Engineering existed way before any kind of math or symbolic manipulation. It was a collection of heuristics.
Information theory came after people were already sending signals over the wire. Similarly, there were architectural feats before geometry or Newton’s laws were discovered.
was it not based on knowledge based on observation (science)? You don't need math and symbolic manipulation, not to mention information theory to do science, even if it helps immensely if you do use these tools!
Information theory came after people were already sending signals over the wire. Similarly, there were architectural feats before geometry or Newton’s laws were discovered.