Relative Information Model: An argument for life after death

Qmeri

This is a model of reality that tries to solve what human existence is, why we exist in the first place and what happens to us after death.

Definitions:

information = a limitation of possibilities within all possibilities

randomness = lack of information = possibilities not being limited off

maximum amount of information = minimum amount of randomness = limitation of all but one possibility

paradox = limitation of all possibilities within all possibilities

Logical necessity = a thing that does not limit off any possibility/is true in all possibilities

Observer = a set of interdependent things within a possible world which therefore contain relative information of what their form is.

relative information = information that does not exist from an objective point of view, but that exists from a point of view of an observer in a possible world. The form of the observer which does not exist in all possible worlds limiting of those possible worlds from the point of view of that observer.

relative randomness = possibilities not being limited off by relative information from the point of view of an observer

observation = a new interdependency in an observer thus giving new relative information to the observer

anti-observation = a removal of an interdependency in an observer thus removing relative information from that observer

interdependency = when a state of a thing is dependent on the state of another thing/information about a thing can be derived from the state another thing. For example a thing is interdependent with a thing that influences it, since the influence/change of state of the influenced thing is dependent on the state of the influencing thing. Therefore the influenced thing contains information about the thing that influences it since this information can be derived from the state of the influenced thing.

new information = information that can’t be derived from previous information and is therefore random from the point of view of previous information

Claims:
-The main substances of existence are information and randomness
-Therefore reality exists by logical necessity
-What we experience is relative information
-When we die, from our point of view our interdependencies start to unravel thus making our experience gradually more and more random until it no longer contains the relative information that the death is happening/more interdependencies should be removed. This stops the process of death and then we can make new observations/interdependencies with the huge amount of relative randomness that has accumulated. This creates new relative information resulting in our relative randomness collapsing and our experience continuing as a mostly random new being in a mostly random new world.

Evidence:
-Either information or randomness exists by logical necessity because information not existing is the same as randomness existing and randomness not existing is the same as information existing, thus giving credibility that they are the main substances of existence
-Nothing meaningful has ever demonstrably been described about anything without describing limitations/information except complete randomness and demonstrations of paradoxes and logical necessities, thus giving credibility to that information and randomness are the main substances of existence.
-This model predicts that the world is observed from a point of view. This can be confirmed.
-This model predicts that things which are not interdependent with the observer are random until they become observed and thus interdependent with the observer. This can be confirmed in quantum mechanics.

Gregory

Bare with me.

Aquinas said things had truth, a transcendental, in them. But truth is primarily in the mind for him

Yet we can posit that there is no truth because truth has no substance and still believe in a material world. This would be a consistent materialistic relativism.

This is far different from Hegel, whom I'm strangely obsessed with. For him, within the Void there is at the center a point of Absolute Truth\truth that is really like an unending sentence of Truth

Are my thoughts at all relevant??

Qmeri

↪Gregory

Hmmhhh... I must admit that I don't really understand what you are trying say. This model doesn't really deal with the nature of truth itself. It deals with the nature of existence.

Pantagruel

For me the interesting question is this: is the form preserving the information, or is the information preserving the form? Bearing in mind that the same information can be preserved, probably in an infinite variety of ways.

Galuchat

↪Pantagruel

By definition, form (code) precedes information.

Pantagruel

By definition, form (code) precedes information. — Galuchat

What definition are you referring to?

Galuchat

↪Pantagruel

No.7 here, or No.3 here.

Pantagruel

↪Galuchat

No 7 says the opposite of what you are saying. No 7 says information is the creation of form. Which makes sense, otherwise you end up in an endless regress. Number 3 describes a process.

This isn't intended as a direct response to your point, but I have read a lot of information theory, starting with Pierce's early work. And I'm trained in coding. I don't think there is necessarily a facile answer one way or the other, it is a complex question, particularly when you consider the case of 'natural information'.

Galuchat

No 7 says the opposite of what you are saying. No 7 says information is the creation of form. Which makes sense, otherwise you end up in an endless regress. — Pantagruel

What it says is:
"(now rare) The creation of form; the imparting of a given quality or characteristic; forming, animation."
Which has Aristotelian connotations (cf., hylomorphism).

Number 3 describes a process. — Pantagruel

Correct.

This isn't intended as a direct response to your point, but I have read a lot of information theory, starting with Pierce's early work. And I'm trained in coding. I don't think there is necessarily a facile answer one way or the other, it is a complex question, particularly when you consider the case of 'natural information'. — Pantagruel

Code and Form are specific and structured data: interrelated elements (foundational components).
From Communication Theory, code precedes information.

Pantagruel

↪Galuchat

From communications theory, information is a message transmitted on a channel.

https://www.britannica.com/science/information-theory/Classical-information-theory

Galuchat

↪Pantagruel

You need to give Shannon & Weaver (Mathematical Theory of Communication,1949) a careful read.

Pantagruel

Given any set of things, no one arrangement of things is antecedently more or less likely than any other. So if the things are arranged to form, an arrow, for example, or the number 4, it is the information itself which makes the arrangement "informative."

As I said, I really only wanted to pose the question, I think it can be approached from various directions, but I definitely do not think there is a simplistic answer. Anyway, if you don't think my example makes sense let's just leave it at that.

Galuchat

Consider it left.

Wayfarer

Given any set of things, no one arrangement of things is antecedently more or less likely than any other. So if the things are arranged to form, an arrow, for example, or the number 4, it is the information itself which makes the arrangement "informative." — Pantagruel

This is not at all related to the OP, which I don't understand, but an observation based on the few interactions we've had. The 'form' that I believe Galuchat is referring to is the Greek 'morphe', which is the seminal term that is one half of the Aristotelian term 'hylo-morphism'. Hyle is stuff, matter (actually originally timber, i.e. raw material out of which things are fashioned) and morphe is the form which gives it shape, function and (importantly) purpose. (Note that the name lives on in the discipline of 'morphology', which is 'form-ology', a fundamental aspect of biology.)

Now recall that Aristotle inherited but altered Plato's theory of forms. In Plato, the forms were 'eidos', variously translated as idea or form (originally connected with the act of seeing). Aristotle rejected the independent reality of forms, that they inhered in an ideal domain, but he nevertheless believe in the reality of forms. Indeed it was the form of something that made it intelligible, otherwise it would just be inchoate matter.

Now, much later, this was incorporated into Christian theology when it adopted Greek philosophy into its philosophical framework. A very simplistic sketch is that the ideas of things are what emanate from the divine intellect, and what is perceived by the human intellect (nous) on account of the uniquely human faculty of reason.

All of this is fantastically non-PC and regarded with the utmost disdain by moderns, as Darwinian theory generally disdains anything faintly Aristotelian, for complex historical reasons. However, it's interesting to note that Aristotle is making a comeback in biological theory, because of the ideas of of formal and final causes, which had been discarded by Galilean science.

Me, I think that 'natural theology' has a very strong argument in this matter. And the reason is, that science itself assumes the 'order of nature', but it doesn't explain it. That order - the apparent lawfulness of the cosmos - is presupposed by science itself, and it's also impossible to imagine a cosmos (which means, incidentally, 'ordered whole') in which there was no order. There has to be order first, before there is even 'things', as no 'thing' can exist without there being an order.

I think the form these arguments now take have morphed (sorry for the irony) into the 'fine tuning arguments' of various kinds, as they too point to the implicit order in the fabric of the cosmos. Now a natural theologian will say, that implicit order exists on that level, because the universe is the creation (or emanation!) of a divine intelligence. Whereas evolutionary theory tends to equate 'mind' with the product of the 'blind watchmaker' and therefore of very recent heritage, the Platonic Christian tends to see the order of the Universe, and the rational order of the mind, as being something like a lock and key. And I have to say, I find their argument both more persuasive, and more appealing, than the Darwinian alternative (notwithstanding that it's not really incompatible with evolutionary biology, as it operates on a far deeper level than empirical science).

Qmeri

↪Pantagruel

For me the interesting question is this: is the form preserving the information, or is the information preserving the form? Bearing in mind that the same information can be preserved, probably in an infinite variety of ways. — Pantagruel

In this model the closest equivalent to a "form" is a possibility which is a logically possible state that can be. In this model information limits off/makes untrue certain "forms" and randomness allows/makes possible certain "forms". Therefore in this model untrue forms are contained/preserved in information and possible forms are contained/preserved in randomness.

And while the "information" we use in our practical lives can be contained in variety of ways (computers, books, our memory, etc), this is the "relative information" this model describes. It is information that is derived from a form and is thus relative to that form and is thus contained in that form. The non-relative information and randomness are the fundamental substances of this model that contain everything else.

Galuchat

↪Wayfarer

Excellent summary.

Wayfarer

↪Galuchat

Thank you :up:

ovdtogt

There has to be order first, before there is even 'things', as no 'thing' can exist without there being an order. — Wayfarer

That is not true. In the 'beginning' there was no order'.There was pure energy which is formless. As energy spread out into an expanding space some of the energy transmuted into matter. Only then do we get a semblance of order. As the space continues to cool, more and more order is imposed on energy. This will continue until the energy death of the universe.

Relative Information Model: An argument for life after death

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