Information is basically the modern equivalent of “Form” as the ancients would call it. Everything bears it. Information is the difference between a 200kg pile of graphite and a 200kg solid diamond grandfather clock: just 200kg of carbon atoms either way, but arranged according to a different pattern.

Most modern references to information theory begin with Shannon's information theory and information entropy. But it has to be remembered that Shannon was an electrical engineer, and his whole aim was transmitting information via a medium.

Plato's notion of 'the forms' is something completely different to that and can't be equivocated with it.

Information is the difference between a 200kg pile of graphite and a 200kg solid diamond — Pfhorrest

I don't regard that as information. It might be information if you paid money for 200kg of diamond and you get sent graphite. And you can be informed about the difference between the two. But I don't think you can say the difference between diamonds and graphite is 'information'. Nor do diamonds nor graphite meaningfully contain or impart 'information', unless, again, they have been arranged or manipulated to do so.

No, that just won't do it. Crystals don't convey or contain any information unless it is encoded in them intentionally. And information is not 'every atom'. Nor is water, nor anything else. intrinsically information-bearing, unless it is intepreted.

Your reply is not addressing what I said, you're misinterpreting.

Crystals don't convey or contain any information unless it is encoded in them intentionally.

You are confusing static information with its computation and the result. Information itself does not "convey a meaning", but first it needs the context, i.e. interaction. The meaning is a function of the result and its impact on the future interactions, thus mostly unpredictable in principle.

H and O atoms contain very specific information so they will always compute the same result that is H2O, and not H3O4 or H4O2. Furthermore, this H2O result contains specific information itself, which determines snowflake designs that are always beautiful patterns and never a random mess. Furthermore, snowflakes contain information themselves, by not being random, and that information when observed by some brains may result in emotion or appreciation of beauty. Furthermore, this emotion contains information itself, and so on...

This also means information contained in emotions are spatial arrangement of matter too, but that's not the problem for immaterial appearance of the mind, it's the other part of that interaction, something emotions interact with to be put into context and result in qualia.

And information is not 'every atom'

Information is simply geometrical relation between chunks of matter. Meaning is not the same thing as information.

Information itself does not "convey a meaning", but first it needs the context, i.e. interaction. The meaning is a function of the result and its impact on the future interactions, thus mostly unpredictable in principle. — Zelebg

This seem nonsense to me. Interactions between inorganic matter doesn't constitute information.

Information is simply geometrical relation between chunks of matter — Zelebg

Says who? What definition of 'information' says that? I get:

INFORMATION: 1: the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence
2a(1): knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction
(2): INTELLIGENCE, NEWS
(3): FACTS, DATA
b: the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (such as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects
c(1): a signal or character (as in a communication system or computer) representing data
(2): something (such as a message, experimental data, or a picture) which justifies change in a construct (such as a plan or theory) that represents physical or mental experience or another construct
d: a quantitative measure of the content of information
specifically : a numerical quantity that measures the uncertainty in the outcome of an experiment to be performed
3: the act of informing against a person
4: a formal accusation of a crime made by a prosecuting officer as distinguished from an indictment presented by a grand jury.

Sorry, but your 'definition' isn't in there.

This seem nonsense to me. Interactions between inorganic matter doesn't constitute information.

You are again misinterpreting what I said and keep confusing information, computation, and the result. What are algorithms and computer programs made of?

Sorry, but your 'definition' isn't in there

I gave you an explanation, not definition. Once you understand you will see many of those definitions are wrong. I also notice you failed to show reference for your definitions. This is good enough, though:

(3): FACTS, DATA
b: the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something

b: the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something — Zelebg

What ‘arranges’ it? A pile of stones conveys no information. Algorithms and programs denote intelligible patterns of data which convey meaning.

INFORMATION:
1: the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence
-- no, information is static concept, communication is transfer of information

2a(1): knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction
-- only if knowledge = spatial arrangement of stuff in the brain

(2): INTELLIGENCE, NEWS
-- no, they contain information, but they are more than just information

(3): FACTS, DATA
b: the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (such as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects
-- yes

c(1): a signal or character (as in a communication system or computer) representing data
-- yes

(2): something (such as a message, experimental data, or a picture) which justifies change in a construct (such as a plan or theory) that represents physical or mental experience or another construct
-- first part yes, but then unnecessarily it also describes computation and the result

d: a quantitative measure of the content of information
-- only if that 'quantitative measure' ends up written somewhere or otherwise embedded in the geometrical arrangement of matter.

What ‘arranges’ it? A pile of stones conveys no information. Algorithms and programs denote intelligible patterns of data which convey meaning.

Pile of stones conveys no information, it CONTAINS it. Size, weight, shape... how many more times can you misinterpret this? It's like you don't understand the meaning of words. Oh dear god, you are a robot!!

I understand perfectly well.

What you said was:

All information we know of is embedded in spatial arrangement of matter, so information is just 'geometrical relations of matter' in essence. — Zelebg

But I am saying that not all matter contains or encodes information. Crystals are geometrical but they don’t contain information. Of course we can find information about a crystal but that is not the same as saying that it ‘contains information’.

It's like you don't understand the meaning of words — Zelebg

The misunderstanding is not mine.

I understand perfectly well.

You are contradicting definitions and yourself.

It also seems to me the only naturally-occuring process it makes sense to speak in terms of 'information' is living organisms, as DNA encodes biological information.

1. Computer programs contain information. Yes/No
2. Dead DNA still contains information. Yes/No
3. Words contain information even if you don't understand it. Yes/No

But I am saying that not all matter contains or encodes information. Crystals are geometrical but they don’t contain information. Of course we can find information about a crystal but that is not the same as saying that it ‘contains information’.

You are saying, but not explaining, not answering my questions, not responding to my points, and when you do respond it is to your own misinterpretation and not to what I said.

Crystals are geometrical but they don’t contain information. Of course we can find information about a crystal but that is not the same as saying that it ‘contains information’.

Find information? Correct phrase is "find meaning", robot. The way you are confusing word "meaning" with "information" is not even funny.

As far as I can tell, your assertions about consciousness relegate it permanently to the status of a nescio quid. You affirm that there is a consciousness but aver that it cannot be measured or known in any way. — Pantagruel

Cannot presently be measured. It can be known because we have it ourselves. We experience experience. WE notice there is experiencing. It is a facet of the most immanent there is. All else is derived from it. But the kinds of third person knowledge of it, which one has in science, it is currently beyond. We cannot know it like we can know electric eels' electric field strength, to pull an example out of a hat. With this latter we can get readings on devices. We don't know what it fees like, if it does, for the eel itself when it instigates the field. And then with consciousness in general, we don't know where it is and where it is not. We can however experience it from inside.

I don't know what this mystery thing is, but the consciousness that is under investigation, which does include any and all qualia typically associated with conscious experience, is what I myself am speaking of when I use the term consciousness. — Pantagruel

That's what I am referring to also.

and then, well, there's all this, I also said earlier....

Actually it's not. I am not assuming that minds and consciousness are different things. I am simply pointing out that epistemologically we can track minds and what they do, but we cannot track consciousness. Perhaps these are indeed facets of the same thing. But we can measure one and not the other. Just as we can track behavior - which is how we track minds - or we can track glucose uptake, but we can't track consciousness because we do not know what is conscious and what is not. And perhaps that means we do not also know what has mind or not. Current research into plant intelligence - a phrase that is no longer fringe - is finding many of the behaviors of animal minds. But then we can't communicate and the chemisty is different. So we can neither rule out consciousness nor can we confirm it. Perhaps plants and some computers now can do many things that minds can do without being aware, without experiencing. Perhaps the functions always correlate with being aware. We don't know. I am not asserting dual substances. I am saying we don't know where consciousness begins and ends. Perhaps yes mind, where there is mind, is always the same as the consciousness that is there, but perhaps there is a rudimentary consciousness in all matter. I am blackboxing the monism vs. dualism debate and also being cautious.

And given the history of science's rather late getting it that animals had both minds and consciousness I am wary of leaping in an assuming we know what experiencing must be coupled to. Perhaps it need no be coupled to what we call minds. Which does not mean that our consciousness is a separate substrance from our minds (or brains).

1. Computer programs contain information. Yes/No
2. Dead DNA still contains information. Yes/No
3. Words contain information even if you don't understand it. Yes/No — Zelebg

Yes to all the above. However, the discussion was about crystals, in response to the statement of yours, which I quoted. Unless you have anything further to add, then I think the question is resolved.

As far as I can tell, your assertions about consciousness relegate it permanently to the status of a nescio quid — Pantagruel

Good expression! And, yes.

I, for instance, as the creator of half a communication, become immediately irrelevant with respect to you, for instance, as the receiver of that half-communication. Your job is to decipher the in-coming half-communication in order to extract some meaning from it. It becomes full-fledged communication when your extracted meaning is congruent with my prescribed meaning. This is the norm, the common state of affairs, and is as boring as watching paint dry. It adds nothing whatsoever to our investigations into cognitive metaphysics, which happens to be what we’re talking about in this discussion.

In any theory, we hypothesize the conditions under which authority for the conclusions the theory predicts is justified. The normative procedure for intercommunication does none of that, for the hypotheses for a cognitive theory aren’t even given by such communication, insofar as I, as the creator and you as the receiver, are already established as extant, thus very far from hypothetical. The hypotheses can only arise with respect to the relative meanings, and therefore the derivations of them, contained in the language of the communication, which is, in itself, nothing but an objective representation of them.

Now we arrive at the fact that I as subject in the form of creator and you as subject in the form of receiver, are mutually exclusive, for we have reduced the hypotheses of a possible cognitive theory to the necessity of meaning and intention contained in the objective representation itself, each subject operating completely independently of each other. I had to assemble concepts with respect to each other to create an object of thought with a specific meaning, you had to disassemble the object of perception into its related concepts for it to become a possible meaningful thought. We communicate if the two meanings, arising in reverse order respectively, are sufficiently congruent.

So stop and think about all that. Say, create your half a communication that will eventually be perceived by me. You will speak or write something like, “I remember my first bicycle.....” from which beforehand you’ve assembled a bunch of concepts to form an article of your experience. But when you were assembling cognitively, never once did you include the “I” you used in the objective reality, the prose or speech that I will perceive, to create the object of your thought. Not once did you precede the inclusion of a concept with “I will use this concept, and this one, and this one....”. Yet all those concepts did not instantiate themselves. And because they must have intend some meaning, only certain concepts can be called into play. But “I”, the conscious thinking subject, didn’t do it. Whatever did do it, THAT serves as the identity of apperception, apperception being a predicate of human nature which grants that concepts can even be assembled, understanding being the capacity to assemble the correct concepts to fit the object. It is hidden from conscious thought, but conscious thought is impossible without it. And THAT is the foundation for the highest principle in human cognition.

Theoretically self-consistent and non-contradictory, which makes it logically possible, yet unfalsifiable, which relegates it to a mere metaphysical theory. Because consciousness stands in no chance of being empirically demonstrated, it must remain......until technology catches up......maybe.....nothing but a metaphysical project with rational constituency.

In other words, something fun to play with. Beats the crap outta dinkin’ around with mere language, I must say. Gots ta figure out thinking before figuring out talking about it, right?

But there is no such information encoded in the vast majority of matter and energy found throughout the cosmos. — Wayfarer

According to the Wiki definition below, mathematics is not a physical thing, but simply "knowledge", "number", "structure", "geometry". All of these are forms of generic Information. So wherever you find mathematical "structures" you have Information.

My first insight into the essential role of information in the living and non-living world came from a surprising assertion by a quantum physicist years ago : "a quantum particle is nothing but Information". By that he meant, all we can observe is mathematical "position and velocity", but not at the same time (uncertainty). All other properties are inferred from that basic Information. My own definition of multi-function Information is also linked below.

Mathematics : (from Greek μάθημα máthēma, "knowledge, study, learning") includes the study of such topics as quantity (number theory), structure (algebra), space (geometry), and change (mathematical analysis). ...

Information : Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. . . .
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

According to the Wiki definition below, mathematics is not a physical thing, but simply "knowledge", "number", "structure", "geometry". All of these are forms of generic Information. So wherever you find mathematical "structures" you have Information. — Gnomon

If physics describe the natural world, that would suggest that there is a metaphysical language ( mathematical abstracts) encoded into all of nature.

Yep. It is not uncommon for physicists today to think of all of reality as an informational structure. People like Max Tegmark argue (and I agree) that there isn't a hard ontological difference between abstract mathematical objects and the concrete physical world: the concrete physical world is just whichever mathematical object of which we are a part, and other abstract mathematical objects are just as real in the broadest abstract sense, they're just not concretely real, not part of the same structure as we are. "Concrete" is indexical, the way modal realists take "actual" to be.

According to the Wiki definition below, mathematics is not a physical thing, but simply "knowledge", "number", "structure", "geometry". All of these are forms of generic Information. So wherever you find mathematical "structures" you have Information. — Gnomon

I’ve been interested in mathematical Platonism since I started posting on forums. I believe that that number is 'real but incorporeal', hence showing that materialism is false. But the philosophical implications are very tricky.

You have to recall that in Platonism, mathematical knowledge (dianoia) was only one aspect of an entire and very subtle epistemological scheme, which also included noesis, knowledge of the forms, and the knowledge of the good, the beautiful and the true.

It also has to be remembered that the expression ‘mathematical objects’ is kind of analogy, because numbers and so on are not actually objects at all, they’re intelligible ideas. They’re an aspect of reason. So I don't accept the idea that information constitutes the world or physical objects. As I was saying before, I don't think it's true to say that minerals and inanimate objects encode or contain any information as such; that we can obtain information about their constitution and so on, but they're not inherently information-bearing apart from that. So

Information : Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. . . . — Gnomon

I'm highly dubious about this. You can't make up definitions of fundamental words, like 'information'.

"a quantum particle is nothing but Information". — Gnomon

I’ve read a lot about the philosophical implications of quantum physics and have argued that it also undermines materialism (‘materialism’ being the view that matter is fundamentally real). I am inclined towards Heisenberg’s philosophical attitude, generally discussed under the heading of the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’. And this view was very reticent about statements about what the subjects of observation actually are, whilst also fully acknowledging the role of the observer in determining the experimental outcome. Later in life, he wrote Physics and Philosophy, which is generally supportive of Platonism. (See Plato vs Democritus.)

If physics describe the natural world, that would suggest that there is a metaphysical language ( mathematical abstracts) encoded into all of nature. — 3017amen

Galileo beat you to it, saying 'the book of nature is written in mathematics'. Galileo too was basically Platonist is some ways, mainly by virtue of the neo-platonist revival that was a product of the Italian renaissance. But there is also the matter of 'Galileo's mistake'.

People like Max Tegmark argue (and I agree) that there isn't a hard ontological difference between abstract mathematical objects and the concrete physical world: — Pfhorrest

I think that is mistaken. That just allows you to think you know something which is far from evident. The nature of the reality of number, is completely different than the nature of the reality of material objects, because the former can only be grasped by reason. It's the exact problem with a lot of modern philosophy, which fails to differentiate the sensory and the intelligible.

Tegmark's recent books are regarded by many critics as completely unmoored from reality, and besides, he still maintains a physicalist view of brain/mind.

Whatever did do it, THAT serves as the identity of apperception, apperception being a predicate of human nature which grants that concepts can even be assembled, understanding being the capacity to assemble the correct concepts to fit the object. It is hidden from conscious thought, but conscious thought is impossible without it. And THAT is the foundation for the highest principle in human cognition. — Mww

Agree. This is reminiscent of a basic principle of Vedanta ‘tat tvam asi’ ‘that thou art’:

Nobody can know the ātman inasmuch as the ātman is the Knower of all things. So, no question regarding the ātman can be put, such as "What is the ātman?' 'Show it to me', etc. You cannot show the ātman because the Shower is the ātman; the Experiencer is the ātman; the Seer is the ātman; the Functioner in every respect through the senses or the mind or the intellect is the ātman. As the basic Residue of Reality in every individual is the ātman, how can we go behind It and say, 'This is the ātman?' Therefore, the question is impertinent and inadmissible. The reason is clear. It is the Self. It is not an object.

“Everything other than the ātman is stupid; it is useless; it is good for nothing; it has no value; it is lifeless. Everything assumes a meaning because of the operation of this ātman in everything. Minus that, nothing has any sense. Then Uṣasta Cākrāyana, the questioner kept quiet. He understood the point and did not speak further.

https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/brdup/brhad_III-01.html#part4

The nature of the reality of number, is completely different than the nature of the reality of material objects, because the former can only be grasped by reason. It's the exact problem with a lot of modern philosophy, which fails to differentiate the sensory and the intelligible. — Wayfarer

Mathematicism like Tegmark's does differentiate the sensory from the (merely) intelligible ("merely" because we can also reason about the things we also have sensory experience of). The sensory, i.e. the concrete, the physical, is the stuff that's part of the same structure that we are, with which we are in communication if you will. There is other stuff that is not part of that same structure, that is not concretely real, but is of the same ontological nature as the stuff we are a part of; we're simply not a part of that stuff.

We don't have complete immediate access to the entirety of the structure of which we are a part, we only have access to the parts here, now, in the actual world -- including our memories of other times and places and so on, our imagination of possible futures and other possible worlds, etc -- and so to have any kind of a useful picture of even the concrete world, we have to reason upon and abstract away from the most concrete bit of reality we that have direct access to, because those most concrete bits, e.g. individual "pixels" of vision and so on, are uselessly specific.

Particular rocks and trees are slightly abstract objects, abstracted away from patterns of sensory experiences. The categories of "rock" and "tree" are abstracted from patterns of those particulars. Universals like "green" and "round" are abstracted away from them further still. Mathematical objects like numbers and sets even further still. And then from those distant abstractions we construct bigger more complex abstract objects that we take to be the universe as a whole. Whichever such abstract construction is a perfectly accurate map 1:1 of the entirety of the concrete universe, that just is the true concrete universe: whatever the correct theory of everything says the universe is, that's what the universe is, because that's what it means for that to be the correct theory of everything.

But that's still an abstract object, just like all the other abstract objects that aren't perfect 1:1 maps of the concrete universe. So if that's "real", if anything besides things like "pixels of vision" are real at all, then all abstract objects are real in the same sense as that one; but that one is special to us, because it's the one we're a part of, and so more concretely real, able to be observed, not just imagined.

besides, he still maintains a physicalist view of brain/mind. — Wayfarer

As he should. Mental stuff in one sense (access consciousness / easy problem) is reducible to physical stuff. But physical stuff is reducible to mental stuff in several other senses (phenomenal consciousness / hard problem, mathematicism inasmuch as information is considered "mental"). There isn't a clear divide between "mind" and "matter".

The nature of the reality of number, is completely different than the nature of the reality of material objects, — Wayfarer

You contradict yourself, insofar as you also claim that objects are intelligible, and it is their numerability and geometry that makes them intelligible. This intelligibility is form, and form insofar as it is intelligible is information. So, where's the separation between objects and their intelligibility in terms of number and geometry? And where is there any number and geometry completely separate from objects and instantiations?

Particles are conscious in exactly the same way humans are.
— bert1
How do you know this? — Gnomon

In short, because panpsychism is the least problematic theory of consciousness. I can rehearse the arguments if you want me to.

The point of my comment was less to argue for panpsychism, and more to make a point about the definition of 'consciousness'. The differences in experience between one thing and another are differences in what is experienced, not differences in degree of consciousness, because consciousness does not admit of degree.

I can only infer that other humans are conscious because they behave the same way as I do in similar situations. Do particles behave like humans? — Gnomon

Yes, they move if poked, for example. If you want to say some behaviour is evidence of consciousness and other behaviour is not, I'd be interested in what criterion you use for determining what is admissible evidence and what is not.

Do they show signs of fear as a strange energetic particle approahes? — Gnomon

i doubt it. I understand fear in very human terms, and a particle is very different from me. But they may feel something as their fields gradually overlap, I don't know.

Do they love their entangled partners? — Gnomon

I don't know.

Is your little toe conscious in "exactly the same way" as you are? — Gnomon

Yes, becausue 'consciousness' only means that the bearer is capable of experience, not that their experiences are similar to other conscious things.

Consciousness is an evolutionary advantage for living creatures, but how would it be adaptive for atoms and billiard balls? — Gnomon

I'm a panpsychist, I don't think consciousness did evolve. I don't think consciousness confers any evolutionary advantage, because there are no non-conscious things.

The point of my comment was less to argue for panpsychism, and more to make a point about the definition of 'consciousness'. The differences in experience between one thing and another are differences in what is experienced, not differences in degree of consciousness, because consciousness does not admit of degree. — bert1

I agree, and I think that this is analogous to the situation with incompatibilist free will. Incompatibilists insist that free will means being undetermined. Okay, electrons are undetermined, according to contemporary physics. So electrons have free will? Sounds like kind of a useless definition of free will then. But hey look over there, those compatibilists have a much more useful definition of free will according to which humans sometimes have it but electrons don't... it just has nothing to do with (in)determinism.

Likewise, phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness.

the Functioner in every respect through the senses or the mind or the intellect is the ātman. (...) Everything assumes a meaning because of the operation of this ātman in everything. Minus that, nothing has any sense.

Do you think the atman is supposed to represent what we would call consciousness, even if it is called the Self? We use ego to represent consciousness in Western philosophy, I’m guessing that

basic Residue of Reality in every individual

might be the same thing. One way to think of the residue of reality is intuitions, which are the contents of consciousness in some epistemological methodologies.
——————-

I believe that that number is 'real but incorporeal', hence showing that materialism is false. But the philosophical implications are very tricky. — Wayfarer

I’m down with real but incorporeal, but I’m not sure one could justify denying materialism entirely from the immaterial quality of pure a priori conceptions. Each and every number is nothing but a pure concept that categorizes a quantity, and we often need to quantize, or quantify, real objects, which are pretty much always material things. Still, we use numbers to quantize time and space, which definitely aren’t material things. All kinds of implications, no doubt.

Information : Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. . . . — Gnomon
I'm highly dubious about this. You can't make up definitions of fundamental words, like 'information'. — Wayfarer

You are probably most familiar with Claude Shannon's definition of Information. But, my general definition of Information above is a distillation of many technical definitions. For example, Shannon defined Information in absolute digital terms suitable for computers : either 1 or 0; either True or False. Hence, no uncertainty. But humans are analog computers, and parse information in terms of relative certainty : a ratio between 1 or 0; a probability range from True to False. Shannon's Entropy is defined in terms of a degree of order relative to disorder. The complete concept of Information is so broad that you will find almost diametrically opposite definitions depending on the application. For example, Shannon equated computer Information with physical Entropy, expressed as a Ratio between Randomness and Order : "Information entropy is the average rate at which information is produced by a stochastic source of data." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)

My thesis goes step-by-step through the evolution of the modern meaning of Information, and has several pages of references. But in the final analysis, it's all mathematical and metaphysical : a Rate or Ratio is not a specific thing, but a general range of probabilities from certain information (100%) to uncertain Information (0%). The human analog brain uses fuzzy logic (intuition) to extract meaning from incoming information. That may be why precise mathematics does not come easy for most of us; it requires hard conscious thinking. :nerd:

Enformationism : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/

Not only then is the ratio a : b the fundamental notion for all activities of perception, but it signals one of the most basic processes of intelligence in that it symbolizes a comparison between two things, and is thus the elementary basis for conceptual judgement . . . A proportion, however, is more complex, for it is a relationship of equivalency between two ratios . . . An analogy.
—-Robert Lawler, Geometry

Information : Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty.

Knowledge is not information, knowledge is 'understood information'. Ability to know is not information, ability to know is ability to understand information.

10 print "hello world!"
20 goto 10

In degrees of uncertainty, how much information is in this program above, or any other deterministic program?

You are probably most familiar with Claude Shannon's definition of Information. — Gnomon

Vaguely. But as I already mentioned, Claude Shannon was an electrical engineer, and his theory concerned transmission of binary information through a medium. 0 and 1 are of course the constituents of binary code, and his calculations of probability were used to reduce redundancies, and hence increase efficiencies, in binary information transmission, which is why his discoveries are basic to data compression (like Stuffit, which all of use every day.)

As for 'enformationism', your site is certainly attractive and it seems interesting, and you plainly care a lot about what you're doing there. (I kept a blog for about ten years, myself, although ultimately my interests proved a little too esoteric for...well, everyone.) But I'm sorry to say that I think the extraction of a 'metaphysics' from information theory is pure science fiction, I don't think that definition of 'information' would pass muster in any serious journal or department. (Sorry to be so blunt.)

Do you think the atman is supposed to represent what we would call consciousness, even if it is called the Self? — Mww

There are noted convergences between Vedanta and German idealism particularly Kant, Schopenhauer and Fichte (It was said Schopenhauer used to read from the Upanisads every evening in the later part of his life.) The reason I mentioned that passage is because there is an arguable similarity between the Kantian transcendental ego and the Vedantic 'atman'. Not the ego, which is 'man's conception of himself', but something deeper than that.

I’m down with real but incorporeal, but I’m not sure one could justify denying materialism entirely from the immaterial quality of pure a priori conceptions. — Mww

'In his seminal 1973 paper, “Mathematical Truth,” Paul Benacerraf presented a problem facing all accounts of mathematical truth and knowledge. Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.'

Why is this? Because, it turns out, 'our best epistemic theories' are materialiist - well, naturalistic, and based on the assumption of physicalism. We read: 'Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.'

https://www.iep.utm.edu/indimath/

(I love 'some philosophers, called "rationalists"..' - I can almost here a TV host intoning those words as he introduces the audience to those rare and elusive creatures....)

From the SEP entry on mathematical Platonism:

Mathematical platonism has considerable philosophical significance. If the view is true, it will put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical. For platonism entails that reality extends far beyond the physical world and includes objects which aren’t part of the causal and spatiotemporal order studied by the physical sciences. Mathematical platonism, if true, will also put great pressure on many naturalistic theories of knowledge. For there is little doubt that we possess mathematical knowledge. The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate.