Hi, Eric,
I agree that using the term signal to describe “anything that happens” or term “information” to describe “anything related to anything that happens” is bad form. But who did that? Certainly not Bruce. When you (eric) wrote Why would you want to take that perfectly good explanation and insert things like "The bottom part of the slinky doesn't know to move until it gets information indicating that the top part is falling." The idea that you enhance the physical description of the slinky by anthropomorphizing it in that way is weird Who were you quoting? I know people who talk like that. But the “you” was a “one-you” not a “you-you”, right? And what about hero Gibson’s use of the term? Doesn’t he refer to “information pickup” as if the physical relation between two thing constitutes knowledge about the one provided by the other? I haven’t looked at the videos yet. Nick From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 9:44 PM To: Bruce Sherwood Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Droping a Slinky (Q&A) Bruce says: Until the ("sound" or "mechanical") wave in the slinky propagates down to lower parts of the hanging slinky, there is no reason/cause for the lower parts of the slinky to change position, and they don't. And as long as the lower parts of the slinky are stretched, they will continue to support the load below them just as they had been doing before the top of the slinky was released. Hence the bottom of the slinky will not move until the wave has propagated down far enough that the slinky just above the bottom is no longer stretched. I says: Yes, exactly! Why would you want to take that perfectly good explanation and insert things like "The bottom part of the slinky doesn't know to move until it gets information indicating that the top part is falling." The idea that you enhance the physical description of the slinky by anthropomorphizing it in that way is weird. (Note, this clearly isn't a Shannon 'information' thing either... at least not as far as I can tell. I cannot see anything analogous to a decision being made after a clarification of uncertainty. There is no analog to signal and noise.)
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