Guy Hoelzer  wrote or quoted:
> in article ch8pla$2spd$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org, Tim Tyler at tim{at}tt1lock.org
> > Guy Hoelzer  wrote or quoted:

> >> Surely you acknowledge that the term "information"
is used by scientists,
> >> including those deeply involved with information theory, in a
variety of
> >> different ways, and that perceptive information is only one
of them.  For
> >> example, Steven Hawking must mean something inconsistent with your 
> >> position when he talks about black holes consuming information and 
> >> letting some of it back out.
> > 
> > A message-eating machine would destroy information related to the
> > messages - for all observers except the ones that already know
> > everything there is to know about the messages.
> 
> This seems utterly inconsistent with the perception-based view of
> information, which would assert that no information exists for an individual
> if it has not yet been perceived by that individual. [...]

There's no problem with talking about whether an individual would gain 
information if they witnessed a particular message.

> > In the case of a black hole, there isn't likely to be any such
> > thing as an observer that knows everything there is to know about
> > the messages going into the hole.
> > 
> > So: I suggest Hawking's use of the term "information" is quite
> > consistent with conventional usage in this particular case.
> 
> That was my point.  There are several very different conventional uses of
> the term "information".  Hawking assumed a usage similar or
identical to
> mine, and inconsistent with the perception-based convention. [...]

We are at cross purposes: when I said: "conventional usage" I
was referring to the notion that information is dependent on the
observer.  As far as I can tell, this is what almost everyone
means when they use the term.  I was asserting that Hawking's use
was *not* inconsistent with the perception-based convention.

I fully expect that - if you were to quiz Hawking about what he means
by the  term "information" - he would refer to observer-dependent,
Shannon-style information.

> > Observers may differ regarding how *much* information the black
> > hole "destroys" - but they *all* agree that they can no longer
> > gain access the information in the messages.
> 
> I agree.  This is consistent with my understanding, and IMHO inconsistent
> with the perception-based convention because "observers"
unaware of the
> existence of the consumed structures WOULD NOT agree that anything had been
> destroyed under that paradigm. [...]

IMO, they would agree about that issue.  Before the messages were 
destroyed,  there were messages which could be read - and information 
could be gained.  After the destruction of the messages, this is no 
longer possible.  All observers are affected (though not equally)
except for observers who knew the entire contents of the message (and
if we are dealing with real material being swallowed, such observers are 
hypothetical).
-- 
__________
 |im |yler  http://timtyler.org/  tim{at}tt1lock.org  Remove lock to reply.
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