I am in agreement with Guy Hoelzer in his assessment of the use of log-transformed data. Since I regularly deal with biological growth processes, using log-transformed data is the clearest way to anaylyze proportional relationships in nonlinear sysrtems. By virtue of the way it compresses multiplicative relations log transformation makes scale-free comparison much more tractable and correlations much more obvious. And compression is one of the most important benefits of mathematical analysis.
On Sun, Jun 3, 2018 at 2:04 PM, Guy A Hoelzer <hoel...@unr.edu> wrote: > Dear Sung et al., > > I appreciate human bias in terms of numerical scale, but I don’t think > that is what we actually achieve by using logarithms. If the universe of > possibility is fractal, using a logarithm does not eliminate the problem of > large numbers. I think the primary outcome achieved by using logarithms is > that units come to represent proportions rather than absolute (fixed scale) > amounts. It reveals an aspect of scale-free form. > > > > On Jun 3, 2018, at 10:42 AM, Sungchul Ji <s...@pharmacy.rutgers.edu> wrote: > > Hi Krassimir, > > I think the main reason that we express 'information' as a logarithmic > function of the number of choices available, n, may be because the human > brain finds it easier to remember (and communicate and reason with) 10 > than 10000000000, or 100 than 1000000000. . . . 00000, etc. > > All the best. > > Sung > > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Krassimir Markov <mar...@foibg.com> > *Sent:* Sunday, June 3, 2018 12:06 PM > *To:* Foundation of Information Science > *Cc:* Sungchul Ji > *Subject:* If always n>0 why we need log > > Dear Sung, > > A simple question: > > If always n>0 why we need log in > > I = -log_2(m/n) = - log_2 (m) + log_2(n) (1) > > Friendly greetings > > Krassimir > > > _______________________________________________ > Fis mailing list > Fis@listas.unizar.es > https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url= > http%3A%2F%2Flistas.unizar.es%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman% > 2Flistinfo%2Ffis&data=01%7C01%7Choelzer%40unr.edu% > 7C82bf20333c6c4fd9707c08d5c97971b4%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd > 31d8%7C1&sdata=jOf1JAeFzo8p1ymXpGvzLgJ25ZBeFI6sVksQvbpQYhU%3D&reserved=0 > > > > _______________________________________________ > Fis mailing list > Fis@listas.unizar.es > http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis > > -- Professor Terrence W. Deacon University of California, Berkeley
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