you mean, this post? You also mean, the structure of information? That's encoding, which is computation again. Which is not information, it's what happens to it. IT goes something like: information is physical, commuting or transforming it takes energy. You might adopt a river to carry you and a canoe downstream, by using the energy of the water and the way it modulates the canoe's position in time, thus carrying you somewhere. Or you might just want to send word (a message downstream "the natives are restless, send beads, and blankets"), so you write it down, put the message in a bottle which you seal with a stopper and turf into the tide. Maybe it would be more efficient to get a friendly native to paddle a canoe for you, etc. You can't reduce the information content of anything that has it, into less than 1s and 0s. Because you need more than one dimension. We analyse the (information) entropy of signals in one dimension, by using at least one other dimension to see the one-dimensional signal in. You analyse a voltage or current in a\(\,\mathbb C^1 \) dimension, and \(\mathbb 1_3 \) time dimension, you analyse a spin phase in a \(\mathbb C^{2n} \) dimension, and one \(\mathbb 1_z \)time dimension, both have discrete and continuous solutions, depending on the input-response parameter. See how time and complex phase space switch roles there? But both spaces have an entropy which can be measured. P.S. The thing with the logical side of information and this thread, is that plenty of people can understand how to build logic circuits and not really need to understand how transistors work; there's a logical map of computing that avoids all that thermodynamics you need to know about with discrete devices when they don't behave like switches. You can learn something about QM by looking at how to put together logical maps of the underlying dynamics - not thermodynamical as such, or "at minimum heat", so that the intrinsic spin dynamic isn't suppressed by a lot of noise. Even learning about how to do that or why it's done, why the preparation of circuits involves low temperatures or optics - the heat signal needs to be damped. There's a similar way in from the quantum logic angle (information is logical) that avoids quite a lot of theory.
Vkothii, the following is not information: ekjrhjs sehfbsdhgvsd dsf dsfsdhfagf If you organize the characters in a particular way the organization of the characters contains the information, not the characters themselves. I realize the letters are not the best example because they carry information in themselves (to us humans, they don't for ants). But try and imagine a field with randomly scattered rocks. The rocks themselves carry no particular information. Organize them to form letters and words and it's the organization that carries the information. See ? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Of course. But the Shannon entropy of that signal has no bearing on the energy cost. The energy involved has nothing to do with the information - in this case, the medium is not the message.
actually Enmos I would have to disagree. The information of your random letters is exactly what you have typed and not more in fact I can even copy it: ekjrhjs sehfbsdhgvsd dsf dsfsdhfagf Just because it has no meaning to us does not change the fact that it is information...it does not need to have "utility" nor any other human quality to be information persee. Say you are listing to radio signals from deep space, and notice it makes no sense what so ever to us, yet someone comes along with a special codec and desiphers a portion of the signal and it says " good morning this Alpha Centuri news"Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But I agree that it would normally have no "meaning" however IMO information it still is. I guess it comes down to definition of what information is...
Of course, because information content is always independent of the means, the work done, sending it. As outlined in the tale above, you have various ways to send a message or get from a to b. Almost - the information would not exist if energy hadn't been involved.
Exactly. The means is physical - it has mass and energy. The information content is independent of this, and does not contain any mass or energy of its own.
Hang about, it has to be mass or energy. How do you store abstract information? You've abstracted away the fact that you have to have a representation - a physical one. And an abstract one - which only gets as far as binary, and doesn't go more abstract than two symbols.
You're still confusing the information with the medium. The medium has mass/energy. Information is in the configuration of the medium. You can change the information content of some medium without changing its mass/energy... therefore the information content has no mass/energy itself.
What does that mean "change the information content of some medium"? A medium is a representation. It doesn't matter if I draw a picture of something, or take a photo, it's a representation. The content has a certain irreducible entropy of information. Information does not exist without representation. "The medium has mass/energy", therefore the representation of information does too. As well as an independent entropy - you cannot change the entropy of a message unless you change the message, in which case it's another message. Entropy is conserved, but the representation can change.
need to define your terms to engage in clear discussion I think... say I have 8 rocks these rocks are the medium and have mass and energy Say I apply a meaning to these rocks - this has no masss and no energy. However I can reconfiigure the 9 rocks any way I want to change it's meaning and still not effect the mass/energy of the medium [ being 8 rocks] similar to what enmos was saying....
8 rocks is a physical representation. A pattern, or a certain geometry that has (one or more) algebraic equivalent representations. The "meaning" you apply is an interpretation of the information in/of that representation. Changing the rocks - the pattern - around, then changes the representation. The interpretation changes. Changing the representation is not cost-free. You need to think about what a symbol is.
ahhh Now I see the extra aspect I didn't see before...that being the energy requiired to change the "meaning" [ representation ] hmmmmmmm
For example, when you expose a photographic plate or film, the film's information content changes. But, the mass/energy of the film does not change significantly, and what little change there is has no relation to the quantity information recorded - ie recording a zero-information photograph costs exactly the same as recording a maximum information photograph.
Interesting... I was about to say that changing to a high-information representation costs no more than changing to low-information representation. But, I think would have been wrong. However, the extra energy cost of encoding high information is not embedded with the information, but is lost to heat... so the information encoded does not have that energy.
Except a black hole is the densest form of information we know about - at least mathematically. "Losing information" indeed costs energy, or as you say it dissipates; which is as \( \Delta S =\mathit {k_B} \) \(\mathrm ln2 \)
That's a special case of a high correlation between mass/energy and information. It doesn't apply in general.
Unless you consider there's a limit to how much information a region of the universe can have (in it).
