[Inquiry] Re: Prospects for Inquiry Driven Systems

[Jon Awbrey]

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

PRO.  Note 21

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

1.2.  Hodos:  Methods, Media, and Middle Courses

To every thing there is a season.  To every concept there are minimal contexts
of sensible application, the most reduced situations in which the concept can
be used to make sense.  Every concept is an instrument of thought, and like
every method it has its bounds of useful application.  In the direction of
simplicity, a concept is bounded by the minimal levels of complexity out
of which it can be conceived.  There is a form of rhetorical question
that people often use to address this issue, if somewhat indirectly.
It presents itself initially as a genuine question but precipitates
its answer in enthymeme, dashing headlong to break off inquiry in
the form of a blank.  Ostensibly, the space opens to extend the
question, but it is only a pretext.  The pretense of an open
sentence is already filled in by the unexpressed beliefs of
the questioner.

"What could be simpler than ____?" this question asks, and the automatic
completions that different customs have usually borne in mind are these:
sets, functions, relations.  My present purpose is to address the concept
of information, and specifically the kind that results from observation.
In answer to the question of its foundation, I have not found that the
concept of information can fulfil its sense in anything short of the
following frame:  Three-place relations are a minimum requirement.

Information is a property of a sign system by virtue of which it can
reduce the uncertainty of an interpreting system about the state of
an object system.  Therefore, information is a property that a state
in a system has in relation to two other systems.  The fundamental
reality that underlies the concept of information is the existence
of individual systems of relation, each of which exhibits a certain
kind of relation among three domains and satisfies a definable set
of properties.  Each domain in this relation is the state space of
a system:  a sign system, interpreting system, and object system.
When a set of properties is identified that characterizes what all
such sign systems have in common, a definition of the concept of
a sign system will have been achieved.  But what form of argument
shall be used to arrive at a definition?  Certainly it cannot
be that form, unaided, which requires a definition to start.

More carefully said, information is a property that can be attributed
to signs in a system by virtue of their relation to two other systems.
This attribution projects a relation among three domains into a simpler
order of relation.  There are various ways of carrying out this reduction.
Not all of them can be expected to preserve the information of the original
sign relation.  An attribution may create a logical property of elements in
the sign domain or it may construct functions from the sign domain to ranges
of qualitative meaning or quantitative measure.

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o