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Complementarity in information studies

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Abstract

The principle of complementarity in physics can be generalized and extended to information studies. It helps explain the dilemma faced by information studies today. The prevailing endeavor that going beyond the limitation of formal theories and to develop a unified theory of information falls in the dilemma which is structurally homologous to the dilemmas in quantum physics. The dilemma is caused by an epistemological paradox called assignment paradox. The paradox can be removed through generalized complementarity. It means that the concept of information embodying in different theoretical contexts are different phenomenon. They are complementary to each other. The analysis brings bad news to methodologically reductionism and fundamentalism but good news to transdisciplinary approach.

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Notes

  1. A systematic study on the generalization and application of Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity can see von Stillfried’s dissertation Theoretical and Emprical Exploration of “Generalized Quntum Theory” (2010).

  2. Philosophers of language have made a distinction between reference and meaning since Frege (1892). However, I will ignore the distinction here because information is much more basic than language. Whether can we apply the analysis of language to information is still open.

  3. When saying about academic usages of information, I do not hold the notion that there is an academic definition of information with which researchers from different disciplines all agree with. In fact, comes to mathematical theories of information, we can even say there are more divergences than consensus. More can see in Burgin (2010).

  4. Some may argue that Shannon did not intend to develop a theory involving Ref and Nor as he said at the very beginning of his classic paper (1948), thus he did not intentionally assign Ref and Nor to information in his theory. The argument is fair. However, as Bar-Hillel has argued, many has ignored Shannon’s warning and equaled the information discussed in the theory to information in daily usage. The “people” in my claim refers to these.

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Acknowledgements

I thank anonymous referees for their insightful critiques and suggestions which improve the paper substantially. The paper is supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Grant 2017M611789.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Nanjing University, No. 163, Xianlin Aven, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China

    Liqian Zhou

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Zhou, L. Complementarity in information studies. Synthese 197, 293–310 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1786-8

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