jsawvel wrote:
I was just thinking of how you to determine how much information is contained in a certain symbol or text.

For instance, you could create a symbol and then say that symbol represents the whole of a novel you have written. The symbol represents a long and drawn out story. So, does that symbol contain the entirety or information that is contained in the story?

Basically information is broken down into pieces that when put together become unique, kind of like the lines that make up a picture. Each line helps to complete an entire picture or concept. But, lines taken individually are meaningless.

So, how do you measure how much information is contained in a composition - writing, pictures, sculpture etc?

Another point is that even a picture would be meaningless or contain no information if we did not have recognition of that picture.

So, information has to have something that we recognize in it. And at the same time has to be able to communicate things we don't recognize - thereby helping us to learn, i.e. take in new information.`

theabsenceofdeceit wrote:
Its a matter of association. One sees an image or symbol, and through past experiences we associate that image with a past feeling or concept. This concept could be linked to another concept and to another. Which could have a relatively large capacity by that train of thought.

For example, (An example I'm ashamed of, but it's relevant to the common man in the modern age) imagine you see the thunderbolt which is shown the character Harry Potter's head. Your mind instantly clicks and realizes it is an image you have seen before. The mind draws the link between the concept of the thunderbolt image and the character, and further from the character to the story, then further to the book, then further to when you and your cousin Jeremy went to see the movie... so on and so forth.

One idea is associated to another then to another, thereby making the amount of information you recall from seeing a particular image, remarkably large.