ENTROPY (Negative)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1110 ▶ |
| Object type | Discipline oriented, General information |
- “A measure of improbability or of information” (L.von BERTALANFFY, 1956, p.5).
BERTALANFFY comments: “… entropy is a measure of disorder; hence negative entropy or information is a measure of order or of organization since the latter, compared to distribution at random, is an improbable state. In this way information theory comes close to the theory of open systems, which may increase in order and organization, or show negative entropy. But negative entropy can be considered a measure of decisions, taken out of equally probable ones” (p.5).
R. ROSEN points out: “… it was considered a great insight when SCHRÖDINGER characterized the obvious persistence of spatial order in biological organisms as arising from their feeding on ”negative entropy“ (SCHRÖDINGER, 1945, quoted in ROSEN, 1960, p.267).
It must be pointed out that the concept of negative entropy has received various, not universally accepted interpretations (see hereafter).