Manon_de_Gaillande 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: Manon_de_Gaillande 29 February 2008 11:13:14AM 2 points [-]

You lost me there.

1) If Alice and Bob observe the system in your first example, and Alice decides to keep track precisely of X's possile states while Bob just says "2-8", the entropy of X+Y is 2 bits for Alice and 2.8 for Bob. Isn't entropy a property of the system, not the observer? (*This* is the problem with "subjectivity": of course knowledge is physical, it's just that it depends on the observer and the observed system instead of just the system.)

2) If Alice knows all the molecules' positions and velocities, a thermometer will still display the same number; if she calculates the average speed of the molecules, she will find this same number; if she sticks her finger in the water at a random moment, she should expect to feel the same thing Bob, who just knows the water's temparature, does. How is the water colder? Admittedly, Alice *could* make it colder (and extract electricity), but she doesn't *have to*.