“You probably know that the effects of gravity drop off as the square of the distance. The same is true of the intensity of light. Indeed, there is only one known phenomenon whose effects do not necessarily drop off with distance: knowledge. A piece of knowledge could travel without any consequence for a thousand light-years, then completely transform the civilisation that it reached. This is another reason for the cosmic significance of humans, and one interpretation of the book’s title”
No two entities have ever communicated knowledge or information as such. What is transmitted and received is some kind of symbol or signal (themselves an abstraction over some physical state-change). We call that transferring information or transferring knowledge if it succeeds. But there are many levels of interpretation involved that can go wrong .
People transmit words, data, diagrams..all things that require interpretation. The greater the inferential distance, the more difficulty in interpretation. And inferential distance is likely to increase with physical distance
“You probably know that the effects of gravity drop off as the square of the distance. The same is true of the intensity of light. Indeed, there is only one known phenomenon whose effects do not necessarily drop off with distance: knowledge. A piece of knowledge could travel without any consequence for a thousand light-years, then completely transform the civilisation that it reached. This is another reason for the cosmic significance of humans, and one interpretation of the book’s title”
No two entities have ever communicated knowledge or information as such. What is transmitted and received is some kind of symbol or signal (themselves an abstraction over some physical state-change). We call that transferring information or transferring knowledge if it succeeds. But there are many levels of interpretation involved that can go wrong .
People transmit words, data, diagrams..all things that require interpretation. The greater the inferential distance, the more difficulty in interpretation. And inferential distance is likely to increase with physical distance