Re: Information Was: Re: Meaning, Value and Function

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Article #8615

#8615

From: Andrew C. Plotkin
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 18:30

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Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics: 30-Jun-93 Information Was: Re:
Meani.. Herman Rubin@pop.stat.pu (2009)

> >The problem here is that you are using both the technical meaning of
> >information and the general English meaning at the same time.

> The general English meaning is rather unclear, but the technical meaning
> is not all that different.  If you consider the information about something
> as the narrowing down of what it is, or its properties, this forces the
> technical meaning.  Essentially, information is surprise; telling you 
> what you already know gives no information.  Once put this way, the 
> formalism is not at all surprising.

If that's true, then the formalism conveys no information at all; so why
bother with it?

:-)

--Z 

(Yes, four thousand people are going to make posts like this. A straight
line like that comes along once in a decade, perhaps. Well, maybe I'll
be first.)

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From: "Andrew C. Plotkin" <ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math,comp.theory.dynamic-sys,bionet.info-theory
Subject: Re: Information Was: Re: Meaning, Value and Function
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 14:30:44 -0400
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