[lit-ideas] Re: What is information?
- From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:58:16 -0400
"Simon Ward" writes:
: "But what I really need is a nice, simple quotation explaining
: that information is a pattern. Or something like that.
:
: Maybe one of you could write such an explanation."
:
: Whilst I know that I couldn't come up with the necesary explanation, I'd
: like to suggest that Peter simplifies the notion of information as much as
: possible and starts there. The simplest notion I can come up with is
: 'binary'; a notation or pattern that contains or transmits information.
:
: Knowing it won't be helpful, but trying anyway,
:
: Simon
Thanks.
I actually do spend lots of words on "binary digits" and numerals
and numbers. But notice that you talk about the pattern
transmitting information, which seems to beg the question and
is, I think, not quite correct. It is signals that transmit
or carry the information, while the pattern is the information.
At least that is how I understand it.
I should have mentioned, but didn't, that the description of
information is most important in my paper in the discussion of
whether the 1st Amendment freedoms of speech and of the press
would forbid government's granting someone a monopoly to
make, use, and sell a computer program that does nothing
but process information when it is run on a computer.
(The hardware, if novel, is, of course, patentable.)
--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
EMAIL: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
