Information, defined intuitively and informally, might be something like 'uncertainty's antidote.' This turns out also to be the formal definition- the amount of information comes from the amount by which something reduces uncertainty.. The higher the [information] entropy, the more information there is. It turns out to be a value capable of measuring a startling array of things- from the flip of a coin to a telephone call, to a Joyce novel, to a first date, to last words, to a Turing test.. Entropy suggests that we gain the most insight on a question when we take it to the friend, colleague, or mentor of whose reaction and response we're least certain. And it suggests, perhaps, reversing the equation, that if we want to gain the most insight into a person, we should ask the question of qhose answer we're least certain.. Pleasantries are low entropy, biased so far that they stop being an earnest inquiry and become ritual. Ritual has its virtues, of course, and I don't quibble with them in the slightest. But if we really want to start fathoming someone, we need to get them speaking in sentences we can't finish. Brian Christian
Some Similar Quotes
  1. I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information. - Bill Watterson
  2. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change.... - Ray Bradbury
  3. Whatever I learned, Whatever I knew, Seems like those faded years of childhood that flew, Away in some dilemma, Always in some confusion, The purpose of this life, Seems like an illusion! - Mehek Bassi
  4. Take lightly what you hear about individuals. We need not distort trust for our paltry little political agendas. We tend to trust soulless, carried information more than we trust soulful human beings; but really most people aren't so bad once you sit down and have... - Criss Jami
  5. She had argued for a broad interpretation, which imposed a duty to answer questions truthfully, and not to hide facts which could give a different complexion to a matter, but on subsequent thought she had revised her position. Although she still believed that one should... - Alexander McCall Smith
More Quotes By Brian Christian
  1. I think the reason novels are regarded to have so much more 'information' than films is that they outsource the scenic design and cinematography to the reader.. This, for me, is a powerful argument for the value and potency of literature specifically. Movies don't demand...
  2. What a familiarity with the construction of Turing test bots had begun to show me was that we fail - again and again- to actually be human with other humans, so maddeningly much of the time.
  3. Like most conversations and most chess games, we all start off the same and we all end the same, with a brief moment of difference in between. Fertilization to fertilizer. Ashes to ashes. And we spark across the gap.
  4. When I fight off a disease bent on my cellular destruction, when I marvelously distribute energy and collect waste with astonishing alacrity even in my most seemingly fatigued moments, when I slip on ice and gyrate crazily but do not fall, when I unconsciously counter-steer...
  5. Our judgments betray our expectations, and our expectations betray our experience. What we project about the future reveals a lot–about the world we live in, and about our own past.
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