On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 5:28 PM, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]>wrote:
> I thought that the whole point of information theory is to move beyond > quality into pure quantification. Yes. > > the suggestion that information can be defined as not having anything to > do with the difference between order and the absence of order is laughably > preposterous Yes. > The idea that a bucket of water has more 'information' than DNA is > meaningless. > What word didn't you understand? >> No, if its repeating then it would have less information, that is to >> say it would take less information to describe the result. >> > > > > Of course, but how does that jibe with the notion that information > ismolecular entropy? How does A-T A-T A-T or G-T G-T G-T guarantee less > internal degrees of freedom within a DNA molecule then A-T G-C A-T? > It would take little information to describe a repeating sequence like A-T-A-T-A-T.... and few ways to change it's micro-state without altering its macro orderly appearance, so it has a very low entropy, but it would take a lot of information to describe a random sequence A-T G-C A-T... and lots of ways to alter it's micro-state with it still looking random, so it has a high entropy. > I see no reason to use the word information at all for this. It sounds > like you are just talking about entropy to me. > As I said, think about entropy as a measure of the number of ways you can change the micro-structure of something without changing its large scale macro appearance. > > If I have red legos and white legos, and I build two opposite monochrome > houses and one of mixed blocks, how in the world does that effect the > entropy of the plastic bricks in any way? > It does not effect the entropy of the plastic bricks but it does change the entropy of the structures built with those plastic bricks. For a single part in isolation entropy is not defined, a single water molecule has no entropy but a trillion trillion of them in a drop of water does. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
