98 Informational environments
An organism’s informational environment is thus made up of those proximal
signals, natural or artificial, which, under normal conditions, relate to distal conditions that are ecologically relevant to him. It is the stability and unequivocality of
the informational relations between what he receives as signals and the variable
conditions at the distal end that enable him to deal with the relative uncertainty
on that latter side. That stability and unequivocality, however, cannot be taken for
granted, as both ecological and informational conditions in his environment may
be subject to change, and as they may be so independently from each other. In
analogy to ecological environments, informational environments are specific to
an organism’s constitution and abilities. Even if and when external environmental
conditions are identical, informational environments will be at variance between
differently disposed organisms. The information present in the environment will
be taken up differently, by different means, and will be relevant in different ways
and acted upon differently. The activities will include the possibility for organisms to modify informational environments in accordance with their specific
needs and purposes.
Under what I called “normal” conditions in IE-1b – which are to be understood
in Ruth Millikan’s sense as conditions that are necessary and partly sufficient for
an explanation of the nature and the functions of whatever is being reproduced
in a given context (Millikan 2004, 33f ) – the informational environment is made
up of those informational relations which, qua being sufficiently reliable proxies
of relevant conditions at the source, actually are relevant to an organism. They
have assumed their status as relevant over the course of a history of interactions
between organism and a subset of the ecologically relevant conditions in the environment that involved and turned out do depend on the presence of signals of a
given type.
The ecological relevance mentioned in IE-1a is characterised as “broad”
because no direct effect of the conditions at the source or the presence of some
signal on R’s reproductive chances is required. The effects may well be indirect,
in terms of informational conditions affecting the success rates of responses to
conditions at the source that have an effect on the reproduction of the behaviours
themselves rather than the reproductive chances of its bearers. The paradigms
of this kind of situation include all instances of practices that are transmitted
between individuals and hence reproduced by means of observational learning,
and thus all sorts of phenomena investigated under the “cultural evolution” or
“dual inheritance” monikers (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Tomasello 1999). Behaviours may be directly replicated by imitation
or reproduced in view of their purposes in what is called emulation learning.
Either way, their reproduction is subject to mechanisms of selection of its own,
whose primary target are the distal conditions to which those behaviours relate.
Hence, many things that are not a matter of life or death and, by consequence,
many things that are not selectively relevant in a strict biological sense, may be
relevant to some organism or population in less dramatic and more indirect but
nonetheless important ways – which, if and when effects persist and accumulate,
might have implications for biological evolution.
An organism’s informational environment is thus made up of those proximal
signals, natural or artificial, which, under normal conditions, relate to distal conditions that are ecologically relevant to him. It is the stability and unequivocality of
the informational relations between what he receives as signals and the variable
conditions at the distal end that enable him to deal with the relative uncertainty
on that latter side. That stability and unequivocality, however, cannot be taken for
granted, as both ecological and informational conditions in his environment may
be subject to change, and as they may be so independently from each other. In
analogy to ecological environments, informational environments are specific to
an organism’s constitution and abilities. Even if and when external environmental
conditions are identical, informational environments will be at variance between
differently disposed organisms. The information present in the environment will
be taken up differently, by different means, and will be relevant in different ways
and acted upon differently. The activities will include the possibility for organisms to modify informational environments in accordance with their specific
needs and purposes.
Under what I called “normal” conditions in IE-1b – which are to be understood
in Ruth Millikan’s sense as conditions that are necessary and partly sufficient for
an explanation of the nature and the functions of whatever is being reproduced
in a given context (Millikan 2004, 33f ) – the informational environment is made
up of those informational relations which, qua being sufficiently reliable proxies
of relevant conditions at the source, actually are relevant to an organism. They
have assumed their status as relevant over the course of a history of interactions
between organism and a subset of the ecologically relevant conditions in the environment that involved and turned out do depend on the presence of signals of a
given type.
The ecological relevance mentioned in IE-1a is characterised as “broad”
because no direct effect of the conditions at the source or the presence of some
signal on R’s reproductive chances is required. The effects may well be indirect,
in terms of informational conditions affecting the success rates of responses to
conditions at the source that have an effect on the reproduction of the behaviours
themselves rather than the reproductive chances of its bearers. The paradigms
of this kind of situation include all instances of practices that are transmitted
between individuals and hence reproduced by means of observational learning,
and thus all sorts of phenomena investigated under the “cultural evolution” or
“dual inheritance” monikers (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Tomasello 1999). Behaviours may be directly replicated by imitation
or reproduced in view of their purposes in what is called emulation learning.
Either way, their reproduction is subject to mechanisms of selection of its own,
whose primary target are the distal conditions to which those behaviours relate.
Hence, many things that are not a matter of life or death and, by consequence,
many things that are not selectively relevant in a strict biological sense, may be
relevant to some organism or population in less dramatic and more indirect but
nonetheless important ways – which, if and when effects persist and accumulate,
might have implications for biological evolution.