> I'm sure that story has additional meaning (and less surprise) to folk in Europe Indeed, information is a receiver dependent quantity, as you say, and is for

> I'm sure that story has additional meaning (and less surprise) to folk in Europe Indeed, information is a receiver dependent quantity, as you say, and is formalized as such in any information theory textbook. Really, the information in a message about variable X is how much the receiver's subjective probability distribution about X is constrained by the message. In practice, creating a complete model of the system i.e. enumerating all the possible variables and their prior probabilities is impossible. However, this doesn't mean the entire field is useless. In fact, the work of Shannon and others helps us understand the limits of what is possible to model and gain information about, and by how much. What those limits mean requires grappling with philosophical questions far above my paygrade.