Re: <nettime> Information cannot be free [3x]

["nettime's noise filter" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

Table of Contents:

   Re: <nettime> Information cannot be free                                        
     josh zeidner <jjzeidner@yahoo.com>                                              

   Re: Bans & Free Speech[ the petrification of values ]                           
     josh zeidner <jjzeidner@yahoo.com>                                              

   AW: <nettime> Information cannot be free                                        
     "ritchie" <ritchie@pettauer.net>                                                



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Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 11:32:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: josh zeidner <jjzeidner@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Information cannot be free



 Wade,

> as  with  all  systems, the distinction between
> information and noise,
> self and other, is a product both of the belief
> system of the self (as
> there  is  an  inherent  division  of self and
> other, a distinction of
> information  and  noise made by the self) _and_ by
> the architecture of
> the  systems which have manifested that very self.
> this is the paradox
> isn't  it:  that  noise  and  information  (other 
> and  self) are only
> distinguished  by the positioning of the self, by
> the manifestation of
> the  self,  in  relation  to  other.  that is to
> say, there is no time
> _before_  the  manifestation  of  the  self,  there 
> is  no  objective
> distinction  of  noise and information _before_
> noise and information.
> rather,  noise  and  information,  the other and the
> self, are created
> simultaneously  through  a
> participation/self-creation of or within an
> architecture.  the  self  only  exists as its
> objectification within a
> level  or  system.  information only exists as a
> limit, as information
> _is_ a limit.

  a useful reassessment...

> freenet  provides  a  dynamic redundancy which
> morphs according to the
> user  (receiver's)  demand. if no one ever requests
> a certain file, it
> has  the  potential  to  'fall off' of freenet. a
> sort of demand-side,
> rather  than  supply-side  'censorship'.  a  key 
> structure is used to
> separate  information  from  noise.  (noise  is 
> unwanted information,
> information which does not fit the belief landscape
> of the receiver.)

  My main criticsm of Freenet is that it is nothing
more than a recapitulation of the very same scientific
archtypes that we employed in the beginning of the
Internet( and is subject to the same degradation ).  I
would even go so far as to say that freenet is nothing
more than a new version of ethernet superimposed on
the existing "tainted" networking structure that
already exists.  The 'key' structure is where Freenet
falls apart.  Where are these keys going to be
located?  How will I obtain one?  Who or what will
control this master index of keys?

  Secondly, most of the designs of Freenet are mere
speculation.  They are having serious problems getting
the thing to work.  There is the issue of 'cancer'
nodes.  There is the issue of lack of bandwidth.  It
is my assumption that any kind of tangible product
that comes out of the Freenet project will not solve
any social problems but rather recapitulate older
solutions under new terminologies and platforms.


> so  is freenet futile?
> 
> freenet  is  a  social  structural  construction. 
> it does not provide
> information  'freedom'  if  by freedom you mean the
> absence of limits,
> the  absence of form, the absence of
> information/noise distinction. it
> is  simply  an  alternative  platform of
> communication, a social space
> dynamically     constructed     and    changed    by
>    creator/users,
> sender/receivers.  freenet  does  not  provide  us
> with an ontological
> freedom,  an escape from the self or the limits of
> information. it is,
> after  all,  only  an  architecture.  and  there is
> no architecture of
> freedom.  however,  freenet  offers  an  alternative
>  political/belief
> landscape,  another  possible
> manifestation/definition /environment of
> the self.

   Sounds like cyberpolitics part II to me.

 -thanks,
  josh


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Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 12:07:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: josh zeidner <jjzeidner@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Bans & Free Speech[ the petrification of values ]


Pat,

> Well, beyond your jargon, I think that there are
> sets of social agreements
> from which discourse is structured.

  Yes and it is when there is conflict in what those
agreements should be, you have tension.  I did not use
the badminton metaphor arbitrarily.  It seems to me
that your ideal society would be much like a badminton
game, with civil and organized argument/play confined
to preinscribed rules.  An organized and intentional
[fv]olly of rhetoric.  "Without some structure there
would be no communication at all."  Yes, this is a
fact.  However, the terms you describe will only end
in the denial of the infinite game of life itself.  An
inevitable ossification.  This is the problem with
postmodernism/americanism.  It intends to "improve"
life by minimizing the so-called negative aspects(
war, disease, belligerent rhetoricians, etc ), but in
the end we are subject to boredom and apathy, no life
lived at all.  So in other words,
Americanism/Postmodernism although it aims to
encompass all, preinscribes a vacuum.  "all things are
in eternal flux".

> You will find only the fresh breeze and the
> sunshine.  

  Actually I find the air rather stale. 

You can't shove
> anything up something you can't find.

  Is your asshole really that constricted?  You might
want to consult a physician.

> Badminton, anyone?

  anyway... for those who want a good short read I
recommend "Finite and Infinite Games" by James Carse.

http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/games/infiniteGames.html

  ciao,

  josh z


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Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 18:37:00 +0200
From: "ritchie" <ritchie@pettauer.net>
Subject: AW: <nettime> Information cannot be free

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A few thouhgs on Mr. Shannon
and Mr. Zeidners thouhts on
Mr. Shannon


Ah- Technicians, ever so sexy when
it comes to explaining communication!

Still, a few buts:

> For instance if a
> lecture is given by a American professor on Economics,
> different information will be recieved by, for
> instance, an english speaking Economics student, an
> english speaking Art student, and a non english
> speaking person.  The quality of the information
> depends entirely on the formulations of the recipient.

Nope. I don't think so. If this English-speaking
professor talked mumbo-jumbo, non of the
three students could understand him "properly";
proper meaning matching his intention. The
lecture is a good example here, because the
primary intention of the speaker is pretty clear.
Can he fulfill it, at least partly? This doesn't
singularly depend on the listeners, au contraire.
So this conclusion only applies if you completely
separate information and meaning. But - wait a
moment: in doing so, you remove your own
difference in the act of reception, because
if info is free from meaning, how can a the
act of understanding defer? In other words:
meaningless information can of course provoce
associations and thoughts in the receiver,
but they are arbitrary, in no way linked
to the communicator and therefore no
different from an inner monologue. Voilá:
you've now taken a construcitivist position,
banishing communication. This system is
coherent, no question, but it moves the
focus away from transmission. Shannon
would no agree to that.

> The more information a sender attempts to pack into
> a message, the more tendency it has to be percieved as
> noise.

It's the code that puts information into context.

> The checksum is used by the
> recipient to make sure the information contained
> within is valid.  If found to be corrupt, it is
> discarded.

No even fuzzy logic comes near to the way
speech and thinking works. In other words:
checksums are pretty exact, redundancy in
communication (usually) is not.
btw: genetics are not sure, if our dna really is
that redundant or if this redundancy does have
manifest effects. genetic engineering is one speculative
field of research, and these are most likely
to be used for pseudo-scientific communicational
comparisons.

> If you take the above principles to thier fullest
> extent, you will likely begin to notice thier
> paradoxical nature.

Sad and true. Their nature is so paradoxical,
it seems, that they are hardly questioned.

> ("the truth can be found in a lie" :)

Now this is an interesting aspect.


> Even the most
> so-called liberal parties participate in the activity
> of censorship.  Without such selective limiting of
> data, there would be no coherence, and therefore
> noise.

Censorship has a political dimension. The filtering
of information beginning litterally at our finger-
tips is not the same as banishing distinct information
and contexts for whatever reason.

> Finally, the purpose of this essay is to dispell the
> popular "information should be free" rubric

I am afraid you did not convince me.

greetings,
ritchie

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