The foundations of information science.

Part I. Philosophical aspects

Bertram C. Brookes initialfoundations, so extending the range of the
64, Abbots Gardens, London N2, 0JH, UK theory; and, secondly, by deepening or strengthening
its foundations. These foundations are the set of
Received 30 May 1980 basic assumptions initially taken to be self-evident. As
long as the superstructure continues to grow freely -
This is the first of a four-part paper on the foundations of as long as the initial paradigm remains fruitful - no-
information science. The second part, on quantitative one worries unduly about the foundations. It is only
aspects, will appear in the next issue of the Journal, and the when the growth of the superstructure begins to lose
final two parts in subsequent issues. its first confident pace that we begin to question the
basic assumptions. By this time, however, the basic
assumptions have become implicit. We have to dig
It is first argued that a niche for information science,
them up to see exactly what they are.
unclaimed by any other discipline, can be found by admitting
the near-autonomy of Popper’s World III - the world of
objective knowledge. The task of information science can 1.2. Tlie state of theoretical information science
then be defined as the exploration of this world of objective
knowledge which is an extension of, but is distinct from, the Theoretical information science hardly yet exists. I
world of documentation and librarianship. The Popperian discern scattered bits of theory, some neat in them-
ontology then has to be extended to admit the concept of selves but which resist integration into coherence. So
information and its relation to subjective and objective know-
ledge. The spaces of Popper’s three worlds are then con- there are no common assumptions, implicit or
sidered. It is argued that cognitive and physical spaces are not explicit, which can be regarded as its theoretical
identical and that this lack of identity creates problems for foundations. Information science operates busily on
the proper quantification of information phenomena. an ocean of commonsense practical applications
wluch increasingly involve the computer. Whatever
foundations it may claim to have rest on common-
1. Introduction .
sense views of language, of communication, of know-

’
’
ledge and information and on commonsense applica-
1.1. The founding of a science tions of computer and telecommunications technol-
ogy. Computer science is in little better state.
Any social activity claiming to be a science has to So information science floats in a philosophical
be theoretical as well as practical. It has to begin in hnibo. It has no theoretical foundations. That fact at
/7!~7M res with commonsense rationalizations of least simphfies my present problems - there is noth-
easily observable phenomena that attract interest. ing first to dig up! The ground is already clear.
Gradually, and with persistence, we form structures
of theory which, tluough critical discussion attain a 1.3. The antiquity of the basic problems of informa-
degree of consensus among those who contribute to tion science
that discussion. The theoretical structure of a science
is never complete or closed; every aspect of it remains The basic problems of information science are not
always open, offering new problems. new. They reach back through epistemology, or the
Once the nucleus of a new theory is discernibly theory of knowledge, to Plato’s theory that abstract
coherent there are two ways in which it can develop: entities such as those of mathematics exist outside
first, by growth of the superstructure resting on the physical space and time in an autonomous world of
timeless essences and also to Aristotle’s fonnalization
of logic. The theory of knowledge still occupies a
central position in the perennial philosophy though
some aspects of it have already become, through

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125
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psychology and neurobiology, important modern dependent on the sciences underlying the modern
sciences. technologies, appear to be able to get along with very
To justify the claim made explicit in the name the little information science theory at all. Practical
new subject has adopted, the theoretician of informa- information systems will continue to expand
tion science has to show that in some significant way indefinitely without theory until it is sensed by users,
the new science reaches beyond the current philo- if not by the operators of these systems, that present
sophy, beyond the current psychology of mind and systems are not, from an information point of view,
neurobiology of the brain to new areas and problems as effective as they are claimed to be.
Applicable
it can legitimately call its own. technology is now superabundant but good applica-
tions are all too rare.
1.4. Infonnation: subjectivity and objectinity So I was cheered when I heard Resnikoff of the
National Science Foundation of the U.S.A., at a
The concept of information offers peculiar diffi- conference of A.S.I.S. in Mimeapolis in November,
culties to the theoretical scientist. Even at the 1979, give notice that the N.S.F. would begin to take
commonsense level and however it may be thought a harsher view of the funding
requests made to it. He
of, information is an entity which pervades all human too had noted the overwhelming interest in practicali-
activity. It is therefore peculiarly difficult to observe ties and emphasized the need for more theoretical
information phenomena in isolation with the kind of research aimed at developing what he called ’more
detachment that scientific enquiry traditionally appropriate analytical intruments’.
demands. Even the process of describing one’s obser-
vations of some phenomenon is itself an information
activity. So the separation of objective from subjec- 2. The starting point: Popper’s three worlds
tive effects is not easy to maintain. Is it even
possible? In trying to find the grounds of information
This question is crucial. In the natural sciences we science I have been driven down, level by level, to the
can assume with some confidence that our observa- rock-bottom of human thought - to metaphysics.
tions to not themselves disturb the phenomena we are In discussing metaphysics, the best one can do is to
observing, except, of course, at the level of quantum assert one’s own assumptions as clearly as possible. In
physics. But in the social sciences we can not assume metaphysics nothing can be proved - only asserted.
that human behaviour is unaffected by observation or So the implicit challenge to one’s readers at this level
by the observer’s unconscious responses to the is to say in effect ’If you don’t like what I say, then
behaviour of those he observes. The boundary offer something better’.
between objective and subjective description becomes Of modern philosophers I find Sir Karl Popper
very fuzzy indeed. much the most congenial, precisely for the reasons
All the social sciences face this difficulty but none that most professional philosophers of our time
of them has faced up to it. And, of all the social disapprove of his ideas. His first work in our field was
sciences, information science is most intimately con- The logic of scientific discoverv ( 1934) in which he
cerned with the interactions between mental and argued that science was concerned not with Truth (in
physical processes or between subjective and objec- its absolute sense) but with trying to extend our
tive modes of thought. A special responsibility there- knowledge of the external world by falsifying current
fore rests on information science to clarify these theories rather than by Jlerifying them. Unfortu-
issues if it can. nately, though Popper has been greatly concerned
with the growth of scientific knowledge, he has
1.5. The practicality of current information science taken no cognisance of the concept of information on
which we so heavily depend. So though I begin with
Information science is now regarded both by the Popperian ideas, I have to extend them in my own
public and by most of its proponents as an essentially way to complete the metaphysical groundwork I
practical activity concerned to exploit the computer, believe we need.
the micro-chip and telecommunications technology. , The most immediately relevant of Popper’s books
There is no end in sight of the possible extensions of is his Objective Kizowledge ( 972). In his preface,
mechanized information systems which, though Popper writes: &dquo;The phenomenon of human know-
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 127

ledge is no doubt the greatest miracle in our universe.

It constitutes a problem that will not soon be solved
.... Since Descartes ... the theory of human know-
ledge has been largely subjectivist: knowledge has
been regarded as a specially secure kind of human
belief, and scientific knowledge as a specially secure
kind of human knowledge. The essays in this book
break with a tradition that can be traced back to
Aristotle - the tradition of the commonsense theory
of knowledge ... I regard the commonsense theory
of knowledge as a subjectivist blunder. This blunder
has dominated Western philosophy. I have made an Fig. 1. Popper’s three worlds.
attempt to eradicate it and to replace it by an objec-
tive theory of essentially conjectural knowledge.&dquo;
My own intuitions resonate with Popper’s words. World 2. The world of subjective human know-
What information science needs at its roots, it seems ledge or ’mental states’.
to me, is an objective rather than a subjective theory World 3. The world of objective knowledge, the
of knowledge. Any line of thought which claims to be products of the human mind as recorded in languages,
scientific should be dealing with objectivities rather the arts, the sciences, the technologies - in all the
than with subjectivities, though these are terms I need artefacts humans have stored or scattered around the
clarify. Earth.
’

to
Popper’s words remind me that my colleagues in Though these three worlds are independent, they
librarianship also use the term knowledge in an objec- also interact. As humans living on Earth, we are part
tive way. They speak and write about ’the organiza- of the physical world, dependent for our continued
tion of knowledge’, though when I looked into their existence on heat and light from the Sun, oxygen
works I found that they discussed only ways of classi- from the air, fresh water from springs, carbohydrates
fying documents. But documents and knowledge are and proteins from our foods, and so on. Through our
not identical entities. mentalities we are also part of World 2. In reporting
Up to modern times plulosophers have recognized the ideas Popper has recorded in his books, I have
the reality of either one or two worlds. For example, been calling on the resources of World 3. Books and
Plato was a dualist, though of a special kind. Berkeley all other artefacts are also physical entities, bits of
was a monist; his only reality was that of the mental World 1, shaped by humans to be exosomatic stores
world. Another monist was T.H. Huxley, the of knowledge which have an existence as physical
popularizer of Darwin’s evolutionary theory - a things independent of those who created them.
rnaterialist - who disparagingly dismissed mental It is the autonomy Popper ascribes to World 3 that
states and conscious thought as ’the steam above the traditionalist philosophers question. The subjectivist
factory’. Nowadays, most philosophers and most is prepared to admit that an artefact such as a book is
other people too, I guess, are dualists: they recognise in part a physical object and so a component of
the physical world and the mental world as World 1. But the subjectivist would then argue that
independent, autonomous realities. the mental component of a book remains only poten-
But Popper goes further. He recognises a third tial ; the knowledge it offers has to await the human
world, that of objective knowledge which is the reader who picks it up and transduces its lines of
totality of all human thought embodied in human print into the thoughts its author there expressed.
artefacts, as in documents of course but also in music, And this is a World 2 exercise. The subjectivist might
the arts, the teclurologies. These artefacts enshrine further argue that in metaphysics particularly we
what Popper declares to be his autonomous - or should employ an Ockham’s razor economy principle
near-autonomous - world of objective knowledge. and recognise no more autonomous worlds than are
So here is Popper’s ontological scheme: necessary.
World 1. The physical world, the cosmos in which Popper argues that animals other than humans also
Earth, vital though it is to us, is but an insignificant make artefacts. For example, a bee-iiive remains a
speck in the immensity of the universe of radiation bee-hive, an objective entity, even if its colony of
and matter.
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128

bees is wiped out by some disaster. And the empty collect and organise for use the records of World 3.
bee-hive tells us much about the way of life of its And the theoretical task is to study the interactions
one-time inhabitants. It is now possible to imagine a between Worlds 2 and 3, to describe and explain
burst of radiation emitted by some nuclear cata- them if they can and so to help in organizing know-
strophe which could extinguish all human life on ledge rather than documents for more effective use.
Earth and yet leave our artefacts intact. As all radia- The artefacts which record human knowledge
tion decays, there would come a time when it would exosomatically become independent of the knowing
be feasible for non-human forms of intelligent life, subjects who created them. These artefacts are no
from some other planet possibly, to arrive on this longer subjective and inaccessible but objective and
desolate Earth and find the human artefacts scattered accessible to all who care to study them, as are the
around the scene, including the intact libraries, and, flints and sherds that archaeologists study except that
as man has already decoded the Minoan scripts, we are dealing with modern artefacts. So Popper talks

gradually decode our documents. It would thus be of ’epistemology without a knowing subject’, i.e. the
possible for our visitors to recover what man had objective study of knowledge. It is this idea that gives
learned about his worlds. In other words, once human us also the justification for establishing a new science.

knowledge has been recorded, it attains a degree of This approach thus enables us to escape from the
permanence, an objectivity, an accessiblity which is subjectivities of the 2000-year old approach to
denied to the subjective knowledge of individual theories of knowledge and from subjective psychol-
humans. A gifted human may acquire wide know- ogy as well as from traditional philosophy. Further-
ledge, deep wisdom and spiritual insights but all tlus more, in adopting the interaction between Worlds 2
is lost when he dies except for that which he has and 3 as our field of study we are laying claim to a
recorded in some artefact. territory wluch no other discipline has already
Other doubts about the autonomy of World 3 claimed.
arise, I guess, from human modesty. Worlds 1 and 2 When visiting schools of information science in
were created by God or by whatever other cosmic North America I have often been introduced to the
forces one acknowledges, whereas World 3 is essen- faculty members in the following terms: &dquo;Here is Dr.
tially man-made, though of course one can also A, he teaches linguistics for information science. And
similarly argue that the same non-human cosmic force here is Prof. B who gives courses in computer science
lies behind all human activity. But Popper, I think, is for the information scientists. Dr. C here is a statisti-
recognsing the inestimable value to humans that has cian who has a course on statistics for information
followed the development of language and of writing science.&dquo; And so it goes on until I am compelled to
particularly. I do not think it an exaggeration to ask: &dquo;And who teaches information science?&dquo; The
acknowledge a World 3 of the kind he describes. usual answer is that information science is a peculiar
mix of linguistics, communication, computer science,
statistics, research methods, together with some
3. World 3 and information science
’ ’ ’
techniques from library science such as indexing and
classification. Any integration of these elements has
to be achieved, if that is possible at all, by the
Popper’s World 3 should commend itself to library
and information scientists because, for the first time, students themselves.
it offers a rationale for their professional activities But 1 am arguing that information science is a
which can be expressed in other than purely practical discipline which has its own unique territory, its own
terms. Natural scientists and technologists explore unique problems and its own unique view of human
and exploit World 1 and deposit their records and affairs which now has to develop its own principles
artefacts in World 3. Social scientists and humanists and techniques. It has no future as an incoherent mix
of elements from an arbitrary set of disparate disci-
study and reflect upon World 2 and the interactions
of World 2 with World 1; they too deposit their plines.
records and artefacts in World 3. Pure mathematicians
invent abstractions and work out their interrelations, 4. Information and sense-data
a study within World 3 itself, and they too deposit
their records in World 3. So the practical work of At this point I have to leave Popper and go
library and information scientists can now be said to forward on my own. I am interested in information
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 129

as well as knowledge but Popper sadly ignores the scious mind is not a special part of World 1, it is
concept of information. It may be that he wrongly likely to have different (i.e. non-physical) funda-
identifies information with sense-data. a phi losopllical mental properties ... it need not have the property
concept which Popper has done much to discredit. of spatial extension.&dquo; Thus the only space that Eccles
The term sense-data he knows only in relation to has considered is that of the physical space occupied
naive empiricist views derived from Locke, Berkeley by the brain.
and Hume which he has criticised strongly. His main I would now add: &dquo;If as conjectured mental states
criticism stems from the obsession of these philo- and physical entities belong to different worlds, these
sophers with the search for Truth while Popper has worlds are likely to have different spaces&dquo;. I realise
always emphasised that Truth is something we can here that I am now extending the usual meaning of
never knowingly attain and that all our knowledge, space from its everyday sense and also beyond that of
however acquired, is always provisional, always open the mathematician who can deal with 3- or 4- or n-
to criticism and correction. dimensional spaces in World 3. So we have to
In lus later works, notably in 77ie self and its brain consider in what characteristics mental space may
(1977) written jointly with Sir John Eccles the differ from those of physical space.
neurobiologist, he has reverted to a more traditional Here are my conjectures about mental spaces.
philosophical problem - the relationship of the mind Each of us bodily occupies a different location in
to the body - which, interesting as it is, is not physical space. So each of us has a different mental
directly relevant to the issues I am concerned with image of our physical surroundings. But if we were all
here. sitting in a theatre, there would be a simple relation-
Moreover, I have to be critical of some aspects of ship between our mental images of the stage and our
Popper’s three-world ontology in taking the next location witlun the theatre. If we replaced our eyes
steps forward. by suitable cameras and photographed what each of
us sees, each from our different points of view, it

would be possible, I guess, to look at the anonymous

’ ’

photographs and correctly locate the position each of

5. The problem of spaces .

us accupied in the theatre. So in this case there is a

simple relationship between our mental images and

Popper leaves his three-world model incomplete. the physical realities we observe.
He does not, for example, explain what he means by If, however, I ask you to shut your eyes to exclude
a ’world’. The physical world, World 1, is occupied by all visual sense-data and ask you to recall, say, having
matter and radiation. World 2, the world of subjective breakfast today, there is no longer much common
mental states, is occupied by our thoughts and mental ground we share. Most of us will have very different
images, and World 3 by objective knowledge. In mental pictures. And each mental picture is inacces-
short, Popper describes only the objects or entities he sible to anyone else.
assigns to these worlds. But different ’worlds’, I take So what I am suggesting is that there is not one
it, have not only different kinds of furniture but may mental space for World 2 but very many. Each of us
also have different kinds of space. has his own. Each mental space is unique. Is then a
If we do not consider the possibility that Different science of World 2 feasible? Science looks for
worlds may have different kinds of space, we tend to uniformities rather than for uniquenesses.
assume that all the spaces are identical with the one We have different physical bodies as well as
space we have explored in some detail - that of phy- different minds. These differences in our physical
sical space. Popper himself does not consider this constitution have not deterred biologists and medical
question. In The self and the brain, Eccles raises the scientists from developing their sciences and carrying
on their useful trade. What they soon discovered of
question: &dquo;Where is the self-conscious mind located?&dquo;
course was that we all have identical sets of physical
(p. 376) i.e. in relation to the brain. Though Eccles
admits that this question is ’unanswerable in princi- components such as hearts, lungs, brains, limbs, and so
on. It is therefore possible for them to generalise
ple’, he does not explicitly state that he places the
mind in World 2 and possibly therefore in a different about the physiology of the various organs and
kind of space. Nor does Popper come to the rescue. mechanisms we depend on and to note individual
Eccles then adds: &dquo;If as conjectured the self-con- deviations from the norms. Though each of us has a

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130

different mental space, it may be possible to show objective the spaces I have mentioned. Objective
to
that all human mental spaces have some common events can occur only in those worlds which have one
characteristics just as human bodies do. space, namely, Worlds 1 and 3. The events of World
If such common characteristics do exist, we are 2 - of our individual mentalities - occur in our indi-
more likely to find them when we focus our attention vidual private spaces and are thereby subjective. In
on some common item of interest than when we order to objectivise our individual thoughts we have
allow free play to our imaginations. These items of to express them and deposit the records in World 3
common interest might well be World 3 artefacts. If where they are accessible to, and can therefore be
we want to pursue tills line of enquiry, all we need to critically considered by, others.
do is to study the interactions between Worlds 2 and But this explication of objective and subjective
3 as reported in World 3. The documents in our points to a further problem which Popper has not
libraries offer us all the evidence - the publicly considered. It is not good enough to imply that any
observable objective evidence - we need. All we have expression of thought (or of feeling) deposited in
to do is to observe how recorded knowledge grows World 3 is immediately accessible as an objectivity to
and changes year by year in specific fields, preferably, anyone seeking it. If I want to know what X wrote in
to keep things initially as simple as possible, in one of some document I can adquately specify, there is of
the sciences. course no problem. I could reasonably hope to find

Such a study would be analogous to our explora- a copy of the document and read X’s words there.

tion of the physical world. That began with the But if I go to the British Musuem Library to discover,
exploration of our immediate environments in the say, the causes of the first World War, I know that I
ancient civilisations. It was extended by the naviga- should find a very large number of relevant docu-
tors of the seas and the explorers of the unknown ments. The objective view of this complex issue is not
continents. More recently man has begun to explore immediately discernible. When I begin to read the
the physical space around the Earth. World 3 presents documents, I am liable to find many conflicting or
a whole new world for us to explore. even contradictory statements. I then have to apply
The exploration of the physical world, however, my judgement to decide which of the accounts I have
depended on the invention and use of objective read appear to me to be the most plausible or
measures of length, volume and so on. We gradually authoritative. So I am left with my own subjective
objectivized our surroundings by measuring them in view - a view widened and balanced (one would
non-subjective ways. It seems to me therefore that we hope) by the reading of the documents. But the point
need to consider how to measure whatever we decide is that World 3, in spite of all the efforts of librarians
it is necessary to measure in the spaces of Worlds 2 to classify the documents they have collected, is not
and 3. I am seriously questioning whether the the tidy world of immediately accessible knowledge
analytical and quantitative modes of thought we that Popper appears to present.
devised for the exploration of the physical world are I am little better served, of course, if I go to the
appropriate for the exploration of Worlds 2 and 3. So mechanized scientific data-bases and put a query
far, it seems to me, we have unthinkiiigly assumed there, say, to discover present knowledge about the
that the analytical techniques which have been so origins of the solar system. Again I would expect to
successfully applied to the physical phenomena of get a large file of references. When I had located and
World 1 are also appropriate to the explorations of read the documents, again I would find similar con-
the mental spaces of Worlds 2 and 3. If, as Resnikoff flicts and contradictions, though in science one would
has suggested, we need better analytical instruments expect to find a closer consensus than in political
in information science, it may be that we have to lustory.
consider discarding at least some of the techniques we Much work therefore remains to be done to
have tried to use and to begin again ab initio. organize World 3 so that the objective knowledge it
offers i.e. the current consensus, is more immediately
accessible. Only the first steps - the classification of
6. The accessibility of objective knowledge the artefacts - has so far been attempted. Can we go
further? I believe we can. We should at least be
My brief analysis of the problems of spaces now aiming to go further. I return to this matter in more
enables me to relate the terms subjective and detail in Part III.

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 131

7. Information and knowledge: the ‘fundamental structures. Popper believes, and I agree, that we shall
equation’ ,
learn more about subjective learning by studying eq.
(1) in objective rather than in the traditional subjec-
What is the relation between information and tive contexts. And I suggest that such a study is a
knowledge? I regard knowledge as a structure of major aim of information science.
concepts linked by their relations and infomwtion as What is being asserted is that the publicly observ-
a small part of such a structure. The knowledge able growth of knowledge as recorded in the
structure can be subjective or objective. published literature reflects the ways in which indivi-
Some years ago I expressed this relationship by dual minds think privately. In any case, there is no
what I called the ’fundamental equation’: way of inspecting the private knowledge structures of
an individual without eliciting his response to
x[SJ + ~=K[S+ ~J~ (I)
questions as, for example, by written examinations.
which states in its very general way that the know- In subjective studies we thus have to use ’black box’
ledge structure K[SJ is changed to the new modified techniques to find the private knowledge structure,
I
structure K [S + AS] by the information 01, the AS shaping whatever we elicit by comparing the output
indicating the effect of the modification. with our own subjective structures. This seems to be
I have expressed the equation in pseudo-mathe- a methodologically precarious technique to adopt
matical form because it is the most compact way in when the same problem can be studied objectively.
which the idea can be expressed. But the mathemati- I shall describe and comment on recent work in
cian will note that my terms and symbols are this direction in Part IV.
undefined. The equation says little more than I have _

already explained but it serves to emphasize how

little we know about the ways in which our know- 8. Information: verbal and non-verbal
.
ledge grows.
There is, however, one point which is implicit in For as a scientist, information is not only
me
such an equation but which must be stated clearly. linguistic. The scientist’s primary source of informa-
The equation implies that if its entities were measur- tion is the natural world though he scans it with
able, they would have to be measured in the same senses tuned by his private knowledge structure seek-

units, i.e. that information and knowledge are of the ing some specific kind of information. However, until
same kind. As defined here, infonnation is a small bit he reports his observations in some appropriate way,
of knowledge and so it would be correct to substitute by publishing his paper, his private thoughts are not
AK for OI in eq. (1). But it is useful to adopt my yet science. Nevertheless, I have to emphasise that
original notation in general because the same 01 may information acquired through language is only part of
have different effects on different knowledge struc- the totality of information potentially accessible to
tures. us.

The fundamental equation also emphasizes that In everyday life we depend greatly on information
information so defined is not identical with the philo- absorbed from our environment. In moving around
sophers’ sense-data. Infom1ation may, of course, the scene we may not be conscious of all the inforna-
depend on sensory observation, but the sense-data so tion we are responding to. For example, our sensory
received have to be subjectively interpreted by a mechanisms enable us to walk down a busy street
knowledge structure to become information. avoiding others who cross our path and yet attend
The equation is also intended to imply that the with full concentration to the conversation of a com-
growth of knowledge is not simply accretive. The panion. We consciously attend only to those events
absorption of information into a knowledge structure which are most important to us at the moment and
may cause not sirnply an addition but some adjust- yet respond to other sensory inputs wluch bear on
ment to the structure such as a change in the relations our situation.

linking two or more concepts already admitted. In Studies of subliminal perception show that in
the sciences, information increments have sometimes experi entally contrived situations we do in fact
led to catastrophic restructuring. respond as though the subliminal percept had been
I have conjectured that the fundamental equation consciously received. I have no doubt that here is a
applies to both subjective and objective knowledge very useful sensory mechanism which bears on many

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132

aspects of daily life. The existence of this mechanism relating them. But in trying to develop a scientific
also throws doubt on the rationalist belief that one theory we need to allow both our words and our logic
can be cognitively aware of all the sources of to retain some flexibility. There must be some ’play
information that bear on any particular problem. In in the gears’ to allow space for imagination and
subjective studies we can never be sure that we have adjustment in the light of new evidence. The words
all the relevant data. and the logic will harden as the knowledge structure
The sensory systems we have evolved are very well grows.
adapted to life on Earth. But they are selective. They Apart from these considerations, Popper also
do not respond to many forms of radiation that ascribes to Worlds 2 and 3 all the non-linguistic arts

envelop us. For example, the visible light to which such as music, painting, sculpture, architecture and all
our eyes respond constitutes only one of the 60 or so other non-verbal products of the human mind,
octaves of the spectrum of natural electromagnetic technological as well as artistic. They all tell us some-
radiation. So though the night sky has an abundance thing about ourselves. We should not draw exclusive
of visible stars, for example, it is now known that boundaries before we have to.
there are many other stars invisible to us because they z

emit only X-rays. The panoply of the night sky is

much richer than appears to our eyes. 9. The furniture of the mental worlds
For theoretical purposes I have invented a
&dquo;gedanken-instrument&dquo;, a purely imaginary device Earlier in this paper I complained that Popper had
not unlike the space-probes the Americans have merely furnished his three worlds without considering
recently sent to Jupiter and Saturn to get a closer the nature of the spaces these furnitures occupied.
look at those planets. It is a private versatile Letus have a closer look at the furnitures themselves.

miniature space-probe or universal ’bugging device’ World 1 is furnished with matter, energy and
which can be tuned to pick up any kind of radiation. radiation. Everything physical can be assigned to
It then transduces and transmits back to me, in forms World 1.
my senses respond to, the signals it receives. I can Worlds 2 and 3 are furnished with information and
place it where I wish. I call it a perceptron. knowledge - and with feelings too. Everything
I use the perceptron at present only to emphasise mental can be assigned to Worlds 2 and 3. So what
that potential information is everywhere. The space does the furniture of Worlds 2 and 3 comprise’? As far
above my desk looks empty. But if I were to send my as I can see, only information and knowledge.

perceptron up there tuned to visible light, it would Notling more.

observe me at my typewriter. Tuned to the wave- No physical entities whatever have any place in the
length of BBC 3 it might respond with Mozart. And mental worlds. So theories of information cannot
so on. entertain physical entities or even ambiguously
The seemingly empty space around us is seething named entities such as books or documents. A book
with potential information. Much of it we cannot be is both a physical thing and a potential source of
aware of because our senses do not respond to it. knowledge. So in using the term book we have to
Much of it we ignore because we have more interest- make our reference clear in this context: are we refer-
ing things to attend to. But we cannot ignore it if we ring to the physical or the mental aspect of the book?
are seeking a general theory of information. We can- I therefore emphasize the distinction we have to
not live only by reading and writing books. make and maintain in developing a theory of
Some highly rational people appear to tlunk that information: the fundamental entities of World 1 are
the world of human knowledge is closely bounded by matter, energy and radiation; the fundamental
a linguistic envelope, so that what cannot be said entities of Worlds 2 and 3, as fundamental to these
cannot be known - &dquo;thereof we must be silent&dquo;. I worlds as matter and energy are to World 1, are
acknowledge that words are very, very important. It information and knowledge.
is the prime duty of every scholar to try to express in This distinction implies that an analysis which uses
words ideas that have not been expressed before. I as its primary data physical entities can produce a

emphasize, however, that we have a long, long way to result which is interpretable only in terms of physical
go. Some highly rational people also demand hard entities. To analyse information and knowledge we
definitions of all technical terms and a rigorous logic have to operate on purely mental entities.

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 133

This distinction and its implications will be more action, will spray as if the body were complete. The
fully discussed in Part II. maclune does exactly what it has been programmed
to perform. The information it uses is simply a timed
sequence of signals; it has not been structured into
10. Subjective and objective information knowledge. It remains objective information.
Measures of information - of objective informa-
If there is objective knowledge, then by eq. (1) tion - were proposed 50 years ago and are used in
there should also be corresponding objective informa- Shannon theory applied to telecommunications
tion. systems and computers, for example. As far as I
The idea of the perceptron planted in space and know, such measures have not yet been applied to
transmitting to me the infomiation it is tuned to objective knowledge. but I see no reason why they
collect points to the possibility of objective informa- should not be, and every reason why they should.
tion. Whatever it picks up is objective information, Possibilities will be discussed in Part IV.
i.e. information which could be shared by anyone
who tapped its transmission link with me. But when
that objective information reaches us it becomes 11. Concluding comments
subjective toeach of us.
When we listen to the radio news we may similarly Human dignity has suffered greatly from modern
get objective information because it is shared by science. Copernicus struck the first blow by demoting
everyone else who is listening. What we hear the Earth from the centre of the solar system so that
objectively may be the subjective views of some man was displaced from the cosmic-centred authority

political commentator who will doubtless evoke our he had. innocently assumed. Darwin struck a further
own subjective response to his comments. blow by producing overwhelming evidence that man
In this age of micro-chips, objective information had not been specially created in the image of God
abounds. There is, for example, a device for spraying but was descended from apes, and apes, in their turn,
car bodies with paint. A car body is placed in position from a long line of less distinguished ancestors.
and an expert human sprayer seizes the spray-gun Modern medical sciences have made great advances by
connected to a micro-chip set to ’learn’. The expert ignoring the vitalists and by regarding humans as
sprays the car body taking care to cover all the biochemical mechanisms whose vital organs can be
awkward corners and crevices. That body is moved transplanted like spare parts. Modern cosmologists
away and the next unpainted car-body takes its place. have extended the universe in both space and time so
The machine is automatically switched on to operate. making man appear ever less significant in the total
The spray-gun repeats exactly the motions it has cosmic scene.
’learned’ and, when the spraying is complete, switches Recognition of the autonomy of World 3 - the
off the supply of paint and awaits the positioning of ’miracle’, as Popper calls it, of human knowledge -
the next car body. restores, it seems to me, some of man’s lost dignity.
The information that the human sprayer had There is something special about us after all! Our
previously had to convey by words and actions to man-made World 3 is very, very precious - a life-line
human recruits is now replaced by the signals trans- which may save us from extinction. But we need to
mitted to the machine by the expert’s movements understand it better than we do. I hope that informa-
and stored there in its memory. The machine is not tion scientists recognise their opportunity and accept
’intelligent’ of course. If the next car body happens their heavy responsibility.
to be incomplete, the macline, once triggered into

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