Getting the most out of Shannon information
| Autor: | Oliver M. Lean |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2013 |
| Předmět: |
Value (ethics)
Cognitive science 0303 health sciences Information algebra Computer science Information processing 06 humanities and the arts 0603 philosophy ethics and religion Outcome (game theory) 03 medical and health sciences Philosophy Philosophy of biology History and Philosophy of Science Argument 060302 philosophy Natural (music) General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Construct (philosophy) 030304 developmental biology |
| Zdroj: | Biology & Philosophy |
| ISSN: | 1572-8404 0169-3867 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10539-013-9410-2 |
| Popis: | Shannon information is commonly assumed to be the wrong way in which to conceive of information in most biological contexts. Since the theory deals only in correlations between systems, the argument goes, it can apply to any and all causal interactions that affect a biological outcome. Since informational language is generally confined to only certain kinds of biological process, such as gene expression and hormone signalling, Shannon information is thought to be unable to account for this restriction. It is often concluded that a richer, teleosemantic sense of information is needed. I argue against this view, and show that a coherent and sufficiently restrictive theory of biological information can be constructed with Shannon information at its core. This can be done by paying due attention some crucial distinctions: between information quantity and its fitness value, and between carrying information and having the function of doing so. From this I construct an account of how informational functions arise, and show that the “subject matter” of these functions can easily be seen as the natural information dealt with by Shannon’s theory. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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