[sorry for the delay in this posting, due to problems in our local server;
please, note that all messages during past week have been lost. They have
to be resend... --Pedro]
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Dear Pedro and list,
Once again Pedro, I am in general agreement with your observations.
However, what you ask here is not merely for a simple definition of
information but the entire context in which such a notion can be
founded. Other definitions / notions are needed. You must define what it
is to "know" - what meaning and prediction are, for example.
I have explored this question somewhat - so let me put it out there as a
"straw man." This model takes my previous assertions regarding experience
as its premise.
In my model all metaphysics is the embodied content of experience.
Meaning is the embodied trace of experience - the physiological structure
that characterizes a product of semeiosis. Here is the cellular level
requirement - as yet determined, but let us point to neuroplasticity as a
possible example. Penrose might point to Orchestrated Objective Reduction
as another possible example - whatever, it doesn't matter at this point
except to observe that the model's architecture, when detailed, allows the
prediction of the engineering of that physiological structure.
Knowledge is the determinant of action. That is, it is revealed in action,
in sentient entities it is the product of semeiosis over the embodied
meaning set. We know how to walk by our innate embodiment of meaning - the
product of our genetics. We know how to prove the Pythagoras theorem by
acquired embodied meaning. We know how to communicate by speech because we
share a common acquired embodied convention (imperfectly).
Books, paintings, music are all marks - the subjects of signs. Signs are
the embodied experience of marks. The sun rise, the wind blowing, flower
in the field, are all marks. Marks are either natural marks - the product
of physical laws - or they are metaphysical marks - the product of
intent. Intent is the meaning embodied by the creator of a metaphysical
mark in its creation.
Semeiosis is the ongoing experience of signs - both those embodied as the
traces of experience from past semeiosis and those that are the immediate
product of senses.
So, finally, what is information? Information is that which informs - by
which we mean it identifies cause and adds to knowledge (see above
definition).
In my model I generalize the notion of knowledge so that I can apply the
notion over inanimate/non-sentient cases - I know that this generalization
makes people uncomfortable, as it does me on occasion, but it is by this
generalization that I can essentially define information simply as
"difference" in all cases and I can argue that a particle "knows" what
action to take as the product of information input. This leads inevitably
to my notion of "perfect action" ... but that will side track us here.
For completeness I should also mention my prediction model. Abduction is
the foundation of all prediction - it is the unfettered
intuition. Induction is the constraint of abduction by prior reductive
experience - we learn induction by taking apart the world and putting it
back together. Deduction is the constraint of induction by formal
conventions (such as mathematical logic) that we use in analysis and
communication.
I hope this helps the discussion - I think I covered all Pedro's points.
With respect,
Steven
--
Dr. Steven Ericsson Zenith
SEMEIOSIS RESEARCH
<http://www.semeiosis.com>http://www.semeiosis.com
Received on Mon Sep 26 11:35:15 2005
