[extropy-chat] Activity vs. Informaton (was: Planck time and why it doesn't matter)

[Heartland]

>> Please explain how any activity *itself* (not representation of it)
>> is information.
>> Isn't information merely a part of a system that organizes that
>> activity?
>

J. Andrew Rogers wrote:
> If it can be specified, it is not just information but finite
> information.  Algorithms (and their implementations) are just compact/
> efficient representations of static information.  How we choose to
> represent information does not alter the underlying information content.

Yes.


> Think of the brain as nothing more than a Giant Look-Up Table (GLUT)
> for the purposes of discussion.  It is a very simple process: given a
> static index of all possible states, return the corresponding state
> the index references.  The only "activity" that happens in the GLUT
> brain is that a list of states is searched and a corresponding state
> is returned.  The universe as a hash table.
>
> For the GLUT brain, the algorithm for all activity (e.g. all those
> bits that are not the static state in the table) can be specified
> succinctly and finitely on a cocktail napkin.  The passage of time in
> the GLUT brain is a function of the number of look-ups that occur and
> nothing more.

I don't have any problems with what you are saying but all of this refers to a 
concept of representation and doesn't address how activity *itself* is also 
information. There's a look-up table and the algorithm that searches and returns 
the next state. My point is that "searches" and "returns" are examples of activity 
that can never be encoded by information.

If it were possible to encode activity into a form of information, then 
"activity -> information AND information -> activity" would have to be always true. 
This logic would suggest that it would suffice to cause an explosion by writing an 
appropriate chemical reaction on paper.

Information and algorithms are merely *symbols* for activity, merely artificial 
substitutes for real things and events. In light of this, I claim that the only 
sufficient representation of any activity is that activity itself.

S.