Abstract
There is an obvious analogy between experimentation and communication over a noisy channel. The parameter space of an assumed model plays the role of source or message ensemble from which the input, the true state of nature, is selected. The latter is transmitted by the experiment to the target, the experimenter, who then decodes the message. Noise enters in the form of sampling error, the masking effects of hidden variables, and uncontrolled variation in the experimental materials.
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References
Notation: a tilde distinguishes a random variable - qua function - from its generic value. In conjunction with an expectation sign a tilde indicates the random variable being expected, while subscripts ω, ‘ω/z’, ‘z/e’ etc., appended to an expectation sign indicate the measuresπ(ω), π(ω/z), Pz/e, etc., with respect to which the expectation is taken. Finally, a single prime indicates expectation against a prior distribution; a double prime, expectation against a posterior distribution. The notation is that of Raiffa and Schlaifer (1961) and is adhered to throughout. The present section, up to the discussion of Neyman-Pearson theory, is little more than a summary of their more detailed exposition.
Khinchin (1957), p. 9f.
Shannon and Weaver (1949), p. 49f.
An appropriate counterexample appeared for the first time in Sneed (1967).
Specimen articles (by Ackermann, Barker, Goodman and Rudner) may be found in Philosophy of Science 28; cf. also Foster and Martin (1966).
For an interesting motivation of this measure which turns on regarding information as an ‘epistemic utility’, see Hintikka and Pietarinen (1966), p. 108. Popper himself has proposed an analogous measure.
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© 1970 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
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Rosenkrantz, R. (1970). Experimentation as Communication with Nature. In: Hintikka, J., Suppes, P. (eds) Information and Inference. Synthese Library, vol 28. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3296-4_3
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