[Fis] Information is a linguistic description of structures

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Emanuel,

Unfortunately, you have stated no axioms and introduced subjectivity.

Recall that I began with a definition of “semantic” per Carnap. Semantics are simply the rules of syntax transformation. Semantics have little to do with natural human language. Indeed, Carnap was very conscious of these questions and wrote extensively on them. In particular, he was especially conscious of the levels of linguistic expression and the cyclic grounding problem that you have exhibited here. I recommend that you review his The Logical Syntax Of Language (Carnap, 1937). It is one of my favorites.

The question of axiomatics in information theory is covered by Shannon and better expressed in the Kahn video series by Brit Cruise that I pointed to at the start. I suggest you at least take the short amount of time that it will take to review those videos.

Regards,
Steven




> On Sep 23, 2015, at 10:47 PM, Emanuel Diamant <emanl.245 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear FIS colleagues,
>  
> As a newcomer to FIS, I feel myself very uncomfortable when I have to interrupt the ongoing discourse with something that looks for me quite natural but is lacking in our current public dialog. What I have in mind is that in every discussion or argument exchange, first of all, the grounding axioms and mutually agreed assumptions should be established and declared as the basis for further debating and reasoning. Maybe in our case, these things are implied by default, but I am not a part of the dominant coalition. For this reason, I would dare to formulate some grounding axioms that may be useful for those who are not FIS insiders:
>  
> 1. Information is a linguistic description of structures observable in a given data set
> 2. Two types of data structures could be distinguished in a data set: primary and secondary data structures.
> 3. Primary data structures are data clusters or clumps arranged or occurring due to the similarity in physical properties of adjacent data elements. For this reason, the primary data structures could be called physical data structures.
> 4. Secondary data structures are specific arrangements of primary data structures. The grouping of primary data structures into secondary data structures is a prerogative of an external observer and it is guided by his subjective reasons, rules and habits. The secondary data structures exist only in the observer’s head, in his mind. Therefore, they could be called meaningful or semantic data structures. 
> 5. As it was said earlier, Description of structures observable in a data set should be called “Information”. In this regard, two types of information must be distinguished – Physical Information and Semantic Information. 
> 6. Both are language-based descriptions; however, physical information can be described with a variety of languages (recall that mathematics is also a language), while semantic information can be described only by means of natural human language.
>  
> This is a concise set of axioms that should preface all our further discussions. You can accept them. You can discard them and replace them with better ones. But you can not proceed without basing your discussion on a suitable and appropriate set of axioms.
>  
> That is what I have to say at this moment.
> My best regards to all of you,
> Emanuel.
>  
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