What is an informational environment? 99
The difference between an organism’s ecological and his informational
environments is this: an ecological environment is constituted of those variables
and their respective ranges at the distal end that are relevant to an organism. It is
possible but not necessary that the organism can also detect the values of those
variables. He might be built for resilience or fast reproduction instead. An informational environment, in turn, is constituted of those proximal affairs, naturally
present in the environment or produced and reproduced in behaviour, which stand
in sufficiently reliable relations to a subset of the ecologically relevant conditions
at the distal end, so as to enable an organism to keep track of those distal conditions. The distal affairs may be either spatially, temporally or perceptually remote
from the organism, and in some cases their relevance may be similarly decoupled
from the here-and-now. Both may lie in the past (this is what did F to me), in the
future (this F-condition will return) or be merely possible (I might be in trouble
if this s turns F ).
One decisive criterion for the inclusion of information present in the environment as part of an organism’s informational environment is that the receiver of
that information is able to respond in some way to conditions at the source (see
IE-1a) – either by tracking favourable and avoiding unfavourable conditions
(Godfrey-Smith’s constitutive strategy) or by altering these conditions (the constructive strategy). Still, there will be distal conditions that are ecologically relevant to an organism, but on whom he cannot collect information, either for want
of stable correlations between proximal and distal affairs, or for want of means of
collecting that information, or for want of means of responding to it. Such might
be the case for what I called background conditions on p. 81 in Chapter 5: conditions on whose relative persistence an organism relies, but which may be beyond
his means of access, informational or other.
Conversely, not all information in a receiver’s environment is part of his informational environment, even if he is able to receive it. If the presence or absence
of some information does not make any difference to his behaviours in general or
to the achievement of his goals in particular, not even at the most distal reaches of
what he can do in this world, that information does not have an adaptive function
to him. It could just as well be indifferent, signal-free noise, unless it happens to
interfere with his activities in other ways. Its status may, however, be subject to
change. If an organism stumbles upon a prima facie useless bit of information, it
might turn out to make a difference at some later point in time.
Besides natural information that is relevant and available to its receivers, an
organism’s informational environment is likely to also contain information that
has been purposefully added by the organism himself or other organisms, as
indicated in IE-2 and its sub-clauses and briefly discussed with reference to the
reproduction of behaviours. In terms of the correlations involved, the conditions
of transmission and reception, there is no principled difference between purposefully produced and natural information. However, there are differences, first, with
respect to the correlation or “mapping” between signal and source not being warranted by lawful or statistical regularities in nature but by regularities in usage or,
under some circumstances, definition. Second and relatedly, instances of a signal
The difference between an organism’s ecological and his informational
environments is this: an ecological environment is constituted of those variables
and their respective ranges at the distal end that are relevant to an organism. It is
possible but not necessary that the organism can also detect the values of those
variables. He might be built for resilience or fast reproduction instead. An informational environment, in turn, is constituted of those proximal affairs, naturally
present in the environment or produced and reproduced in behaviour, which stand
in sufficiently reliable relations to a subset of the ecologically relevant conditions
at the distal end, so as to enable an organism to keep track of those distal conditions. The distal affairs may be either spatially, temporally or perceptually remote
from the organism, and in some cases their relevance may be similarly decoupled
from the here-and-now. Both may lie in the past (this is what did F to me), in the
future (this F-condition will return) or be merely possible (I might be in trouble
if this s turns F ).
One decisive criterion for the inclusion of information present in the environment as part of an organism’s informational environment is that the receiver of
that information is able to respond in some way to conditions at the source (see
IE-1a) – either by tracking favourable and avoiding unfavourable conditions
(Godfrey-Smith’s constitutive strategy) or by altering these conditions (the constructive strategy). Still, there will be distal conditions that are ecologically relevant to an organism, but on whom he cannot collect information, either for want
of stable correlations between proximal and distal affairs, or for want of means of
collecting that information, or for want of means of responding to it. Such might
be the case for what I called background conditions on p. 81 in Chapter 5: conditions on whose relative persistence an organism relies, but which may be beyond
his means of access, informational or other.
Conversely, not all information in a receiver’s environment is part of his informational environment, even if he is able to receive it. If the presence or absence
of some information does not make any difference to his behaviours in general or
to the achievement of his goals in particular, not even at the most distal reaches of
what he can do in this world, that information does not have an adaptive function
to him. It could just as well be indifferent, signal-free noise, unless it happens to
interfere with his activities in other ways. Its status may, however, be subject to
change. If an organism stumbles upon a prima facie useless bit of information, it
might turn out to make a difference at some later point in time.
Besides natural information that is relevant and available to its receivers, an
organism’s informational environment is likely to also contain information that
has been purposefully added by the organism himself or other organisms, as
indicated in IE-2 and its sub-clauses and briefly discussed with reference to the
reproduction of behaviours. In terms of the correlations involved, the conditions
of transmission and reception, there is no principled difference between purposefully produced and natural information. However, there are differences, first, with
respect to the correlation or “mapping” between signal and source not being warranted by lawful or statistical regularities in nature but by regularities in usage or,
under some circumstances, definition. Second and relatedly, instances of a signal