[Fis] [External Email] Re: Fwd: Entropy, the Second Law, and Life

[Marcus Abundis]

Stan – I am not really sure how to respond to your note. In your short

paragraph you offer a catalogue of issues that lie far outside my view

of information science, and I believe, the view of most other careful

readers in information science.


 – ‘Entropy applies everywhere, and always in the same way’

> This argues that signal entropy and thermodynamic entropy are

identical. I know of no other FIS member that agrees with this view.

Shannon and Weaver (1949) themselves referred to signal entropy

as ‘disappointing and bizarre’, bizarre expressly because it differs so

clearly from classic notions of thermodynamic entropy.


– ‘ . . . NOT problems for physicists’

> Again, careful readers in physics know well of many force-Energy

related issues. Dark energy and dark matter are wholly unexplained,

gravity is poorly understood, no Unified Field Theory exists to detail

force-Energy transitions or quantum-cosmic roles, matter/anti-matter

asymmetry is yet another open issue, etc., etc. etc. And then we

have thermodynamic energy as ONLY one of 16 accepted forms of

energy where the interrelations between those 16 is unclear. I have

seen three of four times where Richard Feynman during the course

of a lecture comments on how interesting the issue of force-energy

relations is . . . and then promptly walk off in an entirely different

direction – leaving that one question hanging. I chuckle every time I

see it.


In short, you seem to make my argument for me that ‘entropy’ is

a concept often misused and abused, not even differentiating

between signal and thermodynamics. Shannon in The Bandwagon

(1956) cautioned against reckless and excess of the concept

‘entropy’ – and here we are over 60 years later still dealing with this

issue. Odd.


Marcus
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