Dear Jose Javier,
Thank you so much for these rich comments. I have to think a bit before
answering.
Best,
Loet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loet Leydesdorff
Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
l...@leydesdorff.net <mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net>;
http://www.leydesdorff.net/
Associate Faculty, SPRU, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/>University of
Sussex;
Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ. <http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/>,
Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC,
<http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html>Beijing;
Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck <http://www.bbk.ac.uk/>, University of London;
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en
------ Original Message ------
From: "Jose Javier Blanco Rivero" <javierwe...@gmail.com>
To: "Loet Leydesdorff" <l...@leydesdorff.net>
Cc: "Fis," <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Sent: 9/4/2017 11:38:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] Toward a Calculus of Redundancy: Signification,
Codification, and Anticipation in Cultural Evolution; preprint
Dear Loet,
I want to thank you for sharing this insightful article. I myself have
been experimenting with the difference between information and meaning,
although from a different background -that of intellectual history.
Your essay deserves a thoughtful a comment which I cannot attempt here.
But I´d would like to make some remarks.
1. I´ve been working with Luhmann too and I strongly desagree with
translating "Sinn" by "meaning" -although Luhmann himself might have
agreed. In the Spanish traslation of Social Systems, for example, they
make a more loyal translation from the German (they translate Sinn by
"sentido" and not by "significado"). I think it is more than a
idiomatic question, since distinguishing between sense-making (Sinn),
information and meaning might give us insight into the obscure process
of meaning and knowlegde processing that we are trying to clear out.
Sense-making might not be a good candidate for an english speaker, but
I think it works quite well when you need to distinguish between
linguistic meanings (those produced directly by language and
discourse) and the pragmatics of communication. When you make sense of
something, that involves semantics and pragmatics,that involves
linguistic meaning and information processing from the social
environment.
By the way, in that very page you cite Luhmann (1995, p.67) the German
sociologist draws a distinction between "Sinn" and Information, arguing
that is time what makes it important, because information only informs
once, but maintains its "meaning" when repeated.
2. I´ve noticed that in previous papers you have argued that meaning is
communicated, but here you say "Unlike information, meaning is not
communicated" (p. 3). So, have you changed your mind? Why?
3. I agree with your thesis that the processing of meaning and the
processing of information are two different but related things. But I
have some doubts about the relationship between meaning, information
and coding. You say when meaning is assigned to information, options
arise and so does redundancy, but the proliferation of meanings is
restrained by coding; and that codes structure the processing of
meaning acting as a selection mechanism on redundancy. I might
recognize that meaning be coded, for instance, by being coupled to a
binary opposition (the concept of nature "physis" has oscillated around
the poles of generation and degeneration). But cannot information be
coded as well? For instance, incursive and hyper-incursive operations
may be guided by selective mechanisms, or codes that contribute to the
differentiation of the system and can account for its Eigenbehavior
(I´m thinking of Luhmann´s functional systems). And redundancy might
also be informative and semantic. I can think of semantic (or meaning)
redundancy when examining intellectual traditions (Liberalism,
Communism, etc.) Hence, self organization of meaning do not always
coincide with the self organization of information that drives systems
differentiation.
4. I wonder why to remain attached to the sender-receiver model of
communication. It seems inadecuate to me in such a sofisticated
theoretical arrengement you propose.
5. I think the question of time is not adequately dealt with. I wonder
how can one measure (Hmax) and (Hsystem) in a social system. If we are
dealing with complex systems (and social systems are indeed complex)
the system itself cannot know (Hmax). And if an observer could, what
kind of observer could that be? On another hand, the realized states of
the system are not at the system`s disposition per se. The system needs
some kind of memory function by means of which it reconstructs past
states in a relevant manner to certain present. I think of the
literature on historical memory, for instance. The past as such is not
there, but there remains material objects (incluiding texts, videos and
so on) from which a social system can reconstruct its memory (or as
Luhmann would say: resorting to schemes or frames).
best regards,
José Javier
2017-09-03 11:06 GMT-03:00 Loet Leydesdorff <l...@leydesdorff.net>:
Toward a Calculus of Redundancy:
<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3030525>
Signification, Codification, and Anticipation in Cultural Evolution
<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3030525>
Loet Leydesdorff, Mark W. Johnson, and Inga Ivanova
Abstract
Whereas the generation of Shannon-type information is coupled to the
second law of thermodynamics, redundancy—that is, the complement of
information to the maximum entropy—can be increased by making further
distinctions. The dynamics of discursive knowledge production can thus
infuse the historical dynamics with a cultural evolution. Providing
the information with meaning first proliferates the number of options.
Meanings are provided with hindsight at positions in the vector space,
as against relations in the network space. The main axes
(eigenvectors) of the vector space map the codes of the communication
spanning horizons of meaning; the codes structure the communications
as selection mechanisms. Unlike hard-wired DNA, the codes of
non-biological systems co-evolve with the variation. Discursive
knowledge can be considered as meta-coded communication which enables
us to entertain models of the processing of meaning and information.
This reinforces the hindsight perspective and can turn codification
reflexively into coding anticipation. The dynamics of information,
meaning, and knowledge can be evaluated empirically using the sign of
mutual information as an indicator.
** apologies for cross-postings
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3030525
<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3030525>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loet Leydesdorff
Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
l...@leydesdorff.net <mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net>;
http://www.leydesdorff.net/
Associate Faculty, SPRU, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/>University of
Sussex;
Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ. <http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/>,
Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC,
<http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html>Beijing;
Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck <http://www.bbk.ac.uk/>, University of
London;
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en
<http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en>
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