The Problem of Universals - Porphyry's "fateful question, - Do the categories exist?," is seen to be a question of an informational isomorphism between our ideas and things in the world.

The Arrow of Time - Arthur Stanley Eddington connected "Time's Arrow" with the direction of increasing entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. We now show that it is also the direction of increasing information. It is the same direction as the "radiation" arrow (outgoing spherical waves) because 1) incoming spherical waves of radiation are impossible, and 2) the outgoing spherical waves are only the immaterial possibilities of detecting quanta of energy or material particles. There is no unified field theory, because there are no fields. There are only particles. Fields are averages over particles. The fundamental arrow of time is the expansion of the universe, making all the other arrows possible and observable.

The "collapse" of the wave function can occur whenever there is an interaction between matter and energy (or matter and matter). Measurements are a miniscule fraction of all interactions. The universe is its own observer. The mysterious "collapse" is a question about possibilities, probabilities, and actuality. Nothing actually moves in the "collapse." One possibility becomes actual. The others disappear.

Entanglement is a mysterious quantum phenomenon that seems capable of transmitting information over vast distances faster than the speed of light, a property called nonlocality, first seen by Einstein in 1905. Information physics shows that although new information comes into existence simultaneously at space-like separated points, no faster-than-light signaling is possible, since neither matter nor energy is transmitted. Two particles appear simultaneously and far apart, with their properties perfectly correlated to satisfy the conservation principles for mass, energy, momentum, angular momentum, and spin.

The collapse of the two-particle wave function in the EPR experiment is the same mystery as the one in the two-slit experiment. But now there are two particles and they appear instantly and simultaneously, despite their space-like separation, because of nonlocality and nonseparability. This can be seen by reformulating the EPR paradox using a special frame of reference in which the source of the entangled particles and the observers are at rest.

When identical and indistinguishable particles are entangled, their later disentanglement happens symmetrically and synchronously in the special frame of reference in which their entanglement source (and their mean motion) is at rest. The EPR paradox is caused by the observer introducing an asymmetry where none exists, privileging "here" and "now" over "there" and "then." Einstein mistakenly introduced this false asymmetry into a perfectly symmetric situation.

The Horizon, Flatness, and Missing Mass Problems in Cosmology - The universe is flat because it was created from an empty universe, which is also flat. Leibniz' question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is simply answered. The universe is made out of something and the equal opposite of that something. The missing mass needed to achieve flatness may be dark matter in the intergalactic medium, but this does not explain the apparent acceleration of the universe expansion (dark energy), which may not be real, the result of misinterpretation of observational evidence.

We solve the horizon problem by accepting Einstein's insight that in the wave-function collapse something appears to be "traveling" faster than the speed of light. That something is information about possibilities. When the universal wave function Ψ collapsed at t = 0, entangled parts of the universe that are now outside our current light horizon were "informed" that it was time to start.

Questions of Infinity include: Time: Is it infinite? There appears to be only a finite past but an infinite possible future. 2) Space: If it is infinite, how did infinitely distance places know how to synchronize their starting time with us (the horizon problem. 3) Fields: Do they contain infinite information? Algorithmic information theory tells us a field contains only the amount needed to specify it. Thus a gravitation field is defined through all space for a large mass M and a test particle m as exerting a force F = GMm/r². But there is nothing substantial at an arbitrary point r. There is information there, in the form of knowledge about the gravitational force on m iff m is at that point. This is called "action-at-a-distance," but is better thought of as "knowledge-at-a-distance."

The "Interpretation" Problem of Quantum Mechanics - The Information Interpretation is the Copenhagen Interpretation plus information and minus the Conscious Observer. I-Phi interprets the wave function ψ as a "possibilities" function. I-Phi accepts the principle of superposition, the axiom of measurement, and the projection postulate of standard quantum mechanics. But a conscious observer is not required for the "collapse of the wave-function".

The collapse (also known as the "reduction of the wave packet") occurs whenever there is an interaction of a quantum system with another system (a "measurement") that reduces multiple possibilities to a single actuality, generating new information. Contrary to the usual understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, both the entropy and the negative entropy (information) increase.

The transformation theory of Dirac and Jordan lets us represent ψ by expanding it in a set of basis functions for which the combined quantum system and measurement apparatus has eigenvalues. ψ is now in a superposition of those "possible" eigenfunctions. Quantum mechanics lets us calculate the probabilities of each of those "possibilities." Interaction with the measurement apparatus (or indeed interaction with any other system) may project out one of those possibilities as an actuality. But for this event to be an "observable" (a John Bell "beable"), information must be created and positive entropy must be transferred away from the new information structure, in accordance with our two-stage information creation process.

Macroscopic Recurrence - Ernst Zermelo argued against Ludwig Boltzmann's H-Theorem (his derivation of the second law of thermodynamics), on the grounds that given enough time, any system would return to the same starting conditions and thus entropy must decrease as well as increase. Information physics shows that exactly the same circumstances can never recur. Friedrich Nietzsche's "Eternal Return of the Same" is a physical impossibility, because of the increasing information in the universe.

The Measurement Problem - We explain how our measuring instruments, which are usually macroscopic objects and treatable with "adequately determined" classical physics, can give us information about the microscopic world of atoms and subatomic particles like electrons and photons, which are described with quantum physics. The so-called "cut" between the quantum and classical worlds occurs at the moment that stable observable information enters the world. It does not require the consciousness of an observer. The reason that there are no macroscopic superpositions (e.g., Schrödinger's Cat) is that when the "possibilities function" ψ becomes actual, entropy is transferred away from the new "adequately determined" information structure, probability amplitudes become probabilities, and superposition with interference is no longer a "possibility."

Microscopic Reversibility - Joseph Loschmidt also argued against Ludwig Boltzmann's H-Theorem, on the grounds that if time were reversed the entropy would decrease. Boltzmann agreed that it would, according to his initial version of the H-Theorem which was derived from classical dynamical physics. He later defended his case for entropy increase on the basis of probabilities and an assumption of "molecular disorder." A quantum-mechanical treatment of binary (two-particle) collisions confirms the correctness of Boltzmann's "molecular disorder" assumption. Information physics explains the origin of irreversibility, confirming Albert Einstein's insight that the elementary processes of interaction between matter and radiation have no inverses. In particular, there are no incoming spherical waves of radiation.

Part Two - Knowledge