Lost Information

The raw data concerning everything is never lost............it's only lost on us.

Considering our overall behavior as a species, it's doubtful we will ever find it.

If we ever did, we would probably be simultaneously overwhelmed, by both it's complexity and it's simplicity.

History keeps repeating itself not because the previous information is lost, but because some new fool comes along and thinks they can rewrite human nature into something it isn't.

Sometimes when I'm at my best, when I'm lost, it helps to realize that...There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.(BF)

I doubt that this is really true. Although some sequences of events are closely connected, others are only loosely connected; for instance, with quantum randomness thrown in. The number of variables that might influence an event can be so large that no realistic amount of intelligence and time can account for them all, certainly not in real time.

"Given sufficient intelligence and time" is the hang-up; we simply are not given that. However, that does not stop us from using what we are given.

Yeah. What is........is. Everything we will ever understand has to go through the prism of human consciousness.

It doesn't necessarily mean that the information doesn't exist, or is lost.

After all, without humans, and intelligence, information kind of ceases to exist.

Information, just like time, is a human construct.

Here is a piece of information (originally some text) that has been chopped up into into a sequence of alphabetized letters (# = space, punctuation ignored):

##################AAAAAABCCDEEEEEEEEEEFGGGHHHHHHHIIILLMMNNNNNNOOOOOORRRRRRRSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTUUUUVWW

(Well, at least I didn't burn all the letters!) Has the information been destroyed, or not? There are only 102! permutations to try! (I apologize for any miscounts, but they shouldn't affect the search much.) Okay, Watson, have at it!

Hint: Things are not quite so bad as that. The 102! can be reduced by a factor of:

18! 6! 2! 10! 3! 7! 3! 2! 2! 7! 6! 7! 7! 10! 4! 2! [!!] Godspeed your further searches!

Maybe I'm reading the OP wrong. I'm kind of looking at it from the perspective of, If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

If we can't see, recognize or process certain information, does that mean it's not there?

Every time you recall something, new information alters the memory. Remember that big hill you used to slide down as a kid? it's not as big as you thought, and if you go look it never will be. You are spot on as usual!

I believe the original question is based on a precept that is false. Information is constantly "lost", though the effect may still be evident.

I have a thermometer (alcohol) sitting at home right now. It is displaying "information" right now about the relatively instantaneous temperature. When I return home this afternoon, all that information is no longer recoverable, only the effect of the temperature remains observable.

I could extrapolate (from other insturments) what the temperature MIGHT have been at any instant of time, but can never re-create the actual information.

Alternatively, my grandfather had information that was his perception of the world and the outcome of his direct interaction with the world. Since he passed away, that information is no longer available and can never be recreated.

What do you base the statement that "information is never lost." upon? I am yet to be convinced.

You've got a point. This is one of those convoluted threads that could go anywhere.

What is "information"? in your example, is it the actual temperature reading on the gauge at any given time, or the level or movement of the alcohol throughout the day or something else? or are they events instead of information or something other? Events and information are surely linked in some way or form, whether loosely or directly. Likewise, are memories or experiences information or events? are these lost on the death of the particular individual, or are these an intangible form of energy which have now dispersed but still exist in some form or state? If a large unique jigsaw puzzle had all it's pieces dispersed across the galaxy and each individual piece somehow managed to fit into other differing jigsaw puzzles throughout that galaxy (or not), the information of the original jigsaw puzzle is not lost, the pieces now link all the jig saw puzzles across the globe to the original and to each other. On star trek, is information, experiences, memories, knowledge etc.... "lost" everytime Mr Spock is beamed (atomically disassembled) from the enterprise to a planet? If Mr Spock was not reassembled fully on his arrival to the planet, would the lost components (sub atomic) be lost?

please define in what context you are using the word.... LOST? Is the sea in a puddle hearsed,or is the puddle in the sea dispersed?

Ref a black hole:Is information lost in a black hole?

Never had a black hole! But this information is probably entirly lost on you guys!

Aw, too bad for you....

Brilliant. An absolute GA - can't stop laughing. I think your humor was lost on quite a number of people.

Black-Box

D N A

Nice troll there!

Come on guys, when will you ever learn NOT to reply to Guest Trolls!

Opps someone has not gotten his proper amount of sleep I see. Why don't you just go out and chop down a tree or something.

The Black Hole War Main article: Susskind-Hawking battle

The Black Hole War: My battle with Stephen Hawking to make the world safe for quantum mechanics is Susskind's second popular science book, published by Little, Brown, and Company on July 7, 2008.^[27] The book is his most famous work and explains what he thinks would happen to the information and matter stored in a black hole when it evaporates. The book sparked from a debate that started in the year 1981. In 1981 there was a meeting of physicists to try and decode some of the mysteries about how particles of particular elemental compounds function. During this discussion Stephen Hawking stated that the information inside a black hole is lost forever as the black hole evaporates. It took 28 years for Leonard Susskind to formulate his theory that would prove Hawking wrong. He then published his theory in his book, The Black Hole War. Like The Cosmic Landscape, The Black Hole War is aimed at the lay reader. He writes: "The real tools for understanding the quantum universe are abstract mathematics: infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces, projection operators, unitary matrices and a lot of other advanced principles that take a few years to learn. But let's see how we do in just a few pages". Susskind, according to one review, himself "continually refers to Hawking being "wrong," as if it were a done deal, rather than letting the reader enjoy the suspense of wondering who will win this war."

That may be technically true, but practically irrelevant. I say this because the amount of information that is being referred to is of such an unimaginably enormous magnitude, and increasing by each passing second, that it may very well be impossible to review ALL of this information, and equally impossible to frame it in any understandable usable form, in its entirety.

Guys guys. Information is what we can sense and comprehend. If you cant do the two then its not information. So if something exists and then dissapears from your senses then its practically lost and can never be recovered. Remember to sense something you might need the assistance of a machine or tool (eg telescopes to view distant planets).

Information is what is interchanged between a transmitter and receiver. We transmit data but also explanations. If we talk informatics information is usually just data. I agree that information is lost when any, data or explanations are lost, but most than anything when explanation is lost, this is knowledge. Knowledge is constantly developed and/or discovered by humans, that's why only a few future reactions can be predicted, most of them not because we don't have enough knowledge.

Doesn't Heisenberg get a say in this?

GA

This thread is 'lost' in a very anthropomorphic view point. Lot's of 'information' is 'processed' [i.e. used] by non organic systems all the time. Every process that is in a state of evolving is using information to continue. Except for what goes on inside our skulls, we are mostly just observers of information being used by non human processes.

And for the skeptics, just notice what kind of historic information keeps being drawn out of the most obscure aspects of nature by cleaver humans. Stuff most people even just a few decades ago would have thought totally impossible.

If you're interested in further pursuing this train of thought, I would highly recommend you read Asimov's Foundation series; specifically "Foundation", "Foundation and Empire", and "Second Foundation".

In them a character called Hari Seldon creates a branch of mathematics called Psychohistory, which can describe future events using his "law of mass action". He then works to create havens for human knowledge to bridge the rough spots that will occur as dire events occur.

The books delve deeply into the very matter you posted about.

Hooker

Time is an illusion therefore all exists. Difficult for our finite mind to comprehend but it is.

Dear Mr Randouli, I have no doubt you are infinitely wise, But if TIME is an illusion, How can our minds be Finite.

Consequences are never lost, they are the "now".

Tracking back precursor events is done all the time. But more often it's inference rather than measurements and mathematics.

A basic problem is, no system, not even the universe, has the resources to analyze itself.

Try reading "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter.

My memory has deteriorated with age, but I think the phonographs and records chapters discusses this.

This sounds like an intelligent episode of Seinfeld...which was a show about nothing. It seems we run rings and rings around something without really getting anywhere.

Information? Is that the highest pinnacle of human knowledge?

Actually, the best book to read is the book of Man... meaning there is knowledge there for the taking for those who seek it. No doubt, the deck is stacked against finding it ("few there be..."). But if one never looks it is almost guaranteed one will never find it. (For an exception to the rule, see St. Paul of Taursus. He eventually got "caught up to the 'third" heaven'.") The method(s) to try are many. Just investigate the meditation practices around the world and in different religious traditions. A thorough study of "mystical" traditions and mysticism, will, at least, pique one's interest in answering the question of, "Is there such a thing as "inner knowledge?" (St. Paul's experience is just one such record.) Whether one becomes serious in a search for this knowledge is determined by one's past.

There is an inner, mystical side to what Jesus and other "teachers" or gurus have taught. ("If thine Eye be single...") This gets lost when they leave the scene. That is why provisions are made for someone like them to reappear further down the road of history. Someone is always here but now we get back to the "few." This is where the discussion can become thorny, because if one visits India, for example, there are almost more "gurus" than there are disciples! There are "false" prophets and teachers. In this context, false just refers to how high on the inner spiritual journey any given "teacher" has gotten. You can't go higher than your guide.

The beauty of seeking this "inner" experience, is that as a side-benefit, one will also address the biggest question (or piece of information, if you like) of whether or not there is a creator of both, this physical world, but also higher spiritual worlds. Reading printed books just keeps one going around in the physical circle. True, even spiritual books are just books. But the inner knowledge is, at least, referred to.

(Apologies to Yusef1, if you considers this "trollish." But the implication of the original post is that we may never know everything there is to know about the universe; i.e., complete knowledge of it -- how it came about, all it's laws, will it end, etc. I'm offering that there is knowledge other than what can be gathered through our five senses. There is an inner Eye and an inner Ear. -- and I, for one, don't dismiss all Guest posts.)

I think we may be loosing sight of what "Information" means. My dictionary calls it "facts provided or learned about something or someone, KNOWLEDGE".

Facts, therefore, cannot be information unless they are known. Information that is no longer known or recorded in any way is no longer information. It is undiscovered data.

If we do only use 10% or so of our brains, is it possible that part of the remainder may be like a data recorder that records all other unfiltered raw data gathered by known and other senses, along with the data genetically passed on from parents, grandparents and so on....? Alternatively, some say all things existing are linked to a universal consciousness/god force/data bank where all information from all things are linked. Thus there is no such thing as coincidences when people hum the same tune, or receive a call from someone they were thinking about, or decide not to take the flight which ends up crashing. Information is always being transmitted and received (loosely put), regardless of whether we are aware of it or not. If we are exisiting in the "now" as stated by one person and linear time is our own perception, then it is possible that "ALL" raw data already exists and what we call information is only a selection and rearrangement of that data. Therefore, as with other things, information (data) is neither created nor lost.

What information....?