X-Message-Number: 3834 Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 22:05:11 -0800 From: John K Clark <> Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Information about Information -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Saul Kent in 3821 wanted information about information: Information is the measure of how much the number of possible answers to a problem can be reduced. The more information you have the smaller the number of possible answers you must deal with. If you have perfect information then you can, in principle and if properly processed, find the one solution to the problem. You can think of information as a selection of alternates, the number can be any finite number, modern computers use 2 alternates , DNA uses 4 , very old computers used 10. The simplest example is a series of binary choices, by saying yes or no to 200 well chosen questions ( 200 bits, that's only 25 bytes) you could specify just one atom out of all the ones in the observable universe. It's sometimes useful to think of a family tree, data then information then knowledge then wisdom. Data is all the items on which an operation is performed and its results, directed by detailed instructions, the program. The categories are far from rigid , a program can be data for another program, that's what compilers and emulators do. Very roughly, the organization, classification and comparison of data is information, doing the same thing to information yields knowledge, doing the same to knowledge yields wisdom. One thing I haven't mentioned is value, and it's significant since not all information is equally important because not all problems are equally important. Fortunately you can treat value as data too, provided you start with a few hard wired axioms like life and pleasure are good, and death and pain are bad. John K Clark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCzAgUBLzxOB303wfSpid95AQGkXgTvdBnhhU3O9GLBUMN/sp+lx9rFkea+4SGP b1RoGVocA7LuqcSDSP7tADU5ck/z3li6mTuBkAnCtpHcm7HcQqDTCPXNcv8ebwqg ZNY2J/9G94NZJxXqt7CTXM+uVNsfbbuKBQ9GmAy03oCvBGijeuolnAzfb9ucp+hX 31vkYJj9cenCwUlAN6HXWO6a+nlwsxJdxJn8AUnoM3jFe3M9fRk= =2UGw -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3834