<div dir="ltr"><p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Dear Mark and Bill,</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I would like to talk about the information later; I am currently seriously
busy with two large projects that are taking up a lot of my time.</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">***</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Dear Mark,</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Thank you for sharing your paper. I found your approach to indicating the
degrees of contingency in decision-making very thought-provoking. The emphasis
on areas of uncertainty, rather than definitive answers, seems to me to be a
key step in designing meaningful human-machine collaboration.</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Your perspective on contingency indicators also got me thinking about a few
possible extensions. One is organizational design: such indicators could be
used not only in learning environments but also in real-time dashboards,
helping leaders decide when to escalate issues to human debate and when
automated processes are sufficient. Another is the parallel with law and
politics, where “gray areas” of interpretation could benefit from such an
indication to highlight where human deliberation is needed. In pedagogy,
indicators of contingency could be embedded in simulations or case studies,
prompting learners to think explicitly about where uncertainty lies and how to
allocate expertise. Finally, your biological analogy is intriguing: if cells
themselves operate with internal and external indicators of contingency, then
perhaps management learning could take the form of a kind of “organizational
metabolism” where uncertainty is not a disadvantage but a vital indicator of
adaptation.</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I will be very interested to continue to follow how these ideas might
connect cybernetics, information theory, and experimental learning design.</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">***</p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Dear Emanuel ,</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I am sorry that you still feel offended that your article was not
accepted for publication in an ITHEA journal. I remember this case because then
as editor-in-chief I had to make the binding decision, as there was a serious
dispute between the author and the reviewers. Below I will remind you of my
opinion, which has not changed to this day. As can be seen from your letter,
the problem with the title that I mention below was fixed by you. Your idea was
published at the next IS4SI summit, so you achieve this goal.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">However, my essential remark regarding the definition of the concept of
information remains valid to this day. Here is my opinion, which was the basis
for my decision not to accept your article.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">1. The title of the article — “The brain is processing information, not
data: Does anybody knows about that?” — is problematic for a scientific
journal. Rhetorical questions and colloquial phrases (“Does anybody knows about
that?”) are not appropriate for academic publishing, where clarity, precision,
and neutrality are expected. The scientific title should indicate the focus or
hypothesis of the study. Here, the title resembles a polemical statement rather
than a research statement, which undermines the credibility of the article.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">2. The central definition – “Information is a linguistic description of
structures observable in a given data set” – is both original and limiting.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">It correctly emphasizes that information is not identical with raw data
and that meaning derives from the structured description. This distinction is
valuable, especially when criticizing Shannon’s purely statistical concept.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">At the same time, this definition has a number of limitations.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The definition reduces information to linguistic description, giving
precedence to textual representation. This is too narrow, since information can
be generated by images, sounds, gestures, and other nonverbal modalities.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Human cognition is not entirely text-based. The left hemisphere of the
brain is indeed associated with language processing, but the right hemisphere
is crucial for visual, auditory, and spatial reasoning. Information should
therefore be understood as encompassing symbolic, figurative, and embodied
forms, not just linguistic ones.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Nonhuman intelligence further challenges the definition. Animals such as
chimpanzees, elephants, and dolphins demonstrate self-awareness (e.g., passing
the mirror test) and solve complex problems without relying on textual or
linguistic systems. Their information processing is based on perception,
memory, and social interaction, but not on verbal language.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">3. By equating information with linguistic description, the article risks
confusing semantic representation with information itself.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Information can be encoded in mathematical models, visual diagrams,
musical notation, or even tacit bodily knowledge.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Limiting information to text ignores multimodal cognition and the
diversity of representational systems across species.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">4. A more comprehensive definition of information must recognize that it
is neither uniquely human nor uniquely linguistic; it is a property of adaptive
systems, biological and artificial.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">While your article raised important concerns about the conflation of
data and information, its framework was weakened by an inappropriate title and
an overly narrow definition.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Insisting on linguistic description excludes vast areas of human and
nonhuman cognition. A richer conception of information would integrate textual,
figurative, and embodied forms, recognizing that meaning is not limited to
words but emerges in multiple representational modalities.</span></p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">***</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Dear Steve and Joseph,</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I would like to comment on autopoiesis and autopoietic systems. But that
would be a relatively long text, which is better left in a separate letter.
Therefore, I will return to these concepts later, as well as to Steve's article
and book, which are interesting and debatable.</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">With respect,</p>

<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Krassimir</p></div><div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br><table style="border-top:1px solid #d3d4de"><tr><td style="width:55px;padding-top:13px"><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QfaOHb3zv9QAsz4KgNDHFYLZrAvJEY-M72aLlQ3C0a370zDIR-VbJnvoXHqFVcFxnpYSniZRDW2d1lX03aE$" target="_blank"><img src="https://s-install.avcdn.net/ipm/preview/icons/icon-envelope-tick-round-orange-animated-no-repeat-v1.gif" alt="" width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;"></a></td><td style="width:470px;padding-top:12px;color:#41424e;font-size:13px;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;line-height:18px">Virus-free.<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QfaOHb3zv9QAsz4KgNDHFYLZrAvJEY-M72aLlQ3C0a370zDIR-VbJnvoXHqFVcFxnpYSniZRDW2d1lX03aE$" target="_blank" style="color:#4453ea">www.avast.com</a></td></tr></table><a href="#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2" width="1" height="1"></a></div>