Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   That's like saying that text is just ink and paper. Text is more than
> > that.

> But text isn't a "thing" independent of the ink and paper. It's a pattern 
> and its relationship to human thought processes.  Similarly, the 
> electrostatic force isn't a "thing", so asking what it's made out of isn't 
> really reasonable, beyond the answer "it's made out of the stuff that the 
> parts are made out of."

> It's like asking "what is arithmetic made out of?"

  Would you agree that the information portrayed by the text exists?
We know the information exists because of the causality effects it can
produce. The outcome of events can be affected by the information that
is portrayed by the text.

  If something exists in this universe, then it is part of it, and hence
the universe is made of it (among other things).

  Also, if information exists, it cannot be the same thing as energy
because information can be created and destroyed (or, more specifically,
the amount of information can be changed, as it's basically tied to
entropy, while the amount of energy cannot, as it stays constant).

  Hence there exists at least two different things in the universe:
Energy and information, and they are not the same thing.

  The third thing I postulated that exists, and which is neither energy
nor information, is timespace. You would agree that timespace exists.
The only other question is whether timespace is distinct from energy.
As far as I can see, it is (although my arguments of why I think so
are admittedly less thought-out and thus weaker).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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