??? Is everything psyche? — Philofile

I thought you were asleep. Everything can be understood as an evolving process of integrating information. But only the most complex forms of this can have a consciousness like ours. And then, amongst the forms of consciousness that we have across individuals, cultures, and through history also varies in form, and is open ended. So why limit yourself to a deadpan consciousness of materialism, where you live, work, and die, amen?

So information is more specifically brain information.
And brain information is dynamic brain states over durations of time. — Mark Nyquist

This is correct, but would be an anthropocentric definition of information. The theories I mention above imply a panpsychism. From the point of view of panpsychism, a theory of everything is possible. When these theories are integrated, then information is the evolutionary interaction of form, which gives rise to new forms, in an ongoing and open ended process.

You have focused on brain, and have touched upon a micro instance, of what happens universally , when understood from the perspective of these theories.

Ultimately order in the universe exists as an evolving body of information. This is the only way it can exist for us. This is consistent with how order exists in the brain.

I mostly do hard surface/tech designs but began doing some creatures too. — RAW

:up: Nice.

I wish I had the technical knowhow for computer graphics. In game art would be so cool.

Thanks.

Of course, as a professional concept artist I can relate to that, to me every new concept piece is a personal masterpiece, the best I can do at the moment. — RAW

I've shown you mine, lets see yours? :lol:

↪Pop Why should it matter to anyone what art is? Personally, my hunch is that art is not the object itself but the culture around it. — Tom Storm

It matters a huge deal. When art is undefined it fragments into many things, such as what has happened in post modernism. When it was defined to some extent, during modernism, there was a vague central agreement as to what constituted good art. So art integrated somewhat around this understanding, and the best examples of this understanding, was good art. The owners of this understanding were artists and intellectuals, so progress in art was driven by the people central to it, and there was a largely united world vision of what constitutes good art.

Without this world wide central agreement art has fragmented into fiefdoms of art, where what constitutes good art is the domain of the most powerful, rather then the most knowledgeable, imo.

Apples in jars! That is true madness — Philofile

:up: That is how I am gifted :rofl:

I'll look forward to seeing your work.

However I see no advantage in this assumption. What is the practical consequence? — Mersi

Hi Mersi,
A lot of your questions are answered in the OP and on the first page of the thread.

There is no place in the outside world where we could break down logical rules. — Mersi

The world is mind dependent. We can not separate the two. In Enactivism the world is an amalgam of external causation and internal causation. If we look across cultures and through the ages, we can see how this has panned out.

The problem is that till now you have´t defined the term "Information". — Mersi

I have defined it in the OP and in my last reply to you. It is a panpsychic and general definition, that fits Systems Theory, Constructivism, Enactivism, and Integrated information theory. When these theories are integrated, they become a pretty good theory of everything. Information is the evolutionary interaction of form, or Information = evolutionary interaction, explains the role of information in our lives. The definition should describe the interaction of any two systems, and everything is a system in systems theory. To make it more user friendly I reduce Systems to form, so it makes better sense when we apply it to our interaction with objects, that we don't normally see as systems.

As far as I understand your thoughts move in an area between questions of quantum mechanics and neuro physiology, between structuralism and neo positivism. Even in a more modest area a clarification of the terms would be necessary. — Mersi

Yes, I agree, it is all over the place. I hope to write up something complete and coherent in time, but I am still trying to put it all together. I have found these threads and discussions and challenges are helpful toward that end. :smile:

Do you paint? — Philofile

https://www.iamdamir.com/painting

For me, if it's not hard to make, it isn't art. — RAW

:up: For sure, for me, every painting is that masterpiece - the one just beyond my reach, that takes everything out of me, that is the best I can do, at that particular time. And when it is finished, if it ever is, then I move onto the next similar such struggle.

Welcome to the forum. :smile:

Matter creates force. — Philofile

Chicken or Egg? :smile:

If we live in a space where everything feels such forces, how would you know whether the forces / feelings are intrinsic to you, or are ubiquitous, and felt by everything in such a space?

The effect at the individual level would be the same.

We still don't know what those forces / feelings are, but we know we all feel them. Do they exist intrinsic to us, or do we exist in a space where everything in that space feels such forces?

Well, just assume that matter is more than just soulless stuff. — Philofile

Matter feels forces acting on it. :up: That cause it to self organize.

Maybe, or maybe this is not a very wise move. :sad:

Maybe we just trap ourselves in a certain reality by believing such a thing?

That's the easy problem. If the right road is taken. — Philofile

For you it would be. :smile: So, what road is that? Perhaps I have made a wrong turn along the way?

That is not detailed enough. What kind of self organization? — ExistenceofSelf

The Systems Theory kind.

You can not be too simple that the science community does not take you serious. You should also not be too complex that the general population does not understand you. — ExistenceofSelf

It is hard to please them all indeed!

I think you have made a good start. You still need to explain emotions, and as you may understand, that is the hard problem.

To be honest, I'm curious whether others share your stance on my critique. — Voidrunner

I thought your critique was excellent. I spent some time admiring your reason and evenhandedness.
Welcome to the forum. :up:

Thanks for that, I hear it mentioned a lot, but I don't understand the math. Perhaps somebody can explain?

Landauer's principle
It holds that "any logically irreversible manipulation of information, such as the erasure of a bit or the merging of two computation paths, must be accompanied by a corresponding entropy increase in non-information-bearing degrees of freedom of the information-processing apparatus or its environment". - Wiki.

This is something that may be relevant to consciousness. In the process of information, as an interaction of one part to another, there is an element of entropy which changes the deterministic nature of the relation, such that a tiny degree of randomness arises - perhaps this is what causes emergence?
Could Landauer's principle explain it?

Perhaps this is free will? :smile:

I was also thinking how our brains handle tens of thousands of items of information per day but everything seems to happen on a single stage, almost one at a time. Like there is a central core to how we handle information with a lot of peripherals filling in the details. — Mark Nyquist

Yes, there is only ever a moment of consciousness - the stage. Life can be broken down to progressive moments of consciousness lasting 1-400ms, as we have discussed before. Life is a progression and accumulation of these moments. Whether these moments are like the frames of a movie reel or something inching forward hand over hand so to speak, like push me pull you - who knows?

It amazes me how simple a conception it all can be reduced to.

I have found a definition of information very similar to my own, but put to different purposes.

If you play the videos it might give you some insights into how math models could be used to simulate brain function. I'm not saying this example is how brain function works, just that this type of simulation could be useful in studying how neuron groups control information. — Mark Nyquist

I looks very similar. :smile:

What is consciousness? That is determined by the individual and what their measurement of realization is in proportion to themselves and others. The grounded perspective of the human concept is when information can start to express itself as existing. The inflated perspective of the human concept is when an individual reaches fluid movement and processing that is equal to human capability. This is also in-proportion to how an individual can reason with their existence. — ExistenceofSelf

That is not bad, but I would not break out the champagne just yet.

Consciousness is a series of mathematical quantitative constructs of tension in equations, that formulates patterning of translation as simultaneous experiences in realizations to eventually equate into isolated information; in-which, formulates an algorithm that builds on other algorithms to equate overall into an individual realizing themselves as existing. — ExistenceofSelf

You are going to have a hard time getting this over the line.

Wouldn't it be simpler to say Consciousness is an evolving process of self organization?
Or more in line with your thinking - the latest state of integrated information, in an evolving body of information is consciousness?

However, I am talking about "youself" and "himself" , which are totally different things. What I am talking about is YOU. Just YOU. The person I am replying to at the moment I am writing these lines. YOU is the person himself, his identity, the human being, a living unit. It is very concrete, as far as the language is concerned as well as a reality. There's no "emergent phenomena" involved!
If this is not clear for someone, I am sorry, I can't do anything more. — Alkis Piskas

Do you think a lobotomy would change your mind about this?

It is all about emergence, from the moment you are born to what you are at present is one continuous emergent process, enmeshed within the evolution and emergence of everything in the biosphere, in a continuous process of moving forward in time.

All that exists for us is moments of consciousness. This is the interaction I'm trying to get at. Information is the change experienced in these moments of consciousness. Life and knowledge is a progressive accumulation of these moments. And there is nothing outside these moments, everything is probabilistic outside of these moments, both forwards and backwards ( memory ) in time, in the absolute sense.

To some extent, we collapse probability to conception in a moment of consciousness, due to the interaction of externalities, real or imagined, - this change causing process is information.

If it represnts us then who are "us" (we)? Personally I think we are just our body (without brain). — DanLager

:smile: Ha, we are an evolving process of self organization. Which to my mind is equal to consciousness. It is not I think therefore I am, but I am consciousness, in an ongoing and evolving processes.

I'm not on your side concerning logic as interaction. Logic connects forms but in a restricted way. — DanLager

If order is informational structure, then it would only have one way to present itself. The order within the biosphere is interrelated - interacting all the time creating a whole - it only has one logic, imo.

Do you mean with "more sophisticated" us people? — DanLager

Yeah, the cerebellum would represent us, whilst a more primitive mind would have resolved the external world to a coloured in and symbolized world, during a time when the cerebellum was less developed.

How do you envision the interaction? — DanLager

I use a systems logic. I find that logic is equal to informational structure found in the external world. I assume these two are equal, and this gives me confidence in logic. In any pocket of the universe that is ordered, the underlying self organization is causing this. So logic and this order can not be different. This gives me confidence in logic and mathematics as reliable descriptions of externalities.

Not the evolution of forms? — DanLager

Forms might work better.

My body lies between these worlds. — DanLager

I take the Enactivist approach, which suggests a mind ( as we know it ) evolved after the symbology of externalities was resolved. So we interact with the symbolized world presented to us by our senses and a primitive mind. This primitive mind resolves the world neural network like, so no reasoning is involved. So information is interaction at all levels, but for us it is interaction of a sophisticated mind, with the primitive mind, which presents us with a picture of the world. In this scenario the subject object distinction ocurrs at the neural level.

Yes I should write something in more detail, I have still not quite put it together, and there are situations I am not certain about, yet! :smile:

What do you think of my description aside from the equation. The comment below the question. I'm not too sure about this, but something of the sort would need to occur?

All things in formation constitute information. Thing not in formation don't. — DanLager

That information = entropy is very misleading, imo. But I understand what you are saying, thanks.

As you can read in my second part this information=entropy= a number (klnN). This is not the information contained in the forms, which is not quantifiable — DanLager

Yes I understand. But I find such equations frustrating, as no information can be retrieved from entropy which is chaotic. The information retrieved from the Boltzman situation is purely theoretic and nothing to do with the observation of any particular state. It is to do with applying a logic to a theoretical state in thermal equilibrium.

it makes no sense to call everything information — Mersi

The obvious answer is - show me something that is not information?

It took me several months, perhaps six months to warm to the idea that "everything" is information, so I wouldn’t expect you to be able to understand it straight away. I have amassed quite a lot of evidence for it, from diverse and respected opinion in science, physics, biology, philosophy, anthropology, etc, and I have weighed it up against the evidence that not everything is information, which is non existent – it is an assumption without proof. - a belief! So I have weighed up the evidence and decided to follow the logic.

The resultant definition seems to fit. Information is the interaction of form. But probably I have not explained myself well enough. If everything is information, then there is only one thing information can be – it is the interaction of systems. Let me prove it to you by explaining how it works in the situations that you have posted. If you don’t mind, I will correct them in terms of my model. My model is not quite complete, and it would take too long to explain in detail, so I will plow straight into prediction, and hopefully you will understand.

The aspect of novelty: A propostion only contains information for us, if we draw new conclusions from it. This is to seperate the term "Information" from the Term "knowledge". But at the same time it does not prevent us from calling "Information" what arises in the moment we become aware of a new idea. — Mersi

According to my model, information only exists at the point of interaction of two systems. Mine is a panpsychic definition, applicable in all situations. But for humanity this interaction is a neural process of distinguishing an externality against the integrated information already established ( knowledge ) as per constructivism.

The aspect of comprehensibility: A proposition contains information for us, only if we are able to understand it. To do so, it´s semantic elements (what ever this is) must match a part of what we know about the world (or let´s say it´s hypothetical linguistic expression). — Mersi

Yes , there needs to exist an established body of information ( knowledge ) onto which new information must fit, in order to understand it........Can you see how knowledge is a body of information - accumulating this way through moments of consciousness? Read my reply to Gobuddygo above, and Danlager below for more detail.

I think, there is no sense in trying to determine the amount of potential information contained in a given object in advance. Because the amount of "Information" we may draw from dealing with an object (or a proposition) depends on the way we look at it. — Mersi

Agreed, the information outside of a moment of interaction, that creates consciousness, is probabilistic. Schrodinger's cat situation proves it.

During the interwar period there was an attempt by members of the "Wiener Kreis" to quantify the semantic content of a message by means of the complexity of it´s syntactical structure. This attempt failed as did theire attempt to find only one of Wittgenstein´s elementary propositions. — Mersi

In my model, a body of integrated information arises due to the personal experiences of an individual over a life time, so is idiosyncratic. Understanding is idiosyncratic to a particular consciousness, so in order to influence any particular consciousness, one needs to tailor the information specifically to their consciousness.

Wikipedia - "Today in the United States we have somewhere close to four or five thousand data points on every individual ... So we model the personality of every adult across the United States, some 230 million people".

— Alexander Nix, chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, October 2016

It's that easy. We have the physics interpretation. Information= entropy=klnN (a number). — Gobuddygo

:grimace: Can you please explain the logic that underlies this expression?

Then we have the information (non-quantifiable) contained in forms. There is a huge variety of them. They are contained in the physical world and in the world of the brain, interacting via our body and they are interdependent. The depend on the initial state of the universe. — Gobuddygo

Yes, here we are talking about nonequilibrium, irreversible, dissipative systems, which virtually all natural systems are. So whilst entropy plays a role in their creation of ordered form, it is nothing like the above mathematical expression suggests. The interaction of systems can be reduced to the interaction of one part to another. This coincides with the reduction of logic to one part to another, which is the basis of our relational understanding. This interaction is information, and nothing exists outside of this interaction, "this interaction is everything" - everything is probabilistic outside of this interaction, both forward and backward in time. At the point of interaction, the probability is collapsed to a moment of consciousness - and "nothing" exists outside these moments. The two parts interacting are a brain state of integrated information, interacting with and trying to integrate a brain state representing an externality. Their interaction is largely deterministic, but there is a slight element of randomness, swaying the determinism such as to allow for emergence.

Some of this randomness would be entropy playing its part. Cellular motors are 66% efficient - can convert 66% of energy to ordered form, so 34% is lost as heat and entropy. Seems like a lot of entropy in the mix of what creates order, but it is an open environment so much of this entropy would be dissipated. And a small amount would remain in the mix, perhaps 1% or less, causing a randomness of consciousness, such as to allow for novel form?
What do you think?

Some of Turing's work was covered by the Official Secrets Act so my speculation that MacKay's might be also is a good guess. — Mark Nyquist

Fascinating! There are methods of persuasion, as employed by Cambridge Analytica, but to find a theory of persuasion, would be quite somthing else. I will have to study up on cybernetics: The word cybernetics refers to the theory of message transmission among people and machines.

"society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it; and that in the future development of these messages and communication facilities, messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine, are destined to play an ever-increasing part". - Wikipedia

My intention was only to prove that the belief of "We are out bodies" is nonsensical and unsubstantiated. — Alkis Piskas

A "self" as you are describing ( We ), is an emergent phenomena. It firstly needs language, then a whole host of socially derived ideation, such as to arrive at a self awareness in terms of this ideation, to present a self concept via language ( Wittgenstein ) . In the end you find a "self" is information about the way information has organized itself.

Information is not something immaterial. It requires something material to entangle itself into. Brains and neuroplasticity do this somehow. :smile: as do these arrangements of letters you read right now.

It makes no sense to speak of an immaterial mind, just as it makes no sense to speak of immaterial information. It is possible to imagine an entirely informational world ( absent of matter ), and I think this is what an immaterial mind is, but I think it is important to understand this imagination too is the result of a physical neural process, though it may just be organized patterns of connected energy.

If you are asking what is the underlying thing that causes all this to happen, as in what is the source of self organization in the universe? Then there is a hole in understanding - you can posit what you like to fill that blank. Possibly forces? They are immaterial - in that we do not see or hear them, only feel them, similar to emotions.

The interesting thing is, regardless of what you posit to fill that blank, it will only change how you relate to it. What you punt on will change and limit the possibilities of reality for you, it will not change the facts of the matter. In Yogic logic, it is possible to overcome this predicament, to some extent, by calling it consciousness. So in Yogic logic, there is only consciousness and information, embedded in matter, so reality is something various and open ended, which seems to be consistent with observation.

If matter was somehow equivalent to information, what is meant by the common saying: wrong information?

That shows, that even if it was true that the world is made up of information, the subject adds something to make information out of this mere perception. — Mersi

I think you are getting at the mind dependent nature of the world? I think that is the case, and I like the Enactivist version of it - slightly more sophisticated then idealism, imo, given it explains how we are provided with a picture of the world already full of anthropocentric symbiology - already coloured in so to speak. Given science tells us there is no colour, or sound in the "real" world. That instead there is frequencies of light, and vibrations.

This fits with the notion that a self aware symbolic self evolved after an external world picture was already resolved neurally, and so a self interacts with internal neural patterning, rather then an external world. This I think is consistent with the neuroscience model of mind where a Markov blanket initially resolves frequencies and vibrations to ordered symbols, to be processed then by what we understand as mind. I wonder If @Isaac would agree?

I think the way to see it is as a monism, where energy, matter, and information is present in everything. The information theoretic, though still new to me, suggests that immaterial information can not exist.
That information only occurs due to energy congealing to a material - that this process of becoming a substance is itself a process of integrating information, and matter is really "symbolized" amalgams of energy in various forms. That matter exists in solid and stable form is important as form represents the order in the universe, and the fact that something has form allows it to interact with other somethings that have form, and not with something that is immaterial.

Everything that exists, exists in some form. The ordered universe has to exist in a form, hence so too do it's component parts. Hence life exists in some form. Understanding exists in some form. The form of one's understanding interacts with the form of externalities already symbolized to form. This interaction is information, and it's effect is to evolve these forms.

I am convinced this interaction is information, and it is a far bigger deal than what we normally understand it to be.

Quantum Theory of Ur Objects and General Relativity -
Martin Kober

Institut f¨ur Theoretische Physik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universit¨at,
Max-von-Laue-Str. 1, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Conclusion: "In retrospect, regarding the notion of causality, the framework of physics has undergone a paradigmatic changewith the advent of quantum mechanics about 80 years ago.The deterministic character of physics has been abandoned and knowledge and information have become central concepts. The foundations of quantum theory have not only shone new light on one of the deepest philosophical questions, namely the nature of reality, but have in the past decades also led to the possibility of new technologies".

But as far as I understood, the theory postulated a dependence of the material world on its information content. — Mersi

Thanks for that info, and welcome to the forum. :smile:

Quite a lot of similar such studies / evidence from various fields was presented in the what is information thread.
Zeilinger concluded similarly. Stating: "It does not make any sense to
talk about reality without the information about it".

That one can not know anything without information about it seems so obvious, but it is still a big step for anybody to go from there, to state that "everything is information". Yet this is what is required to define it.
All the definitions thus far have been close, but I feel, they just miss the mark, probably because they fail to embrace the paradigm.

It is so hard to jump the fence, given our upbringing. Can you imagine consciousness and information, and nothing else? To some extent this is the implication! It is unimaginable that this could be reality. Most people would consider it impossible, so will dismiss it off hand. However when you examine the possibility logically, and non judgmentally, the argument is incredibly strong - so far on the side of "everything is information", that it is no contest at all. However to embrace the paradigm means to change oneself, so the reluctance is understandable.

If information is everything, then the definition of information is "absolutely constrained" in what it can be.
It can only be one thing, as far as I can see. There is only one thing that is everything, and that is the "interaction of systems, including their subsystems".

It is the form of these systems that is interacting, and causing a mutual change in their "absolute" characteristics, such that their form evolves. This is the process of information, where information is the evolutionary interaction of form. Another way to say it is information = evolutionary interaction. This captures everything, and situates information into it's logically correct position - a position currently occupied by interaction. :smile: Essentially information is interaction.

Understanding information defined this way facilitates further insight into information, which I take to be a non quantifiable fundamental observable ( Barbieri ). Systems are interacting and assembling on their own. This leads to a way of seeing the world , composed of systems, as evolving informational bodies, existing as a function of their historical interactions unilaterally. Hence we are the result of our historical interactions - the result of our historical experiences. What we are, and those experiences are the one inextricable process. @Zugzwang I think this is what Enactivism tries to elucidate also. These interactions are information, and nothing exists outside of these interactions.

↪Pop I dunno, I'm still on MacKay. He could have been in early matter to mind programs. Alan Turing, Marvin Minski AI stuff. — Mark Nyquist

Ok, good luck with it. This would be really interesting stuff If you can find anything. :up:

Who knows?

Kauffmans definition of information is:

"We therefore conclude that constraints are information and… information is constraints… We
use the term “instructional information” because of the instructional function this
information performs and we sometimes call it “biotic information” because this is the
domain it acts in, as opposed to human telecommunication or computer information systems
where Shannon information operates ".

That is similar!

↪Pop You know if he did anything really interesting it might be classified. You know, black bag, black op. — Mark Nyquist

I think he was just not very prominent. :sad:

This is a great argument against Shannon's information definition, in that it treats information as finite, which is an error in biotic evolution, given open ended emergence.

Stuart Kauffman: "In POE we argued that Shannon’s [2] classical definition of information as the measure of the decrease of uncertainty was not valid for a biotic system that propagates its organization. The core argument of POE was that Shannon information “does not apply to the evolution of the biosphere” because Darwinian preadaptations cannot be predicted and as a consequence “the ensemble of
possibilities and their entropy cannot be calculated [1].” Therefore a definition of information as
reducing uncertainty does not make sense since no matter how much one learns from the information
in a biotic system the uncertainty remains infinite because the number of possibilities of what can
evolve is infinitely non-denumerable. I remind the reader that in making his definition that Shannon
specified that the number of possible messages was finite."

I'm not sure. His paper is called MacKay, D. Information, Mechanism and Meaning; MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 1969. I can not find a free version.

This is an interesting read: https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/3/1/68