Hi FISers,
On 10/8/2017, Terry wrote:
" So basically, I am advocating an effort to broaden our discussions and
recognize that the term information applies in diverse ways to many different
contexts. And because of this it is important to indicate the framing, whether
physical, formal, biological, phenomenological, linguistic, etc.
. . . . . . The classic syntax-semantics-pragmatics distinction introduced by
Charles Morris has often been cited in this respect, though it too is in my
opinion too limited to the linguistic paradigm, and may be misleading when
applied more broadly. I have suggested a parallel, less linguistic (and nested
in Stan's subsumption sense) way of making the division: i.e. into intrinsic,
referential, and normative analyses/properties of information."
I agree with Terry's concern about the often overused linguistic metaphor in
defining "information". Although the linguistic metaphor has its limitations
(as all metaphors do), it nevertheless offers a unique advantage as well, for
example, its well-established categories of functions (see the last column in
Table 1.)
The main purpose of this post is to suggest that all the varied theories of
information discussed on this list may be viewed as belonging to the same
category of ITR (Irreducible Triadic Relation) diagrammatically represented as
the 3-node closed network in the first column of Table 1.
Table 1. The postulated universality of ITR (Irreducible Triadic Relation) as
manifested in information theory, semiotics, cell language theory, and
linguistics.
Category Theory
f g
A -----> B ------> C
| ^
| |
|______________|
h
ITR (Irreducible Triadic Relation)
Deacon’s theory of information
Shannon’s
Theory of
information
Peirce’s theory of signs
Cell language theory
Human language
(Function)
A
Intrinsic information
Source
Object
Nucleotides*/
Amion acids
Letters
(Building blocks)
B
Referential information
Message
Sign
Proteins
Words
(Denotation)
C
Normative information
Receiver
Interpretant
Metabolomes
(Totality of cell metabolism)
Systems of words
(Decision making & Reasoning)
f
?
Encoding
Sign production
Physical laws
Second articulation
g
?
Decoding
Sign interpretation
Evoutionary selection
First and Third articulation
h
?
Information flow
Information flow
Inheritance
Grounding/
Habit
Scale Micro-Macro? Macro Macro Micro Macro
*There may be more than one genetic alphabet of 4 nucleotides. According to
the "multiple genetic alphabet hypothesis', there are n genetic alphabets, each
consisting of 4^n letters, each of which in turn consisting of n nucleotides.
In this view, the classical genetic alphabet is just one example of the n
alphabets, i.e., the one with n = 1. When n = 3, for example, we have the
so-called 3rd-order genetic alphabet with 4^3 = 64 letters each consisting of 3
nucleotides, resulting in the familiar codon table. Thus, the 64 genetic
codons are not words as widely thought (including myself until recently) but
letters! It then follows that proteins are words and metabolic pathways are
sentences. Finally, the transient network of metbolic pathways (referred to as
"hyperstructures" by V. Norris in 1999 and as "hypermetabolic pathways" by me
more recently) correspond to texts essential to represent
arguement/reasoning/computing. What is most exciting is the recent discovery
in my lab at Rutgers that the so-called "Planck-Shannon plots" of mRNA levels
in living cells can identify function-dependent "hypermetabolic pathways"
underlying breast cancer before and after drug treatment (manuscript under
review).
Any comments, questions, or suggestions would be welcome.
Sung
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