Information as Verb: Re-conceptualizing Information for Cognitive and Ecological Models

Current notions of information are inadequate for ecological and cognitive models because they: 1) only account for information gain that results from reducing uncertainty; 2) assume binary logic; 3) fail to account for semantics and pragmatics; and 4) can not account for shared and externalized cognition. A different model of information is presented here, which treats information as a process of state change (i.e., the term is used as a verb), rather than as a variable. The potential for information is defined to include not only stimuli, but the context of the informational moment; and is distinguished from realized information, which is the result of a state change. The proposed model also distinguishes epistemological levels of abstraction at which information takes place. Abstraction, fuzzy logic, and consensus supersede the reduction of uncertainty, and pragmatic contextual marking of information at different epistemological levels provides a basis for explaining shared and externalized cognition. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]