---
slug: oip-node-c06-information-entropy-compression
title: Node C06: Information / Entropy / Compression
canonical: https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-node-c06-information-entropy-compression
---

# Node C06: Information / Entropy / Compression

C06 — Information / Entropy / Compression
{
  "id": "C06",
  "claim": "Order is compressibility; physical erasure of information has a minimum thermodynamic cost of kT ln(2) per bit; information is physical.",
  "domain": ["communications engineering", "statistical mechanics", "quantum computing", "machine_learning", "molecular_biology"],
  "pattern": ["entropy_as_information", "Landauer_bound", "MaxEnt", "compression"],
  "mechanism": "Shannon entropy H = -Σ p_i log p_i measures information content. Boltzmann entropy S = k ln W counts microstates. Landauer: erasing one bit of information requires dissipation of at least kT ln(2) of heat — information destruction is irreversible and physical. Kolmogorov complexity: the shortest program that produces a string is its information content.",
  "scale": "quantum → cosmic",
  "claim_tier": "T0/T1",
  "sources": [
    "Shannon, C.E. (1948). 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication.' Bell System Tech. J., 27, 379-423, 623-656.",
    "Landauer, R. (1961). 'Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Process.' IBM J. Res. Dev., 5(3), 183-191.",
    "Jaynes, E.T. (1957). 'Information Theory and Statistical Mechanics.' Phys. Rev., 106(4), 620-630.",
    "Kolmogorov, A.N. (1965). 'Three Approaches to the Quantitative Definition of Information.' Probl. Peredachi Inf., 1(1), 3-11.",
    "Bennett, C.H. (1982). 'The Thermodynamics of Computation.' Int. J. Theor. Phys., 21(12), 905-940."
  ],
  "dual": "Noise / incompressibility — maximum entropy, no pattern to encode.",
  "falsifier": "Information erasure below the Landauer bound (dissipation < kT ln(2) per bit) in a physically realizable process; or information processing with no physical substrate.",
  "rival_frame": "Information is a human construct mapped onto physics. The Landauer bound is a calculation about a specific model of computation, not a fundamental physical limit. 'Information is physical' is a metaphorical extension of thermodynamic vocabulary to abstract domains.",
  "independence_check": "HIGH. Shannon (Bell Labs, 1948) derived entropy from communication engineering — minimizing transmission cost. Boltzmann/Gibbs (statistical mechanics, 1870s-1900s) derived entropy from counting gas microstates. Landauer (IBM, 1961) derived the bound from thermodynamics of computation. Kolmogorov (Soviet mathematics, 1965) derived complexity from algorithmic theory. Four fields, four nations, four decades, unified result: information and entropy are the same quantity.",
  "pattern_type": "mathematical",
  "maps_to_axiom": ["A2", "A11", "A7"]
}

---

## Corpus map
- Same node, other planes: [Encyclopedia C06](/a/convergence-encyclopedia-c06) · [Inventory invariant](/a/oip-invariant-10-310-information-entropy-compression)
- Edges touching C06: [convergence edge 5](/a/oip-convergence-edge-5)
- Catalogue hub: [Public Article](/a/oip-convergence-public-article) · [Schema](/a/oip-convergence-schema)
