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Abstract

The paper offers the foundations of the theory of information media. Information media are dynamical systems with additional macrostructure of information-carrying states and information-preserving transformations. The paper also defines the notion of information media network as a system of information media connected by information transformations. It is demonstrated that many standard examples of information-containing and processing systems are captured by the general notion of information medium. The paper uses the theory (and informal discussion) of information media to motivate a structural approach to the information in media. The idea is that the notion of information transformation should be regarded as more primitive than the notion of informational state. Thus in information systems, especially in the context of information technology, information is secondary while information transformation is primary.

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Notes

  1. The notion of information, especially as discussed in recent philosophy of information literature, involves a semantic (Carnap and Bar-Hillel 1952; Dretske 1981; Floridi 2011, see the last for a more extensive bibliography) and even a pragmatic (MacKay 1969; Nauta 1970; Vakarelov 2010) component. An important distinction is made between data and information, where the concept of information is assumed to include data but also to include meaning (and truth). This paper is really about the data aspect of information. One reason I use the term information as opposed to data, beyond the fact that this is the common word in such contexts, is that I assume that information media exist within or are connected to semantic systems, and within this wider context the term information is appropriate. This being said, nothing in the theory developed below assumes semantics or pragmatics of information. Another reason is that the word data is often associated with the digital, more so than the word information. It is absolutely central for this paper that discreetness or digitality is disassociated from the notion of information medium.

  2. Let me clarify a possible equivocation of the word “medium.” In general, the word medium is used to indicate mediation between two things. Sometimes the word medium is used to describe an intermediary in communication. We can call this a communication medium. In this sense, newspapers, television, and the internet are viewed as media of communication. This is why they are regarded as forms of “media.” The notion of information medium is different from communication medium. The mediating role of the information medium is not between two communicators, but between two levels of abstraction—between the implementation (physical level) and the informational level. Now, information media may play the role of communication media, however communication media may be investigated at a single informational level of abstraction (disregarding the implementation), while information media cannot. As we shall see below, an information medium need not play the role of communication medium—a physical computer is an information medium. Thus, the two notions are distinct but relatable.

  3. So why not call it a “structural approach to information states”? One reason is to maintain terminological consistency with other work. Ultimately, but not in this paper, I use the notion of information medium to offer a more general account of information that includes semantics and pragmatics. The structural approach endorsed here translates to a more general structural approach to information.

  4. I have argued for this even for semantic information in Vakarelov (2010).

  5. The actual mechanisms for data encoding on an optical disk are more complicated. For example, in recordable media the spiral is given a slight sinusoidal variation, whose frequency is described as the wobble frequency. The wobble frequency is used for time synchronization, and modulations in the frequency are used for encoding second-order information about the disk, such as its type, maximum recording speed, etc.

  6. We need not assume that the operations are directly invertible, in the sense that there may not be a transformation back from the reading medium, the medium to which the reading transformation maps. However, there should be a cycle of transformations going to some other media that goes back to the original medium.

  7. Collier’s notion of intrinsic information can at best be an enabling condition for information in a medium.

  8. I use the term “structural” in the way it is used in mathematics, whereby an abstract mathematical object is defined structurally if it is defined up to isomorphism by what happens when transformations or operations are applied to it.

  9. If media are to be described with the method of levels of abstraction (Floridi and Sanders 2004b; Floridi 2008b), they will be special two-level gradients of abstraction. Investigating the connection of the theory developed below and the method of levels of abstraction is beyond the scope of this paper.

  10. It is always assumed that the function is defined on the \(\mathcal{IC}\) sets.

  11. Of course, such a transformation may be defined formally, but in some cases the set of transformations may be restricted in an informal way, e.g., by available operations that can be performed by a user.

  12. Because a scratch may produce an undetermined result, not just a bit flip, the syntax of the disk also contains holes. Remember that the eight-to-fourteen modulation rules constrain the possible lengths of lands and pits. A scratch may break the constraint and a portion of the spiral must be regarded as containing a hole. Thus, the \(\mathcal{IC}\) sets must be distinguished based on the presence of holes as well. Moreover, if a disk is too scratched, it may be impossible for the algorithms to produce a unique string. Such states would not be included in any \(\mathcal{IC}\) set, even though a spiral exists within the disk.

  13. The problem is not merely that there may be a circular definition, which is often acceptable, but that if the notions are only co-determined, the theory of information media may lack natural foundation. In other words, it may be difficult to understand how natural information networks are specified or emerge in physical world.

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Correspondence to Orlin Vakarelov.

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Vakarelov, O. The Information Medium. Philos. Technol. 25, 47–65 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-011-0016-9

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