Feeling Stuck With Your Studies? Understanding What Information is Will Help
A lot of times during lectures I felt either completely lost or too bored to continue listening. This got explained when I took a Philosophy of Computer Science course where we talked about different definitions of information. And in this article, I want to share them with you and show how they helped me with both studying and teaching.
We are constantly bombarded by information: news, social media, entertainment, or even going outside and looking around. Frequently it leaves us feeling either overwhelmed or understimulated (aka bored).
So let’s talk about what information is. Can you see it, touch it, or define it?
If I say that sin90 = 1 is this information? In reality, it depends on who you ask. There are a lot of different definitions, and in this article, I want to talk about some of them.
Claude Shannon
We will start with Claude Shannon, the father of informational theory. In his paper “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” (1949), Shannon talks about it. He considers any message (signal) to be information. If we analyze this message, we can quantify the amount of information in it.
It makes sense. I write sin90=1 on a piece of paper and give it to somebody. That took effort, ink, etc. So it is information. Its usefulness for the person I gave it to is another question.
Julius Schrader
Now let’s ask Julius Schrader — a soviet mathematician, philosopher, and cyberneticist. In his paper “Describing a model of the semantic theory of information” (1965), Schrader points out that perception is observer-dependent.
By conducting experiments, Schrader concluded that analyses of the same piece of art made by different critics or at different times often do not have any similarities, even on a basic fundamental level. These experiments show that aesthetic perception is not absolute and is not dependent solely on the source.
For example some people love “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, others hate it. Sometimes your opinion of this book changes after you read the rest of the books or watch movies. The same message (book) evokes different opinions.
This concept brought Schrader to consider a beautiful word: Thesaurus.
Thesaurus is the knowledge base of the receiver about the world and the receiver’s ability to comprehend different messages.
Schrader included this in his definition of information.
Information is the change in the receiver’s thesaurus when receiving a message.
sin90=1
Let’s come back to our question: is sin90=1 information? According to Schrader, this depends on you (the receiver).
- If you are in kindergarten it’s not. Your thesaurus is not prepared for this message, and you will not understand or remember it.
- When you are in high school and learning trigonometry — yes, this is information.
- For a math professor it isn’t. Their thesaurus is oversaturated for this message. There is nothing new there and no change will happen.
So information is the change in one’s thesaurus. Isn’t this a beautiful way to look at it?
This definition can also help with thinking about education. For me, it explained why I was unable to understand some topics at the time I was learning them.
Information and education
It also highlights how important it is to have a balance in education.
- On the one end, the subject can be too confusing at the moment. And it doesn’t mean that you will never get it. It means that you first need to expand your thesaurus (prepare it for the new message) and then you should come back to the subject.
- On the other end stands boredom — having things you already know repeated.
- And only in the middle, do you learn.
If a topic feels too difficult for you now, don’t give up and don’t think that you’re stupid (like I often did). You can expand your knowledge base and return to the subject when your thesaurus is ready for it. You will figure it out.
Let me leave you with this definition of a bit of information from Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist, linguist, and cyberneticist:
A bit of information is a difference that makes a difference.
Thank you for your time!
