NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/talk/origins/14676

Text File | 1992-11-23 | 1.6 KB | 36 lines

Xref: sparky talk.origins:14676 comp.ai.philosophy:6856
Newsgroups: talk.origins,comp.ai.philosophy
Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!tulane!lang
From: [e-mail] (Raymond Lang)
Subject: Re: Life is Information
Nntp-Posting-Host-[nntpd-5662]: babylon
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 18:22:44 GMT
Lines: 22


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Steve Price) writes:
>
> In this sense, every human being is constantly processing stagering amounts
> of information, whether awake or asleep, conscious or unconscious, clever or
> foolish, intelligent or clinically retarded.  To breathe, see, smell, walk,
> grasp (anything in any sense of the word), grow hair, metabolize food, or even
> to die and decay involves literally mind-boggling amounts of information
> exchanged between an all most infinite set of complex systems ranging from the
> subatomic and quantum to the macro and cosmic scale.

Seems to me this implies a much broader meaning of the term
"information" than is usual.  I may have missed it earlier in
this thread, but what exactly are you talking about when you
say "information"?  In the sense used above, it seems as if
it could be almost anything, in which case the term, and thus
the original claim that "Life is Information" are both vacuous.

Ray Lang
[e-mail]