Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
[snip]
> the terms denotatitve and
> connotative are much older that Semiotics and have been torn form their
> roots by philosophers and scientists who believe that they can replace the
> pleasure principle of Poetic Art with the science of communication. They
> are the ones who end up using math and have orgasms over the beauty of Math
> as opposed to Beethoven. I think they just have tin ears.
But surely we should not judge too harshly any human
activity which both: (1) leads to orgasms, and (2) DOES NOT
HURT ANYONE. Yes?
[snip]
> Per-form-ance means to make the form or structure clear to
> an audience in the act of dialogue. Reflection in Action, as defined by
> the late Donald Schoen is what Artists do in the act of expanding the
> communication of base forms into a dialogue between audience and performer.
What a shame my school tor-mentors did not understand this!
They thought that works of art were opportunities to
test each student on how well that student could
recall Who? What? When? Where? and more facts, after
solitary study of a text with no help ("cheating"!)
from anyone else.
> Now, do any of you know anything about Information Theory and if so, could
> you explain it simply because I'm not sure I can.
[snip]
I do not understand information theory (i.e., "the math"), but
I believe its purpose is to compute the maximum number
of bits per second which can reliably be transmitted over
a noisy data channel. Since most human misunderstanding
takes place between persons who have already gotten past
data transmission, acoustic or visual signal reception, and
even semantic decoding, I will state as a strong hypothesis:
INFORMATION THEORY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HUMAN COMMUNICATION,
AND THE PEOPLE WHO THINK IT DOES DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT
HUMAN COMMUNICATION IS.
Of course this principle is restricted by such situations as
where an airplane pilot cannot make an intelligible
connection with the control tower because of too much
"noise". But, in such cases, human communication
does not even get started (these are the cases where
information theory can help!)
I always like the example of Paul Revere, who used 2 bits
of information to start the Revolutionary War: "1 if by
land, 2 if by sea". Whole tomes of records of
clerical activities in a government could communicate
less information even though they obviously use a
lot more bits.
We live in an age in which astrologers have been
replaced by computer scientists. Computer
scientists *should* be trained in hermeneutics and
Husserlian phenomenology; in fact they don't
even get professional ethics training.
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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