[MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy

[MarshaV]

Krimel,

How is entropy related to your criticism of the MoQ?    


Marsha   








On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:14 PM, Krimel wrote:

> [Marsha]
> I made this statement before and received no reply.
> 
> It is my understanding that entropy is the amount of unknown information.  
> 
> It this correct, or not?
> 
> [Krimel]
> Entropy as a concept arose in the middle of the 1800's with the laws of
> thermodynamics. You know matter and energy can neither be created or destroy
> only changed in form... 
> 
> Entropy in that context can be understood as disorder. Everything is moving
> from a state of order to a state of disorder. In all conversions of energy
> from one form to another some is lost to heat. That's why you can't build a
> perpetual motion machine. 
> 
> On earth a constant stream on energy bathes the planet in the form of solar
> radition. That constant influx is constantly dissipating but because of the
> balance of forces present here it dissipates through often very circuitous
> routes. All living things exist as systems for dissipating solar energy
> through these convoluted pathways.
> 
> Information theory was first proposed by Shannon in the 1948. I am still
> struggling with this but basically information is data plus meaning. Data is
> difference. Or as some say a difference that makes a difference. Meaning is
> reduction in uncertainty.  So information is meaningful data. 
> 
> It was quickly realized that information theory could be linked to
> thermodynamics. In fact it was determined that thermodynamics is a subset of
> information theory and not the other way around. This to my mind makes
> information theory pretty frickin' metaphysical since it in effect stands
> before physics.
> 
> Information entropy relates to the thermodynamic entropy this way. In
> physics it is a measure of disorder in information is refers to
> compressibility or the lack there of. We use compression in natural
> languages by making the most commonly used words in our language very short,
> like "a", "an", "the", "she", "he," etc. This allows "messages" (strings of
> meaningful data) to be relatively short or compressed. Messages are
> compressed information. The length that a particular message has to be in
> order to express meaningful data is Shannon entropy. For example, in order
> to fully express the number Pi one has to use an infinite string of numbers.
> But the equation for Pi compresses that string to just a few characters. 
> 
> Or something like that. As I said I am still struggling with this.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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