I think you got that wrong on basic principles. That is, the "The Meaning Of Life" must have some meaning itself, so any information consumed must have important meaning to the person. So, I'd say the consumption/creation of knowledge (the meaningful upgrading of information) is closer to the truth. However, even closer would be the consumption of wisdom (the meaningful upgrading of knowledge) is even closer to ones truth. Also, I believe you are falsely linking information consumption with happiness, which is no more true that food consumption. The path to healthy happiness is when you selectively produce/consume meaningful knowledge and wisdom that aligns your life/behavior/state of mind with your more true meaning/purpose in life (or at least one that brings you more peace than otherwise). — Sir Philo Sophia
The ‘meaning of life’ is simply relation to ALL information as possibility - even if it’s false, bad, wrong or incorrect. It all has meaning - just maybe not meaning to you — Possibility
Not true. Do you really think an idiot savant consuming with photographic memory all info and relationships is the meaning/purpose of human life? I’d argue that consuming and recording meaningless relationships of information reduces your net meaning/knowledge b/c of your very limited capacity, bandwidth, and time to continually process and sift through the ton of meaningless info to behold the little meaningful relationships of information. That is, the better you reject meaningless information and meaningless relationships of information the greater your ability to determine what is the meaning of the truly relevant relationships of information to produce meaningful knowledge to employ at your command. Any definition of meaning and information and life that is not throttle by our very finite mental faculties is certainly not practical as to the meaning of most, if not all, people’s lives.The more we relate to information, the more meaning that information has. The more information we exclude, the further we get from this ‘meaning of life’, and the more limited our capacity in the world. — Possibility
So, according to your (and the original poster’s) idea, a teenager spending all day on facebook consuming endless information of relationships between trivia and social gossip is fulfilling the meaning of life (yet they have a higher rate of suicides), but a Buddhist monk that prays and meditates all day, day in and day out, consuming little to no information of the world or its relationships, is not fulfilling the meaning of life? — Sir Philo Sophia
The more we relate to information, the more meaning that information has. The more information we exclude, the further we get from this ‘meaning of life’, and the more limited our capacity in the world.
— Possibility
Not true. Do you really think an idiot savant consuming with photographic memory all info and relationships is the meaning/purpose of human life? I’d argue that consuming and recording meaningless relationships of information reduces your net meaning/knowledge b/c of your very limited capacity, bandwidth, and time to continually process and sift through the ton of meaningless info to behold the little meaningful relationships of information. That is, the better you reject meaningless information and meaningless relationships of information the greater your ability to determine what is the meaning of the truly relevant relationships of information to produce meaningful knowledge to employ at your command. Any definition of meaning and information and life that is not throttle by our very finite mental faculties is certainly not practical as to the meaning of most, if not all, people’s lives. — Sir Philo Sophia
PS, I'd probably define ‘information’ as a statement with a true/false value (that is allowed to be fuzzy), but I'm still thinking about this one! — Devans99
The basic idea of information theory is that the "news value" of a communicated message depends on the degree to which the content of the message is surprising. If an event is very probable, it is no surprise (and generally uninteresting) when that event happens as expected. However, if an event is unlikely to occur, it is much more informative to learn that the event happened or will happen. — Shannon information theory
The information content (also called the surprisal) of an event E is an increasing function of the reciprocal of the probability p (E) of the event, precisely I( E ) = . — Shannon information theory
I would agree with the original post, but not for a happy long life. — Qwex
I don’t think you can exclude an ‘idiot savant’ from an opportunity to fulfil the meaning of life in their own unique way. If their capacity to engage in what you see as ‘meaningful’ relationships with information is impaired, does that make their life less meaningful? — Possibility
no computer can generate unknown shapes — Qwex
no computer can generate unknown shapes — Qwex
There are also good things about a knowledge gatherer mentality — Qwex
I’m not saying we all have to consume as much information as possible — Possibility
you seem to think of information as only data or words, but that’s not what I’m referring to. We relate to information, for example, simply by looking a homeless person in the eye and acknowledging them as a fellow human being who happens to be down on his luck. That we often ignore this as ‘meaningless’ information is an example of the many and varied ways that we miss the ‘meaning of life’ - which isn’t about what is ‘practical’ as to a definition of one person’s life. — Possibility
my friend, you are talking about wisdom, so you are completely off topic. recall the topic is 'Information - The Meaning Of Life In a Nutshell', nothing to do with knowledge or wisdom. So, I think you went off topic b/c the poster (et. al.) are talking about the raw consumption of information, not any consideration for its utility in making useful knowledge (let alone wisdom). The poster (et. al.) say that endless information accumulation alone is the meaning, goal, and happiness of human life. You (like me), looking towards wisdom, seem to believe otherwise?That we often ignore this as ‘meaningless’ information is an example of the many and varied ways that we miss the ‘meaning of life’ - which isn’t about what is ‘practical’ as to a definition of one person’s life. — Possibility
The meaning of life is about relating to information - finding optimal ways to maximise awareness, connection and collaboration. — Possibility
All properties of information would be properties of their corresponding numbers. — alcontali
That would turn information into a sub-discipline of number theory. All properties of information would be properties of their corresponding numbers. — alcontali
your idea on that is unclear to me. any property has to convey some kind of unique meaning/utility concerning the object it is a property of. How does a number, alone, impart/convey any meaning? — Sir Philo Sophia
numbers, alone, have no properties. so, your ideas here seem to be incomplete at best, flawed at worst. — Sir Philo Sophia
Gödel noted that statements within a system can be represented by natural numbers. The significance of this was that properties of statements - such as their truth and falsehood - would be equivalent to determining whether their Gödel numbers had certain properties. — Wikipedia on Gödel numbering
Arithmetization. A method used in mathematical logic for replacing a reasoning on the expressions of some logico-mathematical language by reasonings on natural numbers. For this purpose the replacement is constructed by some sufficiently simple one-to-one mapping of the set of all words (in the alphabet of the language under consideration) into the natural number sequence. The image of a word is called its number. Relations between and operations defined on words are transformed by this mapping into relations between and operations on natural numbers. The requirement of a "sufficiently simple" mapping leads to the fact that some basic relations (such as the relation of imbedding of one word into another, etc.) and some operations (like the operation of concatenation of words, etc.) are transformed into relations and operations having a simple algorithmic nature (e.g. are primitive recursive). — Encyclopedia of Mathematics on Arithmetization
In 1931, Kurt Gödel published the incompleteness theorems, which he proved in part by showing how to represent the syntax of formal logic within first-order arithmetic. Each expression of the formal language of arithmetic is assigned a distinct number. This procedure is known variously as Gödel numbering, coding and, more generally, as arithmetization. In particular, various sets of expressions are coded as sets of numbers. It turns out that for various syntactic properties (such as being a formula, being a sentence, etc.), these sets are computable. Moreover, any computable set of numbers can be defined by some arithmetical formula. For example, there are formulas in the language of arithmetic defining the set of codes for arithmetic sentences, and for provable arithmetic sentences. — Wikipedia on the arithmetization of logic in Gödel's work
OK, lets take your (et. al.) line of logic/thinking further. Then, in your (et. al.) terms a modern, top supercomputer has achieved a greater meaning in life because it has accumulated (and can access) more information than any human could in his/her lifetime. So, our a modern, top supercomputers are the epitome of, and superior to, humanity in that they far surpass humans in what you (et. al.) say is the key (if not only) metric of human purpose/happiness? You can't have it both ways... pick one... — Sir Philo Sophia
I find Shannon's approach certainly interesting but I am not sure that his approach to information will ever be the "dominant" one. — alcontali
that state of being you describe is not related to information. that is empathy. Empathy is not info, or knowledge most often is emotive, which suppresses all the conflicting info which would break the (often blind) empathy. — Sir Philo Sophia
my friend, you are talking about wisdom, so you are completely off topic. recall the topic is 'Information - The Meaning Of Life In a Nutshell', nothing to do with knowledge or wisdom. So, I think you went off topic b/c the poster (et. al.) are talking about the raw consumption of information, not any consideration for its utility in making useful knowledge (let alone wisdom). The poster (et. al.) say that endless information accumulation alone is the meaning, goal, and happiness of human life. You (like me), looking towards wisdom, seem to believe otherwise? — Sir Philo Sophia
But I would argue that relation is meaning is information. We can approach an awareness of meaning itself only through our relation to the world at the level of possibility - even though we’re unable to distinguish that meaning from anything. Then we make use of it by discarding what lacks ‘perceived potential’. We manifest this information, this ‘difference that makes a difference’, as knowledge, understanding and wisdom by reading, interpreting or otherwise relating to information within subjective structures of value/significance/potential. — Possibility
thanks for sharing that. cute, but not very useful in the relm of the mind. That is, my original statement/assessment still stands re " any property has to convey some kind of unique meaning/utility concerning the object it is a property ", except for trivial utility like concatenating, etc.- no meaning is conveyed/preserved to how is that useful to reasoning or the mind? — Sir Philo Sophia
"The undefinability theorem shows that this encoding cannot be done for semantic concepts such as truth." — Sir Philo Sophia
empathy could be not much more than an exercise in pattern matching requiring little info but mostly emotive bonding with your (info) projection to see what you want to see and bond with that. emotive states (including empathy via mirror neurons) tend to bypass information usage/processing so I'm personally far less comfortable including them as part of a information/reasoning process/framework.Well, then you appear to have a limited understanding of what information is, but you’re not alone. Information is ‘the difference that makes a difference’. The complexity of the process that relates information to produce empathy is six-dimensional: it takes into account the conflicting info and finds meaning in relating anyway, regardless of potential conflict. — Possibility
BTW, I should have made it more clear in my above reply that you are technically right b/c I said "does not relate to" in "that state of being you describe is not related to information. that is empathy." In the context of my above answer, I should have originally said "that state of being you describe is not a data/]information driven process b/c that is empathy."Well, then you appear to have a limited understanding of what information is, but you’re not alone. Information is ‘the difference that makes a difference’. — Possibility
But I would argue that relation is meaning is information. — Possibility
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