Inferential Representations
The starting point is a situation from which we want to get certain information, and there is something we want to know about it. In order to access this information, we proceed by first producing a representation of the situation: one that represents not the whole of the situation at hand, but (at least some of) its relevant aspects in a tractable way. In other words, we want a representation that carries enough relevant information about its subject, without adding too much noise, that is, without including elements that might be mistaken as representing something relevant about its subject without actually doing so. Once we have such a representation, we translate our original question about the target situation into a corresponding question about its representation. If the system works properly, then the answer we get to this second question will serve us also to answer the original question, once properly translated. Notice how in drawing on the representation to get infor...