09.19.2017
- Warren Weaver mentioned in page 30 “the word information relates not so much to what you do say, as to what you could say. That is, information is a measure of your freedom of choice when you select a message.” He also mentioned that “information is associated with the amount of freedom of choice we have in constructing messages.” (pg 31) Does information purely depends on freedom of choice? Does noise plays a role in how information is communicated?
- Weaver mentioned that noise cause certain distortions in a message. (pg. 32) What does it mean when he said, “But if the uncertainty is increased, the information is increased and this sounds as though the noise were beneficial.” Why does the information increased? And how is it beneficial? Noise might cause unexpected outcomes but how is that beneficial to the message?
- Turing pointed out that everything really moves continuously and described computers that could converse fluidly. (pg. 57) He mentioned that even discrete state machines move continuously. Because the the outcomes and the initial state are so different, the intermediate states were often ignored. How does this affect the users? It is convenient if we can predict all the possible outcomes since it will always be a finite number. What happen if there is a random element in the process? Will the machine still function the same?
