![]() In this way, for Shannon, determining entropy depends on meaningfulness, not in terms of the actual Peircean object of a bit of information (or what we tend to think of as “content”), but because by assuming meaningfulness, one can assume a pattern, or a level of redundancy, which means the system does not tend toward randomness, and the probabilistic likelihood of any bit of information can be discerned according to known bits of information. On the other hand, a message with high entropy, or a great degree of randomness, provides new information with every bit, making it more difficult to accurately predict. exhibited low entropy) carries with it a greater degree of redundancy, and therefore can be probabilistically predicted with greater accuracy. ![]() A highly patterned message, which tended away from randomness (i.e. In other words, Shannon realized that human meaning systems were patterned and therefore predictable. In particular, the insights gleaned from entropy and redundancy depend on the meaningfulness of a system either to remove redundancy for purposes of efficiency or to add it in order to ensure the integrity of a transmission. However, important principles rely on an assumption of meaningfulness as crucial parts of the process of reproducing a message at two different points. It would be easy here to disregard meaning and meaningfulness from Information Theory entirely. ![]() Shannon’s theory, and the Information Theory which grows out of it, turn communication on its head it only accounts for what is said (broadly speaking), not what is meant. Claude Shannon wrote that “the fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately the same message selected at another point.” Perhaps a more humanistic rephrasing would sound something like, assuming interpreting actors in two or more locations understand a perceptible artifact or series of perceptible artifacts to correlate to the same imperceptible and cognitively generated meanings, the fundamental problem of communication only requires reproducing, at one or more points, the perceptible artifact.įor Shannon, the journey of “information” from point A to point B does not require for the perceptible artifact to remain the same the entire time - it can be added to or taken away from, it can be reorganized and jumbled, sent in part or in whole - as long as by the time it arrives at its destination, the perceptible artifact returns to either “exactly or approximately” the same form as when it left its sender.
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