If natural information is to be properly understood as something provided by the
environment to its consumers, and hence as something that grounds their perception and behaviour in the first place, the discussion in the preceding chapters will
have helped to identify some of the properties to be expected from this kind of
information: Natural information shall be an objective commodity but also allow
for the possibility of being relevant in different ways to different consumers. It
specifies the environment for the perceiving organism but often leaves the organism with situations of underspecification. It may convey knowledge but most of
the time serves more immediate uses, as in Gibsonian affordances. It shall provide
for the possibility of getting things wrong but also help to account for how we can
get them right. It shall not presuppose the presence of beliefs, desires and knowledge but be part of their causal-historical preconditions. It shall be well-grounded
but need not be symbolic. And it shall allow for accommodating changing conditions, over place and time, in the environment. An understanding of these properties of natural information will help us to understand just how an organism’s
environment contributes to his cognitive accomplishments (further discussion
in Chapter 6), and what to look for when considering the role of informationproviding artefacts in this context (further discussion in Part II).
What I have not provided so far is my own account of natural information, its
rooting in the environment and its role to its consumers in precise enough terms
to add something worthwhile to the earlier attempts discussed in Chapter 2: Fred
Dretske presupposes that information should be natural information in the first
place, and he provides a definition of informational content that is firmly rooted in
the laws of nature but finds it difficult to accommodate for the conditions of information uptake in the real world. Ruth Millikan criticises Dretske for restricting the
presence information to a small subset of real-world conditions, maintaining that
organisms typically rely on more local and probabilistic conditions as information. Brian Skyrms’s and Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Lewisian approach, in turn, while
being ecumenical about the criterion of lawfulness, are at risk of remaining in the
grip of game-theoretic metaphors that presuppose active senders and receivers of
information. Among the theories of perception discussed in the preceding chapter,
James Jerome Gibson’s approach comprises a notion of natural information that,
once made more explicit and precise, might help to carve out a synthesis of those
4 The domains of natural
information
environment to its consumers, and hence as something that grounds their perception and behaviour in the first place, the discussion in the preceding chapters will
have helped to identify some of the properties to be expected from this kind of
information: Natural information shall be an objective commodity but also allow
for the possibility of being relevant in different ways to different consumers. It
specifies the environment for the perceiving organism but often leaves the organism with situations of underspecification. It may convey knowledge but most of
the time serves more immediate uses, as in Gibsonian affordances. It shall provide
for the possibility of getting things wrong but also help to account for how we can
get them right. It shall not presuppose the presence of beliefs, desires and knowledge but be part of their causal-historical preconditions. It shall be well-grounded
but need not be symbolic. And it shall allow for accommodating changing conditions, over place and time, in the environment. An understanding of these properties of natural information will help us to understand just how an organism’s
environment contributes to his cognitive accomplishments (further discussion
in Chapter 6), and what to look for when considering the role of informationproviding artefacts in this context (further discussion in Part II).
What I have not provided so far is my own account of natural information, its
rooting in the environment and its role to its consumers in precise enough terms
to add something worthwhile to the earlier attempts discussed in Chapter 2: Fred
Dretske presupposes that information should be natural information in the first
place, and he provides a definition of informational content that is firmly rooted in
the laws of nature but finds it difficult to accommodate for the conditions of information uptake in the real world. Ruth Millikan criticises Dretske for restricting the
presence information to a small subset of real-world conditions, maintaining that
organisms typically rely on more local and probabilistic conditions as information. Brian Skyrms’s and Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Lewisian approach, in turn, while
being ecumenical about the criterion of lawfulness, are at risk of remaining in the
grip of game-theoretic metaphors that presuppose active senders and receivers of
information. Among the theories of perception discussed in the preceding chapter,
James Jerome Gibson’s approach comprises a notion of natural information that,
once made more explicit and precise, might help to carve out a synthesis of those
4 The domains of natural
information