Introduction to Infodynamics: Or the Magic of Producing Wonders

This chapter introduces the subject of Infodynamics and its relevance for a multitude of academic disciplines. It shows that information and energy are intimately linked. Energy can be measured as electric current, magnetic fields, light, heat, or in a variety of other forms it appears to us in nature. Information, however, is a more slippery concept. From physics we know that it is intimately related to energy and work, but is not energy. Measuring it directly is a challenging enterprise. Information is a relativistic concept. An intuitive way to understand the usefulness of information is to consider the information transmitted by colors. The color of your shoes has no bearing on any illness you might experience, and the color of a car does not affect its speed. However, the color of clouds in the sky is directly related to the likelihood of rain. This illustrates how some information is meaningful and actionable, while other information holds no practical significance in a given setting. The conclusion so far is that both information and energy might be useful or useless. Uselessness might have different forms: information might be toxic, impertinent, unusable, or be just noise. The relationship between energy and useful information and the dynamics that arises from these interactions is studied by a science we call “Infodynamics” or the study of the dynamic relationship between energy and information.