[Fis] some notes

[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear Terry and colleagues,

I agree that one should not confuse communication with the substance of 
communication (e.g., life in bio-semiotics). It seems useful to me to 
distinguish between several concepts of "communication".

1. Shannon's (1948) definitions in "The Mathematical Theory of 
Communication". Information is communicated, but is yet meaningfree. 
These notions of information and communication are counter-intuitive 
(Weaver, 1949). However, they provide us with means for the measurement, 
such as bits of information. The meaning of the communication is 
provided by the system of reference (Theil, 1972); in other words, by 
the specification of "what is comunicated?" For example, if money is 
communicated (redistributed), the system of reference is a transaction 
system. If molecules are communicated, life can be generated (Maturana).

2. Information as "a difference which makes a difference" (Bateson, 
1973; McKay, 1969). A difference can only make a difference for a 
receiving system that provides meaning to the system. In my opinion, one 
should in this case talk about "meaningful information" and "meaningful 
communication" as different from the Shannon-type information (based on 
probability distributions). In this case, we don't have a clear 
instrument for the measurement. For this reason, I have a preference for 
the definitions under 1.

3. Interhuman communication is of a different order because it involves 
intentionality and language. The discourses under 1. and 2. are 
interhuman communication systems. (One has to distinguish levels and 
should not impose our intuitive notion of communication on the processes 
under study.) In my opinion, interhuman communication involves both 
communication of information and possibilities of sharing meaning.

The Shannon-type information shares with physics the notion of entropy. 
However, physical entropy is dimensioned (Joule/Kelvin; S = k(B) H), 
whereas probabilistic entropy is dimensionless (H). Classical physics, 
for example, is based on the communication of momenta and energy because 
these two quantities have to be conserved. In the 17th century, it was 
common to use the word "communication" in this context (Leibniz).

Best,
Loet

------ Original Message ------
From: "Terrence W. DEACON" <deacon at berkeley.edu>
To: "fis" <fis at listas.unizar.es>
Cc: "Pedro C. Marijuan" <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>; "Loet Leydesdorff" 
<loet at leydesdorff.net>
Sent: 11/17/2017 6:34:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] some notes

>On communication:
>
>"Communication" needs to be more carefully distinguished from mere
>transfer of physical differences from location to location and time to
>time. Indeed, any physical transfer of physical differences in this
>respect can be utilized to communicate, and all communication requires
>this physical foundation. But there is an important hierarchic
>distinction that we need to consider. Simply collapsing our concept of
>'communication' to its physical substrate (and ignoring the process of
>interpretation) has the consequence of treating nearly all physical
>processes as communication and failing to distinguish those that
>additionally convey something we might call representational content.
>
>Thus while internet communication and signals transferred between
>computers do indeed play an essential role in human communication, we
>only have to imagine a science fiction story in which all human
>interpreters suddenly disappear but our computers nevertheless
>continue to exchange signals, to realize that those signals are not
>"communicating" anything. At that point they would only be physically
>modifying one another, not communicating, except in a sort of
>metaphoric sense. This sort of process would not be fundamentally
>different from solar radiation modifying atoms in the upper atmosphere
>or any other similar causal process. It would be odd to say that the
>sun is thereby communicating anything to the atmosphere.
>
>So, while I recognize that there are many methodological contexts in
>which it makes little difference whether or not we ignore this
>semiotic aspect, as many others have also hinted, this is merely to
>bracket from consideration what really distinguishes physical transfer
>of causal influence from communication. Remember that this was a
>methodological strategy that even Shannon was quick to acknowledge in
>the first lines of his classic paper. We should endeavor to always be
>as careful.
>
>— Terry
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