On Dec 4, 2011, at 2:57 AM, [email protected] wrote: > 3. Do we know what we are talking about? (Answer to Steven) > > Sometimes I doubt it, when I read FIS discussions. Of course, > I am joking.
I read the same discussions, and I'm not so sure :-). > ... I do not see any problem in discussing ten different concepts > of information, as long as there is a common conceptual > framework prepared by philosophy of information and a common > methodology for the inquiry. I'm not sure what a "philosophy of information" is exactly, to be honest. It is, perhaps, the merely the title for the variety of uses and abuses of the term "information." In terms of Shannon, I see no philosophy. As I noted before, I see "Information" simply as a way of speaking about the process of change and, in particular, processes that make a difference - and this is consistent with Shannon. Hence, it has merit as a means of speaking about existence but it is a category error to attribute existential status to "information." In affirmation, ways of speaking that us the term are useful only if they enable methods of reasoning about processes that make a difference to outcomes. It would be hard for me to identify ten different concepts of information, although I suspect it would be easy to identify ten or more vague or overloaded usages of the term. > For instance, I have my own definition of information about > which I published several papers. Of course, I believe that it > is superior over other definitions. But, it does not mean that > I would not want to discuss yours. For instance, I think that > the concept of information should apply to phenomena in the > domain of quantum mechanics. Over there the use of the concept > of causality is questionable. I would be very interested in > your view of this matter. I see no problem using the notion of "information" when speaking about probabilities, probability is simply a way of speaking about a lot of stuff. It is a compression of the facts that relies upon the great uniformity of the world. Indeed, speaking about probabilities is a necessary epistemic requirement when dealing with the inaccessible (practically or in fact). I do not take challenges to causality seriously except to consider such challenges as pointers toward opportunities for new discovery. > In my opinion the main task for Information Science is not to > study one particular pre-defined concept, but to search for > what is common for many phenomena which form contexts for the > use of the term information or which have similar > manifestations to the phenomena which in the past were > associated with information. The problem here is that we must not let language analysis dominate good sense, else we find ourselves misled. Science does not study concepts or history, it studies the facts of the matter independent of our language constructions. If we allow ourselves to be constrained by our preconceptions and convention then we will find ourselves pursuing white rabbits. > Then we can try to check whether > either of existing concepts of information (as defined by you, > me, others) can be used to formulate unifying theory of these > phenomena. If not, a new concept of information will have to > be formulated. But don't worry, I am sure my concept will be > just fine ;-) I am glad you are so confident. But you have not defined your terms. With respect, Steven _______________________________________________ fis mailing list [email protected] https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
