Zero-entropy (was Re: FINAL QUESTION: your natlangs...)

At 06:53 AM 10/7/98 -0000, Tommie Powell wrote:
>In 1962, some mathematician at NSA "proved" that a "zero-entropy" language
>would be theoretically possible.  In other words, if you had such a
>language, then, no matter how you jumbled up a sentence's symbols, the
>result would be some other sentence that made sense.
>
>There's no such thing as an unbreakable code, but such a language would have
>the effect of making even the simplest of codes "unbreakable" because any
>would-be code-breaker would never get any result that he could discard as
>nonsensical (and hence he would never be able to rule out any possible
>notion of how the messages were being encoded).
>
I realize from reading this that it is a good description of the principle
behind my "quantum language" Bogomol.  I didn't realize it was actually
possible!  (Since the Bogomoli are intelligent insects, I didn't place a
high value on plausibility in constructing it.)

In Bogomol, words can have many different meanings, and the proper reading
of each word isn't determined until the end of the utterance by a "ranking
syllable".  If Bogomol were a code, you could transmit the individual words
and send the ranking syllable by some other means.  Among the Bogomoli,
these potential meanings are closely monitored, so that inauspicious
combinations
can be avoided, or bon mots composed as a subtext to the main message.

-- Terry

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/2711