Energy and information: a chronicle of hesitations on the role of the observer in physics

Energy is a fundamental concept in physics which, since its origins in the 19th century with thermodynamics, has been intimately linked to the observer and the information he has. But this connection conflicts with the Plato’s and Descartes’ dualism of body and mind, which leads us to hope to access, by the mean of reason, to the intrinsic properties of things. This dualism is traditionally opposed by the materialist monism of Aristotle and Epicurus: everything is only matter and our knowledge of the world can only come from its observation. But how then can we justify the use of logic? Unexpectedly, this age-old debate continues uninterrupted to this day. Its chronicle shows us the clash and alternating influence of these two conceptions of the object of science, which have driven its progress.

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