Information and self-organization. A macroscopic approach to complex systems. (Q5920609)

This is the third edition of a book published firstly in 1988 then in 2000. It is published in the Springer Series in Synergetics and it is dedicated to complex systems. It appears mostly as a book on modeling using knowledge transfer. The basic model of the author seems to be Laser modeling. From the mathematical point of view the book contains a noteworthy effort to give a formal meaning to such informal notions as ``meaning'', ``complexity'', ``self-organization'' and other. The targeted applications range from Physics to Biology: lasers, fluid dynamics, behavioral patterns, pattern recognition. It ends with three chapters on quantum information and quantum computing systems. The mathematical models gravitate around Langevin and Fokker Planck equations. While interesting analogies are sketched, it is felt that the book remains at the physical level of rigor. For the professional mathematician the equations and the stated results (not theorems) may be considered as challenges. We cite from the contents (chapter titles): From the Microscopic to the Macroscopic World; \dots and Back Again: The Maximum Information Principle; The Maximum Information Principle for Non-equilibrium Phase Transitions; Unbiased Modeling of Stochastic Processes; Transition between Behavioral Patterns in Biology; Information Compression in Cognition; Quantum Information; Quantum Computation. All these in a single book!