If it’s not re-defining the term then I’m using it like the paper is defining it.

Because just understanding words to respond to them, ignoring all the sub-processes that are also part of “thought” and directly impact both your internal narration and your actual behavior, takes more than 10 bits of information to manage. (And yeah I do understand that each word isn’t actually equally likely as I used to provide a number in my rough version, but they also require your brain to handle far more additional context than just the information theory “information” of the word itself.)

Information is information. Everything can be described in binary terms.

Binary digit is how actual brain scientists understand bit, because that’s what it means.

But “brains aren’t binary” is also flawed. At any given point, a neuron is either firing or not firing. That’s based on a buildup of potentials based on the input of other neurons, but it ultimately either fires or it doesn’t, and that “fire/don’t fire” dichotomy is critical to a bunch of processes. Information may be encoded other ways, eg fire rate, but if you dive down to the core levels, the threshold of whether a neuron hits the action potential is what defines the activity of the brain.

Yes.

Science is built on a shared, standardized base of knowledge. Laying claim to a standard term to mean something entirely incompatible with the actual definition makes your paper objectively incorrect and without merit.

Binary digit, or the minimum additional information needed to distinguish between two different equally likely states/messages/etc.

It’s same usage as information theory, because information theory applies to, and is directly used by, virtually every relevant field of science that touches information in any way.

Actual neuroscientists do not create false definitions for well defined terms. And they absolutely do not need to define basic, unambiguous terminology to be able to use it.

The paper is not entitled to redefine a scientific term to be completely incorrect.

A bit is a bit.

Because actual neuroscientists understand and use information theory.

No, I am saying that I do have a meaningful working knowledge of how the brain works, and information theory, beyond the literal surface level it would take to understand that the headline is bullshit.

You don’t need to be a Nobel prize winning physicist to laugh at a paper claiming gravity is impossible. This headline is that level. Literally just processing a word per second completely invalidates it, because an average vocabulary of 20k means that every word, by itself, is ~14 bits of information.

There is no other definition of bit that is valid in a scientific context. Bit literally means “binary digit”.

Information theory, using bits, is applied to the workings of the brain all the time.

Argument to authority doesn’t strengthen your argument.

A piece of paper is not a prerequisite to the extremely basic level of understanding it takes to laugh at this.

Understanding it is active thought. And processing the words, as words with meaning, is required to formulate a relevant response.

The more than 10 bits each word is are part of your active thought.

The headline is completely incompatible with multiple large bodies of scientific evidence. It’s the equivalent of claiming gravity doesn’t exist. Dismissing obvious nonsense is a necessary part of filtering the huge amount of information available.

But I did read the abstract and it makes the headline look reasonable by comparison.

The point is that it’s literally impossible for the headline to be anything but a lie.

I don’t need to dig further into a headline that claims cell towers cause cancer because of deadly cell signal radiation, and that’s far less deluded than this headline is.

The core concept is entirely incompatible with even a basic understanding of information theory or how the brain works.

(But I did read the abstract, not knowing it’s the abstract because it’s such nonsensical babble. It makes it even worse.)

It doesn’t matter what it says.

A word is more than 10 bits on its own.

There is literally nothing the paper could say and no evidence they could provide to make the assertion in the title anything less than laughable.

There are hundreds of systems in your brain that are actively processing many, many orders of magnitude more than ten bits of information per second all the time. We can literally watch them do so.

It’s possible the headline is a lie by someone who doesn’t understand the research. It’s not remotely within the realm of plausibility that it resembles reality in any way.

He’s not.

Executive function has limited capacity, but executive function isn’t your brain (and there’s no reasonable definition that limits it to anything as absurd as 10 bits). Your visual center is processing all those bits that enter the eyes. All the time. You don’t retain all of it, but retaining any of it necessarily requires processing a huge chunk of it.

Literally just understanding the concept of car when you see one is much more than 10 bits of information.

There’s no plausible way to even encode any arbitrary idea into 10 bits of information.

There’s no particular reason for every app to search the web, though. There’s plenty of reason for a wide variety of apps to need maps.

Maps are a broad value tool. Searching the web isn’t. A web search engine is just a search engine. It’s not a meaningful value add to any arbitrary developer who wants to build apps for iPhone.

Maps is core to privacy and utility for their whole software ecosystem. They offer maps free to devs on iOS so they’re not forced to leak a boatload of data to Google or pay big API fees. It’s a built in that thousands of apps use.

Thousands of apps aren’t using search.

I don’t notice normal LEDs generally.

But anything moving in front of Christmas lights gives me a giant headache. It’s incredibly obvious.