[Fis] Fwd: Information and Locality, on the Introduction

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

(Sorry for the delay, but the spam filters are very active again--I reenter Steven's delayed post. --Pedro)

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From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith <steven at iase.us>
Subject: Information and Locality, on the Introduction
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2015 09:54:52 -0700
To: Foundations of Information Science Information Science <fis at listas.unizar.es>


Dear List,

First a few clarifications on the definition of terms for my usage.

"Semantics" are the rules of transformation for syntax, per Carnap.

"Meaning" is the physical behavior that is the consequence of apprehension, where apprehension is a biophysical taking away from the world in an organism.

Strictly, "apprehension" begins with a sense that leads to a response. Depending on the type of organism, apprehension may involve a physical processing by the organism. This may result in a failure to manifest a response external to the organism.

I understand that this use of the term "meaning" differs from its ambiguous informal use. The reason for this rigor is to enable the discussion to be unified in the physical sciences.

Because many in this forum are familiar with the work of Charles Peirce, let me note that this is a stricter Pragmaticism. I intend to leave Charles Peirce's semiotic theory aside (except to acknowledge it here).

One of the reasons for the form of my introduction is to highlight the distinction between Communication and Information. We can ignore dance and other arts as communication for now and consider the arts solely as something in the environment to apprehend.

I do not intend to diminish the arts by this move. In fact, I will treat everything of the arts and sciences as of the environment.

One of the first criticisms to make of the standard presentation of Information Theory is the acknowledgment of the binary digit (bit) but the failure to observe the lack of locality in the mechanisms of the presentation. Of course, the reason for this is its pedagogical nature but it also reflects the dogma of modern thought and engineering.

It should be clear that the bit alone is local and that any organization of the bit what-so-ever, be it in the form of a word, a Turing machine tape, in some form on a disk drive or in a text book is, to some degree, lacking that locality. Indeed, this organization is entirely separate and, worse, arbitrary.

The statistical matters that we may consider have nothing at all to do with the bit.

More shortly...

Regards,
Steven

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Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Los Gatos, California. +1-650-308-8611
http://iase.info
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