Words that are harder to predict from context typically carry more information(or surprisal). Does more information/surprisal means more importance, given everything else the same(correctness/plausibility, etc.)? A simple example: “This morning I opened the door and saw a 'UFO'.” vs “This morning I opened the door and saw a 'cat'.” —...
One of the regrets of death may be that, the unique information of a person is irreversibly lost. Many ethical questions circle around the same intuition: when unique information is irretrievably lost, something of moral significance is destroyed. * The destruction of an ancient manuscript. * The extinction of a...
Thanks. You are right. I need to add an assumption, "given everything else the same". We need to exclude surprise changes caused by variations in correctness/plausibility. Correctness/plausibility can be relatively easily distinguished through other methods. And I just added some content to the article, including: "At least right now, one thing I can speculate is: Shannon information seems to represent the upper bound on 'importance.'"
About the "Aslan" example: the high "information" it carrays is reasonable, since the explanation following is quite "informational" for those who are interested. After the "upper bound" addtion, this example becomes reasonable, right? :)
About the "James Pennebaker research" example, I will understand it in this way: of the seemingly least... (read more)
Words that are harder to predict from context typically carry more information(or surprisal). Does more information/surprisal means more importance, given everything else the same(correctness/plausibility, etc.)?
A simple example: “This morning I opened the door and saw a 'UFO'.” vs “This morning I opened the door and saw a 'cat'.” — clearly "UFO" carries more information.
'UFO' seems more important here. But is this because it carries more information? This topic may be around the information-theoretic nature of language.
If this is true, it's simple and helpful to analyze text information density with large language models and visualizes where the important parts are.
It is a world of information, layered above the physical world. When we read text we are... (read more)
I agree the first half of your idea. About the second half, I sketched a framework here: [link]. Might be relevant if you’re curious.
In a future where duplication exists, and we continue being subject to evolution, I can easily imagine the mental concept of survival-of-self being straightforwardly replaced by the concept of survival-of-a-copy-of-myself.
“Information survival” may be a more fundamental goal of life than “conscious survival.”—— I sketched a framework here: [link]. Might be relevant if you’re curious.
One of the regrets of death may be that, the unique information of a person is irreversibly lost.
Many ethical questions circle around the same intuition: when unique information is irretrievably lost, something of moral significance is destroyed.
These intuitions suggest that information itself—not only its material substrate—carries moral significance.
In my spare time, I have been developing a framework for evaluating the ethical value of information, using information theory as a way to formalize part of this moral intuition.
About ”turn over every stone in the universe a trillion times to resurrect the ones I love”:
My emotions resonate deeply with yours. However, if we seriously explore the technical aspects of this question, it’s not the case.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about the irreversible loss of a person’s information. Once information of a person is lost, it is gone forever. The challenge isn’t about exhaustively searching under every stone in the universe—it’s about determining whether what lies beneath a stone is the answer. When you turn over a stone, you cannot confirm whether the “him” you find is truly “him,” because you lack sufficient information about “him.”
Accurate resurrect of a person can only rely on the information within the brain—anything else would be too far away, even the one who love him most.
I sketched a framework of information and ethical value [here]. Might be relevant if you’re curious.
The amount of information should be taken into account. Information(what you store in a box) << Information(the persion)
I sketched a framework of information and ethical value here: [link]. Might be relevant if you’re curious.
More potential importance
<-> Not all surprising parts of a sentence are important.
<-> All important parts must be surprising.
<-> Word importance in text <= conditional information of the token in the context.
Thank you again! You help me see it more clear!