Abstract
DR. ROSS ASHBY1 advocates the “postulate that the meaning of a message [as well as its information content] … depends on the set of messages that the message comes from”. It seems possible that Dr. Ashby was thinking primarily in terms of non-natural languages (such as those used as models in information theory). However, his example is drawn from natural language, and presumably his argument is meant to apply to all languages.
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References
Ashby, W. Ross, Nature, 187, 532 (1960).
Crawshay-Williams, R., “Methods and Criteria of Reasoning” (Routledge, London, 1957).
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CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS, R. The Relativity of Meaning. Nature 188, 964 (1960). https://doi.org/10.1038/188964b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/188964b0
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