"Immutable Shannon alphabets are thus replicatable, interchangeable units." #readingToday

Recall how Shannon's digital messages enabled errors to be corrected with a minimum of effort, because the symbols in a message were atomic and immutable. Every 'A', for example, is indistinguishable and exchangeable with every other 'A'. A symbol could be replaced, or mistaken for another symbol, but the alphabet was stable, and therefore correctable. This basic strategy may be repeated for promises too, if we build a continuous message of indistinguishable , healable components. Immutable Shannon alphabets are thus replicatable, interchangeable units. They imply systems that can be repaired quickly and cheaply. Nature too has evolved into this strategy, through the emergence of DNA replication and cellular replication.

In Search of Certainty, Mark Burgess, 2013