Information is provisional
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Transcript of Information is provisional
Information is Provisional
David ChapmanSociety and Information Research Group
The Open University
Chapman. D. A. (2013) ‘Information is Provisional’ DTMD2013, Milton Keynes, April 2013. http://www.dtmd.org.uk/past-events/dtmd-13-conference. See also Chapman, D. A. (2014) "Information is provisional", Kybernetes, Vol. 43 Iss: 6 pp 895-910
Outline
• What is information? • Information is provisional• It matters that information is provisional• Conclusions
Outline
• What is information? – A diagrammatic representation– Semantic information– Environmental information– Meaningful data– An event that generates meaning
• Information is provisional• Why it matters
Information is… meaningful data
GDI: General Definition of (semantic) Information (Floridi 2011, p84):
σ is an instance of semantic information if and only if σ consists of data, the data are well-formed, and the well-formed data are meaningful
Yes… but situated in time and space (Holwell 2011):data plus meaning in a particular context at a particular timeMalik (2005) says: Information is […] a situated event, an event that generates meaning
Information is provisional
• What is information? • Information is provisional– Semantic information has to be true, therefore it
must be provisional– Communication is unreliable, therefor semantic
information must be provisional– (Environmental) Information is a sign and
semioticians tell us signs are provisional
• Why it matters
Semantic information has to be true and is therefore provisional
Floridi’s veridicality thesis (Floridi 2011)•False information or misinformation is not a kind of information: it is not information•Bar-Hillel – Carnap paradox (Bar-Hillel 1964)
A self-contradictory sentence carries the most information
But since we can’t ever know, finally, that something is true, information, too, must be provisional
Semantic information is unreliable and is therefore provisional
( )log 1 SC W N= +Error free
but only after infinite time!
Semioticians tell us information is provisional
• Environmental information is the event which creates a sign in the map
• différance (Jacques Derrida) – Sounds like différence only recognised when
written – différer means both "to differ" and "to defer“
• Information:
The différance that makes a différance
It matters that information is provisional
• What is information? • Information is provisional• It matters that information is provisional
– Information is real: reality is information– Therefore reality is provisional– Examples
It matters that information is provisional
• Information is real• Materialism: “Matter is the fundamental constituent of the
natural world” (Philip Clayton)
• Reality is information– It from bit; not bit from it (John Wheeler)– From: maths->physics->Info – To: Info->Laws of physics->Matter (Paul Davies)• Reality behaves according to the rules of information, so if
information is provisional, so, too is reality.