X-Message-Number: 14431
From: 
Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2000 23:21:40 EDT
Subject: Information Conservation

According to a NY Times piece Aug. 15, Dr. David Gross (UC Santa Barbara) and 
other judges at a superstring conference at the U. of Michigan the previous 
month selected some Big Questions for future pondering. One of them was 
whether information could disappear into a black hole.

According to the article, according to the committee, as a consequence of the 
principles of quantum theory, information "cannot disappear from the 
universe." The puzzle posed is whether that rule conflicts with the accepted 
nature of black holes and of information.

The only point I want to make here is that, apparently, heavy-duty physicists 
and mathematicians (some of them, at least) think that information cannot be 
destroyed. 

Others have said the same thing for different reasons. My own main reason is 
based on a more general or "philosophical" premise, viz., that a universe in 
which information could be destroyed would not be a "lawful" or "orderly" 
universe, which is difficult to conceive.

 That does not necessarily tell us that, as a practical matter, at any 
foreseeable time, a person blown to smithereens or rotted in a swamp or 
burned to a crisp could be reconstituted. But it does tell us (again) 
that--as far as some of our best minds can discern--there may be a law of 
conservation of information, and this offers at least some hope for even the 
most damaged patients.

And the usual disclaimer--I am NOT advocating complacency. We need to reduce 
the burden on the future as much as possible; a stronger chance is better 
than a weaker chance. But it is both accurate and useful to note that there 
may be realistic hope even in "hopeless" situations.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14431