Knowledge

Adams, Fred

doi:10.1002/9780470757017.ch17

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…In philosophy what counts as adequate justification is an open question [29]. Normal body temperature varies and the accuracy of tympanic thermometers is +/- .5 degrees at best.…”

Section: Formulating a Definition Of Informatics Based On Data Informentioning

confidence: 99%

What is biomedical informatics?

Bernstam

Smith

Johnson

2010

Journal of Biomedical Informatics

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Biomedical informatics lacks a clear and theoretically grounded definition. Many proposed definitions focus on data, information, and knowledge, but do not provide an adequate definition of these terms. Leveraging insights from the philosophy of information, we define informatics as the science of information, where information is data plus meaning. Biomedical informatics is the science of information as applied to or studied in the context of biomedicine. Defining the object of study of informatics as data plus meaning clearly distinguishes the field from related fields, such as computer science, statistics and biomedicine, which have different objects of study. The emphasis on data plus meaning also suggests that biomedical informatics problems tend to be difficult when they deal with concepts that are hard to capture using formal, computational definitions. In other words, problems where meaning must be considered are more difficult than problems where manipulating data without regard for meaning is sufficient. Furthermore, the definition implies that informatics research, teaching, and service should focus on biomedical information as data plus meaning rather than only computer applications in biomedicine.

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“…In philosophy what counts as adequate justification is an open question [29]. Normal body temperature varies and the accuracy of tympanic thermometers is +/- .5 degrees at best.…”

Section: Formulating a Definition Of Informatics Based On Data Informentioning

confidence: 99%

What is biomedical informatics?

Bernstam

Smith

Johnson

2010

Journal of Biomedical Informatics

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“…Elsewhere I've tried to respond to the objections to tracking theories that are most prevalent in the literature (Adams 2004, 2005, Adams and Clarke 2005). Information‐based accounts of knowledge (Dretske 1981, Adams 2004) are tracking theories. They exploit the very feature of information that Floridi has fought so valiantly to defend—its connection with truth.…”

Section: Information and Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Information and Knowledge À La Floridi

Adams

2010

Metaphilosophy

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Luciano Floridi has impressively applied the concept of information to problems in semantics and epistemology, among other areas. In this essay, I briefly review two areas where I think one may usefully raise questions about some of Floridi's conclusions. One area is in the project to naturalize semantics and Floridi's use of the derived versus nonderived notion of semantic content. The other area is in the logic of information and knowledge and whether knowledge based on information necessarily supports closure, in every instance. I suggest that it does not and, thereby, raise a challenge to Floridi's logic of being informed. Information and MeaningIn ''Open Problems in the Philosophy of Information, '' Floridi (2004a, 560) lists five ''extensional'' approaches to the notion of information, ranging from Shannon and Weaver's and Dretske's notions of semantic information cast in terms of probability space and the inverse relation between amounts of information and probability of a proposition p, to tracking the possible transitions in state space or tracking possible valid inferences relative to a person's epistemic states. While there are differences in the approaches, there are similarities as well. In what follows, I'm going to take the path that Floridi himself charts-that of defining information in terms of a data space where information is semantic, well formed, meaningful, and truthful data. Floridi's approach is perfectly consistent with the approaches of Shannon and Weaver and of Dretske as well, and where there may be differences, those differences do not matter for the topics I discuss below. 1 In my view, information is a naturally occurring commodity. It exists independently of minds and is created and transmitted by the nomic 1 Of course, Shannon does not himself consider using information as a basis for developing semantics. Dretske (1981) does, but his use of information has modal and counterfactual properties focused upon the origin of concepts and beliefs that derive from information. Floridi is developing a semantic notion of information. See my 2004 for more.

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