Is it really necessary to have so much information?

20 years ago, we had basically no information compared to today, and even then people complained about how much info there was.

Are we happier today than we were at the end of the '80s? Are people living that much longer? Is it even that much more fun?

The bubble, I think, will burst in the 2010s. We have enough technology now to build a sci-fi utopia within 30 years. Why not just stop the madness?

YES! It's necessary! I MUST have it!!!

Okay, I got that out of my system. I know what you mean -- are we just feeding our own fears, or do we really need to know all this stuff?

I wonder sometimes how much I really KNOW vs. how much I think I know based on opinions I've formed. Maybe in one sense, there isn't as much TO know, just to speculate upon.

After a hurricane smacked our island last Novemeber, all communications were down. Now, I usually email or talk with one of my buddies who lives in the U.S. every day or nearly so. He and I talk about survival, our families, preparations, conspiracy, weather, etc.

When we had no communications, my Bride was happy not knowing. She is pragmatic: "we have a LOT of work to do, the whole island, making repairs from this hurricane. If the world blows up, I suppose we'll find out about it soon enough." She was happy not knowing.

I, on the other hand, I was going NUTS! why? Because what I imagined was worse than what was actually happening. fortunately, her Blackberry server came up within a few days, and I was able to communicate with my bro. *whew*!

reply to post by Donnie Darko


I spend an enormous amount of my time looking for information. For example, today I wanted to know what a typical rate for rail transportation is. Yet it took me like an hour to find one estimate of 25 cents per ton per mile, and I question the accuracy of that rate. So while there is plenty of information out there, I really don't see why it takes so long to find out.

Information is not real.

Tell me how many one dimensional points you can put into a 3 dimensional cube, and you will understand this.

-Edrick

Originally posted by Edrick
Information is not real.

Tell me how many one dimensional points you can put into a 3 dimensional cube, and you will understand this.

-Edrick

Dude. You just blew my mind!

But what if you get to the size of a quark?

Information is more valuable than money, power, and viagra!

Knowledge is power, and power creates money, and power and money creates trophy wives!

I started a fiendish quest for information when I was six years old, and if it exists under the sun, I want to know about it...and most of the time, I would prefer no one else knows about it!

Ever run a big company from a junior management position tucked away in a corner office with a job title so obscure no one could possibly figure out what the heck you do looking at your business card?

Ever make the owner, and principal directors and managers of such a company break down in tears because you berated them so badly and then listened to them say "Well no, I don't want to have to be the one to fire him...how can we fire him...what will we do without him...he knows way to many things none of us do...we rely on him too much...maybe we should just appologize and he won't be mean to us anymore...hey I could give him a raise"

There is no such thing as learning too much information just sharing too much information.

Originally posted by Donnie Darko

Originally posted by Edrick
Information is not real.

Tell me how many one dimensional points you can put into a 3 dimensional cube, and you will understand this.

-Edrick

Dude. You just blew my mind!

But what if you get to the size of a quark?

LOL!

Thanks, I needed that laugh...

Anyways... I was talking about what information *IS* and it does not take up space.

Take for example this board.

IT is constructed with only 200 some "Pieces" of information (Letters, numbers, ascii characters, etc)

But they can be arranged in an almost infinite amount of ways.

Information is an abstraction of our perceptions.

And as I was alluding to, "How many one dimensional points can fit in a 3 dimensional cube"

Has been asked before, only with religious overtones.

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin"

Well, first off.... a one dimensional object takes up NO volume, so an infinite amount of them can fit in ANY 3 dimensional cube.

This is the same as the angels.

Since the measurements and dimensions of these "Angels" are not defined, the amount of angels that could dance on a pin is somewhere between 0 and infinity.

Information is a function of how we perceive reality, not an aspect of reality itself.

So, theoretically, an INFINITE amount of information exists.

Too much information?

Nah.....

-Edrick

Originally posted by Edrick
Information is not real.

Tell me how many one dimensional points you can put into a 3 dimensional cube, and you will understand this.

-Edrick

That's just silliness.

There is an infinite number of them

That's why this line is infinite -

This is Pure Grade 12 math man.

I like information.

Transfering it into knowledge is fun.

Now, coming up with better ways of sifting, organizing and linking information - that's an ability and skill that is becoming more and more necessary by the moment.

I don't want less information. I want better ways of keeping, linking, organizing and searching my information.

And I want to have to wade through way less crap to get at the good stuff -but that's probably a pipe dream and really we'll just have to become better at sifting the good stuff out of the mounds of crap its in.

reply to post by Aeons


What's with the jab?

Im just expressing a viewpoint on the nature of information and perspective... no need to try to "Break me Down"

-Edrick

Originally posted by Aeons

Originally posted by Edrick
Information is not real.

Tell me how many one dimensional points you can put into a 3 dimensional cube, and you will understand this.

-Edrick

That's just silliness.

There is an infinite number of them

Nope, sorry! Trick question (for some)! Points are zero-dimensional!



Even if you wish to excuse that, I must ask, what kind of infinity is it?

Originally posted by EnlightenUp

Originally posted by Aeons

Originally posted by Edrick
Information is not real.

Tell me how many one dimensional points you can put into a 3 dimensional cube, and you will understand this.

-Edrick

That's just silliness.

There is an infinite number of them

Nope, sorry! Trick question (for some)! Points are zero-dimensional!

Even if you wish to excuse that, I must ask, what kind of infinity is it?

Yes, you are correct... points are zero dimensional, that would have been more correct of me to say.

But here is anouther way to phrase it:

How many times can you bisect a circle with a line?

The answer, is infinity.

How many points are on a line?

Infinity.

How do you store the Encyclopedia Brittanica on a toothpick?

Simple, convert the entire thing to a numeric substitution code...

A = 01
B = 02
C = 03
D = 04
E = 05
F = 06
Etc...

And jam it altogether into a decimal.

HELLO = 0805121215

OR

.0805121215

And make a little mark that far along the toothpick

Information is merely a perspective, it is not real.

-Edrick

Originally posted by Edrick
How many times can you bisect a circle with a line?

The answer, is infinity.

Countably infinitely many since each bisection can be assigned an integer: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

How many points are on a line?

Infinity.

Uncountably infinitely many since each possible position cannot be assigned an integer as is the case with the circle bisection problem. That's true of the number of points in a cube too.

How do you store the Encyclopedia Brittanica on a toothpick?

Simple, convert the entire thing to a numeric substitution code...

...

That wouldn't work without impossible measurement accuracy. Thermal noise, swelling and shrinking of the material due to temp changes, humidity, etc. and subquantum dimensions render that moot. You have move from mathematical objects to real objects which don't exhibit the same properties since they are not infinitely divisible. A tick on a mathematical toothpick containing the EB has to be spelled out in the substitution code itself, so nothing has really changed; you've just obfuscated it a little bit.

Originally posted by EnlightenUp

Originally posted by Edrick
How many times can you bisect a circle with a line?

The answer, is infinity.

Countably infinitely many since each bisection can be assigned an integer: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

How many points are on a line?

Infinity.

Uncountably infinitely many since each possible position cannot be assigned an integer as is the case with the circle bisection problem. That's true of the number of points in a cube too.

How do you store the Encyclopedia Brittanica on a toothpick?

Simple, convert the entire thing to a numeric substitution code...

...

That wouldn't work without impossible measurement accuracy. Thermal noise, swelling and shrinking of the material due to temp changes, humidity, etc. and subquantum dimensions render that moot. You have move from mathematical objects to real objects which don't exhibit the same properties since they are not infinitely divisible. A tick on a mathematical toothpick containing the EB has to be spelled out in the substitution code itself, so nothing has really changed; you've just obfuscated it a little bit.

I don't think you quite got what I meant by the toothpick analogy:

The Substitution for the word "Hello" would be 0.0805121215

and roughly, that would be a Percentage of 1

1 being the total length of the toothpick

with one single mark being made %8.05121215 across the toothpick.

Yes, as far as the logistics, and material alterations that you brought up, you are correct.

There is a finite amount of data that you could store in this fashion without running into signal degradation due to the limits of precision for a small wooden object, the size of the mark itself, the material, the spaceing of molecules, atoms, etc.

But in theory, it is an interesting way of looking at "Information" as an abstract concept.

-Edrick

We barely know anything.

What we know now is just a tiny droplet, but sometimes i think it is just too much.
We are being more and more aware, more and more aware of our surroundings, and everything that is happening.

Sometimes i just wish i could go back to that ignorantly bliss state, of not knowing, and not having bigger things to care about.

Love&light

jacob