Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism

Abstract

The article investigates the sceptical challenge from an information-theoretic perspective. Its main goal is to articulate and defend the view that either informational scepticism is radical, but then it is epistemologically innocuous because redundant; or it is moderate, but then epistemologically beneficial because useful. In order to pursue this cooptation strategy, the article is divided into seven sections. Section one sets up the problem. Section two introduces Borel numbers as a convenient way to refer uniformly to (the data that individuate) different possible worlds. Section three adopts the Hamming distance between Borel numbers as a metric to calculate the distance between possible worlds. In sections four and five, radical and moderate informational scepticism are analysed using Borel numbers and Hamming distances, and shown to be either harmless (extreme form) or actually fruitful (moderate form). Section six further clarifies the approach by replying to some potential objections. In the conclusion, the Peircean nature of the overall approach is briefly discussed.

Emergence and Evolution of Meaning: The General Definition of Information (GDI) Revisiting Program—Part I: The Progressive Perspective: Top-Down

“…Hence, the catalogue of possible logoi can be visualized as the characteristic set of catastrophic structures which mediate chreods with cognitive and linguistic structures. Not only does all of this fit nicely into the picture relevant for ongoing discussions (as indicated at the beginning of this paper), but it is also the role of logic which can be stressed with a view to the consequences of logoi: Elsewhere [61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75] the proposal of Fontana's has been discussed [125,126] with a view to establish a direct translation mechanism between observable processes in chemistry and a LISP-oriented operator algebra of logic (cf. [127], pp.…”

“…But the more is it necessary to actually determine what meaning is all about, a notion which according to common terminology obviously surpasses the concept of mere information. In so far, it is quite to the point that Floridi stresses the advent of hermeneutic theories (Ibid., p. 41), but it is possibly insufficient to let things be as they are without going into further detail as to a possible definition of the underlying basis of meaning (See also [70][71][72]1]). This is mainly so because the concept of meaning enters the discussion very early: For starting with a proper definition in the first place, it is immediately part of what Floridi calls the General Definition of Information (GDI).…”

In Which Sense Must Information Be True?

“…Дело в том, что Флориди является автором концепции «информационного скептицизма» [6], сформулированной им немного ранее выхода в свет «Философии информации». В кон-цепции информационного скептицизма Флориди утверждает, что эпистемологический скептицизм на современном этапе его развития в эпоху информационного общества оказывается безобидным или «безвредным» [6.…”

Towards an Informational Pragmatic Realism

“…This is somewhat analogous to the situation with energy: it is implicitly understood that all energies are relative to some reference frame but there is no need to constantly refer to a relative energy. 4 I make no attempt to provide a review of the literature on entropic inference. The following incomplete list reflects only some contributions that are directly related to the particular approach described in this paper: [8], [10], [14], [15], [16], [17], and [18].…”