Stumbled up this

[Alan Ruttenberg]

The physical character of information
http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/04/17/rspa.2009.0063.full

The mathematical theory of communication defines information in syntax without reference to its physical representation and semantic significance. However, in an everyday context, information is tied to its representation and its content is valued. The dichotomy between the formal definition and the practical perception of information is examined by the second law of thermodynamics that was recently formulated as an equation of motion. Thermodynamic entropy shows that the physical representation of information is not inconsequential in generation, transmission and processing of information. According to the principle of increasing entropy, communication by dissipative transformations is a natural process among many other evolutionary phenomena that level energy-density differences between components of a communication system and its surroundings. In addition, information-guided processes direct down along descents on free energy landscapes. The non-integrable equation for irreversible processes reveals that there is no universal analytical algorithm to match source to channel. Noise infiltration is also regarded by the second law as an inevitable consequence of energy transduction between a communication system and its surroundings. Communication is invariably associated with misunderstanding because mechanisms and means of information processing at the receiver differ from those at the sender. The significance of information is ascribed to the increase in thermodynamic entropy in the receiver system that results from execution of the received message.

Just skimmed the start, but it might be an interesting read in detail. 

-Alan

[Dirk Derom]

Hi Alan,

Thanks Alan.

I browsed through related pages when we were talking (on the OBI lists) about data, datum, data item... to see what is actually what. Being a sort of separate field, the philosophy of information appeared to be rather extensive. One of my former colleagues in Belgium recommended the following pages as a start to get familiar with the field.
My refs are more 'general' in nature, and seems to give a broader perspective on data, information, knowledge. Not sure whether this is where you were after (probably not), yet might be interesting nevertheless:
- http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/publications/pdf/data.pdf
- http://www.science.uva.nl/~seop/entries/information-semantic/

Cheers,
D

2009/5/11 Alan Ruttenberg <alanrut...@gmail.com>

--
Kind regards,
Dirk Derom.

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[Jonathan Rees]

I'd like to warn against paying too much attention either to
thermodynamics or Shannon communication theory. The former is a tarpit
(e.g.: the unit of information is area, because the surface area of a
black hole is proportional to the amount of information lost into it)
and even if there were consensus within physics on what it is, there's
no reason to think it would have any bearing on curation of
biological ... information. Shannon "information" was invented for a
single limited purpose and is only a mathematical model intended to
develop quantitative results around coding and communication channel
capacity. To read too much into Shannon's (or physics's) definition of
the term "information" would be as silly as reading anything into the
mathematician's choice of words such as "group" or "field" or
"catastrophe". Yes, there's a connection in each case, but it's the
relation of a specialized theoretical model to some very narrow slice
of reality that has little bearing on the slice we care about.

The null hypothesis should be that neither of these disciplines has
anything to contribute to the construction of the ontology needed in
the service of OBI, BFO, or anything else connected with biomedical
research. It doesn't hurt to case a wide net, but I think the starting
points for IAO should be use cases, the community's ontology needs,
and common sense.

Jonathan

[Barry Smith]

I agree with Jonathan. This is one of the reasons why I prefer
'Information Artifact Ontology' to 'Information Ontology'
BS