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The study by researchers at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, indicates speech elicits a series of representations, such as syllables, vowels, or consonants, which our brains identify as such from the very early onset of language acquisition.
The researchers said consonants serve mainly to distinguish among words, whereas vowels tend to carry grammatical information. http://www.physorg.com/news5089.htmlWhy this appears on a site devoted to "the latest physics and technology news" I'm not quite sure, but. Bingley
Bingley
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Yeah, I've been thinking about this topic a little lately with regard to semantic redundancy. Claude Shannon, inventor of information theory, was one of the first to point out the extraordinary redundancy in ordinary communication. Most common language tends to have more than 50% redundancy - which is apparently necessary in a world of mumbling people and typos. People use their shared knowledge to fill in the blanks and depending upon how much shared knowledge you have (hard to quantify) you can theoretically leave out many words like the one at the end of this. So each new portion of language used is partly constrained by what comes before it and its context. I guess our brain slowly comes to expect these rules to be kept which is why we get such a jolt when we see something that doesn't fit within a certain pattern. If you read a poem and it has odd word order, you'd probably not think much of it, but in an e-mail you'd get really confused and reread it over and over to understand what the person was trying to get at.
Communication programmers have a deep understanding of the subject matter on a bits 'n' bytes level because they develop programming elements that can save space in transmissions or for storage. It's intersting to note that one of the 'least efficient' protocols (TCP/IP) has become the de facto standard in computing - most of what is sent and received is checksums and transmission data and what not. So too our DNA holds alot of apparent "junk". So there always seems to be a lot of more or less unnecessary cohesive slime hanging around in communication, whether its digital or not, hey. It's this that is responsible for what is called the 'entrophy' that exists in communication the same as in the physical world.
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It's this that is responsible for what is called the 'entrophy' that exists in communication the same as in the physical world. - Entropy is indeed a term used in thermodynamics as well as information theory. I want to insist on the spelling because there are also plenty of words on ..trophy (from greek "to nourish"), which have nothing to do with ..tropy, which is based on a root for "turning, changing".
Entropy of an information stream relates not to "unnecessary slime", but on the contrary to the information density (if the stream is intellegible).
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> Entropy
Right, without the 'h', of course.
> Entropy of an information stream relates not to "unnecessary slime", but on the contrary to the information density (if the stream is intellegible).
Yeah, got my lines crossed there - I think I get you. The amount of randomness determines the amount of information, right? So paradoxically, the more 'messy' a signal is, the more information it can/does carry. Entropy measures this randomness or propensity towards information carrying - which seems really odd because in thermodynamics you think of an increasingly sparse situation.
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I guess our brain slowly comes to expect these rules to be kept which is why we get such a jolt when we see something that doesn't fit within a certain pattern.How true. One can even make the case that without the "jolt" (the breach of the pattern), comprehension of a new paradigm is not possible. Cubism comes to mind as a good example.* Or the works of Jackson Pollock or abstract painting generally. Artists and poets are always trying to shatter the pattern, the existing paradigm, to awaken a new understanding, a new paradigm, a new way of looking at things. BTW love "unnecessary cohesive slime". You are something of a poet yourself, Belligerentyouth. "Another way that the cubist expressed their painting was by showing different views of an object put together in a way that you can not actually see in real life. The Cubism period stated in Paris in 1908, reached its peak in 1914, and continued into the 20's." http://abstractart.20m.com/cubism.htm
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Entropy measures this randomness or propensity towards information carrying - which seems really odd because in thermodynamics you think of an increasingly sparse situation. Still not quite there  : The first part is ok, but in thermodynamics as well, the higher the possible number of distinct states a system can be in, the higher the entropy (at a given temperature). So there is no real contradiction between the two fields of application.
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> So there is no real contradiction between the two fields of application.
Fair enough, I guess what I'm trying to get at is the fact that informational entropy seems to jar with logic, although it doesn't!:-) You know, you think of - messy = little order = little (chance of) information, and of neatness = density = lots of order = lots of information - but, of course, the more dense things are the less possible places any certain object could be and the more predictable things are.
A.N. Whitehead's notions of novelty highlight what I'm getting at:
"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order."
"Order is not sufficient. What is required, is something much more complex. It is order entering upon novelty; so that the massiveness of order does not degenerate into mere repetition; and so that the novelty is always reflected upon a background of system."
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"What is required, is something much more complex. It is order entering upon novelty; so that the massiveness of order does not degenerate into mere repetition; and so that the novelty is always reflected upon a background of system."Whitehead's "progress" sounds like "adaptive evolution" *, except that much of the novelty which drives progress within human society, as distinct from the novelty which advances the species itself, is purposeful, not random. Mutations are the raw materials of evolution.
Evolution absolutely depends on mutations because this is the only way that new alleles are created.
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In a remarkable study of three-spined sticklebacks published in the 15 April 2004 issue of Nature, Michael Shapiro, Melissa Marks, Catherine Peichel, and their colleagues report that a mutation in a noncoding region of the Pitx1 gene accounts for most of the difference in the structure of the pelvic bones of the marine stickleback and its close freshwater cousins.
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Here then is a remarkable demonstration of how a single gene mutation can not only be viable but can lead to a major change in phenotype — adaptive evolution."Mutation and Evolutionhttp://snipurl.com/g9wk* Evolution involves two interrelated phenomena: adaptation Over the course of time, species modify their phenotypes in ways that permit them to succeed in their environment. ------------ speciation Over the course of time, the number of species multiplies; that is, a single species can give rise to two or more descendant species. In fact, Darwin maintained that all species are related; that is, any two species on earth today have shared a common ancestor at some point in their history." Another dramatic example of the "crucial", species-altering power of a tiny, seemingly insignificant, random genetic mutation: One small step for a gene, one great leap for mankind.Jaw gene mutation called key to evolution
It made room for larger brain, researchers theorizeDavid Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, March 25, 2004 Extracts: "A tiny genetic change in the muscles of prehumans millions of years ago may have played a major role in endowing modern Homo sapiens with the larger brains and the capacity for thought, language and tool-making that distinguishes us from apes, researchers are reporting today. The novel theory, advanced by a team of biologists and surgeons, suggests that a mutation in a single gene some 2.4 million years ago was largely responsible for a crucial change in the shape of our ancestors' jaws and allowed for skulls with room for brains far larger than earlier members of the hominid line. ------------ The mutated gene that the Penn team discovered is one of a class of codes for a protein called myosin, which is responsible for muscle contraction and determines the strength and size of the chewing and biting muscles of the jaws. In modern humans the mutated myosin gene -- known as MYH16 -- differs from the far older unmutated gene found in many nonhuman primates, including macaques and chimpanzees. The mutated myosin gene in effect disabled the large and powerful jaw muscles found in fossils of earlier large-skulled hominids and thereby launched a lineage of prehumans with smaller jaws and larger skulls with plenty of room for bigger brains, the researchers contend." ----------- http://snipurl.com/5b1s
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Carpal Tunnel
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order entering upon novelty; so that the massiveness of order does not degenerate into mere repetition; and so that the novelty is always reflected upon a background of system."
This is exactly the reason I've always thought I could never be a teacher: I've always felt that I would come to look at it as teaching the same old stuff, year after grinding year. But bless those who do teach!
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I've always felt that I would come to look at it as teaching the same old stuff, year after grinding year.
Yes, I suppose that is the stereotype, Jackie.
But, if a teacher has the interest and the dedication to keep up-to-date in his/her field of specialization, there are few professions so exciting or so rewarding, both for the teacher and for the clientele they serve.
A great teacher can be the agent of almost unimaginable, beneficial change.
He or she has only to inspire one fertile mind in a life-time to give birth to an idea which can literally change the world.
Returning to Whitehead's comment on the value of "novelty".
Of course, in the business world, "novelty" = "innovation".
A USA Today "Money" Section "Snapshot" earlier this week [July 13, B1] reports that "innovation" is one of the top 3 priorities of 49% of companies in the USA, 40% in Asia, and 50% in Europe.
In Europe, "innovation" is the top priority of 23% of the companies, 21% in Asia, and 15% in the USA.
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