“Waiting for Carnot”: Information and complexity

Bawden, David; Robinson, Lyn

doi:10.1002/asi.23535

Cited by 19 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 64 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The interesting question for the information sciences is the relation between information and "interesting complexity." This has also developed considerably since Shaw and Davis's review (Bawden & Robinson, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But it has not been so productive for the information sciences; here it is the wrong question, since information is not entropy or negentropy, although it is related to both. The interesting question for the information sciences is the relation between information and “interesting complexity.” This has also developed considerably since Shaw and Davis's review (Bawden & Robinson, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Denbigh and Denbigh (1985), among others, give similar examples for chemical systems. This is an indication that it will be necessary to look to ways to include complexity in extending and illuminating the information/entropy relationship; see Bawden and Robinson (2015).…”

Section: Entropy and Order; Oddities Paradoxes And New Viewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

“A few exciting words”: Information and entropy revisited

Bawden

Robinson

2015

Asso for Info Science & Tech

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AbstractA review is presented of the relation between information and entropy, focusing on two main issues: the similarity of the formal definitions of physical entropy, according to statistical mechanics, and of information, according to information theory; and the possible subjectivity of entropy considered as missing information. The paper updates the 1983 analysis of Shaw and Davis. The difference in the interpretations of information given respectively by Shannon and by Wiener, significant for the information sciences, receives particular consideration.Analysis of a range of material, from literary theory to thermodynamics, is used to draw out the issues. Emphasis is placed on recourse to the original sources, and on direct quotation, to attempt to overcome some of the misunderstandings and oversimplifications which have occurred with these topics.While it is strongly related to entropy, information is neither identical with it, nor its opposite. Information is related to order and pattern, but also to disorder and randomness. The relations between information and the 'interesting complexity', which embodies both pattern and randomness, are worthy of attention."A few exciting words": information and entropy revisited THOMASINA: When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of the meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if need stir backward, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this odd? SEPTIMUS: No THOMASINA: Well, I do. You cannot stir things apart. SEPTIMUS: No more you can, time must needs run backward, and since it will not, we must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder until pink is complete, unchanging and unchangeable, and we are done with it forever. This is known as free will or self-determination. Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, (Act 1, Scene 1), London: Faber and Faber, 1993 If information is pattern, the non-information should be the absence of pattern, that is, randomness. This commonsense expectation ran into unexpected complications when certain developments within information theory implied that information could be equated with randomness as well as with pattern. Identifying information with both pattern and randomness proved to be a powerful paradox (Hayles 1999, p. 25) IntroductionThis paper re-examines the relations between information and entropy, a topic of debate for nearly a century. It can be seen as updating, thirty years on, of the analysis of Shaw and Davis (1983), presenting new findings and new perspectives. In order to make proper sense of these, it is necessary to delve into the historical development of the issues. Where possible, we have used quotations from original sources, as this is an area where there has been much misunderstanding ...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

“A few exciting words”: Information and entropy revisited

Bawden

Robinson

2015

Asso for Info Science & Tech

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This is not intended to minimise the importance of more general concepts, which are of value in chemistry. One example of these is complexity, a multifaceted and contested concept in itself [53,54], which is of increasing interest in chemistry. For an overview, see Bonchev and Seitz [55], and for examples, see [50,51,56].…”

Section: Concepts In Chemistrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Storing the Wisdom: Chemical Concepts and Chemoinformatics

Bawden

2015

Informatics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of the paper is to examine the nature of chemical concepts, and the ways in which they are applied in chemoinformatics systems. An account of concepts in philosophy and in the information sciences leads to an analysis of chemical concepts, and their representation. The way in which concepts are applied in systems for information retrieval and for structure-property correlation are reviewed, and some issues noted. Attention is focused on the basic concepts or substance, reaction and property, on the organising concepts of chemical structure, structural similarity, periodicity, and on more specific concepts, including two-and three-dimensional structural patterns, reaction types, and property concepts. It is concluded that chemical concepts, despite (or perhaps because of) their vague and mutable nature, have considerable and continuing value in chemoinformatics, and that an increased formal treatment of concepts may have value in the future.

show abstract

“…We all have an intuitive sense of what complexity means. In the last two decades an increasing number of efforts have been published [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] to refine our intuitions about complexity into precise, scientific concepts, pointing out a large amount of open problems. Nevertheless there is not a consensus for the term complexity nor whether there is a simple core to complexity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%