Not in a reductionist sense, though. We are not one with the exchange, but only with a part of it. The question is, which part? — Possibility
you inform the world just as it informs you. — Pop
questions.It does not make any sense to
talk about reality without the INFORMATION about it[/ — Pop
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’." — Pop
Enactivism is a position in cognitive science that argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. ... "Organisms do not passively receive information from their environments, which they then translate into internal representations." — Pop
Information is merely relations between physical entities viewed from our modeling perspective, a distinctly human formal causality. — Pop
"Organisms do not passively receive information from their environments, which they then translate into internal representations." — Pop
Right. I think Isaac was confirming that this is the prevailing view among neuro scientists. — frank
the external world is represented by neural patterning somehow. Information of the external world acts upon us to cause a patterning of brain matter - this patterning is identical to the external world. It is a nonsense to think we can extricate ourselves from our neurological state. — Pop
Finally, I think we should try to find this basic, generally applicable definition of information not from the human point of view, or the organismal/cellular point of view, but from a more objective/general one, if possible - so, instead of thinking about what information is for a human being, or a cell, we should think what information would be for a star, or for a water molecule in an ocean, or for the elements of a multiplicity, as Joshs said. If information is a quality of an interaction, then it plausible that information is not a quality of only human interactions but also a quality of any other type of interactions. — Daniel
Thus these patterns cannot be spoken of as codes in any traditional sense. There are only relative temporary stabilities overlaying a ceaselessly changing neural patterning. — Joshs
“feelings” are an interaction of two varieties of information - biological and cultural. — apokrisis
Biology accounts for states of arousal that are functional in that they prepare us for actions that meet the demands of our world. Sociology accounts for how we must give reasons for our responses in a language that is socially accepted. — apokrisis
I offered the cartoon version of oxytocin. But one of the interesting things is how it is neuromodulator that looks designed to override the usual natural fear and anxiety of “being too close” to others. It allows intimacy to override keeping even your social conspecifics at a certain safe distance. — apokrisis
Chimps have mutual grooming sessions as moments of intimacy. Cats prefer a brief sniff of noses. Humans evolved to tolerate the new behaviours of long term pair bonding and prolonged child rearing. That needed more of an off button for the kind of anxiety that being “overly close for too long” is otherwise liable to evoke. — apokrisis
Our affect system system is precisely calibrated to our million years of hunter-gatherer living. — apokrisis
If folk need lots of psychotherapy these days, that is not so surprising. Society has become its own historical project with its own socially-constructed framing of how to think and what to feel. Biology hasn’t had a million years to catch up with some of the ways we are now meant to live. — apokrisis
…whatever socially accepted narrative helps explain your feelings at the time in a reasonable light. — apokrisis
Generalised anxiety is a pathological state. — apokrisis
Nervous expectation is functional as a way of rising to the expectation of some temporary challenge. It is dysfunctional to get stuck in any particular physiological state for longer than the immediate situation demands. — apokrisis
But of course, culture can frame your reality as a state of constant threat, or a dread of a moment’s boredom. It can play all sorts of manipulative tricks.
— apokrisis
you too have an amygdala as well as a prefrontal cortex. The neurology tells you what part of your responses are preverbal - or at least limited to the kinds of shrieks, screams and swear words the amygdala, in cahoots with the anterior cingulate, might cause you to emit even as you are trying to make sense of something scary that is in the middle of happening. — apokrisis
Try stepping out on to a stage or the finals of a tennis tournament and not feel butterflies. It is essential to react physiologically and neurologically in a way that gets you up for the occasion. — apokrisis
habits take long to form and a split second to emit. Attention takes longer to develop, but offers more immediate fruits. — apokrisis
Yes. Quantum Theory has made the old Atomic theory obsolete, except in the sense that it is much more intuitive for non-scientists. A Quantum Field is not made of a swarm of atoms, but of a mathematical pattern of relationships.The very idea of "physical stuff" is what the idea of "physical patterns" is meant to replace. — apokrisis
What you refer to as "statistically emergent regularity" sounds similar to my own metaphysical notion of "Order from Chaos", to explain how Something (objects) could emerge from Nothing (potential). Plato's myth (likely story) of CHAOS (uncertainty) described how the Real World could magically appear as-if from nowhere, by organizing the disorderly randomness of Chaos. Aristotle seemed to think of "Potential" simply as an abstract Principle, but ultimately, the word "principle" refers back to Princeps (ruler, lawmaker).A metaphysics of statistically emergent regularity can replace that by starting with the "everythingness" of a vagueness or uncertainty. — apokrisis
Yes. Colloquially, the term "chaos" now implies a complete absence of pattern. But for Plato, Chaos was empty of actual (physical) things, but it was full of creative "Potential".Even chaos ain't just chaotic but a specific kind of natural pattern - one described by fractals, criticality, powerlaws, Levy flights, 1/f noise ... that kind of "mathematical stuff". — apokrisis
Yes, The Catholic theologians gave “metaphysics” a bad name, as far as Enlightenment science is concerned. But Quantum Theory and Information Theory are making the idea of something “beyond” (meta) physics (atoms, matter) more plausible.What Aristotle likely meant by prime matter before the Catholics subsumed his metaphysics into their theology, — apokrisis
Quantum Theory has forced us to think in terms of cloudlike “fields” instead of hard little “atoms". And Information Theory has given us a new vocabulary (e.g. bits & bytes ) for “mind stuff”. I call my personal metaphysics : “Enformationism”, as an update to Atomism and Materialism.So the need - as cutting edge physics moves on to a unified quantum gravity theory - is to find a suitable metaphysics which can measure both lumps of formed matter and the backdrop spatiotemporal void in the same fundamental units. — apokrisis
I envision that “radially uncertain” state in terms of Plato's Chaos. And the “stabilizing” “necessity” is what he implied was Divine Intention. Some kind of Intentional Lawmaker is necessary, unless as some physicists imagine, the Laws of Nature were just floating out there in Eternity before an accidental quantum fluctuation lit the fuse of the Big Bang. Plato was somewhat ambivalent about the Lawmaker, in some cases referring only to an abstract principle of LOGOS, and otherwise to a Demiurge. To account for the necessary "intention", I ambiguously label the Lawmaker as "G*D", which is not the Jehovah of the Bible. In place of the workman, following orders, I simply call it "Nature" or "Evolution" or "The Program" :nerd:It is how the radically uncertain becomes stabilised by the constraining necessity of achieving a generalised self-consistency. — apokrisis
Yes. But this isn't metaphysics exactly. It's that conservation of information has turned out to be the crux of a problem with the way we understand black holes.
As what's his name said: reality is the stuff we can't do without. I think a lot of the preoccupation with trying to sort that out in terms of substances comes from emotional problems with religion and a desire to thwart it on all fronts no matter the cost in terms of making sense. On the other hand there are those eager to push metaphysics into the forefront because they want to license some sort of spirituality. — frank
So this is philosophy of science, not science per se. Biology mostly gets its money from the powerful pharmaceutical industry. Biologists are free to use whatever paradigms work for them. They don't answer to anyone but industry executives who couldn't care less about philosophy. Biologists are in charge of the conversation, not physicists, and certainly not philosophers. — frank
but what we are seeing broadly is a kickback against that view, as being an impediment to understanding, — Pop
The chemical mechanical paradigm just can not cut it, — Pop
I think that you assign to ‘information’ the role that is assigned to ‘citta’ in Indian religions. It’s like you’ve had an ‘aha!’ experience - not saying it’s not real - and that you’re translating that into the jargon of information science, or trying to. That’s what I think is going on here. — Wayfarer
Information is merely relations between physical entities viewed from our modeling perspective, a distinctly human formal causality.
— Pop
Do you mean that there's no non-physical information? What about abstract elements, like numbers, concepts, etc. They cannot be used as information? — Alkis Piskas
I’ve been presenting a model of affectivty that is only supported by five authors
that I know of, and they are drawing from a radicalized version of philosophical phenomenology — Joshs
Are we never capable of giving reasons for our responses in a language that is not socially accepted? — Joshs
This sounds like a glorified version of S-R theory. Do reinforcements from discrete centers of ‘pleasure’ have the capability to shape our complex attributions this way? I know conventional models of addiction rely on a reductive idea of the reinforcing effect of chemicals. — Joshs
Ratcliffe doesn’t deny that primitive sensory events of pleasure and pain are an important part of the organization of behavior.... — Joshs
“Emotions “tune us to the world, making it relevant to us by opening up certain possibilities for explicit deliberation and closing off others. “(Ratcliffe 2002) — Joshs
it is helpful to see how he makes use of Damasio's neuroscience-inspired theorizing on the relations of affect and intention. — Joshs
You can see that this account is closer to your own than the one I described in an earlier post. But I think there are still important differences. — Joshs
But if the discrete contribution of neuro-reinforcers get swallowed up by and subsumed within the integrated goals of the system , then no genetically programmed reinforcement variant can have any more than a superficial effect on behavior. — Joshs
If we were able to genetically engineer a powerfully reinforcing olfactory response to human smell, would this amount to a superficial or significant influence on our social lives and propensity to intimacy? — Joshs
And if it did ‘catch up’ , no amount of monkeying around with reinforcement contingencies, no amount of dialing down of anxiety juice, would make a significant impact on ptsd or other anxiety syndrome. — Joshs
Try performing the same speech in the privacy of your living room and with one audience member. No butterflies and arguably a better performance. Or play that tennis match without the huge crowd and see how your nervousness is reduced and how your focus may improve. — Joshs
The hormonal ‘ boost’ is only half of the anxiety equation . The other half is what defines it as a negative feeling. it is the experience of potential loss, the feeling of interruption of cognitive activity , a gap in awareness. This is the pain component of fear and anxiety. There are plenty of stimulants on the market, but only intentional attribution can produce the pain of potential loss. — Joshs
If it is truly unthinking, unconscious and automatic it will play no relevant role in my subsequent thinking This is why subliminal advertising never worked. — Joshs
Aristotle seemed to think of "Potential" simply as an abstract Principle, — Gnomon
Some kind of Intentional Lawmaker is necessary, unless as some physicists imagine, the Laws of Nature were just floating out there in Eternity before an accidental quantum fluctuation lit the fuse of the Big Bang. — Gnomon
I ambiguously label the Lawmaker as "G*D", which is not the Jehovah of the Bible. In place of the workman, following orders, I simply call it "Nature" or "Evolution" or "The Program" — Gnomon
Again, concise, basic, original definitions... that would be fun. — Daniel
if information depends on interaction, it would be interesting to discuss what in the interaction leads to the emergence of information so that we can say that information is the result of this type of change or that type of change. Discussing the dynamics of change (rates of change) that produce information would certainly help us find general characteristic of information. — Daniel
↪Pop
Red Pill moment
— Pop
I had to Google this. It's a reference to the 1999 film "the Matrix". — Mark Nyquist
I think everything is up to interpretation. And if we agree God is out of the boundary of human reason, then it is comforting for some people to base all the mysteries and unknowns to him.
But still, information is something that people seek, provide, supply and use. If something is information, then it cannot be unknown. If something is not unknown, then it must be able to be demonstrated and verified when required. If it cannot, then it is a myth and speculation. — Corvus
What do you think? — Joshs
Ouch, I am not understanding what you said. Can you reword that?
From my perspective, the information is in the rock if we are conscious of it or not. — Athena
So, a concise definition would be, roughly, information is change in a system which amount (the amount of change) is bounded (dependent) to some extent by the effect of the system on its interacting partners.
Edit: Information is a limit to the amount of change a system can undergo which arises due to the system being part of an interaction; and because it is an interaction, such limit depends to some extent on the system itself. — Daniel
because it is an interaction, such limit depends to some extent on the system itself. — Daniel
So, a concise definition would be, roughly, information is change in a system which amount (the amount of change) is bounded (dependent) to some extent by the effect of the system on its interacting partners. — Daniel
It depends on how you interpret the term "existence". In fact, it is mostly used for physical things. And this because science is totally materialistic as most people also are. However, this is only a bias, and a stupid one. Because Ideas exist, numbers exist, and all sort of abtract, non-physical things. If I say "I exist" this doesn't mean that only my body exists. I also exist on a mental, spriritual plane. Hence, dualism, and Descartes' statement "I think therefore I am (exist)".Non-physical is a tricky concept because it implies non-existence. — Mark Nyquist
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