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The Π Research Network Version 1.0 THE Π RESEARCH NETWORK Patrick Allo, Bert Baumgaertner, Simon D’Alfonso, Nir Fresco, Federico Gobbo, Carson Grubaugh, Andrew Iliadis, Phyllis Illari, Eric Kerr, Giuseppe Primiero, Federica Russo, Christoph Schulz, Mariarosaria Taddeo, Matteo Turilli, Orlin Vakarelov, Hector Zenil. THE PHILOSOPHY OF INFORMATION AN INTRODUCTION T H E Π RESEARCH NETWORK The Philosophy of Information An Introduction The Philosophy of Information - An Introduction by The Π Research Network is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. THE PHILOSOPHY OF IN F O R M A T I O N — A N INTRODUCTION Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 List of Figures 5 PREFACE 6 CONTRIBUTORS 7 Part I: Introductory material 8 1. A QUICK HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF INFORMATION 9 1.1 Introduction 9 1.2 Turing’s basic idea 10 1.3 Shannon’s basic idea 12 1.4 Extension of the concepts 14 1.5 Cybernetics 15 1.6 Dretske 18 1.7 French Philosophy of Information 21 1.8 Conclusion 26 1.9 Exercises 26 1.10 Further reading 27 2. WHAT IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF INFORMATION TODAY? 28 2.1 Introduction 28 2.2 The information revolution alters our self-understanding 29 2.3 The philosophy of information as a field 31 2.4 Open and closed questions 33 2.5 The idea of a Level of Abstraction (LoA) 36 2.6 The definition of a level of abstraction 37 2.7 The implications of LoAs 39 2.8 Exercises 41 2.9 Further reading 42 3. NATURALISED INFORMATION 43 3.1 Semantic vs. natural information 43 3.2 Information channels and semanticisation 45 3.3 Environmental information 45 3.4 Equivocation 46 3.5 Digitalization and semanticisation 47 3.6 Other approaches 50 3.6a Radu Bogdan’s teleological approach 50 3.6b Quine’s naturalization of meaning 51 3.7 Summary 52 3.9 Exercises 52 3.10 Suggestions for the exercises 52 3.11 Further reading 53 Part II: Social and moral 54 4. ETHICS 55 THE PHILOSOPHY OF IN F O R M A T I O N — A N INTRODUCTION 4.1 Introduction: Ethics and information 55 4.2 Historical overview 57 4.3 Towards a unified approach to information ethics 59 4.4 Floridi’s information ethics 60 4.5 The fundamental principles of Floridi’s information ethics 62 4.6 Common misconceptions and further analysis 63 4.7 Exercises 64 4.9 Further reading 65 5. SOCIETY 66 5.1 Introduction 66 5.2 The information revolution, history and society 66 5.3 The information revolution as the fourth revolution 68 5.3a Informational organism and informational environment 68 5.4 Ethical problems of the information society 70 5.4a Online trust 70 5.4b Information warfare 72 5.5 Conclusion 75 5.6 Exercises 75 5.7 Suggestions for the exercises 75 5.8 Further reading 75 Part III: Knowledge and language 76 6. MEANING 77 6.1 Introduction 77 6.2 The theory of meaning and the symbol grounding problem 77 6.3 Statistical approaches: Shannon and Weaver, Bar-Hillel and Carnap 80 6.4 Probabilistic approaches: Dretske 81 6.5 Semantic approaches: Levels of abstraction, and syntax 84 6.6 Pragmatic approaches 85 6.7 Intention-based semantics and computational systems 87 6.9 Conclusions 88 6.10 Exercises 88 6.11 Suggestions for the exercises 88 6.12 Further reading 89 7. TRUTH 90 7.1 Introduction 90 7.2 The veridicality thesis 90 7.3 Arguments for the veridicality thesis 92 7.4 Reasons to reject the veridicality thesis 95 7.5 Final assessment 98 7.6 Exercises 99 7.7 Further reading 99 8. KNOWLEDGE 100 8.1 Introduction 100 8.2 Some background 100 8.3 Floridi’s attack on justified true belief 102 8.4 Dretske’s information-theoretic epistemology 103 2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF IN F O R M A T I O N — A N INTRODUCTION 8.4a Dretske on knowledge 103 8.4b Applying Dretske’s account of knowledge to some cases 108 8.5 Floridi’s informational epistemology 109 8.5a The network theory of account 110 8.5b Criticisms and benefits 113 8.6 Exercises 114 8.7 Further reading 114 Part IV: (Information in the) Sciences 115 9. SCIENCE 116 9.1 Introduction 116 9.2 Science and reality: Model validation 117 9.3 Information and evidence 120 9.4 Information and expert knowledge 122 9.5 Science and poiesis 123 9.6 Conclusion 126 9.7 Exercises 126 9.8 Suggestions for the exercises 126 9.9 Further reading 127 10. COGNITION 128 10.1 Introduction: What is cognition? 128 10.2 The birth of cognitive science 131 10.3 Computationalism 132 10.4 The connectionist alternative 135 10.5 Embodied cognition 138 10.5a Ecological approach 138 10.5b Dynamical approach 140 10.6 Conclusion 142 10.7 Exercises 143 10.8 Further reading 143 11. MIND 144 11.1 Introduction 144 11.2 Semantic understanding 145 11.3 Searle’s Chinese room 147 11.4 Response to Searle 148 11.5 Is consciousness the result of information processing? 149 11.6 How do you know you're conscious? 151 11.7 Conclusion 153 11.8 Exercises 154 11.9 Further reading 154 Part V: Formal foundations 155 12. LOGIC 156 12.1 Introduction 156 12.2 Prelude 157 12.3 Logic in the Philosophy of Information 159 12.3a Minimalism 159 12.3b Constructionism 160 3 THE PHILOSOPHY OF IN F O R M A T I O N — A N INTRODUCTION 12.3c Levels of abstraction 163 12.4 An informational perspective on logic 164 12.5 Exercises 168 12.6 Suggestions for the exercises 168 12.7 Further reading 169 13. COMPUTATION 170 13.1 Introduction: how are information and computation related? 170 13.2 A brief background on the conflation of computation and information 172 13.3a Computability: the theoretical basis of computation 172 13.3b Turing machines 173 13.4 Digital computation as information processing 176 13.5 Analogue computation and information 177 13.6 Intelligent machinery and information 178 13.7 Conclusion 180 13.8 Exercises 181 13.9 Further reading 182 Part VI: Special topics 183 14. ALGORITHMIC INFORMATION THEORY 184 14.1 Introduction 184 14.2 Plain Kolmogorov complexity 186 14.3 The founding theorem 188 14.4 Most salient properties of K 189 14.5 A convenient variation of K 190 14.6 Optimal predictability and algorithmic probability 191 14.7 Complexity and frequency 192 14.8 The infinite wisdom number 194 14.9 Convergence in definitions 196 14.10 Conclusion 197 14.11 Exercises 198 14.12 Further reading 198 15. PERSONAL IDENTITY 199 15.1 Introduction 199 15.2 The traditional personal identity question 199 15.3 Other personal identity questions 202 15.4 Answering different questions: Floridi’s 3Cs and NSCV again 203 15.5 Personal identity in an onlife world 205 15.6 My personal identity: me, me, ME! 206 15.7 Exercises 207 15.8 Suggestions for the exercises 208 15.9 Further reading 208 REFERENCES 209 4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF IN F O R M A T I O N — A N INTRODUCTION List of Figures Figure 1: Alan Mathison Turing (1912–1954) © National Portrait Gallery, London .............. 10 Figure 2: Computors in an accounting office (1924) (Source: Library of Congress) ............... 11 Figure 3: A modern reproduction of a Turing Machine. (Courtesy of Mike Davey) ............... 11 Figure 4: Claude Elwood Shannon (1916-2001) ............................................................................ 12 Figure 5: Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) (Courtesy of Konrad Jacobs) ....................................... 16 Figure 6: Trust as a property of a relation ...................................................................................... 71 Figure 7: Jumping spider ................................................................................................................ 129 Figure 8: A neural network ............................................................................................................ 136 Figure 9: The famous Lorenz attractor is an orbit in a state space. ......................................... 140 Figure 10: Logical space with four possibilities .......................................................................... 165 Figure 11: Logical space with three possibilities ......................................................................... 166 Figure 12: Proposition expressed by A (left) and possibilities excluded by A (right) ........... 167 Figure 13: An instruction table for a Turing machine that computes f(n)=n+1 ..................... 175 Figure 14: Floridi’s 3Cs model ....................................................................................................... 204 5 THE PHILOSOPHY OF IN F O R M A T I O N — A N INTRODUCTION Preface P PREFACE The Project In April 2010, Bill Gates gave a talk at MIT in which he asked: ‘are the brightest minds working on the most important problems?’ Gates meant improving the lives of the poorest; improving education, health, and nutrition. We could easily add improving peaceful interactions, human rights, environmental conditions, living standards and so on. Philosophy of Information (PI) proponents think that Gates has a point – but this doesn’t mean we should all give up philosophy. Philosophy can be part of this project, because philosophy understood as conceptual design forges and refines the new ideas, theories, and perspectives that we need to understand and address these important problems that press us so urgently. Of course, this naturally invites us to wonder which ideas, theories, and perspectives philosophers should be designing now. In our global information society, many crucial challenges are linked to information and communication technologies: the constant search for novel solutions and improvements demands, in turn, changing conceptual resources to understand and cope with them. Rapid technological development now pervades communication, education, work, entertainment, industrial production and business, healthcare, social relations and armed conflicts. There is a rich mine of philosophical work to do on the new concepts created right here, right now. Philosophy “done informationally” has been around a long time, but PI as a discipline is quite new.
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