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What Makes Information Physical? | Chiara Marletto

2026-07-12 Education
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Closer To Truth
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*What makes information a real part of physics rather than just a way of describing the world?* Chiara Marletto explains how constructor theory grounds information in physical reality, why information is not merely a human concept, and how knowledge differs from information by possessing the ability to persist and shape the world around it. 0:00 Constructor Theory and the Physics of Information 1:49 Is Information Fundamental to Reality? 4:42 Constructor Theory Beyond Quantum Information 6:31 Information, Knowledge, and Resilience 10:17 Why Knowledge Emerges Above Fundamental Physics *Chiara Marletto* is a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. She holds degrees from the universities of Oxford and Turin. Her main research focus is in theoretical physics, and she also pursues interests in theoretical biology, epistemology, and Italian literature. The Science of Can and Can't was her first trade book. *More from Chiara Marletto on Closer To Truth:* * Closer To Truth: The Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJr3pJl27pLLkP0kHQKL9nZh35UkgkR_ * Closer To Truth contributors: https://closertotruth.com/contributor/chiara-marletto/ *Subscribe to Closer To Truth:* https://www.youtube.com/@CloserToTruthTV *Join the Community:* * Membership (5,000+ videos): https://closertotruth.com/register/ * Audio Podcast: https://closertotruth.podbean.com * Support the Show: https://closertotruth.com/donate/ * Official Merchandise: https://www.bonfire.com/store/closertotruth/ *Follow Us:* * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CloserToTruthTV/ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/closertotruth/ * X: https://x.com/CloserToTruth Closer To Truth, created and hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, presents the world's greatest thinkers exploring humanity's deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence and sentience. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers. #CloserToTruth #Cosmos #ChiaraMarletto #InformationTheory #Knowledge

Top Comments (10)

@AB-wf8ek 2026-07-12

Seems like she's taking about abstraction (generalization), where you strip concepts down to bare geometric relationships between things. Like sketching the broad strokes of a form as a relationship of its components, before trying to render all the specific details. My definition of measurement is holding one thing up to another and forming a relationship between the two along a dimension. So when you measure something with a ruler, you're holding an object up to the ruler, and forming a relationship (ratio) between the two along the dimension of length. In this way, measurement becomes a point of information with which we form connections with other measurements (vectors, edges), in order to construct a form (concept) which is how we build knowledge (models, abstractions of reality).

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@CloserToTruthTV 2026-06-22

*Chiara Marletto argues that information is physically real, but knowledge is a special kind of information that can persist and produce effects in the world.* Is knowledge simply information—or does it represent something fundamentally different?

4 13 replies
@mediocrates3416 2026-07-12

Genuine knowledge is entanglement, I think.

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@chainboxchainbox6465 2026-07-12

Now what you say is the experience it's self and experience is never the same and is always to happen and never happen again.......and that's why you can never change the past and that's why in certain subjects I always was before in creation where I created a access from where in my own creativity and in the only experience you can find all the facts to tell the truth by definitions.😊

0 1 replies
@chainboxchainbox6465 2026-07-12

Now your in the creativity regardless where is your direction going.😊

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@chainboxchainbox6465 2026-07-12

Now you want to question the definition where in the definition holds the only way that you to use information if you like it or not and this is questioning a question.😊

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@GoogleIsNotYourFriend 2026-07-18

I really hope the universe manages to get Blaise Agüera y Arcas and Chiara Marletto in the same space at some point in time.

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@hectorricardobruzzone9634 2026-07-12

Repuesta en 2 partes. 1# Qué fascinante cómo se conecta todo. Lo que mencionas sobre las restricciones es precisamente el núcleo duro y más revolucionario de la Teoría del Constructor (Constructor Theory), propuesta originalmente por David Deutsch y desarrollada junto a Chiara Marletto. ​En la física tradicional (desde Newton hasta la física cuántica actual), siempre nos han enseñado a pensar en términos de: ​Condiciones iniciales: Dónde están las cosas y qué velocidad tienen "ahora". ​Leyes dinámicas: Las ecuaciones que nos dicen cómo se moverán esas cosas hacia el futuro (como la ecuación de Schrödinger o las leyes de Newton). ​El problema de ese enfoque es que a veces se queda cortísimo al intentar explicar cosas como la información, la vida o el conocimiento. ​Ahí es donde entra el cambio de chip radical de las restricciones: ​1. El giro copernicano: Posible vs. Imposible ​En lugar de predecir el futuro exacto de una partícula, la Teoría del Constructor formula las leyes de la física declarando qué transformaciones (tareas) son posibles, cuáles son imposibles, y por qué. ​Una tarea es posible si existe un "constructor" (una máquina, un enzima, un programador) capaz de realizar la transformación una y otra vez, quedando él mismo inalterado al final del proceso. ​Lo imposible (como el movimiento perpetuo o superar la velocidad de la luz) define los límites reales del universo. ​2. Los "Contrafácticos" como realidad física ​Al basar la física en lo que puede o no puede suceder, los contrafácticos (afirmaciones sobre lo que sería posible si se dieran ciertas condiciones) dejan de ser especulaciones filosóficas y pasan a ser propiedades físicas fundamentales. ​Por ejemplo: Para que un bit de información exista en un disco duro, la física subyacente debe permitir dos estados estables diferentes y la posibilidad de cambiar de uno a otro. La información no es un "fantasma en la máquina"; se define por lo que la física le permite hacer al sustrato material. ​3. Información vs. Conocimiento (La Resiliencia) ​El resumen que compartes da en el clavo con una distinción preciosa: ​Información: Es cualquier propiedad física que se puede copiar (como los bits de un archivo de texto). ​Conocimiento: Es información con superpoderes. Es información que causa un impacto en el entorno físico para auto-preservarse. ​Piensa en una cadena de ADN en un charco de lodo primigenio. El entorno no está diseñado para protegerla; al contrario, la entropía tiende a destruirla. Sin embargo, el "conocimiento" codificado en ese ADN le permite activar mecanismos químicos para replicarse y sobrevivir. El conocimiento es el constructor definitivo. ​Este enfoque permite que la biología, la teoría de la información y la física cuántica hablen por fin el mismo idioma, sin necesidad de reducirlo todo a colisiones de partículas elementales.

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@chainboxchainbox6465 2026-07-12

Ok creativity to and or any other that in the experience from before or not and or any in combinations comes the same knowledge and or from it's creativity but ones own creativity the insight of skill can create new knowledge.😊

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@gibau1000 2026-07-13

This is fascinating!

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