Skip to main content

what is information?

Image
By
There is a spectrum of different ways of understanding what information is. These range from quantitative analyses–which treat information in terms of uninterpreted patterns of data–to qualitative analyses, which treat information semantically, as a matter of meaningful structures. What is the relation between these different approaches? Are there invariants underlying the different uses of the term ‘information’ in disciplines such as computer science, economics, genetics, neuroscience, physics, and statistics? Is there some sort of logic, which transcends these different uses? How, for example, are we able to transform quantitative information deriving from meteorological sensors into the sorts of qualitative information that is useful for human decision-making? According to Shannon and Weaver, information refers to the degree of uncertainty present in a message. Does a view along these lines provide a viable starting point for a unified analysis of information, or must we look elsewhere? This issue of The Monist will take questions such as these as a basis for fostering new research in the philosophy of information. - call for papers at The Monist, advisory editor Luicano Floridi (due April 30, 2016)
In case we want to put the Monist in our sights again, this issue looks related to the idea of a "continuous information theory" that I've been blathering about from time to time.  I haven't yet done enough background research to say whether that's new, or how it relates to other field theories.
About Floridi -- here are some of his works:

Floridi, Luciano. The Philosophy of Information. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
—. The Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
—. Information: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

And another shorter one that I looked through: 

Open Problems in the Philosophy of Information

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The plot thickens (with Herbert Spencer)

By Semiophrenic
In a paper attempting to outline the conceptual domain of comparative psychology , Herbert Spencer discusses the quality of impulsiveness in relation with human races (bearded and unbearded). Among his "sundry questions of interests" about the relationship between mental energy, evolution, complexity, etc. are the following notes: ( b ) What connection is there between this trait and the social state? Clearly a very explosive nature - such as that of the Bushman - is unfit for social; and, commonly, social union, when by any means established, checks impulsiveness. ( c ) What respective shares in checking impulsiveness are taken by the feelings which the social state fosters - such as the fear of surrounding individuals, the instinct of sociality , the desire to accumulate property, the sympathetic feelings , the sentiment of justice? These, which require a social environment for their development, all of them involve imaginations of consequences more or less distant; and th
4 comments
Read more

Vitruvius Pollio, The origin of the dwelling house

By
 Chapter 1 of Book II of "Ten Books on Architecture", available from Project Gutenberg .  Sections 1, 2, and 7 (from the Richard Schofield translation published by Penguin rather than the one here) are quoted on pp. 218-219 of Spheres II by Peter Sloterdijk.  Pay particular attention to Section 2. 1. The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual, fro
1 comment
Read more