[Inquiry] Re: Extension x Comprehension = Information

[Jon Awbrey]

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ECI.  Note 21

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| We must therefore modify the law of
| the inverse proportionality of
| extension and comprehension
| and instead of writing
|
| Extension x Comprehension = Constant
|
| which crudely expresses the fact
| that the greater the extension the
| less the comprehension, we must write
|
| Extension x Comprehension = Information
|
| which means that when the information
| is increased there is an increase of
| either extension or comprehension
| without any diminution of the
| other of these quantities.
|
| Now, ladies and gentlemen, as it is true that
| every increase of our knowledge is an increase
| in the information of a term -- that is, is an
| addition to the number of terms equivalent to
| that term -- so it is also true that the first
| step in the knowledge of a thing, the first
| framing of a term, is also the origin of the
| information of that term because it gives the
| first term equivalent to that term.  I here
| announce the great and fundamental secret
| of the logic of science.  There is no term,
| properly so called, which is entirely destitute
| of information, of equivalent terms.  The moment
| an expression acquires sufficient comprehension
| to determine its extension, it already has more
| than enough to do so.
|
| CSP, CE 1, page 465.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce,
|"The Logic of Science, or, Induction and Hypothesis",
| Lowell Institute Lectures of 1866, pages 357-504 in:
|
|'Writings of Charles S. Peirce:  A Chronological Edition',
|'Volume 1, 1857-1866', Peirce Edition Project,
| Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1982.

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