All information is conceptual

Possible objection no 4

Semiotic information is not conceptual

To further demonstrate the conceptual nature of semiotic information I would like to extend our previous thought experiment that demonstrated how semiosis works;

1. Turn anticlockwise to undo
2. Gire en sentido antihorario para deshacer

As previously noted these two lines of text contain the exact same instruction in two different languages, English and Spanish.

Imagine if we were to add to these two lines, an additional 100 extra lines of text, again each containing the exact same instruction but in 100 separate languages. We might have such languages as Mandarin, Arabic and Hebrew, each with a very different style of text and alphabet.

When native speakers of each of these languages read these instructions, they will use very different protocols and conventions to extract the meaning from these strings of text. They would even form different words in their minds as they read through this simple clear instruction.

In each of these cases, the route of transmission from the original authors desire to instruct the reader, through a semiotic process to a recipient, is very different. The Shannon information in each line of text is also very different.

However all readers would all carry out the exact same actions as they followed the instruction. Despite the differences in the physical form, the concept transmitted by each of those 100 lines of text is exactly the same.

The information transmitted here is not mere words, it is and idea, a solution, a concept. In fact a concept is the only thing semiosis is capable of transmitting.

Another useful question we could ask is;

How is information formed?

Another thought experiment;

If we were to teleport ourselves to a galaxy far far away where no intelligent life existed, would we find information?

The answer is no. What we would find would be phenomena... Lots and lots of phenomena.

At the point where that phenomena is measured, quantified or analysed by an intelligent mind a concept if formed. At the point where those concepts are stored or transmitted via a semiotic process in such a way as to make the product of such analysis accessible to others, information is formed.

It is this intellectual deductive process that analyses phenomena, creates a concept and subsequently forms information. So again, all information is merely the semiotic expression of a previously existing concept.

Without the intellectual deductive process information cannot exist, all you have is raw phenomena.

BioSemiosis.net

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