Social Entropy Theory

Social Entropy Theory PDF Author: Kenneth D. Bailey
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791495612
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
Social Entropy Theory illuminates the fundamental problems of societal analysis with a nonequilibrium approach, a new frame of reference built upon contemporary macrological principles, including general systems theory and information theory. Social entropy theory, using Shannon's H and the entropy concept, avoids the common (and often artificial) separation of theory and method in sociology. The hallmark of the volume is integration, as seen in the author's interdisciplinary discussions of equilibrium, entropy, and homeostasis. Unique features of the book are the introduction of the three-level model of social measurement, the theory of allocation, the concepts of global-mutable-immutable, discussion of order and power, and a large set of testable hypotheses.

Social Entropy Theory

Social Entropy Theory PDF Author: Kenneth D. Bailey
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791495612
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Get Book Here

Book Description
Social Entropy Theory illuminates the fundamental problems of societal analysis with a nonequilibrium approach, a new frame of reference built upon contemporary macrological principles, including general systems theory and information theory. Social entropy theory, using Shannon's H and the entropy concept, avoids the common (and often artificial) separation of theory and method in sociology. The hallmark of the volume is integration, as seen in the author's interdisciplinary discussions of equilibrium, entropy, and homeostasis. Unique features of the book are the introduction of the three-level model of social measurement, the theory of allocation, the concepts of global-mutable-immutable, discussion of order and power, and a large set of testable hypotheses.

Social Entropy Theory

Social Entropy Theory PDF Author: Kenneth D. Bailey
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791400562
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Social Entropy Theory illuminates the fundamental problems of societal analysis with a nonequilibrium approach, a new frame of reference built upon contemporary macrological principles, including general systems theory and information theory. Social entropy theory, using Shannon's H and the entropy concept, avoids the common (and often artificial) separation of theory and method in sociology. The hallmark of the volume is integration, as seen in the author's interdisciplinary discussions of equilibrium, entropy, and homeostasis. Unique features of the book are the introduction of the three-level model of social measurement, the theory of allocation, the concepts of global-mutable-immutable, discussion of order and power, and a large set of testable hypotheses.

Sociology and the New Systems Theory

Sociology and the New Systems Theory PDF Author: Kenneth D. Bailey
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791495620
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
This book provides current information about the many recent contributions of social systems theory. While some sociologists feel that the systems age ended with functionalism, in reality a number of recent developments have occurred within the field. The author makes these developments accessible to sociologists and other non-systems scholars, and begins a synthesis of the burgeoning systems field and mainstream sociological theory. The analysis shows not only that important points of rapprochement exist between systems theory and sociological theory, but also that systems theory has in some cases anticipated developments needed in mainstream theory.

Entropy and Information Theory

Entropy and Information Theory PDF Author: Robert M. Gray
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1475739826
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
This book is devoted to the theory of probabilistic information measures and their application to coding theorems for information sources and noisy channels. The eventual goal is a general development of Shannon's mathematical theory of communication, but much of the space is devoted to the tools and methods required to prove the Shannon coding theorems. These tools form an area common to ergodic theory and information theory and comprise several quantitative notions of the information in random variables, random processes, and dynamical systems. Examples are entropy, mutual information, conditional entropy, conditional information, and discrimination or relative entropy, along with the limiting normalized versions of these quantities such as entropy rate and information rate. Much of the book is concerned with their properties, especially the long term asymptotic behavior of sample information and expected information. This is the only up-to-date treatment of traditional information theory emphasizing ergodic theory.

Social Theory and Education

Social Theory and Education PDF Author: Raymond Allen Morrow
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791422526
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description
This book summarizes and critiques theories of social and cultural reproduction as they relate to sociology of education.

Entropy Theory Of Aging Systems: Humans, Corporations And The Universe

Entropy Theory Of Aging Systems: Humans, Corporations And The Universe PDF Author: Daniel Hershey
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1908978651
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Entropy is a measure of order and disorder. If left alone, aging systems go spontaneously from youthful, low entropy and order to old, high entropy and disorder. This book presents the commonality of entropy principles which govern the birth, maturation, and senescent history of aging humans, corporations, and the universe. Mainly we introduce an entropy theory of aging, based on the non-equilibrium thermodynamic ideas of Ilya Prigogine, leading to the thermodynamic concepts of Excess Entropy (EE) and Excess Entropy Production (EEP). We describe the aging process in humans in terms of the EE and EEP concepts. This book also describes the informational entropy theory and equations of Claude Shannon and the six Hershey parameters which trace and mark the lifecycle of corporations. To conclude, this volume uses classical and informational entropy concepts, equations and calculations to explain the birth, evolution, and death of our aging universe, and all of this in relation to the concept of Infinity./a

The Entropy of Capitalism

The Entropy of Capitalism PDF Author: Robert Biel
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004204296
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
The project of applying general systems theory to social sciences is crucial in today’s crisis when social and ecological systems clash. This book concretely demonstrates the necessity of a Marxist approach to this challenge, notably in asserting agency (struggle) as against determinism. It similarly shows how Marxism can be reinvigorated from a systems perspective. Drawing on his experience in both international systems and low-input agriculture, Biel explores the interaction of social and physical systems, using the conceptual tools of thermodynamics and information. He reveals the early twenty-first century as a period when capitalism starts parasitising on the chaos it itself creates, notably in the link between the two sides of imperialism: militarism (the ‘war on terror’) and speculative finance capital.

New Foundations for Information Theory

New Foundations for Information Theory PDF Author: David Ellerman
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030865525
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
This monograph offers a new foundation for information theory that is based on the notion of information-as-distinctions, being directly measured by logical entropy, and on the re-quantification as Shannon entropy, which is the fundamental concept for the theory of coding and communications. Information is based on distinctions, differences, distinguishability, and diversity. Information sets are defined that express the distinctions made by a partition, e.g., the inverse-image of a random variable so they represent the pre-probability notion of information. Then logical entropy is a probability measure on the information sets, the probability that on two independent trials, a distinction or “dit” of the partition will be obtained. The formula for logical entropy is a new derivation of an old formula that goes back to the early twentieth century and has been re-derived many times in different contexts. As a probability measure, all the compound notions of joint, conditional, and mutual logical entropy are immediate. The Shannon entropy (which is not defined as a measure in the sense of measure theory) and its compound notions are then derived from a non-linear dit-to-bit transform that re-quantifies the distinctions of a random variable in terms of bits—so the Shannon entropy is the average number of binary distinctions or bits necessary to make all the distinctions of the random variable. And, using a linearization method, all the set concepts in this logical information theory naturally extend to vector spaces in general—and to Hilbert spaces in particular—for quantum logical information theory which provides the natural measure of the distinctions made in quantum measurement. Relatively short but dense in content, this work can be a reference to researchers and graduate students doing investigations in information theory, maximum entropy methods in physics, engineering, and statistics, and to all those with a special interest in a new approach to quantum information theory.

The Social Metabolism

The Social Metabolism PDF Author: Manuel González de Molina
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319063588
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Over this last decade, the concept of Social Metabolism has gained prestige as a theoretical instrument for the required analysis, to such an extent that there are now dozens of researchers, hundreds of articles and several books that have adopted and use this concept. However, there is a great deal of variety in terms of definitions and interpretations, as well as different methodologies around this concept, which prevents the consolidation of a unified field of new knowledge. The fundamental aim of the book is to conduct a review of the past and present usage of the concept of social metabolism, its origins and history, as well as the main currents or schools that exist around this concept. At the same time, the reviews and discussions included are used by the authors as starting points to draw conclusions and propose a theory of socio-ecological transformations. The theoretical and methodological innovations of this book include a distinction of two types of metabolic processes: tangible and intangible; the analysis of the social metabolism at different scales (in space and time) and a theory of socio-ecological change overcoming the merely “systemic” or “cybernetic” nature of conventional approaches, giving special protagonism to collective action.

Entropy and Art

Entropy and Art PDF Author: Rudolf Arnheim
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520266005
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
This essay is an attempt to reconcile the disturbing contradiction between the striving for order in nature and in man and the principle of entropy implicit in the second law of thermodynamics - between the tendency toward greater organization and the general trend of the material universe toward death and disorder.