Re: [Fis] The timings of meaning

Reacting to Pedro's posting below: It seems clear to me, as one who enjoys
drumming (the bottoms of empty Adrirondack brand plastic seltzer water
bottles make a nice simulacrum of the Indian tabla drum, with maybe 4 or 5
different sounds possible), that the rate at which a message is attended to
in combination with its rate of delivery can significantly alter its
meaning. (This may not be so significant with written words, of course.)
In the spirit of the alternate reading frames for DNA sequences, one could
imagine that parallel processors (like a small band of drummers!) could
generate, by way of rythmic reinforcements, all kinds of meta-messages.
That is, if computers would incorporate differential rates of processing in
parallel, we could have a new "music" of computation. Of course, Howard
Pattee has distinguished between dynamics and rate independent
informational constraints, and here I am (deliberately)conflating
infrmation with dynamics.

STAN

> At the beginning of this year there was a message by Koichiro where the
>problem of time surfaced quite ostensibly. There were some further
>comments by Rafael, Stan and myself, but somehow the problem of time in
>its intimate relationship with meaning scaped almost un-touched. Again,
>some hints reappeared when arguing about "what is meaning?" --perhaps I
>dubbed as 'protean' some intriguing characterizations exposed then.
>
> In actuality, timing is at the essence of all nervous systems, even the
>simplest ones. For neuroscientist A. Berthoz (2003), most of scientific
>views (often in the neurosciences themselves) are biased towards the
>logico-formal aspects that may characterize some high-level brain
>functions, and the deployment of the actual behavior in time is
>disregarded almost as a physiological or biological side aspect. "At the
>beginning was the deed" he points out. How the brain has to handle --just
>to behave in the world-- the fantastic complexity of the biomechanic
>organization of the body, represents the original evolutionary function of
>nervous systems, and the key of all their further improvements. And
>language is an action too... with an incredible richness of associated
>vocal and auditory perplexities (Juan Roederer and Michael Leyton made
>several points about that in our discussion on music).
>
> I consider that some of the recent messages on semioticism have been too
>cavalier about the crucial part that natural sciences have to play in any
>explanations about the phenomenon of meaning (with nuances, I would join
>Pavel's comments). In chronobiology for instance there is the fascinating
>contents about rhythmicity of behavior ---partially described by Ernest
>Rossi in those two old 'real' fis conferences fis 94, fis 96. I also made
>sort a claim about a robust parallel between the timings of language (and
>of meaning for that matter) and the time granularities affecting our
>'physiological' brain processes (receptors, channels, second messengers,
>metabolic paths and depots, protein synthesis, cell cycles, physiological
>rhythms, ultradian rhythms, ecological and reproductive rhythms, solar &
>celestial... ). We take as 'natural', as transparent, that sophisticate
>architecture of timings, both in the meaningfulmess of our languaging and
>in the flow of our daily life.
>
> This very message contains a curious architecture of related timings: it
>has be located regarding an hour, a day, a month, a year, an era... it may
>mean something when one has just read it (e.g., particularly 'meaningful'
>if it contains some mild criticisms), and it will mean something else in a
>few hours; and perhaps it is tomorrow when the reader disengages himself
>from the more salient personally-related contents and focuses on possible
>subtle originalities and expansions of the ideas presented; and then
>around the other day the message is close to definitely sink into
>irrelevance: it looks rather old and meaningless, as one is now very busy
>digesting the meaningfulness of other incoming events.
>
> Am afraid this is getting too long (and accelerating its own time 'erasure').
>
> best regards
>
> Pedro
>
> PS. Next 5th of April, Monday, will be the beginning of the "Entropy and
>Information" conference; more info will follow soon. For the new parties
>just inscribed in the list --around half dozen from very different
>backgrounds-- we are now running at 'free wheel' without much discipline
>in the comments or the topics, though abiding by the limit of two postings
>per week. By the way, if the mathematicians of this list find it
>interesting, we could attempt during these two weeks an exploratory
>Preamble on a topic suggested by Jerry some time ago: Information,
>Accounting and Numbers.

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Received on Fri Mar 19 22:18:11 2004