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Descriptions ​

Some physical objects, such as documents, are not particularly interesting to us in terms of their spatial and temporal extent, but rather interest us more in terms of what is contained in them, what information is written on them (and why).

The same goes for other carriers: in descriptions, it is characteristic that what interests us primarily is not that some piece of paper or hard drive occupies a certain space in space and stretches in time, but the information contained on that carrier.

Let's consider such an example: a sheet of paper with "my favorite desk" written on it. This is a description.

If we think about the description in terms of what was introduced earlier, we will notice two important relations:

  1. Between the sign and the signified, by reference, with which you are already familiar, --- the relationship of representation. Thus, the object is linked to the sign (and the sign can also be linked to another sign).
  2. Between the sign and the reader --- the relationship of interpretation.

Information on a carrier is only information when someone can decrypt it. If it's just squiggles in an unknown language, then there is no information for us.

Here it is useful to keep in mind Frege's triangle: the connections between the sign, the object signified, and the way the sign refers to the object.

Thus, in general, when we talk about a description, we will ask to list:

  • Description carrier: paper, the hard drive of your computer, and so on; the carrier always has the type "physical object".
  • Sign --- value, representation relationships. What does the sign refer to and what type is it? The expression "My desk" refers to my specific desk::SO. Technically, all descriptions refer to mental images or to amodal logical processing of something, but we can skip this step as trivial (or not).
  • The way in which one needs to use to interpret the word, interpretation relationships: the word is written in a natural language, I read it, I need such and such context/additional materials to interpret it correctly.