RE: [Fis] Re: meaning of meaning

The concept of information developed in this theory at first seems
disappointing and bizarre--disappointing because it has nothing to do
with the meaning, and bizarre because it deals not with a single message
but rather with the statistical character of a whole ensemble of
messages, bizarre also because in these statistical terms the two words
information and uncertainty find themselves to be partners.

            I think, however, that these should be only temporary
reactions; and that one should say, at the end, that this analysis has
so penetratingly cleared the air that one is now, perhaps for the first
time, ready for a real theory of meaning.

Weaver, W. (1949). Some Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory
of Communication. In C. E. Shannon & W. Weaver, The Mathematical Theory
of Communication (pp. 93-117). Urbana: University of Illinois Press, at
pp. 116f.

Shannon detached himself from the implications of his definition of
information as uncertainty by stating that the "semantic aspects of
communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem" (Shannon &
Weaver, 1949: 3). The engineer tries to "fix" the meaning of a
communication because then one can also measure error. If one can have
both error and change in meaning, the problem becomes unsolvable from an
engineering perspective.

Meaning can only be defined with reference to a system that is able to
update using the time axis. Thus, two selections are involved: one at
each moment in time (signal from noise) and one over the time axis
(meaningful/not-meaningful information). When two selections operate
within a system, a next-order variation (stabilization) can be produced,
for example, one the two selections resonate. This next-order
information within the system can be considered as "meaning". The
meaning-processing operates as this second-order layer which emerges
from the two first-order selections (on the Shannon-type information)
operating upon each other. In human language the two layers can
additionally interact and produce "meaningful information".

Selection is a recursive operation. When another selection is added to a
meaning-processing system, the stabilization of meaning can be
meta-stabilized or globalized. A horizon of meanings (Husserl) can then
be shaped within the communication of meaning.

With kind regards,

Loet

  _____

Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
 <mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net> loet@leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/

 <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff-sci.htm> The Challenge of
Scientometrics ; <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm> The
Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society

 
Received on Wed Jan 28 10:41:15 2004