In the Beginning was Information

Q5: Is it information when I am both sender and recipient at thesame time? For example, when I shout in a valley and hear theecho.A5: This is not a planned case of information transfer, but thereare situations like writing a note to oneself or entries in a diary.Q6: Is a photograph information according to your definition?A6: No! Although the substitutionary function (Chapter 5) is present,there is no agreed-on code.Q7: Does information originate when lottery numbers are drawn?If so, then that could be regarded as information arising fromchance.A7: The information resides in the rules of the game; they comprisea fixed strategy which includes apobetics, namely to win. Theactual drawing of numbers is a random process involving directobservation of reality, and according to the theorems in Chapter 5,we are thus outside the domain of the definition of information.But we do have information when the results of the draw are communicatedorally or in writing.Q8: Is there a conservation law for information similar to the conservationof energy?A8: No! Information written with chalk on a blackboard, may beerased. A manuscript for a book with many new ideas writtenpainstakingly over several years, will be irrevocably lost whensomeone throws it in the fire. When a computer disk containing avoluminous text is formatted, all the information is also lost. Onthe other hand, new information can be created continuously bymeans of mental processes (theorem 30).Q9: Does information have anything to do with entropy as statedin the second law of thermodynamics?A9: No! The second law of thermodynamics is only valid for theworld of matter (the lower level in Figure 14), but information is amental entity (Theorem 15). There is, however, a concept on thestatistical level of Shannon’s information, which is called entropy(see Appendix A1.1). But this is something completely differentfrom what is known as entropy in physics. It is unfortunate thattwo such different phenomena have the same name.125