Communication of Information

[sji]

[quote=HydrogenBond;196006]The heating of the bible is changing the media, on which the information is stored, but not the information.

If someone decided to tear all the pages out and place them in order in a long line, the entropy of the media would increase without changing the information.


Can you explain how the entropy of the media is increased when the pages of the bible are torn apart and placed in a long line?

Information is different than matter, in that matter follows the laws of nature, while information is a function of the mind. Truth, or a state of zero information entropy, but can be perceived, by the mind, as high entropy information.

How do you define "information entropy"? Do you mean by it "the uncertainty in information"? I have nver heard of "information entropy" until now. Is this phrase commonly used in some well-established field that I am ignorant of?

[wigglieverse]

Can you explain how the entropy of the media is increased when the pages of the bible are torn apart and placed in a long line?

OK, how does this compare with someone´s internal memory of some book that gets ´lost´ or confused (in their memory)? Say you aren´t that good at remembering the order of the pages, or even what´s written on some of them, or who wrote them...
Your internal copy of some information (this was how things got passed on, or recorded not all that long ago, mostly, back before books turned up), is maintained both by you staying alive (eating and so on), and by recalling it and using, or reviewing it. This is mostly how information that is both learned and shared, is checked or validated (reviewed by the group), so there is an external store, in other observers. The book is transient, but somehow more stable than the collective mind that understands it...?

How do you define "information entropy"? Do you mean by it "the uncertainty in information"?

Claude Shannon showed how the number of bits used to encode any message (alphabet), defines the maximum information content of the message (channel), and the equation for this ´entropy´ (actually uncertainty), is symmetrical with the thermodynamic equation. It´s all under entropy heading in Wikipedia.