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<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">Hi FISers,</p>
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<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">I am not sure whether I am a Procrustes (<i>bed</i>) or a Peirce (<i>triadomaniac</i>), but I cannot help but seeing an ITR (irreducible Triadic Relation) among Text, Context and Meaning, as depicted in<b> Figure 1</b>.</p>
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<p style="margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="color:black"><br>
</span><i style=""><span style="color:red"> <span style=""> </span> <span style=""> </span>f g</span></i></p>
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<span style="color:black"><span style="">
</span><b style="">Context</b> <span style=""> </span>--------> <b style="">Text </b> --------->
<span style=""> </span><b style="">Meaning</b></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; orphans:2; text-align:start; widows:2; word-spacing:0px">
<span style="color:black"> <span style=""> </span> | ^</span></p>
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<span style="color:black"> <span style=""> </span> |
<span style=""> </span> |<br>
<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span> |
<span style=""> </span> |</span></p>
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<span style="color:black"> <span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span> |_________________________|</span></p>
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<i style=""><span style="color:black"> <span style=""> </span> <span style=""> </span></span><span style="color:red">h</span><span style="color:black"></span></i></p>
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<span style="color:black"> </span></p>
<p style="margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; orphans:2; text-align:start; widows:2; word-spacing:0px">
“<span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)">The meaning of a text is irreducibly dependent on its context.</span>”</p>
<p style="margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt"> </p>
<p style="margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style=""> </span>“<span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)">Text, context, and meaning are irreducibly triadic</span><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)">.</span>”
<span style=""> </span>The “TCM principle” (?)<span style=""> </span></p>
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<b style=""><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Figure 1.</span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="">
</span>The Procrustean bed, the Peircean triadomaniac, or both ?</span></p>
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<i><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">f</span></i> = Sign production; <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">
<i>g </i><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><i>= </i>Sign interpretation; <i> </i><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><i>h </i><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><i>=
</i>Correlation or information flow.</span></span></span></span></td>
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<p></p>
According to this 'Peircean/Procrustesian' diagram, both what Terry said and what Xueshan said may be valid. Although their thinking must have been irreducibly triadic (<i>if Peirce is right</i>), Terry may have focused on (or prescinded) Steps
<i>f</i> and <i>h</i>, while Xueshan prescinded Steps <i>g</i> and <i>h,</i> although he did indicate that his discussion was limited to the context of human information and human meaning (i.e., Step f). Or maybe there are many other interpretations possible,
depending on the interpreter of the posts under discussion and the ITR diagram. </div>
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There are an infinite number of examples of algebraic operations: 2+3 = 5, 3 - 1 = 2, 20 x 45 = 900, etc., etc.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">If I say "2 + 3 = 5", someone may say, but you missed </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">"20 x 45 = 900". In </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">other words, n</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">o matter what specific
algebraic operation I may come up with, my opponent can always succeed in </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">coming up with an example I missed. The only solution to such an end-less debate would be to discover the axioms of algebra, at which level, there
cannot be any debate. When I took an </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">abstract algebra course as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, in 1962-5, I could not believe that underlying all the complicated algebraic calculations possible</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">,
there are only 5 </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">axioms (</span><a href="https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-the-5-basic-axioms-of-algebra" class="OWAAutoLink" id="LPlnk244558" previewremoved="true" style="font-size: 12pt;">https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-the-5-basic-axioms-of-algebra</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">)</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">. </span><br>
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So can it be that there are the axioms (either symbolic, diagrammatic, or both) of information science waiting to be discovered, which will end all the heated debates on information, meaning, data, etc. ?</div>
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All the best.</div>
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Sung<br>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000" style="font-size:11pt"><b>From:</b> Fis <fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Terrence W. DEACON <deacon@berkeley.edu><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, February 26, 2018 1:13 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Xueshan Yan<br>
<b>Cc:</b> FIS Group<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Fis] A Paradox</font>
<div> </div>
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<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:12.800000190734863px">It is so easy to get into a muddle mixing technical uses of a term with colloquial uses, and add a dash of philosophy and discipline-specific terminology and it becomes mental quicksand. Terms like
'information' and 'meaning" easily lead us into these sorts of confusions because they have so many context-sensitive and pardigm-specific uses. This is well exhibited in these FIS discusions, and is a common problem in many interdisciplinary discussions.
I have regularly requested that contributors to FIS try to label which paradigm they are using to define their use of the term "information' in these posts, but sometimes, like fish unaware that they are in water, one forgets that there can be alternative
paradigms (such as the one Søren suggests).</span>
<div style="font-size:12.800000190734863px"><br>
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<div style="font-size:12.800000190734863px">So to try and avoid overly technical usage can you be specific about what you intend to denote with these terms.</div>
<div style="font-size:12.800000190734863px">E.g. for the term "information" are you referring to statisitica features intrinsic to the character string with respect to possible alternatives, or what an interpreter might infer that this English sentence refers
to, or whether this reference carries use value or special significance for such an interpreter?</div>
<div style="font-size:12.800000190734863px">And e.g. for the term 'meaning' are you referring to what a semantician would consider its underlying lexical structure, or whether the sentence makes any sense, or refers to anything in the world, or how it might
impact some reader?</div>
<div style="font-size:12.800000190734863px">Depending how you specify your uses your paradox will become irresolvable or dissolve.</div>
<div style="font-size:12.800000190734863px"><br>
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<div style="font-size:12.800000190734863px">— Terry</div>
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<div class="x_gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="x_gmail_quote">On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 1:47 AM, Xueshan Yan <span dir="ltr">
<<a href="mailto:yxs@pku.edu.cn" target="_blank" id="LPlnk861729" previewremoved="true">yxs@pku.edu.cn</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="x_gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex; border-left:1px #ccc solid; padding-left:1ex">
<div lang="ZH-CN">
<div class="x_m_-394822244492846843WordSection1">
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:0cm"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">Dear colleagues,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">In my teaching career of Information Science, I was often puzzled by the following inference, I call it
<b>Paradox of Meaning and Information</b> or <b>Armenia Paradox</b>. In order not to produce unnecessary ambiguity, I state it below and strictly limit our discussion within the human context.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">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 “<b>Earthquake Occurred in Armenia Last Night</b>”:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">Q: What is the
<b>MEANING</b> contained in this sentence?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">A: An earthquake occurred in Armenia last night.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">Q: What is the
<b>INFORMATION</b> contained in this sentence?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">A: An earthquake occurred in Armenia last night.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">Thus we come to the conclusion that
<b>MEANING is equal to INFORMATION</b>, 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.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">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.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">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:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">A:
<b>Human Informatics is a subfield of Human Linguistics</b>.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">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:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">B:
<b>Human Linguistics is a subfield of Human Informatics</b>.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:22.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">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?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:0cm"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:0cm"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">Best wishes,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3.6pt; text-indent:0cm"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif">Xueshan</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:DengXian"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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-- <br>
<div class="x_gmail_signature">Professor Terrence W. Deacon<br>
University of California, Berkeley</div>
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