Following John's, Loet's, and Terry's posts . . . I don't think anyone would or could reasonably debate the contribution of Shannon's framing. Even though (per Shanon-Weaver) it is an "unsatisfying" notion they present, there is/was a bit of brilliance in that work. STILL, they too saw that they did not go far enough . . . (framing multiple Levels of information).
Further to Bateson's "difference" Bateson also saw that his own concept did not go far enough in that he stated "differences themselves must be differentiated." But neither does he add any useful details. Instead he seemed to go in the direction of parables and Freudian psychology as the only reasonable means (Esalen epistemology lecture) of tracking and reporting on complex informational roles. Which is to say I think he recognized the issue, but felt defeated by the challenge (near end of life?). This also, perhaps, explains his fondness for explaining concepts in terms of "conversations with my daughter" as a type of reported parable. On top of this I have noticed Søren Brier's comment that "to whom or to what" it makes a difference is not remarked on by Bateson. And I would add that "to what end" it makes a difference is not noted – all of which, I think, ultimately points in the direction of Terry's notion of work. >From John Collier's post: Fri Jun 26 20:59:47 CEST 2015 > I believe that information in itself must be interpreted, and is not, therefore intrinsically meaningful< I would agree with this as a basic comment, but then "In the good old days" how is it not DATA that scientists would be, in fact, gathering and interpreting? Why is there this need to displace the notion of data (as a specific type of "uninterpreted" information) with a more generic usage of "information"? Do we really need to add a "meaningless" qualifier (pun wholly intended) in front of every usage of "information" meant to denote data? On Brenner's "faint perfume of reductionism" . . . Not exactly sure how to take this – it sounds dismissive, is this meant to suggest that reductionism is, per se, bad and to be avoided? Is it all to be an "unexplainable mystery"? As I understand Terry's view (and my own) it is essentially reductionistic, but I would also say that I don't think it strives to be "naively reductionistic." [image: --] Marcus Abundis [image: http://]about.me/marcus.abundis <http://about.me/marcus.abundis?promo=email_sig>
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