Xref: utzoo comp.ai:8394 sci.bio:4287 sci.psychology:4103 alt.cyberpunk:5670 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!turing!ncmh From: Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.bio,sci.psychology,alt.cyberpunk Subject: Re: The Bandwidth of the Brain Message-ID: <1991Jan14.163417.2203@newcastle.ac.uk> Date: 14 Jan 91 16:34:17 GMT References: <37034@cup.portal.com> <38006@cup.portal.com> Sender: news@newcastle.ac.uk Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU Lines: 16 (Doug Merritt): >It is a well known result of Information Theory that such "pre-understanding" >is *not* part of the bandwidth of transmitted information, although it >is completely essential for practical purposes. With no such context, >information is transmitted at a certain bandwidth, but cannot be interpreted. So what's the word for information received in the light of a given context? Knowledge? And how would one view Borges' notion of someone who rewrote all of Don Quixote, word for word, but because it was in a different context the result was an entirely different book? :-) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk Computing Lab, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "[War's] glory is all moonshine... War is hell." - General Sherman, 1879