Re: Some questions about the nature of informational theories

Dear Jerry,

thanks for your questions. As far as I can
see there is a strong similarity between the
concept of information and related concepts
(time, life, abstraction, human thinking, etc.)
and the Platonic *idea* (and related concepts:
aion/chronos, zoe/bios, chorismos, dianoein/nous
etc.). So, if I may add an underlying question:
how do *information* and (Platonic) *idea* relate
to each other? Are we having a *re-vision* of Platonic
thought? if so, where are the differences?

Some thirty years ago Carl-Friedrich von
Weiszaecker stated that the modern concept
of information is a *new way* of asking for
what Plato and Aristotle called *idea* or
*morphe*. According to this, my question is not
just a historical question, but a question of
how far are we still thinking within the Platonic
paradigm, and, more precisely, how far the
modern concept of *communication* particularly
it its (first and second order) cybernetic sense(s)
is to be distinguished from Platonic *participation*
(methexis) of *eternal forms*. Weizsaecker pointed
that we, in contrast to Plato think forms in the
horizon of time (not the other way round). In this
case, the basic question concerning the difference
between our (?) and Plato's concept of information
(or *idea*) would be: what does it mean for an
*in-formation* (process) *to-be-in-time*? And this
is, finally, what Koichiro has suggested several
times. How far does our being-in-time affects
necessarily our views of cosmic time (not identical
with *evolution*), biological time, social time (history)...?

kind regards

Rafael
Received on Fri Jan 3 13:23:35 2003