Cliche Quote by Norbert Wiener
“Just as entropy is a measure of disorganization, the information carried by a set of messages is a measure of organization. In fact, it is possible to interpret the information carried by a message as essentially the negative of its entropy, and the negative logarithm of its probability. That is, the more probable the message, the less information it gives. Cliches, for example, are less illuminating than great poems.”
About This Quote
Source Book: Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, Norbert Wiener, 1948
Information is the opposite of entropy; more predictable messages carry less information, while rare messages are more informative.
In simple terms: Predictable messages give little new info.
Key Takeaway
Value rarity, seek novelty.
Themes
information theory
entropy
communication
Mood
analytical
curious
Type
educational
technical
When to use this quote
- data analysis
- writing
- marketing
- education
- research
Key Concepts
negative entropy
probability
signal
noise
Questions to Reflect On
- How do you differentiate signal from noise?
- When is predictability valuable?
A Different Perspective
Rare events may be noisy and misleading; context matters.
![“[A living organism] ... feeds upon negative entropy ... Thus the device by which an organism maintains itself stationary at a fairly high level of orderliness (= fairly low level of entropy) really consists in continually sucking orderliness from its environment.” quote by Erwin Schrodinger](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/1e6/erwin-schrodinger-8450_biology_a-living-organism-feeds-upon-negative-en_1038869.jpg)
