Just consider the numbers "13, 13" as they appear on your screen. Are they two different numbers, both classifed as "13"? Or the same number? — hypericin

Are we talking about tokens of a numeral (or numeral string)? Or are we talking about some abstract number or concrete collection, but either way something (or some things) referred to by such a numeral? Or would that be a pedantic question? — bongo fury

Any of them.
"13" might mean the tokens, it might mean the integer 13, it might mean 13th day of christmas, or an order to buy 13 pounds of chicken fat. The meaning is totally dependent on context. This is the power and efficiency of symbolic communication, it abstracts away all the shared context. Information with no context gets you nowhere, the meaning of a message is a function of its information and context:

F(I, C) -> M
F("13", A child's writing exercise) -> The tokens 1, 3
F("13", A math exam) -> The integer 13
F("13", KFC kitchen restock order ) -> Buy 13# chicken fat
F("13", A christmas carol gone wrong) -> 13th day of Christmas

In all these messages, the information is not just similar, it is the same. Only the context varies.

But the context here was as specific as any of those, so I'm not sure why you say "any", here, but not with those.

The question about

the numbers "13, 13" as they appear on your screen — hypericin

isn't any clearer, but let's see if answering it helps.

Are they two different numbers, both classifed as "13"? Or the same number? — hypericin

They are two different tokens of the single numeral-string "13". They both of them "are" that string in the sense better clarified as "belonging to" or "instantiating" or "exemplifying" or "being classified as" that string. Better at least if we risk misunderstanding each other on questions of numerical identity. The string is a type, which is to say, a class or aggregate of its member tokens. The member tokens are numerically distinct. The type or class or aggregate is singular.

The distinct tokens might well be interchangeable in the role of referring to a single number (the numeral's referent, however construed), and I wonder whether you are in danger of confusing equivalence with identity for that reason. It might explain the use of the term "information" to refer to a syntactic object, such as a token. (Not saying there is a rule about that.)

I claim that with information qualitative identity *is* numeric identity. As in the example of "13, 13". — hypericin

So what do you really mean? Are the asterisks scare quotes? Or are you trying to claim that the two numerically distinct (and even physically contrasting, as you rightly say) tokens of "13" are somehow numerically one, as you do indeed keep seeming to say?

I can't wait for the translation. — Manuel

If you know Spanish, there seems to be a full translation at least in the 2014 publication.

(2011) Filosofía de la redención (Antología). Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

(2020) Filosofía de la redención (y otros textos) Antología. Madrid: Alianza.

(2014) Filosofía de la redención. Madrid: Xorki

@Bartricks

If it's of interest to you, here's a debate between an idealist (Kastrup) and a panpsychist (Goff):

Consciousness Live! S3 Ep 17 -Discussion with Philip Goff and Bernardo Kastrup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOykDWGlOxM

Thanks, that was clarifying.

I'm in Portland now, so I can readily imagine a coffee table book for hipsters called "13". In it are a collections of photographs of various forms of the token "13": "13" scrawled on a note, birthday candles in the shape of "13", "13" in gothic font, the sign of The Lucky 13 Saloon, and so on. These tokens are numerically distinct, and members of the same class of "depictions of the numeral 13". And this book reflects your conceptual model of the two "13" tokens on a page in our example.

We can treat other groups of material objects the same way: I have a bag of apples, some are red, others are pink, some are delicious, others are mealy. These are numerically distinct, qualitatively similar, and conceptually unified by the term "apple" (in my terms from before, the word "apple" carves reality in such a way that the contents of this bag all fall on one side of this conceptual cleavage).

This is in general how language, and therefore thought, treats the physical world. How else can we reason about the welter of similar and dissimilar objects that confront us every day? The word "a" betokens this kind of reasoning: by "an apple", the speaker asserts an object which belongs to the class "apple".

And I think we agree that these classes are ultimately human inventions, there is nothing of words in objects themselves. There is no "appleness", either in apples, or as some Platonic abstract, apart from the collection of traits by which apples are distinguished from everything else in the world. Thinking otherwise is the error of reification.

But this is not how we generally think about what I've been calling "informational objects". For these, we don't speak of them in terms of set membership, we treat them as proper nouns. You don't watch *a* "The Wizard of Oz", you watch "The Wizard of Oz". There is only one. This, in spite of the fact that you might have watched it on dvd, and your copy is one of 5 million extant in the world, each qualitatively (at least microscopically) and numerically distinct from all the others. We are not referring to the physical mediums when speaking of informational objects. We are referring to the information itself. Or maybe, the information in it's proper context, its meaning (the dvd in a dvd player).

Information also allows for categories, but across the dimension of informational variation, not physical variation. So, if you watched a copy of the movie dubbed in Spanish, or maybe even a stage production, you might say you watched "A Wizard of Oz". These would fall into the category "versions of The Wizard of Oz".

But, there are not as many "Wizard of Oz"es as there are copies of the movie floating around. If you accept this, then it logically follows that two copies of the dvd contain the same, numerically identical, information. This is not some esoteric, woo belief, it is just our common sense approach.

Yeah, I read the Allianza version. It was far from the full book, probably less than half.

I mean, it was good, but it was missing many arguments you could see many ... in the book.

I know the one due next year if the full version, I want to read his epistemology in detail, not a general outline. The Alizana version is good to get familiar with him.

So your admirable (for me) nominalism, as embraced in paragraphs one thru five (of eight), depends on grammar? Isn't that a tenuous criterion? Couldn't it easily have happened that we referred to apples as "apple" (with no article) even while only ever accepting a (any) whole one as answering to the name? (cf. Quine in Word and Object, "Divided reference".) Would some version of your "informational" exception then not apply?

Perhaps you might refuse the exception on the grounds that apples aren't identified digitally? But notice that what impresses about digital reproduction (in particular) isn't the fidelity of one copy from the last, but the feasibility of an endless chain of true copies. That aspect is achieved as well by an atomic digital symbol as by a composite one. Treat an apple as a character in a discrete alphabet (e.g. of fruits) and the analogy is complete. (cf. Goodman in Languages of Art, "Notations".) Digital reproduction is no grounds for Platonism, under any flag.

your copy is one of 5 million extant in the world, each qualitatively (at least microscopically) and numerically distinct from all the others. — hypericin

Absolutely.

We are not referring to the physical mediums when speaking of informational objects. — hypericin

Why on earth not?

We are referring to the information itself. — hypericin

But what is that?

Confusing the music with the score would be absurd enough. Confusing it with any kind of recording, even more so.

So, if you watched a copy of the movie dubbed in Spanish, or maybe even a stage production, you might say you watched "A Wizard of Oz". — hypericin

Sure. But not if you merely studied, however carefully, the digital or analog recordings themselves (literally, as opposed to the sound-and-light events produced from them).

But, there are not as many "Wizard of Oz"es as there are copies of the movie floating around. — hypericin

More to the point, there are not as many of the Hollywood artwork "The Wizard of Oz" as there are of the screenings and plays (sound-and-light events) which collectively constitute said artwork.

If you accept this, then it logically follows that two copies of the dvd contain the same, numerically identical, information. — hypericin

Nope. Consider the apple. And the numeral.

This is not some esoteric, woo belief, — hypericin

Sorry. Seems like Platonism to me.

So your admirable (for me) nominalism, as embraced in paragraphs one thru five (of eight), depends on grammar? — bongo fury

Of course not, grammar merely reflects it

Couldn't it easily have happened that we referred to apples as "apple" (with no article) even while only ever accepting a (any) whole one as answering to the name? — bongo fury

When referring to a single, definite apple, we say "the apple". The point is, "the apple", once established, may only refer to a singular physical object. Whereas "the book", when denoting a work of art and not a specific copy, may apply to any extant copy, as the information (or meaning), not the physical medium, is the referent.

...Treat an apple as a character in a discrete alphabet (e.g. of fruits) and the analogy is complete... — bongo fury

I don't follow this argument. A pictogram is a symbol, and so information, not an apple.

Would some version of your "informational" exception then not apply? — bongo fury

There is no "exception". Matter is one kind of thing, information another. Being different, we think about them differently.

Why on earth not? — bongo fury

Because we don't. This is just a fact.

Hypericin: I finished reading my copy of "The Eyes of the Overworld" today.
Bongo Fury: Oh, I just finished reading "The Eyes of the Overworld" on e-book today.
Hypericin: Wow. What are the chances, we finished the same book on the same day.
Bongo Fury: Same book? No we didn't. You read a paperback, I read an e-book.

An observer would conclude either this is your version of humor, or you suffer some kind of brain damage.

But what is that? — bongo fury

That which is encoded or encodable. That which is isomorphic with a natural number. That which is the same between a paperback and e-book copy of a book.

Sure. But not if you merely studied, however carefully, the digital or analog recordings themselves (literally, as opposed to the sound-and-light events produced from them). — bongo fury

But the information itself could be discovered. Context, and therefore meaning, is not deducible from information. If it was, it would be redundant.

the screenings and plays (sound-and-light events) which collectively constitute said artwork — bongo fury

Considering the screenings, they depend on and are completely reflective of the film reels.

Sorry. Seems like Platonism to me. — bongo fury

Maybe. But you aren't understanding me.

That which is isomorphic with a natural number. — hypericin

Please explain?

You are probably aware that digital data is stored as 1s and 0s. These are interpreted as base-2 numbers, which are just like the familiar base-10, except at every digit only 2 values are possible, instead of 10 So, every file on your computer can be interpreted as an enormous number. In the case of a movie, if it is well compressed and HD the file size might be ~4GB. This is 2^32 base-
2 digits, corresponding to a single base-10 number of around 1.2 billion digits! — hypericin

Ok, so being isomorphic with a natural number means being in a system capable of distinguishing at least that specified whole number of different items? I'd be cool with that.

Then, you are information if you are such an item? Perhaps there is an additional requirement that you and the rest must be symbols?

Ok, so being isomorphic with a natural number means being in a system capable of distinguishing at least that specified whole number of different items? — bongo fury

Yes, so for instance your apple glyph can be encoded with some number [0, N) where N is the number of glyphs in the fruit language. This number would then be an encoding of an encoding. In general by information I mean: Being an encoding or being encodable in such a way that the encoding is representable as a natural number.

Perhaps there is an additional requirement that you and the rest must be symbols? — bongo fury

I don't want to include only encodings, I want to include everything encodable. So the informational content of a physical system is the minimum encoding that would permit someone with the encoding and the means to completely reproduce it. Of course you can modulate this requirement with a fidelity. Given an apple, this can range from indistinguishable reproduction, which would be an enormous amount of information, to mere membership of the right fruit class, where a glyph would suffice.