From: Michael Butler (mmb@best.com)
Date: Mon Oct 27 1997 - 18:10:38 MST
Ah, but if the signal is maximally compressed, the signal can't be
self-clocking. To recover the signal at the other end, you'd have to have
a perfect clock and/or never miss a bit. Nicht wahr?
Now, the redundancy could be *vanishingly small*, just as you can approach
c; and I agree with the limiting case--I just don't think it's a robust
architecture. So it's a question on both ends: just how godlike are these
hypothetical beings, and what purpose would they have in implementing the
limiting case?
MMB
On Mon, 27 Oct 1997, carl feynman wrote:
> At 11:37 PM 10/26/97 -0800, you wrote:
> >> such a signal would look just like white light, or starlight, or any type
> >> of source desired. It would not be decipherable or even detectably
> >> artificial unless the transmitting folk wanted it to be. For that
> >> matter, any number of "stars" we see could just as well be
> transmissions.--
> >Umm... I'm not absolutely sure this is true. Would it not show some
> >statistical evidence of the multiplexing?
>
> A perfectly compressed signal is indistinguishable from noise. Any
> deviation from noise would be an opportunity for further compression. The
> thermodynamic and information-theoretic definitions of 'entropy' coincide
> to the extent that black-body radiation and a signal that is maximally
> compressed look exactly the same. Indeed, I think the term 'entropy' was
> coined in the information-theoretic sense for exactly this reason.
Sounds right.
> --CarlF
MMB
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:45:04 MST