Hi,

what does it mean (a VERY primitive approach)?

IMHO every information could be described as a finite sequence of bits.
Destroying this would mean to increase the entropy to the highest possible
maximum (e. g. by mean to separate all 0-s and 1-s). Not destroy would
mean for me that subsequences of this bit sequence may remain intact or
only some bits of the would be disturbed. It is like a document shredder:
the more the distance between knives, the bigger the chunk of information
remains intact. However, I'm afraid, if the context is not known - e. g.
you does not know the language and the coding system - then there is no
chance the regain the real information. So for me Hawking's statement is
rather of particular importance.

I imagine a black hole really like a big shredder. Maybe I am wrong. But I
do not want to meet such a beast in this life. Deterioration of any kind
is nothing other than increase of entropy. It is a hard job (e. g.
learning) to decrease it.

Imre


On Mon, 23 Aug 2004, Russell McMahon wrote:

> > even  with our best instruments we are still deaf and
> > blind in terms of being  aware of "reality" and the universe.  we don't
> > know  jack!
> >
> > Russell McMahon wrote:
> >
> > So True
>
> Shades of non causality. I find replies from me which I haven't even written
> yet :-).
> Actually, it was Phil (dark matter or not).
> Not that it matters, as I agree in principle with the sentiment.
> FWIW (not much) I actually said:
>
> > [OT:] Hawking now says black holes don't destroy all information
> > Good news for worm hole travellers :-)
>
>     RM
>
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