64 Informational environments
The conditions in NI-4c, as the “channel conditions”, are based partly in the
organism, partly in the environment. They include the organism’s perceptual
apparatus as well as enabling and limiting conditions in his surroundings for the
detection of informational relations, and these, in turn, may include general physical conditions, such as lighting, as well as, more formally and generally, the level
of noise and error that are present to interfere with information uptake. Nonetheless, neither the perceiver’s condition nor the environment are supposed not to be
capricious, that is the channel conditions are not supposed to change randomly.
At what level an ability to discriminate between different conditions at s is
located and how many information channels are available in what quality will
depend on what may be called the adaptive economics to which an organism is
exposed. An organism who would have to spend a significant effort or a species
that would have to invest a lot, in evolutionary terms, into an elaborate perceptual apparatus that could discern between, for example specimen of an edible and
nourishing but relatively rare prey species and a more populous sort of nutritionally unrewarding but not poisonous lookalikes, where specimen of both kinds are
equally easy to catch, will get along well with his inability to discern between
r-signals correlated with the less numerous but nutritionally rich s 1 -specimen and
the more numerous but nutritionally poor s 2 -specimen. The condition that determines the value of such trade-offs between the cost of an investment into the possibility of finer discrimination and the effort spent on a large number of useless
catches will be the ability of the organism or species to maintain and reproduce
themselves. From the perspective of the prey, a complementary situation arises:
what is the trade-off between the cost of investment into an ability of reliably
distinguishing between a rare but efficient predator and his numerous but rather
harmless lookalikes or investing into an elaborate camouflage or mimicry that
interferes with detectability for the predator on the one hand and the cost of reproduction of another specimen of one’s own kind on the other?
2
This sort of adaptive economics is supposed to apply not only to natural organisms but also to technological systems, minus the supposedly red-in-tooth-andclaw mechanisms of selection at work in the biological realm. In either type of
case, there are different strategies for safeguarding against disruption: a refined
apparatus designed to always record information as accurately as possible through
as many channels as can be made available, or the design of choice may be one
for resilience, by means of robustness or redundancy, against the effects of numerous misreadings. The seeming simplicity of the latter strategy is not to be confused with any sort of adaptive disadvantage. However, not all strategies will
work equally well under all conditions. A complex but informationally relatively
tractable environment is likely to suggest the former strategy.
If not earlier, as Skyrms and Godfrey-Smith suggest, it is at this point where
game- theoretical considerations, if carefully hedged, become helpful to an
inquiry into natural information and its use. The receiver of information need not
be consciously engaged in applying an economic calculus to guide his behaviour.
The relation among the information present, the number and quality of the information channels available to him, and the expected results of his behaviours will
The conditions in NI-4c, as the “channel conditions”, are based partly in the
organism, partly in the environment. They include the organism’s perceptual
apparatus as well as enabling and limiting conditions in his surroundings for the
detection of informational relations, and these, in turn, may include general physical conditions, such as lighting, as well as, more formally and generally, the level
of noise and error that are present to interfere with information uptake. Nonetheless, neither the perceiver’s condition nor the environment are supposed not to be
capricious, that is the channel conditions are not supposed to change randomly.
At what level an ability to discriminate between different conditions at s is
located and how many information channels are available in what quality will
depend on what may be called the adaptive economics to which an organism is
exposed. An organism who would have to spend a significant effort or a species
that would have to invest a lot, in evolutionary terms, into an elaborate perceptual apparatus that could discern between, for example specimen of an edible and
nourishing but relatively rare prey species and a more populous sort of nutritionally unrewarding but not poisonous lookalikes, where specimen of both kinds are
equally easy to catch, will get along well with his inability to discern between
r-signals correlated with the less numerous but nutritionally rich s 1 -specimen and
the more numerous but nutritionally poor s 2 -specimen. The condition that determines the value of such trade-offs between the cost of an investment into the possibility of finer discrimination and the effort spent on a large number of useless
catches will be the ability of the organism or species to maintain and reproduce
themselves. From the perspective of the prey, a complementary situation arises:
what is the trade-off between the cost of investment into an ability of reliably
distinguishing between a rare but efficient predator and his numerous but rather
harmless lookalikes or investing into an elaborate camouflage or mimicry that
interferes with detectability for the predator on the one hand and the cost of reproduction of another specimen of one’s own kind on the other?
2
This sort of adaptive economics is supposed to apply not only to natural organisms but also to technological systems, minus the supposedly red-in-tooth-andclaw mechanisms of selection at work in the biological realm. In either type of
case, there are different strategies for safeguarding against disruption: a refined
apparatus designed to always record information as accurately as possible through
as many channels as can be made available, or the design of choice may be one
for resilience, by means of robustness or redundancy, against the effects of numerous misreadings. The seeming simplicity of the latter strategy is not to be confused with any sort of adaptive disadvantage. However, not all strategies will
work equally well under all conditions. A complex but informationally relatively
tractable environment is likely to suggest the former strategy.
If not earlier, as Skyrms and Godfrey-Smith suggest, it is at this point where
game- theoretical considerations, if carefully hedged, become helpful to an
inquiry into natural information and its use. The receiver of information need not
be consciously engaged in applying an economic calculus to guide his behaviour.
The relation among the information present, the number and quality of the information channels available to him, and the expected results of his behaviours will