Feedback and levels of description, or: What MPEG2 compression can teach you about cybernetics and epistemology

Feedback and levels of description, or: What MPEG2 compression can teach you about cybernetics and epistemology

A fellow student pointed out recently to me that compression algorithms are an excellent way to see feedback at work, and used the example of mpeg2 video compression.  Here we have a system that utilizes multiple levels of abstraction and feedback in order to efficiently compress video data. I will give you a picture or...

Continue reading →