It's the "information in the head" situation. We located it there because we didn't want knowing to be an activity that's smeared across the universe. Too mind-of-Goddish. — frank
I didn't catch the answers to my questions from the first page. When you answered, were you "using language" without communicating? If so, did you really use language?Or Harry's inability to see when a question has been answered... — Banno
What would information without meaning be? Can you give an example?I'd happily posit that information does not have meaning until it does work. — Banno
What would be the cause of the act?I think that a bit trivial. To know something is to act in certain ways. — Banno
Knowledge is semantic information, which may be empirical (based on experience, such as tacit/implicit or declarative/explicit knowledge), or pure (based on metacognition).So ... knowledge is when words are used to put information to work? — Marchesk
The best articulated definition comes from information theory. — Banno
Didn't Shannon not really define the term? — Terrapin Station
OK - I understood Shannons entropy equation as a definition of information, but I may have read too much into that. — Banno
Shannon's equation quantifies information, which he defined as the reduction of uncertainty. — Galuchat
So language is copying something from one mind to another and we're simply disagreeing on the term used for that something. In other words, we agree that something is copied and we arent talking past each other. We are just using different terms? Are we copying information, meaning, knowledge or what? What if someone claims that all three are the same thing?It would depend on the definition of "information" that we're using. That word tends to be used in a lot of different senses--including simply denoting "data," or alternately "knowledge"--all sorts of things; those are just two examples. So I'm never sure what someone has in mind with it unless they specify a definition. — Terrapin Station
Doing things with words, or getting things done with words? Those are two different things. — schopenhauer1
So language is copying something from one mind to another and we're simply disagreeing on the term used for that something. In other words, we agree that something is copied and we arent talking past each other. We are just using different terms? Are we copying information, meaning, knowledge or what? What if someone claims that all three are the same thing?
If none of that is the case then what happens when language is used? What kind of work is done? — Harry Hindu
You still haven't addressed the issue of moving information versus copying it. Can meaning be copied? — Harry Hindu
Per NASA, in the last 35 years, the amount of the earth's surface covered in leaves has increased by about twice the area of Australia. This is due to an increase in atmospheric CO2. — frank
What work does this information have to do in order to become meaningful? — frank
What would information without meaning be? Can you give an example? — Harry Hindu
What happens instead, in a nutshell, is that individuals assign meanings to the observable parts of language--utterances, text marks, symbols, gestures, etc, where the "game" is to do that in a way that makes sense of further linguistic observables in context, as well as other behavior, and where part of that is a game of trying to elicit particular behavior as well as gain approval responses, etc. from others. — Terrapin Station
So you think my suggestions would lead to some form of relativism? — Banno
What work does this information have to do in order to become meaningful?
— frank
Well, it might serve as an example in a philosophical discussion...
Or it might lead to action to reduce carbon emissions. — Banno
I put this, a similar point, to Banno earlier and received no response:
Information is pervasive, not confined to words. Words, if they work, activate informed responses. In ordinary language this is called 'conveying information'; which is a 'movement' metaphor; don't take it literally and the problem dissolves.
Too deflationary of the concerns motivating his thread perhaps? — Janus
It's as though a resident Kantian, after years of involved forum discussion, posted a thread named 'the ethical is categorical'. — csalisbury
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