Click Here ">
« September 2004 »
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
You are not logged in. Log in
Entries by Topic
All topics  «
Counterfactuals
defl@tionism
GENERAL LOGIC
HUMAN SEMANTICS
Interconnections
PARACONSISTENCY
Polemics
SCIENCE & NEWS
Cognition & Epistemology
Notes on Pirah?
Ontology&possible worlds
PRAGMATICS
PROPAEDEUTICS
Syn-Sem Interface
Temporal Logic
Blog Tools
Edit your Blog
Build a Blog
RSS Feed
View Profile
Translate this
INTO JAPANESE
BROTHER BLOG
MAIEUTIKOS
LINGUISTIX&LOGIK, Tony Marmo's blog
Tuesday, 14 September 2004

Topic: HUMAN SEMANTICS

Outline of a Theory of Strongly Semantic Information


By Luciano Floridi

This paper outlines a quantitative theory of strongly semantic information (TSSI) based on truth-values rather than probability distributions. The main hypothesis supported in the paper is that the classic quantitative theory of weakly semantic information (TWSI), based on probability distributions, assumes that truth-values supervene on factual semantic information, yet this principle is too weak and generates a well-known semantic paradox, whereas TSSI, according to which factual semantic information encapsulates truth, can avoid the paradox and is more in line with the standard conception of what generally counts as semantic information. After a brief introduction, section two outlines the semantic paradox implied by TWSI, analysing it in terms of an initial conflict between two requisites of a quantitative theory of semantic information. In section three, three criteria of semantic information equivalence are used to provide a taxonomy of quantitative approaches to semantic information and introduce TSSI. In section four, some further desiderata that should be fulfilled by a quantitative TSSI are explained. From section five to section seven, TSSI is developed on the basis of a calculus of truth-values and semantic discrepancy with respect to a given situation. In section eight, it is shown how TSSI succeeds in solving the paradox. Section nine summarises the main results of the paper and indicates some future developments.

Keywords
Bar-Hillel, Carnap, decision theory, Dretske, error analysis, Grice, information theory, semantic inaccuracy, semantic information, semantic paradox, semantic vacuity, situation logic


Download

Posted by Tony Marmo at 01:01 BST
Updated: Tuesday, 14 September 2004 14:51 BST

View Latest Entries