I am enjoying a quiet evening, and if I read this article now I will surely blow a fuse. Maybe tomorrow. 
I appreciate @Patrick bringing this AIG face-palm to our attention.
Sigh. I feel much like @Dan_Eastwood: circuit overload is a very real danger. (Especially after my recent experiences living here in MAGA-land. I mean, this kind of stuff is downright oppressive. There are days when it makes me physically ill.)
These last two months for those of us in the USA feel as if there is a wave of anti-reality and anti-knowledge that is sucking the life out of . . . . . well . . . life.
No. I’m not trying to be funny. I’m having flashbacks to what I studied long ago about the rise of the universities in Europe and how kings had to issue edicts exempting universities and their faculties from the laws of local jurisdictions because the rabble and their eager-to-please sheriffs would be frightened by the activities of “those wizards” in the universities who did “demonic” things like combine chemicals and produce fire and smoke. “Only the Devil can do that!” Knowledge that challenged popular thinking was so frightening to so many people. This AIG paper is just another anti-knowledge diatribe. (And, as a Christian I do not consider it to be “helping out” the Book of Genesis or anything else.) Perhaps the article looks more sophisticated on the surface. But it also fits right into so much of what gets reported from Washington in our daily news feeds.
I feel like the anti-knowledge/anti-science trends that have long been at work in such fringe groups has exploded into our daily lives in recent months. I find it quite depressing. I wonder what is the future of scientific research in this country. (And what will happen when the next big pandemic hits.)
Meanwhile, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services thinks that replacing seed oils with beef tallow in French fries will “make French fries a health food again” and Vitamin A will “solve” measles.
Thanks for the reminder!
I think this is overstating the case. It would have to make a lot more sense before it could rise above “Not even wrong” to become diatribe. It starts off by misconstruing Shannon Information, claiming that Shannon was wrong in his definition of Information. But Shannon’s definition accomplished exactly the intended purpose in creating a theory of Information. It goes downhill from there.
Near as I can tell, the entire paper consists of misrepresenting KĂĽppers (1990) and Maury (2018), and is intended as a rebuttal to Maury.
There are other kinds of information besides Shannon’s definition, and all are very technical/mathematical in the definitions. There is no hint of math or technical definitions here, nothing to adequately explain terms. The paper itself isn’t long enough to contain the sort of definitions needed; it can’t even begin to make the kind of claims implied by the title, there simply isn’t enough space.
The most profound aspect of Shannon’s work is to link information with entropy. Entropy was fully studied in the 19th century as part of thermodynamics and steam engines. The fact that the entropy of the universe is always increasing means that the information content of the universe is always increasing. The AIG paper doesn’t contain the word entropy in it. Information is as fundamental in an expanding universe as is time, space and energy. S=logW is as important as E=mc^2 in the study of the universe.
Patrick is giving me grad school flashbacks.
Boltzmann put it on his tombstone.
I can feel my entropy getting higher day by day. But I have yet to decide what I’m putting on my tombstone. Perhaps: “Do you think this seafood pasta in the back of the fridge smells funny?”
Easy for you to say.
And then one must consider:
I’ve log’ed a lot of entropy in my lifetime.
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