Information Theory

11 primes originate from Information Theory. 16 more draw from it as a secondary origin.

Primary members (11)

Primes whose canonical origin is Information Theory.

• Branching and Merging — Lines of development that diverge and later recombine into one.
• Compression — Reduce redundancy.
• Coordination Problem and Equilibrium Selection — Multiple stable equilibria require alignment on single outcome.
• Holarchy — Nested ordering in which each unit is at once an autonomous whole and a dependent part.
• Markov Process — Future state depends only on the present, not the full history.
• Regret — Disvalue from comparing an outcome against a better forgone alternative.
• Reversibility and Irreversibility — Actions or transitions may or may not be undone or reverted.
• Risk — Exposure to a known distribution of possible outcomes.
• Social Dilemma — Individually rational defection yields a collectively worse outcome (canonical form: the Prisoner's Dilemma).
• Systems Thinking — Analyzing a whole through the relationships and feedback among its parts.
• Winner's Curse — Winning a common-value contest is itself evidence of overpayment.

Also draws from Information Theory (16)

Primes whose canonical origin is elsewhere, but who list Information Theory among their alternate origin domains.

• Associative Memory — Content-addressable storage where a cue retrieves linked content.
• Commensurability — Diverse values expressed in common metric enabling comparison.
• Commitment Device — A self-imposed constraint that binds one's own future choices.
• Economies Of Scope — Cost savings from producing varied outputs together.
• Entropy (Thermodynamic Sense) — Degree of disorder.
• Environmental Coupling Strength — Rate of energy, information, or material exchange across boundary.
• Escape and Leakage — Constrained quantities exit through unintended pathways.
• Expected Utility — Ranking risky options by their probability-weighted utility.
• Formalization — Rendering informal practice into explicit, codified, rule-governed form.
• Internalization — Adopting external norms as one's own internal standards.
• Measurement Uncertainty and Complementarity — Complementary observables cannot be simultaneously specified precisely.
• Opportunity Asymmetry — Agents possess unequal access to actions and favorable outcomes.
• Optionality — The asymmetric value of having a choice—bounded downside, unbounded upside—without obligation to act.
• Public vs. Private Contexts — Audience presence alters motivation and behavior through reputation.
• Redundancy — Duplicate critical components.
• Temporal Decay and Degradation — System properties or capabilities systematically diminish over time.