We should now be equipped with a concept of natural information that is more
detailed and specific than James Jerome Gibson’s negative claim that information
is not best understood on the model of communication, and his positive claim,
placed right next to the former, that information “refers to the specification of the
observer’s environment” (1979, 242). Although these claims are closely related, it
might be helpful to consider their bearing on my core argument separately.
Taking up Gibson’s negative claim, we can now ask for the implications of the
theoretical notion of natural information developed in the previous chapter for
non-natural information, hence the very kind of information that Gibson characterised as a misguiding model. To what extent is information that has been purposefully produced and added to our environments to be understood in the same
way as natural information? I will reserve most of the discussion this question for
Part II but start working towards it near the end of this chapter and in the next.
Taking up Gibson’s positive claim, we can now ask for the role of the environment proper in both being specified for the organism by the information therein
and being specific to the organism – and in often leaving him with situations of
underspecification. Even though natural information is an objective commodity,
human and other natural beings may get a variety of things wrong in a variety of
ways, without necessarily being exposed to the charge of error and dysfunction.
However, they will also encounter opportunities for adapting their environments
and the information therein to their needs, so as to make them more specific both
for and to themselves.
Given that the creation and use of artefacts is a special case of making the environment more specific, I will discuss the latter point first, and dedicate this and
most of Chapter 6 to it, with respective focus on the shaping of environments and
the nature of informational environments. I will begin my discussion with explicating the requirement, mentioned only in passing earlier (see p. 54 in Chapter 3),
that both the historical and the ecological context of perception and behaviour
have to be considered. These contexts are intertwined to the extent that a natural
history of every organism and of every trait of an organism is identical with a history of the environmental conditions under which it emerged and by which it was
shaped, whereas any environment is a result of history of particular interactions
between populations of organisms and the physical and biotic conditions under
5 Making an environment
detailed and specific than James Jerome Gibson’s negative claim that information
is not best understood on the model of communication, and his positive claim,
placed right next to the former, that information “refers to the specification of the
observer’s environment” (1979, 242). Although these claims are closely related, it
might be helpful to consider their bearing on my core argument separately.
Taking up Gibson’s negative claim, we can now ask for the implications of the
theoretical notion of natural information developed in the previous chapter for
non-natural information, hence the very kind of information that Gibson characterised as a misguiding model. To what extent is information that has been purposefully produced and added to our environments to be understood in the same
way as natural information? I will reserve most of the discussion this question for
Part II but start working towards it near the end of this chapter and in the next.
Taking up Gibson’s positive claim, we can now ask for the role of the environment proper in both being specified for the organism by the information therein
and being specific to the organism – and in often leaving him with situations of
underspecification. Even though natural information is an objective commodity,
human and other natural beings may get a variety of things wrong in a variety of
ways, without necessarily being exposed to the charge of error and dysfunction.
However, they will also encounter opportunities for adapting their environments
and the information therein to their needs, so as to make them more specific both
for and to themselves.
Given that the creation and use of artefacts is a special case of making the environment more specific, I will discuss the latter point first, and dedicate this and
most of Chapter 6 to it, with respective focus on the shaping of environments and
the nature of informational environments. I will begin my discussion with explicating the requirement, mentioned only in passing earlier (see p. 54 in Chapter 3),
that both the historical and the ecological context of perception and behaviour
have to be considered. These contexts are intertwined to the extent that a natural
history of every organism and of every trait of an organism is identical with a history of the environmental conditions under which it emerged and by which it was
shaped, whereas any environment is a result of history of particular interactions
between populations of organisms and the physical and biotic conditions under
5 Making an environment