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Thanks everyone, all very stimulating!<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 25/04/18 03:47, Burgin, Mark wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:01b54d46-10f0-efd1-093f-fca54dba7147@math.ucla.edu"><span
style="font-family:"Courier New"">Any reasonable
person will tell that the textbook contains knowledge </span></blockquote>
This is a metaphor. It is helpful in managing the complex
relationships of humans with media, but will lead us into tangles if
we believe that it is anything more.<br>
<br>
<br>
Mark Johnson, thinking about music followed up with a pertinent
question<br>
<blockquote type="cite">What is the relation of the score to what
occurs?</blockquote>
<br>
I'd say that both the book and the score are most usefully seen not
as the transfer of information, but as coordination in relation to
an artifact.<br>
<br>
<br>
Arturo warned against anthropomorphism, and said<br>
<blockquote type="cite">I start to sweat. ... my body (without the
need of my mind!) extracts a termic information from its
surrounding environment </blockquote>
As Lou says, "Information in the sense that you indicate is pattern
that is independent of the particular substrate on which it is
‘carried’." I sweat because of the interaction between my body and
its environment, through of a cascade of cellular interactions,
mediated by chemical processes. We can describe these chemical
processes as patterns, and from those descriptions learn something
about physiology. But that does not mean that the processes
themselves are composed of pattern or of information.<br>
<br>
To my mind 'extraction' of information is a metaphor (and from
Lakoff's perspective it is therefore anthropomorphic). Does the body
send out emissaries to mine the information? Of course Arturo does
not believe that, and I'm not trying to score cheap points here. I
just want to point out that language is not a neutral tool when we
are discussing information. Lou's "in the sense that you indicate"
correctly alerts us to the fact that there is more than one meaning
to the word 'information', and implies a warning that we will talk
past each other unless we are willing to clarify the distinctions we
are making when we use the word. There is a long and valuable
intellectual tradition that uses the word information in terms of
entropy, but that is not the only way that the word is used.<br>
<br>
Best<br>
Dai<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
-----------------------------------------
Professor David (Dai) Griffiths
Professor of Education
School of Education and Psychology
The University of Bolton
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Office: M106
SKYPE: daigriffiths
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email
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