102 Informational environments
ambiguous to be useful to R. These signals are detectable for R but make conditions in the informational environment more ambiguous, “opaque” or “impoverished”, for want of bearing informational relations to a relevant distal condition.
On the positive side of the balance, R’s informational environment will contain
any signal that helps him to make the distinction between natural and deceptive or
otherwise ambiguous signals, and hence bears informational relations to relevant
distal conditions. Making the distinction between signals that appear identical
but relate to very different conditions at the source will matter to him. Although
the detection of false negatives, that is signals that do not appear to be related to
the same source conditions but in fact are, is relevant to be sure, detecting false
positives will normally be of greater importance. You might live with detecting a
predator when there is none around, and even with doing so quite often, but you
simply do not want to mistake that well-camouflaged predator for an innocuous
piece of wood.
Hence, R’s informational environment will at least become more complex and
challenging if and when a deceiver or other unfavourable conditions enter. It will
impose additional discriminatory tasks upon him if and when he is able to use
additional cues for distinguishing between genuine information and the signals
produced by deceivers, impostors and other sources of equivocation. If I may borrow Sterelny’s terminology for my purposes, R’s informational environment will
have become less transparent and to an increasing degree merely translucent. If
there is no such option available to R, he becomes less likely to get things right
about what happens at the distal end. Hence, the deceptive signal will actually
subtract information from R’s informational environment and impoverish conditions therein (see IE-1c). R’s informational environment will have become less
transparent and more opaque. However, only if the balance between properly
informational relations and merely seeming signals is overall positive, in terms of
maintaining R’s purposes to a minimally sufficient degree, will an informational
environment remain intact, although possibly become impoverished. Should the
appearance of a deceptive or de facto irremediably ambiguous signal interfere
with trackability beyond that point, we might consider R’s informational environment having turned dysfunctional. He might not persevere after all.
At any rate, admitting for the possibility of probabilities of signal-source mappings to vary over space and time (see NI-5a in Chapter 4) does not amount to
admitting for a variance in the underlying regularities but to acknowledging the possibility of variance in epistemic contact (Withagen and Chemero 2009, see p. 60–61)
brought about by variance in ecological conditions, with the caveats I added to
that discussion. The informational character of a signal is grounded in the type
of sources and source conditions that bring it about – hence disallowing alternate
sources or alternate conditions at a source as part of the same type of informational relation (see NI-1). If an organism with deceptive intentions enters R’s environment, the reliability of his detection of the relevant conditions in question and
hence his epistemic contact with the environment may be negatively affected but
not the regularities that connect the ‘original’ natural signal to its natural source.
After all, the natural and the ‘treacherous’ artificial signal in such cases are related
ambiguous to be useful to R. These signals are detectable for R but make conditions in the informational environment more ambiguous, “opaque” or “impoverished”, for want of bearing informational relations to a relevant distal condition.
On the positive side of the balance, R’s informational environment will contain
any signal that helps him to make the distinction between natural and deceptive or
otherwise ambiguous signals, and hence bears informational relations to relevant
distal conditions. Making the distinction between signals that appear identical
but relate to very different conditions at the source will matter to him. Although
the detection of false negatives, that is signals that do not appear to be related to
the same source conditions but in fact are, is relevant to be sure, detecting false
positives will normally be of greater importance. You might live with detecting a
predator when there is none around, and even with doing so quite often, but you
simply do not want to mistake that well-camouflaged predator for an innocuous
piece of wood.
Hence, R’s informational environment will at least become more complex and
challenging if and when a deceiver or other unfavourable conditions enter. It will
impose additional discriminatory tasks upon him if and when he is able to use
additional cues for distinguishing between genuine information and the signals
produced by deceivers, impostors and other sources of equivocation. If I may borrow Sterelny’s terminology for my purposes, R’s informational environment will
have become less transparent and to an increasing degree merely translucent. If
there is no such option available to R, he becomes less likely to get things right
about what happens at the distal end. Hence, the deceptive signal will actually
subtract information from R’s informational environment and impoverish conditions therein (see IE-1c). R’s informational environment will have become less
transparent and more opaque. However, only if the balance between properly
informational relations and merely seeming signals is overall positive, in terms of
maintaining R’s purposes to a minimally sufficient degree, will an informational
environment remain intact, although possibly become impoverished. Should the
appearance of a deceptive or de facto irremediably ambiguous signal interfere
with trackability beyond that point, we might consider R’s informational environment having turned dysfunctional. He might not persevere after all.
At any rate, admitting for the possibility of probabilities of signal-source mappings to vary over space and time (see NI-5a in Chapter 4) does not amount to
admitting for a variance in the underlying regularities but to acknowledging the possibility of variance in epistemic contact (Withagen and Chemero 2009, see p. 60–61)
brought about by variance in ecological conditions, with the caveats I added to
that discussion. The informational character of a signal is grounded in the type
of sources and source conditions that bring it about – hence disallowing alternate
sources or alternate conditions at a source as part of the same type of informational relation (see NI-1). If an organism with deceptive intentions enters R’s environment, the reliability of his detection of the relevant conditions in question and
hence his epistemic contact with the environment may be negatively affected but
not the regularities that connect the ‘original’ natural signal to its natural source.
After all, the natural and the ‘treacherous’ artificial signal in such cases are related