[Case] Biological patterns don't parasite entropy they transform energy and some gets lost along the way as a sort of entropy tax. Mark 12-02-07: Hello Case, This is most interesting because what you are saying is very close, it seems to me, to stating that a Dickens novel is made of paper and Ink. It surely can be, and certainly was as a first edition (when collected into novel form) but the novel is more than paper and ink. DNA is a mass/energy combination but its structure is more than mass/energy.
[Case] I think this is off the subject of entropy but any book can be reduced to paper and ink. A novel is an abstraction that can take any number of forms as Pirsig notes. But all for the forms that it can take can be reduced to physical objects, from computer discs to nervous tissue. Encoding the organized relationships that comprise the novel will always produce more net disorder than the order that results. It requires in input of additional energy to produce the extra order. Mark 12-02-07: To extend the Dickens novel analogy this is a bit like saying his novels are now available on CD-ROM. [Case] Right in this respect the chief difference between a book and a CD-ROM is the quality and quantity of energy transformations needed to support the technology. A book might require more raw units of energy to produce than a CD-ROM, given the manufacturing techniques used today. But the CD demands far more ongoing production of energy to be read. As I said the growth of society from the stone age to today can measured in the efficiency of energy transformations. [Mark] No. 6: What do you want? No. 2: In-Form-ation. No. 6: Well, you won't get it! No. 2: By hook or by crook we will. (followed by manic laughter). [Case] I don't get it. (followed by confused but polite laughter). Mark 12-02-07: You mean? You mean to say? You mean to say that you have NEVER seen, 'The Prisoner' staring the enigmatic Patrick McGoohan? [Case] Oh yeah, that was lame on my part. I actually remember this well. In fact I was a fan of Secret Agent which The Prisoner sort of spun out of. It is funny because back in the 70s they reran the whole series on PBS and I was watching it religiously. It came down to the last episode and I was sitting there aflutter with anticipation and just as the show came on the picture tube blew. Argh. moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
