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quantified entity specific information content

measure information absorption capacities and judge data sets with them
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"Entity" can be anything that processes information.
Examples can include an ipad, a human child, a chicken, or a calculator.

"information" can be any data in any quality, quantity, or form. Examples can include the actual sight of the grand canyon, a paper about agriculture printed on paper, the visual of a nude of Lucy Liu on a computer screen, or an .mp3 on rotating magnetic storage.

"k" means a thousand of something. Used here it refers to a thousand bits

For a given entity and a given set of information it should be possible to describe approximate information absorption ability the entity will have in a given time and the likely information absorption activity the entity will exhibit under the circumstance.

For example under any circumstances the usable information a chicken would get from each of the examples above are, respectively:"big space there","squiggles that probably aren't bugs","surface",and (no information obtainable).

I propose describing that quantity of information as a minimum and maximum number of bits. Since a chicken can process dimensions more poorly as distance increases the view of the grand canyon would represent only a few bits. In contrast a digital camera, while being less intelligent than a chicken could store magabits of information from the same input. The paper on agriculture would represent between the number of squiggles a smart chicken can remember and the number of squiggles a dumb chicken can remember. The nude would represent about the same amount of information for any chicken since it's not going to process it as a picture. The .mp3 could not tell a chicken anything.
So for a chicken for those data quantities may be 10 bits, 150-400 bits, 40 bits, 0 bits.

This measurement would be more useful when the approximate amount of usable information a person can receive is considered. While there are orders of magnitude of difference in the abilities of different people to process different information, describing the person more closely gives a closer approximation of the amount of information she can get from a given input.

At an extreme end of the analysis one may say that a 20 year old intelligent plumber who has a high school education and little other work experience probably can use 2k-8k, 10k-20k, 1k-4k, and 0k from the inputs described above.
Voice, Mar 16 2011

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       Wait, I'm still wondering about the chicken. And that Jimi Hendrix song holds a special significance for me.
normzone, Mar 17 2011
  

       I would be interested to see a conversion factor for different types of data entering a human mind. For instance, the brain stores memories completly different from a computer, so how much "storage space" does a view of the grand canyon use in a human, and how much space on a computer would be required to store the same amount of information?
DIYMatt, Mar 17 2011
  

       Sometimes A cannot be quantified in terms of B. This would be one of those cases.
WcW, Mar 17 2011
  
      
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