Hi Stephen,
> What is the difference between a random sequence of bits and a > meaningful message? The correct decryption scheme. That's an excellent question. I suspect a scheme might not be necessary to infer the presence of meaning, but what I'm going to say is very empirical. Suppose a message m_n, of length n, which is a string of bits (e.g m_8=10101010, with m_1=1, m_2=10, and so on) Suppose a function f that takes a message m_n and predicts m_n+1 Suppose a learning algorithm L, such that L(m_n) = f. Let's assume this algorithm does the best possible job (I know it's a stretch). Now, for any length n of message m, we can obtain an f and then measure the accuracy of f at predicting m_n at any n. We can then measure the accuracy of this function, let's call that a. So a is in [0.5, 1] If a=0.5 the message is pure noise. If a=1 the message is completely predictable, because every bit will always be a function of the previous bits. My empirical suspicion is that there is some range of a, between these extremes, where meaning lives. Something akin to what people in complex systems refer to as "the edge of chaos". Cheers, Telmo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
