Nobody of us is able to provide an operative framework and a single
(just one!) empirical testable prevision able to assess "information".
Dear colleague,
One should not confuse the confusion on the list with the clarity of the
concept information in information theory. This definition is
operational (e.g., in bits). Your computer would not work without this
definition (1 byte = 8 bits). The problem is that this definition of
information as uncertainty is counter-intuitive.
The search for an intuitive definition of information has led to unclear
definitions. In a recent book, Hidalgo (2015, at p. 165), for example,
has defined “information” with reference “to the order embodied in
codified sequences, such as those found in music or DNA, while knowledge
and knowhow refer to the ability of a system to process information.”
However, codified knowledge can be abstract and—like music—does not have
to be “embodied” (e.g., Cowan, David, & Foray, 2000).
Beyond Hidalgo’s position, Floridi (2010, p. 21) proposed “a general
definition of information” according to which “the well-formed data are
meaningful” (italics of the author). Luhmann (1995, p. 67) posits that
“all information has meaning.” In his opinion, information should
therefore be considered as a selection mechanism. Kauffman et al. (2008,
at p. 28) added to the confusion by defining information as “natural
selection.”
Against these attempt to bring information and meaning under a single
denominator--and to identify variation with selection--I argue for a
dualistic perspective (as did Prof. Zhong in a previous email).
Information and meaning should not be confounded. Meaning is generated
from redundancies (Bateson, 1972, p. 420; Weaver, 1949; see Leydesdorff
et al., 2017).
Best,
Loet
References:
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine.
Cowan, R., David, P., & Foray, D. (2000). The Explicit Economics of
Knowledge Codification and Tacitness. Industrial and Corporate Change,
9(2), 211-253.
Floridi, L. (2010). Information: A very short introduction. Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
Hidalgo, C. (2015). Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from
Atoms to Economies. New York: Basic Books.
Kauffman, S., Logan, R. K., Este, R., Goebel, R., Hobill, D., &
Shmulevich, I. (2008). Propagating organization: an enquiry. Biology and
Philosophy, 23(1), 27-45.
Leydesdorff, L., Johnson, M., & Ivanova, I. (2017). Toward a Calculus of
Redundancy: Signification, Codification, and Anticipation in Cultural
Evolution. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3030525.
Luhmann, N. ([1984] 1995). Social Systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Weaver, W. (1949). Some Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory
of Communication. In C. E. Shannon & W. Weaver (Eds.), The Mathematical
Theory of Communication (pp. 93-117.). Urbana: University of Illinois
Press.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loet Leydesdorff
Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
l...@leydesdorff.net <mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net>;
http://www.leydesdorff.net/
Associate Faculty, SPRU, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/>University of
Sussex;
Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ. <http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/>,
Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC,
<http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html>Beijing;
Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck <http://www.bbk.ac.uk/>, University of London;
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en
_______________________________________________
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
