Re: [Patents] Washington Times: Internet Patents Divide Industry

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

ehj wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 2003-07-27 at 23:59, Greg-Bot wrote:
> > >Yes.  But remember that the point is not so much that property is not 
> > >good,
> > >but rather that information as such is of a different character entirely.
> >
> > Such a statement is totally ignorant of the latest theories of theoretical
> > physics where information is not only physical (and therefore can be a
> > property as can be other physical quantities), but also that information
> > is more fundamental to physical reality than energy or matter.  An article
> > in the August 2003 issue of Scientific American, near the end, has the
> > following statement:
> >
> >     .. that such a final theory [of physical reality] must be
> >     concerned not with fields, not even with spacetime, but rather
> >     with information exchange among physical processes.
> >
> > from "Information in the holographic universe" by Jacob Bekenstein.
> 
> This is an article about black hole thermodynamics and super string
> theory and beyond.
> 
> If you would be able to talk about information on the boundary of a 2-D
> holographic anti-de Sitter universe, and still understand what you are
> saying (which I dont), you would not waste your time here.
> 
> I bet when they say "information" in those theories, it means someting
> very far from what we mean in our ordinary 3-D newtonian universe, where
> the patent discussion takes place.
> 
> The same goes for many concepts of theoretical physics that laymen and
> common people try to use in a meaningful way (and often fail).
> 
> So we have greg-information that is physical and seth-information that
> is not.
> 
> Why is my head feeling so heavy? Are we getting close to speed of light
> here?


LOL

It doesn't really matter.  Greg-Bot proposes to apply physical theories to
information as an impertinent rebuttal to his own characterization of my
position.

All that matters is that information, once published, is intrinsically a
common wealth among all who come in contact with it.  This does not reduce
to whether information is physical or not, but only has to do with human
beings receiving and understanding information.

One doesn't have to engage in old canards about pure rationality or
empirics.

Seth


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