I would like to think that I'm more informed than average Americans. But even I have not nearly enough information on many of the most pressing political decisions. Like the recession, the health care, and the war, and I imagine that I'm not the only one. Take health care for example. I don't even know what's on the current version of the proposed legislation, let alone the implications of it. I am not informed enough to make any sort of decision on it. On top of this, I don't have the time or the inclination to learn about this.
My strategy to get to an informed decision relies on other people to simply the matter. Newspapers, magazines, radios, the internet, have many experts summarizing health care reform. I can then make my decision accordingly. The key here is to remember that most (if not all) secondary information like the newspaper comes with intent. It might be to sell the paper (most of the time the intent is to profit, which is not bad) or to influence your opinion. As long I understand that, I can judge which resources to trust. This is much easier than to gather all the information my self.
This method fails when restrictions decrease the diversity of information. Just as more genetically diverse population (of say condors) can withstand variety of perturbations, the diversity of information increases the chances of the right and useful one existing. This is one of the reasons we guarantee the freedom of political speech.
The most fundamental way to have diversity of secondary information is to have diversity of people. We need people who understands health care. We need people who understands economics. We need people who understands governance. If the amount of information is overwhelming, then what we need is diversity of people.
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ReplyDeleteI'm all for diversity of people and multiculturalism. I think that promoting information, though, is less a matter of diversity of people and more a matter of diversity of information. As Jackson admits, he does not know what the current proposed legislation for health care is, etc. Who DOES have a mastery of this knowledge? People do not control information. Rather, information controls information. More and diverse information does not require more diverse people, but more diverse information. More media forms, outlets. Not more people, people's opinions are first shaped by information--media, and people have far less diverse opinions than we tend to think. What is needed to promote and produce more information, more views on health, economics, governance, is more information. I'm not saying that people are not at the base of information (human bodies, speech and hearing organs are a prerequisite of information)--this is a question of systemic communication for me. People do not communicate with information, the form of communication of information depends on systems of information, its control and propogation. We have no idea how conscious minds bring about information.
ReplyDeleteI think the control and propagation matters in having diverse information. It also matters that people have diverse interests to sustain such a system. There are two basic ways to ensure delivery of diverse information. One is a top down approach to create a system capable of supplying it. The alternative is a bottom up approach to create diversity of demands. We need both.
ReplyDeleteLet's clarify: information exists independent of its recognition (e.g. the information that is lost when a particle enters a black hole was there beforehand whether we wrote it down or not) All that we care about is what is useful to us, that is almost a reflexive property (i.e. we don't need to know everything, not right now). What may be useful later is difficult to predict now. Hence diversity makes us better prepared. That is why sex is useful too, by the way.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, I'm sposed to be writing an intro ecology test right now and it's late. Anyone have any multiple choice questions they could give me?
For anyone who has ever studied information/noise processing in systems, it has never been claimed that info exists independent of its recognition (this does not mean that humans have to recognize it). The tandem concept of noise takes care of claims such as Aelius's that something occurs independent of recognition.
ReplyDeleteI think Jackson that you couple humans and systems too tightly. Certainly you admit that systems exist without humans. If this is the case, then what does it mean to talk about people having diverse interests. My claims were "general claims about information processing systems. But Jackson's claims have to do with the interactions of humans with their environments, esp. social systems and mass media, education. Even in this particular relation, I still think Jackson gives way too much credit to humans ability to control information as it is processed socially. No one human can be said to be in control of information, so how can 7 billion, how can 20, etc? Again, increasing information means increasing information (the diversity claim needs to apply to information, not people).
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected, though not smart enough to understand it. From someone who has definitely not studied information/noise processing in systems. I'll take my comment off the air
ReplyDelete