Rafael:
I would encourage you to attempt your classification of terms related
to information. Your knowledge of several languages and
philosophical perspective could form a sound base for such an
undertaking.
Would you consider adding the notion of "metaphor" to list of
homology, analogy and equivocal as the basis for classification?
Or, does a more fruitful approach to bridging the disciplines exist?
In another arena, I have played with a restricted approach to this
problem of classification and find it to be sufficiently challenging
to hold my interest.
As an aside, one should note that only the science of chemistry has
developed a detailed and unequivocal classification schema. Over 20
million structures are (in the hands of experts) neatly organized
such that a direct correspondence between name and structure and
identity exists. The computer files containing these structures are
an indicator of the validity of this unique classification success.
Of course, this system was developed over the centuries. Most other
areas of science struggle in the area of classification. The
classification of mathematical definitions is particularly ambiguous
-- just check the definition of a mathematical term in several texts
and compare the concepts that are introduced. Is the the absence of
systematic mathematical definitions of terms is reflective of the
unique individuality of the mathematical mind? Biological
classification is relatively sloppy by comparison to the chemical
classification. Biologists struggle with identifying the boundary
between species. And, of course, with the human genetic sequence
becoming available for individuals, the chemical system of DNA
sequences will become the de facto basis for unambiguously
classifying human beings as material entities.
Why was the issue of the nature of the chemical bond dropped from the
discussion? This issue is vital to biological communication in all
forms. Is this issue too technical or too restrictive for this this
group? The following question appears appropriate:
If 20 million structures can be classified, why have scientists
failed to classify the relations that identified in the classes?
Cheers
Jerry LR Chandler
>John,
>
>I very much agree with the idea of
>developing a visual thesaurus about
>the information concept(s). This is exactly
>what I have suggested with regard to the
>so called "Capurro trilemma". The links
>between the different information concepts/terms
>(and related concepts/terms) could be
>differentiated according for instance to the
>criterium if these are identical (homonima),
>related (analogical) or totally different
>(equivocal) concepts/terms. One could
>take for this task the state-of-the-art
>"The Concept of Information" as a basis,
>that my Danish colleague Birger Hjoerland
>and I wrote for the Annual Review of
>Information Science and Technology (2003).
>The question is, of course, who would like
>to do this "job", with what kind of software etc.
>
>Rafael
>
>
> >It would be interesting to develop
>a working visual theaurus for the
>word 'information'including
>all those tangential concepts
>that have been floating around
>our FIS discussions.
>
>Cheers,
>
>John H
>
>PS Did Suzi enjoy her visit to Adelaide?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Karl Javorszky [mailto:javorszky@eunet.at]
>Sent: Thursday, 3 July 2003 20:34
>To: fis-listas.unizar.es
>Subject: AW: Philosophy of Mathematics and Information Re: AW: [Fis]
>Group Theory, Quantum Mechanics, and Music
>
>
>Dear FISers:
>
>Let us discuss the concepts of "element", "number", "size", "quality" and
>such in more depth and detail.
>The word "element" can be understood both in a set-theoretical and in a
>chemico-logical sense. The concept goes back to the Greek a-tomos (not
>divisible). It is basically a tactile experience. If you can touch it and it
>is of minimal extent, we call it "object", "element", "idealised thing" and
>such. If you cannot touch it and it is of a minimal extent, we call it
>"force", "space", "relation", "logical principle" and the like.
>As we play with cards, we distinguish the cards as physical things we can
>bite on and sensually experience and the ways of playing (with) them which
>we cannot sense by older regions of the brain. Experiences we make before
>having learnt to speak we treat differently to experiences we store in such
>parts of the brain the lexicon is in connection with.
>So, we have avoided mixing (linking) the two levels up: the set of objects
>and the set of their relations. Yet, it is a great difference if we speak of
>a set, whether we mean the number of "Sachverhalte" (Wittgenstein: ~ logical
>facts) or the number of tactile things.
>My approach integrates the Kant concept of the thing as such and the
>Wittgenstein concept of the (number of) ways of being included in
>Sachverhalte (logical relations). My starting point is to investigate:
>"How many logical relations are there per object AND which fraction of thing
>is needed to represent a logical relation with?". These symmetric questions
>touch the information carrying ability of carriers, therefore have some
>relevance. The answers are: a) it depends (of the number of objects) and b)
>it depends (of their diversity).
>Kant has solved the question in a marginally optimizing way: he treats the
>objects as all absolutely alike, so there can be no logical relations
>between them above their number. (Apples or eggs nonmarked, all absolutely
>alike, you can only divide into subsets and say 3+3+5 is different to 1+2+8,
>without taking into account, what kind are there in each subset and which of
>the elements is individual.) Humanistic psychology and some approaches
>towards theoretical genetics (including the presently preferred technical
>way of treating info, based on the Shannon algorithm) optimise also in a
>marginalising way, by saying that the diversity has no quantitative aspects:
>each individual is individual and you cannot use weighing and averaging. If
>you treat each byte individually, you have to know its place.
>Therefore, the integrative approach counts as well the diversity and the
>similarity of objects. Going deep down into the philosophy of mathematics
>(and counting) we see that what we compare whichever extent with is a basic
>etalon of background being made up of elementar units, all alike. We believe
>that 5 or 10 are made up of 5 times the 1 and 10 times the 1, respectively,
>and that each of the 1-s is absolutely like the next. We see the diversity
>(which is in this case the extent: 5 or 10) before a background of
>similarity (namely of the series of 1-s, all alike).
>Now to the similarity: I have invented a measure for the diversity of
>extents and I may warmly propose its use. It is a nice, cute, slick little
>invention. It disregards the absolute extent and denotes the diversity of
>the parts the thing is made up of. One can count the number of non-alike
>logical relations in the set of logical relations the thing is generating.
>This is an approach towards "information content". By re-enumerating the set
>N, one finds a background of diversity, afore which one may recognise the
>similarities.
>
>The idea is to use those logical sentences that are formally, grammatically
>true both with respect to their referring to similarities and to
>diversities. Roughly 10% of all additions on N are true on M also. Those
>additions that describe something more .t. than other additions, do have
>some more body, substance, corpus, content, value, density, kick, elementary
>precedence, don't they.
>Then, we make combinations of these sentences. We are still just generating
>logical sentences and watch whether we find some agglomerations of logical
>relations (non-tactile stuff) into fractions of objects (tactile, sensuous
>stuff). We do. These agglomerations of objects will become different to each
>other, with some fascinating details and regularities to observe.
>
>I have tried to draw a picture of a middle thing between a hard, solid thing
>(you can put into the mouth and be sure that it is there) and a possibility.
>Some 2-3 generations ago one has shown that indeed there is a numeric
>relationship between non-tactile logical concepts and tactile materials.
>Based on this insight, some have stuffed things so much densely together
>that the non-tactile logical relations had no more place and the thing blew
>up. We know that there is a real, physical interdependence between density
>and places for this density. Presently, we are in the midst of the task of
>understanding how this happens. I advance that we look into the expected
>number of logical relations per object of a set.
>Hope you like the concepts.
>Karl
>
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Received on Tue Jul 8 20:03:10 2003
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