Re: [Fis] meaning of meaning

Loet Leydesdorff wrote:

> ... However, I find it more useful to say "specify the system of
> reference": what does the system communicate when it communicates. For
> example, consciousness processes thoughts; a living system
> communicates in terms of molecules. Thus, another science is
> generated. The specification of how the system communicates provides
> us with testable hypotheses. Non-linear dynamics and information
> theory provide us only with the formal perspective.
>
It is not clear to me what you mean here since it sounds to me
dangerously like you are arguing that if you study the electrons that
pass along copper wire you will understand something fundamental about
the email messages that are carried along such wires in a computer
network. What testable hypotheses could you provide and about what?

>
> The accolade among all these specific theories of communication can be
> provided by the mathematical theory of communication as a formal
> theory. It facilitates the formulation of analogies and heuristics.
> The idea of a grandiose theory which unites everything (like in
> Pierce's philosophy), however, has to be abandoned as an historical
> project of the late 19th and early 20th century ("the unity of
> science"). Of course, one is welcome to dream, but it leads to
> speculative philosophies. This project is incompatible with what we
> know about the empirical development of the sciences: they develop in
> parallel and sometimes incommensurate.
>
This is obviously a flawed point of view. It is one that would dismiss
the vision of Einstein, Darwin and Copernicus. I think the truth of the
matter is rather that there is a necessary synergy between empiricism
and intuitive speculation in the sciences.

With respect,
Steven
Received on Mon Feb 9 20:31:49 2004