Re: Data and meaning

Jerry,
Please find here some answers to your post.

>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
> This response addresses several issues related to information and
> meaning.
> In particular, I respond to Chistophe's and Rafael's posts.
>
> I proposed on September 28, in an extension of John Holgate post of Sept
> 20.
> > >As John notes, the separation of meaning is not restricted to
> grammar
> > >and Shannon information theory. Most philosophers of mathematics
> > >claim that no meaning is attached to mathematical rules or
> > >structures. By way of contrast, the language of chemistry and
> > >chemical grammars are meaningful - a matter of common experience.
> > >If one assumes that formally, "information" has no meaning, then
> one
> > >must turn elsewhere to identify the source of meaning and
> > >communication.
> > >As a logical parallel, I would point out that the nature of entropy
> > >(as a physical phenomenon) depends of the co-existence of
> temperature
> > >and energy.
> > >In bare bone terms:
> > >you get nothing from nothing;
> > >you get something from something.
>
>
> Chistrophe Menart writes on Sept. 29, 2002:
>
> >The two points brought up by John and Jerry underline aspects of
> >our discussion that could deserve further developments:
> >
> >1) Separation of meaning from information:
>
> I strongly concur that these topics need further development. At
> issue is the nature of relation between the terms "communication" as
> a community based activity and information as a reductionistic
> concept of isolationism.
>
> >
> >As already written in a previous post, I feel that a meaning
> >cannot exist without an information carrying it.
>
> Your feelings are important. But how do you relate these feeling to
> meaningful communication with colleagues?
>
This precise feeling about meaning and information is the subject
of the post, which is a communication with colleagues. Communication
uses information transfer (voice, email transfer, signs, ..).
>
> >In other words, a meaning is an information, a meaningful
> information.
> >(Information being the component of a signal, a variation of energy.
> >Ex: sound, light, chemical element, protein,...).
>
> But, what are the other components of a signal if other than
> information? What else exists that is placed with information to
> give the fullness to meaningful? In particular, can you spatially
> separate the transport of information from the generating functions
> creating meaning?
>
All components of a signal are information. But an information is
not always meaningful. Only information that has been produced by
an Meaning Genarator System (MGS) is meaningful (and there can be
an infinity of MGSs). The meaning is not "something else" added to
information that makes it becoming meaningful. The meaningfullness
of an information comes from the origin of the information. If
the information has been produced by a system that has no constraint
to satisfy, then the information cannot be meaningful.
The meaningful information is meanningful relatively to the
constraint S of the MGS (we should speak about "meaningful (S)
information", or "meaning (S)"). And a meaningful information
transmitted to other systems will be able to participate to an
action satisfying the constrain S only if the receiver system
is submitted to the same constraint S.
>
> >In our brains, mental states are related to variation of
> >neurotransmitter patterns. The meanings in our brains are based on
> >information status in neurons (understanding that a lot is to be done
> in
> >this field, specially regarding the nature of consciousness).
>
> I find this paragraph blurs together several distinctions. Brains
> are anatomical components of our bodies, brains have biochemical
> components and an underlying genetic basis for the generating
> functions.
> I do not understand how the concept of a "mental state" relates to these
> facts.
> The postulate that "information status in neurons" exists is equally
> unclear to me. Perhaps you could relate these terms to principles of
> communication?
>
For me, "Mental state" is an expression used to name a state in
our brain corresponding to what we understand as a representation,
a desire, an intention, an emotion, ... It is not possible today
to relate these mental states to some precise activity of neuronal
patterns, but we can consider that "there is some relation".
Regarding "information status in neurons", I mean that neurons can
have different status of activity. These differences in energy are
information (and the difference per se is information in the Shannon
sense).
About relating these terms to principles of communication, indeed
neurons communicate together and allow the organism to communicate
with the outside world.
>
> >
> >But this does not mean that all information is meaningful. Many
> >information are meaningless, but most information can participate to
> the
> >creation of meaningful information Ex: Noise from thunderstorm is not
> >a meaningful information per se. But this noise in going to participate
> to
> >the creation of a meaning in our brain. For instance, the created
> meaning
> >will be "rain is comming". And this meaning will generate an action
> >"look for shelter".
>
> This example hardly supports your thesis unless one assumes that
> "information" is tightly coupled to human values and utilitarian
> patterns of belief. "Thunder" has quantitative physical qualities
> (intensity as a function of duration and frequency) that communicate
> a great deal of information. As Wordsworth said, the ear can not but
> to hear, the eye can not but to see. We are coupled to nature
> *NATURE!* in an intimate and detailed manner that is rooted in human
> history, not just conceptual abstractions.
>
This example of noise from thunderstorm creating a meaning wants
to illustrate a simple meaning genaration. This is why we take only
the noise as information incident on the MGS.
But obviously "thunder" communicates a great deal of information that
can generate many meanings (lightning, wind, flood, Zeus, power,
fear, ..). But many of these meanings are related to the domain of
human psychism. And at the current level of analysis of "meaning"
with the MGS approach, it is preferable to avoid involving human
psychism. Because we do not really know what human mind is, and
consequetly we are not able to identify the corresponding constraints
(which are key for the MGS).
The result is that we cannot today define a global MGS for human.
The best we can do is to limit the usage of MGS for human to very
simple cases (i.e. closer to basic life than to performances of human).
>
> >2) Origin of meaning:
> >If we agree that a meaning is a meaningful information, we have to
> look
> >for the generation of this information.
> >As some already know, I feel there is a way to modelize a
> >"Meaning Generator System" (MGS) as being a system submitted to a
> >constraint that has to be satisfied.
>
> I strongly concur that we must examine the origin of meanings.
>
> The concept of a "Meaning Generator System" (MGS)" could perhaps be
> useful.
> Why introduce the notion of restrictions on freedoms in order to
> generate meaning.
>
> Nature is. Why should nature be denied freedom in the process of
> communication?
>
> Are these constraints intended to give a physical gloss to the concept
> of MGS?
>
The base of the MGS is that a meaning generation needs a constraint
to be satisfied. The purpose of the meaningful information is to
initiate the implementation of an action that will satisfy the
constraint.
There are some systems where the constraints are simple ("to survive"
for a simple animal). For other systems, the constraints can be very
complex (group survival vs individual survival, pleasure principle vs
principle of reality, limit anxiety,...). The restriction of freedom
that you associate with the constraint corresponds to the case of humans
where there is free will. And, as said above, we should be very carefull
in using the MGS for humans, as we do not know the constraints
applicable to human (Perhaps this point has not been stated clearly
enough in the FIS 2002 paper).
>
> In the notion of "organic communication" I presuppose that intrinsic
> to a living system is a chemical dynamic that generates change, that
> such change is intrinsic to the life cycle of the organism.
> Information entering the system changes the intrinsic dynamic in a
> specific manner.
>
> Is this view close or distant from your view of MGS?
>
Your view is close to the MGS if we consider that the changes in
intrinsic dynamic as introduced by an incident information can have
some connection with the constraint of the living system (impact it's
survival or reproduction conditions).
>
> Rafeal writes:
>
> "I mean,
> if I am thirsty it is because my body is
> of this kind that it needs water."
>
> JLRC responds:
> This appears to capture at least one aspect of the concept
> distinction between Shannon information as a isolationistic statement
> of great value to mathematics and engineering and the core values of
> biological communication in an organic world.
>
>
> Christophe responds:
> > 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 ?
> >
> And Rafael responds:
> 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...
>
> JLRC responds:
>
> Christophe chooses to introduce the ill-defined notion of complexity
> as a means to bridge the distinction between mechanical communication
> and organic communication. It is not clear to me why this term
> (complexity) resolves anything. Communication has the potential to
> relate various ideas and concepts about information and meaning. I
> am skeptical that the term "complexity" has an analogous potential
> resolving power.
>
Yes, I agree that the usage I made of the term "complexity" is a
bit too easy. As answered to Rafael, I am implicitly considering
there that in some future we may understand well enough the
constraints of human so that MGS for human would be well defined.
But this is far from being the case today. So my wording is
misleading, and "it is more a question about ... " should be
replaced by "it could be more a question about ...".
>
> On a practical level, one distinction between robotics and living
> organisms is the capability of living organisms to sustain an
> dynamic by purposeful acquisitions from the external world. This is
> coupled with an evolutionary potential for organic change. The
> abstract Platonic world of mathematics generates many images of the
> type proposed by Christophe. How are such images validated? or
> reified?
>
> The data collected by the robot can not be placed in correspondence
> with the meaning acquired by a living organism, can it? Without
> success, I have sought such a quantitative translation for more than
> two decades. Christophe, if you feel that you can construct such a
> correspondence relation, I would delighted if you would help me learn
> your method of construction.
>
With the MGS structure, we do have a meaning generated by the robot
(it is an internaly produced information, not a collected data).
And there is also a meaning generated by the living organism. Can
we put them in correspondence ? I would say yes for the meaning
generation as per the MGS, but no for all that is around it.
We can understand that a similar MGS can be acting in the robot and
in the living organism (similar constraint, similar reception of
incident information, similar generation of meaningful information).
But beyond this status, things are totaly different in the robot and
in the living organism.
So there is correspondence only for this very limited meaning
generation about the precise and simple fact of being related
to a similar constraint. But beyond this level of analysis, I am
like you: no way to put in correspondance a robot and a human.
And, as we already talked about, I think that all this question is
related to our ignorance about the nature of human mind. We do
not know what mind is. So let's accept that it is imposssible to
establish a correspondance with what we don't know.

Regards

Christophe
>
> Cheers
>
> Jerry LR Chandler
>
>
>
Received on Thu Oct 3 22:59:47 2002