TOWARDS A THEORY OF INFORMATION. INFORMATION: MYSTICAL FLUID OR A SUBJECT FOR SCIENTIFIC ENQUIRY?

Abstract

The author points out the inadequacy of the fashionable view of information in the EDP community which regards it as a kind of mystical fluid. He introduces the idea of a sign as a suitable primitive on which to base a science of information and shows how signs can be classified and their properties can be studied. He indicates that 'information' has many different meanings, each one being a precisely defined property of signs. He claims that semiotics stands to the social sciences as physics now stands to the natural sciences. Finally, the author indicates valuable sources of ideas and the problems of exploiting them.