Post on 19-Dec-2015
Welcome to Track IIPhilosophy of Information and Cognition
Orlin Vakarelov: Pre-cognitive Sematic Information
Marcin Schroeder: Semantics of Information: Meaning and Truth as Relationships between Information Carriers
Francisco Hernandez Quiroz: Computational and Human Mind Model
Today’s session
10:15 – joint with track III Alexander Funcke: On the Level of Creativity.
Ponderings on the Nature of Kantian Categories, Creativity and Copyrights
Lars-Erik Janlert: The Dynaminsm of Information Access for a Mobile Agent in a Dynamic Setting and some of its Implications
Iordanis Kavathatzopoulos and Mikael Laaksoharju: What are Ethical Agents and How Can We a Make Them Work Properly?
Wednesday two sessions
12:45 Richard Heersmink: Epistemological and
Phenomenological Issues in the Use of Brain-Computer Interfaces
Kirsty Kitto: Contextual Information: Modeling Different Interpretations of the same Data within a Geometric Framework
Christophe Menant: Cognition as a Management of Meaningful Information: Proposal for an Evolutionary Approach
Wednesday two sessions
Pre-cognitive Semantic Information
Orlin VakarelovDepartment of Philosophy
Cognitive Science ProgramUniversity of Arizona
Analyze cognition with the notion of sematic information
Project
Requirement Formulate a notion of semantic information
that does not presuppose cognition or mind as the source of the semantics.
USE
MEANING
Information = data + meaning (+ veridicality)
Use of information requires sensitivity to meaning.◦ Pragmatic Information = data + meaning + use
(+..) Amendment interpretation
Canonical View
DATA
Prototypical examples of data systems: languages, files, maps, diagrams …◦ All of these presuppose advanced
cognition
Natural Data: tree rings, smoke …◦ None of these count as data unless a
level of abstraction is specified.◦ Specification of a level of abstraction
seems to require cognition.
When can data be specified first?
“It is snowing in Aarhus”
Pragmatic approach◦ The basic concept is information system◦ Information is “currency” of the information
system
Decomposition interpretation◦ The “components” of pragmatic information are
co-determined in the operation of the information system
◦ “+” in “Information = data + meaning + use” results from decomposition.
An Alternative Approach
Pragmatic Scenario
Input Output
Internal Processes
Control relations
Mediation
I is an information system (Doede Nauta 1970) iff:1. I is an open system, i.e., it is a system that is distinct from its
environment, but it is in constant interaction with the environment.
2. I is a partially isolated open system, i.e., some of the interactions between S and the environment are structured through well-defined limited channels of influence (receptors and effectors).
3. I is a purposeful system, i.e., there is at least one proper set of goal states, G , that the system “attempts” to be in (or near) by affecting its environment.
4. I contains a sub-system M that can correlate with an external system S, and M can control the behavior of I by modulating effectors E.
5. I contains a second distinct sub-system P that filters the states of M and their effect on behavior in relating to its purpose. In other words, P steers the system towards G by modulating the control effect of M.
Information system
Conditions 1 - 4E
MS
Source Model/Map
Effectors
Purposeful filter
• Goal state (or neighborhood) G
• Mechanism P that selects the response based on a likelihood or effectiveness to achieve G
• More than one effective response to a given state of M
In a purposeful system there is a functional decoupling between the sub-system M and the control function of M
Yet, there is a control relationship between M and E.
M can be described as an informational medium used by the system in its interaction with the world.
The medium
What is the significance of the states of M for the information system?
Externalist approach:◦ “Semantic information is material information
with a functional business determined by teleology.” (Bogdan 1988: 89)
Internalist approach:◦ “The meaning of a message can be defined very
simply as its selective function on the range of the recipient's states of conditional readiness for goal-directed activity.” (MacKay 1969: 24)
Meaning
The meaning of an information state m of an information system is given by the differential interface function it serves in the whole process of purposeful interaction between the information system and the environment.
This is a minimal theory of meaning. Meaning has both an internalist and externalis
components and it may reduce to an internalist or externalist theory depending on how flexible the sides of the interface relation are.
Interface Theory of Meaning