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Representation Generates Information

Early agreement within the field on the topic of representation has now given way to a complex combination of positions. Anti-representationalists question the significance of representation in cognition. Representationalists continue to argue in favor but have been unable to demonstrate the case in any formal way. In the present paper, that task is addressed using the mathematics of information theory applied in a framework of dual-role, Bayesian models. It is shown that the achievement of sensory efficiency entails utilization of embedded representational structures and that such structures can be seen as recovering lost information. It is also shown that the requirement for such structures grows in proportion with the degree of distributive structure in the environment. In the achievement of sensory efficiency there is thus a tradeoff between strategies which serve to moderate distributive structure and strategies which serve to recover information thereby lost. On this basis, there is the possibility, in general, of adopting either a representational or non-representational strategy. Both sides in the debate are thus essentially correct but can be seen as emphasizing different extremes of a functional continuum.