MoL-2022-29: Weststeijn, Nikki (2022) The Relation Between Shannon Information and Semantic Information. [Report]
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Abstract
Information is a concept that has become a point of focus in many disciplines other than information theory, but it is often unclear precisely which concept we are referring to. There are namely two main types of information. On the one hand, there is Shannon information, which is the most standard concept of information in information theory and which quantitatively measures the information contained in an information source. On the other hand, there is semantic information, which is more in line with the everyday understanding of the term “information” and which concerns information that is always about something. Whereas Shannon information is characterized as being quantitative, objective, physical and mind-independent, semantic information is characterized as being qualitative, subjective, mind-dependent and evidently semantic. It thus seems that there is a dichotomy between these two concepts of information. The main question of this thesis is to find out whether Shannon information is really that different from semantic information, i.e. to characterize the relation between Shannon information and semantic information. We will look at the concept of Shannon information in information theory and physics and clarify the relation between information and entropy. We will also look at quantitative accounts of semantic information by Dretske, Bar-Hillel and Carnap, and Floridi and at how we can use Situation Theory, Dynamic Epistemic Logic and Logic of Functional Dependence to model the flow of information.
| Item Type: | Report |
|---|---|
| Report Nr: | MoL-2022-29 |
| Series Name: | Master of Logic Thesis (MoL) Series |
| Year: | 2022 |
| Subjects: | Logic Philosophy |
| Depositing User: | Dr Marco Vervoort |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Jan 2024 14:28 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Jan 2024 14:28 |
| URI: | https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/2290 |
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