Dear Joe,
Please let me start by repeating my idea that fluctuons are "its", that is, energy in some form. If (mathematical) idealism is anti-realist, this is certainly not what I would consider Conrad's theory to be. Stan comes to the same conclusion, that fluctuons are its, but this suggests to him a non-materialist conception of information. This is a first place where something like another logic is needed that can incorporate the material-energetic and non-material aspects of information. Can this issue not simply be solved by returning to Shannon's concept of information. Bits of information are dimensionless. In S = k(B) H, the Boltzmann constant provides the dimensionality. One should not confuse this mathematical concept of information with the biologically inspired concept of information as "a difference which makes a difference" (Bateson). This is observed information by a system which can provide meaning to the information. I would not call this "anti-realist", but "anti-positivist". The specification in the mathematical discourse remains res cogitans (as different from res extensa). All of physics also has this epistemological status. All other science, too, but sometimes positivism is ideologically prevailing. Best wishes, Loet _____ Loet Leydesdorff Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam. Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-842239111 <mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net> l...@leydesdorff.net ; <http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/
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