On Jan 26, 6:54 pm, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 1/26/2012 3:32 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > Ok, so how does it effect the entropy of the structures? The red > > house, the white house, and the mixed house (even if an interesting > > pattern is made in the bricks), all behave in a physically identical > > way, do they not? > > No they don't. They reflect photons differently; which is why you could use > the pattern > to send a message.
True, although it's only relevant if you have photons to reflect. If I turn out the lights (completely) does that change the entropy of the red house? What if I turn the lights back on, has entropy been suddenly reduced? Would a brighter light put more information or less entropy onto the white house than the red house, ie, does the pattern cost something in photons? I'm just curious, not trying to argue with you about it. On a similar note, I was wondering about heat loss in a vacuum today. With the second law of thermodynamics, it seems like heat could only dissipate by heating something else up. If there was nothing in the universe except a blob of molten nickel, would it cool off over time in an infinite vacuum? It seems like it wouldn't. It seems like you would need some other matter at a different temperature to seek a common equilibrium with. Or is the heat just lost over time no matter what? > > There seems to be a lot of confusion about information as defined by Shannon. > Shannon's > information is relative to the uncertainty in a message. So it depends on > how you define > the possible messages. If different patterns of red and white legos > constitute the > possible messages, then you can measure the information capacity of this > message system by > Shannon's formula. It's *not* the measure of some particular message - it's > the measure > of the *capacity* of the message system. That makes more sense. As long as the possibility of messages is subjective, I don't have a problem with it. It's when information is treated as an objective entity that I vote no, Craig -- 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.
