---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sungchul Ji <s...@rci.rutgers.edu> Date: Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 9:18 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] What is information and how is it related to 'entropy' ? To: John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
John, For the benefit of these lists, my advise to you is simple: Let's do science; not personal attacks. I feel sorry for Steven. Sung On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 8:13 PM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote: > This is the sort of thing that I have called “nuts” Sung. Let better > people than you and me judge. It is unfortunately similar to your bizarre > comments about Peirce. > > You keep, as Edwina has said many times, repeating the same nonsensical > interpretations, and never admit you are wrong. It is pointless to try to > communicate with such a strategy. This is much worse than the strategy that > Steven has adopted in claiming the a certain position does not make sense > because he does to understand how it could make sense. You go further and > try to reject the position of a perfectly comprehensible positon on the > grounds that it does not agree with what you have previously said. You are > an academic hazard, much like a drunken drive is a hazard. > > > > I have already responded to your objections in your interpretation of > Schrödinger’s work, but you seem incapable of digesting them. Like Steven, > you object to view because they do not correspond to your preconceptions > without trying to understand the preconceptions involved and thus interpret > them properly. I am sad that you have imposed such limitations on your > intellect, which is obviously large. > > > > John > > > > > > *From:* sji.confor...@gmail.com [mailto:sji.confor...@gmail.com] *On > Behalf Of *Sungchul Ji > *Sent:* April 7, 2015 8:17 PM > *To:* John Collier > *Cc:* biosemiotics > *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] What is information and how is it related to > 'entropy' ? > > > > John, > > > > You wrote: ". . . He points out a bit later that a piece of coal is > ordered with respect to its disordered burnt state, and can thus do work." > > > > So, you agree with Schroedinger that, whenever a system transitions from > an ordered state to a disordered state, the system can do work. In other > words, you believe that, when a system performs work, its entropy > increases. Do you ? How about me writing this email, which is a form of > work. Did my entropy increase as a result of my writing activity ? I > don't think so. What increased is the entropy of the Universe, not that of > my body. What actually happened in my body due to my writing activity is a > decrease in Gibbs free energy (due to my muscle mitochondria burning NADH), > which is the function of both entropy and energy, i.e., dG = dE + PdV - > TdS. So it is clear that what is responsible for my body performing work > is not entropy increase in my body but Gibbs free energy decrease, i.e., dG > < 0, which is always accompanied by an increase in the entropy of the > Universe but the entropy change, dS, of my body may be positive, negative > or zero, depending on environment. > > > > If this analysis is correct, one reason that Schroedinger associated order > with negative entropy (which violates the Third Law) is his pre-occupation > with 'entropy' and failure to see that what allows non-isolated systems to > perform work is not just entropy but free energies. > > > > All the best. > > > > Sung > > > > > > > > > > On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 4:53 PM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote: > > I shouldn’t have started looking at these posts again. > > > > John > > > > *From:* sji.confor...@gmail.com [mailto:sji.confor...@gmail.com] *On > Behalf Of *Sungchul Ji > *Sent:* April 7, 2015 4:38 PM > *To:* John Collier > *Cc:* biosemiotics > *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] What is information and how is it related to > 'entropy' ? > > > > John, you wrote: > > > > ". . . .the rest of your post seems either commonplace or nuts to me, so > I will leave things there." > > > > Can it be that "commonplace or nuts are in the eye of the beholder" ? > > > > [John Collier] Of course. Though commonplace is fairly easy to show, > ”nuts” is clearly subjective. What I meant is that I don’t get much reward > from trying to figure out what you mean. No doubt that is a failing of mine > rather than a problem with the way you express yourself, but I have to go > with the way things seem to me. > > > > You are also claiming that Brillouin meant "negative entropy change" by > his neologism, "negentropy". Since I have not read Brillouin deeply as > you seem to have done, I cannot make any comment on your conclusion. But > this much is clear: Schroedinger did not mean "negative entropy change" by > "negative entropy" as you can clearly see on pages 72 and 73 of his What Is > Life ? (see attached). > > > > [John Collier] I just don’t see your point here. In the piece he discusses > order and disorder, with disorder associated with entropy and order > associated with negentropy. He points out a bit later that a piece of coal > is ordered with respect to its disordered burnt state, and can thus do > work. How you can interpret the illustration of negentropy as anything but > a difference between a lower entropy and a higher entropy state is beyond > my comprehension. He talks about food providing order to organisms and says > that they feed off negentropy. Clearly he means order by negentropy. There > is nothing that implies that there are things with entropies lower than 0. > In particular, entropy he defines, as usual, as logD, and negative entropy > as log1/D, which is the negative of logD, and, as he says, a measure of > order (similar, as he says, to Boltzmann’s usage). There is no way that > this implies that there are entropies less than 0. I don’t have page > numbers in the manuscript version I have with me, but I am sure you can > find the appropriate passage, but it is mainly in Chapter 6; the coal > example that is meant to illustrate what he meant *against objections* is > in the note to Chapter 6. > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Sungchul Ji, Ph.D. > > Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology > Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology > Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy > Rutgers University > Piscataway, N.J. 08855 > 732-445-4701 > > www.conformon.net > -- Sungchul Ji, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy Rutgers University Piscataway, N.J. 08855 732-445-4701 www.conformon.net -- Sungchul Ji, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy Rutgers University Piscataway, N.J. 08855 732-445-4701 www.conformon.net
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