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.The first world of physical objects/states was clearly inadequate forthermodynamics, for the universe of probability theory is certainly beyond the firstworld.A Maxwell demon is beyond the first world.Kelvin s consciousness, will,and animation are beyond world one.But consider carefully Popper s distinctionbetween world two and three.World two is the world of consciousness or mentalstates, or perhaps of behavioral disposition to act. Whatever world two would con-sist of in detail, it is clearly a world which is contingent on the kind of thing whicha human being brings to bear, even if we do not quarrel with Popper s wafflingbetween consciousness and mental states, on the one hand, and behavioral disposi-tion to act, on the other hand.The point of value for this discussion is the fact thatPopper would distinguish between this second world, contingent of human exis-tence, and the third world, the objective contents of thought, especially of scientificand poetic thoughts and of works of art. I suggested that there are three very impor-tant features entailed in this characterization of the third world.The first is that thethird world consists of that which is objective.Objective is to be understood as notcontingent on human existence.But Popper says objective content of thought. I take this to mean that it is the objective which is thinkable.However, the contentsof thought are not contingent on the existence of human beings.This thinkability is the 78 3 On Interpretation of Mindsecond important feature of Popper s third world.And the last feature of importance isthat he allows within the third world two kinds of tenants, the yield of science andthe yield of art, both what humankind finds out about the universe into which itfinds itself born, and that which humankind creates to dwell and abide within it.The third world has the yield of knowing and creating, these being perhaps proces-sually contingent on the human being but are not ontologically contingent, they areobjective.In these terms, let me attempt to state what I believe in the major conclusion tobe drawn from Szilard s work.It is the establishment of information as a feature ofthe objective world, which may or may not be actual.Szilard uses the phrase intel-ligent being and Maxwell had his demon, yet neither was talking about a humanbeing.The value of Popper in this regard is that he has severely distinguishedbetween world two and three, overcoming the historical confounding of the objec-tive contents of thought, the third world, on the one hand, from the human mentation(or even dispositional), the second world, on the other hand.What Szilard is clearlydiscussing is the third world; however, he happens to use the rhetoric associatedwith the second world, however much his concern was with the first.The fact is thatat least from the time of Boltzmann, the first and third worlds were intimately inter-twined in the yield of thermodynamics.Szilard wrote that it was the objective of his investigation to find the conditionswhich apparently allow the construction of a perpetual motion machine of the sec-ond kind, if on an intelligent being to intervene in a thermodynamic system (p.301).This is the central idea of his paper.Like the age-old passion for changingbase metals into gold, so has there been a corresponding passion to find a machinewhich could go on indefinitely and be used to do work.Such a machine, if it wereever constructed, could produce power without an external energy source.Perpetualmotion machines of the first and second kind allude to machine which might over-come the limitations associated with the first and second laws of thermodynamics.The first law is that energy cannot be created or destroyed, the law of conservationof energy formulated by Helmholtz.A perpetual motion machine of the first kindwould produce more energy than any energy required to operate it.A perpetualmotion machine of the second kind would be one which could obtain work from asystem in which there was no difference in temperature.The challenge of Maxwell sdemon was that, at least allowing the theory its head, the decisions of an intelligentbeing, decisions as such being nonenergetic, might be able to produce a situationwhich appeared to violate the second law of thermodynamics.Szilard says that theobjection to the universal validity of the second law of thermodynamics as embod-ied in the idea of Maxwell s demon is not unreasonable, inasmuch as behind theprecisely formulated question quantitative connections seem to be hidden which todate have not been clarified (p.301).It is to the clarification of this question thatthis paper is devoted.Szilard is deeply aware of the purely theoretical character of his investigation.No real living being could be like a Maxwell demon.The Maxwell demon is a sort of deus ex machina& who is continuously and exactly informed of the exist-ing state of nature and who is able to start or interrupt the macroscopic course of Thermodynamics and Information 79nature at any moment without any expenditure of work (p.302).Real humanbeings are different.In eliciting any physical effect by action of the sensory as well as the motor nervous systema degradation of energy is always involved, quite apart from the fact that the very existenceof a nervous system is dependent on continual dissipation of energy.& Whether consider-ing these circumstances real living beings could continually or at least regularly produceenergy at the expense of heat of the lowest temperature appears very doubtful, even thoughour ignorance of biological phenomena does not allow for a definite answer.However, thelatter questions lead beyond the scope of physics in the strict sense (p.302).Szilard is thus clear in attempting to distinguish between the biological, andhence energetic, in the physical sense, being and intelligent being.It is the latter thathe is interested in, and not the former.He writes: We wish next to learn throughwhat circumstance such entropy takes place by the intervention of intelligent beingsin a thermodynamic system (p.303).[I have had to depart at this point from usingthe Rapaport and Knoller translation, since I think that in their translation, the mainpoint is lost.The German of Szilard reads: Wir wollen zunachst zu erke ennentrachten, durch welchen Umstand bei dem Eingreifen intelligenter Wesen in einnnthermodynamisches System die in diesem hervorgenbrachte Entropieverminderungbegingt wird&. Rapaport and Knoller make this In the first place, we wish to learnwhat circumstance conditions the decrease of entropy which takes place when intel-ligent living beings intervene in a thermodynamic system. While Szilard uses only intelligenter Wesen or intelligent beings, Papaport and Knoller make intelligentliving beings. Not only does Szilard have anything to correspond to their living, but I also believe that it was precisely his aim in this section of the paper to indicatethat what he was talking about was the intelligence feature which human beingsmay have in common with the demon, but to distinguish human beings because theyalso have bodies with corresponding energy transformations.The addition of living in the translation confounds the very point Szilard was trying to make.]Szilard says that such a violation of the second law of thermodynamics becomespossible by a certain type of coupling& & we shall see that this depends on a certain type of couplingbetween different parameters of the system [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.The first world of physical objects/states was clearly inadequate forthermodynamics, for the universe of probability theory is certainly beyond the firstworld.A Maxwell demon is beyond the first world.Kelvin s consciousness, will,and animation are beyond world one.But consider carefully Popper s distinctionbetween world two and three.World two is the world of consciousness or mentalstates, or perhaps of behavioral disposition to act. Whatever world two would con-sist of in detail, it is clearly a world which is contingent on the kind of thing whicha human being brings to bear, even if we do not quarrel with Popper s wafflingbetween consciousness and mental states, on the one hand, and behavioral disposi-tion to act, on the other hand.The point of value for this discussion is the fact thatPopper would distinguish between this second world, contingent of human exis-tence, and the third world, the objective contents of thought, especially of scientificand poetic thoughts and of works of art. I suggested that there are three very impor-tant features entailed in this characterization of the third world.The first is that thethird world consists of that which is objective.Objective is to be understood as notcontingent on human existence.But Popper says objective content of thought. I take this to mean that it is the objective which is thinkable.However, the contentsof thought are not contingent on the existence of human beings.This thinkability is the 78 3 On Interpretation of Mindsecond important feature of Popper s third world.And the last feature of importance isthat he allows within the third world two kinds of tenants, the yield of science andthe yield of art, both what humankind finds out about the universe into which itfinds itself born, and that which humankind creates to dwell and abide within it.The third world has the yield of knowing and creating, these being perhaps proces-sually contingent on the human being but are not ontologically contingent, they areobjective.In these terms, let me attempt to state what I believe in the major conclusion tobe drawn from Szilard s work.It is the establishment of information as a feature ofthe objective world, which may or may not be actual.Szilard uses the phrase intel-ligent being and Maxwell had his demon, yet neither was talking about a humanbeing.The value of Popper in this regard is that he has severely distinguishedbetween world two and three, overcoming the historical confounding of the objec-tive contents of thought, the third world, on the one hand, from the human mentation(or even dispositional), the second world, on the other hand.What Szilard is clearlydiscussing is the third world; however, he happens to use the rhetoric associatedwith the second world, however much his concern was with the first.The fact is thatat least from the time of Boltzmann, the first and third worlds were intimately inter-twined in the yield of thermodynamics.Szilard wrote that it was the objective of his investigation to find the conditionswhich apparently allow the construction of a perpetual motion machine of the sec-ond kind, if on an intelligent being to intervene in a thermodynamic system (p.301).This is the central idea of his paper.Like the age-old passion for changingbase metals into gold, so has there been a corresponding passion to find a machinewhich could go on indefinitely and be used to do work.Such a machine, if it wereever constructed, could produce power without an external energy source.Perpetualmotion machines of the first and second kind allude to machine which might over-come the limitations associated with the first and second laws of thermodynamics.The first law is that energy cannot be created or destroyed, the law of conservationof energy formulated by Helmholtz.A perpetual motion machine of the first kindwould produce more energy than any energy required to operate it.A perpetualmotion machine of the second kind would be one which could obtain work from asystem in which there was no difference in temperature.The challenge of Maxwell sdemon was that, at least allowing the theory its head, the decisions of an intelligentbeing, decisions as such being nonenergetic, might be able to produce a situationwhich appeared to violate the second law of thermodynamics.Szilard says that theobjection to the universal validity of the second law of thermodynamics as embod-ied in the idea of Maxwell s demon is not unreasonable, inasmuch as behind theprecisely formulated question quantitative connections seem to be hidden which todate have not been clarified (p.301).It is to the clarification of this question thatthis paper is devoted.Szilard is deeply aware of the purely theoretical character of his investigation.No real living being could be like a Maxwell demon.The Maxwell demon is a sort of deus ex machina& who is continuously and exactly informed of the exist-ing state of nature and who is able to start or interrupt the macroscopic course of Thermodynamics and Information 79nature at any moment without any expenditure of work (p.302).Real humanbeings are different.In eliciting any physical effect by action of the sensory as well as the motor nervous systema degradation of energy is always involved, quite apart from the fact that the very existenceof a nervous system is dependent on continual dissipation of energy.& Whether consider-ing these circumstances real living beings could continually or at least regularly produceenergy at the expense of heat of the lowest temperature appears very doubtful, even thoughour ignorance of biological phenomena does not allow for a definite answer.However, thelatter questions lead beyond the scope of physics in the strict sense (p.302).Szilard is thus clear in attempting to distinguish between the biological, andhence energetic, in the physical sense, being and intelligent being.It is the latter thathe is interested in, and not the former.He writes: We wish next to learn throughwhat circumstance such entropy takes place by the intervention of intelligent beingsin a thermodynamic system (p.303).[I have had to depart at this point from usingthe Rapaport and Knoller translation, since I think that in their translation, the mainpoint is lost.The German of Szilard reads: Wir wollen zunachst zu erke ennentrachten, durch welchen Umstand bei dem Eingreifen intelligenter Wesen in einnnthermodynamisches System die in diesem hervorgenbrachte Entropieverminderungbegingt wird&. Rapaport and Knoller make this In the first place, we wish to learnwhat circumstance conditions the decrease of entropy which takes place when intel-ligent living beings intervene in a thermodynamic system. While Szilard uses only intelligenter Wesen or intelligent beings, Papaport and Knoller make intelligentliving beings. Not only does Szilard have anything to correspond to their living, but I also believe that it was precisely his aim in this section of the paper to indicatethat what he was talking about was the intelligence feature which human beingsmay have in common with the demon, but to distinguish human beings because theyalso have bodies with corresponding energy transformations.The addition of living in the translation confounds the very point Szilard was trying to make.]Szilard says that such a violation of the second law of thermodynamics becomespossible by a certain type of coupling& & we shall see that this depends on a certain type of couplingbetween different parameters of the system [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]