________________________________ De: mailman-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailman-boun...@listas.unizar.es] en nombre de Jerry LR Chandler [jerry_lr_chand...@me.com] Enviado el: domingo, 02 de febrero de 2014 6:33 Para: fis-ow...@listas.unizar.es Asunto: Re: Encoding and Decoding information
From: Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@mac.com<mailto:jerry_lr_chand...@mac.com>> Subject: Encoding and Decoding information Date: February 1, 2014 11:30:44 PM CST To: fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es> List John writes: Sometimes ignored in the mathematics of Shannon's approach are the coding and decoding steps, which he does not put in mathematical form, but appear in his diagrams. John, I think your remark goes to the very heart of the problems of foundations of information sciences. I heartily concur. I would add a couple of brief comments on why this is such a profoundly difficult problem. Over the years, I have attempted to induce a conversation here on FIS on the coding problems, to no avail. I am delighted to learn of your interest in it. Problems of this depth strain our individual and collective resources. At the root of the problem, from my perspective, is the very notion of "codes". In the absence of direct sensory communication, all human communication is by artifacts, symbol systems invented and used by individuals. A priori, all symbol systems, as human artifacts, must be learned anew by each passing generation. As human inventions, no necessity for consistency exists. They are intrinsically unstable. Ever human being tends to adapt their own perspectives on the meaning, if any, of a particular code. The two exceptions are the codes for mathematics and chemistry. The rigid structure of number systems and arithmetic operations is sufficient to preserve the foundation codes of arithmetic for millennia, since the Sumerians, yet flexible enough to allow steady expansions of meanings of new symbols. The code of chemistry is grounded in physical atomism. Natural elements are rigidly defined in terms of properties that appear to be stable for millions/billions of years Thus, as social communities, the mathematicians and the chemists communicate very effectively within their own symbol systems. But no formal logic exists which match the meanings of these two coding systems. Other communities, for example, philosophy and political and economic and music and religion and ... have deep problems in establishing consistent encoding and decoding pathways. The nature of encoding and decoding severely limit the discourse in bio-semiotics and make communication extremely difficult. The many conundrums in bio-semiotics are often merely mis-codings of natural processes. In my own lifelong work on biological mutations as changes of the biological encoding of information, I have encountered conundrums of encoding and decoding in its many molecular biological forms. It appears to involve many forms of differential equations. IMO, An understanding of the processes of encoding and decoding is essential to the understanding of the foundations of information sciences. A trivial example of the perplexities of encoding and decoding are the relationships among computer languages, an area that Ted Gorenson has focused a lot of attention and who I have learned much from. Cheers Jerry On Feb 1, 2014, at 5:09 AM, fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es> wrote: Send fis mailing list submissions to fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es> You can reach the person managing the list at fis-ow...@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis-ow...@listas.unizar.es> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of fis digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: The Interaction Man (John Collier) 2. Re: The Interaction Man & Cognitive Informatics (Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic) From: John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za<mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>> Subject: Re: [Fis] The Interaction Man Date: February 1, 2014 12:26:09 AM CST To: Bob Logan <lo...@physics.utoronto.ca<mailto:lo...@physics.utoronto.ca>> Cc: "fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>" <fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>> Bob, Sometimes ignored in the mathematics of Shannon's approach are the coding and decoding steps, which he does not put in mathematical form, but appear in his diagrams. There has been some work in this area, the best of which I think to be Information Flow by Barwise and Seligman. It is a difficult book, and could have been a lot more clear. In any case there is a potential solution to the coding issue in the idea of infomorphisms being relations between two sets of classifications. The classifications don't have to be the same for information transfer, but they do have to satisfy certain conditions. The work is grounded in work in the 30s by engineers looking at distributed systems. My understadning is that there is a group at Stanford working on reconciling this approach with Shannon, but I haven't heard anything from them recently. Ted Gorenson, who was on fis some time ago, was giving reports. I have been making some progress of my own here, on the specific problem from my PhD thesis on commensurability across scientific theories with differing classifications. I have given a few talks on this, and will give a more advanced one at a meeting on New Approaches to Scientific Realism near Cape Town in August. Unfortunately, what initially looked promising is now leading me to some serious doubts about whether information transferred from one theoretical context to another can solve the problem, and I am going back to my thesis hypothesis that pragmatics are required to solve the problem, and that this cannot be formalized (the basis of a couple of papers I have on pragmatics -- the formal pragmatists really don't like it) I have done with a former student. Sorry for the vagueness, but this is not an easy problem, and to go into more detail would take far too much space right now. Incidentally, I had a massive hard drive problem, and lost much of my in box, hence the late reply. I hope it is still useful. John
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