Re: CG: Re: Is the meaning of order intrinsic ?

That is a very limited notion of order:

>> To put things in an order is to arrange them in a sequence.
>
>Yes of course.  A sequence is an order; and order is a sequence.  I don't
>know how to distinguish the two.  I think for our purposes we can consider

>those words synonyms.

A sequence is an example of a linear order.  A much more common
kind of order is a partial ordering, of which trees, lattices,
and general acyclic graphs are examples.  But there are many
different kinds of graphs, all of which are orderings.

Another notion is "entropy", which measures the amount of
disorder in physical (or information) systems.  As you cool
a gas or other substance, you increase the ordering of its
molecules and decrease its entropy.

John Sowa

Received on Thursday, 24 May 2001 21:12:05 UTC