Message-Id: <v03102801b19db8f7fda4@[194.109.13.153]>
In-Reply-To: <+v26BEAIqnc1Ew4s@faichney.demon.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 17:06:46 +0200
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Ton Maas <tonmaas@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: Memes as Maps
Robin Faichney wrote:
>This is good, but even better, I think, is this: information is form,
>and form is information. There are good linguistic (as well as other)
>reasons for this, as explained at http://www.faichney.org/synthesis/
>under "Information and Reality". The implications of this way of
>thinking for memetics are tackled under "Information and Life", but as
>admitted there, this is not yet fully developed. ("Information and
>Reality" isn't quite right yet either -- I'll leave the detailing of its
>imperfections as an exercise for the reader! :-)
I keep having a hard time swallowing "essentialist" (as opposed to
relational) definitions of information. For me, information is inseparable
from the process of informing. Long before the coming of modern ecological
and context theory (i.e. Bateson and Wilden), Bishop Berkely had the wisdom
to question the unperceived falling of a tree in the forest. I still think
that Bateson defined information in the most clear way possible, as "the
difference which makes a difference".
Ton
===============================================================
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