Dear Loet, I'll use up my second posting to reply.
Yes, I've used the Kullback-Leibler information as well -- namely, to include the influence of standing-stock biomasses into ecosystem process dynamics (Ecol. Modelling 95:1-10.) My point was not deep. I just wanted to emphasize that we should not regard information to be gauged by the Shannon "entropy", but rather by the *decrease* in that quantity (neg-entropy, in Schroedinger's sense.) Both the mutual information and the Kullback-Leible information are examples of such decrease. (You're quite right, the asymmetry of the K-L index can be useful. It can also cause problems, however, like when it comes to identifying a unique conditional entropy.) In my judgement there are far too many folks who want to use the Shannon entropy itself as the measure of information, and I believe that doing so erects major impediments to grasping what information truly is. Have a nice weekend! The best, Bob _____ Loet Leydesdorff Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR) Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; <http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/ Visiting Professor 2007-2010, <http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html> ISTIC, Beijing; Honorary Fellow 2007-2010, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/> SPRU, University of Sussex Now available: <http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1581129378> The Knowledge-Based Economy: Modeled, Measured, Simulated, 385 pp.; US$ 18.95; <http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1581126956> The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society ; <http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1581126816> The Challenge of Scientometrics
_______________________________________________ fis mailing list [email protected] https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
