From: VirgilT7@aol.com
Date: Mon Jun 29 1998 - 01:02:10 MDT
In a message dated 6/29/98 2:04:54 AM Eastern Daylight Time, johnkc@well.com
writes:
<<
No reason both things couldn't be true, information and facts are connected,
of course you'll need a language to connect the two, but that doesn't mean
you'll need a human, consciousness or even intelligence to do it. Consider
the Genetic code, the nucleotide triplet CAU in messenger RNA is information
and it means something, the next amino acid in a protein a cell is making
should be histidine. I grant you this is only true in the context (language)
of life as it just happen to develop on the planet Earth, the Genetic code is
as arbitrary as any human language. >>
I actually think that consciousness is necessary for an actual language to
properly exist. We often tend to speak of one computer communicating with
another, or DNA communicating with cells via RNA. But this is all just
metaphor. One computer no more communicates with another than the lightning
communicates with a tree when it cuts it in half. Both instances merely
involve cause and effect, without any understanding. To have a language one
must have MEANING and two or more entities who can understand that meaning.
And therefore one must have consciousness.
I think that we're using "information" differently here though.
Andrew
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