The Compupter as an Active Communication Medium

Communication is often conceived of in basically the fol lowing terms. A person has some idea which he or she wants to communicate to a second person. The first person translates that idea into some symbol system which is t ransmit ted through some medium to the receiver. The receiver receives the transmission and translates it into some internal idea. Communication, in this view, is considered good to the extent that there is an isomorphism between the idea in the head of the sender before sending the message and the idea in the receiver's head after recieving the message. A good medium of communication, in this view, is one that adds minimal noise to the signal. Messages are considered good partly to the extent that they are unabmiguous. This is, by and large, the view of many of the people concerned with computers and communication.