2 ms·
> If someone tells you a fact you already know, then it could be communicating several different things. You are alluding to the "meaning of communication" whi
by lr1970 4y ago
> If someone tells you a fact you already know, then it could be communicating several different things.
You are alluding to the "meaning of communication" while information and communication theory is strictly about bits that are stored somewhere or/and send over the channel. If you know with 100% certainty that the next bit will be zero then receiving this bit gives you no information beyond what you already knew. Of course, if your certainty is less than 100% then the bit delivered you some fractional quantity of information. Mathematically, communication channel couples together random process X at the transmitter with random process Y at the receiver. The game is to describe X while observing only Y. Mutual information is a quantitative measure of how much Y "knows" about X. There is no human meaning attached to it whatsoever.
- telchar 4y agoYou could say the first X bits of signal from the start of the communication to the point where you can realize what is being said and can predict the rest with certainty represent the informative part of the message; that is, the less you expected them to say the thing they’re saying in that context, the more information is transmitted.