Decoding Reality
Front Cover
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| Author | Vlatko Vedral |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Science |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
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Publication date
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2010 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | x, 256 pp. |
| ISBN | |
| LC Class | Q360 .V43 2010 |
Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information is a popular science book by Vlatko Vedral published by Oxford University Press in 2010. Vedral examines information theory and proposes information as the most fundamental building block of reality. He argues what a useful framework this is for viewing all natural and physical phenomena. In building out this framework the books touches upon the origin of information, the idea of entropy, the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics, the replication of DNA, development of social networks, quantum behaviour at the micro and macro level, and the very role of indeterminism in the universe. The book finishes by considering the answer to the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The ideas address concepts related to the nature of particles, time, determinism, and of reality itself.
Vedral believes in the principle that information is physical. Creation ex nihilo comes from Catholic dogma, the idea being that God created the universe out of nothing. Vedral says that invoking a supernatural being as an explanation for creation does not explain reality because the supernatural being would have to come into existence itself too somehow presumably from nothing (or else from an infinite regression of supernatural beings), thus of course the reality can come from nothing without a supernatural being. Occam's razor principle favours the simplest explanation. Vedral believes information is the fundamental building block of reality as it occurs at the macro level (economics, human behaviour etc.) as well as the subatomic level. Vedral argues that information is the only candidate for such a building block that can explain its own existence as information generates additional information that needs to be compressed thus generating more information. 'Annihilation of everything' is a more fitting term than creation ex nihilo Vedral states, as compression of possibilities is the process of how new information is created.
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