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Knowledge
Information
That Which We Know
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ISI Torino
Sorin Solomon
Knowledge
Information
What We Can Name
Postext
ISI Torino
Sorin Solomon
Knowledge
Information
Postext
Postext
A Mind for Society
ISI Torino
Sorin Solomon
Life
Organelles
Cells
Organs
Individuals
Chemical signals
cytokins
Hormones
Odors
Communication
Complex selforganized
phenomena
emerge through
the interaction
between their
components.
Communication
is the generic
term for this
interaction.
Life
Individuals
Group
Swarm
Population
Sound
Touch
Visual Signals
Odors
Communication
As life evolved,
different means
of
communication
emerged, taking
advantage of
certain
properties of
the medium
Evolution
Life
Niche
Cooperative Hunting
Cooperation
Individual
Human Tribe
Sounds
Communication
Techniques
Humans
adopted the
evolutionary
niche of
cooperative
hunting, which
required
advanced
techniques of
cooperation
through sound.
Life
Co-Evolution
Evolution
Cooperative Hunting
Longevity
Cooperation
Individual
Human Tribe
Sounds
Communication
Knowledge
Techniques
The fact that the
tribe as an
entity has much
longer lifespan
allowed
cooperation
techniques to
aggregate and
evolve, and the
co-evolution
between the
communication
skills and the
tribe gave a
boost to the
advance of
communication
techniques.
This amounted
to the
emergence of
Knowledge.
Evolution
Individual
Techniques
Human Tribe
Sounds
Knowledge
Symbols
Communication
Language
Improved
communication
had fitness
benefits to the
tribe, and so did
the preservation
of knowledge.
This created an
evolutionary
pressure that
eventually
resulted in the
emergence of
the well known
human traits:
language,
capacity for
symbol
manipulation
and
abstractization.
Life
Semiotics
Knowledge
Proteins
DNA
Information
Individual
Evolution
Human Tribe
Techniques
Symbols
Language
Communication
The moment of
the emergence
of the first
symbol is
equivalent to
the moment of
the emergence
of the first
DNA
macromolecule:
the non-living
code that can
generate life is
equivalent to
the nonknowledgeable
symbol that can
generate
knowledge.
Life
Semiotics
Knowledge
Proteins
Information
Context
DNA
Like DNA that
needs the right
kind of cell in
the right
ambiance,
information will
yield
knowledge only
when it is
presented in the
right context.
The knowledge
in one’s mind is
essential for the
reconstruction
of knowledge
from a piece of
information,
like the the
protein
machinery used
for generating
proteins out of
genes.
Semiotics
Knowledge
Information
Individual
Human Tribe
Context
Techniques
Symbols
Language
Communication
NLP
In the beginning, the
knowledge needed
to interpret the
(information coded
in) symbols was
provided by the
challenges of
survival. As symbols
and communication
acts evolved into
language, much of
the contextual
framework became
embedded into the
language itself.
However, note how
pre-lingual
knowledge is
essential for the
acquiring of
language, as we see
in the case of natural
language
processing.
Knowledge
Information
Human Tribe
Individual
Hunting Techniques
Mind
Symbols
Language
Communication
No one doubts that
DNA is not life. In
the same way, it
should be clear that
information is not
knowledge.
Information is made
of symbols, bits and
letters; knowledge is
made of thoughts,
actions, and context.
Life “happens” only
among proteins, and
in the same way,
knowledge
“happens” in the
mind. The purpose
of communication is
to transfer
knowledge, but in
most cases it can
only be done by
coding it into
information.
Mind
Thoughts
Information
Knowledge
Multi-Dimensional
Linearity
Language
Communication
Text
Language is
essentially linear.
Text, the physical
representation of
language, inherited
this linearity. The
mind is not
restricted by
dimensionality, and
so thoughts are
multi-dimensional in
nature. This
distinction