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Information Theory and Redundancy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Derek Partridge
Derek Partridge*
Affiliation:
Computer Science Department New Mexico State University
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Abstract

This paper argues that Information Theoretic Redundancy (ITR) is fundamentally a composite concept that has been continually misinterpreted since the very inception of Information Theory.

We view ITR as compounded of true redundancy and partial redundancy. This demarcation of true redundancy illustrates a limiting case phenomenon: the underlying metric (number of alternatives) differs only by degree but the properties of this concept differ in kind from those of partial redundancy.

Several other studies are instanced which also imply the composite nature of ITR. We thus provide broadly based but particular support for earlier generalized suggestions that it is the underlying calculus of Information Theory rather than the ill-named concepts themselves that provides something of a unitary language for the description of phenomena.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 1981 , pp. 308 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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