:: Re: [Bricolabs] texts: IOT et al...
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Auteur: John Hopkins
Datum:  
Aan: Bricolabs
Onderwerp: Re: [Bricolabs] texts: IOT et al...
Hi August!

> Basically, the layman definition of information tends to define it as
> the communicable signal that rises above the noise (randomness) and
> carries meaning.
>
> According to Shannon's narrow definition, information is a _measure_ of
> entropy. In other words, information is not the signal in a noisy
> channel, but a measure of the signal's content. It's a quantity not a
> thing. The more information in a signal means more randomness (noise)
> in a signal. A signal with lots of redundancy has little information.


Ah, yeah, the entropy connection,

> Shannon is also careful to unhinge "meaning" from his concept of
> "information".
>
> It's more complicated, subtle, and interesting than what I describe
> above, but that's the gist. Most of our communication technologies
> depend on these ideas.
>
> The stuff on coding theorem and stochastic signals is what I find most
> interesting. What makes a large part of his information theory work is
> that most "human" signals (music, writing, etc.) are stochastic;
> non-deterministic but statistically predictable.
>
> One interesting thing regarding stochastic signals is that you can
> remove parts of them and still send enough communication for it to be
> "understood". Eg: I cn wrt t y wtht vwls nd y shld b ble t ndrstnd