[Fis] Heretic

[Loet Leydesdorff]

>Nobody of us is able to provide an operative framework and a single 
>(just one!) empirical  testable prevision able to assess "information".
>
Dear colleague,

One should not confuse the confusion on the list with the clarity of the 
concept information in information theory. This definition is 
operational (e.g., in bits). Your computer would not work without this 
definition (1 byte = 8 bits). The problem is that this definition of 
information as uncertainty is counter-intuitive.

The search for an intuitive definition of information has led to unclear 
definitions. In a recent book, Hidalgo (2015, at p. 165), for example, 
has defined “information” with reference “to the order embodied in 
codified sequences, such as those found in music or DNA, while knowledge 
and knowhow refer to the ability of a system to process information.” 
However, codified knowledge can be abstract and—like music—does not have 
to be “embodied” (e.g., Cowan, David, & Foray, 2000).

Beyond Hidalgo’s position, Floridi (2010, p. 21) proposed “a general 
definition of information” according to which “the well-formed data are 
meaningful” (italics of the author). Luhmann (1995, p. 67) posits that 
“all information has meaning.” In his opinion, information should 
therefore be considered as a selection mechanism. Kauffman et al. (2008, 
at p. 28) added to the confusion by defining information as “natural 
selection.”

Against these attempt to bring information and meaning under a single 
denominator--and to identify variation with selection--I argue for a 
dualistic perspective (as did Prof. Zhong in a previous email). 
Information and meaning should not be confounded. Meaning is generated 
from redundancies (Bateson, 1972, p. 420; Weaver, 1949; see Leydesdorff 
et al., 2017).

Best,
Loet

References:



Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine.

Cowan, R., David, P., & Foray, D. (2000). The Explicit Economics of 
Knowledge Codification and Tacitness. Industrial and Corporate Change, 
9(2), 211-253.

Floridi, L. (2010). Information: A very short introduction. Oxford, UK: 
Oxford University Press.

Hidalgo, C. (2015). Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from 
Atoms to Economies. New York: Basic Books.

Kauffman, S., Logan, R. K., Este, R., Goebel, R., Hobill, D., & 
Shmulevich, I. (2008). Propagating organization: an enquiry. Biology and 
Philosophy, 23(1), 27-45.

Leydesdorff, L., Johnson, M., & Ivanova, I. (2017). Toward a Calculus of 
Redundancy: Signification, Codification, and Anticipation in Cultural 
Evolution. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3030525.

Luhmann, N. ([1984] 1995). Social Systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford 
University Press.

Weaver, W. (1949). Some Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory 
of Communication. In C. E. Shannon & W. Weaver (Eds.), The Mathematical 
Theory of Communication (pp. 93-117.). Urbana: University of Illinois 
Press.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loet Leydesdorff

Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)

loet at leydesdorff.net <mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net>; 
http://www.leydesdorff.net/
Associate Faculty, SPRU, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/>University of 
Sussex;

Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ. <http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/>, 
Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC, 
<http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html>Beijing;

Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck <http://www.bbk.ac.uk/>, University of London;

http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en


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