Information exist as substance-entity?

JuanZu

Let's think of a USB memory stick. If we open it we do not find any information, we only find an electronic and physical layout. To obtain information we must have a suitable device, a USB reader.
I wonder if the expression "to obtain information" is the correct way to refer to the case. Since the information, this is my theory, does not exist inside the USB stick. Nor does it exist in the USB reader.
The information exists in the relationship between the two devices, the interpreting reader and the USB device. But then we cannot say that the information was contained in the USB stick as a ghost in the device.

Information is always created as a relationship between an interpreter and an interpreted.
But we can go further. When we see the "information" on our computer, in reality we do not see information either, we see pixels, letters, etc. In reality what we see is a transcription, that is to say the effect between two systems of signs put in contact and relationship.

And we go further. Does the information appear in our minds when we read our PC screen? Neither would be the case, is my theory. We function as another reader who transcribes and in which effects arise in our learned language and in our cognitive apparatus that in turn affect us as an organism.
In this sense information is not a noun but a verb, it is always the act of informing as causing transcription effects. Information is never contained anywhere. Information is always to inform, that is, to give-form, in-form. To cause different formations in each case where there is an interpreter and an interpreted.

Further still: information is not transmitted. Since there is nothing contained anywhere that passes from an interpreted to an interpreter, and since what we have are transcription effects (i.e. con-formation in-formation) there is no entity, no substance called information.

MoK

↪JuanZu

The information is the texture of a substance.

wonderer1

Let's think of a USB memory stick. If we open it we do not find any information, we only find an electronic and physical layout. To obtain information we must have a suitable device, a USB reader. I wonder if the expression "to obtain information" is the correct way to refer to the case. Since the information, this is my theory, does not exist inside the USB stick. — JuanZu

The information does exist in the USB stick, in the form of variations in electrical charge in different regions of a flash memory chip. This is why the device works as a memory.

It doesn't appear to me that you are formulating a very useful theory.

JuanZu

The information does exist in the USB stick, in the form of variations in electrical charge in different regions of a flash memory chip. This is why the device works as a memory. — wonderer1

Imagine that you use that USB flash drive to access a Paper you have composed. Now think about the memory itself, do you really see the Paper (the supposed information) inside the USB stick? No. You see exactly what you said, variations in electrical charge. But you don't see the Paper. The Paper is created at the moment of contact and transcription with the interpretant. But before, it did not exist.

JuanZu

↪MoK

I have no idea of what This possible means.

↪wonderer1

I think @JuanZu's idea is that information only comes into existence in the context of someone for whom it is information. You can of course use "information" to refer to the things (such as electrical charges) that bear the information (on @JuanZu's understanding), but then you're just disagreeing about what terms to use. Both uses of "information" are common in everyday speech. "Give me the information!" i.e., Hand over that document! vs. "What information does that document contain?" i.e., What do the symbols mean?

T Clark

Information is always created as a relationship between an interpreter and an interpreted. — JuanZu

A couple of thoughts - The definitions of information I looked up call it a type of knowledge. We have enough trouble here on the forum deciding what knowledge is. I’m not sure how this discussion of information fits into.

T Clark

↪JuanZu

I pushed the post comment button too soon. Here’s my second thought. I don’t disagree with the distinctions you’re making, but I’m not sure what the implications are.

JuanZu

Give me the information!" i.e., Hand over that document! vs. "What information does that document contain?" — J

In both cases the information is presupposed on the side of the interpreted. A correct expression according to my theory would be, "In-form me!" In the sense of causing something in the interpreter. To in-form him is to give form to the language of the one who says "In-form me!". In no case is something transmitted (like a ghost in sound, in ink, or in electric flow). In this case we are only talking about causes and effects, about how signs affect us and create things on the side of the interpreters.

This is quite counter-intuitive. But imagine it is but it is true theory. This prevents us from substantivizing information and treating it as an entity that passes from one side to the other. Which has many consequences for information theory like the ilusion of transmission.

Harry Hindu

The information exists in the relationship between the two devices — JuanZu

Yes, information is a relationship and relationships are fundamental. Everything is a relationship, or process.

Information exists everywhere causes leave effects. Information about who committed a crime exists in the effects they left at the crime scene, and those effects exist whether anyone ever finds the crime scene or not to be informed that a crime occurred, at least until time begins to erase the evidence - another causal process.

There is a lot of information that makes up a USB stick other than the binary data that is stored on it. The manufacturer and the factory it was built in is all part of the causal processes that went into the existence of the USB stick. The existence of the USB stick is itself informative of the causal processes that preceded the effect of it being in your hand and plugging it into the USB port on your computer. Information is everywhere you care to look and which information is relevant is dependent upon the goal in the mind of the informed.

JuanZu

Information is everywhere you care to look and which information is relevant is dependent upon the goal in the mind of the informed. — Harry Hindu

I would not reduce the interpreter to a mind for all cases. A computer can in-form itself by acting as an interpreter as soon as there is a process leading to a transcription effect. That is to say, as soon as the sign system "USB memory" enters into a causal relationship with the computer and its language.

A correct expression according to my theory would be, "In-form me!" — JuanZu

Sure, that makes sense. I was trying to disambiguate the uses of "information" as a noun, based on @wonderer1's comment, which I understand wasn't the main thrust of your OP.

The interesting question now becomes, if Joe and Jane are both "in-formed" in the same way, or with the same result, what fact about the interpreted (document, e.g.) allows this to be so?

NotAristotle

↪JuanZu

Do you think all information requires some kind of interpretation? Is information always other than it appears? Is there always the-thing-itself, and in addition, the information that may be interpreted from that source?

JuanZu

The interesting question now becomes, if Joe and Jane are both "in-formed" in the same way, or with the same result, what fact about the interpreted (document, e.g.) allows this to be so? — J

In this case it is not so much the properties of the document if is the same for both, as the conditions imposed by the interpreters. Both have the same language for example, and the same context of interpretation.

MoK

↪JuanZu

A substance is something that exists and has a set of properties so in this sense the information is not a substance. The information exists in a form in a substance and the form is the result of the substance having specific properties.

JuanZu

↪NotAristotle

1. I cannot speak of information as something that is interpreted because that makes us speak of it as a substance. But there is interpretation as the act of an interpreter who exerts a series of effects on a system of signs. For example a person who exerts his language and his context of interpretation on a book, what another person says, etc.

2. Can You give me more context to that question?

3. Since I conceive information as a relation always in act and not as a substance, I cannot say that information resides as an addition to anything. What appears is a system of signs that must be interpreted; and these have the quality of informing, in the sense of con-forming and trans-forming an interpreter.

JuanZu

The information exists in a form in a substance and the form is the result of the substance having specific properties. — MoK

I cannot say that information is the form in a substance. Information as I conceive it is the act of informing. That is, to cause significant effects on an interpreter.

MoK

I cannot say that information is the form in a substance. — JuanZu

Information is the form in a substance. Take a bulk of clay that does not have any specific form. An artist can give a shape to the bulk of clay to convey something meaningful to his/her audience.

Information as I conceive it is the act of informing. — JuanZu

All things that you conceive, so-called Qualia, are forms of a substance namely the object.

That is, to cause significant effects on an interpreter. — JuanZu

Of course, you need an interpreter to conceive the form and get informed from the information in the form of the object.

JuanZu

Information is the form in a substance. Take a bulk of clay that does not have any specific form. An artist can give a shape to the bulk of clay to convey something meaningful to his/her audience. — MoK

In that case, as I understand it, the bulk of clay is informed, but no longer in the sense of the result but in the sense of the act. The result is a system of signs with a form but it is not the act of informing, that is, the act of giving form. The audience is informed by the work of art in this case, that sign that is the work of art acts on people and then a new act of information appears. But before there was no information in the work of art. There were forms perhaps, but no information; information appears and is created in the relationship of the audience with the work of art. And appears as distinct effects on the audiencie, as interpretation.

Christoffer

Imagine that you use that USB flash drive to access a Paper you have composed. Now think about the memory itself, do you really see the Paper (the supposed information) inside the USB stick? No. You see exactly what you said, variations in electrical charge. But you don't see the Paper. The Paper is created at the moment of contact and transcription with the interpretant. But before, it did not exist. — JuanZu

Neither does a real written paper, it's basically just carbon atoms in different constellations. So is the entire universe. What we perceive as relevant information to us is that which we can interpret as relevant. Language invented to communicate creates the information as a means of our navigation of the world, but our writing on a wall is nothing but entropic forces creating a deterministic movement of matter.

To the universe, the information on the USB stick and its presentation to us remains the same. There's no difference between our perception of the computers interpretation of it based on how we designed it to follow the structure of something perceivable by us... and the very existence of that information.

To the universe, the state at which a paper is perceived on the screen and how it rests on the USB memory is only differentiated by two states of being of the same thing. But even so, the universe would not perceive it has being the same thing as that is to a creation from us.

When thinking about these things it's easy to fall into humanocentrism, in which we value our own relation to something as humans as being equal or more important than what a thing actually is. Seen from the perspective of "something" that does not operate or exist as us humans, the nature of the information on the screen (interpretable by us) and the electrical state of the memory on the USB card, is fundamentally the same thing, or rather a state of something seen from different angles of reality. An object in which one side of it is the screen with the text, and the other side of it is its shape and form of the electrical state on the USB stick.

How we humans relate to things is very specific, very narrow and very biased to our own perception of reality, influenced by many things making a true observation of something flawed.

NotAristotle

Can You give me more context to that question? — JuanZu

I have in mind the USB stick. It appears as it is, but the information, that is the written document file, is in a sense encoded in the USB stick. That is what I mean by the information being other than it appears.

While information may be an act, not a substance, it would seem to rely on substance for its instantiation because there is something that is acted upon. In other words, for there to be an act of interpretation, what is there must be translated into what is meant. Does that sound right?

MoK

↪JuanZu

We have two things, namely the interpreter and the object. The object is a substance and has a specific form which informs the interpreter.

NotAristotle

↪MoK

I think what is being said is that the object lacks form, but the interpreter, through an act, communicates information and thereby gives the substance a kind of form; think of the artist molding the clay.

MoK

↪NotAristotle

Correct!

JuanZu

↪MoK

I agree only if we take into account that the shape of the object is distinguished from the information that will be created later. Since nothing is transmitted. We simply have signs as causes in a work of art that provoke different things in us. Just as a USB stick provokes things in a computer. But there must be a relationship between interpreter and interpreted, between the human and the work of art.

NotAristotle

↪MoK

It is interesting because you said the substance informs the interpreter. I have heard that great artists talk of a marble block "speaking" to them of what to sculpt.

Perhaps this is the right way of looking at it, but I would qualify this appraisal by affirming that the substance in itself is not doing any informing, and instead aver that the interpreter must first interpret, translate, transcribe the substance into a "form" that is understood by it as information. This I will call, tentatively, the communicative act. Interested in JuanZu's thoughts on this.

JuanZu

While information may be an act, not a substance, it would seem to rely on substance for its instantiation because there is something that is acted upon. In other words, for there to be an act of interpretation, what is there must be translated into what is meant. Does that sound right? — NotAristotle

Yes, You are right.

JuanZu

Perhaps this is the right way of looking at it, but I would qualify this appraisal by affirming that the substance in itself is not doing any informing, and instead aver that the interpreter must first interpret, translate, transcribe the substance into a "form" that is understood by it as information. This I will call, tentatively, the communicative act. Interested in JuanZu's thoughts on this. — NotAristotle

I agree with the active role of the interpreter in communication. But I would also add an active role of the interpreted. Here it can be said that the substance also has an active role, as when we read a note on the refrigerator: the note informs and causes effects on us.

When we actually communicate what we do is to cause informational effects on the other person, without anything being transmitted. There is no ghost in the sound. We cause effects on their learned language, we shape it with our words. In communication the active and passive role varies from moment to moment, there is mutual transformation.

Richard B

This is quite counter-intuitive. But imagine it is but it is true theory. This prevents us from substantivizing information and treating it as an entity that passes from one side to the other. Which has many consequences for information theory like the ilusion of transmission. — JuanZu

Quite a claim, that there is an illusion of transmission when we substantivizing information.

If a l wrote a letter to my friend providing information on directions to my house. I can say I have transmitted this information by means of a letter. What was transmitted to him if he arrived at my house? The incorporeal information or material letter? Sending just the paper does not ensure the visit but the information in the letter.

My love for my county was transmitted thru generations by my sacrifices on the battlefield. Do I need a theory to tell me that love cannot be transmitted thru history even though love may not be a substance? Your theory may be true but at the expense of limiting our use of language.

Wayfarer

we cannot say that the information was contained in the USB stick as a ghost in the device. — JuanZu

Agree with the drift, but that is a misleading metaphor. It’s true that information does not exist as a substance, in the same way that mind or metabolic processes don’t exist as substances. But if you are given a cleanly-formatted USB stick it is still correct to say that it contains no information or that the information you had been told was on it does not exist.

Wayfarer

There is no ghost in the sound. — JuanZu

I once wrote a user guide for an information recovery utility. It could retrieve information from drives that had been accidentally formatted or the files over-written. I wonder if you could call such supposedly-deleted information that are not visible to the user but can be retrieved with specialised software ‘ghost files’?

Information exist as substance-entity?

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