Information from Processes, Dr. Robert Losee’s new book, now available

Dr. Robert M. Losee’s book, Information from Processes, About the Nature of Information Creation, Use, and Representation, is now available.

Losee’s book, published by Springer, strives to find a domain-independent information model useful in the many disciplines such as computer science, the physical sciences, epistemology,  for which information is a core concept. The emphasis here, according to the book’s official Web site, is on information and information science rather than on computer science or psychology: the processes that create information and how it can be understood and used in a variety of environments.

 

The book situates information concepts and phenomena in a hierarchy of information processes, where one process uses others. It discusses these processes in the context of theoretical and applied information science. According to the book’s description, “Research about processes and computing is applied to answer the question of what information can and cannot be produced, and to determine the nature of this information (theoretical information science). The book also presents some of the basic processes that are used in specific domains (applied information science), such as those that generate information in areas like reasoning, the evolution of informative systems, cryptography, knowledge, natural language, and the economic value of information.” This approach makes the book a sturdy foundation for future discussions of the creation and use of information. The Introduction and the last chapter (both available on the book's website) present an argument for why Information Science can be studied most usefully with a focus on information, instead of as a technological discipline.

 

The Web site for CHIPL, a programming language that supports the study of information through information systems modeling and which Losee uses for some of the information processing in the book, is at http://chipl.org.