Lunch With The Professor

      "You seem to be very absorbed with the issue of population growth," said Lloyd.

      "Am I?" said the professor. "I don't know about that."

      "Well, you have brought the subject up more than once. Is this some kind of crusade?"

      "Oh, no. Perhaps it should be, but no. You see," said the professor, "since I have learned about the Nomothetic Theorem, my focus has changed. Certain things just hit you right between the eyes. Population growth is one of those things. I think it is one of the single most significant events that is going to impact mankind over the next few generations, but it isn't getting much attention. Most people do not think in a framework that considers the interaction of complex systems. Most people think only about themselves and their linear path through time. They are thinking about lunch, and about what they are going to do this evening, and about next weekend. Complexity is swirling around them, but they travel on as if tomorrow is going to be just like today. There isn't a lot of thought given to the big picture, and the evolution of all the systems that impact every person's life. Do you realize that the richest 20% of the world's population consumes 86% of all goods and services while the poorest 20% consumes only 1.3%? Do you realize that at the current rate of population growth, by the time a child born today leaves highschool the entire world population will double again? Very few people are focused on the staggering impact of these facts. Most people are just going about their daily routine along a linear, chronological path that doesn't recognize the contiguous development of momentous events that will inevitably come as a surprise (or a crisis) in the future.

      "Speaking of being provincial, how about some lunch?" asked the professor. "I found a new recipe that I have been dying to try."

      Lloyd perked up. "Sounds good to me. What can I do to help?"

      "Nothing my boy. Just relax. I have it all under control."

      The professor, with great distraction, began searching among his spices for some marjoram. Lloyd was temporarily left to himself. While perusing the room around him, he couldn't help but notice the pile of papers in great disarray on a desk. A fresh sheet of paper on top of the pile caught his eye. In remarkably neat handwriting, the words "As one light lights another, nor grows less . . ." were penned upon the paper. The thought was not completed, as if the writer had been interrupted in mid sentence.

      "What is this?" asked Lloyd.

      "What is what?" said the professor looking over his shoulder. "Oh, that. -- Information." The professor turned back to his search and mumbled something. "That is to say, I was thinking about information," he called out abstractedly. "You know this is the age of information. And then there is the Zeroth Law of thermodynamics . . ." his voice trailed off in thought. "Darn, I know it is here somewhere!"

      "What are you talking about?" asked Lloyd.

      "My marjoram, I can't find it anywhere!" said the professor.

      "No, I mean the what law?"

      "Law? The Zeroth Law? Come lad, don't they teach you anything any more?" The exasperation in the professor's voice was as much from his frustration that he couldn't find his spice as it was a comment on modern education. "Ah ha! Here it is, hiding right here. I knew I hadn't run out. This just wouldn't taste the same without a little marjoram." Once he had stirred in the spice, he left the stew to simmer and turned his attention to the discussion at hand.

      "Now where were we?" said the pprofessor. "The age of information. Information has some rather unique properties. If you take a lump of gold and pass it from one person to the next, you quickly realize that only one person can hold the gold at a time. If you have a gold mine, you have a finite quantity of gold. It is divisible and it is fungible, but it is finite. You can sell your gold to any number of people, but the amount that each person can hold diminishes proportionally as the total number of people holding the gold grows. Therefore, most mines hold their richest ore (the least costly to produce) and sell their marginal ore, the ore whose cost of production is just below the market price of the gold produced. This way the mine maximizes the price of its gold and (hopefully) never is in the position of not being able to produce gold at a cost below the market price.

      "Basic economics suggests that as the available quantity of gold in the world diminishes, or as the cost of producing more gold goes up, the price of gold should rise. If a mine can produce at the margin while holding richer ore, then the value of the richer ore will increase as the marginal ore is depleted. If all mine owners operate this way, this implies a cartel or some kind of tacit collusion among all the mine owners. Is this not what OPEC tries to do with oil? But I am digressing.

      "What does this have to do with information? Unlike gold, information can be passed from person to person, just as one candle lights another, without diminishing the quantity or usefulness of the information to the first person. Perhaps information is sort of like energy within society, except it seems to be infinite. The amount of information that each person holds does not diminish proportionally as the total number of people holding the information grows. However, although the quantity may appear infinite, possibly the quality or usefulness of the information does diminish proportionately the more widely it is dispersed. There is an expression, "Knowledge is power." To what extent does the power come from the intrinsic value of the knowledge itself versus the exclusivity of the knowledge? How much power is derived from just one person, or a small group of people, having knowledge that other people do not have? At least from an economic point of view, it would seem that the first sale of knowledge should bring the highest price, and each successive sale should diminish in market price. Unlike gold which you can sell by the ounce over and over again, once you sell information you have effectively sold the whole mine. From one initial release, the amount of information in different peoples' hands can increase exponentially thereafter until the world is saturated with the information being sold. Simple supply and demand suggests that the value of information diminishes rapidly with its dissemination because available demand diminishes in the face of infinite supply."

      "But what about the Zeroth Law?" asked Lloyd.

      "Exactly!" replied the professor. "Where does the Zeroth Law fit in? There are three basic laws of thermodynamics (not counting the third law regarding entropy of crystalline substances). But the first law is not called the first law. It is called the Zeroth Law. It is quite simple really, and the basis for our measurement of heat. The law says if system A is in thermal equilibrium with system B, and if system C is in the same thermal equilibrium as system B, then system A is in thermal equilibrium with system C. All we are talking about here is a thermometer. A thermometer measures temperature by coming into thermal equilibrium with the body it is measuring. If a thermometer is used to measure a body of water that is boiling, and we can mark the temperature on a scale on the thermometer, then we can measure another body of water with the same thermometer. If the other body of water produces the same result on the scale of the thermometer, we know the two bodies of water are boiling at the same temperature. We cannot say the two bodies of water are at the same temperature because they are both boiling (converting from liquid to gas) because water boils at different temperatures depending on pressure. The importance of the Zeroth Law is the relationship of the relative effect on the thermometer that allows us to measure relative temperatures."

      "Now Lloyd, you are a smart fellow. Can you see where I am going with this?" asked the professor.

      "Well, we are talking about information," said Lloyd. "I suppose the question is how do we measure relative states of information? If a teacher passes information on to a student, how do we know if the student received all the information he was supposed to?"

      "Now your cooking!" exclaimed the professor. "Speaking of which, let me see how this stew is doing." The professor bent over the pot once more, stirring and sniffing. "Just a bit longer I should think."

"So," said the professor, "have you ever played the game of telephone at a party? One person whispers something in your ear and then you whisper into another's ear and so forth down the line. What comes out at the end is often very different from what was first said at the beginning. It is apparent that information does not pass along perfectly. Distortion, or what we call noise, interferes with the communication process.

      "Here is where we really run into difficulty. You remember I suggested that information is like a form of energy in society? The first law of thermodynamics says that heat and mechanical work are both forms of energy as the energy passes between bodies or systems. Once an energy exchange has taken place, it is not possible to identify the mechanism that caused the transfer. Only the change in the thermodynamic property called energy can be identified. The first law states that the sum of the net heat added to a system and the net work done on it is equal to the increase in energy of the system. Wouldn't it be convenient if we could assume that law applies to information? Perhaps the net effect on a social system is equal to the sum of the information added to the system plus the net change caused by the dissemination of the information, including the noise added to the system. Noise can be thought of as an anti-quantum of information. Noise is essentially disinformation. Returning to the Zeroth law, how do we measure the relative state of information between bodies or between systems?"

      "I am confident of one thing," said the professor. "I do believe that information obeys the second law of thermodynamics. We have already discussed entropy. The second law of thermodynamics defines the property called entropy which serves as a measure of how close a system is to equilibrium. The second law states that for an isolated system (one that cannot interact with other systems), entropy cannot decrease. The consequence of this second law is that equilibrium corresponds to a state of greatest entropy. When an isolated system achieves a configuration of greatest entropy, it can no longer change because any change would require a decrease in entropy and therefore a violation of the second law.

      With regard to units of information, it is easy to understand that once given, information cannot be taken back. Much like time, information travels in only one direction. The unique property of information is that once acquired, the possessor cannot rid himself of it even if he gives it to others. The information will radiate through the system in relation to its value. If it is of very little value, it may not travel very far. But it will never reverse its path and go back. Thus, whatever the greatest state of entropy is for a given amount of information added to a system, it shall remain constant once reached. With that," said the professor, "let's eat!"

      Lloyd groaned. "You always raise more questions than you answer!"

      The professor smiled. "Life would be meaningless if you had all the answers. Now there is a quandary for you to consider."

      "Besides," said the professor, "I never promised you answers. I am trying to give you a framework in which to think. My hope is that you can use the Nomothetic Theorem to find your own answers. Can't you just picture the dynamics of information spreading though a population? And then you have volatility, in the form of noise, distorting the information. There are people who take the information at face value, and there are people who misinterpret it and deviate from the norm. You have the classic model of an initial inequality spreading through a system, trying to evolve toward stability, and being constantly derailed by inherent volatility. Don't you love it!

      "Now eat up before lunch gets cold. I want your honest opinion on this recipe. It looks good on paper, but the proof is in the taste."