Lankaputra, just a quick observation here, I have not thought about this deeply. Since you prompted me to ask if there is any connection between nama-rupa in Buddhism and information in physics, I said there is no natural connection that I see. I prefer to let the connection jump at me rather than to construct one to fit in both sides. Now I got a bit of a feeling of that connection, but haven’t think it through, so it’s most likely wrong. And definitely the following counts as more fabrications, not helpful towards enlightenment.
This seems to me that the forms, rupa can be mapped to quantum information.
Quantum information is basically the information that is encoded in quantum systems. As everything is made up of quantum systems fundamentally, we all are encoded by quantum information. Theoretically, it means that if we apply Schrodinger’s equation to the wave function of the world, we can see it evolves. And by the requirements of the math in quantum mechanics, to maintain probability for evolution to be 100% evolves to 100% probability (technical term for this is unitary), quantum information of the wave functions can never be lost. This is why the black hole information paradox caused such an uproar in theoretical physics a few years ago. It ended with most physicist now think quantum mechanics is safe, quantum information is never lost, they change by evolution, can be teleported from one location to another, but can never be erased and cannot be cloned (cannot copy and paste, unlike classical information).
So quantum information can represent what is out there as it is, rupa, forms. As things are made up of the same stuffs like atoms, molecules, and the one giving variation to them is quantum information; physicists are now inclined to think that information matters more than matter. In other words, information is physical.
Nama is the label we give to those forms. It can correspond to classical information.
Classical information is like the bits we use on computers. We are familiar with storage, MB, GB etc… we know how to manipulate them, erase them (and caused heat to be released as the second law of thermodynamics requires), clone them, etc. It can be created too as we learn more about the universe, as our computers churn out new models, simulations, data is gathered from experiments, data generated by users online. Data needed to feed into AI of deep learning, all these are classical information. Including information in books, memory etc.
If nama is just labels, concepts, things we can create, it is like classical information. For we can create new stuffs, stories, concepts and write a fiction novel, it’s like producing classical information and using labels and concepts. A criticism here can be that classical information is seen now as physical (as we can have mathematical laws describing them), yet nama is seen as part of the mind. Maybe the boundaries blur here?
The tricky part is I am assuming new properties for nama-rupa which corresponds to the properties of the classical-quantum information above by just seeing one tiny link of possible interface link. This might not be permissible or even true.
This brings out another connection. This one is more involved and more flimsy, I am absolutely not sure about it at all. See this as more of a parallel connection and not the ultimate truth thingy. It might not even be internally consistent. So here goes.
I assume here that consciousness can perform quantum entanglement with rupa, maybe via nama. That maps to the dependent arising. (In the 12 links model, consciousness conditions nama-rupa directly.) I am also mapping craving to quantum entanglement here. It’s crude, and likely inaccurate as one is mental, another physical. Only the name might be similar.
Nibbana is described as timeless, unchanging, untangled, unbounded. So in physics terms it seems to require no quantum entanglement with the rest of the world and no time as well.
Just nice there come along the experiments in physics that says time emergence because of quantum entanglement with the world. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1310.4691.pdf
A more layman article is here: https://resonance.is/change-for-a-paradigm-new-experiment-shows-how-time-may-emerge-from-quantum-entanglement/
A few properties of quantum entanglement maybe good to clarify here. Quantum entanglement is non-local connection between two or more particles once they interacted. Non-local means it does not matter how far apart they are, the connections acts instantly (we dunno what instantly means in light of special relativity). It also cannot allow us to transfer information faster than light. We can also create quantum entanglement between two particles which never interacted via quantum entanglement swapping with other quantum entangled particles. Quantum Entanglement is not conserved, it can be created and in quantum information science acts like a resource for quantum computing. Quantum entanglement is needed for quantum teleportation (transfer of quantum information from one location to another limited to light speed, without that information existing anywhere else in between). Quantum entanglement produces correlations between particles which cannot be explained by using classical means. None of these seems to suggest any natural connection to craving or attachment, other than the name (which is merely a label) and the neat experiment above and requiring a lot more tentative mapping.
So seen from this angle, the task of meditation is to see clearly how we entangle with the world to create nama-rupa and craving keeps it moving on and on. With mindfulness, we might learn how this process happens and see that it’s not worth entangling with the world and thus letting go of craving and timelessness appears. I have no idea how to map this to living arahants. I haven’t got any good mapping of the role of mindfulness and wisdom in physics too. Largely because I am not super familiar with what stops quantum entanglement from being created.
Oh and if you are attached to this flimsy parallel, remember that even the Dhamma is to let go of, what more these mental fabrications?