TPF : What is Information?

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... rmation/p1
What is information?

What is information? It has no meaning if not in the context of a context from which a piece of information in transmitted and another, completely separate context, in which it is received. — Pantagruel

Information has both the meaning of the Sender, and of the Receiver, and of the Context. So, like all things in this world, it is relative to the interpreter.


What is Information ? :
Claude Shannon labeled the basic element of computer data as "Information". That word had long been associated with various aspects of ideas in the human mind : communication, knowledge, reference, meaning, truth, etc. Yet, his quantified definition of the term focused, not on any particular semantic content, but merely the power to represent any meaningful data, from nouns to numbers. It was the comparison of incomplete or uncertain information with the physical concept of Entropy¹, that opened the door to our understanding of the universal role of Information in both the physical (matter) & metaphysical (mind) realms of reality. Some technical examples of those disparate functions are : Fisher Information (probability of X) ; Algorithmic Information (strings of commands & data in a program) ; von Neumann Entropy (quantum decay) ; and so forth. However, as expressed in a paper entitled What is Shannon Information?, “the very interpretation of the concept of information is far from unanimous.“
Excerpt from BothAnd Blog post123

[Gnomon]

I do wonder if von Neumann said this last with a wink. — Wayfarer

Von may have been teasing about using an abstruse technical term from physics to describe a mathematical function in computer code, but in retrospect he was prescient. The logical connection of Information to Entropy, led to it's physical equation with Energy. That logical relationship then pointed physicists to the conclusion that Energy & Matter are merely various forms of Generic Information (mathematical ratios). That genius hint also led to my own non-genius inference that Information is the fundamental "substance" (cf Spinoza) of the universe. Hence, referring its formless Potential state, I came to label universal essential Information as EnFormAction (the power to enform, to create).

The mass-energy-information equivalence principle :
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123794

Agree. I don't think the word 'information' is meaningful unless it is specified - what information? By itself, the word is merely a placeholder. In other words, there really is no such thing as 'information' simpliciter. — Wayfarer

That's why I was forced to coin a neologism that encapsulates Information's meaningless,(simpliciter ??), generic, undefined, unspecified, pending, potential Form : EnFormAction. EFA is not-yet-actual Energy or Matter or Mind, but the Potential for all forms in the real & ideal realms of the world. Some posters on this forum will not appreciate my metaphorical use of the ambiguous label "G*D" to describe the ultimate source & generator of all forms of Information. But it has a philosophical heritage in Spinoza's notion of a universal Substance (essence), which he ambiguously labeled "Deus Sive Natura".

Potentiality and actuality :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential ... _actuality

Pending : 1. not yet decided ; metaphorically hanging in limbo

EnFormAction :
* Metaphorically, it's the Will-power of G*D, which is the First Cause of everything in creation. Aquinas called the Omnipotence of God the "Primary Cause", so EFA is the general cause of every-thing in the world. Energy, Matter, Gravity, Life, Mind are secondary creative causes, each with limited application.
* All are also forms of Information, the "difference that makes a difference". It works by directing causation from negative to positive, cold to hot, ignorance to knowledge. That's the basis of mathematical ratios (Greek "Logos", Latin "Ratio" = reason). A : B :: C : D. By interpreting those ratios we get meaning and reasons.
* The concept of a river of causation running through the world in various streams has been interpreted in materialistic terms as Momentum, Impetus, Force, Energy, etc, and in spiritualistic idioms as Will, Love, Conatus, and so forth. EnFormAction is all of those.
BothAnd Blog Glossary

deus sive natura :
https://ordinaryphilosophy.com/tag/deus-sive-natura/

Conatus :
a natural tendency, impulse, or striving : conation —used in Spinozism with reference to the inclination of a thing to persist in its own being.

[Gnomon]

I’m disputing that the term ‘generic information’ means anything, or that it’s a substance, in the philosophical sense.
As I said bear in mind the origin of the term which is now translated as ‘substance’, namely, ‘ouisia’, which is nearer in meaning to ‘being’ than to ‘stuff’. So another translation of the term in the context of pantheist philosophy would be that the universe comprises, not a single subject, but a singular being, of whom all particulars are modes or expressions. — Wayfarer

Sorry, "Generic Information" (Platonic Form) is my alternative term for "EnFormAction" (Energy & Causation) to suit different contexts. I borrowed the notion of intangible "substance" as the Essence of Reality from Spinoza & Aristotle to serve another context : essential Information comes in many forms, one of which is Matter, the tangible substance that we are all familiar with. Informational "Substance" is the formless clay, from which many things are formed.

Unfortunately, metaphors can be confusing when taken out of context. That's why I made a Glossary of technical terms & neologisms to gloss over the non-standard & metaphorical meanings. They are all defined from the perspective of Information as both the Form (source & cause) and the Substance (essence & material) of both Reality and Ideality.

At the top of my Information hierarchy, Mind, Energy, Matter, is absolute Existence, which I label as universal unitary singular "BEING" (not any particular being). It's not a person or thing, but the philosophical eternal (timeless) principle of self-existence. A more familiar, but baggage-laden, term is G*D. But that's a whole 'nother can-of-terms. :joke:

Generic : general ; comprehensive ; generative ; non-specific

BEING :
* In my own theorizing there is one universal principle that subsumes all others, including Consciousness : essential Existence. Among those philosophical musings, I refer to the "unit of existence" with the absolute singular term "BEING" as contrasted with the plurality of contingent "beings" and things and properties. By BEING I mean the ultimate “ground of being”, which is simply the power to exist, and the power to create beings.
Note : Real & Ideal are modes of being. BEING, the power to exist, is the source & cause of Reality and Ideality. BEING is eternal, undivided and static, but once divided into Real/Ideal, it becomes our dynamic Reality.
BothAnd Blog Glossary

[Gnomon]

↪Gnomon
I can meet you part-way at least. — Wayfarer

The concept of shape-shifting Information that I am proposing is complicated, not least, in that it applies to both Analog/Macro/Classical reality (known directly via senses), and Digital/Quantum/Post-postModern ideality (known indirectly via inference from measurements), plus to Hypothetical/Metaphysical/Speculations (into realms beyond our space-time world). So, do you think we can find a meeting-place somewhere in possibility-space?

I'm currently reading a book on Quantum Physics, Beyond Weird by Phillip Ball, In the first chapter, he says "it is a theory about information". To illustrate the difficulty of discussing such a slippery subject, he points to the presumably "orthodox" Copenhagen interpretation of what's going-on right under our noses, only to conclude that "there is no quantum orthodoxy". Likewise, there is no Information orthodoxy. Computer specialists & Physicists & Philosophers tend to work with different understandings of what it is that they are talking about.

That being the case, he says "if you want to argue [with the Copenhagen interpretation] you must argue with Bohr". But then, he admits that Bohr is "hard to fathom". Yet, he quotes Bohr : "our task is to learn to use these words correctly -- that is, unambiguously and consistently". However, Ball notes that "the problem is that in quantum mechanics it is almost impossible to be unambiguous and consistent . . ." And that's also the problem I have been dealing with in discussions of "Generic Information" : the same word may have a different meaning in each context.

Ball then notes that "the challenge in reading Bohr comes also from the fact that he took tremendous care to say what he meant". Likewise, I take care to define my meaning for each context, including references to a Glossary of Terminology. But the complexity & contradictions within both Quantum and Information contexts makes communication fraught with diverging perspectives from which to view the topic. Therefore, I must ask how your point-of-view on the nature & role of "Information" differs from mine. I suspect that we are often talking about the same thing, but using different words in different contexts. Maybe meeting halfway is all we can expect.

[Gnomon]

The same thing's happening here too - we're trying to get a handle on information (new) with the aid of substance (old). It's time we did something different in my humble opinion. How? I dunno! — Agent Smith

That's exactly what I'm trying to do in the Enformationism thesis. It's a blend of old (Spiritualism) and modern (Materialism) and novel (Informationism) concepts. The Quantum pioneers also went through a period of groping for ways to interpret the weirdness of quantum phenomena. Some began to use metaphors from Hindu & Buddhist traditions, and others developed novel mathematical language (wave-function) to describe what they imagined as tiny particles of stuff.

Likewise, social scientist, cognitive scientist & cyberneticist Gregory Bateson defined the traditional term "Information" (originally referring to mind-stuff -- ideas) as the "difference that makes a difference". Which I interpret to mean that, in all its various forms, Generic Information is characterized by an essential logical distinction (a : b :: d : c) that our minds interpret as meaning. In its abstract forms, it's a ratio (quantitative relationship, 1/2 or a : b). In computer code, its merely a statistical relationship (percent true/false) between All or Nothing (1 or 0). And in human linguistic intercourse, information conveys the relative significance of a thing to the observer (good vs bad).

Individually, those examples may not seem to have much to do with each other. But Information is a slippery shape-shifting concept. So it's hard to "get a handle on". Yet one pragmatic way to grasp it is to grab a different handle (word) appropriate for each context. :chin:


informationism :
Commitment to the idea that the world is fundamentally composed of, supervenes upon, or reduces to, information of some kind.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/informationism
Note -- in the Enformationism thesis, I note that the term, spelled with an "I", was already in use. So I changed the spelling to emphasize my equation of mental Info with physical Energy.

[Gnomon]

Dear brother Gnomon, as interesting your thesis truly is, we still have to take into account that the wavefunction contains no information but a means for particles to explore. Information is not contained in the patterns connecting particles, but in the stuff describing them. — Hillary

True. The wavefunction contains no knowable information. Instead, it statistically describes all possible paths a particle may "explore". But there is no actual (sensible) particle until a measurement (Latin mensura ; root mens- : "mind") by an Observer somehow causes the continuous non-local Wave to "collapse" (emerge) as a single localized Particle.

Likewise, Huygens described light as a field, propagating by analogy with an oceanic wave. So, Quantum physicists were surprised to discover that on the sub-atomic level, light is emitted only in discrete packets of energy. Consequently, the current ambiguous theory says that light is both wave and particle, which makes no sense in classical physics. On the macro scale, to our senses, the world appears to be analog & solid. But at its foundation, it was found to be digital & grainy (90% empty space).

That's why my thesis is based on the BothAnd principle. As Aristotle realized, our real world consists of both Actual stuff (matter) and Potential essence (EnFormAction : the power to enform). To our physical senses, Potential is meaningless & useless, until Realized. But to our rational minds, we know that Potential (e.g. stored energy in an inert battery) can become Actual electricity (by completing a circuit). Likewise, a Potential wavefunction is un-real, until an observer completes-the-circuit (bridges-the-gap) to allow an Actual particle to emerge from thin air.


BothAnd Principle :
The Enformationism worldview entails the principles of Complementarity, Reciprocity & Holism, which are necessary to ofset the negative effects of Fragmentation, Isolation & Reductionism. Analysis into parts is necessary for knowledge of the mechanics of the world, but synthesis of those parts into a whole system is required for the wisdom to integrate the self into the larger system.
BothAnd Glossary

[Gnomon]

I do not think this is Aristotle. Physical stuff is matter and form. — Jackson

It's my interpretation. Aristotle's "form" is what we now call "information" (a pattern that identifies a thing). Platonic "Form" is Potential, while Matter (hyle) is Actual stuff. (E = MC^2) Potential (energy) can be converted into Actual Matter (mass).

[Gnomon]

Okay. But for Aristotle matter only exists with form. — Jackson

Yes. But what did Ari mean by "form"? Obviously, something in addition to Matter (hyle). We can assume that Ari never heard of "Information Theory". And, he was trying to distinguish his notion of Real (concrete, physical) "Form" (morph) from Plato's Ideal (abstract, essential) "Form" (eidos). But we now know that Information can be both (see equivalence principle below). So, Ari's combination of Matter & Morph would today be called complex "Information". Ideas in a mind are abstract (form only), while objective things in the world are concrete (matter + form). (Disclaimer : this is not an official academic interpretation.)

For the purposes of my thesis, I was merely interpreting his ambiguous (two part) definition of things & beings in terms of my thesis proposal that both Mind & Matter are forms of Generic Information. In other words, Information is the Essence of all things. In compound things "hyle" = matter (Actual, physical), and "form" = design (Potential, metaphysical). "Hyle" was the kind of stuff he discussed in The Physics, but "Morph" and "Ousia" were reserved for the volume on Metaphysics : not about material things, but philosophical ideas about things & concepts. Below, I have pasted an excerpt from a previous discussion on a similar topic.

Hylomorphism (also hylemorphism) is a philosophical theory developed by Aristotle, which conceives every being (ousia) as a compound of matter and form, ...

The Ancient Greek term ousia was translated in Latin as essentia or substantia, and hence in English as essence or substance.

Essence is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. ___Wikipedia

The mass-energy-information equivalence principle :
Here we formulate a new principle of mass-energy-information equivalence proposing that a bit of information is not just physical, as already demonstrated, but it has a finite and quantifiable mass while it stores information.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019A ... V/abstract

Metaphysical versus Anti-Metaphysical (March 22, 2022)

This is another example of the philosophical problem with our materialistic (matter-based) language. Aristotle defined "substance" from two different perspectives (the "qualifications" I mentioned before). When he was trying to distinguish his pragmatic philosophy from Plato's idealistic ideology, he took matter as the primary. So. when he defined his notion of "hylomorphism", he had to distinguish the Actual material (hyle=stuff) from the Potential design (morph=pattern). Hence you have a which-came-first dilemma : the mental idea or the material actualization of the design?

Since I'm an Architect, I tend to think that the mental image (imaginary structure) is prior to the physical building (material structure), hence primary. And morph/form is what I mean by Aristotelian "substance" as the immaterial essence of a thing. I realize Ari's ambiguous reference is potentially confusing. My Enformationism worldview is plagued by many similar dual-meaning words : such as physical "Shape" vs mental "Form". Do you know of another philosopher who found a non-ambiguous term to distinguish between Substance and Essence?


hylomorphism, (from Greek hylē, “matter”; morphē, “form”), in philosophy, metaphysical view according to which every natural body consists of two intrinsic principles, one potential, namely, primary matter, and one actual, namely, substantial form. It was the central doctrine of Aristotle's philosophy of nature. ___Wiki

Two kinds of Structure :
1. mathematical structure is an imaginary (idealized) pattern of relationships (links) without the nodes.
2. physical structure is the actual nodes arranged into a pattern resembling the mental design.

[Gnomon]

To re-iterate: Information has to specify or mean something. 'Generic' means, among other things, not having a specific definition. So if it means something, it can't be generic, and if it doesn't mean anything then it's not information. Ergo, I claim 'generic information' is a meaningless phrase. — Wayfarer

I agree. But, you are using "information" in a specific sense, as is usual in most scientific & technical discussions. In that case, you are correct. But the point of my thesis is that Information is general & universal, hence a philosophical concept, similar to Plato's "Form". I try to make that distinction in the thesis by using a different spelling (EnFormAction ; the potential to enform).

In that abstract form, it's more like causal Energy than meaningful computer data. But then, it's BothAnd. Like Energy, EnFormAction is meaningless & inert until actualized into specific sensible forms. For example, physical Phase Transitions are a result of En-form-action : the same substance (liquid water) takes on a new form (solid ice) with novel properties. This is what we call : "Emergence" and "Holism".

PS__Some mathematical physicists have postulated that our real world is a mathematical construct, hence pure Information. For me, that's just an illustrative metaphor, similar to The Matrix, so I don't worry about the tricky technicalities. I haven't read Tegmark's book, but I get the impression that he is like some of the Quantum pioneers. using as-if metaphors to explain some of the baffling observations of modern physics.

PPS__Plato also used the term "Logos" (word, reason, plan, principle, intention, design) in reference to the creation of an orderly (and self-organizing) world from primordial Chaos. In my thesis I also call it The Enformer, or Programmer. To Enform is to give meaningful form (pattern) to the formless (patternless).

[Gnomon]

To re-iterate: Information has to specify or mean something. 'Generic' means, among other things, not having a specific definition. So if it means something, it can't be generic, and if it doesn't mean anything then it's not information. So I claim 'generic information' is a meaningless phrase. — Wayfarer

Yes. Generic Information is meaningless, because it is general & abstract & timeless & potential, like Plato's "Form". It contains the statistical possibility to mean anything, but lacking specificity, it actually means nothing. It is completely random & chaotic (no pattern, pure noise). So, like the pixels on your computer screen, GI, when uniformly white or black, lacks pattern, hence is devoid of meaning (e.g. white noise). But if you begin to change from a uniform (111111) or random (01010101) pattern, to a variable (100101101010001) pattern, a meaningful image will begin to appear from the void. That uniform array of pixels has the potential, when intelligently activated, to draw a picture of anything.

In terms of the current technical use of the word "information" your "claim" is correct. But I am proposing an expanded philosophical definition of Shannon's narrow engineering application. His "information" has been stripped of specific meaning in order to serve as a general carrier of whatever meaning you want to put into it. His 1s & 0s, define the whole range of values from Nothing to Everything. In isolation, a Zero means absolutely "nothing" (black), and a One means vaguely "something" (white). Only when those basic values are combined into variable strings, do they form a pattern that has a particular meaning to the observer. Information is the "difference that makes a meaningful difference" to a rational mind.

However, the "Generic Information" I'm referring to exists metaphorically in the Mind of G*D (Programmer), the originator of all things & meanings in the world. In it's most general & non-specific form, I call it EnFormAction, which is what scientists know as "Energy", and philosophers know as "Causation" : the power to cause change in physical things. In the abstract, Energy is invisible & intangible, so we only know it by what it does, not what it is. For example, a Photon is potential energy. But until it impacts some physical thing, it is essentially nothing, and has no mass. Yet, it can gain mass by slowing down from almost infinite lightspeed to some lower frequency & velocity. Only then does it have meaningful effects that we can observe (transition from Potential to Actual Energy). Ironically, as soon as Potential energy becomes Actual, it converts into Matter.

Therefore, Generic Information is the formless Potential to cause changes in form, which we experience as Meaning or Knowledge or Information (literally, the act of enforming). No change, no meaning. No difference, no meaning. The causal act of enforming is the source of meaning.

PS___For another illustration of Generic Information, a human ovum looks like any other mammalian egg, until it becomes differentiated (enformed) into specifically human patterns. So, the egg is generic, capable of generating a wide range of adult animals, with various adult features, tall/short, dark/light, human/pig, etc. (Human DNA is 98% identical with a pig). Small differences in DNA make big difference in final form, hence in meaning.


Enform : (obsolete, transitive) To form; to fashion.

This conversion of energetic light into matter is a direct consequence of Einstein's famous E=mc2 equation, which states that energy and matter (or mass) are interchangeable.
https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=119023

Platonic Form :
Plato thought that the things we perceive on Earth are really composed of ideas or forms. A form is an eternal and perfect concept, something that is strived for but never actualised on Earth.
http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Socrates ... totle.html

Information is Generic in the sense of generating all forms from a formless pool of possibility : the Platonic FORM.
BothAnd Blog post 33

MEANINGFUL PATTERN EMERGES FROM RANDOMNESS
orientedNoise-1.png