So does the fact that no such 'perpetual motion' device has ever been made refute that claim? — Wayfarer
I don't think it is the kind of transformation I was talking about in the OP — Wayfarer
And yet here with the turn to information theoretic physics, we have science that is actually now more phenomenological, more idealistic. — apokrisis
I think you're not talking about information but semantic content, propositions, Frege's third realm, etc. Every reason to expect those to be connected, but there are steps in between. — Srap Tasmaner
I think there is a belief that what does this transformation is understood, but I'm questioning that assumption — Wayfarer
But in so doing, it also risks losing any relationship with reality. That is why Jim Baggott's book, referenced in the above blog post, is sub-titled 'Farewell to Reality' — Wayfarer
Actually my point is really rather prosaic. It is simply this: that ideas are not material, but real in their own terms. They are not composed of material units of any kind, and can't be derived from physics, but exist in their own right, and on their own terms. — Wayfarer
Floridi defines information as well-formed data which is meaningful. Are your viewpoints amenable to this definition? — Galuchat
It is physical because the cause is physical. Is there an actual three-masted Greek ship on the horizon? Yes, or no? Is that not the cause of the whole string of events starting with the sentry observing the ship on the horizon? Yes, or no? Can you say that any of the forms the information takes would have happened or existed if there wasn't a three-masted Greek ship on the horizon?No - but there doesn't need to be, for the point to be made, which is that the physical form and the medium in which the information is transmitted can be entirely changed, but the meaning remain the same. How, therefore, could the 'meaning of the information' be physical? — Wayfarer
I don't see how "reality is information" necessarily entails idealism. I don't see information as mind dependent. Minds process information, which has to exist prior to being processed. The causal relationships of the universe exist independent of minds. Minds simply stretch those relationships into time and space.Hmm. It is ironic that a lot of you guys are reacting in horror at physicists who might take it literally that reality is just a pattern of information. It is after all just a modern version of idealism. You have physicists who are denying materialism and saying things are pure information. Reality is even observer created if you go to the quantum extreme.
So here we have science prepared to talk openly about a concrete idealist ontology. And everyone gasps in shock. No they must be wrong. Matter is obviously real. The Matrix could only be a simulation hanging off an electrical plug. — apokrisis
I don't see how "reality is information" necessarily entails idealism. — Harry Hindu
Minds process information, which has to exist prior to being processed. — Harry Hindu
The causal relationships of the universe exist independent of minds. Minds simply stretch those relationships into time and space. — Harry Hindu
But in so doing, it also risks losing any relationship with reality. That is why Jim Baggott's book, referenced in the above blog post, is sub-titled 'Farewell to Reality'
— Wayfarer
Of course I agree that an idealistic understanding is just as bad as a materialistic one. — apokrisis
But biological life certainly looks well explained by biosemiosis. That is killing the accidentalism of Darwininan reductionism as surely as it is killing the vitalism of spiritualism or theism. Both the brute materialist and the brute idealist has lost out as we come to understand life as a semiotic process. — apokrisis
The mind-stuff of the world is, of course, something more general than our individual conscious minds.... The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time; these are part of the cyclic scheme ultimately derived out of it.... It is necessary to keep reminding ourselves that all knowledge of our environment from which the world of physics is constructed, has entered in the form of messages transmitted along the nerves to the seat of consciousness.... Consciousness is not sharply defined, but fades into subconsciousness; and beyond that we must postulate something indefinite but yet continuous with our mental nature.... It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character. But no one can deny that mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, and all else is remote inference."
Now there can be something similar without life (or an extension of it like the thermostat), in, say, an avalanche. Little input, big output that spends a lot of free energy. And there's an obvious connection in the way life keeps its "subsystems" balanced at criticality. You can get sensitivity by creating tiny avalanche conditions and then waiting, maintaining those conditions, and then resetting after each tiny event. Like a thermostat.
[...]
So yes I lean toward seeing the use of information about your environment, rather than just being shoved about by it, as a hallmark of life. But the information is still obviously physical, just as living things and their environments are. And I don't immediately see the need to describe this use as interpretation. — Srap Tasmaner
The point being that of causal agency: some givens hold causal agency (e.g. it is the squirrel that hides its nuts and remembers where they’ve been stashed so as to maintain its own livelihood) while some givens are devoid of causal agency: e.g., from the first pebble that commences it to the grand finale of optimal entropic equilibrium, the avalanche was all part of a complex causal chain that neither begins nor ends with the avalanche itself—at no point was there an avalanche-agency that commenced the effects of the avalanche of its own impetus.
To make choices—to hold causal agency—is to necessarily be aware of alternatives (otherwise, no choice can exist). Hence, it is to necessarily hold awareness and, thereby, to necessarily interpret (give meaning to) information. — javra
How does this help understand how an organism uses information? — Srap Tasmaner
(There) is a radical dissimilarity between all animal communication systems and human language. The former are based entirely on “linear order,” whereas the latter is based on hierarchical syntax. In particular, human language involves the capacity to generate, by a recursive procedure, an unlimited number of hierarchically structured sentences. A trivial example of such a sentence is this: “How many cars did you tell your friends that they should tell their friends . . . that they should tell the mechanics to fix?” (The ellipses indicate that the number of levels in the hierarchy can be extended without limit.) Notice that the word “fix” goes with “cars,” rather than with “friends” or “mechanics,” even though “cars” is farther apart from “fix” in linear distance. The mind recognizes the connection, because “cars” and “fix” are at the same level in the sentence’s hierarchy.
If a concept is a pattern that is transmitted how can the transmission be physical but not the pattern? — praxis
Apart from what the messages are about (ships, distance), is there anything other than their representations (inscriptions, morse) and their mental renditions (sentry, officer)? — jorndoe
No - but there doesn't need to be, for the point to be made, which is that the physical form and the medium in which the information is transmitted can be entirely changed, but the meaning remain the same. How, therefore, could the 'meaning of the information' be physical? — Wayfarer
I don't choose to see, do you? — Srap Tasmaner
I don’t know if you do this intentionally or not, but you get bogged down in details as regard individual particulars. I’m asking a metaphysical question in relation to general ontological givens. — javra
Is information—in and of itself—endowed with awareness? — javra
If no, than I argue you have (at some abstract threshold whose particulars need not be here established) a duality between a) awareness to which information holds meaning and b) awareness-devoid information. Here, all meaning will pertain to awareness, which is an aspect of mind. Hence, if any notion of information or lack thereof is in any way meaningful, it will be so due to the presence of minds which interpret the given information. — javra
As I understand it, autopoesis was coined by Maturana and Varela, but I don't think it was something that was thought to be explanatory at the level of individual species but as a general characteristic of metabolic systems. — Wayfarer
No-- but then the foundation for this question has not been established. Is information-- in and of itself-- endowed with color? With a sense of humor? With musicality or elegance? — Srap Tasmaner
Okay.
Are you quite certain that when I try to figure out what I'm looking at and what it might mean to me, that it is information I am interpreting? — Srap Tasmaner
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