The interpretation of entropy and negative entropy theories on the nature of information is the first scientific paradigm on the interpretation of the nature of information at the beginning of the rise of contemporary information science. The information entropy or negative entropy theories are the relative measurement for the structuralization degree of the system at a specific level, which have certain characteristics of relativity, functionality, and quantification. Although the concepts of entropy, negative entropy, information, entropy increase, and entropy decrease often have very different specific meanings in different disciplines and for different scientists, the meanings of these concepts are unified in essence and the differences between them are generated when the same kind of concepts is applied to the study of different directions of the same kind of phenomena: either to the static structuralization degree of the system or to the change of the dynamic structuralization degree of the system. Since entropy and negative entropy theories only measure the relationship of structural differences at a specific level of the system from a formal aspect, they are not aimed at the information itself but rather they are aimed at only the structuralization characteristics of the information carrier itself at a specific level. Because of this, it is impossible to deduce the general nature of information directly from such theories.

Self-organization is a general mechanism for the creation of new structural pattern of systems. A pattern, in essence, is a relationship, an architecture, a way of organizing, and a structure of order, which can only be explained by information activities. The characteristics of self-organization behavior, such as openness, nonlinearity, inner randomness, inner feedback, information network, and holographic construction, provide corresponding conditions and basis for the self-organizing evolution of the system from the aspects of environmental information function, maintenance and construction of the overall information framework of the system, and exploration of new information mode of the system. Based on the general process and mechanism of self-organization system evolution, its corresponding basic stages have the significance and value of information activities. Generally speaking, the process of system elements differentiating from the original system is the decoupling of information association between relevant elements and original systems. The convergence process of forming system elements is the initial exploration of forming a new information model; the nucleation process of some initial stabilization modes is the creation of information codons; the development of the system according to a particular pattern is ergodic construction of information feedback chain indicated by information codon; the diffusion of system self-replication is the expansion of the quantity of the information model; the variation in system self-replication is the innovation process of introducing new information pattern; environment-based selection and evolution correspond to the complex development of information pattern; and the alternation of old and new structures in system evolution corresponds to the formation process of the whole information network framework of the new system. In order to explain the self-organization’s characteristics, processes, and mechanisms of system evolution at a more comprehensive level, the complexity research program must pay enough attention to and give due status to the information factors and information science creed. Moreover, the information science research creed may also provide some basic theoretical paradigms with core theoretical significance for complex system research.

This year is of course the 200th anniversary of Engels' birth (On November 28). On this special year, it is still necessary to carefully sort out the philosophical heritage left to us by this great man and draw on the ideas that can be used for reference. This paper only discusses the contemporary value of certain viewpoints and theories in Engels' Dialectics. In Engels' concept, dialectics is not only the way we perceive the world, it's also the property of objective nature. In Engels' view, the basic viewpoint of dialectics is to regard all things as the process of eternal change and movement in the interaction of universal relations. Many of the dialectic thoughts put forward by Engels are consistent with the relevant theories of contemporary science. For example, universal differences necessarily generate universal interaction; the interaction inevitably bases on the intermediary; the overall evolution of things is characterized by the eternal cycle of evolution and degeneration which transform into each other constantly; some thoughts contain the view of holography, and so on. The re-excavation of Engels's views and theories will undoubtedly have great practical significance and value in cleaning up and correcting the separation between man and nature, society and nature caused by the prevalence of contemporary philosophy of consciousness, reducing and preventing all kinds of disastrous consequences brought by it, and further promoting the construction process of theory and practice of human ecological civilization and sustainable development strategy.

Abstract:As a kind of thinking mechanism that grasps motion, change and development of objects on the whole, systematic thinking contains a whole set of thinking principles, methods and operation procedures. With the uprising popularity of studies on informational system science and complexity theory, information reveals a new field that the philosophy of the past has not discovered. Wu's works are putting forward a wholly new scientific thinking way: the Informational Thinking. We can conclude rationally from Wu's explanations of information that the character of informational thinking way can include and surpass the basic idea of systematic thinking way. So far as the whole process of scientific cognition is concerned, functions of informational thinking are expanded in several aspects.

The definition follows the propositional logic, the definition of information is no exception. In recent years, the starting point of the research on the definition of information involves generally investigation of the history of the concept, interdisciplinary research and different aspects of cognition that includes ontology, epistemology, and linguistics and so on, the understanding about the definition of information is divergent. As long as it is about definition of information, regardless what kind of study, however, follows the propositional logic. So the true and false judgment about the definition of information is actually judgment on the proposition of the definition of information. This paper classifies various kinds of intension and definition of the information in the propositional structure by analysing the propositional structure of definition of information and various kinds of defined method about definition of information.