Am currently working on a paper to be given at this years AAL conference. Tentative details:
Title: An Analysis of Informational Relevance
Abstract: In this presentation a logical definition and analysis of informational relevance is given. Relevance is taken to be agent-oriented/epistemic, where the relevance of a piece of information is determined in terms of how well it satisfies an agent’s request, how well it answers their question. Firstly, a general metric is outlined whereby the relevance of a statement is measured in terms of its truthlikeness measure. Secondly, a logic is given in which a relevance operator is defined and investigated. The erotetic foundation for this logic is Hintikka’s approach to analysing questions as requests for information in terms of epistemic modal logic, which is then combined with a logic of intention.
Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.
Thus “Information” is solely a reducible, anthropomorphic quantity rather than phyiscal/intrinsic to all things?
Depends on what type of information one is talking about or how they are talking about it, but information in general is not solely a reducible, anthropomorphic quantity. I am talking here about semantic information. Semantic information quantity is an agent-independent thing. The informativeness or relevance of a piece of information however is an agent-relative thing.
See the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Semantic Conceptions of Information for more information.