[Fis] A Paradox

[Dai Griffiths]

Dear Xueshan,

You ask "how should we understand this paradox?"

I suggest that we start by looking at what it might mean for information 
or meaning to be 'contained' in a sentence. Lakoff would have told us 
that this is a metaphor, and specifically the pervasive 'container 
metaphor'. According to https://glossary.sil.org/term/container-metaphor:

=======================================================

Container metaphor.

A containment metaphor is an ontological metaphor in which some concept 
is represented as:

  *      having an inside and outside, and
  *      capable of holding something else.

Examples:
(English)

  *      I’ve had a full life.
  *      Life is empty for him.
  *      Her life is crammed with activities.
  *      Get the most out of life.

Source:
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: 
University of Chicago.
29–30,

========================================================

The paradox is dissolved by proposing that "In everyday speech it is 
usual to say that a sentence has 'an inside and an outside', and that it 
is 'capable of holding something else', but this is no more than a 
convenient fiction. Both 'information' and 'meaning' (in the senses you 
are using) are constituted by social and cognitive processes, and 
consideration of these processes can enable us to understand the 
relationship between the two terms".

Best

Dai


On 26/02/18 09:47, Xueshan Yan wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> In my teaching career of Information Science, I was often puzzled by 
> the following inference, I call it *Paradox of Meaning and 
> Information* or *Armenia Paradox*. In order not to produce unnecessary 
> ambiguity, I state it below and strictly limit our discussion within 
> the human context.
>
> Suppose an earthquake occurred in Armenia last night and all of the 
> main media of the world have given the report about it. On the second 
> day, two students A and B are putting forward a dialogue facing the 
> newspaper headline “*Earthquake Occurred in Armenia Last Night*”:
>
> Q: What is the *MEANING* contained in this sentence?
>
> A: An earthquake occurred in Armenia last night.
>
> Q: What is the *INFORMATION* contained in this sentence?
>
> A: An earthquake occurred in Armenia last night.
>
> Thus we come to the conclusion that *MEANING is equal to INFORMATION*, 
> or strictly speaking, human meaning is equal to human information. In 
> Linguistics, the study of human meaning is called Human Semantics; In 
> Information Science, the study of human information is called Human 
> Informatics.
>
> Historically, Human Linguistics has two definitions: 1, It is the 
> study of human language; 2, It, also called Anthropological 
> Linguistics or Linguistic Anthropology, is the historical and cultural 
> study of a human language. Without loss of generality, we only adopt 
> the first definitions here, so we regard Human Linguistics and 
> Linguistics as the same.
>
> Due to Human Semantics is one of the disciplines of Linguistics and 
> its main task is to deal with the human meaning, and Human Informatics 
> is one of the disciplines of Information Science and its main task is 
> to deal with the human information; Due to human meaning is equal to 
> human information, thus we have the following corollary:
>
> A: *Human Informatics is a subfield of Human Linguistics*.
>
> According to the definition of general linguists, language is a 
> vehicle for transmitting information, therefore, Linguistics is a 
> branch of Human Informatics, so we have another corollary:
>
> B: *Human Linguistics is a subfield of Human Informatics*.
>
> Apparently, A and B are contradictory or logically unacceptable. It is 
> a paradox in Information Science and Linguistics. In most cases, a 
> settlement about the related paradox could lead to some important 
> discoveries in a subject, but how should we understand this paradox?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Xueshan
>
>
>
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