3 ms·

It's called a side channel. The amount of information _sent_ really is 1 bit.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> The amount of information _sent_ really is 1 bit. I'm not sure how you're calculating this, but it is obviously wrong. The information conveyed by the contents of a message is the log of the number of possible messages. Here, there is one possible message. The log of one is zero. There's a big difference between one bit of information and zero. You can interpret a "yo" message as conveying one bit of information, and the only way to do that is to draw it from the contrast between "sending a yo" and "not sending a yo". If you do that, "sending a yo" sends one bit of information, and "not sending a yo" also sends one bit of information. Thought experiment: with three bits of information, you can disambiguate between eight possibilities. Try to design a protocol in which, by sending up to three "yo"s, you achieve 8 distinct messages.
- stevenhuang 6y ago
  Again, what you're talking about is the side channel. Shannon entropy in particular. Of course you can encode information up to the time granularity, but if you're talking about that then you're not talking about the content in transmission anymore--which we are--hence why you and others are confused why we're saying it's still 1 bit. If you want to get into the topic of Shannon entropy, then that's another conversation.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > then you're not talking about the content in transmission anymore--which we are--hence why you and others are confused why we're saying it's still 1 bit. You're the one who's confused. Show me how you get more than zero bits out of the content in transmission. If you actually try to work this out, you will notice immediately that it can't be done.
    - stevenhuang 6y ago
      You're indeed right. Log base 2 of 1 is 0. I thought you were continuing OPs line of thought and arguing the message contained even more bits of information.
aeternum 6y ago
If you claim that time is a side channel then the information _sent_ is really 0 bits. You cannot change the message.
- stevenhuang 6y ago
  0 bits is right! My main point was about the side channel so I just took their word on that.

> The amount of information _sent_ really is 1 bit. I'm not sure how you're calculating this, but it is obviously wrong. The information conveyed by the contents of a message is the log of the number of possible messages. Here, there is one possible message. The log of one is zero. There's a big difference between one bit of information and zero. You can interpret a "yo" message as conveying one bit of information, and the only way to do that is to draw it from the contrast between "sending a yo" and "not sending a yo". If you do that, "sending a yo" sends one bit of information, and "not sending a yo" also sends one bit of information. Thought experiment: with three bits of information, you can disambiguate between eight possibilities. Try to design a protocol in which, by sending up to three "yo"s, you achieve 8 distinct messages.

stevenhuang 6y ago
Again, what you're talking about is the side channel. Shannon entropy in particular. Of course you can encode information up to the time granularity, but if you're talking about that then you're not talking about the content in transmission anymore--which we are--hence why you and others are confused why we're saying it's still 1 bit. If you want to get into the topic of Shannon entropy, then that's another conversation.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > then you're not talking about the content in transmission anymore--which we are--hence why you and others are confused why we're saying it's still 1 bit. You're the one who's confused. Show me how you get more than zero bits out of the content in transmission. If you actually try to work this out, you will notice immediately that it can't be done.
  - stevenhuang 6y ago
    You're indeed right. Log base 2 of 1 is 0. I thought you were continuing OPs line of thought and arguing the message contained even more bits of information.

aeternum 6y ago

If you claim that time is a side channel then the information _sent_ is really 0 bits. You cannot change the message.

stevenhuang 6y ago
0 bits is right! My main point was about the side channel so I just took their word on that.