The present discussion is already littered with very straightforward examples of what I mean.

In a digital computer the work is done by electrical currents, microscopic bumps and depressions on disks, and so on. When you've described this electrical and mechanical process, there isn't anything left for "information" to do.

In genetics the work is done by nucleic acids and so on, and not by "information".

In our brains the work is done by electrochemical impulses, ion exchanges and so on, and not by "information".

It's a bit too much to set down here — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh dear what a shame. Couldn't you just find one teeny example in "Information Ontology" where information does some work?

As already discussed, pretty much every science 'above' chemistry leverages the concept heavily. — Theorem

Could you provide an actual case where information does something? I know people constantly use the term, but I've yet to see an example where "information" does any work. If you can't find one, have you ever thought about changing your mind?

I agree that these terms don't have any work to do at the level of chemistry. They have work to do at higher levels of description. — Theorem

Can you give an example where information does work?

Notably to your point, information based physics are quite popular, and some of these posit that information is the only thing that exists. The apparent haeccity of objects, our lived world of three dimensional space and time, are simply the effects of interactions of information. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Maybe we could get one of these physicists in and they could explain what for example "information" actually does, in addition to what atoms and suchlike do?

Until they arrive, I'd just like to say that I have no regard for "everthing is X" type theories. Because they don't tell us anything.

So reductionism might disguise the fact that it is a four cause analysis - as it must be to describe nature. Folk like yourself might try to make it conform to atomism by saying functional structure just kind of "emerges" as an accident, and so suppress the role of non-holonomic hierarchical constraints. And also then push the global holonomic constraints right out of the physicalist picture by calling those the fundamental laws and constants of nature - equations in the mind of God, or further accidents because, well ... multiverse.

But this is just self-deluding rhetoric. — apokrisis

Well do you mind not putting that rhetoric in my mouth? You don't know enough about me to talk about "folk like yourself". I haven't said any of that stuff.

Even physics has got around to embracing "information" as fundamental these days. — apokrisis

Information in that sense is a measurement. It's not something that plays an active role in the phenomena we use it to measure.

DNA causes appropriate proteins to be formed. If you (or physics) think that information plays a role in that phenomenon in addition to what the chemicals do, please tell us what it is.

DNA causes appropriate proteins to be formed. "Encodes" is a commentary on the process. — Daemon


But then it becomes commentary all the way down. What is a protein in your reductionist terms? A chain of peptides. What’s a peptide? The name for a class of amino acids all linked by peptide bonds. What’s an amino acid? Etc. — apokrisis

I think you're misunderstanding. "DNA causes appropriate proteins to be formed" is not a commentary on the process, it is the process. "DNA causes appropriate chains of peptides to be formed" is a description of the process at a different level.

Persons encode, persons understand meaning, persons are recipients of information. Those terms are usefully applied figuratively to non-persons, as heuristics, but they mustn't be mistaken for a literal description.

So, some chemicals passing through the blood brain barrier don't do much. They bounce around and act as close synonyms. Those shaped in such a way that they mimic neurotransmitters at binding sites however have a different meaning for the system. That is, meaning can have a direct relationship with chemical properties, or velocity, or mass, depending on the system in question. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So here's Count Tim using "meaning" in a way that doesn't explain anything new, in much the same way people misuse "information". When you've said "some chemicals have the same effects as neurotransmitters" you've said it all. The "meaning" part doesn't have any work to do.

Or if you think it does do something in addition to the chemistry Count Timothy, please tell us what it is.

The knowledge that 'DNA encodes proteins' is an additional insight not derivable from the knowledge of chemistry alone. — Theorem

But it's also 1. not necessary to understand genetics and 2. not an element of the process.

DNA causes appropriate proteins to be formed. "Encodes" is a commentary on the process. As you say, it's an insight, it's a thought, it's a product of consciousness, not part of the process.

Let's go back to an example you raised earlier, that of DNA. Consider the statement 'DNA encodes genetic instructions for the development and maintenance of all known life forms'. Does this qualify as a useful explanation of what DNA does? — Theorem

Suppose you suggested that to a highly intelligent alien as an explanation of DNA. Would the alien then be equipped to go off to its spaceship and replicate the workings of DNA in its lab?

No, you'd need to tell the alien stuff like this: each nucleotide is composed of one of four nitrogen-containing nucleobases (cytosine [C], guanine [G], adenine [A] or thymine [T]), a sugar called deoxyribose, and a phosphate group.

That's a description of what actually happens. If you told the alien all that stuff, you wouldn't then need to to talk about "instructions" or "information".

Would you like to say in the broadest terms what Friston is about? From my own very limited knowledge I believe that certain aspects of vision make use of Bayesian logic, but this is limited and does not apply to the brain generally.

(By the way, you may be right that GWT/IIT are both garbage from a scientific perspective. I don't know enough right now to weigh in on that. My intention here isn't to defend those theories specifically, but to the question your assertion that 'information' can't be a legitimate explanatory concept). — Theorem

My assertion is that it's being used in such a way that it doesn't explain anything. The particle physics and the chemistry levels do each explain something, but the Informationists are saying it's information that is doing the work in both cases.

Theories of information, semiotics, etc. are useful heuristics. — Theorem

Thank you Theorem. Yes, I completely agree about that. Wikipedia says:

A heuristic, or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term goal or approximation.

A heating engineer will say that a thermostat is feeling 23 degrees or that it is calling for heat. We all say that computers process information and that information can be stored on disks or memory cards. And we say that the optic nerve carries information to the brain.

All this is fine, the problem arises when the suboptimal, imperfect and/or irrational heuristic is taken to be the optimal, perfect and rational explanation and description of the world.

The person who started this discussion suggested that Global Workspace Theory and Integrated Information Theory are the leading theories on consciousness in neuroscience. A proponent of Global Workspace Theory, Stanislas Dehaene, says that "consciousness is nothing but the flexible circulation of information within a dense switchboard of cortical neurons". According to Integrated Information Theory, consciousness is the integration of information.

Those views seem to me to be philosophically naive and scientifically worthless, but such views are apparently widely held, our friend apokrisis seems to think they are unquestionable facts.

So again: I think consciousness is caused by biological electrochemical phenomena, and if we could describe them in full, we would have exhaustively explained the cause of consciousness.

If you are among those who think information plays some role in addition to what the electrochemical processes do, please explain what it is.

I'm not sure I see why this would be the case. DNA is a code, it contains symbols that refer to proteins. The interpretant is the transcription RNA during cellular replication. The DNA does not contain the proteins it refers to, it passes along instructions (meaning/information) that are interpreted by another system. Similarly, in computers, APIs form a full semiotic triangle, with one program being the referent of a string of symbolic code, and a another program acting as the interpretant. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Good morning Count Timothy.

DNA does not pass on meaning or information. Everything it does can be described in terms of biochemistry. When you've described the biochemistry, you've said everything. There isn't anything left for "information" to do. Information is a concept in our minds, it's something we think about DNA.

Computers do not process information. Everything the computer does can be described in terms of electrical currents, microscopic bumps on CDs etc. The information, software, encoding and decoding are all concepts in our minds and are not intrinsic to the machine.

Brains do not process information. What they do can be exhaustively described in terms of neuronal activity and so on. Of course we say things like "the optic nerve carries information", but what it actually carries is electrochemical impulses. There isn't any "information" you can point to in addition to those electrochemical impulses.

If you think "information" does something in addition to what the biochemistry/electrical currents/electrochemical impulses do, can you say what it is?

You're the fourth person I've asked in this discussion. The other three have simply ignored the question. I think that's because they don't have an answer. Can you do any better?

A hardware description of a computer includes all the contents of its software, but isn’t the sort of account that can give us the meaning of the software as software. Similarly , a biochemical description of a neural network that is organized to understand language ‘includes’ the biochemical contents underlying the hierarchically organized semantic categories on the basis of which language processing is structured in the brain. But notions like semantic pattern and category are invisible at the level of biochemical description. — Joshs

The meaning of the software is not intrinsic to the computer. It's in the minds of outside observers. By contrast, the semantic patterns and categories are intrinsic to the brain/mind. They are currently invisible at the biochemical level and may remain so, after all this is the most complex mechanism we know of, but they are there. We can already see the biochemical mechanisms underlying less complex mental states. For example:

One team of researchers used a technique called optogenetics to label the cells encoding fearful memories in the mouse brain and to switch the memories on and off, and another used it to identify the cells encoding positive and negative emotional memories, so that they could convert positive memories into negative ones, and vice versa. https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2015/mar/09/false-memories-implanted-into-the-brains-of-sleeping-mice

Informational semiotic code is one account and a physico- chemical is another account of the ‘same’ phenomenon. — Joshs

My question is, what does the "informational" account tell us about the phenomenon, in addition to what the biochemical account tells us?

Oh come on Josh, that's an hour long video! Is my position not clear from the simple argument I've put forward? Do you have any response to that? Do you think information does something in addition to what the nucleic acids and proteins do? What is it?

I'll repeat my point. Biochemical processes involving nucleic acids and the proteins they interact with are responsible for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of organisms. When you've described those processes, you've described everything that happens in genetics.

When we talk about processes like this we use language like "information", "encode". We say "A gene is a sequence of DNA that contains genetic information". But there aren't two different things, the information and the nucleic acid. It's the nucleic acid that does the work. "Information" is just a way of talking about it.

If you think "information" does something in addition to what the nucleic acids and proteins do, then tell us what that is. — Daemon


If that is your point, it is a piss poor one. — apokrisis

And yet, it's not a point you're able to respond to.

If you think "information" does something in addition to what the nucleic acids and proteins do, then tell us what that is.

Speechless incredulity. — apokrisis

Argument from incredulity, also known as argument from personal incredulity, appeal to common sense, or the divine fallacy, is a fallacy in informal logic.

You are welcome to your opinions but they make little contact with informed thought. — apokrisis

Argument from authority is a formal fallacy in which it is argued that because a perceived authority figure (or figures) believes a proposition (relevant to their authority) to be true, that proposition must therefore be true.

I'll repeat my point. Biochemical processes involving nucleic acids and the proteins they interact with are responsible for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of organisms. When you've described those processes, you've described everything that happens in genetics.

When we talk about processes like this we use language like "information", "encode". We say "A gene is a sequence of DNA that contains genetic information". But there aren't two different things, the information and the nucleic acid. It's the nucleic acid that does the work. "Information" is just a way of talking about it.

If you think "information" does something in addition to what the nucleic acids and proteins do, then tell us what that is.

So you argue along the lines: "That's not a marsupial. It's a kangaroo!" — apokrisis

Not at all. I'm arguing that semiosis and DNA are in different ontological categories, whereas marsupial and kangaroo are in the same category.

What do you mean by "no words"?

Well everyone accepts it is the kind of thing that could produce life. Genes are the informational coding mechanism that brings "brute matter" alive, giving it shape and purpose. — apokrisis

Not everyone. Firstly I don't think genes do (or did) produce life. They have vital roles in development, functioning, growth and reproduction, but they must have come along after life had already started. But secondly and more relevant to our discussion, it isn't the informational coding mechanism that does the work genes do: DNA is the mechanism. "Information" and "encoding" are metaphors here, ways of describing the process. But when you've described the process in terms of deoxyribonucleic acid etc., you've said it all. There isn't any work for "information" or "semiosis" to do.

The human mind is the product of four levels of semiosis. — apokrisis

Semiosis can be defined as "the process of signification in language or literature".

Or "an action or process involving the establishment of a relationship between a sign and its object and meaning".

Semiosis doesn't seem like the sort of thing that could produce a mind. Semiosis seems like a product of the mind.

I don't see why consciousness couldn't be explained. The question is, "how does feeling or experience arise from processes in the brain (and body)?"

As you know I have a family member working in this field, he has an absolutely enormous microscope and brain and I'm quite hopeful that he will detect the neural correlates of consciousness in my lifetime. That would be nice.

Seriously, we are finding out so much about the workings of the brain at the moment, I think we may be close to identifying what switches consciousness on.

In one experiment a mouse learned to push a button to get a reward when it saw a faint grey line appearing on a screen. The researchers were able to identify neurons firing in time with the appearance of the line. The line was then made more and more faint, until the mouse could no longer see it and stopped pressing the button. But the researchers could still see neurons firing in time with the line. Could the next step be the identification of the link between the conscious and the unconscious processes there?

Maybe that's because we don't know the nature of particles. They contain charges by means of which the interact, by coupling to the glue fields between them. — EugeneW

This doesn't explain anything.

The image of the food and me taking it runs around on the neurons, which makes me say not to do it.Empathy. Dunno how this can be seen or translated in ion currents — EugeneW

This post doesn't progress the discussion.

How this unification is achieved is the issue. My thought is that fields are extended throughout the brain, and indeed everything, and consciousness is perhaps best understood as a fundamental field-property. — bert1

This fascinating lecture https://youtu.be/zNVQfWC_evg tells us that "everything is fields", rather than, say, particles. So everything can be understood as a field property, including consciousness.

But that doesn't explain how consciousness arises, any more than saying "it's all particles".

I share your suspicion that some brain-wide phenomenon may be crucial, but that is no more than speculation. And it will be a specific, dedicated phenomenon, not the more general quantum fields that apparently make up everything.

This article https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538094/ explains that the Neural Binding Problem comprises "at least four distinct problems" and points out that "At this time, the state of scientific understanding is radically different for the four versions of the NPB".

One of the subproblems, the problem of the Subjective Unity of Perception, "remains mysterious".

"The connections between neurons" doesn't explain how we have unified subjective experience.

Thank you Eugene, that is clearer.

The only thing happening in the brain is ion currents running parallel on the network, from birth to dead (the brain can't be turned off). — EugeneW

You do not write with clarity. Most of the time it seems like you are just making stuff up. Ion currents running parallel are not the only thing happening in the brain, by any means. For example consciousness is affected by neurohormones, which act on a far longer timescale than the synapses. Then there is the wave activity affecting populations of neurons.

The brain is not a digital computer.

"How?" is still a mystery, but the leading theory is that all structures of the brain operate in a complex network of unparralleled sophistiction. — Garrett Travers

That's garbage man. Are you really studying philosophy?

How is that a "theory"? A theory is "a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something". A scientific theory is "is a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts".

That "theory" you are so captivated by doesn't explain anything at all!

And where do you get the idea that it's "the leading theory"? In what field? My son is a neuroscientist. Here are two of the current research projects in the lab he runs:

1. The cingulate cortex (Cg) provides long-range retinotopically specific top-down input to the primary visual cortex (V1) in mice. Previous studies have argued that this circuit may serve as a mechanism of selective attention, as optogenetic stimulation of this projection enhances visual responses and improves visual discrimination. Other work has argued for a role of this projection in relaying predictive motor signals to sensory cortex. In this study we are characterising the endogenous recruitment of this circuit during visually guided behaviour. Specifically, we are using two-photon microscopy to longitudinally image activity of GCaMP6s labelled axons originating from Cg in layer 1 of V1 while animals performed a Go/Nogo visual discrimination task.

2. Higher visual areas, such as the lateral medial visual area in rodents, send dense axonal projections to lower levels of the processing hierarchy. The purpose or function of these feedback signals remains unclear, but they have been suggested to provide a substrate for a form of predictive processing (Marques et al. 2018). In this study we are examining 1) the relationship between the functional properties of LM>V1 axons and the neurons they target in V1 in the awake brain, and 2) the manner in which this feedback circuit forms after eye opening, testing the hypothesis that this putative predictive circuit recapitulates visual experience.

I asked him about Global Workplace Theory and its relevance to his work. He said he has heard the name Baars, he has heard of Global Workplace Theory, but he doesn't know anything about it.

Can't wait to tell him that it's the leading theory, and that all structures of the brain operate in a complex network of unparralleled sophistiction.

I'll look at the global workspace theory more as that is what Garrett seems to be drawn to, and I like the idea of a space, as consciouness seems somewhat space-like to me, and space might be a candidate for that which unifies brain processes. — bert1

Also, you might consider this, from earlier in the discussion:

So Garrett, you asked for support for my assertion that the brain doesn't work through "information", and I provided it. Dehaene, defending Global Workspace Theory, says that "consciousness is nothing but the flexible circulation of information within a dense switchboard of cortical neurons".

And as Cobb observes, Global Workspace Theory does not explain why flexible circulation of information causes consciousness to pop up.

Now me, I think it's stuff like electrochemical impulses and wavelike interactions between populations of neurons that cause and modify consciousness. And not "information". I don't think GWT explains anything.

Do you have any response?

For example, the shape of the flower is engraved by connection strengths between neurons, which is physically accomplished by widening the synapses. — EugeneW

Do you have a reference of some kind for that?

I don't think it has much to do with "space" as such bert1, that's more of a metaphor.

Galen Strawson said he should be sued by Fair Trading for calling his book Consciousness Explained, when he does no such thing. — Wayfarer

Wow that is really interesting to me. Consciousness Explained was one of the first books I read on Philosophy of Mind, and I naively took what Dennett said at face value. Put me on the wrong track for some years! I find that unforgivable. Dennett I regard as a blustering charlatan, and I think he has done immeasurable damage. Good to hear that he made Strawson angry.

The main point of their critique centres around the 'mereological fallacy', i.e. the idea that the brain does things. The brain is not itself an agent, and does not, in that sense, do anything, although obviously you need one to act (although not always, it seems.) — Wayfarer

I have read a bit of Bennett and Hacker, and I was left scratching my head and wondering what they were getting so uptight about. When people say the brain does things, it's a bit of shorthand, what they mean is that the person does things, and the brain plays a major role in that.

Do you understand why they think the mereological fallacy is important?

Right. So you can see all these marvellous things that I can't. And yet, I seem to be managing ok.

And I'm not the one who wasted five years of his one life in a fucking catholic monastery. I reckon I will look elsewhere for wisdom.

How does that tie in with your assertion that you "have never been religious for a single day"?

Well, I think you may be falling into the trap of adopting the Cartesian categorisation of elements of existence.

But how does that account for your soul?

Do you mean that your body plays piano automatically, like a robot? :smile:
What is that directs it, not just to play (i.e. tap on the keys), but also what to play and how to play it, how to express a melody, how to compose a music piece ... ? — Alkis Piskas

My mind, as I mentioned.

What does "AP" stand for? — Alkis Piskas

Alkis Piskas.

I've got a body that can do things like pushing the keys on the piano, and I've got a mind that can do things like appreciating the emotional tension and release in the music. So I'm wondering what I would need a soul or spirit for. You seem to think you have a soul or spirit in addition to your body and mind, so I'm wondering what role it plays in your life.