•Suggests that Shannon’s work inspired Chomsky and
others to look for semantics
in structure (syntax), which in turn inspired psychologists (e.g., Miller) and we might extend to say initiated the
cognitive sciences and the debates
about whether meaning is constructed by the receiver (context bound) or inherent in the message.
•Pierce: Communication is a process of adjusting
understandings and attitudes,
of making them congruent or ascertaining how and where they agree or disagree.
Common language is NOT as important as a common interest.
However, perfect common interest (knowledge) makes communication impossible (no information can
exchange)—we need to be surprised
within our context ala Shannon.
•This debate is related to arguments about relevance
and indexing that are central
to information science.
•We aim to balance order and randomness/novelty. Can we data mine the order that escapes us (through biometrics or
transaction logging)? What are implications for information design and services?