Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA01436 (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 19:43:17 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 13:45:11 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Information Message-ID: <3B0132E7.28247.2E21EF@localhost> In-reply-to: <20010515091205.A943@ii01.org> References: <3AFFECA3.3869.10F66F@localhost>; from joedees@bellsouth.net on Mon, May 14, 2001 at 02:33:07PM -0500 X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 15 May 2001, at 9:12, Robin Faichney wrote:
> On Mon, May 14, 2001 at 02:33:07PM -0500, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On 14 May 2001, at 17:38, Robin Faichney wrote: > > > Information is
> not a particular thing whose attributes > > cannot conflict with one
> another -- "information", on the other hand, > > is a word that can
> be, and is, used in various ways, some of which are > > quite
> different from each other. Communication theory, as that term > > is
> normally, consensually used, is about the fundamentals of > >
> communication: what's required *before* meaning can be conveyed. > > >
> And that which is being conveyed has SOME meaning to qualify as >
> INFORMation, plus it must be conveyed to someone in order to > INFORM.
>
> Your dogmatism is futile. Look up "information theory" and/or
> "communication theory" in any relevant reference work. For students
> in computing, telecoms and physics, this is first year stuff. You are
> *way* out of line. I didn't particularly like the fact that
> "information" is used in such counter-intuitive ways, when I first
> came across it, but I wasn't so stupid as to think I could change it.
>
Those people who are aware enough of the issues and sine qua
nons (conditions without which) of information and of its linguistic
representation and of the referent to which the term refers, that is,
philosophers, linguistics professionals and genuine information and
communication theorists (who, unlike you, understand that
information, to deserve the appelation, must consist of a
meaningful message symbolized in a code and conveyed from a
sender to a receiver via a carrier) will refuse to be swayed by either
the naive percentage of physicists who practice linguistics and
philosophy without training in those disciplines and who write first-
year tracts ridden with errors for equally naive students (and the
cognoscenti among physicists, such as Heisenberg and Wheeler,
do not make such errors), or by mere technicians such as
telecommunications workers and computer hacks, who more often
than not practice in either the complete absence of theory
whatsoever, or with the implicit (or in your case, explicit)
acceptance of bad theory as somehow being fact.
> --
> 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
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> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
>
>
===============================================================
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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