lied@ihlts.UUCP (Bob Lied) (04/07/84)
My praise for this book is not quite so high. I agree that Campbell does a good job of presenting a lot of disparate ideas and tying them together with information theory. However, I think his explanation of information theory is too populist. He develops the intuitively easy parts -- entropy, redundancy, information as a product of probability -- but almost ignores the real quantities of information theory: capacity, power, bandwidth, bit error rate, and other boring EE terms. I also think he pours on the praise for Shannon and Chomsky a bit thick. Still, the book is a good read, a mixture of philosophy, history, and modern science. With its emphasis on genetics and natural language, I was reminded of Hofstadter, though the writing style is more akin to Lewis Thomas. Overall, not a bad book, and certainly no waste of time if you're interested in this sort of thing. Bob Lied ihnp4!ihlts!lied