Don Page - Is Information the Foundation of Reality？

Don, we're here on this beautiful island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, Conference of Physics of Information. Many of your colleagues here believe that information is not just a description of reality and a mirror of reality, but at some deep level, is the most fundamental thing about reality, literally the ground of being, bits of information. You're a quantum physicist. You believe in God. You can't have information being the ultimate reality if you believe in God. Well, I would certainly believe that God is the ultimate source of the reality, and he has created a physical world, and I think he has put information in it, that information is physical, as Ralph Landauer said, and I think Andrew Briggs, who's another Christian who's here at this conference, has emphasized that we have embodied information, and so maybe it's a little bit like in the prologue of the Gospel of John, that the word became flesh. I don't think this, the information, we're talking about physics, I don't think this is the word of God, but it's an interesting parallel, that in some sense, God has created a physical universe in which there seems to be information embedded in it, but I do think, you know, it's information about something, so I guess I would think that even within our world, I would think our conscious perceptions are more important than information, but information is a very useful way of talking about the universe, and of course, beyond the universe, I believe God is far more important. He's the source of everything, you know, of everything concrete. So God created the universe. I mean, there are two ways you can look at it. You can look at the equations of quantum physics and general relativity and see how information can be used to describe those and learn about them, or you can believe that in some deep sense that those equations have emerged out of some binary complex, or maybe very simple, structure of an information-designed reality. Yes, I mean, of course, if different ways of looking at it in some sense lead to all the same results in the ontology, then I would say that in some sense they're equivalent descriptions. Neither one is really to be favored over the other. Now, of course, if one description left something out that I believe really exists, I mean, for example, if one level left consciousness out and just said consciousness didn't exist, then I wouldn't believe it. And similarly, of course, if these are descriptions of the universe, they shouldn't be saying about whether or not God exists, but I mean, if they were extended to say that God didn't exist, then again, I wouldn't believe it. I don't think either one might like to do that, but I think logically nobody would say that you can prove God doesn't exist by any of this stuff. I don't think that's an issue. Right, right. But what is an issue is the emergence of the physical laws of quantum mechanics from an information-generating ground of reality, that in some sense there are rules or whatever of binary activities that bubble up into the laws of physics, or is information and the mathematical things kind of descriptions of the same thing? Yes, I guess I would think of the laws as more basic. I mean, it's hard for me to see exactly how the laws come out from sort of information in some prior sense. I mean, maybe, you know, I suppose this is a research program that's being pursued and, you know, I'm not one that understands it well enough to be directly involved in it. I mean, I can talk about information emitted by black holes as a description of things, but as a basis, I don't really understand it, but maybe I should wait and see where they get to to see whether it leads to something. And either way, your theology is not bothered. In other words, neither way if information really turns out to be the fundamental source of reality or it's the quantum physics laws that are described by the information, neither one affects the kind of God you would believe in. I don't see that it would. I mean, in other words, I could take either one to be sort of the most basic element of our universe, but in any case, I could say our universe is something that God has created. I might make an argument that says the laws of physics are simply very complicated, even though they, in one sense, are simple compared to all the structures in the world, but they are complex. And if they emerge out of something very simple and an information of a digital way, a zero, one, and a combination of them, that's very simple. You know, that might weaken, if I believe in God, an argument for God, because then I think one of the arguments for God is a simple explanation. Some people may agree with that or not, but if you have a simple explanation for the physical world by itself without a God, I think that gives it a stronger sense of a claim to ultimate reality. Well, I mean, okay, so in other words, you might be willing to stop at the universe as a brute fact, as the ultimate brute factors, if it itself was simple. Now, of course, I don't know. I have to see this to see, because I mean, the view of God as the greatest possible being also sounds simple. Now, you have to flesh that out, but what do you mean by that? That's an argument for the existence of God. I would accept that, because God is a simple explanation. I think that is a good argument for God. And when I see the physical world, quantum mechanics, general relativity, all these things, the constants of physics, that's a complicated, you know, the quantum foam bubbling virtual particles, it's all complicated. But if I saw all of that derived from a very simple, informational-based reality, you know, that might make, you know, tilt my head a little bit. Yes, although I might have thought that maybe God likes elegance and he would like to create the universe the simplest way. So, I mean, if there really was a way to create a universe with sentient beings like us and that they could appreciate him and appreciate just living, then if God found a way to do it through this information and some binary something that was very elegant, then I would think that might be a way for God to use it. There's always a way to save God. Yeah, well, and I think Raphael Bousso asked me a few years, you know, what evidence would you need that would lead you not to believe in God? And in some sense, I always thought that if I really found out the universe were just infinitely complex and chaotic and whatever, then maybe I wouldn't have, I'd have much less reason for believing in God. Now, it's a little hard to imagine how I could even exist in that sort of universe. And of course, I know so much about that. Even if the future became chaotic, if I had a memory of this path part that seems fairly ordered, the whole thing would not be nearly as complex as it could have been. So, in some sense, I guess I tend to think the simpler picture of the universe might even give more evidence for God. You know, now you're raising the question, if the picture of the universe itself got even simpler than the picture of God, then, you know, what happens then? Well, yeah, that might be a point at which you do it. I don't think Dawkins is right in saying that the universe, you know, with God is more complex than the universe without God. I think when I postulate God, I think, in my view, it makes the whole world, including God, simpler than just the universe without God.