[lit-ideas] Re: What is information?
- From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:57:01 -0400
"Phil Enns" writes:
: I don't see how information can be discussed without involving
: experience and purposiveness.
Physicists when wondering what happens to the information
associated with the matter that falls into a black hole don't,
I am quite sure, find any reason to discuss experience and
purposiveness. And neither did Claude Shannon we he "invented"
communication theory, where he expressly was not concerned with
why the information was being communicated or what, if anything,
the information meant.
: One provides information to someone for a
: purpose.
That may be, but we receive far more information from the sun
and the moon and raindrops and forest fires than we do from
others. (The information provided by others is often more likely
to be meaningful than that provided by nature, but that doesn't
tell us anything about the nature of information.)
: One can give facts, but they may not matter. But if one gives
: information, isn't there a sense that it matters in some way?
Don't you have it turned around? Aren't fact true propositions?
and doesn't one have to care enough to frame a proposition before
one can have a fact. But pehaps what you mean by a "fact" is
simply things-as-they-are.
Of course, if someone gives someone else some information the
parties to that transaction are likely to think that the
information matters in some way. But that "matters" isn't in
the information, is it? It seems to me that the "matters"
exists only in the parties' heads.
: It may be
: a fact that it is raining outside, but one informs someone that it is
: raining so that they can dress accordingly.
In the sense that I am struggling to find a simple way of describing
what information is, I am quite sure that it has litle or nothing
necessarily to do with "informing" somoen of something.
: A computer may process information, but the computer is functioning
: according to a purpose.
I have no problem with that, but the purpose belongs to the person
programming the computer and doesn't have anything to do with the
information itself.
: If it functions according to the purpose, it is
: processing information.
: If it mis-functions, it is no longer processing
: information.
I don't think that that is correct. Misprocessing is still
processing, and, in any event, even if the computer is no
longer processing information I don't think that has any effect
on the information, _qua_ information.
What distinguishes functioning from mis-functioning is how
: the information is processed.
Perhaps, but that would seem to have nothing to do with the
nature of the information.
: It may be that the word 'information' has an idiosyncratic meaning in
: the environment Peter describes, in which case very few of us, myself
: included, could contribute.
Your remarks are very helpful, and I thank you for them.
But if the meaning of the word "information" as I am using it is
idiosyncratic then few people are going to understand what the
word "information" in the phrase "Information Age" mesnas.
I think that is like water to a fish; it is everywhere and permeates
everything and thus there is no way to recognize its existence.
--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
EMAIL: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
