Post 137. September 13, 2024
Active Information, Meaning & Form
Information Field
Quandaries : Peat concludes his article on the many forms of Information with questions and difficulties. Although the scientific usefulness of its physical forms in the context of communication and computation is well established, some of its other forms remain controversial. His conclusion notes several open questions for both physicists and philosophers. e.g. Will Shannon’s new information technology push flesh & blood processors of Information into extinction? “Can Science accom-
Peat goes on to speculate, “Supposing one is willing to accept the existence of a new explanatory principle in science; what is the next step? Clearly there is much to sort out and clarify. How exactly is information encoded, decoded, and transmitted? Is the metaphor of the field valid¹⁴ ¹⁵ ¹⁶ or do we need some new concept, something that exists at the level of prespace? And just what sort of information is encoded?” The emergence of Natural Language computers and Artificial Information (AI) technology raises many issues to be solved. Is Artificial art produced by nonhuman hands a legitimate form of creativity? Are Chatbot programs a new form of Intelligence? Peat leaves the door open for future questions & answers : “The ideas and speculations discussed in this essay have considerable potential for further development.They are nuclei for new discussions in quantum theory, biology, and the neurosciences. At present, however,these ideas lack critical mass and there is a great danger that, following Bohm’s death, for example, interest could dissipate or discussion fall back into more mechanistic approaches.”
As I said, what Peat calls “active information” sounds similar to my own philosophical notion of EnFormAction¹⁷ . And EFA is imagined as something like a Quantum Field, which is not a material thing, but an empty space (vacuum) with only the potential for energy or force. Mathematically, the field is defined in terms of dimensionless points for spatial measurement. There is no Actual Energy until triggered by some perturbation. Philosophically, an Information Field might be a source of something like Mental Energy with the potential for Meaning or Consciousness. This is an ancient concept, most commonly known as Panpsychism. But, for me it’s just a hypothesis, intended to explain the origin of Ideas in a material world.
Bohm’s postulation of a hidden (Implicate) organizing force in the universe was proposed to make sense of some puzzling features of quantum science. It has inspired a variety of Holistic theories : “Interconnectedness: The implicate order suggests a profound interconnectedness of all things, challenging the notion of separate, independent objects. It implies that every part of the universe is enfolded within every other part, creating a unified whole”. https://learningstewards.org/implicate-
Stay tuned for more information about Information.