Information Isn't Free. Even Demons Must Pay

Information isn't just an abstract concept—it has real, physical consequences. Physicists and engineers have long treated information in different ways: one as bits in a message, the other as something tied to the fundamental laws of nature.

But Maxwell’s Demon, a thought experiment from the 19th century, revealed a strange connection between information and entropy, suggesting that processing information isn’t free—it has an energy cost. If erasing information increases entropy, what does that mean for things that think?

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