Author(s)

B.E. LAYTON, S.L NOELL & G.A. ORAM JR

Abstract

The primary purpose of this article is to provide additional quantitative examples to the recently presented work [1] wherein a coefficient, a, relating the information processing rate, I , and the entropy production rate, S, of a system was introduced via I = a S. This expanded manuscript provides further examples of Shannon information content in simple binary systems, additional quantitative examples of the relationship between information and money, and an exposé on how the theory presented in [1] may be viewed in the context of Big History. Specifically, our global civilization is entropicizing our planet at a rate of at least 1023  times greater than the average universal entropization rate. The cause of this Kurzweilian anthropogenic entropy acceleration is rooted in the Darwinian behavior of individuals as well as entire societies. This article also proposes not only that the ‘carnot’ and the ‘shannon’ be introduced as units for entropy and information, respectively, but also that other terms such as ‘complexity’ be canonized by the sciences in the same manner that terms such as ‘work’ and ‘energy’ have been canonized by the engineering disciplines.

Keywords

anthropogenic, Big History, contingency, economics, entropy, information, sustainability