Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA23722 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 17 Jan 2001 15:11:27 GMT Message-Id: <200101171508.KAA29482@mail0.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 09:14:30 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: RE: DNA Culture .... Trivia? In-reply-to: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745BE0@inchna.stir.ac.uk> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: DNA Culture .... Trivia?
Date sent: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 14:45:34 -0000
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> <Sure it's information, but more than that, it is meaningful
> > information; its meaning (what it is) corresponds with its utility
> > (what it does). Information bereft of meaning could not establish
> > and exploit a niche in the meaningful gestalt which is its cognitive
> > environment. it must be assimilated to and assimilate, and
> > accommodate itself to and accommodate, that environment, that is
> > to say, that it must at one and the same time adapt itself to that
> > environment and adapt that environment to itself. Since the
> > informational environment is a meaningful one, so must our entity
> > be in order to effect this assimilative/accommodative adaptation.>
> >
> >
> Isn't the phrase 'meaningful information' tautological?
>
> Or, in other words, what kind of information could be bereft of
> meaning?
>
> Vincent
>
There is such a thing; ordered sequences do not have to mean
anything. Just ask Robin faichnet, or read THE MATHEMATICAL
THEORY OF INFORMATION by Shannon and Weaver. In fact,
something is not information only when it is random. This means
that it has no discernible pattern that can be symbolized in some
sort of shorthand; in other words, it is incompressible. The
sequence 001001001001001001001001001001001001001001001...
can be symbolized, and thus compressed, by the statement
"reiterate sequence 001 ad infinitum", but what meaning does it
have?
>
>
>
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>
>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
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