Re: [Fis] a definition of information

Dear Loet

You wrote: "The meaning processing in discourse is much richer than the
lower order systems because it is no longer biologically constrained."

This is the traditional humanistic-social science understanding of
language. But the new understanding is that it is. We are just not aware
of it. The core of our ability to express our selves is not so much a
grammatical and logical generative model as it is our bio-social
embodiment. I would claim that living systems with differently
organized bodies would not be able to understand our words. As
Wittgenstein said "If a Lion could talk, we could not understand it."

 ritualized seeking for a mate. Thus meaning is biologically
> embodied, psychologically experienced and socially expressed
> and ritualized in language.

Yes, but the next-order system has more control mechanisms (meanings)
available than the previous-order one. For example, if you observe two
animal mating, you can
say that they are mating using a biological language. That is, you have
a metaphor available for describing this behaviour. However, what it
means for the animals involved
is not directly accessible using this metaphor. Perhaps, there is a
psychology possible for studying these animals, but it may need another
paradigm than the biological
one.

Thus, the meaning generation and processing proliferates at the social
and cultural level. We do not only use language, but proliferate
languages by using higher-order
codes of communication in paradigms. The meaning-processing in discourse
is much richer than the lower-order systems because it is no longer
biologically constrained.
While the individual (psychology) is still facing the problems of life,
the next-order level of culture is also supra-individual and
proliferating with a dynamics other than the
(sum of the) psychological ones.

The sciences themselves are part of this next-order development. The
scholarly discourse is the very assumption under Stan's pansemiotics;
the ground on which he
stands. But the idea of unifying this into one big metaphor is
self-defeating. Because the big metaphor remains a metaphor among other
possible metaphors. At the
cultural level, it is more useful to use diaphors (distinctions) because
they can be enriched with meaning and knowledge.

For example, the transitions between the levels are different. As
psyches we have no direct access to our body, that is, without providing
meaning (in language and
thought) to the signals that we receive. This metaphor is not adequate
for studying the relations between individuals and society because the
two systems have more
means of communication among them in language and symbolic media of
communication at the same time. At the cultural level there are many
more options than
providing a signal with a single meaning.

Even the concept of "level" entails a biological metaphor. I submit that
it is more useful to think of the next-order as another dimension that
stands potentially orthogonal to
the ones on which it reflects. The projection on the new axis allows us
to discard most of the incoming information as noise and the keep the
signal as meaningful
information.

-- 
Venlig hilsen/Best wishes Søren Brier
Handelshøjskolen København/Copenhagen Business School
Inst. For Ledelse, Politik og Filosofi/Dept. of Management, Politics and
Philosophy, Blågårdsgade/Blaagaardsgade 23 B, 3. floor, room 326,
DK-2200 Copenhagen N.
Telephone +45 38152208, mail sbr.lpf@cbs.dk .
Old home page with full text papers:
http://www.flec.kvl.dk/personalprofile.asp?id=sbr&p=engelsk
Ed. of Cybernetics & Human Knowing http://www.imprint-academic.com/C&HK  
Subscriptions sandra@imprint.co.uk,
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