I sincerely miss Mark and I wish he were here to see the impact of his work on AI and Physics itself.

https://www.linkedin.com/post…

Dear Burgin Family

I am so sorry for your loss. I have never met Mark but I came across Mark obituary in looking at a friend of ours. And I felt moved to share with you a message that has helped me in such a sad and difficult time. Death is the oldest enemy for mankind and it takes our most beloved ones away from us. I have found comfort in knowing that soon Jehovah our God will rid us of death. 1 Corinthians 15:26 says And the last enemy, death, is to be brought to nothing. Ridding us of death will be such an exceptional blessing, but God will not stop there. Acts 24:15 talks about a beautiful hope that will bring many of us joy. A hope that many of us can find joy in…the resurrection. We will get to hold our loved ones again. God promises it. I hope that in such a difficult you can find comfort and strength to endure till the day we can see our loved ones again!

My big brother Mark was always very important person in my life. Mark was my best friend. And his attitude to me was the same.

He always took care of me, helped me and tried to direct my actions. Not by requirements or instructions, but by advice and recommendations.

Mark was very versatile person, he had various interests, knew and could do a lot. But the main place in his life was always occupied by science. And he was not just solving some local mathematical problems, but was discovering absolutely new, nonconventional approaches that may have applications in quite different areas of science and even in practical life. His ideas were not understood and appreciated by everybody and at any time. But, in my opinion, these ideas have great future. Mark has written and published hundreds of scientific works. Some of his books have dedications to our parents. It also speaks about his attitude to the family.

From my early childhood I was proud of him and always tried to follow his example, to help him as far as possible, to participate somehow in his activities.

If I had to take any important decision I always addressed Mark for advice. His opinion was the most significant and valuable for me. Actually nobody knew and understood me better than my brother did. We had the same perception and understanding of many things. And he always wished me the best. I will miss him me so much now. But I know that I will still feel his presence in me life.

Unfortunately, I could not be near him these last days, I could support him only by my words. The more I am grateful to people who were really helping my brother and taking care of him. In the first place my brother did to his wife Lyuba and our second cousin Roman Ginzburg.

Мой старший брат Марк всегда играл очень большую роль в моей жизни. Марк был самым близким для меня человеком. И он так же воспринимал меня.

Он всегда заботился обо мне, помогал мне и старался руководить моими поступками. Не требованиями или указаниями, а советами и рекомендациями.

Марк был очень разносторонним человеком, он многим интересовался, многое знал и умел. Но главное место в его жизни всегда занимала наука. Причем он не просто решал какие-то локальные математические задачи, а находил совсем новые, нетрадиционные подходы, которые могли бы найти применение в самых разных областях науки и даже практической жизни. Не все и не всегда могли полностью понять и оценить его идеи. Но, я думаю, у этих идей большое будущее. Марк написал и издал сотни научных статей и десятки монографий. Некоторые книги имеют посвящения нашим родителям. Это тоже говорит о его отношении к семье.

С самого детства я гордилась им и старалась брать с него пример, помогать ему по мере своих возможностей, принимать хоть какое-то участие в его делах.

Если мне нужно было принять какое-нибудь важное решение, я всегда обращалась за советом к Марку. Его мнение было для меня самым весомым и ценным. Ведь никто не знал и не понимал меня лучше, чем мой брат. Многие вещи мы воспринимали и понимали одинаково. И он всегда хотел для меня самого лучшего. Мне очень будет его недоставать теперь. Но я знаю, что и сейчас буду чувствовать его рядом.

К сожалению, я не могла быть рядом с ним в эти последние дни, могла поддержать его только словами. Тем больше моя благодарность людям, которые реально помогали моему брату и заботились о нем. В первую очередь, его жене Любе и нашему троюродному брату Роману Гинзбургу.

It is with deep sadness that I learned of the passing of Professor Mark Burgin.

After I studied his main book on information theory (2016), I kept in constant contact with him. We exchanged many ideas about the possibility of applying information theory to the process of modeling physical phenomena. His comments were invaluable to me.

I will really miss Mark Burgin, a true explorer and scientist, humble and kind.

May his memory be blessed.

Obituary has been posted in the journal Information:

https://www.mdpi.com/about/an…

Moreover,  journals Information and Philosophies are planning a special issue in honor of Prof. Burgin, to be announced soon.

It is very hard for me to accept that Mark is no longer with us.

I have had a long friendship with him since 1988, which has led to very good scientific results.

In the fall of 1988, in Tbilisi, we drank good Georgian wine and ate delicious Georgian barbecue and discussed my idea of building a general information theory.

Subsequently, we worked together and joint articles appeared.

In the process of work, we realized that we have different views on the theory.

Mark focused on the external manifestation of information, consisting, in my opinion, of data and knowledge, and I focused on the subjective manifestation, which is based on subjective reflections and mental models, the external correspondence of which is data and knowledge.

Thus two complementary general theories emerged.

Rest in peace Mark!

We will all miss you!

Krassimir

My condolences to Mark's family. 

I came to know Mark Burgin when we started working on a book together. His role was adding information-related annotations as scholar and series editor for the World Scientific Series in Information Studies. The book is related to the lifelong work of Scientist Otto Rössler, which is in its final stages now – Chaos, Information and The Future of Physics. Mark gave the book a very pointed additional direction by adding a rich information-studies set of historical perspectives. Burgin was an extremely prolific, erudite writer. Along with publishing, Burgin led a fascinating gathering of top international scholars in a major international conference where I was invited to participate, Theoretical and Foundational Problems (TFP) In Information Studies – for me this was a great honor and the conference was fascinating in terms of the diversity of subjects it explored. Mark was an incredibly well-read scholar and historian of mathematics, physics, knowledge production, information studies, computer science and new approaches to logic. I also wrote a very long review of one of his major books – A Multi-Perspective Approach to a Theory of Knowledge for Cybernetics & Human Knowing journal. We ended up writing a paper together and became friends, often talking at length on the phone, roaming around the edges of computer science and logic, and thinking about the future of multiple fields... Our joint paper was on an interesting topic, In the Circle of Sense and Nonsense: through a Mathematical Model of Meaning for Leonardo Magazine. We were collecting materials for an eventual book on the subject. When we talked at length, he was very supportive of my creativity as I was of his. We came from very different backgrounds and he pointed out that our knowledge was complementary. I was always in awe of the breadth of his knowledge, especially in terms of looking back at the history of his papers and books. I was deeply honored to be able to have these talks with him, and work with him as a colleague. I am greatly saddened at his passing… We will miss him.

Bill Seaman, Feb. 22, 2023

dear all,

i still remember very well when mark and i met first time in person, after having been in touch for years online only. it was in 2019 in berkeley at the is4si summit. we agreed on several issues of future collaboration. he became member of, even chief information scientist at, our institute for a global sustainable information society. i took a photo of him (a portrait which can be seen above on this site) which shows him in the midst of conference activities. and both of us were excited. we became friends.

his death came too early.  in the midst of multiple scientific activities, in the middle of a project both of us had started. however, is there a better death feasible for a scientist like him than to die within work? 

i will miss him. but i will try to carry on in his spirit. 

wolfgang

Я общался с Марком только о науке и ничего не знал о его семье. В науке у нас было много общего. Вопреки тому, что сейчас принимает большинство establishment’a, мы считали, что в самой фундамендальной математике и физике не должно быть бесконечно малых и бесконечно больших. Не сомневаюсь, что рано или поздно это будет общепризнано. У нас были разные подходы к тому как эти идеи могут быть реализованы, но мы признавали, что в науке должны быть разные подходы и уважали подходы друг друга. У нас были совместные статьи в архиве и французском архиве HAL, а недавно вышла наша статья “An Approach to Building Quantum Field Theory Based on Non-Diophantine Arithmetics” в журнале Foundations of Science. В этих статьях Марку принадлежит бОльшая часть, а моя часть была, в основном, технической. Мы планировали еще одну статью, но увы...

Мне будет очень не хватать Марка. Феликс Лев.

I communicated with Mark only about science and knew nothing about his family. In science, we had a lot in common. Contrary to what most establishment now accepts, we believed that in the most fundamental mathematics and physics there should not be infinitesimals and infinitely large. I have no doubt that sooner or later this will be universally recognized. We had different approaches to how these ideas could be implemented, but we recognized that there should be different approaches in science and respected each other's approaches. We had joint papers in arXiv and in the French archive HAL, and recently our paper “An Approach to Building Quantum Field Theory Based on Non-Diophantine Arithmetics” appeared in the journal Foundations of Science. In these papers, Mark owns most of the material, and my part was mostly technical. We planned another paper, but alas...

I will miss Mark very much. Felix Lev.

Lyuba...we have made a contribution to our synagogue, Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, Illinois in Mark's memory.  His name will be read at services this coming Friday evening as well as Saturday morning.  

Sallie and Alan Gratch   Evanston, Illinois