Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Information

Claude Shannon at Bell Labs clarified mathematically the idea on Information. Earlier Ludwig Boltzmann had connected entropy with probability for Statistical Mechanics. Here I want to add some thoughts on the concept of Information.

Ethimologically we have form and inside,in-form-ation, something like the structure, arrangement, or parts that make up an object; that form the object. Nevertheless I wrote concept, not object, so what is it, a concept, or an object?

The issue is even harder with Shannon's Communication Theory, because as he formulated it, it had to do with human communication, at least the telephone company he worked for was not interested in bird communication, those animals don't pay telephone bills, unless they are some wealthy parrots.

Be it as it may, it is clear that we are just one of a group of animals that communicate, we just happen to be the animal "in charge" right now. I believe we are in front of an object. Information exists, in the following sense.

This universe is ordered, there are other possible universes less ordered. The given order is Information. We have the scientific method, to find that order, when we do, we'll know the Information in this Universe. This may be a never ending process, we do not know that, and that is precisely what Information is, that we cannot know beforehand; we have to figure it out as we go along.

The arrangement of the parts of the Universe is an object: the Universe itself.

There is a sense in looking for the Information, because the Information is there, like an object is there.

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