A cybernetic objection to Footprints in the Sand

[Sleeping in EQ]

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).

[Indy Coug]

The negative logarithm of its probability? Nerd.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

The negative logarithm of its probability? Nerd.

Wiener is the nerd. The guy is a legend at MIT.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Wiener is the nerd. The guy is a legend at MIT.

Cool quote, what should I read from Wiener?

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Cool quote, what should I read from Wiener?

I'm quoting him all over the place in a project I'm working on. He wrote a really cool article in the early 1950s that was never published. It was about "atomic cities," or how U.S. cities should be arranged in a certain way so as to survive a nuclear war.

His most notable books in my field are Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine and Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society.

He was in a circle of very hard core researchers who explored the possibilities of human-machine interconnection (cybernetics, cyborgs and all of that). Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener--those are all top drawer thinkers.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

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).

Good quote, but I disagree with the inference. The probability of the message is not in how many times it is repeated but how many times it is created independently.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

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).

what does "probability of the message" mean, probability that the message is true?

[All-American]

A slightly more funny objection to Footprints in the Sand:

One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.

But then some strange prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord, "What have we here?"
Those prints are large and round and neat,
"But Lord, they are too big for feet."

"My child," He said in somber tones,
"For miles I carried you along.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait."

"You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know,
So I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt."

"Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand."