“Occasionally one speaks… of signals or signal chains. It should be noted that the word signal means the transmission of signs and hence concerns the very principle of causal order…”

— Hans Reichenbach

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

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Hans Reichenbach41

American philosopher 1891–1953

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“Occasionally one speaks… of signals or signal chains.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

It should be noted that the word signal means the transmission of signs and hence concerns the very principle of causal order...
The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

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“The theory of communication is partly concerned with the measurement of information content of signals, as their essential property in the establishment of communication links. But the information content of signals is not to be regarded as a commodity; it is more a property or potential of the signals, and as a concept it is closely related to the idea of selection, or discrimination. This mathematical theory first arose in telegraphy and telephony, being developed for the purpose of measuring the information content of telecommunication signals. It concerned only the signals themselves as transmitted along wires, or broadcast through the aether, and is quite abstracted from all questions of "meaning." Nor does it concern the importance, the value, or truth to any particular person. As a theory, it lies at the syntactic level of sign theory and is abstracted from the semantic and pragmatic levels. We shall argue … that, though the theory does not directly involve biological elements, it is nevertheless quite basic to the study of human communication -- basic but insufficient.”

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Source: On Human Communication (1957), What Is It That We Communicate?, p. 10

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“The chairs and tables around us which broadcast to us incessantly those signals which affect our sight and touch cannot in their nature be like unto the signals or to the sensations which the signals awake at the end of their journey.”

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“…absolute time would exist in a causal structure for which the concept indeterminate as to time order lends to a unique simultaneity, i. e., for which there is no finite interval of time between the departure and return of a first-signal…”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

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