Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

Recognition of a signal from another organism implies that both the ‘sender’ and ‘receiver’ use the
same system of allocating meanings to artificial phenomena that are used as signals. That is a
system of coding. As a result of coding, something that is not a natural signal in itself becomes a
signal, but an artificial one. The common system of coding that is used by different organisms is
called language.
One artificial signal marks one situation or one detectable class of situations. To mark many
situations one would need many signals or many phenomena that are used as signals. That may
cause a problem.
Luckily, allocating meanings to certain combinations of artificial signals may drastically reduce the
number of necessary physical signals. Each closed eye (when normally open), may represent only
one possible meaning. Two eyes may represent four (left closed, right closed, both closed, both
opened). Is it a kind of emergent quality? Yes. And it is increasingly significant as a larger number
of signals and their allowed and recognizable combinations are used.
These combined signals are words. Simple signals, which are elements of complex signals and do
not have any meaning taken separately, become symbols (like letters in a word). Sometimes we
also use the term symbol for a simple artificial signal, which still possesses a specific meaning - a
flag, a ring, and a diadem.
Process of information
A natural signal may only mark the situation that is taking place, here and now. An artificial signal
may mark a situation, which does not exist in reality, here and now, but is imprinted in the
memories of both sender and receiver of the signal. The signal would stimulate an image of the
situation, and other signals may link it with certain meanings. The combination of signals (there
may be symbols or words, it does not matter) may represent certain interrelations of real
phenomena.
Thus, the content of memory may be represented in a range of signals and become transferable to
the memory of another organism, providing both use the same language. In this way, the content
of the memory of the sender would add to the content of the memory of the receiver. Thus the
receiver’s memory may be formed not only by his own immediate experience, but also by the
experience of ‘a stranger’.
Using artificial signals allows one organism to change the picture of the world in the memory of
another organism or many others. This process we call information. In this sense, the word
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