RE: [Fis] The timings of meaning

>Shannon's formulation can be seen as an application of a particular
type of analysis to the problem of communication. So I agree with Robert
that unless there is a good reason, one should not seek receivers,
channels and senders. Instead, the crucial components for analysis are
attributes and entities. Attributes are timeless aspects of reality that
are always measured in the same way, they are the concepts, the
variables. Entities are temporally and/or spatially delimited aspects of
reality, restricted to a particular zone or period. When we cross-link
attributes and entities, we obtain instances. [...]

We can approach this problem from two directions, the confirmational and
the exploratory. In the confirmational approach, we postulate these
functions and verify how well they fit the data. In the empirical
approach, we try to infer them from the data.

Dear Aleks,

This seems to me an elegant and theoretical formulation of the
difference that Soeren tried to express in philosophical terms like
vitalism and semiotics. The instances provide us with an empirical
domain . The information-theoretical approach can go beyond the
empirical (exploratory) approach of (e.g.) biology by generalizing in
term of probability density functions. In that case, the questions like
the one about the dimensionality of the mutual information (which we
discussed previously) become focal.

With kind regards,

Loet

  _____

Loet Leydesdorff
Science & Technology Dynamics, University of Amsterdam
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
Received on Thu Apr 1 03:19:26 2004