On Saturday, March 2, 2013 12:37:15 AM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
> On 3/1/2013 8:39 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: 
> > And therein do you see the arbitrariness of either choice. 
> > 
> > The universe is subjective, not objective. 
>
> Is that just your opinion...or is it objectively true. 
>

It's an educated guess, and a provocation. On what basis do we presume that 
objectivity is possible? Because our subjective experience is used to 
thinking of it that way?
 

>
> > 
> > Read on semiotic theory as it will give much enlightenment 
> > on this issue, that is *meaning* versus *information* 
>

Was there something that I said which would suggest that I hadn't read 
semiotic theory?
 

> > 
> > The fact that the interpreter can interpret means that the 
> > interpreter already knows the meaning of any accepted 
> > informational form.  Isn't this how compilers and interpreters 
> > in a computer work? 
>

There is no "the meaning", there are many meanings in various sensory 
modalities:

Optical forms = visually informing - subconscious
Graphic forms = phonetically informing - learning makes conscious 
experience subconscious. (MIS-IS-IP-EE = Mississippi = funny word)
Grammatic forms = semantically informing - learning matches optical, 
graphical, and verbal forms to conceptual experiences.(Mississippi = river 
in the US).
Beyond the explicit message, the context of the messaging, and of the 
interpreter can become more important that the explicit message. 
Mississippi could be a safe word in some kind of sex scandal about to 
expose a politician, or it could trigger a post-hypnotic suggestion a la 
Manchurian Candidate.

How compilers and interpreters work is nothing like this. The computer 
stack looks like this:

Physical forms = wires and microprocessors. There is no optical or audio 
experience here, only the electronic or mechanical connection between 
microelectronic events.
Mathematical functions = physical properties of transistors allow for basic 
switching and checking the status of switches. 
As we might build a castle out of toothpicks, mathematical functions can be 
used to take on various technological facades - from dot-matrix printing 
that reminds us of letters to video screens with cartoons which remind us 
of people.

In all of these cases, unlike a person, the computer does not grow to learn 
meanings, only to match characters and words to their statistically likely 
consequences. If you say Bonjour to the computer - it recognizes your input 
and searches the most likely output, but it has no idea what it is saying 
or who it is talking to. There's not person there, it's just a bunch of 
very small windmills.



> Sure.  The Mars rover interprets the image of a rock because it was 
> programmed to or 
> learned to so interpret the image. 


It's program knows nothing about images or rocks. It knows the data which 
has been defined. We are the ones who defined them that way to correspond 
to our experiences of images in the rocks. As with all machines, the Mars 
Rover is forever in the dark.
 

>  Its interpretation is realized by its behavior in 
> going around the rock showing that for the rover the 'meaning' of the rock 
> was 'an 
> obstruction'.  If the rock had looked differently or been in a different 
> place it might 
> have been interpreted as a 'geological specimen'. 
>

Then when we test the Rover with a fake rock, produced by a subroutine in 
the rockless lab, it's identical behavior of going around the rock that 
isn't there shows that there was never any meaning for rocks or 
obstructions or geological specimen. It's responding to programs, not to 
presences.

Craig
 

>
> Brent 
>
> > 
> > wrb 
> > 
> >> -----Original Message----- 
> >> From: everyth...@googlegroups.com <javascript:> 
> >> [mailto:everything-<javascript:> 
> >> li...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>] On Behalf Of meekerdb 
> >> Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 7:11 PM 
> >> To: everyth...@googlegroups.com <javascript:> 
> >> Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information 
> >> 
> >> On 3/1/2013 5:27 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: 
> >>>> Thinking about how information content of a message 
> >>> Big mistake.  Information is never contained with but 
> >>> exactly one exception, an envelope. 
> >>> 
> >>> I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a 
> >>> statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information 
> >>> is represented but not contained in that representation. 
> >>> That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent 
> >>> information at a meta level above the reality of streaks 
> >>> of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with 
> >>> the information represented by that deformation, nor the 
> >>> increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder 
> >>> obtained from that deformation; these are but three of 
> >>> the *informations* to be found upon review of those 
> >>> streaks.  Entropy is how nature sees information (not 
> >>> yet an established fact but I think the tea leaves read 
> >>> clear enough) but that has (presumably) nothing to do 
> >>> with how intelligent individuals see information, or 
> >>> as von Uexk�ll called such phenomena, signs. 
> >>> 
> >>> Most definitely the information is not to be found 
> >>> within the material of its expression, its representation. 
> >>> Rather, the information is already to be found within the 
> >>> interpreter. 
> >> But where is it found within the interpreter?  When the Mars Rover 
> >> receives photons in 
> >> it's camera which it interprets as an obstructing rock that 
> >> interpretation is "just" 
> >> physical tokens too. So isn't it a matter viewpoint whether to look at 
> >> the causal chain of 
> >> tokens or look at the behavior and call it interpreting information? 
> >> 
> >> Brent 
> >> 
> >>> That which is information is so by virtue of the acceptor 
> >>> of that information; else, it is noise. 
> >>> 
> >>> And, write the information on a piece of paper and seal 
> >>> the paper within an envelope and you may justifiably 
> >>> claim that the information is contained; else, you are 
> >>> deluding yourself. 
> >>> 
> >>>> has an inversely proportionate relationship with the 
> >>>> capacity of sender and receiver to synchronize with 
> >>>> each other. 
> >>>> 
> >>> ....<snip> 
> >>> 
> >>> wrb 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >> -- 
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>
>

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