Re: info & life

At 11:11 AM 15/05/02, you wrote:
>from jamesbarham@supernet.com:
>
>First, I think it is crucial that "information" be understood as having
>a semantic interpretation. Without any need for meaning to enter the
>picture, I just don't see why we wouldn't use a purely physical term,
>whether "structure", or "process," or "dynamics," or something else. But
>if that is so, then we should limit the word "information" to cases
>where there is clearly a cognitive agent involved.

Unfortunately, none of these words do the job right. What is needed
for the physical case is a physical measure of the distinctions
involved in "structure", or "process," or "dynamics." The term
"negentropy" seems to me to do the job. It has the formal properties
of information, and it is a physical quantity. It also has the
advantage that if we assume physicalism, any cognitive information
will also have to be negentropic, and if the information is to have
causal powers, there will be a suitable negentropy that is exactly
equal to the information involved.

I am not clear why you think it is "crucial" to retain the term
"information" for only the cases in which there is a semantic
interpretation. It seems to me, as I said earlier, that two people
can have the same information, but interpret it quite differently,
with no overlap in content, e.g., a shake of the head might be
dissent or acquiescence (and might even be intended to be
ambiguous). I suggested that one could have some semantics
with no particular interpretation assumed. This is so tenuous, though,
that the advantage, let alone crucial nature, escapes me right now.

John

----------
Dr John Collier john.collier@kla.univie.ac.at
Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research
Adolf Lorenz Gasse 2 +432-242-32390-19
A-3422 Altenberg Austria Fax: 242-32390-4
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
Received on Thu May 23 11:32:39 2002