The only way I can make sense of Rolf Landauer's claim is through the necessity of the physical for information storage, manipulation or its transmission. — TheMadFool
Floridi defines information as well-formed data which is meaningful. — Galuchat
No, I don't think that I agree with this, because "data" implies that the information has already been interpreted, and this would mean that it cannot be information unless it has been interpreted. — Metaphysician Undercover
There is a dual problem here, two extremes. One is the question of whether relationships between things, which have not yet been interpreted by a mind, can be called information. — Metaphysician Undercover
The other extreme, which I already outlined, is the question of whether described relationships, which cannot be demonstrated to be actual relationships between real things, can be called information. — Metaphysician Undercover
Suppose that I don't know about the earth's spin, but I observe the sun setting every evening and rising every morning. So I plot a trajectory, which has the sun moving around the back side of the stars which are behind the earth, every night. Then I hand you this "data". Is this so-called data information or imagination? — Metaphysician Undercover
I wasn't.There is no point debating philosophy against naive realism. — Wayfarer
How can something be functional, or useful, if it doesn't have some degree of truth to it?That is where I would disagree. Sure it is the usefully simplistic view of what goes on. But my semiotic approach says mind shapes the signs its treats as "information". Out there in the real material world, there is only radiant energy with some distribution of frequencies. The "mind" or brain then does its processing and understands that in terms of colours. It produces its own meaningful symbol that then stands in a mediating relation with the physics.
The primate mind in particular can see the red fruit that is ripe vividly against the backdrop of the green foliage that is of less interest. Well, there has to be some kind of evolutionary explanation for why our primate ancestors dropped a retinal pigment while living their nocturnal existence and then hastily regrew one once they started wandering about the landscape during the day.
So the mind is a virtual reality - reality as it is meaningful in terms of our interests. We don't just mindlessly process the physical information that is "out there". From the get go, we are symbolising the possibilities of that world in terms that are functional for us.
This means that when physicists talk about information and biologists talk about information, it isn't exactly the same.
But then, if we know how it is not the same, that is how we can know the way it is then the same. A mindless theory of information can be the basis for grounding the higher order mindful one. — apokrisis
What is the relationship between the reality and the virtual reality? If there isn't one, then you are arguing for solipsism, as there would be no bearing of the real world on the virtual world. There would be no way for you to even talk about the real world as they would be separate and unable to interact (no relationship). In order for you to say anything about the real world, via your virtual world, would mean that some state-of-affairs in the real world influences the state-of-affairs in the virtual world. If there is no connection between the real world and the virtual world, then how can you even talk about the real world? How can you even say that you are informed about anything in the real world? There would be no causal connection and therefore no flow of information.So the mind is a virtual reality - reality as it is meaningful in terms of our interests. We don't just mindlessly process the physical information that is "out there". From the get go, we are symbolising the possibilities of that world in terms that are functional for us. — apokrisis
The brain's special status comes from a special thing the brain does, which makes us see, think, feel, choose, and act. That special thing is information processing, or computation. Information and computation reside in patterns of data and in relations of logic that are independent of the physical medium that carries them.
When you telephone your mother in another city, the message stays the same as it goes from your lips to her ears even as it physically changes its form, from vibrating air, to electricity in a wire, to charges in silicon, to flickering light in a fiber optic cable, to electromagnetic waves, and then back again in reverse order.
In a similar sense, the message stays the same when she repeats it to your father at the other end of the couch after it has changed its form inside her head into a cascade of neurons firing and chemicals diffusing across synapses.
Likewise, a given program can run on computers made of vacuum tubes, electromagnetic switches, transistors, integrated circuits, or well-trained pigeons, and it accomplishes the same things for the same reasons.
This insight, first expressed by the mathematician Alan Turing, the computer scientists Alan Newell, Herbert Simon, and Marvin Minsky, and the philosophers Hilary Putnam and Jerry Fodor, is now called "the computational theory of mind". It is one of the great ideas in intellectual history, for it solves one of the puzzles that make up the `mind-body problem': how to connect the ethereal world of meaning and intention, the stuff of our mental lives, with a physical hunk of matter like the brain.
Why did Bill get on the bus? Because he wanted to visit his grandmother and knew the bus would take him there. No other answer will do. If he hated the sight of his grandmother, or if he knew the route had changed, his body would not be on that bus. For millennia this has been a paradox. Entities like `wanting to visit one's grandmother' and `knowing the bus goes to Grandma's house' are colorless, odorless, and tasteless. But at the same time they are *causes* of physical events, as potent as any billiard ball clacking into another.
The computational theory of mind resolves the paradox. It says that beliefs and desires are information, incarnated as configurations of symbols. The symbols are the physical states of bits of matter, like chips in a computer or neurons in the brain. They symbolize things in the world because they are triggered by those things via our sense organs, and because of what they do once they are triggered. If the bits of matter that constitute a symbol are arranged to bump into the bits of matter constituting another symbol in just the right way, the symbols corresponding to one belief can give rise to new symbols corresponding to another belief logically related to it, which can give
rise to symbols corresponding to other beliefs, and so on. Eventually the bits of matter constituting a symbol bump into bits of matter connected to the muscles, and behavior happens.
The computational theory of mind thus allows us to keep beliefs and desires in our explanations of behavior while planting them squarely in the physical universe. It allows meaning to cause and be caused. The computational theory of mind is indispensable in addressing the questions we long to answer. Neuroscientists like to point out that all parts of the cerebral cortex look pretty much alike - not only the different parts of the human brain, but the brains of different animals.
One could draw the conclusion that all mental activity in all animals is the same. But a better conclusion is that we cannot simply look at a patch of brain and read out the logic in the intricate pattern of connectivity that makes each part do its separate thing. In the same way that all books are physically just different combinations of the same seventy-five or so characters, and all movies are physically just different patterns of charges along the tracks of a videotape, the mammoth tangle of spaghetti of the brain may all look alike when examined strand by strand.
The content of a book or a movie lies in the pattern of ink marks or magnetic charges, and is apparent only when the piece is read or seen. Similarly, the content of brain activity lies in the patterns of connections and patterns of activity among the neurons. Minute differences in the details of the connections may cause similar-looking brain patches to implement very different programs. Only when the program is run does the coherence become evident. "
No, Apo. I get your point, and I know that you are getting mine. I think you are trying to avoid answering hard questions. How can something be functional in the reality "out there" if there isn't some degree of truth associated with it?You are missing the point. Yes, the mind needs to relate to the world functionally and so its beliefs need to be "true". But that correctness is in relation to the mindful organism's purposes, not the truth of the thing in itself. So what we perceive are the signs of reality. We want to make "our" reality - our umwelt - easy to see. — apokrisis
So you talk about the information contained in cause and effect. If wavelength energy is cause, why should it look like hue as its effect? Or why should a fragment of an organic molecule smell like a rose? Why should vibrating air sound like tinkling or grating noise?
The way we read information into the world seems pretty arbitrary if we are to take your simple cause and effect view that demands perception is somehow veridical of how the physics really is, rather than as the useful way we interpret it - the way we make the world easy to see in terms of our evolved sets of interest. — apokrisis
And how can a symbol be understood as a 'physical configuration' at all? The whole point about symbols is that they are abstract, which is exactly why meaning can be transferred via symbols so easily. Conflating 'meaning' with 'physical dispositions of parts' seems very question-begging to me. — Wayfarer
No. It means what caused it. The physical mark would be the effect of more than one cause interacting over time, and that is what it can be used to mean.A physical mark can "mean anything" — apokrisis
I think he means that they can interact with each other and establish causal relationships.Pinker says 'the symbols are physical states of matter', but what does this mean? — Wayfarer
I think he means that the information, which is a relationship - one between causes and effects - is converted from an analog signal into a digital signal in order to be useful for a purpose.Notice he actually uses the term 'incarnated as configurations of symbols'. An 'incarnation' means 'made flesh' - but it is generally understood that what is incarnated is, or was, discarnate prior to being incarnated. If you were to say to someone 'you are the incarnation of beauty', you would be implying that the quality of 'beauty' is 'instantiated' by that person (not a very elegant way of explaining it, but the point stands.) — Wayfarer
The foundation is arranged by natural selection and then built upon as we experience the world and establish new neural connections.I also think there is something very wrong with 'If the bits of matter that constitute a symbol are arranged to bump into the bits of matter constituting another symbol in just the right way, the symbols corresponding to one belief can give rise to new symbols corresponding to another belief logically related to it'. First - they are arranged by what? In the case of a computer, they are arranged according to the computer program which is surely the work of a human intelligence. So if the analogy is with a computer, it tends to suggest something very like 'the watchmaker'. If not, they are not 'arranged' at all, or at any rate, the fact of their proximity and relationship can't really be assigned an explanatory role. — Wayfarer
Read what he says about the tree rings in the tree stump in that same book.And how can a symbol be understood as a 'physical configuration' at all? The whole point about symbols is that they are abstract, which is exactly why meaning can be transferred via symbols so easily. Conflating 'meaning' with 'physical dispositions of parts' seems very question-begging to me. — Wayfarer
when I say mark, in practice we are talking about a switch — apokrisis
So the effective lack of dissipative physics creates the possibility of memory. The mark is timeless, changeless. It is not even located if I can make that exact same mark anywhere I go. — apokrisis
The foundation is arranged by natural selection — Harry Hindu
Read what he says about the tree rings in the tree stump in that same book. — Harry Hindu
I think you are trying to avoid answering hard questions. How can something be functional in the reality "out there" if there isn't some degree of truth associated with it? — Harry Hindu
Look at your post. It is an explanation of reality itself, not the virtual reality in your head, but the one out there, and it's relationship with the virtual reality in your head, right? — Harry Hindu
Let's say that I associate red apples as being delicious and green apples as disgusting. In this instance, I'm relating a color to one of my subjective experiences. — Harry Hindu
The apples aren't really different colors, except in my head, and they are delicious and disgusting only in my head. But the apples do have different properties that cause a different interaction with the same wavelength of light that gets reflected into my eye and processed by the eye-brain system, which results in me seeing different colors, or interacts with my taste buds and nervous system that results in a taste of deliciousness or distaste for me. — Harry Hindu
Even our own minds don't have properties of color independent of looking at the world. Even closing your eyes, you end up looking at the inside of your eyelids, which is the dark side of your eyelids, which is why it appears black. — Harry Hindu
In this sense, light is a cause of color as much as the existence of an eye-brain system is. — Harry Hindu
How is it that your mind has a certain quality, structure, attribute, or property that is persistent and follows certain logical rules that allows it to be functional, but everything else doesn't? If everything else is just a function of the mind, then that would include other people, therefore solipsism would be the case. — Harry Hindu
What I'm saying is that there is a two-way street where information flows from the outside to the inside and information flows from the inside (projected by intent) to the outside. — Harry Hindu
The information crosses the boundary between your VR and the real world, back into my VR. If I make your post into what is functional to my purposes, how can you ever expect express yourself at all. How is it that language works at all? — Harry Hindu
And how can a symbol be understood as a 'physical configuration' at all? The whole point about symbols is that they are abstract, which is exactly why meaning can be transferred via symbols so easily. — Wayfarer
No, I think a switch is different to a mark. A switch does something; a mark means something. — Wayfarer
It seems to me you can't avoid the element of intentionality or the requirement for a 'meaning maker', if you like. — Wayfarer
the one you claimed your OP was about in citing Landauer on the very issue of the difference between creating information, and creating and erasing information. — apokrisis
your post isn't made of abstract types, — Srap Tasmaner
The fact that entropy flows downhill in the Cosmos means that any movement uphill - no matter how accidental it might seem - is negentropic. To the degree that physics is one thing, its "other" is also made counterfactually possible. And if the possible turns out to be the useful - as it is in the case of dissipative structure - then it becomes "Platonically" necessary that it develop as a further habit of nature. Negentropic order must arise if it increases the downhill flow.
Sure, you can just ignore the fact that I made this argument. That is normal human behaviour. I've explained the semiotics of that. But still. Philosophy is about dealing with arguments in systematic fashion. That is suppose to be the special thing about it. — apokrisis
Yes but we don't utter abstractions, — Srap Tasmaner
No need to get huffy. — Wayfarer
What I observed was that, the same information can be represented in a limitless variety of forms and media. So given a meaningful sentence or proposition, if the meaning stays the same, and the representation changes, then the meaning and the representation are separate things. — Wayfarer
That's really a form of dualist argument - that the 'information layer' and the 'physical layer' are different things. — Wayfarer
I also don't see how you can have the 'epistemic cut' without an implied duality between the semantic and the physical level. Is what you're trying to establish, a bridge from the physical to the semantic? — Wayfarer
yet you retain the overall materialist view of there being nothing intentional, there being no kind of 'telos'. — Wayfarer
Saying the telos of existence is dissipatory is not saying there is no telos. It is just mentioning a telos which you have some personal distaste for. — apokrisis
It was a major discovery of the last century that this can be done in a definite fashion. Information and physics can be two sides of the same coin. They can be defined by the same equation, or system of measurement. — apokrisis
you can get away with that, you hope no one will notice you pushing meaning away into Platonia. You can make subjectivity safe from reductionist attack. — apokrisis
When the mind evolves to the point where it can grasp meaning, then it begins to get an insight into 'the formal domain', the domain of possibility, forms and rules (including number). But that domain is not 'something that exists', in the way that material phenomena exist. That is why it is regarded as a 'spooky realm' - but that depiction of it is caused by the habitually naturalistic tendency, which is to try and locate everything within the domain of time and space, amongst the objects of perception. Whereas, the elements of meaning (so to speak) are not 'out there somewhere' - they are instead the constituents of reality, but in a radically different way to objects. They are that which enable us to think rationally, but are not themselves the objects of perception; we see the world through them. The are the 'constituents of the world' insofar as they constitute the very mind which is looking at it (per Kant).
Hence Plato's 'objective idealism' - the notion that ideas are real, independently of anyone's opinion. So I think that amounts to a kind of dualism, with the qualification that Descartes' error was to depict 'res cogitans' as something that could be understood objectively. But there is literally no such thing, there is no 'mind-stuff' anywhere to be found. The reason for that is because it is literally prior to any notion of what exists 'out there somewhere'. It is what informs our thought, by providing us with the ability to see meaning and reason, but you can never see it 'from the outside', so to speak. That is the sense in which it is 'the stuff of thought'. — Wayfarer
What I said - what I spelled out, in plain view, and plain English, was this: — Wayfarer
That is true, as far as it goes, but it is not the final say. I am working towards the idea that the 'domain of meaning' really is independent of the physical world. It's not dependent on it for its reality, and it doesn't arise on account of anything that happens on the physical level; it's not the product of evolution (which everything is supposed to be). — Wayfarer
So what bothers me ... is that the universe remains basically dumb stuff. — Wayfarer
I propose we define physical as whatever has a position in space. Information always has a location in space if you look at it in Aristotelian and not Platonic fashion. So in-so-far as this is true, information is physical - this is because information does not exist independently of the physical structures that transmit it - hylomorphism. — Agustino
I think that "meaningful" implies that the information has already been interpreted. — Galuchat
That would depend on how information is defined. How would you define information in a general sense (i.e., one which takes into account its physical and mental manifestations)? — Galuchat
But the mathematical aspect of data doesn't end with MTC. I find Floridi's comment, "The universe is fundamentally composed of data, understood as dedomena..," intriguing. Is he referring to geometry as a transcendental or abstract universal which constrains that which is physical and that which is psychophysical? Do Aristotelian forms figure into this equation? — Galuchat
That would be misinformation. — Galuchat
But the fact that the 'physical medium' can be completely changed, while retaining the same information, indicates that the information itself is not physical. — Wayfarer
Ascendency is derived using mathematical tools from information theory. It is intended to capture in a single index the ability of an ecosystem to prevail against disturbance by virtue of its combined organization and size.
One way of depicting ascendency is to regard it as “organized power”, because the index represents the magnitude of the power that is flowing within the system towards particular ends, as distinct from power that is dissipated willy-nilly.
In mathematical terms, ascendency is the product of the aggregate amount of material or energy being transferred in an ecosystem times the coherency with which the outputs from the members of the system relate to the set of inputs to the same components (Ulanowicz 1986). Coherence is gauged by the average mutual information shared between inputs and outputs (Rutledge et al. 1976).
Originally, it was thought that ecosystems increase uniformly in ascendency as they developed, but subsequent empirical observation has suggested that all sustainable ecosystems are confined to a narrow “window of vitality” (Ulanowicz 2002). Systems with relative values of ascendency plotting below the window tend to fall apart due to lack of significant internal constraints, whereas systems above the window tend to be so “brittle” that they become vulnerable to external perturbations.
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