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Article #8806

Time running backwards (WAS: Entropy and the human brain)

#8806
From: Ian Sutherland
Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1990 01:43
26 lines
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In article <538@massey.ac.nz> ARaman@massey.ac.nz (A.V. Raman) writes:
>In article <HWAJIN.90Feb2124037@ganges.wrs.com> hwajin@ganges.wrs.com (Hwa Jin Bae) writes:
>>It's also not clear what he means by "entropy" here as he doesn't clarify
>>what he considers "entropy" or "negative-entropy".  Claude Shannon was
>>knowned to have said that he was urged to use the word "entropy" in his
>>information theory by Von Neuman who asserted that he should use it because
>>no one really knows what it means.

Entropy has at least one precise definition.  There are also
thermodynamical definitions of the change in entropy which do not rely
on the definition of an absolute entropy.  No one may know what
entropy "means" in some sense, but there do exist precise definitions
of it.

>By negative entropy, here, I meant the situation where every event in the
>universe, started reversing.

You seem to be using a technical term with a precise meaning to talk
about an imprecisely defined notion with only a vague connection to the
technical term.  If you meant "time running backwards", why didn't you
just say that?  Better yet, why don't you start using that terminology
from this point on?
-- 
Ian Sutherland		ian%oravax.uucp@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu

Sans Peur
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References: <523@massey.ac.nz> <940@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <HWAJIN.90Feb2124037@ganges.wrs.com> <538@massey.ac.nz>

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From: ian@oravax.UUCP (Ian Sutherland)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Time running backwards (WAS: Entropy and the human brain)
Message-ID: <1324@oravax.UUCP>
Date: 7 Feb 90 01:43:57 GMT
References: <523@massey.ac.nz> <940@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <HWAJIN.90Feb2124037@ganges.wrs.com> <538@massey.ac.nz>
Reply-To: ian@oravax.odyssey.UUCP (Ian Sutherland)
Organization: Odyssey Research Associates, Ithaca, New York
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