A cybernetic objection to Footprints in the Sand - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

Sleeping in EQ · 07-01-2008, 05:20 PM

This gem is from the reknowned physicist and mathematician, Norbert Wiener:

Messages themselves are a form of pattern and organization. Indeed, it is possible to treat sets of messages as having an entropy like sets of states of the external world. Just as entropy is a measure of disorganization, the information carried by a set of messages is a measure of organization. In fact, it is possible to interpret the information carried by a message as essentially the negative of its entropy, and the negative logarithm of its probability. That is, the more probable the message, the less information it gives. Cliches, for example, are less illuminating than great poems. (1954, 21).

07-01-2008, 05:20 PM	#1
Sleeping in EQ Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: The People's Republic of Monsanto Posts: 3,085	A cybernetic objection to Footprints in the Sand This gem is from the reknowned physicist and mathematician, Norbert Wiener: Messages themselves are a form of pattern and organization. Indeed, it is possible to treat sets of messages as having an entropy like sets of states of the external world. Just as entropy is a measure of disorganization, the information carried by a set of messages is a measure of organization. In fact, it is possible to interpret the information carried by a message as essentially the negative of its entropy, and the negative logarithm of its probability. That is, the more probable the message, the less information it gives. Cliches, for example, are less illuminating than great poems. (1954, 21). __________________ "Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; " 1 Thess. 5:21 (NRSV) We all trust our own unorthodoxies.