The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Sandstein 19:51, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Information Flow Theory (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Declined (and seconded) PROD (neither by me). Article appears to be based on a paper published in July of this year which has gathered no significant attention. Fails WP:GNG. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 17:59, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 18:00, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 18:00, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - as far as I can tell, this 'theory' has never been published, simply deposited by its author on ArXiv, ResearchGate and SSRN repositories. Wikipedia is not a venue for promoting original thought - WP:NOTESSAY. Agricolae (talk) 19:10, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. I note that all of the references in the article apart from the one written on May 30, 2019 saying that this theory "provides a novel framework" predate that paper itself, so cannot be writing about the theory. I can find no sources postdating that paper. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:47, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Citation [1] appears to be the only one mentioning this title. No media coverage. Reywas92^Talk 23:05, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per WP:NFT. I don't think SSRN is peer-reviewed or counts as a reliable source. And even if it did, and even if this were serious research, we don't include articles on topics of new and uncited primary research papers. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:29, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete I was the one to PROD the page; I think my rationale ("Promotion of an idea that has had no discernable influence within the scientific community") still stands. XOR'easter (talk) 16:53, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I note that the first of the reasons given when contesting WP:PROD deletion was "this is philosophy and is not a part of the field of science", which is both nitpicking about words (you could replace "scientific" with "philosophical" in your deletion rationale and it would be just as valid) and goes against the lead of the article which says that this theory ("hypothesis" would be a better word, but I suppose "theory" sounds grander) is experimentally falsifiable, meaning that it is supposed to be a scientific theory. I debunked the second part of the contestation ("sources suggest notability") above - a novel theory written up in May 2019 cannot possibly have sources referring to it that were published before that date. I wish academics wouldn't demean themselves by passing off such obvious nonsense in this way. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:18, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, it's definitely presented as a scientific proposal, not a philosophical one. XOR'easter (talk) 19:27, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: clearly fails WP:GNG. Also note "...defines consciousness as form of self-awareness which may arise within any system capable of processing information." Really? Any system? so my new SwissMicros DM42 Calculator just might become self aware? Related: https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ --Guy Macon (talk) 20:46, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as, to be charitable, OR, and a POVfork of Information flow (information theory) (which is also differently wonderful). Guy (help!) 22:37, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - as noted above this is an unreviewed work. It is unlikely to be cited unless the work gets published. No non-source related mentions to support notability. A large amount of text in the article is lacking RSs and reads like the preprint that it is based on. --mikeu ^talk 01:21, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.