Information using likeness measures

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Journal of the American Society for Information Science
Volume 48, Issue 10 , Pages 882 - 892
Information using likeness measures
Martin Frické
School of Information Resources, The University of Arizona, 1515 E. First St., Tucson, AZ 85719
Abstract
A suggestion is made regarding the nature of information: That the information in a theory be evaluated by measuring either its distance from the perfect theory or by measuring its distance from the right answer to the information seeking question that led to it. The measures here are provided by the Tichy-Hilpinen-Oddie-Niiniluoto-likeness measures which were introduced in the context of the philosophical problem of verisimilitude. One feature of this suggestion that differentiates it from most theories of information is that it does not use or depend on probabilities or uncertainty. Another unusual feature of it is that it permits false views or theories to possess information.

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