There is a lot of concept overloading in the community involving the term
"meaning." So it would help me if you and Antony could just give a one sentence
definition of the term. For example, for me:
meaning = the behavior that is the product of apprehending a sign.
Which is an extreme pragmatic definition in the spirit of Peirce. Note that
this definition excludes, or rather characterizes differently, descriptive
sentences of the form "The dog runs toward the house." The meaning of which is
not that the dog runs toward the house, but the behavior of the apprehender.
With respect,
Steven
On Jul 20, 2011, at 10:41 AM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> Some of you may be interested in this context in my forthcoming article “
> "Meaning" as a sociological concept: A review of the modeling, mapping, and
> simulation of the communication of knowledge and meaning, Social Science
> Information 50(3-4) (2011) 1-23. In preprint available at
> http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1011/1011.3244.pdf .
>
> I argue that the dynamics of meaning are very different from those of
> information.
>
> 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
> l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
>
> From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On
> Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan
> Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 1:38 PM
> To: fis@listas.unizar.es
> Subject: Re: [Fis] meaningful inforamtion
>
> Thanks, Anthony, for the info on your book. As you will see during future
> discussion sessions (currently we are in the vacation pause) some parties in
> this list maintain positions not far away from your own views. In our archive
> you can check accumulated mails about the matter you propose --e.g.
> discussions during the last spring. But I think you are right that the whole
> biological scope of information has been rarely discussed. best wishes
> ---Pedro
>
> FIS website and discussions archives: see http://infoscience-fis.unizar.es/
>
>
> aread...@verizon.net escribió:
> I emailed an earlier version of the following contribution to the listserve a
> few days ago and am interested in finding out if it is suitable for
> dissemination and, if os, when it might be included. My main interest is in
> promoting discussion about the approach it takes to dealing with the
> observer-dependent aspects of information.
>
> My book " Meaningful Information: The BridgeBetween Biology, Brain and
> Behavior' has just been published by Springer. Itintroduces a radically new
> way of thinking about information and the importantrole it plays in living
> systems. Thiså opens up new avenues for exploring howcells and organisms
> change and adapt, since the ability to detect and respondto meaningful
> information is the key that enables them to receive their geneticheritage,
> regulate their internal milieu, and respond to changes in their
> environment.The types of meaningful information that different species and
> different celltypes are able to detect are finely matched to the ecosystems
> in which theylive, for natural selection has shaped what they need to know to
> functioneffectively within them. Biological detection and response systems
> range fromthe chemical configurations that govern genes and cell life to the
> relativelysimple tropisms that guide single-cell organisms, the rudimentary
> nervoussystems of invertebrates, and the complex neuronal structures of
> mammals andprimates. The scope of meaningful information that can be detected
> andresponded to reaches its peak in our own species, as exemplified by our
> specialabilities in language, cognition, emotion, and consciousness, all of
> which areexplored within this new framework.
>
> The book's home page can be found at:
> http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/evolutionary+%26+developmental+biology/book/978-1-4614-0157-5
>
> I am eager tofind out what members think about it.
>
> Anthony Reading
>
>
>
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>
>
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Marijuán
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
> Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
> Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª
> 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
> Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554
> pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -------------------------------------------------
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