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> It argues that a common thread among many different domains (as listed in the title) is how much information can be compressed into the information stream, li
by dvt 5y ago
> It argues that a common thread among many different domains (as listed in the title) is how much information can be compressed into the information stream, like the bit-rate. Higher bitrate, more interesting information.
Piet Mondrian, Philip Glass, Andy Kaufman would provide trivial counter-arguments to the idea that high-density = "better" (more interesting, funnier, etc.).
- alanbernstein 5y agoYou might argue that work like Mondrian's implies additional information, in the form of implied commentary on centuries of art history (arguably necessary for his work to be considered interesting or "good"). You might then argue that this makes up for the lower explicit information density.
- dgb23 5y agoI only know of Andy Kaufman from your examples. Wasn’t some of his work very much reliant on what he didn’t say directly? An argument one could make would be that the information density is still high in terms of what is perceived or experienced. That would still be a kind of compression but it involves the context and audience to a very high degree. I think he sometimes made his performances so intense, that it would be unbearable not to engage with them.