6.5 Summary

71

their meaning, or semantic value (i.e., their relation to designata); and their effect

(how effectively the received meaning affects the conduct of the recipient in the

desired way), which may be called pragmatics, the study of signs in relation to their

users, or significs, the study of significance. ³³ In other words, content comprises the

signs themselves and their syntax (i.e., the relation between them), their meaning

(semantic value), and their effect on the conduct of the recipient (i.e., does it lead to

action?). A further aspect is that of style, very difficult to quantify. It can be considered

to be determined by word usage frequencies, from which the cybernetic temperature

can be derived (cf. Eq. (7.7)). An indication of style (cf. biomarkers giving an indi-

cation of disease) might be given by the occurrence of certain characteristic words,

including the use of a certain synonym rather than another. If a symbolic sequence

is modelled as a Markov chain, matters of style would be encapsulated in hidden

Markov models (Sect. 11.2).

Meaning may be highly context-dependent; the stronger this dependence, the

more implicit the meaning.

The effect of receipt of information on behaviour can be quantified in terms

of changes to the logical pattern describing the awareness of the recipient to his

Table 6.1 Elaboration of the terms of Eq. 6.13

upper KK

upper II

Structural

Metrical

Logon

Metron

System used to make measurement

Measurement result (unconditional

information)Superscript normal a^a

Physical apparatus

“Missing” information

Knowledge about how to do an experimentSuperscript normal b^b

Logical indeterminacySuperscript normal c^c

Structural equations

Boundary conditions

Genome

Proteome

Genotype

Phenotype

Explicit

Implicit

Semantics

Syntax

Gene

Environment

Nature

Nurture

Necessity

ChanceSuperscript normal d^d (or freedom)

Immanent

Contingent

Kolmogorov

Shannon

Superscript normal a^aThis is macroscopic, remembered information. It is used to create conditional information

(hypotheses and theories)

Superscript normal b^bEmbedded in language, cultural norms etc.

Superscript normal c^cThis in turn may lead to consciousness

Superscript normal d^dOne could also say the amount of selective information that is lacking

33 These three aspects, namely of syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics, are usually considered to

constitute the theory of signs, or semiotics.