There are occasions where less bandwidth is required. The Charlotte Theorem

Recently I was at a concert. It was way past midnight. The group the Spazmatics were performing their uber geek renditions of 80's hits like the Cyndi Laupers "Girls Just wanna Have Fun" and the Smith's "How soon is Now?"... Ironically, It gave me an alternative ending for a book I am working on where a dyslexic falls in love in an online virtual world only to be tortured by the lack of sensory input that that online medium provides...But I digress

Since the performance was live in a small venue DragonFly,  you can imagine the amount of sound coming from very large speakers which not only come from the stage but are also hooked into the entire dance club. Needless to say, it was loud.

To communicate you have two normal cases; one press lips to the others ear and shout, or use hand gestures and hope they understand a) American Sign Language b) wonderful world of flailing arms

Neither are very effective and both modes of communication provide so many artifacts and miscues that little is understood, and much is implied. Which of course in term of communication, requires immense understanding of the message and the messenger. For if you do not know the messenger or have any clue to the message then the communication stream is severely downgraded.

Yet the paradox remains. From the Mathematical Theory of Communication by Shannon & Weaver; Information is the measure of one's freedom of choice in selecting a message. The greater this freedom of choice, the greater the information, the greater is the uncertainty that the message actually selected is some particular one. If noise is introduced, then certain distortions and certain extraneous material increase the uncertainty. But if uncertainty is increased so is information is increased...\

The Shannon theorem states that given a noisy channel with channel capacity C and information transmitted at a rate R, then if R < C there exist codes that allow the probability of error at the receiver to be made arbitrarily small. This means that theoretically, it is possible to transmit information nearly without error at any rate below a limiting rate, C.

But inside a loud concert where the noise exceeded acceptable levels for most chosen channels, like speech and dark enough where even gestures might not transmit well, nothing to say about the wide and varied probability of what the receiver might interpret as symbols.

I chose another channel.

I noticed a girl dancing on the edge of our group. She wore glasses, was tall, dark, and attractive. As a host of a small band of Generation Xer's at an eighties cover band concert I thought it sad she was dancing alone. The eighties are strewn with songs about dancing alone. See Billy Idol and Smiths for references.

As she danced, some new blue bandana girl bounced into our circle and pushed her out. Nothing verbal was transmitted, nothing said. But I felt a twang of sadness that she was left out. As a host of various social groups I try to get strangers involved in activities.

Time passed and so did the strange bouncy girl with a bandana. I traveled around the entire concert and when I arrived at my old dancing spot there she was. Still alone. Why is this girl alone? I was burnt out from doing one event after another for over a week and my voice was raspy and weak from shouting...

Now keep in mind, I am happily married. So I don't want her phone number, or her email or the ability to take her out later for a coffee. But I was struck by a sadness and beauty so I had to ask.

I chose another channel.

I pulled out my smart phone and began to text a message. On the well lit screen I asked "why are you still alone". And tapped her shoulder and shoved my lit message in her general area.

At first she hesitated. Then she pulled out her phone and began to type. "I am waiting for a friend" "why are you alone"... Our low bandwidth conversation continued. With smiles and glances we maintained a cordial conversation without speaking. 

Words were never transmitted over any wireless signal. We simply used a text window to communicate. Is it odd? Can two people share thoughts when the noise level of a specific channel nears capacity for that channel?

One only needs to look at my second favorite channel SecondLife to see what we were doing was just a variation of theme from that. Two avatars sharing a chat window. And replacing relatively narrow channel of 3-D graphics and basic textured shapes with minimal details and minimal sound effects , was a broadband channel in real life space with diminished channel capacity by massive noise, smoke machines and flashing lights in a dark room.

Thank you SecondLife,  for giving me an opportunity to communicate in the real world using the technology for the virtual world.  

And yes her name is Charlotte...