Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!ADS.COM!rar
From: rar@ADS.COM (Bob Riemenschneider)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: definition of information
Message-ID: <19880613194842.2.NICK@INTERLAKEN.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 13 Jun 88 19:48:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
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Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu

Date: Sat, 11 Jun 88 16:57 EDT
From: Bob Riemenschneider <rar@ads.com>
To: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu, bnevin@cch.bbn.com
cc: rar@ads.com
In-Reply-To: bnevin@CCH.BBN.COM's message of 9 Jun 88 22:48:00 GMT
Subject: Re: definition of information

=>   It is often acknowledged that information theory has nothing to say 
=>   about information in the usual sense, as having to do with meaning.
=>   ...
=>
=>   Can anyone point me to a coherent definition of information respecting
=>   information content, as opposed to merely "quantity of information"?
=>
=>   Bruce Nevin
=>   bn@cch.bbn.com

Actually, much the same formalization applies to "real" information.  See

	R. Carnap and Y. Bar-Hillel, "An Outline of a Theory of
	Semantic Information", Technical Report 247, Research 
	Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, October 1952.  (Reprinted 
	in Y. Bar-Hillel, _Language and Information_, Addison-Wesley,
	1964.)

	J. Hintikka, "On Semantic Information", in: J. Hintikka and
	P. Suppes (eds.), _Information and Inference_, Reidel, 1970.

for starters.  I'm not sure what you mean by `respecting information
content', but this approach *is* based on analysis of the logical
consequences of messages.

							-- rar