Re: Information transfer without energy transfer

Cliff Joslyn (joslyn@KONG.GSFC.NASA.GOV)
Mon, 16 Oct 1995 17:40:42 -0500

>This leaves open the question whether information can be transferred
>without energy, but at least there is no way to do it via non-local
>correlations. Until someone else proposes another mechanism, I am inclined
>to think you cannot transfer information without transferring energy at the
>same time. Perhaps you could devise some smart scheme where the energy
>coming in with the message is compensated by an equally large amount of
>energy going out, so that the net energy balance would be zero. Would we in
>that case still have an "isolated system"?

Last year or so Bill Powers suggested that information can be transmitted
without any NET transfer of energy in that direction. Consider a channel
with a lot of energy flowing from A to B, and now open a new one with a
little energy flowing back from B to A. They could even be physically
identical, like AC current or multiplexing. In general information requires
very little energy flow, so the flow from A to B could easily dwarf that
from B to A, while still a signal is transmitted backwards.

I may have this confused, though. Bill: what do you think?

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| Cliff Joslyn, NRC Research Associate, Cybernetician at Large
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