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A Pluralist View about Information

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Olimpia Lombardi ,
Sebastian Fortin  and
Leonardo Vanni
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Abstract

Focusing on Shannon information, this article shows that, even on the basis of the same formalism, there may be different interpretations of the concept of information, and that disagreements may be deep enough to lead to very different conclusions about the informational characterization of certain physical situations. On this basis, a pluralist view is argued for, according to which the concept of information is primarily a formal concept that can adopt different interpretations that are not mutually exclusive, but each useful in a different specific context.

Type
Classical Physics
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 1248 - 1259
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

We are extremely grateful to Jeffrey Bub for his stimulating comments about our work on information. We also want to thank Dennis Dieks for his constant encouragement. This paper was partially supported by a Large Grant of the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) and by grants of the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET) and the National Agency for Scientific and Technological Promotion (ANPCyT-FONCYT) of Argentina.

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