Of perennial concern to philosophy, physics, and now the cognitive sciences, are the notions of causation and causal relations; their importance is no less considerable in the domains of information and computation. “Intuitively there is conceptual connection between causation and transfer of information, because we can’t get any information from a system without interacting causally with it … Thus transfer of information is a causal process.”. [Johansson, this volume] Johansson addresses this concern by first establishing four, quite different, proposals: causation is (i) the transfer of a conserved quantity; (ii) analysed in terms of counterfactuals; (iii) explicable in terms of INUSconditions, that is, a cause can be an insufficient [I] but necessary [N] part of a condition which is itself unnecessary [U] but exclusively sufficient [S]; and (iv) something we humans – agents – can manipulate in, for example, the transfer of information which can be a cause of something else. Johansson's suggestion is that, in an attempt to understand this rather complicated notion of causality, we must drop the counterfactual approach – it leads us up a blind alley when we try to determine its truth-value – and unify the other three approaches to provide a robust concept of cause as it is used in ordinary language, and in the natural and social sciences.

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One Epistemology as Information Theory: From Leibniz to Ω Gregory Chaitin

Chapter Two Information Logic Luciano Floridi

Chapter Three Formalising Semantic Information: Lessons From Logical Pluralism Patrick Allo

Chapter Four Getting Closer to Iconic Logic Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen

Chapter Five Causation: A Synthesis of Three Approaches Lars-Göran Johansson

Chapter Six An Oriental Approach to the Philosophy of Information Gang Liu

Chapter Seven Ontology as the Core Discipline of Biomedical Informatics - Legacies of the Past and Recommendations for the Future Direction of Research Werner Ceusters and Barry Smith

Chapter Eight Functions and Prototypes Katherine Munn

Chapter Nine Knowledge in Action Ruth Hagengruber and Uwe V. Riss

Chapter Ten Towards a Programming Language Ontology Raymond Turner and Amnon H. Eden

Chapter Eleven The Informational Architectures of Biological Complexity Pedro C. Marijuán and Raquel del Moral

Chapter Twelve The Cybersemiotic Framework as a Means to Conceptualize the Difference between Computing and Semiosis Søren Brier

Chapter Thirteen Meaning and Self-Organisation in Cognitive Science Arturo Carsetti

Chapter Fourteen A Neurophysiological Approach to Consciousness: Integrating Molecular, Cellular and System Level Information Peter Århem

Chapter Fifteen Does dynamical modelling explain time consciousness? Paavo Pylkkänen

Chapter Sixteen Complexity, Cognition, and Logical Depth Pauli Brattico

Chapter Seventeen Is Computationalism Trivial? Marcin Miłkowski

Chapter Eighteen On Facing Up to the Semantic Challenge Otto Lappi

Chapter Nineteen Computational Linguistics as an Applied Science Pius ten Hacken

Chapter Twenty Views of Text Meaning in Computational Linguistics: Past, Present, and Future Graeme Hirst

Chapter Twenty One Language Technological Models as Epistemic Artefacts: The Case of Constraint Grammar Parser Tarja Knuuttila

Chapter Twenty Two The Paradox of Autonomy: The Interaction Between Humans and Autonomous Cognitive Artifacts Alexander Riegler

Chapter Twenty Three A Copernican Revolution in Ethics? Terrell Bynum

Chapter Twenty Four Building Epistemological Infrastructures- Interventions At A Technical University Lena Trojer

Chapter Twenty Five Computer Ethics in (Higher) Education Philip Brey