[Fis] On the relationship between Information and Meaning

[Dick Stoute]

I am on the same page as Steve Bindernan, but I start from a different
perspective.  The neuroscience model of perception limit us to becoming
conscious of representations of our environment.  Direct perception is not
possible and so we do not become conscious of material objects and instead
become conscious of forms of material objects (created by neural activity)
that represent material objects. This is all we are able to do given the
way our perceptual system works.

This limits us to Alfred Korzybski's maps, or as I refer to them,
representations.  These are forms that our neural system constructs using
information gathered through perception. We often treat these forms
(representations) as if they "are" identical to the material objects they
represent. This works well when the representations are clear and
unambiguous.  But when, for example, our vision is blurred it is quite
apparent that we become conscious of  "blurred images" (representations).
 The simplest explanation is that we always become conscious of images
(maps) that are forms, but when these are clear and unambiguous we treat
them as being identical to what they represent.

In this model information provides what is needed to construct images or
forms and the term "in-formation" is descriptive of the informing process.

To explain the connection between information and meaning we need to
recognise that our language must, in the first instance refer to the forms
we become conscious of.  For example, the word "tree" must refer in the
first instance to the form "tree" that our brain constructs. (This form can
be vague enough to represent any tree.) The word "tree"  can then also
refer to what this form often represents - a material tree.  In this model
we can think of language as a coding system in which we have learnt
associations between words and mental forms, so that the word "tree" calls
to mind the form "tree" (its meaning).  This gives language the flexibility
to refer to any mental form that we have associated with a word and when we
speak of the meaning of a sentence we are referring to the mental forms
created when we read/hear that sentence.

So, according to this model, we are informed of our environment through
perception and use the information to create mental models (meanings). We
then use these models to represent material entities/scenes that can be
thought of as the meanings of the models - so a 2 stage process of
meanings, rather than the usual linguistic model in which language refers
directly to the material world and various abstract objects (propositions,
possible worlds etc.) have to be created to account for the meanings of
sentences.

This representational approach leads to a radically different linguistic
theory, but is consistent with neuroscience,  information and information
theory.

To me, the key is being able to reject what I term the direct perception
intuition that makes us believe that we are capable of direct perception.
Once this is done we can create a set of integrated models that link neural
activity to information theory and a new representational language theory
that is very similar to Shannon information theory.

Dick Stoute
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