5 - Selection as an Information-Transfer Process

Summary

The purpose of this chapter is, finally, to begin to demonstrate the significance of the concepts of evolution and information developed in the previous two chapters for the project of naturalizing epistemology. The development of the information-transfer model that begins in this chapter and proceeds over the next two becomes increasingly technical because, unlike the previous two chapters, it is not an introduction to a well-established tool set but the application of those tools to the problems of epistemology. For those more interested in the philosophical payoff than the details of the model itself, I try to summarize its importance at the end of Chapter 7. Before proceeding with the development of the model, however, it is important to remind various kinds of readers what it is that is being attempted and what we may expect to accomplish. We have, as it were, arrived at the foot of our chosen mountain, newly equipped, and the time has come to focus our thoughts on the challenge ahead.

For those who have not been thinking about epistemology lately (we have certainly not been thinking about it much in the last few chapters), a brief reminder of the nature of the problem may be helpful. For those who have been thinking about epistemology, the manner of my presentation of the problem will tell them something about where I stand on the philosophical landscape, although I address that directly in due course.