Re: [Fis] A definition of Information

Dear Soeren,

I am not very happy with this discussion on meaning as it seems to make the
simple mistake called by Aristotle 'metabasis eis allo genos' (to trans-late
one concept from one 'genus' into another). This is of course the main
debate of this list with regard to the information concept itself as a
'human-neutral' concept. Trying to do this with the concept of meaning makes
for me not to much sense and blurrs the difference between specific
phenomena by giving the impression of an overall 'cybersemiotic'
explanation, while in fact all remains the same, there is just more
conceptual confusion. Why do we not keep the concept of meaning as a
specific concept related to what human language is able to perform in an
explicit or implicit way and use other concepts for talking about the
'trans-formation' of beings at different pre-linguistic levels?
To put it in another way: if what we want is to explain, say, the meaning of
the Mona Lisa, we will never get to it by, say, a chemical analysis or
measuring how much canvas was used. We cannot also explain the meaning of a
car by explaining its engine etc. In this sense, reductionism is the wrong
strategy as well as any kind of evolutionary cybersemioticism, that
remembers me more and more the kind of 'explanations' offered by DIAMAT
(dialectical materialism).
kind regards
Rafael

_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Received on Mon Feb 23 15:21:08 2004