# Information Resolves Uncertainty Across Every Medium by Andrew Lih > "As long as something can be relayed that resolves uncertainty, that is the fundamental nature of information. While this sounds surprisingly obvious, it was an important point, given how many different languages people speak and how one utterance could be meaningful to one person, and unintelligible to another. Until Shannon's theory was formulated, it was not known how to compensate for these types of "psychological factors" appropriately. Shannon built on the work of fellow researchers Ralph Hartley and Harry Nyquist to reveal that coding and symbols were the key to resolving whether two sides of a communication had a common understanding of the uncertainty being resolved." > **— Andrew Lih**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** ["Information Is The Resolution Of Uncertainty"](https://www.edge.org/responses/what-is-your-favorite-deep-elegant-or-beautiful-explanation) — Edge published this passage in its 2012 Annual Question collection, *What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation?*. The full response preserves the qualifications and argument surrounding this exact extract. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2012 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2012 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first archive record for the complete yearly response cohort. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/STEVE|STEVE]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Art is Long|The Art is Long]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Architecture of Continuity and Emerging Neuroinformatics Standards|Neuroinformatics Standards]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Knowledge Graph|Knowledge Graph]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Information Theory|Information Theory]] - [[wiki/Provenance|Provenance]] - [[wiki/Knowledge Representation|Knowledge Representation]] - [[wiki/Verification Validation and Uncertainty Quantification|Verification Validation and Uncertainty Quantification]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "As long as something can be relayed that resolves uncertainty, that is the fundamental nature of information. While this sounds surprisingly obvious, it was an important point, given how many different languages people speak and how one utterance could be meaningful to one person, and unintelligible to another. Until Shannon's theory was formulated, it was not known how to compensate for these types of "psychological factors" appropriately. Shannon built on the work of fellow researchers Ralph Hartley and Harry Nyquist to reveal that coding and symbols were the key to resolving whether two sides of a communication had a common understanding of the uncertainty being resolved." — Andrew Lih, 2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-andrew-lih-information-resolves-uncertainty ```