At 02:18 PM 2005/09/18, Laszlo Ropolyi wrote:
At 02:18 PM 2005/09/18, you wrote:
>Dear Colleagues,
>
>I would like to contribute to this interesting discussion with some
>smaller philosophical remarks:
>
>I suppose the kind of question "What is information?" requires
first
>of all an ontological consideration, moreover a "definition" of
its "quality".
>
>In this respect I would propose a "hermeneutic" ontology, in
which
>we have an at least "two levels" world consists of the sign and
its context.
>In this world the information is an interpreted sign.
I think this is similar to Peirce's view on information, up to terminology.
>All the elements of this definition can be choice completely free,
>but the definition itself creates an interrelationship between them.
>Everything can be considered as a sign or context. A physical state
>of a real or ideal body, an imagined objects or its any parts, etc.
>can be considered as a "sign of something else".
I talk of this as the causal power of the thing -- its capacity to
induce distinctions. I have a paper 'Causation is the transfer of
information' that makes the case for the physical world. I show how
it could apply more generally, but without an interpretation of what
information is in each specific case, it is pretty empty.
>The crucial point is the interpretation. Interpretations partly
>preserve the sign in itself, as an individual being, but partly, at
>the same time consider it as the "sign of something else".
>Information is the product of this "double seeing" practice.
I think this is consistent with Barwise and Seligman on Information
flow. They see it as a sort of mapping between classifications. They
don't invoke signs, though, but the mapping actually describes the
sign relation.
John
>I suppose that this definition harmonizes with many others. The
>meaning (and measurement) of quantity of information depends on the
>characterization of signs, context and interpretation.
>
>Something like this. Thanks for your attention.
>
>Laszlo Ropolyi
>(new in this discourse)
>
Professor John Collier collierj@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031
http://www.nu.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please find our disclaimer at http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer
--------------------------------------------------------------------
<<<<gwavasig>>>>
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Received on Mon Sep 26 11:16:14 2005
