This article and the comments remind me of a paper written by David Casagrande titled ‘Information is a verb.‘
When we relay information (aka communicate), many of us think of it as a noun (nice connection to the tree in your—Duncan’s essay).
But the deeper you go into the process of ‘receiving’ information, it becomes apparent that context and the recipient’s priors can overtake the information intended by the ‘relayer.’ (don’t think that’s a word).
Even when you are dealing with relaying data (arguably less ambiguous than abstract concepts), there’s a distribution of interpretations that surprise (and often do not delight!)
I like the concepts suggested—both ‘ruling out’ and ‘meaning moat.’ But I posit that these concepts become more potent when you start with the premise that information is a verb (and not a noun).
This article and the comments remind me of a paper written by David Casagrande titled ‘Information is a verb.‘
When we relay information (aka communicate), many of us think of it as a noun (nice connection to the tree in your—Duncan’s essay).
But the deeper you go into the process of ‘receiving’ information, it becomes apparent that context and the recipient’s priors can overtake the information intended by the ‘relayer.’ (don’t think that’s a word).
Even when you are dealing with relaying data (arguably less ambiguous than abstract concepts), there’s a distribution of interpretations that surprise (and often do not delight!)
I like the concepts suggested—both ‘ruling out’ and ‘meaning moat.’ But I posit that these concepts become more potent when you start with the premise that information is a verb (and not a noun).