Thank you Stan, that was precisely what I meant by my question.
Exactly how to define informational content of things that can not be
verbalized? (Maybe only because, as you say, our linguistics communities
have not conquered those rare territories such as dreams or music or
arts.) Those spheres of personal experiences we may hope will be
explored in the future, so that at least we may learn how the brain
processes those things.
You said:
"Now, technically, I think information is just any constraint on our
activity. So, do dreams, and those scents and music that have not been
harnessed by society, constrain our actions? If not, are they
informational? Some information is associated to meaning by semiosis.
But if dreams, fragrances and music are not information, we know
nevertheless that they are meaningful to us personally. So, can meaning
exist aside from information?"
My feeling is that in dreams informational content of our brains gets
re-structured, or re-connected in different ways. Dreams contain
elements from real life memories, but they are differently related,
distorted, intensified, etc. So I guess dreams have definitely
informational content.
One more interesting aspect of the problem is the approximate thinking.
We have a "feeling" if something is OK or not. Very often experts have a
"feeling". Their expertise can be verbalized up to the point, but after
that, there is a "feeling" - what is just the right amount of something,
the right measure, the right thing to do in certain situation. Those
"feelings" also have informative content, as they definitely constrain
our activity.
In any event, I do have a feeling :-) that meaning and information are
so tightly bounded that anything having meaning must be possible to
express in terms of information.
Best,
Gordana
Stanley N. Salthe wrote:
>Replying to Gordana --
>She said:
>
>
>
>>It might be a pure feeling of sheer beauty or harmony (whatever it
might
>>be). I wonder is there any meaning in >that feeling of being one
with
>>music in the same flow, just dissolving in a moment? Not the
externalist
>>meaning >that you can ascribe to a music-loving listener in an
instant of
>>exaltation, but the subjective meaning for me as an >individual. Is
there
>>meaning in a feeling? May I say that music in that case is information
>>that impacts my >physical body, my receptors, my brain, and changes
its
>>structure so that in the next moment in my life I will >experience
things
>>differently?
>>
>>May I say that meaning of music for me as a subject is the result
of
>>the difference that made the difference in my physical structures,
somehow?
>>
>>
>
>This raises what has been for me an issue of some interest. I associate
>some kinds of meaning with emotion. Our culture invites only a certain
>limited range of emotions. We can get an idea of how small a range this is
>by paying attention to the emotional content of dreams -- actually more
>interesting that the images. Here we experience emotions that are never
>elicited in everyday life, and that are, indeed, indescribable and unique.
>They are as indescribable as the scents of many of the various essential
>oils taken from plants. Some of these associate with numinous feelings, as
>with encense (frankincense, olibanum) or Peru balsam, which have been
>smudged in (at least) churches and synagogues for centuries. But many (for
>us) float free of any particular association, as they have not been
>harnessed by our society. Are these 'untamed' fragrances -- and those
>dream emotions -- meaningless? This brings me to music. I now listen
>largely to Romantic keyboard music -- Schubert (the father of musical
>Romanticism), Chopin (The soul of Romantic music) and Schumann (the spirit
>of Romantic music). It seems clear to me that these artists have INVENTED
>certain emotions that literally did not exist prior to their discovery on
>the keyboard in the Nineteenth Century. Now, these emotions are also
>indescribable, but in this case it is clear that they can be (have been)
>shared by many persons in the experience of art. But, do we all agree as
>to the 'meanings' of these passages? We don't really know, do we? It
>seems likely that neurologists might be able to discover some general
>shared responses to them elicited in us during experiments, but would
these
>be 'describable' (translatable to language)?
> Now, technically, I think information is just any constraint on our
>activity. So, do dreams, and those scents and music that have not been
>harnessed by society, constrain our actions? If not, are they
>informational? Some information is associated to meaning by semiosis. But
>if dreams, fragrances and music are not information, we know nevertheless
>that they are meaningful to us personally. So, can meaning exist aside
>from information?
>
>STAN
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Sat Feb 18 16:00:47 2006
