Go back and read what I said again in the previous two posts to you, one of which you ignored, but they are both making the same point.

I mean, you just did it again - making an objective statement about reality - that Wayfarer had just said something and you were referring to something specifically just mentioned. How could you know that Wayfarer had just said anything if you don't have some REAL, ACCURATE, TRUE view of reality? Maybe Wayfarer didn't say anything, or maybe Wayfarer doesn't really exist and you are just projecting your own self-interest onto what you are experiencing. This is the implication of YOUR theory, not mine, so I'm trying to show you how you contradict your own theory every time you make an statement that you believe (and you expect others to believe) as if it were objectively true and is an accurate representation of reality itself.

Every time you make a claim AND expect others to believe you, you are attempting to make an objective claim about reality. You are making a claim that you expect to be true and the basis of your argument for or against something. Every time any philosopher makes a claim about some state of affairs, they are making an objective, naive realist, claim about reality - as if they have some clear perception of how reality actually is, or what is actually going on independent of any self-interest.

You still haven't addressed the question of how you came to know about pragmatism and semiotics. How do you know anything about that? How did you acquire information about these theories? Are they your own? Did you get it from somewhere else? Did someone else's ideas influence your own? How did it happen? And when you explain how it happened, are you saying that is really how it happened independent of yours and anyone else's subjective inclinations?

***** doesn't re-present the number five. The number five is present (immanent) in *****. It doesn't matter if you don't know that it is there or don't know how to count. It also wouldn't matter if there were no sentient beings in existence. The number five is there as a consequence of the asterixes being there. — Andrew M

Is five immanent in ****** ?

My best reply to your post:

In relation to sameness being a property of temporal continuity: A guy builds a toy ship made up of legos. His wife gets upset at his wasting of time with the toy ship and smashes the ship to bits. Many years later he builds himself the same ship out of the same lego pieces. It will be deemed the same ship by its builder despite there having been no temporal continuity between instantiation A and instantiation B. Therefore, temporal continuity is not necessary in order for sameness to hold presence.

In relation to meaning being identical to phenomenal information: There’s a phenomenal object A and a phenomenal object B. Object A is the same relative to itself. So is object B. The relation of sameness remains unaltered in relation to objects A and B, this despite both objects holding different phenomenal properties of information. Hence, the relation of sameness—in this case, as a cognitive abstraction that one can hold awareness of—is not itself identical to any particular phenomenal information that may be discerned as being the same relative to itself.

I’ll be taking a leave of absence, though. It was good debating with you, even where we don’t agree—such as on this issue.

I only have to find that my states of belief are reliable in minimising the surprises I encounter in the world.

I only have to find that my states of belief are reliable in minimising the surprises I encounter in the world. — apokrisis

This sounds reasonable, but isn't the surest way to minimize surprise to reduce the information content of your beliefs?

Very well then, thank you for your comments. — Wayfarer

Well, I told you where I disagree, and it would be helpful to me if you told me where you disagree. Do you disagree that there is a distinction between the symbol and the idea which the symbol represents? Or, do you disagree with my claim that we carry out logical procedures with the use of symbols.

***** doesn't re-present the number five. The number five is present (immanent) in *****. It doesn't matter if you don't know that it is there or don't know how to count. It also wouldn't matter if there were no sentient beings in existence. The number five is there as a consequence of the asterixes being there. — Andrew M

Yes, that's a good demonstration, to show that the idea which the numeral "5" is supposed to represent, is something completely different from the thing which brings it to mind. Now, can you demonstrate to Wayfarer that when we carry out logical proceedings we do so with the use of symbols rather than the use of ideas.

it's not that redness is separable from red things, not physically, but we can separate it from red things in our minds. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes it is the case that the redness is separable from red things, because the redness actually is separate from the red things, it is in our minds, the thing is not.

The very word "separating" starts to look wrong, so we might say "distinguishing" instead. We merely distinguish the property from the objects that possess it. And what is distinguishing? — Srap Tasmaner

You seem to be missing the point. The redness which you are seeing, when you see a red thing, is in your mind, the image is in your mind. So it is not the case that you are distinguishing the property from the object, but you are separating the property from the object. The redness of the object is in the image, within your mind, while the object remains out there, being sensed.

In relation to sameness being a property of temporal continuity: A guy builds a toy ship made up of legos. His wife gets upset at his wasting of time with the toy ship and smashes the ship to bits. Many years later he builds himself the same ship out of the same lego pieces. It will be deemed the same ship by its builder despite there having been no temporal continuity between instantiation A and instantiation B. Therefore, temporal continuity is not necessary in order for sameness to hold presence. — javra

It is not the same ship. And despite the fact that the builder deems it "the same ship", we know that it is not, by two reasons according to your description. First, the original ship was destroyed, and therefore ceased to be in existence, prior to the second ship coming into existence. And second, the second ship was built, and therefore started its existence after the first ship ceased to exist. Since the two ships existed at completely distinct times, it is impossible that they are the same ship.

In relation to meaning being identical to phenomenal information: There’s a phenomenal object A and a phenomenal object B. Object A is the same relative to itself. So is object B. The relation of sameness remains unaltered in relation to objects A and B, this despite both objects holding different phenomenal properties of information. Hence, the relation of sameness—in this case, as a cognitive abstraction that one can hold awareness of—is not itself identical to any particular phenomenal information that may be discerned as being the same relative to itself. — javra

There is no such "relation of sameness". A relation requires two distinct things. "The same" implies only one thing. So object A is object A. There is no "relation of sameness", there is only object A which is the same as itself, and object B which is the same as itself. "Same" implies one thing, not a relation between things.

You seem to be missing the point. The redness which you are seeing, when you see a red thing, is in your mind, the image is in your mind. So it is not the case that you are distinguishing the property from the object, but you are separating the property from the object. The redness of the object is in the image, within your mind, while the object remains out there, being sensed. — Metaphysician Undercover

Any chance there is some relation between the object out there and the image of the object in my mind?

Well, I told you where I disagree, and it would be helpful to me if you told me where you disagree. — Metaphysician Undercover

All I can say is that there are some disagreements that are unproductive to debate, and I judged this to be one of them:

I think doing math is dealing with relationships between symbols. — Metaphysician Undercover

I felt that response was so completely mistaken, it would not be worth pursuing the argument.

I suppose one bit of evidence I could produce in support of my contention that it's the relationship of ideas, rather than symbols, would be the fact that mathematics and science has constantly had to develop new symbols to express concepts and ideas, for which the symbol didn't yet exist.

Were what you say to be true, this could never have happened.

This sounds reasonable, but isn't the surest way to minimize surprise to reduce the information content of your beliefs? — Srap Tasmaner

Hah. Surprisal, or self-information, is one of those more sophisticated measures of information I've been talking about - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surprisal_analysis and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-information

And the same basic approach underlies the free energy minimising model of the Bayesian brain - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_approaches_to_brain_function

So the argument is that we attempt to predict our future sensory inputs to minimise our need to actually process anything. And then what we fail to predict is where we retrospectively have to put the further attentional effort in.

So overall, a brain with good habits of prediction will be able to get the most work out of the least effort.

Yes. I see that you are making the sly joke that the way to never be surprised is to in fact just be ignorant. That also works of course - to the degree that it has no real life consequences.

So the argument is that we attempt to predict our future sensory inputs to minimise our need to actually process anything. And then what we fail to predict is where we retrospectively have to put the further attentional effort in. — apokrisis

That makes good sense.

But I wasn't kidding. I was thinking of the stuff about measuring the information content of a theory-- better, a prediction. If your prediction is that either the sun will rise tomorrow or it won't, you're incapable of being surprised, but that's because "either the sun rose or it didn't" has zero information content. It's just the Popper thing. You want to create the possibility of being surprised by making predictions with high information content. You want to predict things that are unlikely, not things that are dead certain.

Any chance there is some relation between the object out there and the image of the object in my mind? — Srap Tasmaner

Sure there's a relation, but they are not the same thing.

All I can say is that there are some disagreements that are unproductive to debate, and I judged this to be one of them: — Wayfarer

Fair enough, that's your opinion, but I think it's a route of inquiry which may lead us to a deeper understanding of the nature of ideas. Many people will acknowledge that there is a difference between the numeral, and the idea which the numeral stands for. But if no one can explain to us exactly what the idea is, which the numeral 5 signifies, then how can anyone argue that 5 means the same thing to every person.

My opinion is that there is a deep psychological division between the symbol, 5, in this case, and the idea which is behind it, so much so that we can go on using the symbol indefinitely without even really understanding the idea.

I suppose one bit of evidence I could produce in support of my contention that it's the relationship of ideas, rather than symbols, would be the fact that mathematics and science has constantly had to develop new symbols to express concepts and ideas, for which the symbol didn't yet exist.

Were what you say to be true, this could never have happened. — Wayfarer

The people who are developing new symbols for new ideas are producing hypotheses and speculations, these I believe fall out of the realm of logical proceedings. I explained this in my post, I called this dialectics. And it is only through this intermediary process, where ideas are related to symbols, that formal logic and mathematics, which deal strictly with symbols, have the power of relating ideas. But dialectics is not mathematics, nor is it a form of logical procedure. We might say that it is a form of reasoning which is not particularly logical. But what does that mean?

Consider Plato's Republic where the participants are asked, what does "just" mean. Each participant has a different answer for this question. Now "just" is the symbol, and we could create a logical argument with the premises of "John did a just act", and " all just acts are good acts", "therefore John did a good act". But since each participant has a different notion as to the idea of "just", this conclusion is rather meaningless. So it is more important to proceed with the dialectics which determines the relationship between the symbols and the ideas, then the logic, or mathematics, which produces conclusions from working with the symbols.

The further issue which occurs to me, is that we might not ever even relate ideas to each other. We might always engage in relating symbols to each other, and symbols to ideas, and never idea to idea. This would indicate that ideas are inherently separated from each other by means of the symbols, which are a medium between them.

The people who are developing new symbols for new ideas are producing hypotheses and speculations, these I believe fall out of the realm of logical proceedings. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have no time for endless obfuscations.

Our understanding of nature is indistinguishable from nature. — Hanover

Well, my understanding of the rubble in the driveway is part of me, the rubble is not.
I guess me being rubble-omniscient might be a different story.

Is five immanent in ****** ? — sime

No, not as the quantity of asterixes which is the abstraction I was implying. So only the number six is immanent.

To get to five, a transformation would need to be applied, e.g., by editing your post to remove one of the asterixes.

I have no time for endless obfuscations. — Wayfarer

In other words, you don't care about the relationship between the symbol and the idea. You start a thread "is information physical", but you really don't care about this subject.

You want to maintain a naïve division between things in the mind, such as ideas, which are non-physical, and things outside the mind, like symbols, which are physical. But you refuse to respect the fact that the mind thinks using symbols.

Perhaps you should consider, that when we are talking about things like symbols, meaning, and information, the physical/non-physical division is not applicable. And the attempt to apply it, is itself an obfuscation.

You are making me doubt, and I don't like it. While I am now no longer certain about it, I will nevertheless continue to defend the position that some form of information is non-physical. Let's differentiate between two forms: meaningless and meaningful info. Meaningless info is raw data; noise. I imagine a TV set with visual and audio static. I concede that this form of info is purely physical, for the reasons you have given.

Meaningful info on the other hand, gets meaning by containing concepts. Concepts are not made of physical things, because every physical thing is a particular (at least in their x, y, z, t properties), where as concepts are generals. Therefore meaningful info is, at least in part, non-physical.

Are concepts not objectively real and only man-made? If so, why would Socrates argue with the Sophists about the essence of concepts like 'justice', instead of arbitrarily making up a definition that they can all choose to agree on?

Perhaps you should consider, that when we are talking about things like symbols, meaning, and information, the physical/non-physical division is not applicable. And the attempt to apply it, is itself an obfuscation. — Metaphysician Undercover

My initial argument, which as far as I am concerned hasn't been rebutted, was simply this: an item of information can be encoded in a variety of different media, and/or a variety of different languages, whilst remaining unchanged. The question I posed was, if the physical representation changes, and the information does not, then how can the information be said to be physical?

you refuse to respect the fact that the mind thinks using symbols. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not only symbols. Symbols are the means by which ideas are communicated, but there are many other means - art, poetry, drama, music - and there are also visionary states and ecstatic states beyond discursive thought. But all of that is beside the point.

Concepts are not made of physical things, because every physical thing is a particular (at least in their x, y, z, t properties), where as concepts are generals. Therefore meaningful info is, at least in part, non-physical. — Samuel Lacrampe

That might seem a rather simplistic account, but I agree with it in essence.

The question I posed was, if the physical representation changes, and the information does not, then how can the information be said to be physical? — Wayfarer

If the mental representation changes, and the information does not, then how can the information be said to be mental?

My initial argument, which as far as I am concerned hasn't been rebutted, was simply this: an item of information can be encoded in a variety of different media, and/or a variety of different languages, whilst remaining unchanged. — Wayfarer

I soundly refuted that argument, perhaps you weren't paying attention. The claim that "the same" information is carried by different media is a false premise. The fact that we interpret 5 in a different way from V, and in a different way from ***** is evidence of this. We have been trained to focus on the essential features of the information, ignoring the accidentals. This focus on the essentials induces the idea that "the same" information is being transmitted through different media.

But ignoring the accidentals invalidates the claim of "the same" information, it only allows for "similar" information. The fact that one medium is better than another depending on the information to be transmitted, and that we may forfeit accuracy for the sake of speed, as well as many other factors like this, demonstrates that it is not true that the same information is transmitted in different media.

Here's the final point. If different media conveyed the same information, on what basis could you claim that the media is different? You must refer to some difference in the information received, in order to support the claim that the media is different. The words "same", and "unchanged", imply no difference. If you allow for any change or difference whatsoever, you deny yourself of the right to use these words. Using definitions such as "a difference which makes a difference" already implies essentialism, that accidentals are excluded. The capacity to use "same" or "unchanged", in referring to information has already been negated by that definition. So that, of course, is a faulty definition, because any difference at all, must consist of information, or else we could not discern a difference, and we could not say that there is a difference.

The claim that "the same" information is carried by different media is a false premise. The fact that we interpret 5 in a different way from V, and in a different way from ***** is evidence of this. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am late in this discussion so I apologize if this was already addressed, but why do you say we interpret these differently? It seems to me that they all point to the same concept.

What results from 2+3?
(a) five
(b) 5
(c) V
(d) *****

Are these answers not all true? If they are, then this also answers your objection on what basis could we claim that the media is different: Different media may point to the same concept. And the fact that these media can be physically different show that they are separate things from the concept they point to.

“When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.”
― Confucius

Are these answers not all true? If they are, then this also answers your objection on what basis could we claim that the media is different: — Samuel Lacrampe

If there are different correct answers for the same question, this means that there are different correct ways of interpreting the same question. It doesn't mean that the different answers have the same information. Some of the answers would be the correct answer for other questions, while others would be incorrect for those questions, like "what is the Roman numeral for five?". So it is quite clear that each of these answers does not carry the same information, despite the fact that they might all be the correct answer to some specific questions.

Different media may point to the same concept. — Samuel Lacrampe

What I am trying to get at, is what is meant by "the same concept". If I have a conception, within my mind, of what "five" means, and you have a conception within you mind, of what "five" means, then these are distinct conceptions because one is in my mind and one is in your mind. By what principle of identity do you claim that these are the same concept? We can say that we both see the same word "five", but how does this mean that we both have the same concept?

So it is quite clear that each of these answers does not carry the same information, despite the fact that they might all be the correct answer to some specific questions. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that each thing (a) to (d) do not have all the same properties, because they all look physically different, but they still all have the same property of pointing to the concept of "five-ness". This should clarify why only V is the correct answer to the question "what is the Roman numeral for five?", while all of them are correct answers to the question "What results from 2+3?".

By what principle of identity do you claim that these are the same concept? — Metaphysician Undercover

I will indeed use a principle of identity: If things have the exact same properties, then they are one and the same thing; and if not, then not. Two sticks may look identical, but are not one and the same because they have different x, y, z properties. What about the concept of 'triangle'? To me, its essential properties are 'surface' + 'three straight sides'; nothing else. What about for you? If your concept has the exact same essential properties as my concept, then they are one and the same.

[duplicate]

My initial argument, which as far as I am concerned hasn't been rebutted, was simply this: an item of information can be encoded in a variety of different media, and/or a variety of different languages, whilst remaining unchanged. The question I posed was, if the physical representation changes, and the information does not, then how can the information be said to be physical? — Wayfarer

There's a presupposition in your question. Does an abstraction (such as information) depend on the existence of concrete particulars?

Aristotle would say "Yes", Plato would say "No".

What do you say?

The question I posed was, if the physical representation changes, and the information does not, then how can the information be said to be physical? — Wayfarer

Well, as you say, there is always some physical representation.

But there must also be rules - syntax - to ensure the proper translation of the message from one physical representation to the next.

Then there must be the third thing of some habit of interpretance that can make sense of the syntactically structured signs. The message must be read, understood, acted upon. So there is semantics too.

But note how syntax itself has irreducible semantics. A rule can permit only the one reading. That is how computers implement Boolean logic. Semantics can begin in a machine like and reflexive fashion. Just like the way the chemoreceptors of a bacterium are set up to permit no other choices in terms of behavioural responses.

So semantics evolves from the first hardware syntactical beginnings. In a complex brain, any message can be misread, distorted, doubted, refuted. A complex brain may have its habits - it will just read a message in the accepted way and respond without question - or it also can find endless ways to question that information it appears to be getting. It can imagine the world as being other than what it has just been told.

So it is not that semantics lacks complexity in the human case. There really is an interpreter at work as the interpretation is not in fact completely constrained by the syntax of the sign. However also we can see how that complexity gets built up due to recursive or hierarchical elaboration.

Your OP example depended on the claim of mechanically faithful transmission of a message. And in fact also the unambiguous creation of the original meaning, and its final interpretation. It only ended up talking about syntax, the rules of the game. That is why more complex metrics of information are needed - like self information - to start to model the semantic plasticity that makes life actually interesting.

If the mental representation changes, and the information does not, then how can the information be said to be mental? — Srap Tasmaner

Excellent question! I think the answer has to do with the fact that mental representation has an attribute which physical forms do not, namely, plasticity. The mind is able to conjure, compare, shuffle, and re-arrange ideas effortlessly, in a way that is not feasible for physical forms. But in both cases - i.e. either mental or physical forms - the salient ability is the ability to infer or deduce meaning, to equate this symbol or form with that idea. It is the 'grasping of meaning' which is essential to the process - which is, as I said earlier, the precise import of the word 'intelligence'.

I soundly refuted that argument, perhaps you weren't paying attention. — Metaphysician Undercover

You didn't 'refute' it, you're obfuscating the meaning of 'the same'! As I said, endless obfuscation. No further comment.

Samuel LaCrampe is essentially making the same point as made by Loyd Gerson in the quotation from Aristotle's De Anima some pages back, which I repeat here for convenience:

in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too.

Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism

Does an abstraction (such as information) depend on the existence of concrete particulars?

Aristotle would say "Yes", Plato would say "No". — Andrew M

I don't think it's so clear-cut. Let me ask you this - would the 'law of the excluded middle' be the case, even in the absence of anyone capable of grasping it?

I would think the answer is 'yes'. The same would go for real numbers and other logical laws. This is the meaning of 'objective idealism' i.e. there are ideas that are real and the same for all observers, but they are not phenomenal existents; in Platonic epistemology, they're the object of dianoia rather than pistis or doxa.

I am still in the process of studying Aristotle's hylomorphic dualism, which is his major difference with Plato, but I *think* the difference between the two lies in sense in which number (etc) can be said to exist in the absence of any observer. Much later, Augustine definitively solved this problem, by declaring that the ideas exist eternally in the divine intellect. On that note, see this brief but very interesting passage on intelligible objects.

So semantics evolves from the first hardware syntactical beginnings. — apokrisis

I think where I differ is that the ability evolves, but the object of cognition - in this case, ideas - does not evolve. That is the sense in which they're eternal.

I think Peirce has inherited the Platonist notion of 'the ideas', which is evident in such passages as these:

The only end of science, as such, is to learn the lesson that the universe has to teach it. In Induction it simply surrenders itself to the force of facts. But it finds . . . that this is not enough. It is driven in desperation to call upon its inward sympathy with nature, its instinct for aid, just as we find Galileo at the dawn of modern science making his appeal to il lume naturale. . . . The value of Facts to it, lies only in this, that they belong to Nature; and nature is something great, and beautiful, and sacred, and eternal, and real,— the object of its worship and its aspiration.

The soul’s deeper parts can only be reached through its surface. In this way the eternal forms, that mathematics and philosophy and the other sciences make us acquainted with will by slow percolation gradually reach the very core of one’s being, and will come to influence our lives; and this they will do, not because they involve truths of merely vital importance, but because they [are] ideal and eternal verities.

Peirce, Reasoning and the Logic of Things, edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner, (Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 11.

Now I know you might object on the basis of it being 'Platonia'. But nevertheless, I think the Aristotelian concept of the 'final cause', which semiotics apparently recognises, is inseparable from some such idea. It's an inconvenient truth, for us moderns. As Nietzsche was to say, much later, 'I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar'. ;-)

(Right now, I have to go and countersink about 2,000 nails in a pool deck, so will be away for some hours.)

Now I know you might object on the basis of it being 'Platonia'. — Wayfarer

I don't object to Platonia is some sense. And I am specific about that sense.

So yes, mathematical form, and even The Good, captures something essential about nature - its barest level of syntax. There are regularities - symmetries - that are just unavoidable as the deep structure of being. So a very few things qualify for Platonia. There are the ur-forms that become the subject of our metaphysical inquiry.

Semiosis - as a triadic mechanism - was of course the core one uncovered by Peirce. That is what put intelligibility itself - as a meaning making process - at the centre of reality creation. Existence arises as a dissipation of vagueness by hierarchically organised constraints. The Cosmos is rational in that carefully specified sense. It is like a mind in that fashion.

So we can talk about Platonia as the set of forms or ideas that are not merely contingent - accidents of nature, accidents of history - but in fact completely necessary in being completely unavoidable. In trying to do anything and everything, nature would still have to find itself regulated by certain emergent global principles.

Given this stricter definition, Platonia begins to make sense. We don't have to suggest it lies in some unphysical realm of its own or exists in the eternality of a divine intellect. It is just always latent. It is the regularity that simply must always emerge from irregularity itself.

So Platonia is defined by the barest syntax that can be imagined to have historical inevitability. Nature's deep forms. It is about the rules that are immanent in potentiality itself.

Whiteness, horses, men, and a billion other Platonic ideals are simply accidents of history. They are local phenomena that certainly have to express the over-riding deep principles, but also they are the kind of complex developments which freely incorporate accidental elements into their design. They are not the pure syntax that is a Platonic-strength constraint on existence. They are the free variety that can develop within the highly general span of those constraints.

So the usual way to think of Platonic forms is that they completely specify the shape of some entity in informational, point-for-point fashion. Like an architect's blueprint. In other words, the forms are taken to construct material organisation atomistically - a patent contradiction of what forms are really about.

Instead the forms function (pan)semiotically. It only matters that a horse, or a man, or a tree, or a mountain, work as signs of the world that the forms mean to create as an act of regulatory constraint on the irregularity of unformed potential.

Again, information loss. The forms are what arise as the ultimate constraints as they can afford to sweat the least detail. A horse or a man is good enough as an example of an entropy-accelerating agent. All Platonia has to see is this basic box has been ticked - objects A and B are meeting the basic criteria of Being itself, the thermodynamic imperative. They are examples of dissipative structure. Beyond that, Platonia doesn't need to care. Irregularity has been tamed to the degree that makes sense. There is an intelligible material world out there, as can be told from these signs of its being.

I don't think it's so clear-cut. Let me ask you this - would the 'law of the excluded middle' be the case, even in the absence of anyone capable of grasping it?

I would think the answer is 'yes'. — Wayfarer

Yes. It is also an abstraction that depends on the existence of concrete particulars.

Do you agree?

I am still in the process of studying Aristotle's hylomorphic dualism, which is his major difference with Plato, but I *think* the difference between the two lies in sense in which number (etc) can be said to exist in the absence of any observer. — Wayfarer

Their difference actually has nothing specifically to do with observers or numbers (as I think your more fundamental example above with the LEM demonstrates). Their difference is simply whether abstractions do or don't have a dependency on the concrete.

A horse or a man is good enough as an example of an entropy-accelerating agent. — apokrisis

You say that semiotics accepts formal and final causes, and top-down causation. So I really don't know if I accept the 'thermodynamic imperative' as if it amounts to a final cause, which is the role it seems to play for you. It seems to me that it's an argument that the ultimate end is non-existence. Whereas the Aristotelean view, on which formal and final causes and ends were originally formed, is the opposite of that. The question I keep asking is, how can you preserve the functionality of formal and final causes and top-down causation, if there is no 'top'? Or, in other words, if the final end is mere non-existence?

That's why I provided that rather cynical quotation the other day - von Neumann's advice to Claude Shannon to include the concept of entropy in his work, because, he said, "no-one knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage"'. ;-)

__

It is also an abstraction that depends on the existence of concrete particulars.

Do you agree? — Andrew M

No, it doesn't depend on it. Concrete particulars are instances, or instantions, of the principles. They depend on the principle, but the principle doesn't depend on them. Were some other planet to form, and life to evolve on it, then they would eventually discover the law of the excluded middle.

The question I keep asking is, how can you preserve the functionality of formal and final causes and top-down causation, if there is no 'top'? Or, in other words, if the final end is mere non-existence? — Wayfarer

It is what it is. I don't think the job of metaphysics or science is to tell us whatever story we find the most reassuring or familiar,

You keep saying you reject a Heat Death as an ultimate goal because you don't like the sound of that conclusion. Your personal preference here ought to be irrelevant.

Besides, my approach does not deny that negentropy is a freedom permitted by the very fact that there is a universal entropy tendency. Indeed, it guarantees the existence of negentropy as the structure required to do any dissipating.

It is just that the top - in terms of negentropic complexity - arises in the middle of time and space.

So again, you should be pleased. Humans are peak negentropy in that regard. We are poised fairly precisely in the middle of creation. We are as far from the Planck scale as we are from the cosmic scale.

The universe revolves around our Being after all. Our existence is as special as it gets. We are the height of creation, at least in the direction labelled peak complexity.

(Is that enough spinning in favour of the thermodynamic imperative yet? ;) )