Dissertation Information for Gordon Miller NAME: - Gordon Miller
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- Rutgers University (USA) (1987)
ADVISORS: - Brent D. Ruben
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Thomas H. Mott Jr. - Nicholas Belkin - Stanley Deetz - John Yolton
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: RESONANCE, INFORMATION, AND THE PRIMACY OF PROCESS: ANCIENT LIGHT ON MODERN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION THEORY AND TECHNOLOGY
Abstract: This study is an investigation into the historical and philosophical foundations of the concept of information. Information is equated with meaning, and the primary purpose is to develop a unitary-process view of information. This view is unitary in the sense that information is seen as inhering in interactions between structures; it implies process in the sense that information is seen as continuously arising from moment to moment from a more richly structured ground.
In Part I the method is primarily historical. The evolution of the concept of information is traced from ancient Greece to the present, and this investigation reveals a decreasing sense of information as the ongoing outcome of a universal formative process--conveyed by Heraclitus in his notion of the Logos --and an increasing sense of information as static, independently existing structure. Using the analogy of a candle flame, it is shown how static structure can be seen as a relatively invariant aspect of a more primary process.
The development of information and communication technologies such as language, writing, printing, electronic mass media, and computers is also surveyed in Part I. It is proposed that increasing involvement with these technologies has contributed to the sense of information as static structure, and, indeed, that they are forms of life that have as their essence a particular attitude called the capture of meaning. The gains in technological efficiency are thus offset by the loss of a unitary-process world view.
In Part II the method is empirical and analytical in the sense that the processes involved in immediate perceptual experience are examined. It is devoted primarily to employing the concept of resonance as a metaphor for understanding the emergence of meaning, and as a way of recovering a unitary-process sense of information. Building on David Bohm's principle of active information, it is shown how this process displays the characteristics we associate with intelligence. A way of understanding the operation of this intelligence in the resonance events that constitute meaning, or information, in perception and communication is presented. The ancient, unifying spirit of the Heraclitean Logos is thus rekindled, and translated into a modern form. Implications of these ideas are discussed in the Conclusion.
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calculated 2008-01-31 06:09:44
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