Of I and It

OF I AND IT WARREN S.McCULLOCH* But let one man read another by his actions never so perfectly, it serves him only with his acquaintances, which are butfew. He that is togovern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or thatparticular man, but Mankind: which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language or Science; yet, when !shall have set down my own reading orderly, andperspicuously, thepains left another, will be only to consider, ifhe alsofind not the same in himself. For this kind ofDoctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration .—Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan Let us discuss a problem involving the use ofwords in communication ofpatients with doctors. I am associated with the Research Laboratory of Electronics (R.L.E.) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The reason whyIwork there is that it is concernedwith problems ofcommunication , not merely in terms of circuit action, its physics and chemistry, but also with signals themselves as conveyors ofinformation. Many members ofR.L.E. have to estimate the quantity ofinformation that can pass through a given noisy channel and therefore must distinguish between signals, which are true or false, and noise, which is neither. Thus signals have not merely the properties ofphysical events—physical properties— but also those properties characterizing communication ofpropositions— logical properties. This holds even for thoseleast signals out ofwhich complex ones areformed. Communication is best conceived as the enunciation ofsignificant propositions, that is, as the saying or sending ofa sentence asserting that such and such is the case—true ifit is the case, otherwise false and often lost in the noise that makes it indistinguishable from other sentences . Man is a noisy channel. He corrupts information. Phonemes and morphemes convey information in this technical sense, for each one exercises a selective function upon the total ensemble ofpossible messages. But * Research Laboratory ofElectronics, Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 03139. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health grant 5 ROi NB04985 -06. 547 itwould be a mistake to suppose that either a morpheme or aphonemehas one meaning. The meaning ofa sentence in any language is the class ofall sentences in every language which are true (or false) in the same set ofcases. Thus the meaning ofa sentence is a proposition. A single word, except when it is a sentence, does not have a meaning. Yet it does affect one who sees, hears, or thinks it. It may produce a response or alter the way in which he responds to other words. If it alters his response, it is clear that the effect produced by each word depends upon the other words in the combination. In this sense, as MacEay says, it alters the transitional probability ofhis implicit or explicitbehavior. Ifwewantto speak ofthemeaning ofa word in general, it would have to be defined in terms ofthe effect it has in all possible combinations in languages—and these effects are many, not one! Hence, in the sequel, do not look for the meanings ofthe nouns consciousness and self-consciousness or ofthe pronouns I and it. Note only how the former are used in this description and the latter by yourselfand your fellow men. To the members of an established society, in questions of manners, morals, and the common law, ignorance is no excuse. They are matters ofuse and wont and could not exist but for a knowledge ofthem common to the community. Ofthe res communis they are the very res conscientia. So consciousness is conceived, in a social setting, as common knowledge. In Roman law—for example, in the trial ofChrist—the testimony ofa solitary witness was without weight in evidence. Thejudge charged the witness to let his conscient be his guide. It required two witnesses to the same event to be conscious of it. In forensic medicine, the policeman who finds the man in the ditch and the doctor who attends him in his bed apply the same test: they tell the judge or thejury that the man was then and there conscious ifhe can bear witness to those things to which they also can bear witness. Ifnot, he was unconscious. It is thus that we use the term. Contrast with this, ifyou will, Abelard...