Steven said:
> Dear Loet,
>
> I understand your concerns but how else are we to proceed? Shannon's
>model is not nullified but it does not appear to characterize all that we
>would wish it to. I am not asking for a full rewrite I am simply
>observing that we need to extend information theory into the area where we
>lack rigor - where the model seemingly needs to be extended. I am simply
>contending that we cannot deal with the notion of information in
isolation.
>
> In my view we need to develop two new models that complement current
>physical theory with the mathematical rigor of Shannon: a theory of
>organism (how sentient entities come to be) and a theory of semeiotics
>(how sentient entities operate) - where semeiotics includes a theory of
>communication and what I will call "memeiosis" which describes
the
>exchange of "information" and the development of concepts by
individuals
>in groups of sentient entities. Done rigorously, this is inevitably a
>mathematical theory of meaning as you suggest.
>
> As to "expected information can only be provided with meaning by
>information systems"; I think this is problematic without a clear
>definition of what you mean by "information systems." From my
point of
>view computational models do not adequately account for sentience.
>
> Ultimately our theory of information must reduce to our model of nature -
>and today that model appears incomplete.
It is felt by some that Peircean semiotics is an enterprise that is moving
in the direction that you are asking for here. Far from being just a
theory of communication (which it might be said that Saussure's semiology
is) Peirce's approach has been carried on as a very general theory of the
world. As such it generalizes 'meaning' as a property of Nature. Whether
it might be susceptible as a whole to mathematial abstraction is no doubt
questionable, since its richness is likely to be too vague on many points
(given the many alternative ways in which Peirce's many categories have
been presented, including by himself). The world is inexhaustibly rich, no
doubt surpassing even Peirce's ambitious categorizations, while mathematics
tends to be too 'crisp'.
STAN
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Received on Sun Oct 9 22:38:49 2005
