The Necessity of Information for Far-from-equilibrium Persistence

Key Contributions Information processing is established as a physical necessity for a far-from-equilibrium system to sustain non-zero persistence probability over extended horizons. Information-driven efficiency gains enable the system to accumulate energetic surplus, providing energetic liquidity to absorb stochastic shocks. Sustaining surplus and thus persistence requires a control regime implementing information-enabled regulation—equivalent to an embedded Maxwell’s demon. The framework extends the theoretical lineage from Maxwell’s demon to Schrödinger’s negentropy and Landauer’s principle, independent of specific substrate instantiation. Concepts Informational Work (Winfo) as a partitioned First Law ledger energy term Winfo — cost of information — dependent on bit rate, substrate activation, substrate efficiency, and erasures System persistence: Information supports energetic surplus, enabling stochastic survival under non-stationarity Thermodynamic Encoding Criterion (TEC) — Radix 2 encoding as energetically most efficient for encoding and signaling