# 13   

                Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood          

Tuesday -  1:00 P.M.                               Winter Term 2012 (14 Weeks)    
Coordinator: Al Booker                         Co-coordinator:George Manet
 
Course Description
Information and the process of communicating same has become the defining quality of the modern era.  It is the vital quality of our world. The story of information begins way back, before writing, even before words.  It goes back to the time when information could only be communicated by the demonstration of concrete actions, e.g.  starting a fire. Then came words and with it ideas, but the words vanished as quickly as they were uttered.  Then came symbols followed by alphabets and the human world had begun. Now information can be stored and reused.  We will learn the story of information technology from the talking drums of Africa, the intricate message system between villages in Central Africa,  to the days when the computers were people who computed and on to quantum computing  – and beyond.

We tend to lump communication and information together but they are separate.  Communication is the act. Information is the product.  In olden days the product  was words. Today the product is data, and that can be quite complicated as we will learn.

The next revolution in the technology was instant communication of information over distances.  How has that transformed society?  In James Gleick’s broad, yet incisive, look at information dissemination in his book The Information,  he walks us through the history of distance communication from its most basic, primitive form in “Drums that Talk,” to advances in modern technology, with stops along the way at the telegraph/telephone, moveable type, and meme.  Though somewhat technical, we will examine the subject from our layman’s point-of-view.

SESSION                                                      TOPIC

1. 1. Drums That TalkOur first session will look at early man, his use of art and symbols and sound and code to pass on information from person to person, group to group, and generation to generation.

1. 2. The Persistence of the Word.  Then there were the great leaps forward – the alphabet and papyrus (paper). There is a Luddite in every crowd: Plato [as Socrates] opposed writing!!

1. 3. To Throw the Power of Thought Into Wheel-Work. Charles Babbage developed the concept of a computer – the difference engine.  He built it.  It was never totally finished. It never worked.  Logarithms were developed by John Napier.  They simplified mathematics by turning multiplication into addition.  This  permitted the relatively easy development of tables.

1. 4. A Nervous System For the Earth. The invention of the optical  telegraph by the Chappe Brothers and followed by the Morse telegraph changed everything.  Now the word could be passed throughout the world  almost as quickly as it can be sent.

1. 5. New Wires, New Logic.  Claude Shannon has been called the father of the Information Age. He is credited with having founded information theory as well as the digital computer and digital circuit design theory. His mathematical equations have literally changed our world.                                    

1. 6. Information Theory.  Now we start going to the crux of the matter. The story of information continues with Claude Shannon. Alan Turing, the great cryptographer, also becomes involved in information theory.  Information is said to be entropy.   Information is also associated with  uncertainty, with probability. Information can be transmitted by words, symbols, and mathematically.

1. 7. The Informational Turn  discusses the application of information theory to philosophical problems of mind and meaning from the earliest days of  the mathematical theory of communication. The use of information theory to help understand purposive behavior, learning, pattern recognition, and more, marked the beginning of the naturalization of mind and meaning

1. 8. Entropy and Its Demons.  It is very difficult to define entropy. The Oxford English Dictionary definition does little to explain or define it.  This chapter makes the attempt to explain it.

1. 9. Life’s Own Code.  We will learn about DNA, genes, algorithms, and begin to learn about the code of life.  We will attempt to decide whether genes are actual physical matter or just information locked in proteins.                                           

1. 10.  Into the Meme Pool. A meme is an idea, a thought that is transferred from person to person gradually evolving in the same way that biological evolution takes place. Once a meme took eons to evolve. Today it rushes via modern information channels. It is the meme that influences people. Whether or not a meme is true and accurate is immaterial.

1. 11. The Sense of Randomness. We will discuss randomness, probability, chance, ignorance,  game theory, Godel’s theory of incompleteness. How does one measure information?

1. 12. Information Is Physical. We will take a fast look at quantum mechanics, entanglement, teleportation, black holes, quantum computers and the mathematics behind it all.

1.  13. After the Flood Wikipedia considers itself the heir to the Great Library of Alexander.  Actually it only represents crowd intelligence, and “truth” as it moves and evolves.

1.  14. New  News Every Day. Is instant communication improving communication? Is the information explosion helping the disbursement of knowledge? Printing stabilized information. Does the computer help or hinder that stabilization? We will discuss T.S.Eliot’s comment “All our knowledge brings us closer to our ignorance.”  Facts were once expensive. Now they are cheap.  What does it all mean?

Bibliography

Core Book:  The Information, (A History, A Theory, A Flood), James Gleick,                                                Pantheon Books 2011

Pages 429-503: Notes and Bibliography

Wikipedia: Much information available

Pre-Meeting-Tuesday, December 13, 1:00 P.M.