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From: crummer@aero.ARPA (Dr. C. A. Crummer )
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: The nature of communication
Message-ID: <17963@aero.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 30-Sep-87 18:30:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: aero.17963
Posted: Wed Sep 30 18:30:58 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Oct-87 00:48:28 EDT
References: <2353@mmintl.UUCP> <164@thirdi.UUCP> <2374@mmintl.UUCP>
Reply-To: crummer@aero.UUCP (Dr. C. A. Crummer (Charlie))
Distribution: world
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Lines: 22
Keywords: communication symbols messages

In article <4037@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> myers@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Bob Myers) writes:
>
>I get the feeling we're running into definitional problems with 'symbol'.

How about this for a definition?  A symbol, in addition to being a thing in
itself, is a *pointer*.  As a pointer it points, or evokes in the one
perceiving the symbol.  A symbol is a pointer only because the one
perceiving it defines it to be one.  A person from an aboriginal
civilization might see a photograph and just eat it.  For him it may
signify or symbolize nothing.  

Communication apparently depends on a
community of agreement as to the meaning of symbols.  As was pointed out,
the photon that has interacted with matter in a certain way might be
interpreted by a physicist as a token or signal, which is just a certain
kind of symbol.  The physicist may understand enough about the physical
world to know that a photon generated in this way can be seen as a signal
from the world and as such can not be mendacious.  In our quantum world one
photon doesn't convey much information, however.  Many an experiment has
been scuttled because of the lack of a sufficient statistical sample.  

  --Charlie