Stan,
I have a question. I don't understand why thermodynamics in the expression:
{thermodynamics {information theory {semiotics}}}
Our brains are very much about electrical signal processing.
And a lot of information processes in the world are not thermodynamic processes
in the first place.
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say:
{physics {information theory {semiotics}}}
Best,
Gordana
PS
In any case, Søren will surely disagree and say that Information is not enough!
From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On
Behalf Of Stanley N Salthe
Sent: den 27 april 2011 21:32
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: [Fis] replies to Quiao, Pedro, Krassimir & Loet
(1) Replying Quiao --
On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 7:15 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan
<pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es<mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>> wrote:
Message from Qiao Tian-qing
----------------------------------------------------------
Dear FISers
There is another general theory of information (GTIA).
I consider,
The customarily named information is the collection of three kinds of things´
attributes: things themselves (including cause or effect formed through their
interaction), the attributes of things that someone thinks and simulates, and
the attributes of tools someone or something uses when considers, expresses, or
simulates something. The first kind of attributes of things is based on facts,
for example, the three states of water, someone is swimming. This are physical,
chemical, biological, social or any other properties of things, irrefutable and
objective, which have nothing to do with any expressive way related to the
thing (such spoken and written languages, music or pictures).
This relates to the semiotic work of Jacob von Uexküll ('Biological Theory',
1925), who suggested that each species has its own sensory equipment, and
finds/ lives in a different world from other species. It could be said that
this was an early postmodern text. It is now in the standard (Peircean)
background of semiotics.
The second kind is related with the inner thoughts, or expressions through
talk, or sentence, namely, some attributes of things that someone can find; or
the attributes of things that could be simulate according to science and
technology.
Here we find Bidgman's 'operationalism' in his 1927 'The Logic of Modern
Physics'.
The third kind is the attributes of tools used by someone (or something) when
he himself thinks, or expresses, or simulates something, i.e. the state of
brain neurons when he thinks, the line trend of words when writes, the
vibration frequency and intensity of sound when speaks, the bit of circuit
devices in a computer, or the models of devices used in an experiment, etc.
This again relates to the above.
-------------------------------------------------------
(2) Then to Pedro, Krassimir and Loet:
Pedro Says:
But a new framework (way of thinking) is needed where we somehow
de-anthropogenize the field, getting it partially free of the above
circularity: "because I am philososphically or disciplinarily configured that
way, info is this and that for me". My usual argument in this list has been
that a few "informational entities" have to be taken as model systems, and then
a comparative study undertaken. Now what I would ad is that a previous new
"theory of mind" has to be advanced, a little bit at least.
And Krassimir says:
What we may do is to invite everybody to present from his/her point of view one
or more (own or not) information theories. The texts we will organize in a book
for free access from all over the world.
Loet says:
The need for a general theory of information can therefore be understood
psychologically, but this is itself a special subject of possible theorizing.
:) The inference to a general theory is not warranted by this (empirical)
philosophy of science.
I have just completed an attempt to sketch of a very general theory of
information written for a special issue of the new journal "Information" based
on the FIS 2010 Beijing conference. In this paper I suggest that semiotics is
subsumed by information theory and that this in turn is subsumed by
thermodynamics. Thus -- {thermodynamics {information theory {semiotics}}}
This is based on my generalization of the Shannon definition of information, as:
information is a reduction in uncertainty = choosing;
Bateson: information is a difference that makes a difference (to an
interpreting system)
Thermodynamic: information is any constraint on entropy production
STAN
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