From Bob Clark (931214.1710 EST)
Martin Taylor (931208 18:30) comments:
What's good about your description is that it centres on the
receiver. ("Correspond exactly with the sender's list" is wrong.
The sender's list is irrelevant to the information gained by the
receiver.)
The information provided by a message (NOT "in" the message) is a
reduction of the receiver's uncertainty about something.
I recognize the use of "in" from previous discussions. I did not use
the phrase, " 'in' the message," anywhere in my recent post.
More important, to me, is the emphasis on the "receiver" that I find
both in Weaver and comments from you and other info people. What has
caught my attention is the _need for_ a receiver: no receiver --> no
message. An electro-mechanical receiver can be built that is capable
of responding selectively to incoming events. But a "designer" was
required, who could think in terms of "information being received."
Without living entities, "information" is meaningless.
A "receiver" may find many forms of message interesting and useful.
I think of items in nature such as meteorological data and the
selection of which wrap to wear in the rain. Information and info
theory are useful here, and in many other situations. But only to a
"receiver."
The case, that I had in mind in my post, recognized that the
connotation of "message" included both a "sender" and a "receiver."
Here the sender has the initiative, and intends to increase the
receiver's information by reducing his (the "receiver's")
uncertainty. Indeed, without prior communication, the sender is only
guessing about the receiver's uncertainty in the first place. Surely
this is a valid description of the situation -- but it doesn't seem
to add much to understanding of PCT.
None of this applies in the absence of living systems.
Perhaps that observation is a major cue: information theory, and
physical theories in general, are all considered "mechanical skills"
-- meaningless in the absence of living systems. They are selected
and controlled by levels related to people.
Is this more "mud in the water," or, hopefully, is the water becoming
potable?
By the way, about dictionaries -- yes, they have their weaknesses.
But I am trying to communicate (most of the time) to non-specialists,
so I try to use generally available words. Since I am the "sender"
of the "messages," I try to guess the "list" the "receiver" is likely
to have available for selection in reducing his uncertainty.
Sometimes it even works fairly well!
Regards, Bob Clark