TPF : What is Information?

[Gnomon]

Neural correlates is a commonly used expression, of course I'm referring to the neuroplasticity of the brain, and as I said I am assuming that a change in brain matter occurs at the same time as perception. — Pop

Yes. I know that abstractions, such as mental Information, can only be discussed in terms of physical metaphors. We just have to be careful not to reify the metaphors.

[Gnomon]

(It appears to be trying to validate Rolf Landauer's claim that 'information is physical' by proposing that a hard drive full of information should have a different mass — Wayfarer

To say that Information is "physical" could mean two different things. Either that it has mass like all other physical objects, or that it has the ability to transform into mass, similar to the E=MC^2 equation. In it's meaningful mental form, Information is weightless. But in its physical forms, information may have a variety of masses, depending on its structure.

Landauer's notion of weighing a hard drive to see how much information it has gained or lost, reminds me of the doctor who carefully weighed a terminal patient, before and after death, to see how much the Soul weighs. Apparently, he thought the human soul was a physical object, with a mass of its own. But that's like asking how much the number 4 weighs. How much does Energy weigh -- before and after transforming into Mass?

Souls and mathematical objects are abstractions. They may have Meaning without Mass.

[Gnomon]

↪Wayfarer

↪Pop

To say that Information is "physical" could mean two different things. — Gnomon

I just a moment ago read an article by science writer John Horgan : What God, Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Have in Common. But, it's actually about the reason why he is an Agnostic about notions that require belief without plausible evidence. And, he makes a statement that resonates with me, as a fellow skeptic and agnostic, who nevertheless finds reasons, not to believe, but to take seriously, some ideas that are on the fringes of Empirical Reality.

"Maudlin does not examine interpretations that recast quantum mechanics as a theory about information. For positive perspectives on information-based interpretations, check out Beyond Weird by journalist Philip Ball and The Ascent of Information by astrobiologist Caleb Scharf. But to my mind, information-based takes on quantum mechanics are even less plausible than the interpretations that Maudlin scrutinizes. The concept of information makes no sense without conscious beings to send, receive and act upon the information." ___Horgan

That is a pertinent point in Information Theory, that many hypotheses, including IIT, tend to ignore : Information is ultimately mind-stuff. The necessity of an observer, or knower, of Information (meaning) makes the early universe, prior to the emergence of humans, seem to be devoid of the First Form of Information : meaning in a mind. Energy and Matter are the second and third Forms of Information. Unfortunately, Shannon made it seem plausible to think of Information without spooky souls, or minds, or consciousness. But the term originally referred to meaning in a mind.

That's why, although I remain agnostic about anything outside the universe, or prior to the Big Bang, I have been forced by Logic to assume, as an axiom, the existence of a universal Mind of some kind. A First Cause, who is the Prime Enformer.


What God, Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Have in Common :
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... in-common/

Information :
* Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
* For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
* When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

G*D :
* An ambiguous spelling of the common name for a supernatural deity. The Enformationism thesis is based upon an unprovable axiom that our world is an idea in the mind of G*D. This eternal deity is not imagined in a physical human body, but in a meta-physical mathematical form, equivalent to LOGOS. Other names : ALL, BEING, Creator, Enformer, MIND, Nature, Reason, Source, Programmer. The eternal Whole of which all temporal things are a part is not to be feared or worshipped, but appreciated like Nature.
* I refer to the logically necessary and philosophically essential First & Final Cause as G*D, rather than merely "X" the Unknown, partly out of respect. That’s because the ancients were not stupid, to infer purposeful agencies, but merely shooting in the dark. We now understand the "How" of Nature much better, but not the "Why". That inscrutable agent of Entention is what I mean by G*D.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

[Gnomon]

hence all the blather about information having to be 'encoded' before it is real. — Wayfarer

Yes. Where is Information before it is "encoded" in material form? An idea can be "encoded" in a thousand languages and a variety of mathematical equations, or even in dots & dashes of ink, or flashes of light. But where does the Meaning go, in between those transformations? Is it stored in a physical Brain, or a hard disk, or a floppy disk, or a metaphysical Mind? Materialism views matter as fundamental, but Enformationism postulates that ideas & meanings & intentions are primary and primal. Not Real though, but Ideal.

[Gnomon]

Nowhere. It is a noThing before it becomes form. — Pop

Where is "nowhere"? Do "forms" pop into existence like Venus, who emerged from the sea "fully formed", with no history behind her? What if "nowhere" is Plato's Ideal realm of Potential? His ideal Forms were basically the immaterial idea of a thing, before it is transformed into material forms or things. That's what I call "Enformation" : the potential for creating forms.

But where does Potential reside? If it's not actual, maybe it's the intangible metaphysical power of causation similar to human Will, that exists only in Minds, or Hearts if you prefer. When I act consciously, the action is preceded by the idea of a future effect. But that idea exists nowhere except in my Mind, which has no "where" in terms of Cartesian coordinates. So whose Mind is the imaginer or designer of Platonic Forms?

Platonic Forms :
The Platonic Forms, according to Plato, are just ideas of things that actually exist. They represent what each individual thing is supposed to be like in order for it to be that specific thing. . . .
According to Plato’s Theory of Forms, matter is considered particular in itself. For Plato, Forms are more real than any objects that imitate them.
https://owlcation.com/humanities/An-Int ... y-of-Forms

Potential :
According to Aristotle, when we refer to the nature of a thing, we are referring to the form, shape or look of a thing, which was already present as a potential, an innate tendency to change,in that material before it achieved that form, . . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential ... _actuality
Note : Clay possesses the Passive Potential for being molded into many forms. But the Active Potential was in the mind of the sculptor, who imagined the future form, and then modeled the clay.

[Gnomon]

then the mind in question is God, of course. This is very much associated with the intelligent design movement and has very little presence on this forum (and I certainly wouldn't want to be involved in introducing it to this forum, but it should at least be acknowledged — Wayfarer

Yes. That's why I try not to present my notion of "G*D", without some preliminary throat-clearing, to dispel the Judeo-Christian notion of a humanoid heavenly tyrant and magical Intelligent Design (ID). Unfortunately, my alternative of Intelligent Evolution (IE) is not easy to distinguish from ID, for those who have a limited preconception of how a deity "must" create. Oh well, the creator cat is out of the bag now.

[Gnomon]

Information enables the interaction of form. It doesn't go anywhere ( does not become immaterial ) — Pop

So, when the material form decays and dissipates, the conceptual Form vanishes? That would make our concept of categories of things-with-something-in-common, meaningless. Does a real Cat participate in the Ideal Form of cats-in-general? What is the material "thing" cats have in common? What kind of information is it made of?

[Gnomon]

First Form of Information — Gnomon
Gnomon calls it First Form of Information so I'm not the only one thinking about it. — Mark Nyquist

Yes. Materialists liked Shannon's statistical definition of "Information", because it allowed us to think in terms of Mechanical Machines instead of Conscious Minds. Machines are real, but Minds are just the abstract notion of an immaterial information processor. To attempt to answer "what is information?" without reference to the pre-Shannon implication of the term is short-sighted. As some recent contrarians have insisted : meaning is in minds, but not in computers.

Original meaning of Information was Meaning :
Meaning "knowledge communicated concerning a particular topic" is from mid-15c.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/information

Information :
* Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
* For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

[Gnomon]

Apparently that 'aha' moment has happened for David Chalmers, but never for Daniel Dennett, who are the two main protagonists in the debate. — Wayfarer

The "Hard Problem" is hard for those who think in terms of Materialism. But, if you think that Information is more fundamental than Matter, "aha" the problem vanishes.

[Gnomon]

In other words - who does the thinking? - the thing that integrates the information - my best guess is the anthropic principle. What is your best guess? The anthropic principle integrates the information, but acts on different information ( unique consciousness ) ?? — Pop

I'm currently reading The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, by Astronomer Barrow & Physicist Tipler. I was superficially aware that AP was a religious and philosophical position on the human-friendly universe. But I didn't know that it was also a serious scientific hypothesis. This book is 700 pages of dense philosophical reasoning, and scientific analysis, but no overtly religious assertions at all. The early chapters give an exhaustive history of the concept from Ancient Greece to Quantum Cosmology. And the middle sections are full of complex mathematical expressions (equations), and technical analysis. So, I have been impressed with the serious thought that has been put into a notion that has been marginalized by post-Enlightenment Science.

This 1986 book (2009 reprint) has a lot to say about Information, and Information Processing. But, so far, nothing about actively Integrating Information. Anyway, a "principle" in science or religion is essentially an article of faith, or at least an axiom, that is taken to be a "brute fact", as opposed to a Ruler's regulation, with a Reason behind the Rule. Like the universe, it just is, and we don't know for sure why it is what it is. So, the Anthropic Principle is accepted by some as almost a Law of Physics. But it is not accepted by those who deny a human-favoring agency, such as a God, who might mandate such a specific reason for being. Consequently AP, the numerous technical coincidences that point to a world designed to produce living and thinking beings, is controversial primarily due to the implication of an intentional cosmic Agency, as contrasted with Random Chance hitting a jackpot, that is only incidentally favorable to egotistical beings.

So, the question remains : is this Principle like the Law of Gravity, which tends to aggregate and integrate stars & planet, but without any planning, or is it more like a Program that is intentionally designed to work toward a pre-defined Objective? I happen to prefer the notion of a Cosmic Program, with built-in directions, but no pre-determined Final Answer. Which is why I have been forced to assume, as an axiom, that there must be a Programmer or Enformer or Rule-maker to decide which direction this experiment in self-organization will go. In other words, to give the program the Means toward a specified End. Your answer to "who does the thinking?" is a human-oriented Principle. But how does an abstract Principle think and act, unless it is also a free agency with goals and intentions? Does Reason overrule Chance?


Principle :
1. a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.
2. a general scientific theorem or law that has numerous special applications across a wide field.
___Oxford

Brute Fact :
In contemporary philosophy, a brute fact is a fact that has no explanation.

Laws are general rules and ideas that adhere to the nature of the universe while principles describe specific phenomena that require clarity and explanation.
https://sciencing.com/difference-betwee ... 60897.html

Objective :
A fundamental objective is an end that you are trying to achieve · A means objective is a way of achieving an end or fundamental objective ·
https://www.structureddecisionmaking.or ... ectives2b/