Re: Data and meaning

John,

>You replied to Chistoph
<yes, but the difference does not just come from the progammer,
<it comes basically from the kind of being
<a robot is (in case it is not a *flesh* one... at least...

I empathise with you here. Although if I were flying a plane I'd
rather receive my meaningful information from a computerised autopilot
than a fleshly comatose copilot.
Can an autopilot (or a thermostat, a digital TV or a chess program
like Brute Force)have a meaningful informational experience? >

John, I think, this is not a case of *flesh* but of
what it may mean for *you* to die, for instance.

>The Posthumanists would probably say 'yes' - and a qualitatively better one
than us non-cyborgs and human chess players. They seem to be somewhere
between
Kubrick's 'Hal' and Spielberg's 'David'.>

Again, we should not forget the differences, saying that
A is identical to B, if (and only if) we state differences
for instance concerning the *stuff* (and/or the processes)
of which cyborgs and humans are made. Obviously, if a cyborg
is *identical* to a human, then it is not a cyborg any more. The
key point here is, I think, that in order for anything to be *artificial*
there should be a difference(s) to something regarded as
(no, not as *natural) an *original*, as our colleague Negrotti
(Urbino Univ.) states. So, the *in-formation* (in the verbal sense
of the word) is no the same. I remember a nice story regarding
the question whether there is something *eatable* before *eating
beings* are there (for instance the relation between carrots and
hares). In my view it makes no sense (=no in-formation) to say
there *exists* something that can be eaten without presupposing
that this quality is meaningful if and only if we consider it with
regard to beings that eat.

>I tend to agree with Jerry in questioning "that "information" is tightly
coupled to
human values and utilitarian patterns of belief."

not necessarily if you take in-formation in its verbal sense

>Are Liberal Humanists becoming 'human all too human' about 'embodi-ment'
 'be-ing' and 'mean-ing'?

>Aren't we mistaken in treating such concepts as steady states rather than
continuous entities? Paper(as Bohm pointed out) is in its quantum potential
form 'paper-ing'. Just as language is really languag-ing and meaning is
mean-ing.*
(to paraphrase Nietzsche - 'Jedes Wort ist ein Abgrund')
Sense (Christoph's 'web of meaning') emerges out of our interaction
(being-in-the-world) with other 'beings' and with 'things' like computers,
faxes, robots et al. It is somehow embedded in the ecology of living
interaction.>

in this case *in-formation* has ideed another meaning for us than, say,
for the hare or the robot...

>To talk about 'information' carrying or transferring meaning (or vice
versa)
is in my view myopic and takes into account only passive information -
incidents
and artefacts rather than that active force Jerry alludes to in his
Wordsworth quote.
This is where the technology school of Knowledge Management has gone so
horribly wrong.
N'est-ce-pas?

oui, bien sur. This is why the English language does not use the
plural *informations*. We can transmit *messages* i.e. we can
make a *meaning offer* (or an in-formation offer) concerning possible
*meanings* of
what is being announced/proclaimed (which may vary in case of
two human beings, a robot and a human being, two robots,
a dog and a human being, a cell and a virus...)

>The choice is really between 'informational pattern' and 'embodied
enaction'
not between fleshly beings and digital 'things.' Do you agree with that?

well, I would say, these are different questions/choices. The one concerns
the idea that *enbodied action* can be seen as an abstract (programmable)
informational process or as a *substance*/*process*-dependent
*in-formation* process. If we change the starting parameters (for instance
if we take silicon instead of living matter), we get different kinds of
*in-formation* (in the verbal sense). To try to establish an identity
(for instance *flesh* = silicon) where we really make a difference is
not very logical...

The other question concerns the difference between the flesh and
the digital. This is a large question. I believe that we (I mean not
primarily
scientists, but in a diffuse way also our society, although this is very
vague...) are paradigmatic immersed into what I call a *digital ontology*.
I mean not that we consider everything to be digital (as Pythagoras
with regard to numbers as the essence of phainomena...) but that we
look at *reality* (or at what it means *be-ing*, not at what kinds of
beings there are) through the *glasses* of digitability. In other
words, we believe we *understand* (and are able to *explain*)
something when we can digitalize it and manipulate/computate it
("esse est computari", as I put it). This (in a neutral sense)
*ideo-logy* replaces good old 19th century materialism.

I oppose this view to the perception of (in the Greek sense of the word)
*physis*
as what comes forth out of itself. This opposition is not of the kind
of a metaphysical dualism, as we can indeed get differents kinds
of *synergy* between both, as you state:

>I think the debate goes to the heart of Michael Conrad's theories and
the belief in a synergy between natural and computational phenomena.
The jury is still out on that. >

indeed, but this does not evade the difference between, if I may say
it in a *stoic* terminology, what is in our power and what is not. And many
things that we create and thing they are in our power, precisely
because of the synergy you talk about, evade into *physis*. In
other words: we are part of the game, not the *webmaster* itself.
As stoics said (I am not sure where this dictum comes from), wisdom
means to know where is the difference between what in in our
power and what is not... and: to know/to learn to make this
difference.

cheers

Rafael

John H.

*"A noun is just a "slow" verb; that is, it refers to a process that is
progressing so slowly as to appear static. For example, the paper on
which this text is printed appears to have a stable existence, but
we know that it is, at all times including this very moment, changing
and evolving toward dust. Hence paper would more accurately be called
papering-to emphasize that it is always and inevitably a dynamic process
undergoing perpetual change."

http://www.noetic.org/Ions/publications/review_archives/30/issue30_10.html

-----Original Message-----
From: Rafael Capurro [mailto:capurro@hdm-stuttgart.de]
Sent: Monday, 30 September 2002 7:05
To: Multiple recipients of list FIS
Subject: Re: Data and meaning

Christoph

I am not sure if we are thinking in the
same direction

> Rafael,
> You higlight a good point.
> Overall answer: yes the presence of water will generate
> a meaningful information for you and for the robot.

well only in case the robot is of the kind of being
that can *experience* (in its own body...) thirst
(not just to have been *programmed* to *answer*
'Yes, I am thirsty' when it perceives water...

> But beyond this statement, many things will be different.
> Presence of water is the external information that you,
> thirsty human, receive. And this received information will
> generate a meaning in your body because it has some
> relation with your constraint "maintain a given level of
> water in the body". And the meaningful information
> generated will be "presence of water that can reduce my
> thirst".
> For the robot, assuming it has been programmed with a
> constraint "drink some water", the presence of water will
> generate a meaningful information "presence of water that
> can satisfy the constraint".

this is the point where I do not agree: to have been
programmed is not the same as to *feel* the need
for water based on bodily constraints... (this is *just*
a formal similarity). This is the reason, I believe, why
the *top down* idea of making robots *think* (GPS and
the like) is *wrong* i.e. it will remain *forever* abstract.

> So the robot, like you, will generate internally a meaningful
> information. At first look, theses two meaningful information
> are quite similar. But this similarity is only for this precise
> meaning vs this precise constraint. For the robot, it is all that
> is to be said. But for us humans, the presence of water is going
> to generate many other meanings coming from the constraints
> related to our history of relations with water and with the world,
> to our other desires, to our emotions, to our free will, and so on.
> And for us, the meaning quite similar to the one generated
> within the robot will be only a little element in the web of
> meanings that the presence of water will generate within
> ourselves.

indeed, this is just a *similarity* , here I agree again...

> This makes the difference. As you write it, a human can say
> "it is related to my whole bodily being-in-the-world with others.. "
> We could also add the other difference about derived vs non
> derived meaning (the meaning in the robot comes from a
> human programing. For us, it does not).
> Apart from this last difference, I feel we can say that it is more
> a question about a difference of complexity than about a
> difference of nature.
> Would you agree ?
>

yes, but the difference does not just come from the
progammer, it comes basically from the kind of being
a robot is (in case it is not a *flesh* one... at least...

Rafael

> Regards
>
> Christophe
>
> > Christoph,
> >
> > as far as I can see, something
> > has meaning for me (or for another
> > kind of living system) not just if data
> > are *processed* in my brain but
> > if it is related to my whole bodily
> > being-in-the-world with others... I mean,
> > if I am thirsty it is because my body is
> > of this kind that it needs water. Would
> > it make *any difference* (i.e. any
> > meaning and therefore has any
> > informational value...) if a robot that
> > is not of the kind of bodily existence
> > as I am, would be able to say: I am
> > thirsty? and the same with all other
> > *meanings*.
> >
> > Rafael
> >
> >
> >
>
>
Received on Wed Oct 2 15:34:41 2002