New information in a signal equals whatever cannot be predicted from its past

Evidence

To maximize the information content of the signal we should aim to remove the predictable parts, because they can be recalculated at the receive end, and only encode the unpredictable part because this represents the new information. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 2598

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: ‘Prediction is compression’ — show how information theory defines novelty as whatever resists prediction, and extend that to how we parse a conversation or a piece of music.
• DEEPTHINKING: Ties information content directly to unpredictability, an idea worth sitting with when thinking about why familiar music or speech carries little news.