Re: Data and meaning

A good reading on this subject would be: Nalimov, V.V. IN THE LABYRINTHS OF
LANGUAGE: A MATHEMATICIAN'S JOURNEY. Nalimov was a Russian mathematician who
worked with Kolmogorov. There is a lot in this book about meanigs of words,
meanings of sentences, and on linguistic information in general.

----- Original Message -----
From: Christophe Menant <crmenant@free.fr>
To: Multiple recipients of list FIS <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 10:59 PM
Subject: Re: Data and meaning

> Jerry,
> Please find here some answers to your post.
>
> >
> > Dear Colleagues:
> >
> > This response addresses several issues related to information and
> > meaning.
> > In particular, I respond to Chistophe's and Rafael's posts.
> >
> > I proposed on September 28, in an extension of John Holgate post of Sept
> > 20.
> > > >As John notes, the separation of meaning is not restricted to
> > grammar
> > > >and Shannon information theory. Most philosophers of mathematics
> > > >claim that no meaning is attached to mathematical rules or
> > > >structures. By way of contrast, the language of chemistry and
> > > >chemical grammars are meaningful - a matter of common experience.
> > > >If one assumes that formally, "information" has no meaning, then
> > one
> > > >must turn elsewhere to identify the source of meaning and
> > > >communication.
> > > >As a logical parallel, I would point out that the nature of entropy
> > > >(as a physical phenomenon) depends of the co-existence of
> > temperature
> > > >and energy.
> > > >In bare bone terms:
> > > >you get nothing from nothing;
> > > >you get something from something.
> >
> >
> > Chistrophe Menart writes on Sept. 29, 2002:
> >
> > >The two points brought up by John and Jerry underline aspects of
> > >our discussion that could deserve further developments:
> > >
> > >1) Separation of meaning from information:
> >
> > I strongly concur that these topics need further development. At
> > issue is the nature of relation between the terms "communication" as
> > a community based activity and information as a reductionistic
> > concept of isolationism.
> >
> > >
> > >As already written in a previous post, I feel that a meaning
> > >cannot exist without an information carrying it.
> >
> > Your feelings are important. But how do you relate these feeling to
> > meaningful communication with colleagues?
> >
> This precise feeling about meaning and information is the subject
> of the post, which is a communication with colleagues. Communication
> uses information transfer (voice, email transfer, signs, ..).
> >
> > >In other words, a meaning is an information, a meaningful
> > information.
> > >(Information being the component of a signal, a variation of energy.
> > >Ex: sound, light, chemical element, protein,...).
> >
> > But, what are the other components of a signal if other than
> > information? What else exists that is placed with information to
> > give the fullness to meaningful? In particular, can you spatially
> > separate the transport of information from the generating functions
> > creating meaning?
> >
> All components of a signal are information. But an information is
> not always meaningful. Only information that has been produced by
> an Meaning Genarator System (MGS) is meaningful (and there can be
> an infinity of MGSs). The meaning is not "something else" added to
> information that makes it becoming meaningful. The meaningfullness
> of an information comes from the origin of the information. If
> the information has been produced by a system that has no constraint
> to satisfy, then the information cannot be meaningful.
> The meaningful information is meanningful relatively to the
> constraint S of the MGS (we should speak about "meaningful (S)
> information", or "meaning (S)"). And a meaningful information
> transmitted to other systems will be able to participate to an
> action satisfying the constrain S only if the receiver system
> is submitted to the same constraint S.
> >
> > >In our brains, mental states are related to variation of
> > >neurotransmitter patterns. The meanings in our brains are based on
> > >information status in neurons (understanding that a lot is to be done
> > in
> > >this field, specially regarding the nature of consciousness).
> >
> > I find this paragraph blurs together several distinctions. Brains
> > are anatomical components of our bodies, brains have biochemical
> > components and an underlying genetic basis for the generating
> > functions.
> > I do not understand how the concept of a "mental state" relates to these
> > facts.
> > The postulate that "information status in neurons" exists is equally
> > unclear to me. Perhaps you could relate these terms to principles of
> > communication?
> >
> For me, "Mental state" is an expression used to name a state in
> our brain corresponding to what we understand as a representation,
> a desire, an intention, an emotion, ... It is not possible today
> to relate these mental states to some precise activity of neuronal
> patterns, but we can consider that "there is some relation".
> Regarding "information status in neurons", I mean that neurons can
> have different status of activity. These differences in energy are
> information (and the difference per se is information in the Shannon
> sense).
> About relating these terms to principles of communication, indeed
> neurons communicate together and allow the organism to communicate
> with the outside world.
> >
> > >
> > >But this does not mean that all information is meaningful. Many
> > >information are meaningless, but most information can participate to
> > the
> > >creation of meaningful information Ex: Noise from thunderstorm is not
> > >a meaningful information per se. But this noise in going to participate
> > to
> > >the creation of a meaning in our brain. For instance, the created
> > meaning
> > >will be "rain is comming". And this meaning will generate an action
> > >"look for shelter".
> >
> > This example hardly supports your thesis unless one assumes that
> > "information" is tightly coupled to human values and utilitarian
> > patterns of belief. "Thunder" has quantitative physical qualities
> > (intensity as a function of duration and frequency) that communicate
> > a great deal of information. As Wordsworth said, the ear can not but
> > to hear, the eye can not but to see. We are coupled to nature
> > *NATURE!* in an intimate and detailed manner that is rooted in human
> > history, not just conceptual abstractions.
> >
> This example of noise from thunderstorm creating a meaning wants
> to illustrate a simple meaning genaration. This is why we take only
> the noise as information incident on the MGS.
> But obviously "thunder" communicates a great deal of information that
> can generate many meanings (lightning, wind, flood, Zeus, power,
> fear, ..). But many of these meanings are related to the domain of
> human psychism. And at the current level of analysis of "meaning"
> with the MGS approach, it is preferable to avoid involving human
> psychism. Because we do not really know what human mind is, and
> consequetly we are not able to identify the corresponding constraints
> (which are key for the MGS).
> The result is that we cannot today define a global MGS for human.
> The best we can do is to limit the usage of MGS for human to very
> simple cases (i.e. closer to basic life than to performances of human).
> >
> > >2) Origin of meaning:
> > >If we agree that a meaning is a meaningful information, we have to
> > look
> > >for the generation of this information.
> > >As some already know, I feel there is a way to modelize a
> > >"Meaning Generator System" (MGS) as being a system submitted to a
> > >constraint that has to be satisfied.
> >
> > I strongly concur that we must examine the origin of meanings.
> >
> > The concept of a "Meaning Generator System" (MGS)" could perhaps be
> > useful.
> > Why introduce the notion of restrictions on freedoms in order to
> > generate meaning.
> >
> > Nature is. Why should nature be denied freedom in the process of
> > communication?
> >
> > Are these constraints intended to give a physical gloss to the concept
> > of MGS?
> >
> The base of the MGS is that a meaning generation needs a constraint
> to be satisfied. The purpose of the meaningful information is to
> initiate the implementation of an action that will satisfy the
> constraint.
> There are some systems where the constraints are simple ("to survive"
> for a simple animal). For other systems, the constraints can be very
> complex (group survival vs individual survival, pleasure principle vs
> principle of reality, limit anxiety,...). The restriction of freedom
> that you associate with the constraint corresponds to the case of humans
> where there is free will. And, as said above, we should be very carefull
> in using the MGS for humans, as we do not know the constraints
> applicable to human (Perhaps this point has not been stated clearly
> enough in the FIS 2002 paper).
> >
> > In the notion of "organic communication" I presuppose that intrinsic
> > to a living system is a chemical dynamic that generates change, that
> > such change is intrinsic to the life cycle of the organism.
> > Information entering the system changes the intrinsic dynamic in a
> > specific manner.
> >
> > Is this view close or distant from your view of MGS?
> >
> Your view is close to the MGS if we consider that the changes in
> intrinsic dynamic as introduced by an incident information can have
> some connection with the constraint of the living system (impact it's
> survival or reproduction conditions).
> >
> > Rafeal writes:
> >
> > "I mean,
> > if I am thirsty it is because my body is
> > of this kind that it needs water."
> >
> > JLRC responds:
> > This appears to capture at least one aspect of the concept
> > distinction between Shannon information as a isolationistic statement
> > of great value to mathematics and engineering and the core values of
> > biological communication in an organic world.
> >
> >
> > Christophe responds:
> > > I feel we can say that it is more
> > > a question about a difference of complexity than about a
> > > difference of nature.
> > > Would you agree ?
> > >
> > And Rafael responds:
> > yes, but the difference does not just come from the
> > progammer, it comes basically from the kind of being
> > a robot is (in case it is not a *flesh* one... at least...
> >
> > JLRC responds:
> >
> > Christophe chooses to introduce the ill-defined notion of complexity
> > as a means to bridge the distinction between mechanical communication
> > and organic communication. It is not clear to me why this term
> > (complexity) resolves anything. Communication has the potential to
> > relate various ideas and concepts about information and meaning. I
> > am skeptical that the term "complexity" has an analogous potential
> > resolving power.
> >
> Yes, I agree that the usage I made of the term "complexity" is a
> bit too easy. As answered to Rafael, I am implicitly considering
> there that in some future we may understand well enough the
> constraints of human so that MGS for human would be well defined.
> But this is far from being the case today. So my wording is
> misleading, and "it is more a question about ... " should be
> replaced by "it could be more a question about ...".
> >
> > On a practical level, one distinction between robotics and living
> > organisms is the capability of living organisms to sustain an
> > dynamic by purposeful acquisitions from the external world. This is
> > coupled with an evolutionary potential for organic change. The
> > abstract Platonic world of mathematics generates many images of the
> > type proposed by Christophe. How are such images validated? or
> > reified?
> >
> > The data collected by the robot can not be placed in correspondence
> > with the meaning acquired by a living organism, can it? Without
> > success, I have sought such a quantitative translation for more than
> > two decades. Christophe, if you feel that you can construct such a
> > correspondence relation, I would delighted if you would help me learn
> > your method of construction.
> >
> With the MGS structure, we do have a meaning generated by the robot
> (it is an internaly produced information, not a collected data).
> And there is also a meaning generated by the living organism. Can
> we put them in correspondence ? I would say yes for the meaning
> generation as per the MGS, but no for all that is around it.
> We can understand that a similar MGS can be acting in the robot and
> in the living organism (similar constraint, similar reception of
> incident information, similar generation of meaningful information).
> But beyond this status, things are totaly different in the robot and
> in the living organism.
> So there is correspondence only for this very limited meaning
> generation about the precise and simple fact of being related
> to a similar constraint. But beyond this level of analysis, I am
> like you: no way to put in correspondance a robot and a human.
> And, as we already talked about, I think that all this question is
> related to our ignorance about the nature of human mind. We do
> not know what mind is. So let's accept that it is imposssible to
> establish a correspondance with what we don't know.
>
> Regards
>
> Christophe
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Jerry LR Chandler
> >
> >
> >
>

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