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