That's right, my argument is that all interpretations are subjective. Because of this, no two interpretations are the same. — Metaphysician Undercover
The problem though, is that the same word has different meanings dependent on the context of usage. — Metaphysician Undercover
Here again, we have the issue of "the 'same' meaning" assigned to different phenomenal information. As I explained, I take this to be contradictory. If the two distinct phenomenal occurrences really had the same meaning to you, you would not be able to tell them apart, because it is by virtue of differences in what each of them means to you, that you distinguish one from the other. — Metaphysician Undercover
This seems like the same type/token distinction we've encountered together before.It seems to me that whilst the representation is physical, the idea that is being transmitted is not physical, because it is totally separable from the physical form that the transmission takes. One could, after all, encode the same information in any number of languages, engrave it in stone, write it with pencil, etc. In each instance, the physical representation might be totally different, both in terms of linguistics and medium; but the information is the same.
How, then, could the information be physical? — Wayfarer
Information appears to be massless, is perhaps what you wanted to say, and that is interesting. — Srap Tasmaner
And if "information" lives out there in the Platonic non-physical realm, what else lives there? The baby Jesus? The flying spaghetti monster? The number 5? Your argument depends on information living somewhere that's not physical. That's a lot of ontological baggage to carry. — fishfry
Gödel was a mathematical realist, a Platonist. He believed that what makes mathematics true is that it's descriptive—not of empirical reality, of course, but of an abstract reality. Mathematical intuition is something analogous to a kind of sense perception. In his essay "What Is Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis?", Gödel wrote that we're not seeing things that just happen to be true, we're seeing things that must be true. The world of abstract entities is a necessary world—that's why we can deduce our descriptions of it through pure reason. — Rebecca Goldstein
You're not even making an attempt to rebut what I wrote. — Harry Hindu
I suppose the answer depends in part on what we mean by "information" — Cabbage Farmer
You and I see the same apple, but we don't therefore have the same perception. You and I grasp the same fact, or refer to the same entity by name, but it's only a misleading convention that leads us to say we thus "have the same thought". It seems more fitting to say that the thoughts that run through our heads when we grasp the same fact or refer to the same entity, are about as different as the perceptions that run through our heads when we see the same apple. — Cabbage Farmer
What does it mean to say that something exists but is "not physical"? — Cabbage Farmer
So, what you're saying is that you're lazy? That can't be the case because I've seen you engage others and attempt to persuade those that don't want to be persuaded.Because I think your fundamental premise of 'information being the relationship between cause and effect', and what issues from that, is plainly mistaken, but that this is something I would be unable to persuade you of. Secondly, because, as I said before, it's pointless to debate philosophy against naive or scientific realism. Saying you're a naive or scientific realist, isn't to say you're naive, because you're plainly not, and it's not intended as a pejorative. But I doubt I could say anything to shift that perspective. — Wayfarer
So, what you're saying is that you're lazy? — Harry Hindu
How can you give information without expending energy?P1: All that is physical abides to the law of conservation of mass and energy. E.g. if I give you a physical thing, I have less of it.
P2: Information does not abide to this law. E.g. if I give you information, I don't have less of it.
C: Therefore information is not physical. — Samuel Lacrampe
Well, I am saying 'not physical', so that's close! — Wayfarer
There's a physical difference between a dog biting a man and a man biting a dog, although these two possible systems have the same total mass. — Srap Tasmaner
Arrangement counts for something. — Srap Tasmaner
So, determinate information is always given in physical terms, it is always physical. — Janus
The chalk marks on the board are surely physical, but the algebraic problem that I have to solve, comprises the relationships between ideas, I would have thought. So I don't see any sense in which that is physical. — Wayfarer
But other than, struggling to make sense out of this post. — Wayfarer
How can you go about testing your theory when the outcome of any test will have your purpose imposed on it? All you are saying is your theory is the result of YOUR purposes and your interests, which means that it is only useful to you, not anyone else. — Harry Hindu
This can be explained by conservation of energy. Natural selection must make compromises in "designing" sensory systems as the amount of energy available isn't infinite, and it would probably take an infinite amount of energy to be informed of the world in it's completeness. So, we would be limited by the amount of energy, not some self deciding which parts of a sensory system are more useful than another part. — Harry Hindu
An algebraic cannot be given or understood except in terms of physical marks and symbols; so I'm not sure what you are getting at here. — Janus
Meaning or semantics arises by a symmetry breaking of information. The information must be divided into signal and noise. The greater the contrast - the more information that is discarded as noise - the more meaningful the remaining information which is being treated as the signal. — apokrisis
Then I don't understand what basis you think there is for thinking of them as "non-physical". — Janus
my argument is that what is being conveyed is not describable as 'physical', even if all of the individual components that comprise the messages are physical. — Wayfarer
There have been huge efforts to detect life on other planets, under the acronym SETI. That search is looking for the telltale signs of life. So far, other than a few anomalous messages, and the strange behaviour of some distant stellar objects, no such telltale signs have been found anywhere in the vast universe - it would be a huge news story if they had been.
So aren't these searches looking for a particular kind of order, the existence of which indicates a footprint of biological order? And it was in the context of that order, in which the division between 'symbolic' and 'physical' was made, wasn't it? How can that be extended to any old matter? — Wayfarer
Think again: the number '7'. Certainly, the symbol is physical - but what does it refer to? It refers to a concept, a quantity, which can only be grasped by a mind capable of counting, of saying that 'this means that', and also of understanding that 7=7, not 6 or 8. It is an intelligible object (using the word 'object' metaphorically), not a material object. — Wayfarer
All mathematics deals with number and quantity and without physicality there can be no number or quantity, so... — Janus
That's because you choose to ignore that the arrangement of these physical components is also physical. — Srap Tasmaner
Is that physical information a deliberate signal or unintentional noise. — apokrisis
The symbol '7' only exists in different physical forms as representations. What it represents is the idea of a quantity; an idea which can only really be grasped insofar as it refers to physical things — Janus
To say that a number is an intelligible object is misleading; it leads to the kind of reification that results in Platonism. — Janus
Unintentional noise. — Wayfarer
I'm not ignoring it. I'm saying that 'the arrangement' is of a different order to the physical. Semantics is not reducible to physics. — Wayfarer
Left to its own devices, a pile of pebbles won't convey information; it has to be arranged in order to convey information. — Wayfarer
Imagined abstractions are always abstracted from, and imagined in forms derived from, the physical world; the experience of the physical world is the source of all our imaginations and abstractions. — Janus
What I'm saying is that the physical (or phenomenal) is 'what exists'. Numbers, laws, conventions, logic, and the like, don't exist as phenomena. — Wayfarer
How can an abstraction be communicated or understood except in physical terms? If you think it could then perhaps you could offer an example. — Janus
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