o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o The directness of Bateson's link from bits of information to the difference that makes a difference may be peculiar to him, but the idea of a diff-making diff and its connection with the question of how signs and concepts come to mean anything at all is the nub of the pragmatic maxim, going back to Peirce and Bain. here is one of William James' more succinct -- if very rough -- glosses of the point:
| The pragmatic method is primarily a method of settling | metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable. | Is the world one or many? -- fated or free? -- material or | spiritual? -- here are notions either of which may or may not | hold good of the world; and disputes over such notions are | unending. The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to | interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical | consequences. What difference would it practically make | to any one if this notion rather than that notion were true? | If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the | alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute | is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to | show some practical difference that must follow from one side | or the other's being right. (James, 'Pragmatism', 45-46). | | Mr. Peirce, after pointing out that our beliefs are really | rules for action, said that, to develop a thought's meaning, | we need only determine what conduct it is fitted to produce: | that conduct is for us its sole significance. And the tangible | fact at the root of all our thought-distinctions, however subtle, | is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist in anything | but a possible difference of practice. To attain perfect clearness | in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what | conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve -- | what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must | prepare. Our conception of these effects, whether immediate or remote, | is then for us the whole of our conception of the object, so far as that | conception has positive significance at all. (James, 'Pragmatism', 46-47). | | William James, 'Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking', | Longmans, Green, & Co., New York, NY, 1907. Sorry if anybody has already mentioned this, but i'm catching up with my mail from the bottom of the heap. Jon Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o Francis Heylighen wrote: > > Seth: > >I was just thinking and came to somewhat of a conundrum. In the ever > >unsuccessful attempts to try to operationally define information, > >aside from Shannon and Weiner identification of it with entropy (I > >know its not exactly identical, but you know what I mean) the real > >problem occurs in trying to define it in terms of something else. > >What do we define information in terms of, matter? Energy? What does > >this mean? > > What about Bateson's famous definition of information as "a > difference that makes a difference"? The "difference" concepts refers > to Shannon's "syntactical" view which defines information in terms of > the possible number of states that a message could have (the more > states, the more differences, the more potential information). The > "making a difference" can be seen as referring to the "pragmatical" > dimension of information: the message should not only be > distinguishable, but relevant or meaningful, i.e. it should make a > difference for the receiver, helping the receiver to make this > decision rather than that one, and thus achieving a better or more > desirable situation. > > For example, if someone sends me the New York telephone book, but I > don't know anybody in New York and am not planning to go there, this > message contains a lot of information in the Shannon, syntactic > sense, but none in the Bateson, pragmatic sense. I might as well > have received several megabytes of random numbers and letters. On the > other hand, if I was desperately trying to trace a person of whom I > only know the name and the fact that she lives in New York, the > message may be a godsend, and make a huge difference to my life. > > >Do we go the route of Fredkin and just insist information is the > >fundamental in which everything else is defined by? > > The "difference that makes a difference" can also be interpreted in a > more metaphysical, ontological sense as describing the fundamentally > relational nature of reality: no phenomenon (difference) can exist on > its own , it must somehow be related (covary) with some other > phenomenon (another difference). This is actually the basis of my own > philosophy and its "bootstrapping axiom", which says that > distinctions (differences) are not given, but produce each other. It > builds further on Leibniz's principle of the "the identity of the > indistinguishables". See http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/IDENINDI.html > > In that sense, information (or rather relationality) is the > fundamental in terms of which everything else is defined (including > matter and energy). However, this is not the Shannon information > which consists of independent "bits", but the Bateson one that > consists of mutually dependent differences. > > > I'm not sure yet exactly how this ties in with a global brain, but > >you never know where inspiration will come from, you know? I just > >want to see what other people think? > > The relation with the GB is of course that the GB is one huge network > of relations along which information propagates, and as such merely a > more complex organization emerging out of the simpler relational > networks that have been existing all along ... The intelligence of the > GB consists in recognizing which differences make the more important > differences, thus allowing it to filter out the meaning out of the > sea of data. > -- > > Francis Heylighen > Center "Leo Apostel" > Free University of Brussels > http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
