Language

[Deleted member 619]

What's the difference between information and message?

The latter is a subset of the former. Information is something that happens in our brains, not in the thing we think of as doing the informing. Information is experience.

Message is an act of will. To send you a message is to manipulate the information in your brain, based on my prior understanding of agreed-upon conventions concerning the meaning of certain configurations of audiovisual cues, etc., but the information is what's happening in your brain.

All messages are information, but not all information is messages.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Your first reply was too soon, I hadn't written it yet so there wasn't a 'below' yet, so I think you looked up. The message is in the arrangement of ACTGs that get's transferred via mRNA, which is 'messenger' RNA There may be disconnects here, I don't know if we have a definition of what constitutes a message. I've said it's information and its transfer, but maybe that's incorrect. What's the difference between information and message?

Ok, thanks.

I was surprised by the strength of your original statement but couldn't find anything to back it up. I appreciate now you mean this more in an exploratory manner.

To answer your question at the end, I would say the answer is 'intent', but then we'd have to look more at what that word would mean!

 

[mechtheist]

I think the real problem here is in the way you're using 'information', which I think you're treating as something intrinsic. Information is in many cases entirely extrinsic. That is, information is something we take away from it, not something it has in and of itself.

Even designed signals heavily loaded with message can give different information depending on who's receiving the information. That's not the real danger, though. The danger in such a treatment of information is that it almost can't help leading to teleological thinking, and there's no need to go there.

DNA is not information. It's a molecule. There is information we can take from it, but that's a qualitatively different statement. Dogshit contains oodles of information, does that mean there's a message in it? That would be silly.

The latter is a subset of the former. Information is something that happens in our brains, not in the thing we think of as doing the informing. Information is experience.

Message is an act of will. To send you a message is to manipulate the information in your brain, based on my prior understanding of agreed-upon conventions concerning the meaning of certain configurations of audiovisual cues, etc., but the information is what's happening in your brain.

All messages are information, but not all information is messages.

Ok, that's what I was uncertain about, a message implies intention, an act of will, so no message in DNA.

"Information is what's happening in your brain" reminds me of v v long and fruitless argument about color being a creation of your brain. What's the connection of this information happening in your brain to quantum information?

 

[surreptitious75]

For me the distinction is between information and knowledge so
Information does not convey meaning whereas knowledge does
To be informed is therefore not the same as to understand whereas to know is to most definitely understand

 

[Led Zeppelin]

Well, for a start there would need to be a system of substitution, where one thing is intended to indicate another 'hidden' meaning. Secondly, codes are designed systems where both the signaler and receiver need to both be able to understand the code and what it truly signifies.

This just doesn't really bear out metaphorically with respect to DNA.

You can say X gene codes for Y protein, but that meaning is meant metaphorically to be like the way a programmer writes out instructions in order to arrive at an output, so not a code in the first sense of the word.

Really, metaphors are useful and help us envision something that's otherwise not immediately in front of us by likening it to something we are more familiar with. But one has to understand the remit of the metaphor - no one's employing a metaphor with the intent of suggesting they're identical. Maps and terrains.

Just wanted to thank you for your answer.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Information does not convey meaning whereas knowledge does

What is information absent meaning?

 

[surreptitious75]

Information may have meaning but may not be understood by the receiver so for example a foreign language which the receiver does not understand
Or it may have absolutely no meaning at all such as for example an empty piece of paper which is still information even though there is nothing to see
And so information does not have to be expressed using any formal language because everything that the brain processes is automatically information
But it will still filter out that which is not relevant because it would be a waste of time and energy having to process all of it beyond a point of necessity

 

[Sparhafoc]

Information may have meaning but may not be understood by the receiver

Then it's not information if it's not understood by the receiver, is it?

Similarly, how can information have no meaning and yet be information?

I don't think your take on this is accurate. Can I suggest reading back a couple of pages as I think some of the earlier posts already addressed these erroneous notions.

 

[surreptitious75]

When you are being chased by a lion through the jungle you are not going to suddenly stop in order appreciate the beauty of the landscape
For that information in that particular context would be detrimental to your survival and so the brain would not process it for that very reason

 

[Sparhafoc]

When you are being chased by a lion through the jungle you are not going to suddenly stop in order appreciate the beauty of the landscape
For that information in that particular context would be detrimental to your survival and so the brain would not process it for that very reason

That's not relevant to anything at all so far discussed and has no logical relevance to anything on the topic so far as I can see.

 

[Sparhafoc]

I think the real problem here is in the way you're using 'information', which I think you're treating as something intrinsic. Information is in many cases entirely extrinsic. That is, information is something we take away from it, not something it has in and of itself.