Logic, Language & Computation (Volume 3) (CSLI Lecture Notes, No 111)

With the rise of the internet and the proliferation of technology to gather and organize data, our era has been defined as "the information age." With the prominence of information as a research concept, there has arisen an increasing appreciation of the intertwined nature of fields such as logic, linguistics, and computer science that answer the questions about information and the ways it can be processed. The many research traditions do not agree about the exact nature of information. By bringing together ideas from diverse perspectives, this book presents the emerging consensus about what a conclusive theory of information should be. The book provides an introduction to the topic, work on the underlying ideas, and technical research that pins down the richer notions of information from a mathematical point of view.

The book contains contributions to a general theory of information, while also tackling specific problems from artificial intelligence, formal semantics, cognitive psychology, and the philosophy of mind. There is focus on the dynamics of information flow, and also a consideration of static approaches to information content; both quantitative and qualitative approaches are represented.

Patrick Blackburn is director of research at INRIA, France’s national organization for research in computer science. Johan Bos is senior researcher at the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh.

Atsushi Shimojima is professor in the Faculty of Culture and Information Science at Doshisha University, Japan.