Changes

The good of information is its use in reducing our uncertainty about some issue that comes before us.  Generally speaking, uncertainty comes in several flavors, and so the information that serves to reduce uncertainty can be applied in several different ways.  The situations of uncertainty that human agents commonly find themselves facing have been investigated under many headings, literally for ages, and the classifications that subtle thinkers arrived at long before the dawn of modern information theory still have their uses in setting the stage of an introduction.

The good of information is its use in reducing our uncertainty about some issue that comes before us.  Generally speaking, uncertainty comes in several flavors, and so the information that serves to reduce uncertainty can be applied in several different ways.  The situations of uncertainty that human agents commonly find themselves facing have been investigated under many headings, literally for ages, and the classifications that subtle thinkers arrived at long before the dawn of modern information theory still have their uses in setting the stage of an introduction.

Picking an example of a subtle thinker almost at random, the philosopher-scientist [[Immanuel Kant]] divided the principal questions of human existence into three parts:

Picking an example of a subtle thinker almost at random, the philosopher-scientist Immanuel Kant divided the principal questions of human existence into three parts:

:* What's true?

:* What's true?

:* What's to hope?

:* What's to hope?

The third question is a bit too subtle for the present frame of discussion, but the first and second are easily recognizable as staking out the two main axes of information theory, namely, the dual dimensions of ''[[information]]'' and ''[[control theory|control]]''.  Roughly the same space of concerns is elsewhere spanned by the dual axes of ''[[competence]]'' and ''[[performance]]'', ''[[specification]]'' and ''[[optimization]]'', or just plain ''[[knowledge]]'' and ''[[skill]]''.

The third question is a bit too subtle for the present frame of discussion, but the first and second are easily recognizable as staking out the two main axes of information theory, namely, the dual dimensions of ''information'' and ''control''.  Roughly the same space of concerns is elsewhere spanned by the dual axes of ''competence'' and ''performance'', ''specification'' and ''optimization'', or just plain ''knowledge'' and ''skill''.

A question of ''what's true'' is a ''descriptive question'', and there exist what are called ''[[descriptive science]]s'' devoted to answering descriptive questions about any domain of phenomena that one might care to name.

A question of ''what's true'' is a ''descriptive question'', and there exist what are called ''[[descriptive science]]s'' devoted to answering descriptive questions about any domain of phenomena that one might care to name.