Message-Id: <199904220922.FAA16879@mail2.lig.bellsouth.net>
From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 04:23:33 -0500
Subject: Re: Information basics 2
Date sent: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 09:00:07 +0100
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Information basics 2
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Joe E. Dees <joedees@bellsouth.net> writes
> >> OK. Of course, you can say that people in some sense "embody" the
> >> information they use, but I'm using that word in a slightly more
> >> restricted sense. Human bodies are physical things, and so embody
> >> objective information. The information we use, though (or which uses
> >> us), which is processed by our nervous systems, is subjective. I
> >> wouldn't say we embody that, because our possession of it (or vice
> >> versa) could be very fleeting.
> >>
> >May I suggest that the distinction you are here seeking is that
> >between presentation, an unmediated perception of the object
> >itself, and representation, or a perception of a sign or symbol which
> >stands for the object (mediates between the object and the
> >subject).
>
> Thanks, but no. There is no "unmediated perception", just information,
> in static form and in streams. Objective information (in absolute
> terms) is wholly uninterpreted, being the form of physical reality:
> matter (static) and energy (streaming). The sort of information we're
> more familiar with, that (e.g.) arrives via telephone wires or ethernet
> cables and is displayed on CRT or LCD screens, is subjective. (In
> absolute terms, though it may be relatively objective compared to some
> other item of subjective information.) It is "carried on the back of"
> objective information, interpreted or decoded from it. The flow of
> electricity is objective, the letters and numbers subjective. Radio
> waves are objective, sound and pictures subjective because they depend
> on a very particular form of processing being applied to the radio
> waves, and without that processing, don't exist. All subjective
> information requires such decoding, while objective information just
> exists as is. The intentional stance is a form of decoding, a way of
> interpreting what would otherwise be just an observation of sheer
> physical behaviour. Memes are subjective, because they are always
> encoded, whether in physical behaviour, books or brains.
> Representations, references, signs, symbols are similarly all
> subjective. What's absolutely objective is only what's actually "out
> there" and physical -- any perception or representation of that, no
> matter how accurate, is in absolute terms subjective. Absolutely
> objective information is primarily a physicist's concept, and we only
> need to consider it when comparing and contrasting with the subjective
> sort, to better understand the latter.
> --
Our difference isn't what it is so much as it is what to call it.
> Robin Faichney
> Visit The Conscious Machine at
> http://www.conscious-machine.com
>
> ===============================================================
> 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