA.

In this engaging and mind-stretching account, Vlatko Vedral considers some of the deepest questions about the Universe and considers the implications of interpreting it in terms of information. He explains the nature of information, the idea of entropy, and the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics. He describes the bizarre effects of quantum behaviour - effects such as 'entanglement,' which Einstein called 'spooky action at a distance' and explores cutting edge work on the harnessing quantum effects in hyperfast quantum computers, and how recent evidence suggests that the weirdness of the quantum world, once thought limited to the tiniest scales, may reach into the macro world.

Vedral finishes by considering the answer to the ultimate question: Where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The answers he considers are exhilarating, drawing upon the work of distinguished physicist John Wheeler. The ideas challenge our concept of the nature of particles, of time, of determinism, and of reality itself.

[Nicola Mayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned to not trust anybody that pretends to explain everything starting from a unique theory, even more if it's a scientist. Although the brightness of the author can be seen in its unique way of explaining difficult theoretical and experimental features of information theory and quantum mechanics, as too many scientists do he sadly lacks in modesty when he tries to talk about other disciplines, most importantly philosophy and psychology (such as labelling psychology as a pseudo-science with a Popperian - I dislike Popper personally and find him not really worth of mention in the history of philosophy compared to other ones - argument or quoting randomly eastern philosophy principles when it would be enough to look at our Hegels and Nietzsches as a comparison for the attempt to step out of the infinite regression problem).
A nice book for a reader in search of a introduction to some basic information theory and quantum mechanics, a bad book for a reader that searches for the answer to everything (sic!).
Still, I'd be interested in reading some scientific papers by him, if he wrote any, on the subject.

[Cid Medeiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mind changer kind of book. It's very educational in both main subjects as well as thought provoking. Information Theory is placed at the core of human process of constructing reality which gives birth to an amazing number of possibilities when aligned to the bizarre quantum behaviour observed in photons, atoms and molecules. The author makes clear right way about the audacious nature of his conjectures which worked for me as a trigger to viscerally read his ideas. If you want to begin to learn about what's hot now in Physics and Philosophy, it's definitely a must read work.

[Francisco Luis Benítez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leída la versión en español: "Descodificando la Realidad", es una aproximación a la teoría cuántica, entendiéndola como información, así como la entropía, desde el mismo punto de vista. El final del libro nos pone en la antesala de lo que significará la computación y la criptografía cuántica, y lo que todavía tenemos que aprender acerca de como aprovechar el potencial del mundo cuántico a escala macroscópica. Es un auténtico lujo.

[Martin Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

fantastic read introducing difficult concepts in a readable way

[Tom Menke · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must read to set the stage for carroll

[B. Rule · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to be generous and round up because the concepts in this book are fascinating. Unfortunately, the execution is seriously lacking. I really wish Vedral had engaged a co-author to help him punch this up. He's clearly a smart guy with an interesting approach but he is a terrible written communicator. Had I lacked a fair amount of dilettante background on a lot of his subjects, I often would have been totally lost. He rushes through hard topics, gives confusing and often misleading examples, and sometimes misstates aspects of things outside his field. I will grant that he's an excited guide and there's no shortage of boyish enthusiasm in these pages. Further, he doesn't include any formulae in the book, and even lampshades the absence with some comments about the marketability death knell that mathematical formulae pose to popular science books. I'm basically math-allergic, but even I realized that his clarity could have been helped immensely with the judicious deployment of a little mathematical notation.

The first part of the book describes Shannon's information theory and then applies it in broad strokes to fields like sociology, political science, and evolutionary biology. The second part gives a brief background on quantum mechanics leading into a longer discussion of quantum computing. The final section tries to tie up the whole into a Theory of Everything that posits information as the fundamental substrate of reality, and the universe as a quantum computer writ large. I think a lot of science book readers will hate the last chapter, where he basically gives free flight to speculative woo about Life, the Universe and Everything (and in the process, spilling some religious milk in the scientific tea -- the book ends with a quote from the Tao Te Ching, and includes some admiring references to medieval apophatic theology). Personally I kinda love that sort of thing, even when it's basically B.S. I'm always reading these books with one weather eye on the existential horizon, so I don't mind a little wild speculation about ultimate ends. Your mileage may vary in that regard. I will note that Vedral does not seem very knowledgeable on matters religious. He appears to think he's solved the "problem of infinite regression" he identifies in Judeo-Christian cosmogony by describing how the first "bit" of information could arise from nothingness. His point may ding a deistic god, but I don't think it's inconsistent with (or really responsive to) the traditional metaphysics of god as subsistent source of being.

In short, this book could have been great. Instead, it was merely interesting. I'd love to find a clearer account of the general thesis elsewhere. Vedral also is due some credit for including a short but intriguing annotated bibliography, which may contain fruitful avenues of further reading to pursue.

[Con · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the final comments. "...outside of our reality there is no additional description of the Universe that we can understand, there is just emptiness. This means that there is no scope for the ultimate law or supernatural being...within our reality everything exists through an interconnected web of relationships....we process and observe this information to construct the reality around us".

This book was harder to read than I thought it would be...and possibly than it needed to be. I still didn't understand that beams-splitters-in-series analogy, even after much repetition.

Memorable:
1. The von Neumann model for a self-replicating machine, and how clever that this predated discovery of DNA.
2. How computers struggle to factor large numbers, as opposed to multiplication, and how you can encrypt something just by multiplying by a large number. Also how quantum computers could defeat this.
3. How life is 'rejecting' entropy into the environment as it gets more complex, and thereby heating up the environment.
4. How computers reject entropy into the environment when they delete information.
5. The idea that information content or entropy doesn't lie in the object, but in it's relation / interface to the rest of the universe...and how therefore the total information in the universe as a system could be zero.
6. How 'particles' are thought of as solid 'things' but they are better thought of as a container for the various observed properties and interactions.

[Rama Rao · Rating 5 out of 5]

Information in the cosmic design

The author of this book suggests that the physical reality we observe and experience in everyday life may be explained by the processing of information. Information is more fundamental than the laws of physics, which explains the behavior of matter and energy in spacetime, and entropy and the second law of thermodynamics play an important role.

Disorder (physical entropy) increases with time according to the second law of thermodynamics. And this is closely related to Shannon’s entropy (self-information). The increasing complexity of life is driven by the overall increase in disorder in the universe. Systems that exploit disorder are called Maxwell demons. All living systems are Maxwell demons and so are some non-living systems like computers. Computers do calculations using electricity (to do work) and then produce heat. All Maxwell demons work this way, they collect information, and they use information to do work. That is why a living system can live, grow, and reproduce where in a significant amount of order is required to maintain a living cell.

Entropy of a system is proportional to the surface area of that system which is known as the holographic universe. According to this, the information of our universe (that has three-dimensional space) is encoded in a two-dimensional space, a black hole serves as a good example to illustrate holographic principle.

This is a small book of 225 pages that reads flawlessly, and the subject matter is very well explained. Highly recommended.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent and thought provoking read.

I enjoyed some of the stories, like the card game analogy to life, or John von Neumann's self replicating framework. That part of the book made me realize how amazing DNA is at preserving information. It's amazing to think that we are now at the point where it may be possible to encode information in DNA for this purpose.

I don't think Vlatko did a great job at explaining concepts, and he could have benefited from more time spent on this. More examples would have helped. Given that I have an MSc in physics myself, I would have liked to see equations and more about the physical processes behind the concepts as opposed to just easy to understand analogies. I feel like the average reader would have benefited from that we well.

Despite the issues, I found this a really good format for audiobook. Reading the text may have been quite boring at times, since the tone can be scientific and ..well.. just not that interesting at times. With the audiobook that's not such a big deal, since I can just tune out or speed it up.

The ending gets pretty wild. While it's thought provoking, this section is obviously very speculative. For example, it e was interesting when Vlatko analogues us existing in and moving through the universe to collapsing the wavefunction on a quantum system. I'm not sure there is much substance to this, but very thought provoking none the less. There are a few more far out ideas in this section to enjoy, if that's your thing.

[Madara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this book caught me by surprise. It was like quantum physics for dummies with philosophical theories. It explained rules of thermodynamics in terms that can be easily understood.
The whole idea of the book was to explain reality and to explain the big bang and how everything could evolve out of nothing. I found it interesting that for me as a Christian who believes in Creation, many ideas fell into my own puzzle.
Like the rules of thermodynamics.. everything will eventually be destroyed (no contradiction with the Bible in terms of this world)
Also the author mentioned several times that many great scientists went mad when they went told deep into their own ideas. Which sounds logical to me because I don’t think God has intended for us to crack His code.
It also explained free will as something that is free on an individual level, but it does not change the overall course of the world. Yet again, I see no contradiction here.

An interesting read.