60 years 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication' - Towards a 'Fuzzy Information Theory'

摘要

When 60 years ago Shannon established "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" nobody could know the consequences for science and technology in the second half of the century. Shannon published his article in two parts in the July and October 1948 editions of the Bell System Technical Journal. However, it is very probable that this article wouldn't have become famous without the help of Weaver, whose popular text "The Mathematics of communication" re-interpreted Shannon's work for broader scientific audiences. Weaver's "preface" and Shannon's article were published together in the book The Mathematical Theory of Communication (1949) that represents the beginning of the then so-called "Information theory". However, in his "introduction" Weaver went over and above Shannon's mathematical theory mentioning not only the technical but also the semantic and influential problems of communication. This classification is very similar to the foundations of the Theory of Signs (1938) that was established by Morris. This paper deals with the connectivity between this Information theory and the Theory of Fuzzy sets and systems that appeared in the first half of the 1950s. Then the paper focuses to the non-technical but philosophical aspects of information theory and it advocates a fuzzy information theory that has to be appropriate to cover the concept of information - particularly with regard to the philosophical aspects.