RE: RE: [Fis] CONCLUDING THE SESSION

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Soeren Brier [ <mailto:sbr.lpf@cbs.dk> mailto:sbr.lpf@cbs.dk]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 6:19 PM
> To: Loet Leydesdorff
> Subject: Re: RE: [Fis] CONCLUDING THE SESSION
>
>
> Dear Loet
>
> To your answer's here. I cannot see how there can be any
> connection between neg-entropy and meaning. I agree that it
> is only living system that can attach meaning to information
> patterns. This is done because living systems are individuals
> with an interest in surviving. This is the first level of
> meaning. Peircer taks about signification when an organism
> get mening out of non-intensional signals and turn then into
> sign by giving them meaning in relation to it form of life.

Meaning can be generated by any system that can provide the incoming
information with an update value. One can consider this as a -�H when
using the Shannon notation (Brillouin, 1964). This information
(negentropy) reduces the uncertainty prevailing in the system. The
probabilistic entropy is related to ("normalized in terms of") the
expected information content of the system updating (Brillouin, at p.
11: "The knowledge of such additional information allows us ...."). Some
uncertainty can then discarded as noise. However, this selection
presumes a selecting system. This system thus provides the information
with a first-order meaning. Meaning can be considered as implied when
the information is codified (by a system).
 
It is not possible to reduce the meaning in social exchanges to the
living carriers of the communication because that would not sufficiently
appreciate the interaction terms (as different from the aggregation).
Social systems process meaning, but are not necessarily alive. (In my
opinion, the distinction between human-centered psychology and the study
of interpersonal communication is the major achievement of Luhmann's
sociology.) Social systems, for example, produce situational meaning in
addition to the meaning perceived by each of the participants.
>
> Therefor I do not like to used the term ' pattern
> recognition" at the molecular level. I prefer 'pattern
> fitting*, becaue the operation do not demand an awareness
> with a memory.
>
> I thus see the information level as a straight
> physical-statistical level without meaning assumptions - and
> without a full theory of life.
>
I agree with this last conclusion. However, I appreciate the information
theoretical concepts because I wish to study non-living systems that
process meaning nevertheless. I am not a biologist, but a social
scientist. Reducing social science to biology has been a recipee for
social and scientific disaster.
 
With kind regards, Loet
 
Received on Wed Oct 8 21:13:54 2003