Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA16586 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 25 Jun 2001 12:33:27 +0100 Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 12:13:01 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: The Guardian on Information Message-ID: <20010625121301.C1096@ii01.org> References: <20010624194415.AAA3496@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.176]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.15i In-Reply-To: <20010624194415.AAA3496@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.176]>; from wade_smith@harvard.edu on Sun, Jun 24, 2001 at 03:44:13PM -0400 From: Robin Faichney <robin@ii01.org> X-RBL-Warning: (orbs.dorkslayers.com) 195.8.69.94 is listed by dorkslayers.com Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Sun, Jun 24, 2001 at 03:44:13PM -0400, Wade T.Smith wrote:
> Hi Robin Faichney -
>
> >(I.e. a
> >practically universal consensus is reached that treating physical
> >structure as information is more useful than not.)
>
> Yeah, I totally am with you on the not-understanding front, but, hmmm,
> treating things as being more useful than not is only a handy tool
> towards understanding, not a property of what is being studied,
> necessarily.
>
> Certainly the structure's structure is informative....
>
> But I'm totally with Joe when he says one needs an entity that is being
> informed, and, I can't see any other entity being informed than, well,
> homo sapiens sapiens.
That's just terminological conservatism. Maybe it would have been better
if we said things like "a bit is the basic unit of data" rather than "a
bit is the basic unit of information", but the latter meme is extremely
well established now, and the bit concept is essential not just
in computation and communication theory, but also thermodynamics.
This ("information" as opp. "data") is a memetic fact, and I'd advise
you to get used to it, because otherwise, for the sake of your blood
pressure, you are going to have to ignore great swathes of science,
in which great strides are being taken.
> And it's sometimes dangerous sharing jargons, or to settle with what is
> convenient.
Dangers are normally considered to be offset by advantages, but you never
seem to consider the latter. Like I said, terminological conservatism.
-- Robin Faichney Inside Information -- http://www.ii01.org -- "a prime source of meta-memes"=============================================================== 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jun 25 2001 - 12:37:25 BST