Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realist Philosophy of Information

["Dave Taylor" <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Jose-Carlos

But it was not AI, it was Algol68 I pointed to as the explicator of meaning.
AI has almost completely missed the boat - of general freedom as against
particular automation.  

The four levels of reference in Algol68, applied to itself, are the events,
things, structures and performance by the computer logic of its programmed
procedures, which in turn may generate new data at each of these levels of
significance.  Before Algol68 - most visibly in Algol60 - the programming
was taken for granted and (as in Humean science) only events and
data-processing objects were declared and therefore recognisable as
variable.  Algol68 introduced definitions in terms of a structural level
which included the precedural structures of programs, leaving structures
referring one way to objects and the other way to corresponding structures
in the performance of the procedures.  The meaning of the events are thus
not only referred to structured objects but interpreted (given meaning) in
terms of what they do to the computer and the computer does with them.  

Bhaskar's original conflation of structures and causal mechanisms is of
course resolved in his Dialectic.  Original though his approach is,
conceptually, he just seems to be getting back to what Christians have
understood all along and for centuries tried to express (with only a
superficial understanding of language and dynamics) in terms of Aristotle's
four causes.  In Christian talk, we represent our meanings in what we do,
but the meaning of what we do must be seen in the context of us and our
"church" (the metaphorical "Mystical Body" referring to the structure of
community at whatever level - be it local, a society or the complete human
race); but ultimately it must also be seen in its total context, God, the
spiritual "computer" whose energy enables us to realise what we try to do or
say.

"No man is an island".  Within a body the cells cooperate, they don't
compete.  Within an ecosystem, objects represent what they do, and compete
as such - as the human equivalent of ideas - in the co-operative context of
vegetables growing, carnivores scavenging and microbes recycling.  The human
race actually having ideas, we don't have to act as the Darwinins would have
us act, like animals; we can compete at the level of ideas on how best to
cooperate.  If you want the meaning as against texts of a philosophy of
information, of "the truth that sets us free", that's it.

Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Jose-Carlos Mariategui
Sent: 14 December 2007 08:48
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realist Philosophy of Information

dear Dave:

Yes, from a CR perspective, I believe you are right in trying to  
understand 'information' in complete abstraction from 'meaning', but  
in that sense starting from Shannon we would need to analyze much part  
of the studies on AI that had been trying for more than 50 years now  
to give a logico-mathematical perspective to meaning.

The issue with Shannon is that I believe, from what I read by him, he  
is then trying to abstract his engineering perspective to more complex  
issues that deal with society and the individual, and that, as in the  
case of many other AI researchers, have failed to give an  
understanding on 'meaning'.

Jose-Carlos

On 14 Dec 2007, at 7:08AM, Dave Taylor wrote:

> Jose
>
> My fundamental point was that if you don't understand the meaning of
> 'information' in complete abstraction from 'meaning', you will not  
> have a
> self-consistent philosophical understanding of it.  I have yet to  
> encounter
> a professional philosopher or social scientist who does (though  
> Bateson's "a
> difference which makes a difference" comes close to it, leaving  
> aside the
> redundancy aspect).  Failure to do so is what has given rise to  
> nihilistic
> post-modern relativism.
>
> Where I can agree with you is that taking the seminal paper out of  
> context
> may not be a good starting point.  One needs to understand Shannon's
> presuppositions as a telephone engineer, and focus not on the  
> mathematics
> but on his model and his motive (to end up with error-correcting  
> logic).
> The purpose of the mathematics is to show how to make unpredictable  
> noise
> experimentally commensurate with intentional information, i.e. by  
> simulating
> signals with processed noise.
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> Jose-Carlos Mariategui
> Sent: 14 December 2007 06:40
> To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realist Philosophy of  
> Information
>
> Dave and David:
>
> I am not quite sure that taking the stance of reading Shannon's
> seminal paper will be a good starting point.  It might be if you take
> into consideration that, as Dave mentioned this is a more engineering-
> based perspective (I like a lot more rather than Shannon/Weaver
> seminal book another article from him: Shannon, C. (1968). Information
> Theory. Claude Elwood Shannon : collected papers. N. J. A. Sloane and
> A. D. Wyner. New York, IEEE Press: 212-213.).  Today there are other
> visions of information theory, more related to the social texture
> without leaving the technological perspective aside.
>
> Some recent books that might be interesting from that arena:
>
> Borgmann, A. (1999). Holding on to reality : the nature of information
> at the turn of the millennium. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
> 	
> Kallinikos, J. (2006). The Consequences of Information: Institutional
> Implications of Technological Change. London, Elgar Publishers.
> 	
> Flusser, V. (2000). Towards a philosophy of photography. London,
> Reaktion Books. (this books does not talk so much about photography as
> it talks about information)
>
> Kittler, F. A. (1997). The World of the Symbolic - A World of the
> Machine. Literature, media, information systems : essays. J. Johnston.
> Amsterdam, GB Arts International: 130-146.
> 	
> I am not sure that Bhaskar writings are useful, perhaps more useful:
> Archer, M. S. (2002). "Realism And The Problem Of Agency." Journal of
> Critical Realism 5(1): 11-20.
> 	
> what are you exactly working on in terms of information research?
> "Information" is a very general concept.
>
> best,
>
> Jose-Carlos Mariategui
> Information Systems and Innovation Group - LSE (London)
>
> On 14 Dec 2007, at 5:33AM, Dave Taylor wrote:
>
>> David
>>
>> I should perhaps have said "the looping four-level [programming]
>> language
>> Algol68" to draw attention to the analogy between an an algorithm
>> [named for
>> Al Khorismi, inventor of the cyclic use of arabic numerals] and a
>> cyclic
>> dialectic.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
>> Dave
>> Taylor
>> Sent: 13 December 2007 23:24
>> To: 'Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List'
>> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realist Philosophy of
>> Information
>>
>> David
>>
>> With respect, you want to go first to the primary sources, C E
>> Shannon's
>> "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" (wherein information was
>> for the
>> first time self-consistently defined, as distinguishable differences
>> in a
>> signal decoded in a receiver, so "redundant" information could be
>> used to
>> detect and correct false signals), and to the decoding of such
>> signals in
>> the logic-based digital computers Shannon invented (first explicated
>> in the
>> four-level [programming] language Algol68. [See Woodward and Bond,
>> "Algol68-R Users Guide"], available on-line).  When you understand
>> those,
>> and how switchable logic circuits performatively express programming
>> information, how logic circuits and error correction feedback logics
>> correspond to deductive and retroductive logic, and how four levels
>> on a
>> linear measure are four phases of a circular measure, you will begin
>> to have
>> the concepts necessary to understand how Bhaskar's dialectical model
>> of the
>> scientific interpretation of reality is a particular case of the
>> interpretation of information.  Whether Bhaskar or any other  
>> published
>> Critical Realists have realised this well enough to articulate it
>> seems very
>> unlikely.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
>> David
>> Opderbeck
>> Sent: 13 December 2007 20:21
>> To: critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realist Philosophy of  
>> Information
>>
>> I'm wondering if anyone could point me to sources concerning a
>> critical
>> realist account of "information" and any connections to the field of
>> the
>> philosophy of information.  Thanks.
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