Harry Veeder wrote:
>
> On Sat, 7 Jun 1997, Dan Clore wrote:

> > > People may not be trading coins or paper, when they do electronic
> > > transactions, but this dosen't mean money has lost its physical basis and
> > > now resides in some disembodied platonic relm.
> >
> > I already said this. Now I've repeated it. Please drop the straw man
> > argument about "some disembodied platonic realm".

> Well, as far as I'm concerned this is what I take "pure" information to mean.
> If I am wrong then please explain. Please don't accuse me of erecting a
> straw man argument.

Well, I take it to mean in the sense it's used in information theory.
Which is roughly to do with the degree of dependence the information has
on its specific physical base, transmissability to other physical bases,
etc. If information on computers is not now "pure" information, it is
very close.

> > > Currency is literally anything which happens to be in current
> > > use by a society.
> >
> > Argumentum ad etymologicum (appeal to etymology) -- this is a classic
> > informal fallacy.
>
> What is an informal fallacy?

Any fallacy that isn't a formal fallacy, of course. Really, though, it
would be well worth your time to get a basic book on logic and go over
this. It's worth *anyone's* time.

> > Why not? -- The number zero is a number like any other....

> Zero what? Zero cows? zero gold? zero bricks?

Zero things that aren't things, but that people will trade stuff for --
for some odd reason.

> Only from the standpoint of the accountant is money just a bunch of
> numbers or as you like to say "pure information". When an accountant
> works with money, or when individuals wear the 'hat' of an accountant, all
> they see are strings of numbers to be added and subtracted etc.

The problem being that people act as if those numbers were a measure of
something objective, instead of just numbers.

> Hmmm. Okay I'll give you quote from two quantum physicists...
>
> "Information is physical and any processing of information is always
> performed by physical means - an innocent-sounding statement, but its
> consequences are anything but trivial..."By David Deutsch and Artur Ekert
>
> If you would like to see more go to:
>
> http://eve.physics.ox.ac.uk/QChome.html
> http://eve.physics.ox.ac.uk/NewWeb/Research/communication/communication

Thanks for the reference. I'll have to read it more thoroughly later.

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