Dear Joe,
However, I rather tend to agree with you that Loet's, Rosen's and Dubois' models of communication, anticipation, etc. are somewhat too abstract. The models, as I think Loet may agree, are created for analysis, and do not define the physical, dynamic relation between the models, the creation of models and what is being modeled as processes. They are not so abstract that one would not be able to measure these mechanisms using information theory. The models can be expected to generate redundancy because they are entertained in the present when restructuring the system, while they indicate possible future states. Bob Ulanowicz pointed me to the mutual information in three dimensions that can indicate redundancy (= negative entropy). Last year, we had a discussion with Klaus Krippendorff about the relation between this redundancy and the probabilistic entropy which is necessarily generated when the redundancy is historically retained (because of the second law). [Redundancy in Systems which Entertain a Model of Themselves: Interaction Information and the Self-Organization of Anticipation, <http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/1/63> Entropy 12(1) (2010) 63-79; <pdf <http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/1/63/pdf> >] The retention mechanisms of anticipation operating in systems is historical and therefore measurable; the anticipatory mechanisms are not directly measurable because they are not part of the res extensa, but remain res cogitans. However, they can be simulated. The theory and computation of anticipatory systems have provided us with new instruments for doing so (Rosen, 1984; Dubois, 1998). At his time, Husserl (1929) had no instruments beyond the transcendental apperception of this domain of cogitata and therefore he has to refrain from empirical investigation; as he formulated: We must forgo a more precise investigation of the layer of meaning which provides the human world and culture, as such, with a specific meaning and therewith provides this world with specifically “mental” predicates. (Husserl, 1929, at p. 138; my translation). The progression has been made in terms of the analytical modeling (Rosen, Dubois) and the development of means to measure redundancy generation within cultural domains (McGill, Ashby, Ulanowicz, Krippendorff). See for further elaborations: <http://www.leydesdorff.net/meaning.2011/index.htm> "Meaning" as a sociological concept: A review of the modeling, mapping, and simulation of the communication of knowledge and meaning, Social Science Information (in press); <pdf-version <http://www.leydesdorff.net/meaning.2011/meaning.pdf> > The Communication of Meaning and the Structuration of Expectations: Giddens' <http://www.leydesdorff.net/GiddensLuhmann/index.htm> "structuration theory" and Luhmann's "self-organization," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 61(10) (2010) 2138-2150; <pdf-version <http://www.leydesdorff.net/GiddensLuhmann/structuration.pdf> > With best wishes, Loet _____ Loet Leydesdorff Professor, University of Amsterdam 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/ Visiting Professor, <http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html> ISTIC, Beijing; Honorary Fellow, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/> SPRU, University of Sussex
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