Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Engines of Cognition - Less Wrong

58 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 February 2008 12:48AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 February 2008 04:54:47PM 2 points [-]

Will Pearson, you can indeed summarily reject the possibility, and that's why I kept saying, "ignoring quantum". For quantumness, you would need a total description of the quantum state of the water, and this you can never obtain by any physical means. Though this is true even under classical mechanics: The third law of thermodynamics, on the impossibility of obtaining absolute zero, implies the impossibility of obtaining infinite-precision knowledge.

Silas, 'twas explicit: I said "sealed box".