Re: [Fis] Re: A One Sentence Definition of "Information"

Syed,

may be the following perspective in several sentences can help. Sorry for not being able to put it in one sentence, although this is also possible in two sentences like this:
( ) shines
the lamp shines on my desk

(I follow the reasoning of Tobias Rosefeldt in a recently published paper on Frege and Heidegger in: Internat. Zeitschrift f. Philosophie 2/2003, 99 ff))

Frege makes a difference between "Eigennamen" (proper names) (like: "18" or "the capital of Germany") and "Funktionsausdr�cke" (functions) and concepts (Begriffe). The last ones have always an empty position. For instance
( ) shines

If we fill the empty position we get an sentence (Eigenname) that refers (or not) not an object ("Gegenstand").
The point is, that we (and Frege, of course) have problems when speaking about such functions using (again) sentences that refers to objects. Frege's genius was to discover second-order predicate logic (which is a *scientific* way of talking about what *is not* (an object).

Then according to Frege there *are" not only objects ("Gegenst�nde") because in that case we could only build sentences that make a reference to objects.
This could be the case of non-human living beings as having no possibility of making the difference between them, or, in using also other well-known Fregean terms, between "Sinn" (sense) and "Bedeutung" (meaning).

My conclusion with regard to our discussion (and I contradict myself literally but not with regard to my original intention, I hope!):
Non-human (non-linguistic) beings operate only with "Bedeutung" =meaning (with the reference of the signs to objects, not with their sense/Sinn).
As Frege shows, we need utterances with an empty position (functions/concepts) in order to build an "Eigenname" i.e. to make a reference (true/false) to an object. The knowledge about "something" that is common to all beings, beyond their specific properties, a 'property of objects with properties' (in a self-contradictory expression...) needs not to be an explicit knowledge. This is Heidegger's concept of Being as 'non-determinate' (and related to our 'understanding' in a pre-conceptual or 'practical' way of being-in-the-world-with-others).
Corollary: 'sense' (Sinn) (and Being, in the Heideggerian sense) is an effect of language, of the possibility of an 'empty space' and of loosing from the duadic connection of sign and meaning (Bedeutung). Maybe this triadic vision is also related to... semiotics! and it could help to explain why we can talk of (Fregean) "meaning" as information in the 'lower layers' and of "sense" (Sinn) as information in the case of human language. But... where does the 'perception of the void' come from? and how?

Cheers

Rafael
Received on Sat Feb 28 00:51:07 2004