[FIS] General remark

Colleagues,

Again a few sporadic remarks. We are always, as it seems to me, entangled in the matter-information frame of thinking. Why do not we simply take that matter as such presents itself to us only as information and through information (please give counterexamples if you want).

Hence, matter (biological, non-biological, whatever) is a derivative concept, for we can speculate about it only indirectly through information we possess. A good "falsifying" example is given by the General Theory of Relativity, which explicitly prohibits distinguishing cases of accelerated movement and movement in the gravity field.

Hence, much of what we used to call "matter" is, in fact, enveloped in the concept of information, as well as much more.

As to the Shannon and/or Boltsmann probabilistic information, this is not information as such but a certain variable, used to measure information. It is the same as for measurements of matter we use such variables as weight, volume, density and so on.

We should more clearly separate what is the subject proper, and what are our speculations about it, our models of it and our suggestions on how to weigh it.

Otherwise we are little better than the student, which once gave me the following definition: "The Energy Concervation Law EQUALS a sum of kinetic and potential energy".

Now about measures of information. When we talk physical, Shannon-Boltzmann definition kind of works -- again not as definition but as the way to measure, evaluate, estimate. A little deviation, for example the information contained in a certain text, and we are at a loss. Why? Because we can measure
a) The "bit" information content (Shannon)
b) A multitude of information contents based on different dictionaries.
c) Object-specific impact of information. A very short phrase, containing a few bits of information, may throw up or down the whole stock market (then this information impact is measured in billions of dollars) or get a nation into war (then the impact is measured in damage and loss of lives). A very long citation from "Catch-22" will certainly not have the same impact.

And to reiterate again. We are talking about information as a concept, or as a variable? If we talk variable, we should be aware of the above listed limitations. If we talk concept, than Shannon-Boltzmann is a misunderstanding, in the same way, as the object as a whole and the mass of an object (in kilograms) are not the same.

Yours, Igor Rojdestvenski

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Received on Fri Oct 27 12:00:27 2006