Re: SV: [Fis] info meaning
Friday, October 5, 2007, 1:53:51 PM, Loet wrote: Dear colleagues, I agree with a lot of Christophe Menant's last mail, but I think that I can take it a step further. The _expression_ of Bateson "A difference which makes a difference" presumes that there is a system or a series of events for which the differences can make a difference. This system selects upon the differences (or Shannon-type information) in the environment of the system. The Shannon-type information is meaningless, but the specification of the system of reference provides the information with meaning. The Shannon-type information which is deselected is discarded as noise. That's (at least approximately) what I mean when I say that intentional information is always encoded in physical information. Intentional information is the ordinary concept of information and is meaningful. Physical information is very closely related to Shannon information and has no intrinsic meaning, being mere physical patterns -- on this conceptualisation, which is widely accepted within physics, all physical patterns are treated as Shannon-type information. Intentional or semantic information, on the other hand, requires a context, which plays the part of a decoding key. Thus semantic information, or meaning, is always encoded within physical patterns. Meaning is provided to the information from the perspective of hindsight. I don't think "hindsight" is strictly correct, because it implies a conscious "looking back", whereas the processing of meaning (decoding) often occurs prior to consciousness. The meaningful information, however, still follows the arrow of time.Meaning processing withinpsychological and social systems reinforces the feedback arrow (from the hindsight perspective) to the extent that control tends to move to this next-order level. The system can then become anticipatory because the information which is provided with meaning can be entertained by the system as a model. Perhaps, human language is required for making that last step: no longer is only information exchanged, but information is packaged into messages in which the information has a codified meaning. Modelling is certainly what allows anticipation, but some modelling, at least, does not require language: consider catching a ball that's thrown to you. You model the trajectory, I would suggest, in order to put your hand in the right place at the right time, but language is obviously not involved there. Of course you might say that meaning plays no part in that scenario, but I think it's a very big mistake to deny a continuum from significance of any sort at one extreme to the highly abstract and sophisticated meanings of the messages on this list, at the other. What both extremes have in common is the concept of use, as in Wittgenstein's later view of meaning: it is our use, I would suggest, of physical patterns, that encodes significance and meaning within them, and the modelling of a trajectory has significant similarities with the modelling of correspondents and their intentions (though significant differences too, of course). -- Robin Faichney http://www.robinfaichney.org/ ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] Re: Logan response to the various comments of FISites
Hi Pedro et al. My comments are in red - I know that I surpassed my limit of four per week so I am commenting on a number of contributions in this post - I use x to divide one section from another - With this post I am up to date. I apologize for my delayed responses. My overall reaction to all of the posts is one of deep appreciation. I look forward to the continued dialogue. Bob Logan Hi Jerry et al. I quite enjoyed this post below. The way the 3.486 billion possible interpretations are whittled down to 1 or possibly 2 meanings is through pragmatics - pragmatics or context is very important for understanding meaning - Bob On 1-Oct-07, at 10:10 AM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote: To the FIS List: I mean to say a bit about meaning and information. The context I wish to start with is natural language, that is, the meaning of everyday language as used in a novel, a play, between two lovers at the breakfast table, in a political convention, during a financial transaction or in a chemical lecture. The choice of meaning under such circumstances is open to interpretation by those present, the speaker and the listener(s). How do listeners attach meaning to the spoken words? Consider the Porpthryian decision tree and apply it to the possible meanings of each word in a sentence composed of twenty words. Consider the possibility that each word of the sentence is restricted to only three meanings. Then, 3,486,784,401 possible combinations of meanings are possibly created by the sentence, that is, 3 multiplied by itself twenty times. Does such a sentence have _a_ meaning? On 2-Oct-07, at 6:24 AM, Pedro Marijuan wrote: Dear colleagues, Answering to a couple of Jerry's questions, Under what circumstances can the speaker's meaning or the writer's meaning be _exact_? Is _meaning_ a momentary impulse with potential for settling into a local minimum in the biochemical dynamic? A previous point could be---what entities are capable of elaborating that obscure item we call meaning? Just anything (eg, some parties have stated that molecules or atoms may communicate), or only the living beings? My understanding of what Bob has proposed along the POE guideliness is that only the living cell would be capable --and of course, all the further more complex organisms. This point is of some relevance. After decoding and interpretation of the organic codes, the meaning of my message about meaning and information may have meaning to you. Maybe. But I suffer some information overload (perhaps overload is just the incapablity to elaborate meaning under the present channels or means of communication). The way meaning finallly emerges in oral commnication is thru dialogue so as to establish a context of an ambiguous meaning. Context is king! xx On Oct 2 Guy Hoelzer wrote: In my view meaning exists (or not) exclusively within systems. It exists to the extent that inputs (incoming information) resonate within the structure of the system. The resonance can either reinforce the existing architecture (confirmation), destabilize it (e.g., cognitive disequilibrium), or construct new features of the architecture (e.g., learning). I like this contribution and the comments made by Stan Salthe also on Oct 2 - they parallel Fredkins idea: The meaning of information is given by the processes that interpret it. Would you agree Guy and Stan? And for Søren Brier who commented on Stan's comment also on Oct 2 I would ask do the processes that interpret info constitute semiotic ontology? On Oct 3 Walter Riofrio comments: In (2) Pedro understand Bob is proposing that only the living beings (from living cells to more complex organisms) are capable to elaborate (and transmit) meaning in information. My approach to this issue is: we could understand meaning in information (or, meaningful information) only in living systems (and I propose even until the systems which opened the doors of prebiotic world). That is the way - I think - 'Information with meaning' arises in the physical universe. I agree it is only living and perhaps prebiotic things that have processes, namely propagating their organization and are therefore capable of interpreting information and hence according to Fredkin providing it with meaning. When a rock is acted upon by earth's gravity it does not have to interpret because it has no options it can only behave as causality demands. Living things make choices - Bacteria decide to swim towards or away from a substance depending on their interpretation of whether it is food or toxin. The meaning of a glucose gradient to a bacteria is food, survival, I want it. Living things have agency whereas
Re: [Fis] info meaning
Karl et al - I agree there is lots of value in past FIS discussions of info but as Shannon himself opined It is hardly to be expected that a single concept of information would satisfactorily account for the numerous possible applications of this general field. I only offered one such concept namely instructional or biotic information. And I agree with Karl: Now the task is to figure out how to manage the consequences. On 25-Sep-07, at 9:54 AM, karl javorszky wrote: There is more well-prepared work in FIS than meets the eye. Let us not restart from inventing the idea of information. This is well done. Now the task is to figure out how to manage the consequences. All the best: Karl Karl ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Info meaning
Hi Stan - interesting ideas - I resonate with the thought that the meaning of info is associated with Aritostle's final cause - cheers Bob On 25-Sep-07, at 4:39 PM, Stanley N. Salthe wrote: First I comment on Pedro's: The information overload theme (in the evolution of social modes of communication), is really intriguing. Should we take it, say, in its prima facie? I am inclined to put it into question, at least to have an excuse and try to unturn that pretty stone... The question of information overload connects with my theory of senescence (1993 book Development Evolution: Complexity and Change in Biology), which is that it results from the continual taking in of information after a system has become definitive (all material systems necessarily continue to get marked), while at the same time there is less loss of information (matter is 'sticky'). The result is that a system becomes slower to respond to perturbations, atr least because lag times increase as a result of a multiplication of channels (increased informational friction), and because some channels effect responses at cross purposes. and then Walter's: (2) In the same way: how can arise the 'meaning' In naturalist terms or imposed by us? I have recently concluded that meaning can be naturalized by aligning it with finality in the Aristotelian causal analysis (material/formal, efficient/final). I assert that final cause has not really been eliminated from physics and other sciences, but has been embodied in variatinal principles like the Second Law of thermodynamics, and in evolutionary theory - in Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection, as well as in some interpetations of the 'collapse of the wave function' in QM. STAN ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] The Goals and Worlds
Bob- Thanks for starting out the session so strongly. Let me first give some context for my remarks. For me at least, the agenda here is to collectively toy with notions that can actually help us develop better conceptual tools. It isn't so much a matter of finding a definition of information that works, that clearly has formal footing. Rather its a game of finding among all the respectable candidates a notion of information that leads us to new theories and insights. So a good part of the enterprise is deciding what looks good, is defensible and even locally useful, but that doesn't give us the disruptive leverage we want. At the highest level, I think, there's a decision each of us has to make about the nature of the abstraction space we want to work in. Kauffman is famously on record as believing that the preferred space is algebraic. He goes further in stating that it is the ONLY space, all others illusory, or less fundamental. Without burdening you with that rather indefensible weight, its clear to me that what you have presented is clearly in this camp. My argument against it cannot be based on any internal inadequacy: algebraic characterizations of the world do work well, well enough to have been seen as the default by many. But consider some of the objections that Pedro raises. I admire his attention to the more challenging goals, ones I share, even if I get frustrated at how gently he advocates. Alternatives are to come at this from some similar platform within mathematics, like geometric reasoning (Von Neumann, Einstein) represented here by some of the quantum interaction discussion, set theory where I would place Karl's notions of number-as-indicator, and some of Jerry's notational insights (though they deal with categories as well). Leyton who is sadly absent steps in and out of groups in a clever way that avoids being captured by them. Many of these approaches that are inspired by mathematical mechanisms redefine entropy and/or Shannon. Then there's a whole wing here that takes information less from the measurement side and more on the causal and builds from the semantic foundations we have. I admire these because they truly do add something new, and present possibilities for enhancing our formal vocabulary. Its a bit distracting that they have to fall back on semiotic or philosophic machinery from time to time, but that's why we've been at this for years, right? My own preference is to create a new hybrid that has algebraic tools but is not inspired by them, but by the qualities of information that come from the semiotic side, somehow escaping the similarly limiting frameworks there. Loet seems to be starting from here and working with social dynamics. I prefer certain other choices in this, and freely admit they are arbitrary and tentative. (Jerry's preference for syntactically focused language metaphors, narrative dynamics and symmetry operations are all helpful to me.) Its not my purpose here to argue for them. I just want to make the establishing point that we are about invention first. And perhaps algebra isn't the best starting place. It takes the notion of meaning a bit more funadamentally. Somehow, I think the biologists and chemists may be worth listening to on this, but that may be just a religious view. But itdoes seem that this cusp of introspective apparent selfishness implicit in Pedro's and Walter's posts has merit. I read Stanley such that he supports this. -Ted -- __ Ted Goranson Sirius-Beta ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
RE: [Fis] info meaning
Dear Bob and colleagues, Although I know that this comment was made in responding to another comment, let me react here because I think that this is not correct: The point I am making is that organization is a form of information which Shannon theory does not recognize. Shannon's theory is a mathematical theory which can be used in an application context (e.g., biology, electrical engineering) as a methodology. This has been called entropy statistics or, for example, statistical decomposition analysis (Theil, 1972). The strong methodology which it provides may enable us to answer theoretical questions in the field of application. An organization at this level of abstraction can be considered as a network of relations and thus be represented as a matrix. (Network analysis operates on matrices.) A matrix can be considered as a two-dimensional probability distribution which contains an uncertainty. This uncertainty can be expressed in terms of bits of information. Similarly, for all the submatrices (e.g., components and cliques) or for any of the row or column vectors. Thus, one can recognize and study organization using Shannon entropy-measures. The results, of course, have still to be appreciated in the substantive domain of application, but they can be informative to the extent of being counter-intuitive. Best wishes, Loet _ Loet Leydesdorff Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR) Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/ http://www.leydesdorff.net/ Now available: http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBNbook=1581129378 The Knowledge-Based Economy: Modeled, Measured, Simulated. 385 pp.; US$ 18.95 http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBNbook=1581126956 The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society; http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBNbook=1581126816 The Challenge of Scientometrics ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] info meaning
Dear Christophe, There is an overloading or contradiction and inconsistency in your argument from my point of view. First you argue for this notion abstract meaning; meaning that exists around us and then you argue that meaning is generated. From the point of view of my model there is no meaning at all in newspapers. Newspapers are marks and meaning occurs in relation to them when they are apprehended. That act of apprehension is the final act in a communication in the Shannon sense, the apprehension of the physical newspaper, the medium containing the signal. The information in that act of apprehension causes behavioral modifications in the organism (meaning). This act of apprehension applies to both author and reader. In the author it is present in the incremental act and refinement of creation. The author can be said to have acted meaningfully and we call this meaning behavior intention, but there is no meaning in the marks and at this level there is no difference between the sender and the receiver in terms of the mechanisms involved. There do exist two types of mark, those that are the product of intention and those that are not (natural marks) - but these are both treated in precisely the same way by the organism. Discerning the difference between them is something that relies upon learning (being able to refer to past analysis of the world - or, more simply, the recognition of similarity as Carnap would put it). Similarly, from the point of view of my model, there is no meaning at all in thunderstorms. But they are marks and these marks are apprehended. They provide information in that apprehension. You refer to this as meaning generation. In both cases the significant processes of semeiosis differentiate these marks and maps them to different behaviors. If the newspaper contains some especially outrageous news I may exclaim and cancel my planned family vacation to Iraq. If the thunderstorm is especially fierce and proximate I may take shelter. If the fly is stationary I may not be able to apprehend it. It is the same semeiotic process at work in all cases. The important things of note here are that meaning is simply the behavior produced by interactions between the organism and the world. Marks are the subjects of those interactions (the message, in the Shannon sense). We treat marks equally. Signs are individuated experiences. The point it that you cannot give special meaning status to the stationary fly and the moving fly, the blank sheet of paper and the newspaper, in any sense as meaning existing around us or not. There is only the potential of meaning in the fly if the fly is apprehended under any circumstance. There is only the potential of meaning in the apprehension of the paper, in any circumstance, and only if apprehend. By which I mean that the fly and the paper, under all circumstances, if apprehended, are treated in the same way - the behavior produced (in the what it means for me now of the frog say) may vary. I challenge your phrase information present around us can be meaningful as lacking rigor. Information is not present around us, information is the result of a communication, out interaction with the world, those communications are happening constantly. The source these communications (marks) are present around us. I think our disagreement may merely be about the rigorous use of language, and not really substantive. Newspapers simply cannot be said to contain meaning but they can be said to be the subjects of meaning; unless, that is, you propose some supernatural property to meaning. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science Engineering http://iase.info http://senses.info On Oct 7, 2007, at 4:15 AM, Christophe MENANT wrote: Dear Steven, Thanks for having corrected your statement about “Abstract meaning”. Let’s put our discussion back of the fis@listas.unizar.es list. Coming to an understanding of Information and meaning exist around us, let me illustrate this reality by a couple of examples. A newspaper contains meaningful information (contains meanings). The meanings exist prior our reading. They are the ones that the writer has put in his text. When reading the text we may on our side generate a meaning similar to the one put by the writer, or a different one if we interpret the words and sentences differently from what the writer wanted to mean. An article that we do not read also contains some meaning (the one put by the writer). But if we do not read the article, we will not access this meaningful information which is existing in the article. We will not interpret the information. Thunderstorm noise present in the air has no meaning. But when you hear it, it can participate to meaning generation for you (and the meaning will be different if you are under a shelter or on the
Re: [Fis] Info meaning
Bob said: Hi Stan - interesting ideas - I resonate with the thought that the meaning of info is associated with Aritostle's final cause - cheers Bob Here I follow up with an extract from a text I am working on at present, just to amplify this a bit more: Finally, what is the justification for considering meaning generally to be associated to finality? Why not formal causes as well? Final cause is the 'why' of events, while formal causes carry the 'how' and 'where', material causes the local 'readiness', and efficient cause the 'when' (Salthe, 2005). It seems clear when choosing among these, that the meaning (significance, purport, import, aim -- Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary) of an event must be assigned to its final causes. Formal and material causes are merely enabling, while efficient cause only forces or triggers. The example of a New Yorker cartoon captures some of my meaning here. Two Aliens are standing outside of their spaceship, which has apparently landed on Earth, as we see spruce trees burning all around them in a fire that we infer was triggered by their landing. One them says: I know what caused it -- there's oxygen on this planet. If we think that is amusing, we know implicitly why formality cannot carry the meaning of an event. In natural science formality has been used to model the structure of an investigated system, and so is not suited to carrying its teleo tendencies as well. Formality marks what will happen where, but not also 'why' it happens. The causal approach itself is required if we are trying to extend semiosis pansemiotically to nature in general. Natural science discourse is built around causality, and so attempts to import meaning into it requires it to be assimilated to causation. Later, Bob asked: On Oct 2 Guy Hoelzer wrote:In my view meaning exists (or not) exclusively within systems.Ý It existsto the extent that inputs (incoming information) resonate within thestructure of the system.Ý The resonance can either reinforce the existingarchitecture (confirmation), destabilize it (e.g., cognitivedisequilibrium), or construct new features of the architecture (e.g.,learning).I like this contribution and the comments made by Stan Salthe also on Oct 2Ý - they parallel Fredkins idea:Ý The meaning of information is given by the processes that interpret it.Ý Would you agree Guy and Stan? S: Yes, this is basic to semiotic approach. It can, of course, at the same time be context dependent. Then Bob said: I agree it is only living and perhaps prebiotic things that have processes, namely propagating their organization and are therefore capable of interpreting information and hence according to Fredkin providing it with meaning. When a rock is acted upon by earth's gravity it does not have to interpret because it has no options it can only behave as causality demands. S: This statement is characterisically (not of Bob!) misleading. No pansemiotician would suppose that a rock, per se, can be a system of interpretance. As with thermodynamics, meaning generation requires a 'correct' identification of the system being interrogated. I am not capable of saying here and now what the appropriate semiotic system would be in the case of this rock, but taking the semiotic approach allows us to search or it. Living things make choices - Bacteria decide to swim towards or away from a substance depending on their interpretation of whether it is food or toxin. The meaning of a glucose gradient to a bacteria is food, survival, I want it. S: In these cases the work of searching for the system was easy enough. It is with abiotic systems, including (incidentally) species and ecosystems (not themselves living), that the search for semiosis is more difficult. Living things have agency whereas non-living things do not. As for pre-biotics I do not know enough biology or pre-biology to comment but obviously there is going to be a boundary between animate and inanimate matter and I do not know how sharp that boundary is. S: There are such boundaries, but we do not know if semiosis is one of them. Steven said My apparently simplistic proposal, that meaning refer to the behavior that is the product of a communication, should be seen in this context. It, in fact, applies at all scales. It may not be immediately apparent to you that it applies in the case of complex organisms like ourselves, but it does. The behavioral complex of our physiology produces a variety of small and potentially large behavioral changes on the receipt of information, for example in the complex assessment of what is benign and what is a threat, and in how to deal with information overload and how to deal with limited information. S: This matter of 'all scales' continues my above thought. With systems of scale larger than our observation scale, it is not easy to identify the 'system' or to find the 'product of communication' in many cases. Concerning pansemiosis, Joe said: 1)
