[EM] Thermodynamics

[robert bristow-johnson]

Like in audio data compression, I know the difference between lossy and lossless compression .  I sorta understand where the bits get allocated for the audio spectrum.  Like where it's appropriate to accurately represent the raw data and where we can fudge it a little.I don't know how to do that for voter data without making assumptions or postulates of the data.Powered by Cricket Wireless------ Original message------From: Carl SchroedlDate: Sun, Jun 5, 2022 1:16 PMTo: robert bristow-johnson;Cc: Forest Simmons;Richard Lung;EM;Subject:Re: [EM] ThermodynamicsAs a software guy, the connection I make is to something I have wondered for a while -- whether it is useful to study social choice functions as lossy compression algorithms. I haven't thought it through, but it could be interesting to see if the rate-distortion branch of information theory would apply.On Sat, Jun 4, 2022, 9:09 PM robert bristow-johnson <rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote:








    Being an electrical engineer that was ABD for a PhD in communications systems and signal processing, I have a little trouble seeing the connection to Shannon Information Theory.  Either in the measure of information content of a message or set of messages or of the definition of entropy or of the capacity of a channel to carry information.So could someone make the connection for me? I get that set of ordinal ballot data is discrete information and there's some way, such as Huffman coding, to represent that information in the most compact and essential way possible.But I don't see the connection to social choice theory.  Can someone help?robertPowered by Cric
 ket Wireless------ Original message------From: Forest SimmonsDate: Sat, Jun 4, 2022 4:06 PMTo: Richard Lung;Cc: EM;Subject:Re: [EM] ThermodynamicsTrue!Do an internet search of "information mechanics" to confirm the validity of this tight connection.Information mechanics seems to be the key for the "unified field theory" Einstein was looking for ... and more ... unification of classical and quantum fields for all of the forces ... strong, weak, and intermediate... if not a "theory of everything."El sáb., 4 de jun. de 2022 6:26 a. m., Richard Lung <voting at ukscientists.com> escribió:
  

    
  
  
    
    
    
    
    Forest,
     
    The
        efficiency of heat engines, in thermodynamics, offer an analogy
        with voting
        methods. Many other sciences do so, if voting method follows the
        Stevens
        structure of measurement, held in common by other branches of
        science. (I
        published a free e-book, about scientific models of election
        method, called:
        Science is Ethics as Electics.)
    The
        basic principle, that thermodynamics and election method have in
        common is
        conservation, either of energy or information. (I believe
        scientists are
        currently translating energy terms into information terms.)
    Common-place
        teachings of social choice theory, including the American
        Mathematics Society,
        usually make the claim that there is no perfect voting system.
        The equivalent
        statement in thermodynamics is that there is no perpetual motion
        machine.
    As
        you point out, that does not preclude voting methods of
        different efficiency,
        the equivalent of heat engines of differing efficiency. The
        engines depend on
        efficient transfer of surplus heat, to work requirements, to
        keep the engine
        going. Similarly, transfers of vote surpluses, to elective
        quotas, keep the
        count procedure going. Heat forms a random distribution of
        motion. And votes
        typically form a random distribution of choice (subject to left
        or right
        skews).
    Binomial STV
        would perhaps
        be rather more efficient than traditional STV, because it
        rationally conserves
        exclusion information. In rough analogy, a binomial STV “heat
        engine” is better
        “insulated,” to conserve heat. Thermodynamics is not just a
        dynamic of heat but
        also its insulation, in a closed system. Likewise, an election
        method is not
        just an active election, but also a closed system of exclusion.
    
      
    Regards,
    Richard
        Lung.
    
      
    
  





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