Re: ... regard to a (cognitive) structure

dear all,

sorry for the delay. I am now in a sabbatical and due to private
circumstances (moving from stuttgart to karlsruhe) I have no
connections to the net until two weeks.
Roberto: I think we should make the difference between the
differences that make a difference (Bateson) and systems (human
beings) who know about this (information as finding differences,
Luhmann), or between cognitive and non-cognitive systems.
sorry for this short answer. we should debate more about this
regards
rafael

Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 05:25:41 +0200 (MET DST)
Reply-to: fis@listas.unizar.es
From: roberto kampfner <rrk@umdsun2.umd.umich.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: ... regard to a (cognitive) structure

 Dear Gunter and all:

 I didn't mean to say that there is something with no regard to any
structure. What I meant is that the intervention of a cognitive
structure adds something something (possibly some interpretation)
to that quality of something that the information represents. The idea is
that if we consider information processing at various degrees of
organization, such as those related to the atomic, molecular,
cell, organism, etc. levels, the kind of structures used to store,
transform, and convey information at a given level (or degree of
organization) can be considered different from those used at another
level. More specifically, at some level, information can be
thought of as 'encoded' or presented in the form of symbols, some
semantics can associated with these symbols and some of the structures
storing, transformed with, and conveying these symbols could be
considered as cognitive structures.

 I think that as one goes from lower degrees of organization to
increasingly higher ones, the structures mediating information and
information processing change and, at some point, cognitive structures
emerge. I see this as a critical point with emergent qualities. Professor
Capurro's reference to information not as a quality of something but as a
quality of something with regard to a cognitive structure seems to me to
somehow relate to this critical point. Perhaps Professor Capurro can
give us his opinion of the role of the cognitive aspect of the structures
with respect to this issue.

 Regards,

 Roberto

On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Gunter Dubrau wrote:

> Roberto Kampfer wrote:
> > At the level of nervous systems and symbolic information processing,
> > Rafael Capurro's reference to information as "(following Weizsaecker and
> > others) not a quality of something but a quality of something with regard
> > to a (cognitive) structure" becomes, I think, especially relevant.
> >
> May be it is a little bit off topic. But can you tell me an example
> of somthing with no regard to any structure? I think every thing has
> it. Why we need this differnce?
>
> Gunter.
>
> -->
> Gunter Dubrau
> Internet- & Intranet-Design
> Softwareergonomie- & Usability-Beratung
> --> Tel.: +49 351 463 8307
> --> e-mail: gunter.dubrau@inf.tu-dresden.de
> --> internet: http://www.inf.tu-dresden.de/~gd1
>
Received on Wed Apr 22 12:12:57 1998