Re: virus: Translation

Brett Lane Robertson (unameit@tctc.com)
Tue, 14 Oct 1997 23:40:19 -0500


Since translations can and do lose information, it would seem translator
symbols are not pervasive, and that translation is not dependent upon
compression... or is this unacceptable?

~kp

List,

I am using the term "translation" to mean changing information from one form
to another. Einstein's formula--the way I understand it--says that matter
and energy can change forms (be "translated") but that there is no gain or
loss. Using this idea, I assume that all information can be translated
perfectly into another form and that a universal translator exists.

Because in practice, this might not be apparent. I think for practical
purposes one could consider that translation does not depend upon
compression. I say this because I can see how two simultaneous information
streams and their component information could containin enough similar
information to form a 3'rd, symbolic, translator stream which would act in
similar fashion to the pattern represented by the compression and
uncompression of one stream of information.*

*In the case of a single stream of information, there are two states
required to recognize a pattern, a compressed state and an uncompressed
state (and a pattern seems to require more than one component, logically,
for it to form--as opposed to a point or an entity--something in relation to
something else, moving around or about something else...a "pattern"). The
function of the two states "compressed" and "uncompressed" are represented
in a translation by two streams of information.

But ultimately, I think that there has to be a single point (or information
stream)within which the two streams of information which are being compared
might meet. What I'm trying to get at by saying this is that the
relationship between one stream of information in two states (a pattern) and
two streams of information in one state (a translation, a symbolic
stream...or more simply "symbol")--the relationship between pattern and
symbol might be stated: A symbol is to two streams of information what
pattern is to one stream such that a symbolic stream (a translation)
represents the uncompressed pattern in a relative form which does not
require compression for comparison of information states. And ultimately,
that a compressed symbolic stream must yeild a universal translation
pattern, or "Platonic Form".

Brett

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