Is Semantic Physical?!

Introduction

The strategic commitments undertaken within the Kyoto protocol are best highlighted by the initiation of a wide range of activities within each of its objectives. They outline the following assignments that have enormous impact on all aspects of the human activity:

• 1.

  Ascertaining a general strategy that breaks the tendency to meet the rapidly growing utilization demands to the human-made products through downsizing the size of elements and their doubling in number because of the extensive growth of the energy costs that accompanies it. This problem gives rise to the question whether there is another, more successful with respect to the energy efficiency, relation between the structure of complex systems and their functioning. The intrigue that lies in the problem is set by the trap between the matter organization governed by the physical laws which, in their traditional understanding, are passive to any form of information and hence are passive to the effectiveness of functioning measured by the created and transmitted information.

The problem is that, counter to our intuition and experience, the physical laws do not consider any functional relation between energy and information and thus makes the effectiveness of the functioning passive to the particularities of the applied stimuli and the self-structuring of the system. The critical dilemma is whether the solution of the problem needs fundamental reformulation of the physics or it should be considered as a separate field of engineering science. A decisive argument in favor of the first alternative is that all natural and human-made objects and all living organisms are made of atoms and molecules whose behavior is governed by physical laws. A strong argument in favor of the second alternative comes from the thermodynamics that predicts the work of heat machines and justifies prohibition of the perpetuum mobile but at the expense of considering macroscopic properties described only probabilistically and insensitive to the dynamics of its constituents. The confrontation between these alternatives goes down to the basic principles of thermodynamics because its postulation that the energy is always an extensive variable renders the energy cost of any response fixed to the sum of the energy of the constituents and thus makes it insensitive to the structural organization and its functioning.

• 2.

  It is generally expected that without disruptive new technologies, the ever-increasing computing performance (commonly known as Moore`s law) and the storage capacity achieved with existing technologies will eventually reach a plateau. At present, the scientific community cannot establish consensus on what type of technology and computer architecture holds most promises to keep up the current pace of progress. However, we comprehend the major move ahead not as the best choice among the variety of contemplated future and emerging technologies (quantum computers, molecular electronics, nano-electonics, optical computers and quantum-dot cellular automata) but in establishing grounding principles of a next generation performance strategy that opens the door to realization of a functional circuit capable to autonomous comprehending and creating information.