We show that three fundamental information-theoretic constraints -- the impossibility of superluminal information transfer between two physical systems by performing measurements on one of them, the impossibility of broadcasting the information contained in an unknown physical state, and the impossibility of unconditionally secure bit commitment -- suffice to entail that the observables and state space of a physical theory are quantum-mechanical. We demonstrate the converse derivation in part, and consider the implications of alternative answers to (...) a remaining open question about nonlocality and bit commitment. (shrink)

We present an information-theoretic interpretation of quantum formalism based on a Bayesian framework and devoid of any extra axiom or principle. Quantum information is construed as a technique for analyzing a logical system subject to classical constraints, based on a question-and-answer procedure. The problem is posed from a particular batch of queries while the constraints are represented by the truth table of a set of Boolean functions. The Bayesian inference technique consists in assigning a probability (...) distribution within a real-valued probability space to the joint set of queries in order to satisfy the constraints. The initial query batch is not unique and alternative batches can be considered at will. They are enabled mechanically from the initial batch, quite simply by transcribing the probability space into an auxiliary Hilbert space. It turns out that this sole procedure leads to exactly rediscover the standard quantum information theory and thus provides an information-theoretic rationale to its technical rules. In this framework, the great challenges of quantum mechanics become simple platitudes: Why is the theory probabilistic? Why is the theory linear? Where does the Hilbert space come from? In addition, most of the paradoxes, such as uncertainty principle, entanglement, contextuality, nonsignaling correlation, measurement problem, etc., become straightforward features. In the end, our major conclusion is that quantum information is nothing but classical information processed by a mature form of Bayesian inference technique and, as such, consubstantial with Aristotelian logic. (shrink)

Probabilistic theories are a natural framework to investigate the foundations of quantum theory and possible alternative or deeper theories. In a generic probabilistic theory, states of a physical system are represented as vectors of outcomes probabilities and state spaces are convex cones. In this picture the physics of a given theory is related to the geometric shape of the cone of states. In quantum theory, for instance, the shape of the cone of states corresponds to a projective space over complex (...) numbers. In this paper we investigate geometric constraints on the state space of a generic theory imposed by the following information theoretic requirements: every non completely mixed state of a system is perfectly distinguishable from some other state in a single shot measurement; information capacity of physical systems is conserved under making mixtures of states. These assumptions guarantee that a generic physical system satisfies a natural principle asserting that the more a state of the system is mixed the less information can be stored in the system using that state as logical value. We show that all theories satisfying the above assumptions are such that the shape of their cones of states is that of a projective space over a generic field of numbers. Remarkably, these theories constitute generalizations of quantum theory where superposition principle holds with coefficients pertaining to a generic field of numbers in place of complex numbers. If the field of numbers is trivial and contains only one element we obtain classical theory. This result tells that superposition principle is quite common among probabilistic theories while its absence gives evidence of either classical theory or an implausible theory. (shrink)

I present a computational-level model of semantic interference effects in online word production within a rate–distortion framework. I consider a bounded-rational agent trying to produce words. The agent's action policy is determined by maximizing accuracy in production subject to computational constraints. These computational constraints are formalized using mutual information. I show that semantic similarity-based interference among words falls out naturally from this setup, and I present a series of simulations showing that the model captures some of the (...) key empirical patterns observed in Stroop and Picture–Word Interference paradigms, including comparisons to human data from previous experiments. (shrink)

Clifton, Bub, and Halvorson (CBH) have recently argued that quantum theory is characterized by its satisfaction of three fundamental information-theoretic constraints. However, it is not difficult to construct apparent counterexamples to the CBH characterization theorem. In this paper, we discuss the limits of the characterization theorem, and we provide some technical tools for checking whether a theory (specified in terms of the convex structure of its state space) falls within these limits.

This paper investigates the link between informational consequence and credence. I first suggest a natural constraint, namely that informational consequence should preserve certainty: on any rational credence distribution, when the premises of an informational inferences have credence 1, the conclusion also has credence 1. Then I show that the certainty‐preserving constraint leads to triviality. In particular, the following three claims are incompatible: (i) informational consequence is extensionally distinct from classical consequence; (ii) informational inferences preserve certainty; (iii) credences obey (a subset (...) of) classical Bayesian constraints. The proof is straightforward, but the theoretical implications are substantial. Informational theorists need to either give up the idea that credence applies to epistemic discourse, or develop a nonclassical theory of credence and credal update. Moreover, the result also suggests that there is a connection between informational consequence and triviality results, including classical triviality results like Lewis's. (shrink)

In a seminal 1977 article, Rumelhart argued that perception required the simultaneous use of multiple sources of information, allowing perceivers to optimally interpret sensory information at many levels of representation in real time as information arrives. Building on Rumelhart's arguments, we present the Interactive Activation hypothesis—the idea that the mechanism used in perception and comprehension to achieve these feats exploits an interactive activation process implemented through the bidirectional propagation of activation among simple processing units. We then examine (...) the interactive activation model of letter and word perception and the TRACE model of speech perception, as early attempts to explore this hypothesis, and review the experimental evidence relevant to their assumptions and predictions. We consider how well these models address the computational challenge posed by the problem of perception, and we consider how consistent they are with evidence from behavioral experiments. We examine empirical and theoretical controversies surrounding the idea of interactive processing, including a controversy that swirls around the relationship between interactive computation and optimal Bayesian inference. Some of the implementation details of early versions of interactive activation models caused deviation from optimality and from aspects of human performance data. More recent versions of these models, however, overcome these deficiencies. Among these is a model called the multinomial interactive activation model, which explicitly links interactive activation and Bayesian computations. We also review evidence from neurophysiological and neuroimaging studies supporting the view that interactive processing is a characteristic of the perceptual processing machinery in the brain. In sum, we argue that a computational analysis, as well as behavioral and neuroscience evidence, all support the Interactive Activation hypothesis. The evidence suggests that contemporary versions of models based on the idea of interactive activation continue to provide a basis for efforts to achieve a fuller understanding of the process of perception. (shrink)

Colonius suggests that, in using standard set theory as the language in which to express our computational-level theory of human memory, we would need to violate the axiom of foundation in order to express meaningful memory bindings in which a context is identical to an item in the list. We circumvent Colonius's objection by allowing that a list item may serve as a label for a context without being identical to that context. This debate serves to highlight the value of (...) specifying memory operations in set theoretic notation, as it would have been difficult if not impossible to formulate such an objection at the algorithmic level. (shrink)

Within theoretical and empirical enquiries, many different meanings associated with consciousness have appeared, leaving the term itself quite vague. This makes formulating an abstract and unifying version of the concept of consciousness – the main aim of this article –into an urgent theoretical imperative. It is argued that consciousness, characterized as dually accessible (cognized from the inside and the outside), hierarchically referential (semantically ordered), bodily determined (embedded in the working structures of an organism or conscious system), and useful in action (...) (pragmatically functional), is a graded rather than an all-or-none phenomenon. A gradational approach, however, despite its explanatory advantages, can lead to some counterintuitive consequences and theoretical problems. In most such conceptions consciousness is extended globally (attached to primitive organisms or artificial systems), but also locally (connected to certain lower-level neuronal and bodily processes). For example, according to information integration theory (as introduced recently by Tononi and Koch, 2014), even such simple artificial systems as photodiodes possess miniscule amounts of consciousness. The major challenge for this article, then, is to establish reasonable, empirically justified constraints on how extended the range of a graded consciousness could be. It is argued that conscious systems are limited globally by the ability to individuate information (where individuated information is understood as evolutionarily embedded, socially altered, and private), whereas local limitations should be determined on the basis of a hypothesis about the action-oriented nature of the processes that select states of consciousness. Using these constraints, an abstract concept of consciousness is arrived at, hopefully contributing to a more unified state of play within consciousness studies itself. (shrink)

Intentionality of cognitive states is not reducible to information if the latter is construed in terms of analytical and nomic constraints. Intentionality and the individuation of cognitive states presupposes cultural constraints that let socially constructed information flow. Fred dretske's information-Theoretical account of intentionality is criticised for ignoring the cultural constraints of human cognition.

I argue that informational models of consciousness, including those proposed by the Integrated Information Theory, don’t presuppose or entail any particular view about the physical or metaphysical nature of consciousness. Such models only tell us how certain properties of consciousness can be mathematically described, thus providing a quantitative characterization of the phenomenon of consciousness that may contribute to the development of new methods of assessment and guide the explanatory project by supplying additional constraints on theoretical proposals. While informational (...) models are in principle compatible with multiple physical interpretations, a preliminary argument in favour of the continuity between informational approaches and the mechanistic project in neuroscience can be made based on historical precedents. (shrink)

How do cognitive biases and mechanisms from learning and use interact when a system of language conventions emerges? We investigate this question by focusing on how transitive events are conveyed in silent gesture production and interaction. Silent gesture experiments have been used to investigate cognitive biases that shape utterances produced in the absence of a conventional language system. In this mode of communication, participants do not follow the dominant order of their native language, and instead condition the structure on the (...) semantic properties of the events they are conveying. An important source of variability in structure in silent gesture is the property of reversibility. Reversible events typically have two animate participants whose roles can be reversed. Without a syntactic/conventional means of conveying who does what to whom, there is inherent unclarity about the agent and patient roles in the event. In experiment 1 we test a novel, fine-grained analysis of reversibility. Presenting a silent gesture production experiment, we show that the variability in word order depends on two factors that together determine how reversible an event is. We relate our experimental results to principles from information theory, showing that our data support the “noisy channel” account of constituent order. In experiment 2, we focus on the influence of interaction on word order variability for reversible and non-reversible events. We show that when participants use silent gesture for communicative interaction, they become more consistent in their usage of word order over time, however, this pattern less pronounced for events that are classified as strongly non-reversible. We conclude that full consistency in word order is theoretically a good strategy, but word order use in practice is a more complex phenomenon. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to elucidate the processes that characterize natural language interpretation. The basic hypothesis is that natural language interpretation can be characterized as an optimization problem. This innovative view on interpretation is shown to account for the crucial role of contextual information while avoiding certain well-known problems associated withcompositionality. This will become particularly clear in the context of incomplete expressions. Our approach takes as a point of departure total freedom ofinterpretation in combination with the parallel (...) application of soft constraints on possible interpretations. These constraints can be contextual, intonational or syntactic in nature. The integration of pragmatic andsyntactic/semantic information in a system of ranked constraints is proposed to correctly derive the optimal interpretations in cases of nominal anaphorization, determiner quantification and elliptical comparatives. (shrink)

This study analyzes discussions from online language teacher education to understand how conversations between monolingual and bilingual preservice teachers (PSTs) in the US create and delimit structural constraints on teachers’ agency, (re)positioning teachers’ capacity to act in the instruction of emergent bilingual students (EBs). Employing positioning theory within a critical discursive psychology approach, findings demonstrate how bilingual PSTs pushed back on structural constraints introduced as potential barriers to achieving linguistic pluralism in monolingual teachers’ posts, asserting teachers’ agency by (...) simultaneously positioning themselves and others as capable and responsible for education of EBs. These findings inform theoretical understandings of agency as a discursive construct and offer insights for teacher educators as they conceptualize the role of discursive exchanges in developing PSTs’ understanding of structures and agentive possibilities regarding the equitable education of EBs. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to elucidate the processes that characterize natural language interpretation. The basic hypothesis is that natural language interpretation can be characterized as an optimization problem. This innovative view on interpretation is shown to account for the crucial role of contextual information while avoiding certain well-known problems associated with compositionality. This will become particularly clear in the context of incomplete expressions. Our approach takes as a point of departure total freedom of interpretation in combination with (...) the parallel application of soft constraints on possible interpretations. These constraints can be contextual, intonational or syntactic in nature. The integration of pragmatic and syntactic/semantic information in a system of ranked constraints is proposed to correctly derive the optimal interpretations in cases of nominal anaphorization, determiner quantification and elliptical comparatives. (shrink)

The essays in this volume are based on the premise that the most basic functions of rights requires the empirical study of rights consciousness and claiming behavior. The volume is organized around the social movements and political processes which give rise to rights, the processes by which people come to understand they enjoy a right, the decision to invoke the right either formally or informally, and the organizational and institutional constraints and opportunities for exercising rights. The essays are contributed (...) by political scientists, historians, lawyers, and sociologists. (shrink)

It is a frequent assumption that—via superluminal information transfers—superluminal signals capable of enabling communication are necessarily exchanged in any quantum theory that posits hidden superluminal influences. However, does the presence of hidden superluminal influences automatically imply superluminal signalling and communication? The non-signalling theorem mediates the apparent conflict between quantum mechanics and the theory of special relativity. However, as a ‘no-go’ theorem there exist two opposing interpretations of the non-signalling constraint: foundational and operational. Concerning Bell’s theorem, we argue that Bell (...) employed both interpretations, and that he finally adopted the operational position which is associated often with ontological quantum theory, e.g., de Broglie–Bohm theory. This position we refer to as “effective non-signalling”. By contrast, associated with orthodox quantum mechanics is the foundational position referred to here as “axiomatic non-signalling”. In search of a decisive communication-theoretic criterion for differentiating between “axiomatic” and “effective” non-signalling, we employ the operational framework offered by Shannon’s mathematical theory of communication, whereby we distinguish between Shannon signals and non-Shannon signals. We find that an effective non-signalling theorem represents two sub-theorems: Non-transfer-control theorem, and Non-signification-control theorem. Employing NTC and NSC theorems, we report that effective, instead of axiomatic, non-signalling is entirely sufficient for prohibiting nonlocal communication. Effective non-signalling prevents the instantaneous, i.e., superluminal, transfer of message-encoded information through the controlled use—by a sender-receiver pair —of informationally-correlated detection events, e.g., in EPR-type experiments. An effective non-signalling theorem allows for nonlocal quantum information transfer yet—at the same time—effectively denies superluminal signalling and communication. (shrink)

When a child is born with ambiguousgenitalia it is declared a psychosocialemergency, and the policy first proposed byJohn Money andadapted by the American Academy of Pediatrics requires determination ofunderlying condition, selection of gender,surgical intervention, and a commitment by allparties to accept the ``real sex'' of thepatient, all no later than 18–24 months,preferably earlier. Ethicists have recentlyquestioned this protocol on several grounds:lack of medical necessity, violation ofinformed consent, uncertainty of standards ofsuccess, among others. This suggests that thefaults in the protocol can (...) be addressed andimproved. Through a rhetorical approachinformed by Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca, thedisciplinary pathologization and reconstructionof the body are explored as incidents ofconstraining rhetoric that enact theirpersuasion upon the body of intersexedchildren. This essay shows that thepresumptions, judgments, values, andpresuppositions brought by the physician to theidentification, diagnosis, and curativeprocedures create a network of constraints thatexclude alternative possibilities. The resultis a situation wherein parents, physicians, andintersexed patients have ``no choice'' but toaccept the medical treatment guidelines. (shrink)

Theoretical minimal RNA rings are candidate primordial genes evolved for non‐redundant coding of the genetic code's 22 coding signals (one codon per biogenic amino acid, a start and a stop codon) over the shortest possible length: 29520 22‐nucleotide‐long RNA rings solve this min‐max constraint. Numerous RNA ring properties are reminiscent of natural genes. Here we present analyses showing that all RNA rings lack dinucleotide CG (a mutable, chemically instable dinucleotide coding for Arginine), bearing a resemblance to known CG‐depleted genomes. CG (...) in “incomplete” RNA rings (not coding for all coding signals, with only 3–12 nucleotides) gradually decreases towards CG absence in complete, 22‐nucleotide‐long RNA rings. Presumably, feedback loops during RNA ring growth during evolution (when amino acid assignment fixed the genetic code) assigned Arg to codons lacking CG (AGR) to avoid CG. Hence, as a chemical property of base pairs, CG mutability restructured the genetic code, thereby establishing itself as genetically encoded biological information. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers of science have attempted to articulate a theory of non-epistemic emergence that is compatible with mechanistic explanation and incompatible with reductionism. The 2005 account of Fred C. Boogerd et al. has been particularly influential. They argued that a systemic property was emergent if it could not be predicted from the behaviour of less complex systems. Here, I argue that Boogerd et al.'s attempt to ground emergence in complexity guarantees that we will see emergence, but at (...) the cost of rendering it either trivial or epistemic. There are three basic problems. First, neither the measures of complexity explicitly mentioned by Boogerd et al. nor the most popular measures in the literature can do the practical and theoretical work that they assign to complexity. Second, I argue that while the success of their view depends on restricting the base of information available to the reductionist, this cannot be done in a way that is metaphysically neutral with respect to emer.. (shrink)

Information-theoretic approaches to formal logic analyse the "common intuitive" concept of propositional implication (or argumental validity) in terms of information content of propositions and sets of propositions: one given proposition implies a second if the former contains all of the information contained by the latter; an argument is valid if the conclusion contains no information beyond that of the premise-set. This paper locates information-theoretic approaches historically, philosophically and pragmatically. Advantages and disadvantages are identified (...) by examining such approaches in themselves and by contrasting them with standard transformation-theoretic approaches. Transformation-theoretic approaches analyse validity (and thus implication) in terms of transformations that map one argument onto another: a given argument is valid if no transformation carries it onto an argument with all true premises and false conclusion. Model-theoretic, set-theoretic, and substitution-theoretic approaches, which dominate current literature, can be construed as transformation-theoretic, as can the so-called possible-worlds approaches. Ontic and epistemic presuppositions of both types of approaches are considered. Attention is given to the question of whether our historically cumulative experience applying logic is better explained from a purely information-theoretic perspective or from a purely transformation-theoretic perspective or whether apparent conflicts between the two types of approaches need to be reconciled in order to forge a new type of approach that recognizes their basic complementarity. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to the issue of surveillance in capitalism (surveillance capitalism), a phenomenon which has spread in that socio-economic system since the beginning of the 21st century. We attempt to point out the harmfulness of information technologies developing in the wrong direction, carrying the ideas of dataism and post-truth, which increasingly colonize human living space. It turns out that the information (traces) that people leave while operating on the Internet is a source of predicting human behavior (...) in the future (behavioral futures markets). Thus, for the most developed Internet enterprises in the world, they become a motive for violating what seem to be basic political rights, mainly freedom, property and security. As a result, under the influence of the disinformation often present on the Internet, people’s behavior may take the most socially undesirable forms, but desirable in the virtual world. The considerations in the paper are primarily theoretical. The descriptive method was used with elements of the conceptual analysis of surveillance capitalism in the context of dataism and post-truth. (shrink)

In this Article I argue that the emerging public/private nexus of surveillance involves the augmentation of state power and calls for new models of constitutional constraint. The key phenomenon is the role played by communications intermediaries in collecting the information that the state subsequently accesses. These intermediaries are not just powerful companies engaged in collecting and analyzing the information of users and the information they hold are not just business records. The key feature of these companies is (...) that, through their information practices and architecture, they mediate other relationships. I argue that this mediating function, and its underlying technological form, interacts with legal and social norms in ways that can lead to the erosion of constraints on state power. This Article maps two stories of erosion, rooted in two kinds of community displacement. The first involves the displacement of community participation in law enforcement and the emergence of “technological tattletales” where intermediaries cooperate with the state. Unlike citizen cooperation, this practice augments state power and undermines more traditional informal modes of constraint on state power. The second involves the displacement of national legal and political community. Communications intermediaries are often large multinational companies that operate in multiple jurisdictions and move their data to various datacenters across the world even as the individual data subject remains in one geographical location. Laws that treat nonresident aliens differently from residents and citizens can create “constitutional black holes” where the communications data of an individual is not protected by any constitutional constraints. (shrink)

This paper introduces a compositional semantics of locativeprepositional phrases which is based on a vector space ontology.Model-theoretic properties of prepositions like monotonicity andconservativity are defined in this system in a straightforward way.These notions are shown to describe central inferences with spatialexpressions and to account for the grammaticality of prepositionmodification. Model-theoretic constraints on the set of possibleprepositions in natural language are specified, similar to the semanticuniversals of Generalized Quantifier Theory.

ABSTRACT Adverbialism is the view that to have a conscious perceptual experience is to be consciously experiencing in a certain way, and that this way is not to be understood in relational or representational terms. We might compare what it is for a conscious being to be experiencing in a certain way with what it is for a string to be vibrating in a certain way. This paper makes a new case for adverbialism by appealing to the fact that we (...) can pick out ways of experiencing by treating them as information-bearing signals. In both presenting and defending the view, it will be crucial that information is not the same as representational content, but can still concern objects and the properties of those objects. The resulting information-theoretic adverbialism can answer or deflect the most influential objections to adverbialism. (shrink)

Dynamic Syntax is an action-based grammar formalism which models the process of natural language understanding as monotonic tree growth. This paper presents an introduction to the notions of incrementality and underspecification and update, drawing on the assumptions made by DS. It lays out the tools of the theoretical framework that are necessary to understand the accounts developed in the other contributions to the Special Issue. It also represents an up-to-date account of the framework, combining the developments that have previously remained (...) distributed in a diverse body of literature. (shrink)

Adverbialism is the view that to have a conscious perceptual experience is to be consciously experiencing in a certain way, and that this way is not to be understood in relational or representational terms. We might compare what it is for a conscious being to be experiencing in a certain way with what it is for a string to be vibrating in a certain way. This paper makes a new case for adverbialism by appealing to the fact that we can (...) pick out ways of experiencing by treating them as information-bearing signals. In both presenting and defending the view, it will be crucial that information is not the same as representational content, but can still concern objects and the properties of those objects. The resulting information-theoretic adverbialism can answer or deflect the most influential objections to adverbialism. (shrink)

A basic function of cognition is to detect regularities in sensory input to facilitate the prediction and recognition of future events. It has been proposed that these implicit expectations arise from an internal predictive coding model, based on knowledge acquired through processes such as statistical learning, but it is unclear how different types of statistical information affect listeners’ memory for auditory stimuli. We used a combination of behavioral and computational methods to investigate memory for non-linguistic auditory sequences. Participants repeatedly (...) heard tone sequences varying systematically in their information-theoretic properties. Expectedness ratings of tones were collected during three listening sessions, and a recognition memory test was given after each session. Information-theoretic measures of sequential predictability significantly influenced listeners’ expectedness ratings, and variations in these properties had a significant impact on memory performance. Predictable sequences yielded increasingly better memory performance with increasing exposure. Computational simulations using a probabilistic model of auditory expectation suggest that listeners dynamically formed a new, and increasingly accurate, implicit cognitive model of the information-theoretic structure of the sequences throughout the experimental session. (shrink)

The brain is composed of electrically excitable neuronal networks regulated by the activity of voltage-gated ion channels. Further portraying the molecular composition of the brain, however, will not reveal anything remotely reminiscent of a feeling, a sensation or a conscious experience. In classical physics, addressing the mind–brain problem is a formidable task because no physical mechanism is able to explain how the brain generates the unobservable, inner psychological world of conscious experiences and how in turn those conscious experiences steer the (...) underlying brain processes toward desired behavior. Yet, this setback does not establish that consciousness is non-physical. Modern quantum physics affirms the interplay between two types of physical entities in Hilbert space: unobservable quantum states, which are vectors describing what exists in the physical world, and quantum observables, which are operators describing what can be observed in quantum measurements. Quantum no-go theorems further provide a framework for studying quantum brain dynamics, which has to be governed by a physically admissible Hamiltonian. Comprising consciousness of unobservable quantum information integrated in quantum brain states explains the origin of the inner privacy of conscious experiences and revisits the dynamic timescale of conscious processes to picosecond conformational transitions of neural biomolecules. The observable brain is then an objective construction created from classical bits of information, which are bound by Holevo’s theorem, and obtained through the measurement of quantum brain observables. Thus, quantum information theory clarifies the distinction between the unobservable mind and the observable brain, and supports a solid physical foundation for consciousness research. (shrink)

Information-theoretic approaches to formal logic analyze the "common intuitive" concepts of implication, consequence, and validity in terms of information content of propositions and sets of propositions: one given proposition implies a second if the former contains all of the information contained by the latter; one given proposition is a consequence of a second if the latter contains all of the information contained by the former; an argument is valid if the conclusion contains no information (...) beyond that of the premise-set. This paper locates information-theoretic approaches historically, philosophically, and pragmatically. Advantages and disadvantages are identified by examining such approaches in themselves and by contrasting them with standard transformation-theoretic approaches. Transformation-theoretic approaches analyze validity (and thus implication) in terms of transformations that map one argument onto another: a given argument is valid if no transformation carries it onto an argument with all true premises and false conclusion. Model-theoretic, set-theoretic, and substitution-theoretic approaches, which dominate current literature, can be construed as transformation-theoretic, as can the so-called possible-worlds approaches. Ontic and epistemic presuppositions of both types of approaches are considered. Attention is given to the question of whether our historically cumulative experience applying logic is better explained from a purely information-theoretic perspective or from a purely transformation-theoretic perspective or whether apparent conflicts between the two types of approaches need to be reconciled in order to forge a new type of approach that recognizes their basic complementarity. (shrink)

The constraint formalism of classical mechanics is extended to field theories with gauge groups. Explicit examples of Klein-Gordon and Maxwell fields are presented. The symmetry properties of the Maxwell fields have the unexpcted feature in this formalism of forming a first-class algebra which is not Lie, a situation already encountered in the general theory of relativity.

To formalize the human judgment of rhythm complexity, we used five measures from information theory and algorithmic complexity to measure the complexity of 48 artificially generated rhythmic sequences. We compared these measurements to human prediction accuracy and easiness judgments obtained from a listening experiment, in which 32 participants guessed the last beat of each sequence. We also investigated the modulating effects of musical expertise and general pattern identification ability. Entropy rate and Kolmogorov complexity were correlated with prediction accuracy, and (...) highly correlated with easiness judgments. A logistic regression showed main effects of musical training, entropy rate, and Kolmogorov complexity, and an interaction between musical training and both entropy rate and Kolmogorov complexity. These results indicate that information-theoretic concepts capture some salient features of the human judgment of rhythm complexity, and they confirm the influence of musical expertise on complexity judgments. (shrink)

An ecological description of a landscape transcends its geographical definition to characterize it in terms of a complex agency composed of a spatial mosaic, structured energy, information and meaning. Because the dimensions of the landscape encompasses both natural and human processes, it requires a more robust set of theories that incorporate the material components and their perceptual meaning. A biosemiotic approach defines the landscape as the sum of its organisms’ eco-fields, which are spatial configurations that carry meanings connected to (...) specific needs and related functions. In this perspective, the new postulated General Theory of Resources, offers a substantial contribution to complete the paradigmatic framework of a “private landscape” species-, individual- and function-specific. From this theory resources are considered every material (f.i. food) or immaterial elements (f.i. safety) necessary to fullfill individual needs. The habitat becomes the “private landscape” and the well-being versus the ill-being are the emergent conditions of each individual under the environmental constraints. Definitively space is the entity on which material and immaterial resources are distributed and the dimension on which individuals species are interacting by using biosemiotic mechanisms. (shrink)

This article distinguishes two different senses of information-theoretic approaches to statistical mechanics that are often conflated in the literature: those relating to the thermodynamic cost of computational processes and those that offer an interpretation of statistical mechanics where the probabilities are treated as epistemic. This distinction is then investigated through Earman and Norton’s ([1999]) ‘sound’ and ‘profound’ dilemma for information-theoretic exorcisms of Maxwell’s demon. It is argued that Earman and Norton fail to countenance a ‘sound’ (...) class='Hi'>information-theoretic interpretation and this paper describes how the latter inferential interpretations can escape the criticisms of Earman and Norton ([1999]) and Norton ([2005]) by adopting this ‘sound’ horn. This article considers a standard model of Maxwell’s demon to illustrate how one might adopt an information-theoretic approach to statistical mechanics without a reliance on Landauer’s principle, where the incompressibility of the probability distribution due to Liouville’s theorem is taken as the central feature of such an interpretation. (shrink)

When the state of a physical system is not fully determined by available data, it should be possible nevertheless to make a systematic guess concerning the unknown state by applying the principles of information theory. The resulting theoretical blend of informational and mechanical constructs should then constitute a modern structure for statistical physics. Such a program has been attempted by a number of authors, most notably Jaynes, with seeming success. However, we demonstrated in a recent publication that the standard (...) list of so-called “mutually exclusive and exhaustive” quantum states that is commonly employed by these authors is in fact not exhaustive. It follows that the information-theoretic foundations of quantum statistics must be reformulated. The present paper discusses the fundamental problems involved and establishes a format for the correct application of information theory to quantum mechanical situations. (shrink)

A set of qubit channels has a classical representation when it is isomorphic to the convex closure of a group of classical channels. From Crowder and Martin (Proceedings of Quantum Physics and Logic, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 2009), we know that up to isomorphism there are five such sets, each corresponding to either a subgroup of the alternating group on four letters, or a subgroup of the symmetric group on three letters. In this paper, we show that the (...) classical representation of a qubit channel also carries its information theoretic data—in particular, both the Holevo capacity and the scope of a unital qubit channel can be completely calculated from a systematically determined classical channel. (shrink)

The information-theoretic Bell inequalities of Braunstein and Caves are studied in relation to the concept of the relative probability measure which one allows to overcome the limitations of the considered theorem.

The emphasis on evidence based medicine (EBM) has placed increased focus on finding timely answers to clinical questions in presence of patients. Using a combination of natural language processing for the generation of clinical excerpts and information theoretic distance based clustering, we evaluated multiple approaches for the efficient presentation of context-sensitive EBM excerpts.

Traditional diversity indices are computed from the abundances of species present and are insensitive to taxonomic differences between species. However, a community in which most species belong to the same genus is intuitively less diverse than another community with a similar number of species distributed more evenly between genera. In this paper, we propose an information-theoretical measure of taxonomic diversity that reflects both the abundances and taxonomic distinctness of the species. Unlike previous measures of taxonomic diversity, such as Rao's (...) quadratic entropy, in this new measure the analyzed taxonomic properties are associated with the single species instead of species pairs. (shrink)

The interventionist account of causation offers a criterion to distinguish causes from non-causes. It also aims at defining various desirable properties of causal relationships, such as specificity, proportionality and stability. Here we apply an information-theoretic approach to these properties. We show that the interventionist criterion of causation is formally equivalent to non-zero specificity, and that there are natural, information-theoretic ways to explicate the distinction between potential and actual causal influence. We explicate the idea that the description (...) of causes should be proportional to that of their effects. Then we draw a distinction between two ideas in the existing literature, the range of invariance of a causal relationship and its stability. The range of invariance is related to specificity and range of causal values. Stability concerns the effect of additional variables on the relationship between some focal pair of cause and effect variables. We show how to distinguish and measure the direct influence of background variables on the effect variable, and their influence on the relationship between the focal cause and the effect variable. Finally, we discuss the limitations of the information-theoretic approach, and offer prospects for complementary approaches. (shrink)

In previous publications we have criticized the usual application of information theory to quantal situations and proposed a new version of information-theoretic quantum statistics. This paper is the first in a two-part series in which our new approach is applied to the fundamental problem of thermodynamic equilibrium. Part I deals in particular with informational definitions of equilibrium and the identification of thermodynamic analogs in our modified quantum statistics formalism.

Jeff Bub has developed an information-theoretic interpretation of quantum mechanics on the basis of the programme to reaxiomatise the theory in terms of information-theoretic principles. According to the most recent version of the interpretation, reaxiomatisation can dissolve some of the demands for explanation traditionally associated with the task of providing an interpretation for the theory. The key idea is that the real lesson we should take away from quantum mechanics is that the ‘structure of in- formation’ (...) is not what we thought it was. In particular a feature of the new structure is intrinsic randomness of measurement, which allegedly dissolves a significant part of the measurement problem. I argue that it is difficult to find an appropriate argument to support the claim that measurement is intrinsically random in the relevant sense. (shrink)

Until recently Jeffrey Bub and Itamar Pitowsky, in the framework of an information-theoretic view of quantum mechanics, claimed first that to the measurement problem in its ordinary formulation there correspond in effect two measurement problems (simply called the big and the small measurement problems), with a different degree of relevance and, second, that the analysis of a quantum measurement is a problem only if other assumptions – taken by Pitowsky and Bub to be unnecessary ‘dogmas’ – are assumed. (...) Here I critically discuss this unconventional stance on the measurement problem and argue that the Bub-Pitowsky arguments are inconclusive, mainly because they rely on an unwarranted extension to the quantum realm of a distinction concerning the foundations of special relativity which is in itself rather controversial. (shrink)