Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA00388 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 15 May 2001 13:58:49 +0100 Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 08:51:13 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Information Message-ID: <20010515085113.B474@ii01.org> References: <20010512183347.AAA26657@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.72]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.15i In-Reply-To: <20010512183347.AAA26657@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.72]>; from wade_smith@harvard.edu on Sat, May 12, 2001 at 02:33:48PM -0400 From: Robin Faichney <robin@ii01.org> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Sat, May 12, 2001 at 02:33:48PM -0400, Wade T.Smith wrote:
> Hi Robin Faichney -
>
> >The "best" anything, unless
> >what's "better" is entirely explicit and agreed, is about valuation,
> >a matter of opinion. If you don't agree, let's hear your case.
>
> Look, I totally agree that _anything_ that _anyone_ has _ever_ said at
> _any_ time is _fiction_- and thus opinion is a great deal of it, and that
> the best thing that anyone could ever say would also be open to opinion,
> but the _best way to use a word_ ain't, and never was, a matter of
> _opinion_. It has always and shall ever more remain, a matter of
> consensus.
I belong to a creative writing group that meets weekly, and almost
every week, I'd say, there's at least one example of a word that is used
unusually, where that use conveys exactly what the writer intended.
However, I'm not going to pursue this point, because to do so would
imply that my use of "information" is non-consensual, which it is not.
I use the word in a number of ways, almost all of which are perfectly
consensual within the relevant context, and only one of which is a slight
neologism, which is a very clear extension of a well-established usage,
and which carries a qualifier: "physical information".
-- Robin Faichney Get your Meta-Information from http://www.ii01.org (CAUTION: contains philosophy, may cause heads to spin)=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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