hal@finney.org wrote:
> I think the problem with the cryptographic analogy is that cryptographic
> transformations are, by design, reversible. All the information in
> the plaintext is intentionally preserved, in scrambled form, in the
> ciphertext.
Actually, that isn't true. There have been lots of systems that essentially
sucked information out of the message and embedded it in the decryption
algorithm. The situation with cryonics seems analogous - most of the
information that is "destroyed" by chemical reactions can be codified in a
form that lets you add it back in, provided you can recognize which reaction
you are dealing with.
> However, chemical reactions are biased in the direction of increasing
> entropy. The body's metabolic reactions have to constantly fight
> this trend in order to maintain order. Once there is injury or death,
> the forces of entropy will come into play. Increase of entropy means
> loss of information. So I think it is likely that most injuries,
> including trauma, ischemic and freezing injury, will involve some loss
> of information.
The fact that chemical reactions tend to increase entropy in the long run
does not necessarily imply that they destroy information in this sense. If
you know what the reaction is, and you know what the reactants and the end
products look like, you can just look at the end result and say "oh, this is
decay reaction X, so this protein must have stated out like so..." Doing
the same thing when you have lots of different reactions going on is more
complicated, but that just increases the computational requirements. As
long as the end state is uniquely determined by the initial state and the
know history of the system, you can in principle compute the initial state.
Billy Brown
bbrown@transcient.com
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