From: John K Clark (johnkclark@fastmail.fm)
Date: Mon Mar 03 2008 - 14:04:52 MST
On Sun, 2 Mar 2008 21:11:49 +0000, "Krekoski Ross"
<rosskrekoski@gmail.com> said:
> I dispute the can opener argument. You make the
> assumption that all of the 'signal' is contained
> inside the packaging, i.e. that all meaning of the
> email is external to the email itself
The meaning is contained in the message and in the nature of the reader.
Normally we don’t have to worry about that second part, it is pretty
safe for me to assume that you know the English language so I really
don’t think you will respond to this message with a critique on the
finer points of can opener technology; however in the universe of all
possible things there is an alien who would do precisely that.
> a completely random string of letters
But you can’t prove that string of letters is random, you can’t prove it
doesn’t have some inner structure you just haven’t figured out yet.
John K Clark
-- John K Clark johnkclark@fastmail.fm -- http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service
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