RE: [Fis] a definition of information

> ritualized seeking for a mate. Thus meaning is biologicalkly
> embodied, psychologically experienced and socially expressed
> and ritualized in language.

Yes, but the next-order system has more control mechanisms (meanings)
available than the previous-order one. For example, if you observe two
animal mating, you can say that they are mating using a biological
language. That is, you have a metaphor available for describing this
behaviour. However, what it means for the animals involved is not
directly accessible using this metaphor. Perhaps, there is a psychology
possible for studying these animals, but it may need another paradigm
than the biological one.

Thus, the meaning generation and processing proliferates at the social
and cultural level. We do not only use language, but proliferate
languages by using higher-order codes of communication in paradigms. The
meaning-processing in discourse is much richer than the lower-order
systems because it is no longer biologically constrained. While the
individual (psychology) is still facing the problems of life, the
next-order level of culture is also supra-individual and proliferating
with a dynamics other than the (sum of the) psychological ones.

The sciences themselves are part of this next-order development. The
scholarly discourse is the very assumption under Stan's pansemiotics;
the ground on which he stands. But the idea of unifying this into one
big metaphor is self-defeating. Because the big metaphor remains a
metaphor among other possible metaphors. At the cultural level, it is
more useful to use diaphors (distinctions) because they can be enriched
with meaning and knowledge.

For example, the transitions between the levels are different. As
psyches we have no direct access to our body, that is, without providing
meaning (in language and thought) to the signals that we receive. This
metaphor is not adequate for studying the relations between individuals
and society because the two systems have more means of communication
among them in language and symbolic media of communication at the same
time. At the cultural level there are many more options than providing a
signal with a single meaning.

Even the concept of "level" entails a biological metaphor. I submit that
it is more useful to think of the next-order as another dimension that
stands potentially orthogonal to the ones on which it reflects. The
projection on the new axis allows us to discard most of the incoming
information as noise and the keep the signal as meaningful information.

 
Since this is my last message for this week--given the limitations
imposed--let me take the opportunity to bring the following to your
attention:
  

Meaning, Anticipation, and Codification in Functionally Differentiated
Systems of Communication. In: Thomas Kron, Uwe Schimank, & Lars Winter
(Eds.), Luhmann simulated - Computer Simulations to the Theory of Social
Systems (in preparation).

preprint available at http://www.leydesdorff.net/luhmann_simulated or
as <pdf-version
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/luhmann_simulated/leydesdorff2004.pdf> >

 
Comments are most welcome in this stage.

With kind regards,

Loet

  _____

Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
 <mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net> loet@leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/

 
 <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff-sci.htm> The Challenge of
Scientometrics ; <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm> The
Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society
Received on Tue Mar 2 03:43:10 2004