Physics Causing Abundance, Possibly a New Science

December 30, 2009 · Posted in innovation 

I suspect there is a physical constant at the core of abundance. I believe the constant is related to the relationship between the amount of information and the amount of matter involved in providing a good. This could be a huge break through for science and economics.

I don’t have the resources to explore this idea so I’m tossing it out there for someone else to develop. All I ask is you credit me with the concept. If someone wants to provide the resources I would gladly do the research.

Many people have heard of Moore’s Law or at least the effect. The number of components that fit on to a microchip doubles every 18 months. That means every 18 months new electronics such as computers are twice as powerful as the previous generation. Moores Law has been functioning consistently since the 1970’s.

Ray Kurzweil has a presentation where he points out computers aren’t the only thing with the doubling effect.
Almost all technology has some doubling. The rates of doubling are different for each technology but each one has a consistent doubling rate. So why is the rate consistent?

Innovation is an information processing activity. You analyze desires, which are information, then use information to affect something physically resulting in the desire being satisfied. There is a material component and an informational component to innovation. In fact everything in the universe has an informational component. Which brings up the question does information itself exist inside the universe. Quite possibly information does not exist in the universe.

What I believe this all means is that the more the desired effect is caused by information and the less by some form of matter the faster it moves to abundance. You could also say the ratio of information to matter is the abundance of the good. Memes are 100% information. Although memes do require some matter in the form of being repeated or a place in our brains so they might not truly be 100%. Digital music is nearly 100% information. It requires more matter to hold onto and transmit the information than a meme.

DNA is just information. Kurzweil claims the amount of DNA being sequenced doubles every year. The fact its rate of doubling is faster than electronic components fits with the theory that its mostly information. Kurzweil also says the energy produced by photovoltaic cells doubles every 2 years. That is longer than Moores Law and it figures since collecting solar energy is more physical than information.

Figuring out the core of that ratio could be extremely powerful for medicine, economics, physics, psychology, basically everything. It would allow you to predict the growth curve of something that does not even exist yet. It would also shed light on entropy and the beginning and end of the universe.

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