Re: The Conservation of Information Law

Greg Billock (billgr@cco.caltech.edu)
Mon, 23 Feb 1998 11:00:39 -0800 (PST)

John Burgeson,

> I found this in P. D. Medewar's 1984 book, THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE:
>
> (page 79) No process of logical reasoning -- no mere act of mind or
> computer-programmable operation -- can enlarge the information content of
> the axioms and premises or observation statements from which it proceeds.

This seems unclear. What is the information content of a set of
axioms, for instance? Even in deductive fields like mathematics, it
is not considered a waste of time to pursue investigations because 'no
more information is gained than what was in the original postulates.'
It is exactly the process of making explicit what patterns and possibilities
are in the original postulates which makes the enterprise exciting! The
laws of physics obviously allow for our existence, but it seems to process
of exploring those possibilities is what makes for an exciting life.
Perhaps 'information content' is a poor diagnostic of what is worth doing.

-Greg