Entropy, Readiness,Probability

Abstract

‘The meaning of a sentence,’ according to Jackson, ‘is the semantic information it conveys’ or a threefold description of ‘(1) whatever causes the sentence to be used; (2) whatever is caused by the use of the sentence; (3) whatever else is described by the sentence.’ For a computer, understanding that meaning ‘may be corresponded to making internal data structures (vectors, lists, graphs, programs, etc) that model these elements of the meaning of the sentence’ (in referential terms, he says, ‘we may think of the “meaning” of a sentence as being a collection of situations, each of which the sentence possibly denotes’).¹