2 ms·

I don't know if erase is undefined... it takes work to erase something, and every time you do the entropy surely is higher. This is why the word itself is also

by proc0 5y ago

I don't know if erase is undefined... it takes work to erase something, and every time you do the entropy surely is higher. This is why the word itself is also a metaphor for destruction, to erase someone or something would be to destroy it. It's akin to blowing something up, one second there is a complex structure of some kind i.e. a military facility (low entropy), and the next second it's a pile of rubble i.e. high entropy. From your example of storage medium, I think you're missing that someone or something has to do the erasing in said storage medium (by definition, there is an interpreter interpreting the information in that example). So "erase" would be defined by the interpreter, however by any definition it would involve destroying information, and that would require work.

teilo 5y ago
Yes, I understand that work is involved, but the energy involved in storing and altering information is not the mass equivalence this paper is talking about. That is a separate question Vopson addresses, the one which ignores the economic factors, and the one that relies on simple mass-energy equivalence. It's some supposed "information catastrophe" that just isn't possible. But the radical claim of this paper, and the one I am addressing, is that information, in and of itself, contributes a mass component to a storage media regardless of the media involved. That's a completely different proposition. All baryonic matter has an information component. But the theorems concerning information stipulate that information is never destroyed. Entropy does not destroy it either. This paper violates the central theorem of information science. That is why "erased" here is meaningless. Entropy state is irrelevant. Further, it violates the conservation of mass-energy. The work required to "erase" a given medium is the same as the work required to record information on it. Yet this paper claims the one process adds mass, and the other removes it. The whole thing is just nonsense.

by proc0 5y ago

teilo 5y ago

Yes, I understand that work is involved, but the energy involved in storing and altering information is not the mass equivalence this paper is talking about. That is a separate question Vopson addresses, the one which ignores the economic factors, and the one that relies on simple mass-energy equivalence. It's some supposed "information catastrophe" that just isn't possible. But the radical claim of this paper, and the one I am addressing, is that information, in and of itself, contributes a mass component to a storage media regardless of the media involved. That's a completely different proposition. All baryonic matter has an information component. But the theorems concerning information stipulate that information is never destroyed. Entropy does not destroy it either. This paper violates the central theorem of information science. That is why "erased" here is meaningless. Entropy state is irrelevant. Further, it violates the conservation of mass-energy. The work required to "erase" a given medium is the same as the work required to record information on it. Yet this paper claims the one process adds mass, and the other removes it. The whole thing is just nonsense.