90 Informational environments
Construction and constitution are distinct strategies, and they will stand in
various relations to the use of natural information, from information-extensive to
information-intensive. This distinction should, however, not lead us to the conclusion that these strategies were mutually exclusive. We are much more likely
to find differences of degree between them, with few organisms populating areas
near the extreme ends of the spectrum. Conceptually useful as Godfrey-Smith’s
distinction between constitutive and constructive relations is, it should not misguide us into believing that we will find an equally neat distinction when empirically describing the behaviours of organisms. We are much more likely to find
them combined in different arrangements across the entire spectrum of organic
diversity and complexity. By implication, there will be instances of activities that
include constitutive and constructive elements in conjunction.
An animal who marks his territory might not only be picking up natural information related to physical conditions that bound his territory. He may also be
placing physical markers in the external environment, so as to make them perceptible to conspecifics who will then adjust their behaviour to the information they encounter. The features constructed by one animal may hence play a
constitutive role for the behaviour of another. The effect will possibly be symmetrical, in terms of adaptive functions, while the process is not, as different
activities are involved on the sender and receiver sides respectively. We might
also encounter the condition that neither un-constructed information nor physical markers alone are sufficient to provide the required information. Only the
two in conjunction will be sufficient. Although the effect of what is constructed
might be material in an immediate sense, for example in physically keeping
the other animal off one’s territory, it is more likely to be mainly or wholly
informational.
Similar conditions will hold for any population where, besides the uptake of
natural information by individuals, signals are purposefully created and transmitted between individuals in accordance with some adaptive function, such
as for warning cries or mating displays. For many animals, the making of their
own ecological and selective environments involves the production of structures and events that occupy an intermediate position that integrates aspects of
physically constructing environmental features and constituting specific relations between themselves and existing features of the external environment.
Any active signalling within populations and any creation of artefacts that store
and provide information for other members of some population, but also any
signalling with deceptive intent to some potential prey or predator that deteriorates the receiver’s informational situation, will characteristically occupy this
intermediate position. If and when that signalling involves learning and some
kind of accumulation and transmission between individuals in a population over
time, not only the construction/constitution distinction is blurred in an informative way, but also the distinction between ecology and history of some population, in making information that was present in the past available and relevant
to the present, independent of what physical conditions may matter in a given
situation.
Construction and constitution are distinct strategies, and they will stand in
various relations to the use of natural information, from information-extensive to
information-intensive. This distinction should, however, not lead us to the conclusion that these strategies were mutually exclusive. We are much more likely
to find differences of degree between them, with few organisms populating areas
near the extreme ends of the spectrum. Conceptually useful as Godfrey-Smith’s
distinction between constitutive and constructive relations is, it should not misguide us into believing that we will find an equally neat distinction when empirically describing the behaviours of organisms. We are much more likely to find
them combined in different arrangements across the entire spectrum of organic
diversity and complexity. By implication, there will be instances of activities that
include constitutive and constructive elements in conjunction.
An animal who marks his territory might not only be picking up natural information related to physical conditions that bound his territory. He may also be
placing physical markers in the external environment, so as to make them perceptible to conspecifics who will then adjust their behaviour to the information they encounter. The features constructed by one animal may hence play a
constitutive role for the behaviour of another. The effect will possibly be symmetrical, in terms of adaptive functions, while the process is not, as different
activities are involved on the sender and receiver sides respectively. We might
also encounter the condition that neither un-constructed information nor physical markers alone are sufficient to provide the required information. Only the
two in conjunction will be sufficient. Although the effect of what is constructed
might be material in an immediate sense, for example in physically keeping
the other animal off one’s territory, it is more likely to be mainly or wholly
informational.
Similar conditions will hold for any population where, besides the uptake of
natural information by individuals, signals are purposefully created and transmitted between individuals in accordance with some adaptive function, such
as for warning cries or mating displays. For many animals, the making of their
own ecological and selective environments involves the production of structures and events that occupy an intermediate position that integrates aspects of
physically constructing environmental features and constituting specific relations between themselves and existing features of the external environment.
Any active signalling within populations and any creation of artefacts that store
and provide information for other members of some population, but also any
signalling with deceptive intent to some potential prey or predator that deteriorates the receiver’s informational situation, will characteristically occupy this
intermediate position. If and when that signalling involves learning and some
kind of accumulation and transmission between individuals in a population over
time, not only the construction/constitution distinction is blurred in an informative way, but also the distinction between ecology and history of some population, in making information that was present in the past available and relevant
to the present, independent of what physical conditions may matter in a given
situation.