Re: info & physics

Dear John and Gente,
not pleased with my any kind of ignorance, I will try to update it. :-)

Let me try to pick up your interesting comments:

you wrote:
> I have become
increasingly reluctant to talk of information. Partly this is because I
do not know what is at stake. It seems to me reasonable that two
people could interpret the same information differently. Given this,
it seems to me reasonable that information does not depend on
the specific interpretation. <

Thats what I call communication: an information as something that makes a
difference to the observer, independetly on what is thouhgt (interpreted).

> This seems to make it very difficult
for two people to share information, especially to transmit it, since
presumably what is new to the recipient is not new to the transmitter.
Other misalignments of novelty are also quite possible.<

Ok. But arent it that misalingments the font of creativity?

> So a lot hangs on the wants. And that
is where I am not quite clear about what is at stake.<

Maybe there is a confusion between what informtion "does" in consciousness
and what in communcation. This are two diffeent levels.

>Especially, I am have become quite
intolerant of arguments to the effect that since information depends
on the receiver information capacity depends on the receiver's
desires, prejudices, beliefs, whims, intelligence or stupidity. There
may be information there to be found but the receiver is just to
dense to notice it. We need a way to talk about that sort of
circumstance that is both systematic and integrated into a
general theory of information.<

Ther is no emitter, and there is therefore no receiver of information. They
are autopoietic systems, which process information on their own. While doing
so, they °communicate°, that means they produce noise necessary for
information to arise.

>I think that there is a lot to be said for integrating the notion of
information capacity with information, as Gyuri and Norbert
seem to be suggesting. There is a great deal of unifying power.<
When searching for a unified theory, as the vienna group does, this power is
unmeasurable. Thanks to them.

>If we define information in intentional terms, does that mean
that information theory is hopelessly circular as an approach
to understanding intentionality and meaning?<

If we do so, the circle does not open, I agree.
But if we come to a shareable concept of communication, we will look at a
circuit, where intentions, expectations and meaning get its sense. (view my
posted paper)

Greetings

Gottfried
Received on Wed May 15 10:13:44 2002