What is information and why is it useful?
As we said in the introduction, information theory and information-theoretic ideas are very useful. To understand those ideas, one of the first things we must address is what we mean by information. I am talking conceptually here. Once we have nailed down our conception of what information is about, writing down a mathematical definition will be easier.
The concept of information
Part of the difficulty in introducing information theory as a mathematical subject is that different people use the word “information” and apply it to different concepts. For example, the word “information” could apply to the following:
- The semantic content or meaning of an action or event, such as a particular word being spoken or written. This is the most common conception that people have of what information should be about. It is the idea that the information associated with a thing should somehow be related to what that...
