Wednesday, July 13, 2011

411

Before last class I had never really sat down and thought about what information was. At first I was kind of confused because I was looking at it with such a narrow perspective, but by defining it as a measure of uncertainty and recognizing how subjective it really was, it became much more complex than what I believed it to be and helped me to understand it in such a different light. Shannon's theory also reiterated its purpose by telling us what we need to resolve uncertainty, and that information can be seen almost as a catalyst in moving towards order and away from entropy. I think it is so interesting to think how we innately have a tendency towards order, which made sense in the example of how your body tries to fight off cancer, a disease of entropy, like any other foreign body. It got me to thinking back in terms of technology as extensions of human function, and how all this information we are processing by means of technology, media, etc, which at times may seem unnatural, or excessive really just parallels our innate desire for more information and knowledge to eliminate uncertainly. In looking at this way, it may just be unavoidable.

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