Language level, a missing concept in information theory

Abstract

According to Information Theory, [Cf Leon Brillouin, <u>Science and Information Theory,</u> Acacemic Press, N. Y. 1956, pp. 292-3], the information content of a table of numbers does not depend upon how difficult it was to obtain the entries in the table, but only upon whether or not we know how, or how precisely we know how, to reconstruct the entire table or any parts of it. Consequently, from present Information Theory, since we "know in advance" how a table of since is constructed, such a table contains absolutely no information. For a person who does not "know in advance" how to construct a table of sines, however, the table would indeed contain "Information." This ambiguity apparently contradicts the basic statement [Leon Brillouin, op. cit., page 10] that "Information is an absolute quantity which has the same numerical value for any observer," a contradiction which remains even when we accept Brillouins next statement that "The human value of the information, on the other hand, would necessarily be a relative quantity, and would have different values for different observers, according to the possibility of their understanding it and using it later."