On Sat, Apr 18, 2015 at 11:57 PM, John Mikes <[email protected]> wrote:
> Telmo, pls. tellme: > what should we call 'information'? > I agree with John Clark's definition. If you ask for a definition of "surprise", I think that can be formalized too. Surprise is inversely proportional to the performance of the best possible algorithm at predicting the next choice from a sequence of previous choices. One million zeros in a row contain very little information, while one million bits of white noise contain the maximum amount of information that can be stored in one million bits. > if Brent takes a picture, is it - O N E - info only, or as many as re > composed to be included in his picture? That would be zillions, depending > how you count them. > If you give me the file produced by Brent's camera, I can use information entropy to give you an upper limit on the amount of information that can be extracted from it. I can't tell you what the n possibilities are, but I can estimate and upper bound for n. If Brent compresses the file by degrading quality, n goes down. If he turns it to black and white, n goes down, and so on. > We are nowhere in identifying the terms we use in communication. > I think the difficulty here is not so much in defining the concept of information itself, but in understanding how information interacts with computation. For example: If I send you the sequence of characters "Eiffel Tower" you will picture the eiffel tower in your mind. This works because I have extra information that allows me to make an educated guess on the contents of your brain and explore the regularity -- this is what language is. If I broadcast the same sequence of characters to outer space, aliens will not be able to infer the shape of the Eiffel Tower from this piece of information. But we can approximate the information content of the shape of the Eiffel Tower by trying to find the smallest possible photo or drawing (in file size) that can convey the shape. Telmo. > JM > > On Sat, Apr 18, 2015 at 1:24 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *From:* [email protected] [mailto: >> [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Telmo Menezes >> *Sent:* Saturday, April 18, 2015 12:22 AM >> *To:* [email protected] >> *Subject:* Re: Food for thought >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Sat, Apr 18, 2015 at 6:36 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On 4/17/2015 11:56 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: >> >> >> >> Current global growth estimates are that every two days, the world is now >> creating as much new digital information as all the data ever created from >> the dawn of humans through the current century. It has been estimated that >> by 2020, the size of the world’s digital universe will be close to 44 >> trillion gigabytes >> >> >> If I take a picture with my smartphone is that counted as "creating >> information"? >> >> >> >> I suspect it is, but we must remember that not everything that can be >> counted counts. >> >> >> >> What about the masterpiece that nobody ever sees, hears or reads? I am >> sure many great works of thought have been utterly lost and many more have >> never been experienced outside of the brains of their creators. Perhaps >> some fundamental theoretical work is even now languishing in utter >> obscurity. Is this “creating information” or does “creating information” >> depend on it becoming consumed (and entangled with other streams of >> information)? >> >> >> >> Chris >> >> >> >> Telmo. >> >> >> >> >> Brent >> >> -- >> 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. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> >> >> -- >> 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. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> -- >> 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. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- > 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. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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