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 ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- - 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/ - ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] meaningful inforamtion
Title: Re: [Fis] meaningful inforamtion Hi Pedro and Anthony, Valentino Braitenberg has a book out this year in German:Information - der Geist in der Natur My knowledge of German is dismal, but it seems to be about information as the "spirit" or "mind" of nature. This would be consistent with a quotation of his fromLuciano Floridi, editor,Philosophy of Computing and Information: Five Questions, 2008, p16: The concept of information, properly understood, is fully sufficient to do away with popular dualistic schemes invoking spiritual substances distinct from anything in physics. This is Aristotle redivivus, the concept of matter and form united in every object of this world, body and soul, where the latter is nothing but the formal aspect of the former. The very term “information” clearly demonstrates its Aristotelian origin in its linguistic root. Anthony talks about form too, of course, but I'm afraid I find his concept of "meaningful" information to be somewhat dualistic -- but maybe I just haven't understood his view of the relationship between meaningful information and material form. Robin Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 12:38:03 PM, Pedro wrote: 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: seehttp://infoscience-fis.unizar.es/ aread...@verizon.netescribió: 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 ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- - 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/ - -- Robin Faichney http://www.robinfaichney.org/ ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] meaningful inforamtion
Hello FIS, On mentioning of Braitenberg’s book “Information - der Geist in der Natur”, Søren Brier made me aware of an older work in a similar spirit - Danish physicist’s Hans Christian Ørsted’s (1777-1851) “The soul in nature”, here digitalized by Google: http://www.archive.org/stream/soulinnaturewit00horngoog#page/n0/mode/1up Best wishes, Gordana http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/ From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Robin Faichney Sent: den 20 juli 2011 14:49 To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] meaningful inforamtion Hi Pedro and Anthony, Valentino Braitenberg has a book out this year in German: Information - der Geist in der Natur My knowledge of German is dismal, but it seems to be about information as the spirit or mind of nature. This would be consistent with a quotation of his from Luciano Floridi, editor, Philosophy of Computing and Information: Five Questions, 2008, p16: The concept of information, properly understood, is fully sufficient to do away with popular dualistic schemes invoking spiritual substances distinct from anything in physics. This is Aristotle redivivus, the concept of matter and form united in every object of this world, body and soul, where the latter is nothing but the formal aspect of the former. The very term “information” clearly demonstrates its Aristotelian origin in its linguistic root. Anthony talks about form too, of course, but I'm afraid I find his concept of meaningful information to be somewhat dualistic -- but maybe I just haven't understood his view of the relationship between meaningful information and material form. Robin Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 12:38:03 PM, Pedro wrote: 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.netmailto: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 ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.esmailto:fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- - 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.esmailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ - -- Robin Faichney http://www.robinfaichney.org/ ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es
Re: [Fis] meaningful inforamtion
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 mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.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 _ ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- - 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/ - ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] meaningful information
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 ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- - 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/ - ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] meaningful information
This is an interesting question. What is the meaning of meaning? I would define as something like the affects of perception on a perceiving system. Once a system has been affected it might change its behavior, but I would hesitate to equate a behavioral response directly to the meaning of a perceived signal. While your definition has the advantage of external observation, I think behavior is too far removed from internal meaningfulness. I wouldn't be comfortable, for example, saying that Skinner's bell meant salivation to his dog subjects. Regards, Guy On 7/20/11 11:47 AM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith ste...@semeiosis.org wrote: 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 ³ 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 ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- - Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto
Re: [Fis] meaningful information
Dear Steven, I would certainly not specify meaning as behavior, but consider it as an operation internal to a system of reference. My research question in the mentioned paper is how discursive knowledge can be considered as a further codification in the communication of meaning (a meaning that makes a difference). Meaning incurs on information with reference to a horizon of meanings. Knowledge incurs on meaning as a next-order process of codification (i.e., selection). Discursive knowledge (different from tacit knowledge) can then be communicated and globalized. Both the communication of meaning and knowledge can be expected to generate redundancies: other possible meanings or other possible states. This generates the possibility of replacement and knowledge-based innovations. Let me finish (this second contribution for this week) with the abstract: Abstract The development of discursive knowledge presumes the communication of meaning as analytically different from the communication of information. Knowledge can then be considered as a meaning which makes a difference. Whereas the communication of information is studied in the information sciences and scientometrics, the communication of meaning has been central to Luhmanns attempts to make the theory of autopoiesis relevant for sociology. Analytical techniques such as semantic maps and the simulation of anticipatory systems enable us to operationalize the distinctions which Luhmann proposed as relevant to the elaboration of Husserls horizons of meaning in empirical research: interactions among communications, the organization of meaning in instantiations, and the self-organization of interhuman communication in terms of symbolically generalized media such as truth, love, and power. Horizons of meaning, however, remain uncertain orders of expectations, and one should caution against reification from the meta-biological perspective of systems theory. For those interested: the preprint is available at http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1011/1011.3244.pdf 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/ -Original Message- From: ste...@mail.ericsson-zenith.com [mailto:ste...@mail.ericsson-zenith.com] On Behalf Of Steven Ericsson-Zenith Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 8:47 PM To: Loet Leydesdorff Cc: Foundations of Information Science Information Science Subject: Re: [Fis] meaningful information 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
Re: [Fis] meaningful information
Dear Steven, I would certainly not specify meaning as behavior, but consider it as an operation internal to a system of reference. My research question in the mentioned paper is how discursive knowledge can be considered as a further codification in the communication of meaning (a meaning that makes a difference). Meaning incurs on information with reference to a horizon of meanings. Knowledge incurs on meaning as a next-order process of codification (i.e., selection). Discursive knowledge (different from tacit knowledge) can then be communicated and globalized. Both the communication of meaning and knowledge can be expected to generate redundancies: other possible meanings or other possible states. This generates the possibility of replacement and knowledge-based innovations. Let me finish (this second contribution for this week) with the abstract: Abstract The development of discursive knowledge presumes the communication of meaning as analytically different from the communication of information. Knowledge can then be considered as a meaning which makes a difference. Whereas the communication of information is studied in the information sciences and scientometrics, the communication of meaning has been central to Luhmanns attempts to make the theory of autopoiesis relevant for sociology. Analytical techniques such as semantic maps and the simulation of anticipatory systems enable us to operationalize the distinctions which Luhmann proposed as relevant to the elaboration of Husserls horizons of meaning in empirical research: interactions among communications, the organization of meaning in instantiations, and the self-organization of interhuman communication in terms of symbolically generalized media such as truth, love, and power. Horizons of meaning, however, remain uncertain orders of expectations, and one should caution against reification from the meta-biological perspective of systems theory. For those interested: the preprint is available at http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1011/1011.3244.pdf 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/ -Original Message- From: ste...@mail.ericsson-zenith.com [mailto:ste...@mail.ericsson-zenith.com] On Behalf Of Steven Ericsson-Zenith Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 8:47 PM To: Loet Leydesdorff Cc: Foundations of Information Science Information Science Subject: Re: [Fis] meaningful information 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
