Re: Information and Natural Languages

From: Rafael Capurro, Professor <[email protected]>
Date: Tue 09 Dec 1997 - 18:36:11 CET

Dear Koichiro,

thanks for your answer. I will comment your ideas separetaly from the
ones by Soeren.

1) Dichotomies:

> >(Western) Philosophy has
> >been asking itself for centuries about the possibility of the 'out
> >there' and the question of a bridge (quaestio de ponte) between
> >'there' and 'here'.
>
> Ain't there still many adherents to this view?

Well, you can never get completely rid of your past! And metaphysics
(in Heidegger's sense of the separation between Subject/Object) is
part of our Western past (and of scientific thinking). Think about
the concept of 'representation' of an 'outside world' for instance,
or about the constructivist idea, that everything is a construction
of our brain (I call this 'cerebralism').

2) Information and Language

> >The possibility of saying (!) something is 'out there' is a
> >possibility given to us through language, as far as we can say:
> >something 'is' (or 'is not'), and to broad-cast our 'casting'.
>
> This is exactly the point that has intrigued me. Our linguistic
> institution seems to underlie the issue of information, instead of
> simply that information be something to adequately be represented
> by a language.
>

Yes! I have been reading these days Carl Friedrich von Weizs�cker's
ideas on the relationship between language and information
(particularly his early essays in his book "Die Einheit der Natur",
that he continues to think in his later works). He connects the
concept of information (in an objective sense) to the (Greek) concept
of form. So he can speak of information and understanding (!) at a
biological level. But at the same time, the stresses the idea, that
information is only given through (!) language, as far as language
makes explicit the form ('eidos'/'idea') of that, which is. So there
is a (hermeneutic) circle between language and information. It seems
as if language, not beeing reduced to univocity, goes 'beyong'
information, or, in other words, as we have the possibility of saying
more that what we 'simply' can univocally say.

3) Broadcasting messages

> >As far as I can see, your question has also to
> >do with two interesting subject matters: what does it mean to
> >'broadcast' a message? We need, I think, something we could call a
> >theory of messages.
>
> Rafael, you seem to imply here that the descriptive author of
> any text on messages is willing to accept behavioral active agents
> surviving even within the text. Am I right?
>

I am not sure if I get your message now! I was trying to say, that
our language has the basic structure of message, as it is directed
towards somebody else. A text is not just something to be interpreted
but primary a message that can be interpreted. We have had a theory
of interpretation that does not take this pre-condition sufficiently
into account. The reason for this is, in my opinion, that the concept
(and the phenomenon) of message in our Greek tradition (the concept
of 'angelia')was left aside by the powerful 'logos' of philosophy,
that implied another structure for the distribution of what is being
said ('angelia' was primarily a 'hierarchical' or 'vertical' and
mythical structure). But this is a long story!

4) Information and time:

> >And the second point is, what does it mean to
> >talk about information in the present tense and in the present
> >progressive tense. This last question concerns the relationship
> >between message transmission and time.
>
> How about the possibility that even time itself, whether global
> or local, might be a human construct especially in the context of
> talking about information?
>
> >When talking about information
> >without making the (human) difference between past, present and
> >future, we get a specific form of information (or message)
> >transmission.
>
> You may have some idea of time here. Could you explicate it
> a little bit more? Your view looks quite challenging.
>

Weizs�cker is also concerned with the question of the relationship
between information and time, from the point of view of quantum
physics. He also knows from philosophy that the conception of time a
a linear sequence of equal points does not take into account not only
the problem of irreversibility, but also the kind of relationship we
(!) have to time as tri-dimensional (or four-dimensional, as far as
we can think the three dimensions: past, presen, future in their
togetherness).
So much for today
Regards
Rafael

> Regards,
> Koichiro
>
> Koichiro Matsuno
>
>
>
Received on Tue Dec 9 18:54:24 1997

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