Epistemology – exo|mind

Epistemic action

Epistemic actions are ways an agent has of modifying the external environment to provide crucial bits of information just when they are needed most.

Thus, we distinguish pragmatic actions – actions performed to bring one physically closer to a goal – from epistemic actions – actions performed to uncover information that is hidden or hard to compute mentally (Kirsh and Maglio, 1994).

Epistemic actions stand in contrast to pragmatic actions. The latter are actions designed to bring one physically closer to a goal. Walking to the fridge to fetch a beer is a pragmatic action. Epistemic actions may or may not yield such physical advance. Instead, they are designed to extract or uncover information. Looking inside the fridge to see what […]

April 10th, 2013|Categories: Epistemology|

Epistemic artifact

A tool for thinking. Examples include externalized information representations such as text documents and database records along with graphical tools such as bar charts and geographic maps. Historical examples include petroglyphs used to mark productive hunting and fishing grounds. According to Clark, Dennett, Mithen, et al., the invention and use of epistemic artifacts are central to the explanation of human intelligence and human culture (Sterelny, 2004).

[zotpress items=”TP6I68EW” style=”association-for-computing-machinery” sort=”DESC”]

April 8th, 2013|Categories: Cognition, Epistemology, Memory|Tags: transcranialism, visualization|

Epistemic feature

As defined here, an information-bearing element of an epistemic artifact (cf. sign). Note the term is intended to refer not only to components of formal sign systems, but any elemental information-bearing pattern, for example a face in a photograph.

April 10th, 2013|Categories: Epistemology|Tags: sign, symbol|

General Definition of Information (GDI)

The General Definition of Information (GDI) is a generally accepted characterization that defines information as data + meaning. Formally, GDI is expressed as follows:

GDI)	σ is an instance of information, understood as semantic content, if and only if:
	GDI.1) σ consists of n data, for n ≥ 1;
	GDI.2) the data are well formed;
	GDI.3) the well-formed data are meaningful.

GDI is a so-called data-based definition of information. GDI.1 states that an instance of information, σ (sometimes referred to as an infon), is defined as a “bundle” of one or more data instances, each typically expressed as a type/value pair. GDI.2 says that these data bundles are organized according to the rules of a particular […]

December 21st, 2014|Categories: Epistemology|

Sign

“I define a sign as anything which is so determined by something else, called its Object, and so determines an effect upon a person, which effect I call its interpretant, that the later is thereby mediately determined by the former.” (Peirce, 1998, 478)

According to C.S. Peirce, a sign is an entity consisting of three parts, a signifier (or sign-vehicle, for example a map symbol or written word), an object (the thing the signifier refers to), and an interpretant (the meaning construed in the mind of an observer).

[zotpress items=”8VWTGBUA” style=”association-for-computing-machinery” sort=”DESC”]

April 10th, 2013|Categories: Epistemology|Tags: sign, symbol|