A comment on Paul Schoemaker's target article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14 (1991), p. 205-215, "The Quest for Optimality: A Positive Heuristic of Science?" (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00066140). This comment argues that the optimizing model of decision leads to an infinite regress, once internal costs of decision (i.e., information and computation costs) are duly taken into account.

This paper addresses one of the fundamental problems of the philosophy of information: How does semantic information emerge within the underlying dynamics of the world?—the dynamical semantic information problem. It suggests that the canonical approach to semantic information that defines data before meaning and meaning before use is inadequate for pre-cognitive information media. Instead, we should follow a pragmatic approach to information where one defines the notion of information system as a special kind of purposeful system emerging within the underlying (...) dynamics of the world and define semantic information as the currency of the system. In this way, systems operating with semantic information can be viewed as patterns in the dynamics—semantic information is a dynamical system phenomenon of highly organized systems. In the simplest information systems, the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of the information medium are co-defined. It proposes a new more general theory of information semantics that focuses on the interface role of the information states in the information system—the interface theory of meaning. Finally, with the new framework, it addresses the debate between weakly semantic and strongly semantic accounts of information, siding with the strongly semantic view because the pragmatic account developed here is a better generalization of it. (shrink)

The philosophy of information (PI) is a new area of research with its own field of investigation and methodology. This article, based on the Herbert A. Simon Lecture of Computing and Philosophy I gave at Carnegie Mellon University in 2001, analyses the eighteen principal open problems in PI. Section 1 introduces the analysis by outlining Herbert Simon's approach to PI. Section 2 discusses some methodological considerations about what counts as a good philosophical problem. The discussion centers on Hilbert's famous analysis (...) of the central problems in mathematics. The rest of the article is devoted to the eighteen problems. These are organized into five sections: problems in the analysis of the concept of information, in semantics, in the study of intelligence, in the relation between information and nature, and in the investigation of values. (shrink)

"Complexity" is a catchword of certain extremely popular and rapidly developing interdisciplinary new sciences, often called accordingly the sciences of complexity. It is often closely associated with another notably popular but ambiguous word, "information"; information, in turn, may be justly called the central new concept in the whole 20th century science. Moreover, the notion of information is regularly coupled with a key concept of thermodynamics, viz. entropy. And like this was not enough it is quite usual to add one more (...) at present extraordinarily popular notion, namely chaos, and wed it with the abovementioned concepts. It is my aim in this paper to critically analyse this conceptual mess from a logical and philosophical point of view concentrating on the concepts of complexity and information and the question concerning the true relation between them. (shrink)

Daniel R. Brooks and E. O. Wiley have proposed a theory of evolution in which fitness is merely a rate determining factor. Evolution is driven by non-equilibrium processes which increase the entropy and information content of species together. Evolution can occur without environmental selection, since increased complexity and organization result from the likely capture at the species level of random variations produced at the chemical level. Speciation can occur as the result of variation within the species which decreases the probability (...) of sharing genetic information. Critics of the Brooks-Wiley theory argue that they have abused terminology from information theory and t thermodynamics. In this paper I review the essentials of the theory, and give an account of hierarchical physical information systems within which the theory can be interpreted. I then show how the major conceptual objections can be answered. (shrink)

Biosemiotics is a growing fi eld that investigates semiotic processes in the living realm in an attempt to combine the fi ndings of the biological sciences and semiotics. Semiotic processes are more or less what biologists have typically referred to as “ signals, ” “ codes, ”and “ information processing ”in biosystems, but these processes are here understood under the more general notion of semiosis, that is, the production, action, and interpretation of signs. Thus, biosemiotics can be seen as biology (...) interpreted as a study of living sign systems — which also means that semiosis or sign process can be seen as the very nature of life itself. In other words, biosemiotics is a field of research investigating semiotic processes (meaning, signification, communication, and habit formation in living systems) and the physicochemical preconditions for sign action and interpretation. -/- (...). (shrink)

The objective of the consistent-amplitude approach to quantum theory has been to justify the mathematical formalism on the basis of three main assumptions: the first defines the subject matter, the second introduces amplitudes as the tools for quantitative reasoning, and the third is an interpretative rule that provides the link to the prediction of experimental outcomes. In this work we introduce a natural and compelling fourth assumption: if there is no reason to prefer one region of the configuration space over (...) another, then they should be “weighted” equally. This is the last ingredient necessary to introduce a unique inner product in the linear space of wave functions. Thus, a form of the principle of insufficient reason is implicit in the Hilbert inner product. Armed with the inner product we obtain two results. First, we elaborate on an earlier proof of the Born probability rule. The implicit appeal to insufficient reason shows that quantum probabilities are not more objective than classical probabilities. Previously we had argued that the consistent manipulation of amplitudes leads to a linear time evolution; our second result is that time evolution must also be unitary. The argument is straightforward and hinges on the conservation of entropy. The only subtlety consists of defining the correct entropy; it is the array entropy, not von Neumann's. After unitary evolution has been established we proceed to introduce the useful notion of observables and we explore how von Neumann's entropy can be linked to Shannon's information theory. Finally, we discuss how various connections among the postulates of quantum theory are made explicit within this approach. (shrink)

The foundations of systematics lie in ontology, not in subjective epistemology. Systems and their elements should be distinguished from classes; only the latter are constructed from similarities. The term classification should be restricted to ordering into classes; ordering according to systematic relations may be called systematization.The theory of organization levels portrays the real world as a hierarchy of open systems, from energy quanta to ecosystems; followingHartmann these systems as extended in time are considered the primary units of reality. Organization levels (...) should be distinguished from levels of differentiation within each organization level.Certain biological systems, such as species, continue to be misinterpreted as classes, particularly by logicians unfamiliar with modern biological theory. Replacement of Aristotelian definitions of species by “polytypic” definitions achieves nothing, because species are individual systems which can be defined from an ontological viewpoint only as wholes. The dispute whether classes are real per se or only in individuals is of no scientific importance; irrespective of which view is taken, any ordering of physical objects into classes constitutes an hypothesis about the structure of the real world.The distinction between essential and contingent characters is relevant only to classification. There are no universal rules for evaluating characters for purposes of systematization. Character statements do not form separate linear sequences. The search for “unit characters” in an absolute sense is futile. All real characters are reducible to relations and are in principle measurable, although there are limitations on the extent to which this can be presently achieved.The concept of the sexual species is fundamental to theories of biosystematics. Sexual species may be defined as lineages consisting at any given time of series of populations between which genetic exchange can occur and delimited in time by two successive processes of speciation. Linnaean nomenclature needs modification; in its traditional form it is appropriate only to non-truncated hierarchies, whereas real phylogenies form truncated hierarchies. In consequence of the distinction between systematization and classification it is concluded that, while taxa may be classified into age classes or evolutionary grades, their limits as taxa can be no different in either case. Classification into evolutionary grades remains an imprecise endeavour, since no general measure of evolutionary differentiation has been devised.The spatial and temporal extent of ecosystems, the postulated basic units of ecosystematics, remains unclarified. Nevertheless there are grounds for expecting progress in this field as the energetic relations between organisms become better understood. Biotic communities are not “abstract” classes, but systematic units. Physiognomic classification should not be confused with systematization of plant communities; both approaches contribute to an understanding of vegetational structure. (shrink)

Following a short discussion of the German philosopher Friedrich A. Kittler’s biographical and intellectual formation, this interview introduces the reader to Kittler’s theoretical efforts to develop our understanding of contemporary culture and society. However, the focus of the interview is on the core concepts of ‘discourse networks’, ‘the military-industrial complex’, and ‘technology’, arguably the three central themes of Kittler’s work to date. As the title of the interview indicates, the idea of ‘cultural mathematics’ is also considered important in this account (...) of Kittler’s particular contribution to social and cultural theory, although this and related notions are critically appraised together with an assessment of their theoretical, social and cultural impact. (shrink)

Since World War II the concept of Information has received several new definitions. Information can be understood as knowledge in general, as theoretical, formalized knowledge in general or as knowledge related to specific domains or specific representational forms. Because of these mutually inconsistent concepts the common traits are to be found in a perspective transcendent to those theories. The central cultural changes, it is argued, take place on the level of the societal knowledge infrastructure, evolving from the knowledge infrastructure of (...) the industrial societies as a long-term secularization process, resulting in new forms for representation and manipulation of knowledge. The process is seen as rooted in changes of the primary domains for knowledge extraction and in a change in the human relations to the languages in which we interpret the relations to nature. (shrink)

The examples and concepts that Shoemaker cites are rather heterogeneous. Some distinctions need to be drawn. An optimality thesis involves not just an ordering of options, but a value judgment about them. So let us begin by distinguishing minimality from optimality. And the concept of minimality can play a variety of roles, among which I distinguish between extremum descriptions, statements hypothesizing an optimizing process, and methodological recommendations. Finally, I consider how the three categories relate to Shoemaker’s question that “Who is (...) optimizing: the scientist or nature?” . (shrink)

The principle of complementarity in physics can be generalized and extended to information studies. It helps explain the dilemma faced by information studies today. The prevailing endeavor that going beyond the limitation of formal theories and to develop a unified theory of information falls in the dilemma which is structurally homologous to the dilemmas in quantum physics. The dilemma is caused by an epistemological paradox called assignment paradox. The paradox can be removed through generalized complementarity. It means that the concept (...) of information embodying in different theoretical contexts are different phenomenon. They are complementary to each other. The analysis brings bad news to methodologically reductionism and fundamentalism but good news to transdisciplinary approach. (shrink)

On an influential account, chaos is explained in terms of random behaviour; and random behaviour in turn is explained in terms of having positive Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy (KSE). Though intuitively plausible, the association of the KSE with random behaviour needs justification since the definition of the KSE does not make reference to any notion that is connected to randomness. I provide this justification for the case of Hamiltonian systems by proving that the KSE is equivalent to a generalized version of Shannon's (...) communication-theoretic entropy under certain plausible assumptions. I then discuss consequences of this equivalence for randomness in chaotic dynamical systems. Introduction Elements of dynamical systems theory Entropy in communication theory Entropy in dynamical systems theory Comparison with other accounts Product versus process randomness. (shrink)

Integrating concepts of maintenance and of origins is essential to explaining biological diversity. The unified theory of evolution attempts to find a common theme linking production rules inherent in biological systems, explaining the origin of biological order as a manifestation of the flow of energy and the flow of information on various spatial and temporal scales, with the recognition that natural selection is an evolutionarily relevant process. Biological systems persist in space and time by transfor ming energy from one state (...) to another in a manner that generates structures which allows the system to continue to persist. Two classes of energetic transformations allow this; heat-generating transformations, resulting in a net loss of energy from the system, and conservative transformations, changing unusable energy into states that can be stored and used subsequently. All conservative transformations in biological systems are coupled with heat-generating transformations; hence, inherent biological production, or genealogical proesses, is positively entropic. There is a self-organizing phenomenology common to genealogical phenomena, which imparts an arrow of time to biological systems. Natural selection, which by itself is time-reversible, contributes to the organization of the self-organized genealogical trajectories. The interplay of genealogical (diversity-promoting) and selective (diversity-limiting) processes produces biological order to which the primary contribution is genealogical history. Dynamic changes occuring on times scales shorter than speciation rates are microevolutionary; those occuring on time scales longer than speciation rates are macroevolutionary. Macroevolutionary processes are neither redicible to, nor autonomous from, microevolutionary processes. (shrink)

The process of recognition or isolation of one or several entities from among many possible entities is termed intellego perception. It is shown that not only are many of our everyday percepts of this type, but perception of microscopic events using the methods of quantum mechanics are also intellego in nature. Information theory seems to be a natural language in which to express perceptual activity of this type. It is argued that the biological organism quantifies its sensations using an information (...) theoretical measure. This, in turn, sets the stage for a mathematical theory of sensory perception. (shrink)

This interview reconsiders Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto 21 years after it was first published. It asks what has become of the three boundary breakdowns around which the Manifesto was structured - those between animals and humans, animal-humans (organisms) and machines, and the ‘physical and non-physical’. Against this backdrop, this interview examines the connection between the Cyborg Manifesto and Haraway’s more recent writings on companion species, along with what it means to read or write a ‘manifesto’ today. Recent notions of the (...) ‘posthuman’ are also placed into question. (shrink)

Universal Darwinism provides a methodology to study the evolution of anatomical form and sociocultural behavior that centers on defining the units and levels of selection, and it identifies the conditions whereby natural selection operates. In previous work, I have examined how this selection-focused evolutionary epistemology may be universalized to include theories that associate with an extended synthesis. Applied evolutionary epistemology is a metatheoretical framework that understands any and all kinds of evolution as phenomena where units evolve by mechanisms at levels (...) of an ontological hierarchy; and it provides three heuristics to search for these units, levels and mechanisms. The heuristics are applicable to language and sociocultural evolution, and here, we give an in-depth analysis of how the unit-heuristic can be implemented into language origin and evolution studies. The importance of developing hierarchy theories is also more fully explained. (shrink)

This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of one of science's most pervasive and flexible metaprinciples;optimalityis used to explain utility maximization in economics, least effort principles in physics, entropy in chemistry, and survival of the fittest in biology. Fermat's principle of least time involves both teleological and causal considerations, two distinct modes of explanation resting on poorly understood psychological primitives. The rationality heuristic in economics provides an example from social science of the potential biases arising from the extreme flexibility of (...) optimality considerations, including selective search for confirming vidence, ex post rationalization, and the confusion of prediction with explanation. Commentators are asked to reflect on the extent to which optimality is an organizing principle of nature, a set of relatively unconnected techniques of science, a normative principle for rational choice and social organization, a metaphysical way of looking at the world, or something else still. (shrink)

Grice (1957) drew a distinction between natural(N) and non–natural(NN) meaning, and showed how the latter might be characterised in terms of intentions and the recognition of intentions. Focussing on the role of natural signs and natural behaviours in communication, this paper makes two main points. First, verbal communication often involves a mixture of natural and non–natural meaning and there is a continuum of cases between showing and meaningNN. This suggests that pragmatics is best seen as a theory of intentional verbal (...) communication rather than a theory of meaningNN. Second, some natural behaviours have a signalling function: they are, in effect, natural codes. Such behaviours do not fit easily into Grice's distinction between natural and non–natural meaning, which suggests it is not exhaustive. (shrink)

When reasoning about deontic rules (what one may, should, or should not do in a given set of circumstances), reasoners adopt a violation‐detection strategy, a strategy they do not adopt when reasoning about indicative rules (descriptions of purported state of affairs). I argue that this indicative‐deontic distinction constitutes a primitive in the cognitive architecture. To support this claim, I show that this distinction emerges early in development, is observed regardless of the cultural background of the reasoner, and can be selectively (...) disrupted at the neurological level. I also argue that this distinction emerged as a result of selective pressure favouring the evolution of reasoning strategies that determine survival within dominance hierarchies. (shrink)

The exploration of the mechanisms of cultural heredity has often been regarded as the key to explicating human uniqueness. Particularly early imitative learning, which is explained as a kind of simulation that rests on the infant’s identification with other persons as intentional agents, has been stressed as the foundation of cumulative cultural transmission. But the question of what are the objects of this mechanism has not been given much attention. Although this is a pivotal point, it still remains obscure. I (...) will characterize the notion of action-types and show why they are the genuine objects of cultural heredity. However, this answer is in conflict with the concept of imitation, and the problem arises that, if imitation is conceptualized as simulation and explained in terms of the cognition of infants, the objects of cultural transmission seemingly cannot be passed on by imitation. In order to solve this problem, I propose reconsidering the concept of imitation and to conceptualize imitation as a cooperative activity of infants and adults. (shrink)

Molecular Weismannism is the claim that: “In the development of an individual, DNA causes the production both of DNA (genetic material) and of protein (somatic material). The reverse process never occurs. Protein is never a cause of DNA”. This principle underpins both the idea that genes are the objects upon which natural selection operates and the idea that traits can be divided into those that are genetic and those that are not. Recent work in developmental biology and in philosophy of (...) biology argues that an acceptance of Molecular Weismannism requires the tacit assumption that genetic causes are different in kind from other developmental causes. They argue that if this assumption proves to be unwarranted then we should abandon, not just gene selectionism and gene centred functional solutions to the units of selection problem, but also the very notion that there is any such thing as a “genetic trait”. A group of possible causal distinctions (proximity, ultimacy and specificity) are explored and found wanting. It is argued that an extended version of information theory, while not strong enough to support Molecular Weismannism, will support both the claim that traits can be divided into those that are genetic and those that are not as well as the claim that there is good reason to privilege genetic causes within evolutionary and developmental explanations. The outcome of this for the units of selection debate is explored. (shrink)

With reference to two specific modalities of sensation, the taste of saltiness of chloride salts, and the loudness of steady tones, it is shown that the laws of sensation (logarithmic and power laws) are expressions of the entropy per mole of the stimulus. That is, the laws of sensation are linear functions of molar entropy. In partial verification of this hypothesis, we are able to derive an approximate value for the gas constant, a fundamental physical constant, directly from psychophysical measurements. (...) The significance of our observation lies in the linking of the phenomenon of “sensation” directly to a physical measure. It suggests that if the laws of physics are universal, the laws of sensation and perception are similarly universal. It also connects the sensation of a simple, steady physical signal with the molecular structure of the signal: the greater the number of microstates or complexions of the stimulus signal, the greater the magnitude of the sensation (saltiness or loudness). The hypothesis is currently tested on two sensory modalities. (shrink)

A new approach to information is proposed with the intention of providing a conceptual tool adapted to biology, including a semantic value.Information involves a material support as well as a significance, adapted to the cognitive domain of the receiver and/or the transmitter. A message does not carry any information, only data. The receiver makes an identification by a procedure of recognition of the forms, which activate previously learned significance. This treatment leads to a new significance (or new knowledge).

Geography has traditionally been assigned the role of handmaiden in evolutionary studies. In this work a different understanding of the relationship between biological change and locational setting is developed: evolution as a dynamic form of spatial interaction. In the causal model presented, adaptive change is portrayed as a negative feedback response contributing to a general spatial-temporal process of resource cycle tightening involving exchanges between the two fundamental structural sectors (abiotic and biotic) of the earth's surface system. As such, it is (...) rejected as evolution per se. This position makes it possible to circumvent the adaptation yields adaptation circularity, and to view locational circumstances as being evolutionarily causal, yet not deterministic with respect to population-level change. A parallel interpretation of the relation between range and range change and evolution is also implicit; the individualistic hypothesis is thereby superceded by a model of community evolution allowing for individualistic rates of population (adaptive and) range change, but operating on the principle that populations should tend to change range in common directions (as a response to spatially-varying degrees of efficiency of turnover of resources vital to biotic sector function). This in turn leads to the possibility of normative biogeographic modelling. Comment is also made on the relationship of the present understanding to disequilibrium and dynamic equilibrium interpretations of evolutionary change, and to human cultural evolution. (shrink)

An application of the entropic theory of perception to evolutionary systems indicates that environmental entropy increases will exert pressures on an organism to adapt. We speculate that the instability caused by such environmental changes will also cause an increase in the mutation rate of organisms leading to an eventual increase in their complexity. Such complexity generation allows organisms to adapt to the more entropic environment. Although we conclude that increases in environmental entropy cause an organism to evolve into a more (...) complex organism, increases in entropy may not be necessary for complexity generationper se. (shrink)

This article argues for a view on languaging as inherently affective. Informed by recent ecological tendencies within cognitive science and distributed language studies a distinction between first order languaging (language as whole-body sense making) and second order language (language as system like constraints) is put forward. Contrary to common assumptions within linguistics and communication studies separating language-as-a-system from language use (resulting in separations between language vs. body-language and verbal vs. non-verbal communication etc.) the first/second order distinction sees language as emanating (...) from behavior making it possible to view emotion and affect as integral parts languaging behavior. Likewise, emotion and affect are studied, not as inner mental states, but as processes of organism-environment interactions. Based on video recordings of interaction between (1) children with special needs, and (2) couple in therapy and the therapist patterns of reciprocal influences between interactants are examined. Through analyzes of affective stance and patterns of inter-affectivity it is exemplified how language and emotion should not be seen as separate phenomena combined in language use, but rather as completely intertwined phenomena in languaging behavior constrained by second order patterns. (shrink)