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Carpal Tunnel
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I was trying to look up something in Michael Quinion's site, this word caught my attention. How neat! I thought it could relate well to gift horse's Is language Innate thread. Here's what he has to say about it:
This word is always applied to human beings. By analogy with terms like herbivore and carnivore, it seeks to suggest that we are a species that lives by processing and communicating information.
It’s not a particularly appropriate linguistic analogy as a matter of fact, as the only thing all these words have in common is the suffix -ivore. That’s a close relative of our voracious, and comes from the Latin vorare “to devour”. So it properly refers to consumption rather than manipulation. Though it’s sometimes said that we humans devour information, we actually process it, not consume it.
Cognitive scientists usually take informavore to refer to our ability to manipulate representations of the outside world inside our heads and to transmit information to each other through language. These are regarded by many as the crucial abilities that distinguish modern humans from all other species. The word is sometimes used in connection with the huge growth in information media in the developed countries in the latter part of this century.
Its coinage is usually attributed to the psychologist George Miller in the 1980s, but it has achieved wider circulation in the 1990s through popular works by Daniel Dennett and Steven Pinker.
The user is an adaptive informavore who makes use of extensive resources, interleaving planned and opportunistic episodes and using both automatic and intentional processes.
[Lisa Tweedie, “Interactive Visualisation Artifacts”, in People and Computers X, Proceedings of the HCI'95 Conference (1996)]
We would expect organisms, especially informavores such as humans, to have evolved acute intuitions about probability.
[Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (1997)]
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old hand
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old hand
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Though it’s sometimes said that we humans devour information, we actually process it, not consume it.
I think this is a very optimistic/idealistic standpoint.
It is tempting to look for analoga of alimentary fiber in the information domain.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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alimentary fiber in the information domain
meaning looking for connections that aren't really there?
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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analoga of alimentary fiber in the information domain Synapses? I was going to say optic nerve, till I remembered that we also get information from other than visual input. Let me see--as long as we're doing analogies, can we say that food that doesn't make it to our stomachs is nourishment? And similarly, if we receive some sort of input that is incomprehensible to us, does it become information only when we have some understanding of it?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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[sigh]Alimentary fibre passes straight through the digestive system and comes out as excrement. Apply the analogy for yourselves.
Bingley
Bingley
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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ah well. I tried to keep it on the up and up...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Someone who can't stop spewing forth a steady stream of information?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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good one, WO'N! Jackie, where'd your post go? 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I realized I had misinterpreted the one I was responding to.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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misinterpreted the one I was responding toI would guess I gotta coupla' thousand of those... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Speaking of alimentary canal phenomena, and informabore is a guy with a diarrhea of words and constipation of ideas.
(So old I doubt many members have heard it recently)
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old hand
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old hand
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does it become information only when we have some understanding of it?
That's exactly what I was hinting at: information should be defined as such by the recipient, rather than the sender, as is currently the case. More strictly, to me, true information answers some question of mine. Everything else is .. fiber.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Alimentary fibre passes straight through the digestive system and comes out as excrement.
And cleans you out in the process. It's a *good thing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Soluble fiber hangs out in your system. It's the insoluble that goes straight through.
Thankyou thankyou. Please, no applause.
No phötos, no phötos!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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sure gives a hole new meaning to analogy :)
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Carpal Tunnel
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Meanwhile (ahem), when do we use one and not the other? Do they go with their respective Latin and Greek prefixes (if that's the right word in this case)?
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