Center for Science in Society

2003-2004 Weekly Series of Brown Bag Lunch Conversations
"Information, Meaning, and Noise:
What's the Difference?"

"Meaning is information that has been discarded: information that is no longer present and no longer needs to be. Information and meaning are rather like money and wealth. Real value, real weath, is a matter of...the money you have spent, money you used to have: utility values you have obtained by paying for them....Likewise information: It is only when you have got enough of the stuff that you realize it has no value in itself."
--Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size

"Information lays claim to prompt verifiability. The prime requirement is that it appear 'understandable in itself'...because of this it proves incompatible with the spirit of storytelling....it is half the art of storytelling to keep a story free from explanation as one reproduces it...thus the narrative achieves an amplitude that information lacks."
--Walter Benjamin,"The Storyteller"

All are welcome to join us for this series of discussions,
Thursdays, 12-1,
Multicultural Center (229 Roberts Road).
Contact Anne Dalke or Ted Wong
for additional information.
The spring series has ended.
Stay tuned for plans for Fall 2004.
On Line Forum for continuing discussion
Archive of Fall 2003 Discussions:
"What Counts?--Value and Quantification"

Sharon Burgmayer, "Interface"
For an exhibit of Sharon's paintings see Transformation

Schedule and Discussion Links

Jan. 29 Katherine Rowe (English) What Is Information?:
Comparing Our Conceptual Maps and Investments

Feb. 5 Scott Silverman (Information Services) What's So Informative About Information?

Feb. 12 Sandy Schram (GSSWSR) Contextualizing Racial Disparities Under Welfare Reform:
Toward a New Poverty Research

Feb. 19 Sharon Burgmayer (Chemistry) The Teleology of Green, or: Is There Meaning in Orange?

Feb. 26 Anne Dalke (English) and Ted Wong (Biology) Information Overload: Turning It Off/Turning It On

Mar. 4 Kim Cassidy (Psychology) Information Processing:
How Psychology Approaches Knowledge

[SPRING BREAK]

Mar. 18 Natasha Lee (French) Knowledge and Responsibility, or a Few Questions Kant Might Have About the Information Society

Mar. 25 Nancy Collins (Public Affairs) Is It All Noise? What Matters in Public Relations

Apr. 1 Doug Blank (Computer Science) and Jim Marshall (Pomona College Computer Science) A Bit About Bits

Apr. 8 Tamara Davis (Biology) Genotype and Phenotype

Apr. 15 Jenny Rickard (Admissions) Information, Meaning, and Noise in College Admissions

Apr. 22 Betsy Reese (Map Curator, Collier Science Library) The Secret Life of Maps

Apr. 29 Paul Grobstein (Biology, Center for Science in Society) Information Update: Searching for the Third Law

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2003-2004 Weekly Series of Brown Bag Lunch Conversations "Information, Meaning, and Noise: What's the Difference?"

Schedule and Discussion Links

2003-2004 Weekly Series of Brown Bag Lunch Conversations
"Information, Meaning, and Noise:
What's the Difference?"