And some cutting-edge physicists have concluded that even physical Matter is made of metaphysical (abstract) Information — Gnomon

This is the trend in biology also. Particularly cellular biology. To understand life information has to become an observable non measurable quantity - according to barbieri , and this is also the gist of these 21 papers submitted to the Royal Society, on the topic of DNA as Information.

new information changes the thought/ concept of reality. — Athena

Information is causal!!

Rocks have their neural correlates, because information is causal ! I think we are getting somewhere?

This thread gas become a free for all. — frank

They have a life of their own. :smile:

The concept of determined events is baked into information theory. — frank

Yeah. I would say deterministic with a slight element of randomness - is the determinism we are seeing?

I see it as a problem were the end points are known but the intermediate processes need to be solved. — Mark Nyquist

I think you are referring to what occurs within a moment of consciousness. Yes, there is still controversy about what exactly occurs within the process . At some point the process completes and out of it arises a moment of clarity about current reality, is how I understand it.

That is the point where all information is integrated. The "moment of clarity" though, is not only about brain information. All bodily information, all historical understanding, and all environmental / situational information is integrated to create that moment of consciousness ( you can test this by sticking a pin into your distal toe, to check to see whether it effects your consciousness :smile: )

Within my understanding, all of this can be conceptually represented by a "body of integrated information", which has its physical correlates, as neural patterning and bodily patterning. So it is all a physical patterning. And a continual build up of physical patterning. Understood this way, there is no logical reason to not extend this reasoning beyond the body to all matter ( as does IIT ).

So, I seek to capture all this with a definition of information - "Information is the interaction of form"......... information causes a physical change that entangles an organism into it's environment................Information is causal !!

What do you think?

Time would also have to exist within a moment of consciousness, but as you say, I don't think we can be conscious of that. Cannot be conscious of time within a moment of consciousness, because it is not an integrated state of information. It is still a fuzzy state ( in a process of resolution ) of information, lacking clarity. So we can only be conscious of integrated states of information. Of course, we don't always manage to put it together, and the conscious state then recognizes that - that there are some things we can not be certain about - this too is an integration.

Sorry bout the rant, just thought I'd clarify it in case anybody is interested but still uncertain about how it works.

The point being time perception is inseparably linked to information. — Mark Nyquist

Precisely. :up: you are a dark horse! :smile:

The way I understand it. The "contrast" of one moment of consciousness ( state of integrated information ) and the next moment of consciousness is how we experience time.

Life is a procession of moments of consciousness.

Moments of consciousness can last 1-400ms according to a number of studies. This fact is also important to IIT. So about 20 to 30 odd frames a minute.

Not sure precisely how this is measured, but that it is justifies the "integrated information" view, amongst other reasons.

↪Pop Great!!! You agreed with me on something. Like you said a few months ago, we are usually oceans apart. — Mark Nyquist

I've found my own understanding creeps along and changes as new information becomes available. Currently I'm recalibrating idealism in light of enactivism, largely due to @Joshs narrative. It makes better sense.

The way you have set it out is similar to the approach in Integrated Information theory. PHI is what measures the amount of integrated information. It is in its infancy as yet, so whether this will at some stage be possible, who knows? It is not really relevant, we are not scientists here, we are philosophers. And I think the point has been established ad nauseum, and I think that you are spot on.

In my view, it is the essence of both Energy and Matter . . . . and Mind. Some would interpret that datum as proof of a Universal Consciousness — Gnomon

Mind and consciousness are rather vague terms with variable meaning in each end user. To overcome this I have accepted that integrated information is equal to a moment of consciousness. A state of integrated information embeds and orients us in our personally construed reality. This way consciousness becomes a logical quantity, as per IIT, and then we can work with it logically and get somewhere.

Since last we discussed this at length, I have been considering the status of information metaphysically. If we say that fundamentally we have energy and its information, how are these different things? To cut a long story short, the only difference between a fundamental substance and its information is the assumption that something more exists. This is similar to Shannon's entropy, so I prefer the simplicity of Pragmatic information theory, for the purpose of describing an enactive world.

Here only the information that is transmitted is relevant and enactive. So in this view, the assumed underlying substance gets dropped, and all that remains is information of it The information becomes identical to the substance. This works for describing a universe that arises due to particles possessing form. Without the form there would be no basis for interaction, so nothing could exist. But because of form, particles can interact, and eventually clump together, and away we go towards elementary particles, and so on. This way everything arises bottom up as a result of the interaction of form. Everything is an intricate vertical build up of form, and then once built up how can a formed substance interact laterally? With form of course. So everything can be captured through an interaction of form. Here Information is a fundamental substance that informs the universe. I am assuming monism, such that anyThing perceived has its neural correlates, and this is how we become informed and embedded in the world through an interaction of form.

This way everything is information from every perspective. And I think this touches on what we sense consciousness to be? An integration of form in all its dimensions. The trick is to define this information if possible. Any ideas?

Thus far I have; "Information is the interaction of form..... In the case of organic form, the interaction causes an internal physical change that entangles an organism with its environment."
( neural correlates )

for me information is the product of contrast. Without two poles - without a binary interaction there is no information.
0 = nothing or no discernible “content” however -1 +1 is a contrast of equal opposites - a spectrum which can be appreciated from within itself and yet still equals zero.

You cannot have black without white or space without matter to occupy it. Information is difference. — Benj96

:up: You are on the right track, and I need help to define it @Daniel has disappeared. I'm looking for a definition of information befitting an enactive world .

So far I have: In the enactive world : Information is the interaction of form.. In the case of organic form, the interaction causes an internal physical change that entangles an organism into its environment.
( neural correlates )
Still a bit unwieldly, hoping to do better then this. Can you work with this to reduce it? Anyone?

weak And even weaker.

You do not have to believe this, cannot believe this, in one big gulp. But you can stop for a moment and admire its theoretical beauty, its simplicity and logic. I think Occum would be impressed. It is logically coherent and can be used to understand and predict situations.

The consequences of panpsychism is a belief system similar to Buddhism

Bhutan is the world’s only Buddhist country. They measure national happiness. They preserve 75% of the country to nature. They are carbon negative. Theirs is a sustainable lifestyle. Compare that to our western way of life, and when you do compare the happiness of a typical Bhutanese to a typical westerner. You have to do the legwork and make this call yourself. Then you can judge the theory of panpschism in a holistic way. It is the most provable of theories, and its social results are known - it has a good outcome in general. It is not a theory for the west of today, but for a future west that is suffering the effects of hot house earth, who knows?

The major prediction of this theory is that the combined laws of nature is what we feel to give us integrity. The feelings and emotions that we most deeply identify with are those laws affecting the body of information that we are - towards integrity. All bodies of information in this universe are affected by those same laws. So, it is not possible to lose touch with feeling in this universe ever.

What is your unit of measurement? You forgot something. — apokrisis

You can falsify it, by providing something that is not information.

If it involves an atomistic notion of consciousness, well best of luck.

(Remember, you are claiming everything is panpsychist information.) — apokrisis

I'm claiming everything exists as a body of information. This "body of information" is what is evolving from every perspective. Our consciousness is the ultimate body of information that we are aware of.

That the quantum foam is information is doubtful. You can rest assured however that once we discover its secrets, these too will be information. Such is the nature of fundamental information.

A clue. To be a formal model, it needs to be testable. And that involves an epistemic cut between model and measurement. — apokrisis

"Everything is information"

There you go. A falsifiable, thus scientific , theory in three words. Beat that! :lol:

And to refine it a little:

Everything is information from every perspective.

But to keep @Wayfarer happy:

We will never know the truth, we will only ever know information about it.

You tell me what you might mean by an entity. That’s a mighty vague term. I will watch with interest as you try to justify some epistemic cut to separate the living and mindful from the physics of dissipative structure. — apokrisis

Am I understanding you correctly ? - YOU are the one arguing epistemic cut. Not me - hence I have a panpsychic understanding. The anthropic principle is the interpreter ( the integrated laws of the universe ) - it causes the information to integrate. At all scales, as far as I can see.

The current thinking does not allow an understanding. But an understanding is possible, however it requires a change of thinking. That is the bottom line.

Meaning is always imputed or interpreted. It doesn't exist in its own right. — Wayfarer

This is the prevalent thinking that Barbieri and co are up against.

Why are you telling me this when I’ve just told you how my position does not involve an interpreter but habits of interpretance? — apokrisis

Habits belong to entities. Who / what is the entity with such habits?

A semiotic relation exists when some sort of habit of interpretance reads the world in terms of its “signs” and responds with the certainty of automatic reflex. — apokrisis

In the early universe there could not have been an interpreter, but form arose and developed.

In one sense everything is a development of form.

In constructivism, understanding develops as a result of more information.

Meaning arises as a result of integrated information?

Form is meaning, because without it , only nothing could exist.

"The parts" of the universe could not be integrated without form.

Just some thinking that badly needs integration. :sad:

I have always had trouble with the term semiosis as it implies an interpreter. But why should meaning have an interpreter?

Meaning may be meaningful in its own right. Integrated information may be meaningful at all scales.

Well that is more like it.

At least this is relevant to what is being discussed.

There are 21 papers we are focusing on, and the broad thrust is a reconsideration of what is meant by "information" at the cellular level.

**These papers an excellent source for getting a feel for the cutting edge in contemporary understanding.

As Pattee put it, the central problem for biology is to explain how a molecule can be a message (and not just a material) — apokrisis

We are discussing Barberi's paper. Did you read it?

All irrelevant to the topic at hand.

What Barbieri is showing, is the sense in which the storing and transmission of information differentiates life from non-life. — Wayfarer

What you do not understand is - when you look at a rock it changes your brain patterning. So what exactly changed your brain patterning?

This is what enactive means - a reciprocal causation.

Information is a property. — frank

I have always thought of it as a quality. Barbari goes into this in the paper. Traditionally quantities are measurable, but in biology they are not.

So whether it is a quality or quantity is up in the air, to some extent.

Barbari suggest it should be a non measurable quantity.

Ok, but DNA replication still isn't semantic information. Should we discuss the difference? — frank

I think what @Wayfarer has brought up is good. We shouldn't rely on only one source however. we have an excellent 21 sources, all vying to be the next Darwin, so we get a great insight into what the thinking is.

Good lord. Maxwell’s demon is how classical mechanics introduces the epistemic cut that underpins thermodynamics and hence dissipative structure theory.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-maxwells-demon-continues-to-startle-scientists-20210422/

And that led to Feynman’s ratchet to show the quantum limit of any such informational demon. — apokrisis

We have been through this before - How is it relevant for irreversible systems?

Just so we're clear that copying DNA is not a case of semantic information. No cognition involved. — frank

Semantic - relating to meaning in language or logic. - Google.

We need therefore a paradigm that goes beyond the two present paradigms of biology. A paradigm that fully accepts the implications of the existence of the genetic code. The implication that life is based on copying and coding, that both biological sequences (organic information) and biological coding rules (organic meaning) are fundamental observables that are as essential to life as the fundamental quantities of physics. This is the code paradigm, the idea that ‘life is chemistry plus information plus codes’. - Barberi.

Please read the paper. It is very interesting.

I wasn't getting at anything, although I do think we're getting semantic information mixed up with the kind of information scientists use, including biologists. Do you think? — frank

This is the thing Frank, a lot of people are advocating for a reconsideration of "what information is".

There are two papers in the link titled "What is information". The focus is DNA and information, but it is still relevant to general consideration.

whatever conclusions you draw are likely to be false. — Wayfarer

As I said, you should read them yourself. I am not talking about any particular paper, rather the general thrust of the thinking. I don't specifically recall the "distinction" you cite.

Maxwell's demon — frank

We are talking about open systems. Natural systems are dissipative. I'm not sure what you are getting at?

How do you understand Barbieri's distinction between 'the chemical paradigm' and 'the information paradigm'? Why do you think he mentions Ernst Mayr's contention that living things are fundamentally different from inanimate matter? Do you agree with that proposition? — Wayfarer

At the moment I have skimmed a lot of the papers, and I think you should also, to get a broad impression of the thinking. The point you are getting at, and what everybody will have to contend with ultimately is:

Once you recognize that form is meaningful in biology, how will you defend the assumption that it is meaningless outside of biology?

This is the conclusion gained, reading between the lines, when he says that this way of thinking might lead to an understanding of how life arose from matter.

@Gnomon@frank @Wayfarer@Daniel@Athena

I previously linked to a Royal Society paper provided by Wayfarer. In researching it further I found it was one of twenty one papers submitted to the Royal Society on the topic of "Information and DNA."
Initially I felt red faced and disappointed, as the paper was consistent with my understanding and considerably more advanced. I have since skimmed a selection of the the other 21 papers and much to my joy, the thinking is broadly consistent. The new paradigm amongst these, I assume younger, researchers is that Life is no longer just chemistry, BUT Chemistry + Information + Coding.

As a broad impression of the understanding at play amongst the papers I skimmed, I think it would be fair to say that at this level of life, the form of a substance is equal to its meaning - which is right on track with where this thread was supposed to be heading. :grimace:

All the papers can be found here. I find this to be an extremely valuable source of information, as it provides a glimpse into contemporary and future thinking. These are the guys who will create the paradigm of the future, and it seems palpable how they are struggling with a Cartesian framework, and advocating for an understanding that is closer to panpsychism, at least as it relates to life. A number of papers advocate for a reconsideration of what information means in biology, that it is something intrinsic to and irreducible to life.

This validates the view, that @gnomon and myself have been advocating in our own way. That information is in the fundamental mix.

And a change in understanding of how biology fundamentally works @Isaac, should make life easier for neurobiology, because if we come to understand that form is fundamentally meaningful, the search for the immaterial substance will lose all its meaning!** This fits very nicely with the trajectory of integrated information as an understanding of consciousness.

:up:

I think I know what the OP means with the information of the universe, and its workings. But should it not be then, the historical data of the universe rather than information. Just my 2 cents. — Corvus

Thanks for that. Your opinion is as valuable as anybody's. It is not as if anybody understands this conundrum. :smile:

The still fuzzy and vague impression I have is that there is a connection between a platonic form ( the formal structure of a substance ) being able to integrate with another substance due only to possessing form - this creates a fundamental state of integrated information. And a state of integrated information is consciousness.- of course, consciousness as we know it is such an incredibly intricately complicated entanglement of form ( assuming thought has its neural correlates ).

So, there is something about the ability of things being able to mash together that is inherently meaningful. And at the extreme other end of this, we see understanding as the ability of new DATA being able to mesh with established data. Dot forget now- DATA is a pattern of information. So, a pattern fits an already existing framework of patterning ( brain ) to cause understanding.

The thought that comes to mind when reading those replies is chaos is essential to creativity, — Athena

I wouldn't quite say chaos is the creative element. We shouldn't forget that things are largely determined. But not entirely determined, there is also a slight element of randomness applicable to every transaction. So determined with a slight element of randomness.

This is one rare situation where Art can inform science. :lol: If you have ever created a painting, or made a sculpture, and I think this would hold for any form of art, and life in general. The product you make is largely what you set out to make, but not quite, elements of randomness creep in and change the final product slightly, and sometimes more then slightly.

As you intimated, this understanding can also be seen in the evolution of Covid, It is largely determined, with a slight element of randomness.

— apokrisis

Where did I say that? — apokrisis

It is written all over your posts.

Out of interest, what is your source for saying that?

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/~crsi/thesymbolicself.pdf

Ok, perhaps I have a problem. Perhaps I need guidance. You see I'm coherent. So, be as your name suggests. Guide me, please. — Outlander

This is where we are at:


I think of information as a singular co-element of a substance. As the pattern or form describing a substance. This pattern or form can be physical, chemical, energetic, etc, But it is this information of a substances that enables a substance to interact with another substance - It is the information that interacts with the information of another substance. As described earlier, without the information, the substance would be a "NoThing", so could not interact with "anyThing". It would posses no attributes that are capable of interaction. The perturbations of a substance that give it it's distinctive features enable the substance to interact and thus integrate with all other informational substances, including ourselves.
This view of information assumes an underlying substance. As @Daniel has intimated, we only receive the information of the substance. That a substances exists is assumed by the information we have of it. What the substance is changes as more information becomes available of it. This brings into question whether information is a quantity or a quality?

@Daniel has also suggested no information can exist absent of an interaction, and as has been pointed out it is interaction that information facilitates. "NoThing" cannot interact with "AnyThing".
Everything that exists, does so as an evolving self organizing system. Interaction is a constant. So it is clear that information enables the interactional organization of a system. What a system self organizes is information..

I think properties are of an object and therefore there is something in addition to properties.
— Daniel

This is the assumption that I was talking about. "This view of information assumes an underlying substance". I think we agree on this, though we misunderstand each other.

What is the difference between our perception of an object and the object itself ? - the assumption that something more exists.

everything is information from the perspective of everything.

Information describes the physical structure of entities, and enables them to interact with and change other entities, in a reciprocal manner.

You are basically saying your self concept is something separate from the environment you grew up in, different, and set apart, to the experiences that created it, all the while you are relating to me the historical basis of your attitudes and understanding. You seem to be a product of your history and times, as we all are.

In evolutionary psychology, it is thought that language developed before a self concept, and obviously an epistemic cut a considerable time after that.

It is difficult to understand, how it must have been to live absent of a self concept. But a number of ancient cultures still retain some roots in such attitudes by seeing themselves as part of the land, and in having an affinity to mother earth.

Take a look at different cultures to recognize how much people are a product of their environment. They see themselves as free agents, Whilst all the while they are a body of information, drawn from their environment, with its own momentum that only has slight freedom of movement.

An epistemic cut is a belief. I can respect your beliefs, so long as you respect mine.

Matter possesses properties aka information, is what you're saying? Sure, it's either small, large, hot, cold, light or dark, inobservable to the human eye (regardless if any alleged humans exist or not) or it is. Descriptions, etc. Dang it, more qualia talk. So this is your (pen?)ultimate definition of information: properties. Matter, even. — Outlander

I've been trying to do this collectively, but we cannot seem to even get to first base.

This is bullshit. But you seem happy enough with it. — apokrisis

Self-organization, also called (in the social sciences) spontaneous order, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when sufficient energy is available, not needing control by any external agent. It is often triggered by seemingly random fluctuations, amplified by positive feedback. The resulting organization is wholly decentralized, distributed over all the components of the system. As such, the organization is typically robust and able to survive or self-repair substantial perturbation. Chaos theory discusses self-organization in terms of islands of predictability in a sea of chaotic unpredictability. Wikipedia.

You are thinking of a cancer. — apokrisis

Try Prion. Mitochondria, white blood cells. Think proteins inside a cell, if you are going to be so obstinate.

I'm assuming monism, where information has it's neural correlates. So information causes a physical change ( in brain structure ), and this physical change embeds and orients an entity to its environment.

So there is a physical thing going on, where environmental information acts upon an entity and changes them physically, thus creating an enactive situation.

This is entirely subconscious, similar to the way the skin tans in the sun.

@apokrisis RIP "epistemic cut"

The question cuts both ways. How can a self cut itself off from the world with which it interacts? And how can a self interact with a world unless it is separated from that world in some pragmatic sense? — apokrisis

Think of a cell inside a body, and then think of a human as a cell in the biosphere.

When I first came across Peirce, I thought it was nuts. Everything I hold true is the product of engaging fruitfully with the opposition. — apokrisis

From what I know of Pierce, he seemed to be on the right track, but just lacked the concepts in his time. I bet today he would be a panpsychist.

You say you are catching up on biology, that is a real eye opener. Lets take this up again in a couple of months. It's been a pleasure.