Claude Shannon’s “Mathematical Theory of Communication” made me uncomfortable, to say the least. To claim that information is dislocated from meaning is an incredibly distorting claim to make because everything that we take in as information is converted into meaning and how it applies to us or how it relates to something we’ve known before. Shannon argued that everything is just signal and the relation to one thing to another has nothing to do with the meaning of either thing. As an English major pursuing a concentration in Cultural Studies, this was especially troubling because I spend all my time finding meaning in things. I think if everyone viewed the world as Shannon did, we would all be quite cynical and cold to others.

Similar to the Garageband example Professor O’Malley displayed in class, peoples’ identities and culture have such significance and meaning, but in the way that Garageband’s stolen that from the individuals and converted it into drag-and-drop, Shannon suggests the same theory. It’s an interesting approach, but I do think that meaning, and feelings, and emotions are crucial when understanding and interacting with the world and the people in it.