science is backing away from naive realism to understand the world of abstract quantification. Epistemic method replaces ontic claims about what is "really out there".

To suggest information or entropy are then "the real thing in itself" is to completely misrepresent the scientific enterprise. They are not new terms for substantial being. They are part of the journey away from that kind of naive realism which deals in matter or mind as the essential qualitative categories of nature. — apokrisis

I’m curious if you’re familiar with the work of any of the so-called ‘New Materialists’, such as physicist and feminist philosopher Karen Barad, and what you think of them. They reject both naive realism and the exclusive reliance on discursive language and social construction among post-structuralists like Foucault.

But you now jump from a point about Shannon's definition of a bit to this guff about "meaningful mind-stuff". You conflate a mathematical claim – the epistemology of a model – with this ontic assumption about "the mind" being this kind of physically general "stuff" that has the intrinsic property of being meaningful – of having "sensory" qualities such as feelings and impressions. — apokrisis

Yes. "To Conflate" means to combine two or more separate things into one concept. That's the job description of philosophical inference and holistic thinking. In this case, abstract mathematical information combined with concrete "ontic" entities into a unique unified cosmology : physics + metaphysics. Or, in other words, Energy into Matter into Mind into Weltanshauung. And that is what cutting edge Quantum theories are pointing to. Not directly, but implicitly, so someone has to do the conflation. And the Enformationism thesis combines lots of those implications into the inference : that Generic (causal) information (power to enform) is equivalent to Energy, which transforms into Matter, and eventually emerges in complex entities as Mind*1.

For a Reductive thinker such a notion is unthinkable. But Holistic (or Systems) thinking can discover properties of an integrated system that go beyond anything found in its parts. For example, a human brain is a complex integrated system of neural & supportive cells, that are not in themselves conscious. But working together, they produce the ontic phenomenon that we call "Awareness" or "Aboutness". However, a Materialistic worldview or a Reductive Analysis of Awareness will never find an explanation for the evolutionary emergence of Life & Mind from a purely physical Big Bang. But a "Big Conception" might point the way.

So yes, Enformationism is my own personal philosophical conflation. It begins with the novel conclusion, from post-Shannon Information Theory, that Generic Information*2 is the fundamental substance of the universe, which we know primarily in its physical activities as "Energy". This is not common knowledge, so in my posts, I have to provide lots of links to the inferences of scientists, who are pushing the envelope of Information Theory. The thesis began the explication of a core insight : that Information >> Energy >> Matter >> Mind. And the BothAnd blog continues to explore the philosophical implications of that conflation, in areas such as Monism and Metaphysics. If a non-dual notion of Matter & Mind doesn't appeal to you though, then you won't be motivated to investigate further into the controversial thesis of Enformationism. :smile:


*1. Information is :
*** Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
*** For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
*** When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

*2. Generic Information : I coined this term to distinguish causal Information from inert Shannon Information. It's similar to the ancient notion of Panpsychism (all is information), but with supporting scientific evidence and without the mystical extravagances. As you put it : "the mind" being this kind of physically general "stuff"
Note -- the little-known Casual aspect of Information is supported in the news that "In 2019, physicist Melvin Vopson of the University of Portsmouth proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy," https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/information-energy-mass-equivalence/

Being, as the original impetus of philosophical reflection, is actually "consciousness of the unity of being" - i.e. abstraction, what is common to all beings across all modalities of being. — Pantagruel

Cassirer is on the right page. What we would be wanting to move from is the rather particular view of the linguistic human to the abstract as could be imagined view of the mathematical model.

So we engage in the question of being already based in the frame of linguistic inquiry which has its basic established categories, such as the selves who inquire, and the kind of material being that is of the same general spatiotemporal scale as us human inquirers.

If I ask about the generality of my reality, I already am forced by language to think there is this reasoning self surrounded by all kinds of material stuffs. Things that are hard or soft, sticky or slick, metallic or fleshy, heavy or light. My physics, in its abstraction, is based on the inductive generalisation from this level of experience - this naive realism.

But since Ancient Greece started the ball rolling, we have been learning to see the world through the pure abstractions of numbers rather than words. The self and it’s concrete impressions are meant to drop out of this new level of inquiry into being. Reality is reduced to its hard logical structures and the acts of measurement - the business of counting - which are the “local accidents” of these “global and logically necessary” structures.

So that is why Newton started off talking about pushes and pulls. Action as force. The world as seen by the kind of agency that is a human thinking in terms of material and effective causes. We then generalised to categories of forceful substsnce like gravity, electromagnetism, caloric heat.

But then under the influence of the abstracting mathematical perspective, we moved on to notions about gravity being geometry, action being quantum probabilities, thermodynamics being statistics.

We were left with some logical mathematical structure that would apply to any incarnation of a type of being, and the equation variables that let you slot in the values that were the accidents - the measurements, the numbers - which would particularise these general models.

So that is why the shift to the “pure numbers” of information-entropy are how we should expect scientific progress to be made. They measure the residual uncertainty of the observable world in terms of our logically certain theories of absolutely generalised structure.

Thus in terms of abstraction, or induction from impressions, we have to see that humans have indeed stepped up a level in our semiotic technology in going from the everyday linguistic frame of philosophising to the “symbolic as possible” logical-mathematical frame of analysis.

We no longer “look directly at the world” through our collective notions of what it is like to be a human having sensory impressions, but instead focus our eyes on the numbers coming up on dials and scribbling the digits into the slots of our equations. And thus see reality more truly. :grin:

I’m curious if you’re familiar with the work of any of the so-called ‘New Materialists’, such as physicist and feminist philosopher Karen Barad, and what you think of them. — Joshs

Not my bag. I had a quick skim of her agential realism.

As a pragmatist and biosemiotician, I would be making the totalising argument that the modelling relation is indeed on the side of the necessary and the general as a natural structure. PoMo instead has the interest in arguing the opposite - stressing thr plurality, contingency and particularity of agents who model their realities, even in this co-constructing fashion of Copenhagenist quantum mechanics.

So we might agree that there is something more going on in the collapse of the wave function. But biosemiotics now provides the maximally general theory of that in Pattee’s epistemic cut. It boils down to the general possibility of imposing the constraints of a mechanical switch on a quantum process - or exactly the thing of a measuring device that turns a material event into an abstract number.

Measurement forces quantum decoherence across the final line by constraining its probabilities to “good enough from an agent’s point of view” certainties. We get the numbers that fit our classical equations. And we can get stuff done.

But this isn’t something special to humans and their new world of mechanical co-construction of their nature. It is the basis of life and mind - or agency - in general.

An enzyme is doing the same quantum mechanical trick. It is a mechanical switch that makes a measurement when it deforms and forces two molecules close enough together that a desired reaction must certainly happen as its quantum probability approaches 1.

So human agency is just “more of the same” from the biosemiotic point of view. In stepping up the levels of abstraction - from genes, to neurons, to words, to numbers - it is just following its own natural structural evolution towards maximal modelling abstraction, and hence maximal causal control over the time and place of acts of thermal decoherence.

PoMo recognises that we are semiotic creatures. But it wants to define us primarily as linguistic creatures. It is uncomfortable at the thought we might be biological creatures - generalised blobs of genes and neurons - or now becoming technological creatures, intelligences shaped by the inhuman forces of maths, machines, rationality, entropy dissipation.

And fair enough given the reality that most folk live lives that are primarily linguistic and socially-ordered.

But as metaphysics, I prefer the totalising discourse that can see the fact that life and mind are generally the same thing in terms of being rational entropic structure, even as it clicks through its evolutionary gears in stepping up its levels of encoding from genes, to neurons, to words, and to numbers.

"To Conflate" means to combine two or more separate things into one concept. That's the job description of philosophical inference and holistic thinking. — Gnomon

It definitely isn’t. Holism is about the triadic story of the unity of opposites. Dialectics. You have to break a symmetry and discover its new equilibrium balance. You have to dichotomise and discover how this then leads to a self-stabilising asymmetry - a world where thesis and antithesis can persist as balanced synthesis.

Conflating is failing to make this kind of systems argument and simply claiming two different things are the same thing … just because you’ve said that.

And the Enformationism thesis combines lots of those implications into the inference : that Generic (causal) information (power to enform) is equivalent to Energy, which transforms into Matter, and eventually emerges in complex entities as Mind* — Gnomon

All a bunch of hand-waving glued together by the causal placeholder of “emergence”.

Complexity is more than just complication. And I don’t see that you understand that.

For example, a human brain is a complex integrated system of neural & supportive cells, that are not in themselves conscious. But working together, they produce the ontic phenomenon that we call "Awareness" or "Aboutness". — Gnomon

This is what I mean. My approach of biosemiosis can specify exactly where the line gets crossed at the microphysical level to turn a molecule into a message. Pattee’s epistemic cut. There is a theory with biophysical evidence to be debated, not merely handwaving about things popping out because … more is different, or whatever.

It definitely isn’t. Holism is about the triadic story of the unity of opposites. Dialectics. You have to break a symmetry and discover its new equilibrium balance. You have to dichotomise and discover how this then leads to a self-stabilising asymmetry - a world where thesis and antithesis can persist as balanced synthesis. . . . .
All a bunch of hand-waving glued together by the causal placeholder of “emergence”. — apokrisis

I didn't intend to get into a technical argument about Dialectics or Biosemiotics or Triadics. I have no expertise in those arcane fields. Following your example though, I could accuse you of "hand-waving" or babbling, due to the use of technical terminology that I am not familiar with : "You have to dichotomise and discover how this then leads to a self-stabilising asymmetry". Do I really "have to"?

My "hand-waving" is coming from a completely different direction : Quantum Theory & Information Theory. Like your own personal favorite theories, Enformationism is complex, and can't be adequately explained in a forum post. That's why, for those who are really interested, I provide links to more complete explanations, and provide definitions for uncommon terminology right there in the post. Since you don't seem to be curious about other alternative theories for uniting Physics & Metaphysics --- I'll just dialog with other posters, who don't already have final answers of their own. :smile:

PS__As I understand your "hand waving", most of your holistic, triadic, and dialectic views are subsumed in the Enformationism thesis. They are just peripheral to the main course of Generic universal Information. As I get time, I may investigate the Biosemiotics approach, which "can specify exactly where the line gets crossed at the microphysical level to turn a molecule into a message". But my interest is more in the general philosophical implications, than in the particular scientific details.


Hand-waving : An incomplete, inadequate, superficial, surface, incomplete, or partial explanation
Basically it amounts to covering your ears.

An great idea there. You have nicely tied up ontology with epistemology. Which makes perfect sense as you can’t have one without the other, especially to the grander idea of meta verse.

This is crudely manifested by current corporations albeit badly so.

If our reality is based on layers of abstraction then the buck has to stop somewhere if you are to entertain notions of simulation or simulacra (which i!m not familiar with)

Here's a brief sample of personal opinions from individual scientists saying that Energy is the fundamental principle of the universe*2. — Gnomon

In philosophy, energy cannot be the fundamental existent as it is not a thing.

1. It is not a thing like perceptible thing.
2. It is not a result of a logical meditation, like Descartes's. dualism.
3. It is not any of Aristotle's 4 causes:
a. material
b. efficient
c. formal
d. final
4. It is not a perception out of ordinary experience.

What it is, is a capacity or a measurement for a thing to do work.

I think you are misunderstanding what energy is. In science, energy "exists". But in metaphysics, energy is not a categorical substance or entity or thing.

When you say that energy is the fundamental thing in the universe, it is like saying inches or miles is the fundamental thing in the universe.

In philosophy, energy cannot be the fundamental existent as it is not a thing. — L'éléphant

How would you conflate the current idea that matter = energy?

Metaphysicaly speaking of course conscious effort to think is that not energy in some form or something else entirely?

Sorry, I don't understand how you write. So, I won't be responding to your post. Nothing personal.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear, ideas themselves require no energy to be elucidated or thought …yet…there must be something producing them…could that not be some type of energy?

Perhaps I wasn’t clear, ideas itself require no energy themselves to be elucidated or thought yet…there must be something producing then…could that not be some type of energy? — simplyG

Assumption can be dangerous. Think deeper. Is energy a cause of ideas? I refer you to Aristotle's 4 causes.

Cause 4 seems to answer the question fully. With material and efficient answering equally well, as brains and ideas are products of material minds. Cause 1.a

Question answered I guess. The rest seems to be a question for neuroscience when it comes to the thinking of ideas. But as was made clear by the four causes, 4 is the perfect answer here.

↪Gnomon
When you say that energy is the fundamental thing in the universe, it is like saying inches or miles is the fundamental thing in the universe. — L'éléphant

No. Inches & miles are conventional measures of space, not space itself.

If you want the details behind the Energy is Fundamental concept, you'll have to consult the scientists who came to that conclusion*1. But not all scientists agree*2. Yet, the notion that a mathematical Field is popping with Virtual (not yet real) Energy, while spookier, is in agreement with my general thesis.

Anyway, what's fundamental for theoretical Philosophy (Causation) may not necessarily be fundamental for empirical Physics (Effects). Actually, for my thesis I begin with Generic Information (power to cause change in form) as the fundamental force in the universe. So, what we know as physical Energy is merely one of many forms derived from that First Cause. By "fundamental", I'm not talking about quantitative measurements, but about qualitative essences*3. :smile:


*1. What's Really Fundamental In Physics? :
In the end, almost none of this matters for the introductory physics courses, where we can mostly get away with the loose operational definition of "fundamental" as "the most basic elements you need to solve the kinds of problems you're interested in."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chadorzel/2016/10/26/whats-really-fundamental-in-physics/?sh=28fa9fca61fb

*2. Fields are fundamental :
Energy is a derived quantity, not a fundamental one. Specifically, energy is an example of a conserved current derived from Noether's theorem. The most fundamental things in the universe, at least according to modern Standard Model orthodoxy, are the following: Quantum fields.
https://www.quora.com/Is-energy-the-fundamental-basis-of-the-universe

*3. Essence :
the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character.
___Oxford

Metaphysicaly speaking of course conscious effort to think is that not energy in some form or something else entirely? — simplyG

Yes, but for metaphysical (mental) questions, I prefer to use the more philosophical term "Cause" instead of the scientific notion of "Energy". While related, they are not the same thing. :smile:

Cause? But what causes a cause ? I can only assume it’s self caused and material as per Aristotle though an an unconscious one. Not too sure about this though from a metaphysical perspective because I’m making an assumption that it comes from my unconscious somewhere…

Well done as usual ...

I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies. — Ash, a severed head

Re: @Gnomon
(handwaving wankery)

Cause? But what causes a cause ? I can only assume it’s self caused and material as per Aristotle though an an unconscious one. Not too sure about this though from a metaphysical perspective because I’m making an assumption that it comes from my unconscious somewhere… — simplyG

Plato and Aristotle used the term "First Cause" to explain, without hard evidence, what causes a physical cause in the world. Apparently they simply traced the chain of causation back to a hypothetical Uncaused Cause or Unmoved Mover. So yes, the First Cause must be self-caused or self-existent. But that sounds like a God, so it will be knee-jerked as blasphemous to the Materialist/Physicalist belief system, in which the world "just is", without further philosophical conjecture. Perhaps such a metaphysical notion "comes from your unconscious", but for the Greek philosophers it was supposed to come from the conscious exercise of Reason/Logic. :smile:

"The First Cause" .... "just is". :roll:

It's far more parsimonious and reasonable to posit that the cosmos "just is" (i.e. eternal, though changing), as Aristotle did in Books I & VIII of his Physics^^, than to confabulate any nonevident and redundant terms (e.g. "first cause", "unmoved mover" from the posthumous kluge of Aristotle's "Metaphysics").

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_of_the_world ^^

Proclus, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, Giordano Bruno & Spinoza, for example, agree (more or less) with Aristotle's "eternal cosmos" rather than his "first cause" fiat. No "materialists/reductivists" required. And further relegating "the first cause" to history's dustbin is modern cosmology's model of eternal inflation by Alan Guth and Roger Penrose's conformal cyclic cosmos as well as the Hartle-Hawking's No Boundary proposal.

@Gnomon :eyes: :sweat:

An great idea there. You have nicely tied up ontology with epistemology. Which makes perfect sense as you can’t have one without the other, especially to the grander idea of meta verse. — simplyG

Thanks! I just got back from a road trip (to see the iconic Canadian band "Lighthouse - they rocked the roof off) where I found some excellent used books. Michael Polanyi's Personal Knowledge looks relevant to this topic, per the cover notes: "Even in the exact sciences, "knowing" is an art, of which the skill of the knower, guided by his personal commitment and his passionate sense of increasing contact with reality, is a logically necessary part."

This holistic view of knowledge and "increasing contact with reality" exemplifies the metaphysical project; it's also similar to the Cassirer I'm currently reading. I also picked up a book on the metaphysics of R.G. Collingwood (Collingwood and the Reform of Metaphysics) that I hope will also prove edifying.

But as was made clear by the four causes, 4 is the perfect answer here. — simplyG

How so? Energy is not a cause.

Inches & miles are conventional measures of space, not space itself. — Gnomon

Energy is a measure of capacity, not the thing it is measuring. It is not a cause. It cannot be a cause. It is also not a thing that exists as if it has a categorical substance. Please define "energy". If energy exists, it's because there are things!

But as was made clear by the four causes, 4 is the perfect answer here. — simplyG

How so? Energy is not a cause.

Inches & miles are conventional measures of space, not space itself. — Gnomon

Energy is a measure of capacity, not the thing it is measuring. It is not a cause. It cannot be a cause. It is also not a thing that exists as if it has a categorical substance. Please define "energy". If energy exists, it's because there are things! — L'éléphant

I suppose you are restricting the term "cause" to some particular traditional definition. But and Gnomon are simply including a modern term from physics in the ancient notion of "causation". Because, as you say, it's not a physical thing, most attempts to define what-Energy-is are quite vague : ability, capacity, etc. Plato & Aristotle were forced to use gods or other metaphors to define their notion of Causation. Even the Wiki definition below sounds a bit mysterious or ghostly*1.

Some people still think of Energy as a material substance or fluid of some kind. But it's now clear that Energy does not have a material existence. Instead, it is merely a (mathematical??) relationship between things*2. Not a thing itself. And the kind of relationship is Causal (change). The expanded post-Shannon theory of Information has equated mental (meaningful) Information with physical causal Energy*3. What kind of relationship can cause a change of form in a thing? A causal relationship?

If the ability or capacity or power or force that we refer to as Energy is not a Cause, what is it? Isn't Causation what Energy does? Yet Energy is only detectable in its causal effects, not in its per se identity. So yes, if there were no material things, there would be no causal relationships, that we call "energy". One way to define that interrelationship is E=MC^2, where the constant "C" is a dimensionless ratio*4. But a Ratio is not a physical thing, it's a metaphysical idea. No? :smile:


*1. Aristotle considers the formal "cause" (εἶδος, eîdos) as describing the pattern or form which when present makes matter into a particular type of thing, which we recognize as being of that particular type.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes
Note -- The terms "pattern" & "form" in this definition imply that a Cause is the power to enform : to change the defining pattern or conceptual form of a thing. Thus placing Causation & Energy into the broader post-Shannon category of general Information, that allows a mind to "recognize" a type of thing, but can also change the form of the thing, to place it into a different category (e.g. phase change). If you are only aware of the narrow Shannon definition of Information, this may not make sense. But even Shannon noticed the relationship of Information to Entropy (the inverse of Energy).

*2. Can energy exist by itself? :
Energy is relative, but what's interesting that for any observer, it's always conserved. No matter what the interactions are, energy is never seen to exist on its own, but only as part of a system
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/03/25/ask-ethan-is-there-any-such-thing-as-pure-energy/?sh=3d889e43762a
Note -- Hence, Energy is a Holistic (mathematical/metaphysical) relationship between elements & systems

*3. Energy & Information :
Research into the relation between energy and information goes back many years, but the era of precise yet general quantification of information began only with Claude E. Shannon's famous 1948 paper "The Mathematical Theory of Communication." . . . . recent advances in information theory how why information is needed for transformations of energy.
https://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/conteudo_thumb/Energy-and-Information.pdf

*4. Dimensionless Ratio :
A dimensionless ratio calculated by dividing the amount of useful energy provided by a given activity by the culturally mediated energy dissipated in providing it.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/dimensionless-ratio

I suppose you are restricting the term "cause" to some particular traditional definition. — Gnomon

How else are you defining it then?

But it's now clear that Energy does not have a material existence. Instead, it is merely a (mathematical??) relationship between things*2 — Gnomon

Then it fails to be a thing (being a thing would qualify it as a candidate for the fundamental reality or existent.

If the ability or capacity or power or force that we refer to as Energy is not a Cause, what is it? Isn't Causation what Energy does? — Gnomon

That's for you to explain in this thread. I'm waiting for an explanation as to why it is a cause, and why it is fundamental.

Energy is relative, but what's interesting that for any observer, it's always conserved. — Gnomon

If it's relative, then it cannot be a cause. It's also contradictory to "conserved".

Food for thought for you: Gravity is also just there. Why is gravity not the ultimate reality?

:up: :up:

In philosophy, energy cannot be the fundamental existent as it is not a thing. — L'éléphant

Really? I had the idea that since e=mc² that energy - which is interchangeable with matter through said equation - was THE fundamental existent.

Incidentally the definition of energy is 'the capacity to do work'. Very simple. So it's not an object as such, but it has definite and measurable existence. The power grid would be in all kinds of trouble if it didn't.

I suppose you are restricting the term "cause" to some particular traditional definition. — Gnomon
How else are you defining it then? — L'éléphant

I was hoping you would tell me where you got the idea of Causation without Energy : "Energy is not a cause". Philosopher David Hume discussed the mysteries of Causation at a time before scientists had pieced together our modern notion of Energy. He referred to the producer of causation as an "illusion"*1, but Einstein might say it is a "stubborn illusion", that there is some kind of physical "connection" between Cause & Effect*2. Now we know that Energy is physical only as a subjective inference by Physicists, not an objective observation of a material substance flowing from one to the other.

Some people still imagine Energy as a fluid flowing*3 in a conduit (medium, ether) of some kind. But it's actually only a metaphorical "influence" (inflow). In my own thesis I define Energy as a form of Information (power to cause change in form or state), which is also a causal interrelationship (e.g. organization)*4, not a thing in itself. You could say that Energy/Causation is "science as metaphysics" *5. Energy is Aristotle's Efficient Cause. :smile:


*1. Causes, Causity, and Energy :
Our ordinary concept of causality is—as David Hume wisely underscored—the concept in which an event or change produces another event or change. This production is the central core of causation, and the objective component of it Hume analyzed as constant conjunction. As is well known, Hume emphasized that our notion of production or causation has a subjective component, namely, the illusion of a certain necessity in the connection between cause and effect.[/b]

*2. David Hume: Causation :
Causation is a relation between objects that we employ in our reasoning in order to yield less than demonstrative knowledge of the world beyond our immediate impressions.
https://iep.utm.edu/hume-causation/
Note --- The products of reasoning are metaphysical ideas, not physical things

*3. Causation and the flow of energy :
Causation has traditionally been analyzed either as a relation of nomic dependence or as arelation of counterfactual dependence. I argue for a third program, a physicalistic reduction of the causal relation to one of energy-momentum transference in the technical sense of physics.
https://philpapers.org/rec/FAICAT
Note --- "Nomic" dependence is how natural laws work. And those Laws are relationships, not material objects. If so, you could conclude that Energy (the medium of causation) is a Natural Law. Energy as "counterfactual dependence" again sounds like an illusion to me. But it's an almost universal illusion, due to our experience with "momentum transference". Yet again Momentum is not a material substance, but a relationship (mathematical ratio) between a Cause and an Effect : product of the mass and velocity. Both of which are relative, not independent objects.

*4. Information as Organization :
Data is defined as individual facts, while information is the organization and interpretation of those facts.
https://bloomfire.com/blog/data-vs-information/
Note --- to organize is to change pattern of interrelationships

*5. Is energy a substance or a fluid? :
Energy is not a substance, not something in the sense of “some thing”. Energy often appears to be a substance that flows, for example if charging a battery or an electrical capacitor.
https://www.science20.com/sascha_vongehr/energy_is_not_a_substance_and_how_to_easily_understand_this-231370
Note --- Energy is a metaphysical metaphor, not a physical substance

Incidentally the definition of energy is 'the capacity to do work'. — Wayfarer

Exactly. And that capacity is measured against the incapacity of a "gone to thermal equilibrium" system to do work. So energy as a measurable concept is derived from the more fundamental thing of entropy.

But oh wait. Entropy can't be fundamental as the Big Bang had to be some kind of highly negentropic and Planck energy dense state so that it could then unwind down to a Heat Death.

But oh wait. The kinetic energy of the Big Bang seems to have been in perfect balance with its gravitational potential energy, and hence its expansion was adiabatic, not really increasing or decreasing the total cosmic entropy count as the Universe flatly expands and coasts towards absolute zero degrees in infinite time.

But oh wait. The KE and PE doesn't quite add up to this flat balance after all. It seems there is this extra dark energy that now ensures the Universe reaches its energyless heat death condition in finite time. The trajectory is faintly hyperbolic rather than flat. The Universe will wind up closed by its holographic information limits – the de Sitter solution where space keeps expanding, but this space will be empty of everything but the faint sizzle of the quantum vacuum itself. A kind of content that is only virtual.

But oh wait. Be sure that science still has a bit of distance to digging its way down to the bottom of all this metaphysics.

Entropy and information are concepts getting us somewhere. But that is mainly to the next level of intelligible, or counterfactually-posed, questioning.

Really? I had the idea that since e=mc2 that energy - which is interchangeable with matter through said equation - was THE fundamental existent. — Wayfarer

Apparently, the status of Energy is still debated by physicists. For example a mathematician might assert that "Energy is a derived quantity, not a fundamental one." Yet, a Physicist might insist that "Both force and energy are concepts which are frame-dependent". As a mathematical equation or physical formulation --- E=MC^2 --- that relativity might be true. But derived from what? Perhaps our physical notion of Energy is derived from observations of actual Causation. Which is still not a material thing, but the implicit invisible directional process underlying physical change.

Energy per se does not tell us anything about Existence. It's only about Change & Evolution. Consequently, some kind of philosophical pre-Bang First Cause is necessary to explain the Ontology of both Material existence and Effective causation. But that's even more Mysterious than even immaterial mathematical conceptual Energy. Therefore, I have concluded that Metaphysical EnFormAction (the potential to convert Possible into Actual, Ideal into Real, Energy into Matter) is the Ontological fundamental. Yet, even that material Causation might be secondary to ontological Creation.

All that aside, I still agree with you that Energy (the concept) is epistemologically fundamental to the science of Physics, which is all about Change. Yet, in this Science as Metaphysics thread, to avoid misunderstandings, we may need to specify whether we are talking about Physics (science ; energy) or about Meta-Physics (philosophy ; enformation). :smile:

... we may need to specify whether we are talking about Physics (science ; energy [experimental transformations]) or about Meta-Physics (philosophy; enformation [reflective interpretations]). — Gnomon

In other words, we're talking either about hypothetical explanations for physical systems¹ or about categorical interpretations² of those explanations, respectively; the latter (metaphysics) says nothing about the objects¹ of the former (physics) but only about how to construct² a 'coherent, presuppositional / systematic synopsis' of the former. Any attempt to say 'more than physics about phusis' rather than 'generalizing from² physics about phusis' is pseudo-physics (woo) rather than metaphysics (reason). Like all X-of-the-gaps fiats (& other crackpottery), Gnomon, your so-called "Enformer" does not solve any problem in fundamental physics or cosmology and, in philosophy, merely substitutes an unknowable for a known unknown, which via infinite regress, only begs the question (Why is there anything at all? "Because the Enformer enforms all". :roll: :shade: :sweat:)