4.0271 Information; Recursive Fiction (2/29)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Wed, 11 Jul 90 16:49:12 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0271. Wednesday, 11 Jul 1990.


(1) Date: Wednesday, 11 July 1990 9:06am CST (19 lines)
From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET
Subject: 4.0261 Clearing Houses for Info

(2) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 14:50:32 BST (10 lines)
From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk
Subject: Re: [4.0253 Recursive Fiction]

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 11 July 1990 9:06am CST
From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET
Subject: 4.0261 Clearing Houses for Info

Gregory Bateson defines information as the news of difference (elsewhere
he says that information is difference that makes a difference), and that
perception of difference is always limited by a threshold. (That's in
Mind and Nature.) The example I use in talking to students is the
chameleon, which is biologically compelled to try to avoid *becoming*
information: its goal is to bring the difference between its skin color
and the surrounding environment below the perceptual threshold of its
predators, and when it succeeds it is not information. But when the
environment changes faster than it can change in response, then it does
become information-- or, to put it differently, food. For thought?
Maybe. We try to create information where none is apparent: we so
construct the contexts, the environments, as to make visible to ourselves
and our readers the things we've been lucky enough to see (or unlucky
enough to see even if we'd prefer not to).
John Slatin
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------20----
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 14:50:32 BST
From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk
Subject: Re: [4.0253 Recursive Fiction (1/211)]

Sorry Alan, your recursive story is not the first (and probably not
the last). See the one in D Hofstadter's Goedel, Escher Bach
in which some characters read a story about themselves reading a
story about themselves reading...

Douglas de Lacey.