Re: The "weight" of information


N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc) wrote:
Dear Shepard Moon:

"Shepherd Moon" <shepherdmoon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1167870981.205580.25300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
...
Thanks to everyone for their replies. I may post this
in talk.origins or sci.physics, because I have a
feeling this creationist would dispute that you
cannot think unless you have a blood supply to
your brain.

All he / she has to do is show that it can be done. Now consider
"near death experiences", where in fact no blood is flowing
through the brain.

He probably is using this very example to claim
that some form of thought is possible independent
of any material.

Personally, I don't know of any information that
can be called information (including disembodied
thoughts) that is not encoded in matter or energy.

| Also, I'm sure there is a way to calculate that
| the net effect after the message is created and
| erased is a net increase in entropy for the
| system.

If the state has not changed there is no change
in entropy.

Isn't there a change of state from no message to
scrawled message, and then from scrawled
message to no message but with a good chance
that most of the sand grains are in different
locations, possibly with different energy in them?

Ideal sand, no change in entropy. Real sand, some grains will be
slightly chipped and in general smaller, with the addition of
"dust".

I'm just trying to understand this part here, not
challenge you. I'm not even sure the differences
I'm asking about amount to anything anyway
with regard to the sand box experiment.

| Since more energy is needed to erase the message,
| it seems that the box would have even more
| mass-energy at the end of this experiment.

It does, it is warmer.
Weighing a bowl of apples and oranges gives the
mass of fruit, but apples do not turn into oranges
or heat into mass.

Sorry, I don't follow you. Could you elaborate?

Sorcerer does not believe that energy contributes to a system's
rest mass. It actually does. Measuring it is another problem.

Consider that "information" is "pattern". "Pattern" is a
non-random state. But the differences between random and
non-random may not require any net change in energy,
center-of-mass, or mass.

A hard drive weighs the same if it has the Bible, porn, or
Windoze.

Weight is a quantity that is reference frame dependent but entropy is
an invariant.

Mike






David A. Smith

.

Relevant Pages

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