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Putting Information to Work

Fred Dretske-2000-02-28-Cambridge University Press eBooks
10

TL;DRAbstract

Information isn't much good if it doesn't do anything. If the fact that an event carries information doesn't help explain the event's impact on the rest of the world, then, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the event may as well not carry information. To put it bluntly, in the way positivists liked to put it, a difference that doesn't make a difference isn't really a difference at all. If an event's carrying information doesn't make a difference – and by a difference here I mean a causal difference, a difference in the kinds of effects it has – then for all philosophical (not to mention practical) purposes, the event doesn't carry information.

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Information isn't much good if it doesn't do anything. If the fact that an event carries information doesn't help explain the event's impact on the rest of the world, then, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the event may as well not carry information. To put it bluntly, in the way positivists liked to put it, a difference that doesn't make a difference isn't really a difference at all. If an event's carrying information doesn't make a difference – and by a difference here I mean a causal difference, a difference in the kinds of effects it has – then for all philosophical (not to mention practical) purposes, the event doesn't carry information.

Keywords

Work (physics)Computer scienceEngineeringMechanical engineering

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