Depuis une vingtaine d'années, l'oeuvre de C. E. Shannon semble être l'objet d'un relatif oubli dans l'ensemble disciplinaire nommé en France « Sciences de l'information et de la communication ». Cet article essaie d'en saisir les raisons, après en avoir rappelé le succès. Il plaide pour une relecture épistémologique du fameux schéma de la mesure d'information de Shannon. C'est ainsi que le « nombre de bits », terme à peu près incompréhensible du côté des sciences humaines, peut se (...) voir donner un sens et être appréhendé comme le nombre de questions pour identifier un objet. Ceci permet alors de considérer que l'élaboration shannonienne pourrait constituer un matériau fondamental pour la cyberculture, entendue comme réflexion sur notre rapport informationnel au monde physique et social.For twenty years, the work of CE Shannon seems to be the subject of a relatively neglected in all disciplinary named in France "Information Science and Communication." This article tries to understand the reasons, after having recalled the success. He argues for a reinterpretation of the famous epistemological schema information measure of Shannon. Thus the "number of bits", a term almost incomprehensible side humanities, can be given a meaning and be understood as the number of questions to identify an object. This then allows to consider the development shannonienne could be a fundamental material for cyberculture, understood as a reflection of our informational report to physical and social world. (shrink)

The following study departs from the lecture, entitled “Creative thinking”, delivered by Claude Shannon in 1952 at the Bell Laboratories. This paper includes an interpretive and critical account of the necessary conditions, as well as the desirable procedures, which must be satisfied in the scientific and technological invention, within the frame of the so-called scientist’s spontaneous philosophy.

A typescript by Claude Shannon, ‘Theorems on statistical sequences’, is examined to shed light on the development of information theory. In particular, it appears that Shannon was still working out the mathematical details of his theory in the spring of 1948, just before he published ‘A mathematical theory of communication’. This is contrasted with evidence from a declassified cryptography report that Shannon’s theory was intuitively worked out in its essentials by the time he filed the report (...) in 1945. Previous interviews with Shannon, and a recent interview with a colleague of his, Brockway McMillan, confirm this picture.Keywords: History of science; History of technology; Claude Shannon; Information theory; Ergodic theory; Electrical engineering. (shrink)

There are many approaches to human communication that deal with its multiple aspects at various levels of abstraction and delimit what has become the field of information and communication sciences. Telegraphic communication and orchestral communication are two terms introduced by Y. Winkin to contrast the Shannonian (“telegraphic”) and Batesonian (“orchestral”) theories of communication. The Batesonian theory of information, communication and learning remains qualitative. This chapter presents the pioneering model presented by the engineer Claude Shannon at the end of (...) the 1940s and that proposed by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson and his successors from the 1970s onwards. G. Bateson argues that any continuous learning process involves at least two levels: primary learning, where the subject receives simple information in a given context and responds conditionally to it, and deutero‐learning, where the subject shows an increasing ability to treat given contexts as if they were to be expected in their universe. (shrink)

I respond herein to reviews of my recent book by Ann Pederson and Stuart Kurtz. With respect to Pederson's concerns, a constructive theology formulated from the ideas of communication theory need not necessarily neglect pressing historical issues of the poor and powerless. The potential for such relevance remains strong. This is true as well for the application of the system to particular myths and rituals. Also, while I speak positively of computers as instruments of disclosure and the theories upon with (...) they are based as resources for theological construction, this should not be construed as an endorsement of just any application of information technology in a world that tends to distort all good things. With respect to Kurtz's concerns, while thermodynamics plays a role in discussions of the primordial chaos, notions from communication theory are far more central. Also, the use of the language of the theory for theology does not necessarily require theological relevance for all of Claude Shannon's technical conclusions. My uses of infinity are taken from traditional theology and analytic geometry rather than from pure mathematics, although fruitful development along those lines is entirely possible. Pederson and Kurtz are generous with both their praise and concerns. The praise will encourage me to further this project along lines provided by the concerns. (shrink)

Several logical puzzles, riddles and problems are defined based on the notion of games in informative contexts. Hintikka argues that epistemology or the theory of knowledge must be considered from the notion of information. So, knowledge cannot just be based on the notions of belief and justification. The present proposal will focus on the logical structure of information, and not only on the quantification of information as suggested by Claude A. Shannon. In many cases, the information bits, although (...) seemingly or factually contradictory, are quite relevant. The paraconsistent systems of logic offer a formalization of reasoning that can support certain contradictions. The well-known “Bar-Hillel–Carnap Paradox” causes embarrassment when it concludes that the informational content of a contradiction would be maximum, opposing the traditional notion that the semantic information must be true, and that contradictions are necessarily false. (shrink)

The primordial chaos of Genesis 1 may be understood as the Pandemonium Tremendum (or PT), the infinite field of variety or abundance within God. The concept of variety is taken from Claude Shannon's theory of communication. Especially significant is Shannon's notion that communication is the limitation of variety through decision processes. In one model of the divine life suggested by the theory, the PT is the boundless source of potential reaped by an agential God in the act (...) of creation as a communication process. Other models for creation include the PT in a biased mode and creatures themselves as decision agents. (shrink)

Despite explicit warnings from Shannon to tread carefully when applying Information Theory to fields for which it was not designed, contemporary neuroscientists adopting the framework of Information Theory have fallen right into the traps Shannon and others cautioned against. What makes the neuroscientist more than anyone prone to fall prey to confusion is that neuroscience looks back on a tradition—which long predates Shannon—in which information and related semantic communication notions (message, codes) are invoked as central explanatory posits. (...) In the first part of this paper, I shall give a selective historical overview of this tradition, which runs via Aristotle over Descartes to the groundbreaking work of the early nerve physiologists. At the same time, I will show how the history of explaining brain activity in semantic communication terms is characterised by a process of de-metaphorisation. Next, I will show how semantic notions, including semantic information, are still routinely relied upon within contemporary information theoretic approaches to the brain, despite the fact that Shannon deemed meaning irrelevant for his theory. There are, then, two very different notions of information at work within one and the same scientific discipline. I will demonstrate how these two notions get as a rule tangled up here. Next, I will show how invoking semantic-intentional information at the level of the brain raises two specific problems: first, notions that aim to explain by invoking semantic content or meaning, like the pre-theoretical notion of information, in principle resist integration within causal-mechanistic explanations; second, such notions are part of a mode of explanation which logically presupposes a cognitive agent. As I will also show, however, we indeed find that the neuroscientist has embraced the habit of treating neurons as cognitive agents, attributing to them capacities we would normally only attribute to persons. (shrink)

ArgumentIn this comparative historical analysis, we will analyze the intellectual tendency that emerged between 1946 and 1956 to take advantage of the popularity of communication theory to develop a kind of informational epistemology of statistical mechanics. We will argue that this tendency results from a historical confluence in the early 1950s of certain theoretical claims of the so-called English School of Information Theory, championed by authors such as Gabor (1956) or MacKay (1969), and from the attempt to extend the profound (...) success of Shannon’s ([1948] 1993) technical theory of sign transmission to the field of statistical thermal physics. As a paradigmatic example of this tendency, we will evaluate the intellectual work of Léon Brillouin (1956), who, in the mid-fifties, developed an information theoretical approach to statistical mechanical physics based on a concept of information linked to the knowledge of the observer. (shrink)

Prominent views about representation share a premise: that mathematical communication theory is blind to representational content. Here I challenge that premise by rejecting two common misconceptions: that Claude Shannon said that the meanings of signals are irrelevant for communication theory (he didn't and they aren't), and that since correlational measures can't distinguish representations from natural signs, communication theory can't distinguish them either (the premise is true but the conclusion is false; no valid argument can link them).

This paper explores what may be happening with information and also with happening itself: those versions of the event, of historicizing, deemed suitable to interrogating information. It pairs Claude Shannon’s foundational work on information theory with Martin Heidegger’s meditation on technology (and his evolving understanding of history), investigating each in light of the other. For Heidegger, the question concerning technology does not primarily concern an invention or tool, but a mode of revealing or truth. Similarly, Shannon’s invention (...) is not a device, but a new theory, a new way of viewing all media. Heidegger’s take on technology and Shannon’s theorization of information both ultimately rely, however, on events (of communicating and of appropriation, Ereignis, respectively). This permits, by way of conclusion, questioning how our own talk and thinking stand in information’s context, as well as our and Heidegger’s understanding of epochs and ages themselves. (shrink)

This book presents an attempt to develop a theory of knowledge and a philosophy of mind using ideas derived from the mathematical theory of communication developed by Claude Shannon. Information is seen as an objective commodity defined by the dependency relations between distinct events. Knowledge is then analyzed as information caused belief. Perception is the delivery of information in analog form for conceptual utilization by cognitive mechanisms. The final chapters attempt to develop a theory of meaning by viewing (...) meaning as a certain kind of information-carrying role. (shrink)

Biologists rely heavily on the language of information, coding, and transmission that is commonplace in the field of information theory developed by Claude Shannon, but there is open debate about whether such language is anything more than facile metaphor. Philosophers of biology have argued that when biologists talk about information in genes and in evolution, they are not talking about the sort of information that Shannon’s theory addresses. First, philosophers have suggested that Shannon’s theory is only (...) useful for developing a shallow notion of correlation, the so-called causal sense of information. Second, they typically argue that in genetics and evolutionary biology, information language is used in a semantic sense, whereas semantics are deliberately omitted from Shannon’s theory. Neither critique is well-founded. Here we propose an alternative to the causal and semantic senses of information: a transmission sense of information, in which an object X conveys information if the function of X is to reduce, by virtue of its sequence properties, uncertainty on the part of an agent who observes X. The transmission sense not only captures much of what biologists intend when they talk about information in genes, but also brings Shannon’s theory back to the fore. By taking the viewpoint of a communications engineer and focusing on the decision problem of how information is to be packaged for transport, this approach resolves several problems that have plagued the information concept in biology, and highlights a number of important features of the way that information is encoded, stored, and transmitted as genetic sequence. (shrink)

William of Ockham (c.1287-1347) is known to be one of the major figures of the late Middle Ages. The scope and significance of his doctrine of human thought, however, has been a controversial issue among scholars in the last decade, and this book presents a full discussion of recent developments. Claude Panaccio proposes a richly documented and entirely original reinterpretation of Ockham's theory of concepts as a coherent blend of representationalism, conceptual atomism, and non reductionist nominalism, stressing in the (...) process its special interest for current discussions in philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences. (shrink)

[fr] Deux chaînes d’affiliation (silsila) d’un genre spécifique font leur apparition dans le monde musulman, à la toute fin du VI/XIIe siècle, en Orient (Mésopotamie) d’une part et en Occident (Maroc), d’autre part: l’une désignée dans les sources sous le label de silsilat al-muṣāfaḥa, l’autre sous celui de silsilat al-mushābaka. Répertoriées, le plus souvent, dans les ouvrages relevant de la littérature prosopographique au sens large, les « chaînes » en question, qui se sont rapidement disséminées à travers tout le dār (...) al-islām, se rapportent à un rituel spécifique perpétuant, de génération en génération, un contact physique avec le Prophète. Largement répandues dans le milieu des oulémas, elles sont assimilées, à l’époque ottomane, à des ḥadīths musalsalāt, des « traditions enchaînées ». (shrink)

This article uses the work of Friedrich Kittler to address the ways in which media technologies underpin and structure the basis of ‘human’ existence and understanding. Kittler’s ‘media materialism’ is explored through four main influences: the information theory of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, the media analysis of Marshall McLuhan, the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault’s work on power and discourse. These figures are used, in turn, to draw into question the materiality of information technology, (...) and, following this, to develop a post-human approach to media analysis. The final section of this article considers the challenges such an approach poses to the humanistic bias of mainstream sociology and media studies. (shrink)

This paper traces the application of information theory to philosophical problems of mind and meaning from the earliest days of the creation of the mathematical theory of communication. The use of information theory to understand purposive behavior, learning, pattern recognition, and more marked the beginning of the naturalization of mind and meaning. From the inception of information theory, Wiener, Turing, and others began trying to show how to make a mind from informational and computational materials. Over the last 50 years, (...) many philosophers saw different aspects of the naturalization of the mind, though few saw at once all of the pieces of the puzzle that we now know. Starting with Norbert Wiener himself, philosophers and information theorists used concepts from information theory to understand cognition. This paper provides a window on the historical sequence of contributions made to the overall project of naturalizing the mind by philosophers from Shannon, Wiener, and MacKay, to Dennett, Sayre, Dretske, Fodor, and Perry, among others. At some time between 1928 and 1948, American engineers and mathematicians began to talk about `Theory of Information' and `Information Theory,' understanding by these terms approximately and vaguely a theory for which Hartley's `amount of information' is a basic concept. I have been unable to find out when and by whom these names were first used. Hartley himself does not use them nor does he employ the term `Theory of Transmission of Information,' from which the two other shorter terms presumably were derived. It seems that Norbert Wiener and Claude Shannon were using them in the Mid-Forties. (shrink)

Although there has long been a division in studies of consciousness between a focus on neuronal processes or conversely an emphasis on the ruminations of a conscious self, the long-standing split between mechanism and meaning within the brain was mirrored by a split without, between information as a technical term and the meanings that messages are commonly thought to convey. How to heal this breach has posed formidable problems to researchers. Working through the history of cybernetics, one of the historical (...) sites where Claude Shannon’s information theory quickly became received doctrine, we argue that the cybernetic program as it developed through second-order cybernetics and autopoietic theory remains incomplete. In this article, we return to fundamental questions about pattern and noise, context and meaning, to forge connections between consciousness, narrative and media. The thrust of our project is to reintroduce context and narrative as crucial factors in the processes of meaning-making. The project proceeds along two fronts: advancing a theoretical framework within which context plays its properly central role; and demonstrating the importance of context by analyzing two fictions, Stanislaw Lem’s His Master’s Voice and Joseph McElroy’s Plus, in which context has been deformed by being wrenched away from normal human environments, with radical consequences for processes of meaning-making. (shrink)

El presente artículo busca ofrecer un análisis conceptual de la noción de información, a partir del modo en que es definida por las teorías formales de Claude Shannon y de Benjamin Schumacher. Contra la postura según la cual existen dos tipos de información de naturalezas diferentes, una información clásica y una información cuántica, aquí argumentamos que no hay razones suficientes para sostener la existencia de la información cuántica como un nuevo tipo sustancialmente distinto de información. Afirmamos así que (...) existe un único tipo de información que puede ser codificado de diversas maneras, en particular, mediante sistemas clásicos o sistemas cuánticos. Esta posición nos conducirá a concebir un concepto unificado y abstracto de información, en un contexto donde la teoría de Shannon resulta neutral e independiente de las teorías físicas utilizadas para describir las partes involucradas en el proceso de transmitir información, y la teoría de Schumacher no define un nuevo tipo de entidad informacional, sino una manera alternativa de codificar la información mediante estados cuánticos. The aim of this article is to offer a conceptual analysis of the notion of information, on the basis of the way in which it is defined by the theories of Claude Shannon and of Benjamin Schumacher. Against the position according to which there are two kinds of information of different natures, a classical information and a quantum information, here we argue that there are not sufficient reasons to maintain the existence of quantum information as a new and substantially different kind of information. So we claim that there is only one kind of information, which can be encoded in different ways, in particular, by means of classical or quantum systems. This position will lead us to conceive an unified and abstract concept of information in a context where Shannon's theory is neutral and independent from the physical theories used to describe the stages involved in the process of transmitting information, and Schumacher's theory does not define a new kind of informational entity, but a alternative way of coding information by means of quantum states. (shrink)

A brief personal history is given about how information theory can be applied to binding sites of genetic control molecules on nucleic acids. The primary example used is ribosome binding sites in Escherichia coli. Once the sites are aligned, the information needed to describe the sites can be computed using Claude Shannon’s method. This is displayed by a computer graphic called a sequence logo. The logo represents an average binding site, and the mathematics easily allows one to determine (...) the components of this average. That is, given a set of binding sites, the information for individual binding sites can also be computed. One can go further and predict the information of sites that are not in the original data set. Information theory also allows one to model the flexibility of ribosome binding sites, and this led us to a simple model for ribosome translational initiation in which the molecular components fit together only when the ribosome is at a good ribosome binding site. Since information theory is general, the same mathematics applies to human splice junctions, where we can predict the effect of sequence changes that cause human genetic diseases and cancer. The second example given is the Pribnow “box,” which, when viewed by the information theory method, reveals a mechanism for initiation of both transcription and DNA replication. Replication, transcription, splicing, and translation into protein represent the central dogma, so these examples show how molecular information theory is contributing to our knowledge of basic biology. (shrink)

The information age can be dated to the work of Norbert Wiener and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. Their work on cybernetics and information theory, and many subsequent developments, had a profound influence on reshaping the field of psychology from what it was prior to the 1950s. Contemporaneously, advances also occurred in experimental design and inferential statistical testing stemming from the work of Ronald Fisher, Jerzy Neyman, and Egon Pearson. These interdisciplinary advances from outside of psychology provided the (...) conceptual and methodological tools for what is often called the cognitive revolution but is more accurately described as the information-processing revolution. Cybernetics set the stage with the idea that everything ranging from neurophysiological mechanisms to societal activities can be modeled as structured control systems with feedforward and feedback loops. Information theory offered a way to quantify entropy and information, and promoted theorizing in terms of information flow. Statistical theory provided means for making scientific inferences from the results of controlled experiments and for conceptualizing human decision making. With those three pillars, a cognitive psychology adapted to the information age evolved. The growth of technology in the information age has resulted in human lives being increasingly interweaved with the cyber environment, making cognitive psychology an essential part of interdisciplinary research on such interweaving. Continued engagement in interdisciplinary research at the forefront of technology development provides a chance for psychologists not only to refine their theories but also to play a major role in the advent of a new age of science. (shrink)

In the last decade, we have observed a continuous increase of interest in eye movement research. According to a recent investigation, eye movements are discussed in over one million publications. The number of publications with eye movement in the title or abstract has been steadily increasing over the years, with over 1,200 papers published alone in 2013. The last decade has also witnessed the emergence of many new sub-disciplines in the field of neuroscience and cognition - one of them is (...) neuroaesthetics, which refers to the [neuro-]science of aesthetic perception of art.The title and contents of our book have been inspired by a very influential research article. It is one of the most cited scientific papers of all time, published in 1959 by a team of neurophysiologists and engineers, Lettvin, McCulloch and Pitts who are considered to be the founders of modern cybernetics. Their article, "What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain," refers to the role of internal cortical models in the communication or interfacing of the information in the outside world with the practical contextual task of the viewer. It shows how eye movements are the modality of this communication. The same duality between eye movements and internal models plays a fundamental role in humans. When we look, for example, at art, it explains those neurological processes involved in neuroaesthetics. Our book undertakes this innovative approach to neuroaesthetics. It explains this duality and discusses the communication between the artist and the viewer's aesthetic perception. It is structured into five chapters.Chapter One discusses the neurology of aesthetics, the idea of art as a form of communication, and explains perception as an active matching between a "top" (the viewer's mind) and a "down" (the viewer's sensorial machinery). It goes deep into the philosophical quandary of what beauty is in terms of art. Chapter Two is about eye movements and the scanpath theory of vision perception. It discusses the role of visual attention for controlling active vision, the meaning of mental binding and the analysis of eye movements as the key to understanding aesthetic processes. Chapter Three introduces Claude Shannon's information theory using it as a matrix into which to embed the top down active vision scanpath theory. The authors explain the main concept of neuroaesthetics as a form of communication mediated by the sequence of eye fixations. Chapter Four discusses art critique: The role of the viewer's training and expectation, the dilemma of the aesthetics of art versus non-art and how all of this affects the viewing mode. Finally, Chapter Five treats the intimacy of the artistic process, showing the unique implementation of the communicative experience between the artist and the viewer - the relation between a pictorial representation defined by the artist and modes of AWE generated in the viewer during active looking. (shrink)

Le développement est devenu une préoccupation majeure depuis un demi-siècle. L'idée dominante - confiant à l'État l'impulsion décisive et à la nation une souveraineté ombrageuse - a basculé au profit de la loi du marché et de l'ouverture internationale. Néo-keynésienne ou néo-classique, l'analyse du développement a reçu quatre critiques majeures tenant à la causalité, au processus, à la rationalité et au fonctionnement. Les limites d'une action qui laisse les deux tiers de l'humanité en marge du processus, suscitent l'émergence de nouveaux (...) critères d'équité, de gouvernance, d'éthique ou d'écologie. Les atouts de la communauté francophone s'inscrivent dans une connaissance empirique de cette diversité, elle transparaît dans ses approches universitaites, mais elle manque encore d'un ancrage suffisant pour donner à l'ensemble une vigueur économique de référence et une solidarité effective.Development has been a major topic for the last fifty years. The dominant idea – letting the State provide the decisive impulse for progress and the Nation a prickly form of sovereignty – has shifted in favour of market forces and the international context. Both neo-Keynesian and neo-classical forms of analysis were criticized on four levels : causality, process, rationality and functioning. The limits of a policy which excludes two thirds of humanity have led to new criteria of equity, ethics, governance and ecology arising. The French speaking community has the advantage of possessing good empirical knowledge of diversity which can be seen in the rich and varied approaches of researchers. However this knowledge is not sufficiently anchored to foster strong economic development and effective solidarity in the whole community. (shrink)

Traducción de “Du progrès dans les sciences physiologiques”, primeramente publicado en la _Revue des deux mondes_ (58(35)(1865): 640-663), y luego reeditado en _La science expérimental_ (Bernard, C., _La science expérimental_, Paris: Baillière, pp.38-98).

L'article suit les méandres sinueux de l'élaboration de Dignitatis humanae en prenant comme guide un de ses acteurs déterminants, Mgr De Smedt. Cette méthode permet de mettre des visages sur les positions en présence. À côté d'une minorité qui voulait s'en tenir à la « tolérance » de l'erreur , les partisans de la « liberté religieuse » étaient partagés entre une conception juridique et une conception théologique . Finalement, un équilibre a été trouvé: la liberté religieuse est un droit (...) à l'immunité garanti par l'État et ce droit apparaît favorable à la liberté de l'acte de foi mise en avant par l'Église. (shrink)

Dossier consacré à ce Florentin de la Renaissance défiant toutes les traditions et tous les savoirs établis, conseiller du prince ou défenseur des libertés du peuple, revendiqué par certains dictateurs comme Mussolini, étudié par des penseurs aussi opposés qu'Aron et Althusser.

Considérant le travail psychique auquel nous sommes contraints – depuis l’excitation à la satisfaction pulsionnelle, mise en mouvement sublimée, inhibée « ou non » quant au but, avec ou sans abandon à la jouissance –, l’auteur tente d’approcher des mouvements d’installation identitaire (fonction, rôle, sexe, génération) à l’aide d’appuis théoriques et cliniques à travers deux cas d’analyse.

This study relies on environmental stewardship, a stakeholder-enlarged view of stewardship theory, and institutional theory to analyze the relationship between CEO compensation and firms’ environmental commitment in a worldwide sample of 520 large listed firms. Our findings show that environment friendly firms pay their CEOs less total compensation and rely less on incentive-based compensation than environment careless firms. This negative relationship is stronger in institutional contexts where national environmental regulations are weaker. Our findings have important theoretical meaning and practical implications. (...) Results show that CEOs do not necessarily act opportunistically; rather some of them may be willing to act as stewards of the natural environment and accept a lower, less incentive-based compensation from environment friendly firms. This study also provides evidence of the important influence of the institutional context in setting-up CEO compensation as the relationship is stronger when national environmental regulations are weaker. Our findings question the universal validity of agency theory in explaining CEO compensation. Compensation based on pecuniary incentives might be less indicated to motivate CEOs who feel rewarded by playing a stewardship role for environment friendly firms. When designing compensation for CEOs, compensation committees and external compensation advisors should consider psychological and institutional factors that might affect CEO motivation. (shrink)