In the first phase in 1959, there was Swanson’s metaphysical assertion that information can be defined per unit volume rather than per symbol as in Shannon’s information theory. Three sorts of practical concerns can be seen to be operating in three phases throughout this conceptual development. These conceptual shifts were characterized by a pronounced ambivalence between strong metaphysical shifts and practical concerns. Swanson’s work prompted Rolf Landauer to formulate what became known as “Landauer’s principle” that connected the erasure of information-a logical operation-to a thermodynamic process, dissipating heat. These two shifts allowed him to use the tools and concepts of Claude Shannon’s information theory in his study of physical computer memory. He also shifted the concept of memory from a way of storing information to a delayed transmission of information. John Swanson made the transition from writing about the information stored per symbol in information theory to writing about information per volume of a computer memory device. This began in the institutional context of IBM’s research division from the late 1950s and 1960s. And it displays a fundamental tension between the practical exigencies of computing and metaphysical claims. It elucidates a moment in the history of physics and computing when a disembodied, theoretical concept became physical. This paper traces the genealogical origins of how computers came to forget. Metaphorically twinned logical/physical systems moved toward forgetting information. A logical operation called “ restore to one” became “erasure” and was equivalent to the erasing of logical histories these logical entities were taken to reside in physical objects or to be physical objects. It begins with a careful examination of how disembodied formal concepts like information were merged with physical concepts like volume and entropy in 1959 at IBM in a discourse about the fundamental limits of computing. This paper charts conceptual shifts in the development of the thermodynamics of information as practiced at IBM from 1959 to 1982 (see Table 1). Third, arguments for metaphysical certainties were made in the context of establishing the thermodynamics of information as a sub-discipline of physics. Second, arguments for metaphysical certainties were made with reference to the practical functioning of typical computers.
First, these conceptual shifts engaged materials central to IBM’s business practice. Three sorts of practical considerations are discussed. These conceptual shifts were characterized by an ambivalence opposing strong metaphysical claims to practical considerations. This development was characterized by multiple conceptual shifts: memory came to be seen not as information storage, but as delayed information transmission information itself was seen not as a disembodied logical entity, but as participating in the physical world and logical irreversibility was connected with physical, thermodynamic, irreversibility. The origin and history of Landauer’s principle is traced through the development of the thermodynamics of computation at IBM from 1959 to 1982.
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