Extraction of information of audio-visual contents

Carlos Aguilar, Lidya Sánchez & Manuel Campos (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain)

In this article we show how it is possible to use Channel Theory [Barwise and Seligman, 1997] for modeling the process of information extraction realized by audiences of audio-visual contents. To do this, we rely on the concepts proposed by Channel Theory and, especially, its treatment of representational systems. We then show how the information an agent is capable of extracting from a content depends on the number of channels he is able to establish between the content and the set of classifications he is able to discriminate. The agent can endeavor the extraction of information through these channels from the totality of content; however, we discuss the advantages of extracting from its constituents in order to obtain a greater number of informational items that represent it. After showing how the extraction process is endeavored for each channel, we propose a method of representation of all the informative values an agent can obtain from a content using a matrix constituted by the channels the agent is able to establish on the content (source classifications), and the ones he can understand as individual (destination classifications). We finally show how this representation allows reflecting the evolution of the informative items through the evolution of audio-visual content.

• Full article published in Sciforum (preliminary version), site of the FIS2010 – 4th International Conference on the Foundations of Information Science, Beijin, August 2010.
• A reviewed version will be published in the forthcoming issue of the journal TripleC 8(2).

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World and mind, information and semantic content

Manuel Liz (Faculty of Philosophy, University of La Laguna, Canary Islands, Spain)

Many times, the notion of information is used in such a way that the following two theses are suggested: 1) that the world might be no more than information, and 2) that our minds might be no more that information. This paper rejects both theses. In relation to that, I will argue for the need to take into account non-informational aspects of reality that are epistemically accessible. Only that way, we could deal with the problem of selecting a determinate semantic content and with the problem of error. The two more common strategies to deal with these problems appeal to some primitive “referential capacities” or to some special kinds of (natural) “functions”. We propose another strategy based on very simple processes of signalization. With the help of that strategy, we offer a new way of defining semantic content.

• Full article published in Triple C, 7(2), special issue What is really information?
• Spanish article published in ¿Qué es información?, 2008

 

The notion of ‘being informative’ & the praxiological-information perspective on language

Antonio Florio (Institute for Logic, Cognition, Language and Information, University of Basque Country, UPV-EHU, Spain)

After a concise introduction on the analysis of truth and meaning in philosophy of language, two notions of information are grasped by the analysis of Situation Semantics and Situation Theory. The first is that of correlation, the second that of constraint; the latter is reducible to the former. More than that, the phenomenon of “alethic nature of information” is highlighted and the notion of “being informative” is pointed out. The difference between a meaning-oriented and an informational-oriented perspective of language is marked. Messages are recognized as being the atomic constituents of the informational perspective of language; the architecture of language is shown; and a praxiological-information perspective on the study of language is outlined.

• Full article published in Triple C, 7(2), special issue What is really information?

 

Situational analysis of the communication flow in audiovisual media

Carlos Aguilar, Lydia Sánchez & Manuel Campos (Universidad de Barcelona, Spain)

This paper presents a mathematical framework for the study of the information contained in audiovisual contents based on the development by Keith Devlin of Situation Theory. In order to obtain this framework, we present accounts of the processes carried out by agents from the reception of audiovisual contents to the extraction of information, in accordance with the definition by Israel and Perry. We finally justify why these accounts concerning the extraction of information from audiovisual content can be included as part of a mathematical formulation of Situation Theory.

• Full article published in Triple C, 7(2), special issue What is really information?
• Spanish article published in ¿Qué es información?, 2008

 

Knowledge, Information and Surprise

Margarita Vázquez (Facultad de Filosofía. Universidad de La Laguna, Spain)

In this paper, I analyse the paradox called “The surprise exam paradox” or “The unexpected hanging paradox”. I study some interpretations of this paradox, like Quine and Ned Hall ones, and give my own view about its solution, making some approaches from classical logic and from temporal or epistemic logic.

• Full article published in Triple C, 7(2), special issue What is really information?
• Spanish article published in ¿Qué es información?, 2008

 

Biosemiotics: Communication and Causation (Information included)

Juan Ramón Álvarez (Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Universidad de León, Spain)

Pretensions of Biosemiotics as a unified approach to biological information are critically scrutinized within the study of different projects of semiotisation of nature and naturalization ot cultural processes. Main textual references and arguments are presented and critically pondered. Biosemiotics is here presented as an analytical method to study communication as founded in causality.

• Full article published in Triple C, 7(2), special issue What is really information?
• Spanish article published in ¿Qué es información?, 2008

 

Towards a Semantic Theory of Information

Ricardo Pérez-Amat García (University Juan Carlos I, Spain)

Being professor at the University Juan Carlos I (Madrid, Spain), he passed away in November the 14^th 2008. This work was posthumously translated by Prof. B. Al Hadithi and J.M. Díaz Nafría.

Information can be understood as that which reduces uncertainty, no matter what origin it has. In the field of human communication, information is only meaningful if it is part of a finished or intentional action. Meaning should be gathered from the empirical perspective of the use of language.

If we study the processing of signification through transmission of the normal use of language, we will see that it takes place communicating a set of prototype categories, the core or central facts, which defines meaning as empirical hypothesis. But if there are central facts showing the use of words, then other facts –more or less peripheral– should also arise, whose knowledge is necessary in order to communicate in contexts far away from the “denotative conceptual norm”. Hence meaning can be represented by a fuzzy subset of the universe of discourse partition set. This concept of meaning may be integrated in a formal model of semantic source and information may be measured by non-probabilistic entropy.

• Full article published in Triple C, 7(2), special issue What is really information?
• Spanish article published in ¿Qué es información?, 2008

 

Outline of a Theory of Truth as Correctness for Semantic Information

Luciano Floridi (Research Chair in Philosophy of Information and GPI, University of Hertfordshire, Faculty of Philosophy and IEG, University of Oxford, U.K.)

The article develops a correctness theory of truth (CTT) for semantic information. After the introduction, in section two, semantic information is shown to be translatable into propositional semantic information (i). In section three, i is polarised into a query (Q) and a result (R), qualified by a specific context, a level of abstraction and a purpose. This polarization is normalised in section four, where [Q + R] is transformed into a Boolean question and its relative yes/no answer [Q + A]. This completes the reduction of the truth of i to the correctness of A. In sections five and six, it is argued that (1) A is the correct answer to Q if and only if (2) A correctly saturates (in a Fregean sense) Q by verifying and validating it (in the computer science’s sense of “verification” and “validation”); that (2) is the case if and only if (3) [Q + A] generates an adequate model (m) of the relevant system (s) identified by Q; that (3) is the case if and only if (4) m is a proxy of s (in the computer science’s sense of “proxy”) and (5) proximal access to m commutes with the distal access to s (in the category theory’s sense of “commutation”); and that (5) is the case if and only if (6) reading/writing (accessing, in the computer science’s technical sense of the term) m enables one to read/write (access) s. The last section draws a general conclusion about the nature of CTT as a theory for systems designers not just systems users.

• Full article published in Triple C, 7(2)

 

Semantic information and the correctness theory of truth

Luciano FLORIDI (Universidad Oxford)

In recent years, philosophical interest in the nature of information has been increasing steadily. In particular, one of the current debates concerns the veridical nature of semantic information. The debate –somewhat old– justifies analysing semantic information in terms of well-formed, meaningful and veridical data, which suppose that semantic information encapsulates truth.
“Semantic information” is primarily understood in terms of content about a referent. This content is analysable in terms of well-formed and meaningful data. Strings or patterns of data may constitute sentences in a natural language, but of course they can also generate formulae, maps, diagrams, videos or other semiotic constructs in a variety of physical codes, being further determined by their appropriate syntax (well-formedness) and semantics (meaningfulness). By “about a referent” one is to understand the ordinary and familiar way in which the well-formed and meaningful data, constituting semantic information, concern or address some topic. In this paper, we shall be concerned with only this standard, epistemically oriented concept of semantic information.

Article

 

Towards a semantic theory of information

Ricardo PÉREZ-AMAT (Universidad R. Juan Carlos I)

Information can be understood as that which reduces uncertainty, whatever the origin of this. In the field of human communication, information is only meaningful if it is part of an action is finished, intentional. Meaning will be raised from the emprirical perspective of use of language.
If we study processing of signification through transmission of normal use of language, we will see that it take place communicating a set of prototype categories, the medullary or central facts, that defines meaning as empirical hypothesis. But if there are central facts to learn the use of words, also it must exits facts more or less peripheral whitch knowledge is necessary in contexts so far of the “denotative conceptual norm”, so that meaning can be represented by a fuzzy set of universe of discourse set.
This concept of meaning can be integrated in a formal model of semantic source. Information can be measured by a non probabilistic entropy.

Article