Abstract
The Shannon-derived measure of surprisal, or the self-information of a message, is calculated relative to some contextual framework. Enriching context constrains a message's potential interpretation, typically enriching its information content in the process. This may have implications for a general informational theory in physics: The receipt of information by a system creates boundary conditions that constrain further new information, the receipt of which then imposes further boundary conditions, and so on. Such ever-tightening informational constraint, iterated over billions of years, may drive the evolution of complexity in an "it from bit" universe.
Karl H Coryat