Dear Arturo, dear FISers, Citing Beck (Contemp. Phys. 2009, 50, 495–510. doi: 10.1080/00107510902823517), Street wrote: << information can be defined as a negation of thermodynamic entropy (Beck, 2009): I=-S >> (pls. read the equal sign with three bars, I don't know how to type the three bars sign). But Beck wrote about information theory (i.e. the probabilistic one): << One then defines the entropy S as ‘missing information’, i.e. S=-I >>. Thus it is not what claimed Street: (i) Beck referred to probability theory (no thermodynamics there), and (ii) Beck defined S from I, not I from S. So the claim of Street is doubtful, if not false. Bt the way, the Publisher of "Frontiers Systems in Neuroscience" was classified as predatory in the Beall's list, but let us forget it.
Beck is in agreement to what is told on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory), << The inspiration for adopting the word entropy in information theory came from the close resemblance between Shannon's formula and very similar known formulae from statistical mechanics. >> As far as I know, what is related in the Wikipedia page is an historical fact. Entropy has thus two meanings: a physical quantity in thermodynamics, and a math quantity in the framework of modeling communication science. Information is also a math quantity in the framework of modeling communication science: it is a modeling concept which is not physical. Playing again with words, some people introduced the term information back in thermodynamics, thus concluded that information is physical. In my opinion it is not a good practice: it adds confusion. Best regards, Michel. Michel Petitjean MTi, INSERM UMR-S 973, University Paris 7, 35 rue Helene Brion, 75205 Paris Cedex 13, France. Phone: +331 5727 8434; Fax: +331 5727 8372 E-mail: petitjean.chi...@gmail.com (preferred), michel.petitj...@univ-paris-diderot.fr http://petitjeanmichel.free.fr/itoweb.petitjean.html 2017-09-29 14:01 GMT+02:00 <tozziart...@libero.it>: > Dear FISers, > Hi! > ...a very hot discussion... > I think that it is not useful to talk about Aristotle, Plato and Ortega y > Gasset, it the modern context of information... their phylosophical, not > scientific approach, although marvelous, does not provide insights in a > purely scientific issue such the information we are talking about... > > Once and forever, it must be clear that information is a physical quantity. > Please read (it is not a paper of mine!): > Street S. 2016. Neurobiology as information physics. Frontiers in Systems > neuroscience. > > https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5108784/ > > In short, Street shows how information can be clearly defined in terms of > Bekenstein entropy! > > Sorry, > and BW... > > Arturo Tozzi > AA Professor Physics, University North Texas > Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy > Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba > http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/ > > - _______________________________________________ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
