But does it have to be imagined? Perhaps the person who describes the bottle in the room as blue did in fact see a blue bottle in the room that was subsequently replaced with the green bottle the first man saw? — Outlander

So, the assumption of 1 bottle is an error.

Perhaps he has some odd eye condition or whatever that made him simply see it as blue. — Outlander

Then, an explanation of an eye condition was needed to account for the difference.

But it was, everything, even assuming they were complete lies, were equally information until investigated. — Outlander

Yes, information is subject to error when it is human knowledge.

So does that mean information not personally confirmed are but clues? Lies? Possibilities? Relative? — Outlander

I don't see how the confusion persists. I'm not trying to evade any example but they seem consistent with my account. Did I miss a chance to be confused?

But you chose the quote, so presumably you think it has some merit. What I am pointing to it the capacity for this thread to be nonsense disguised as physics. — Banno

That is your opinion, which you are entitled to. But If you are going to meaningfully engage with the thread then please point out the arguments and logic that are flawed, and specify in detail why. That sort of engagement would be valuable. I kind of have an intuition about this. It is far from being a fixed, and established ideology in my mind, but is on its way there. So I would value some substantive counterarguments.

Complexity cannot 'start'.

That is magical thinking, a fantasy. illogical. — hope

Are you denying the big bang?

So does that mean information not personally confirmed are but clues? Lies? Possibilities? Relative? — Outlander

This reminds me of the Chinese whisper? But I'm still not sure what your point is?

I don't see how the confusion persists. I'm not trying to evade any example but they seem consistent with my account. Did I miss a chance to be confused? — Cheshire

For the laypersons reading which does not exclude myself, let's see if we can simplify things. This is your "account"

Some of it's information about the other room and some is imagined. One or more is inaccurate. When I enter the room I make my own assessment and compare notes. The part that doesn't change probably isn't imaginary. — Cheshire

Your assertion that the definition of information seems to be that which "probably isn't imaginary" that's great. Who knows, maybe Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny "probably isn't imaginary". I mean, we see them every holiday. And that's when the legends say they show up. So, you see what I'm insinuating logically.

please point out the arguments and logic that are flawed, — Pop

1.The opening paragraph is at best dubious, perhaps nonsense.

2. The posited definitions are ambiguous

3. Much of the discussion that follows is unverifiable, metaphysical meandering.

Here, have a look at Stanford. It might help you keep the thread on the path of reason.

1.The opening paragraph is at best dubious, perhaps nonsense. — Banno

Specific reasons?

2. The posited definitions are ambiguous — Banno

Specific reasons?

3. Much of the discussion that follows is unverifiable, metaphysical meandering. — Banno

Specific reasons. pick an example state your reasons, and we can take it from there.

1.The opening paragraph is at best dubious, perhaps nonsense.
— Banno

Specific reasons? — Pop

It doesn't tell us anything.

In a moment of consciousness All of one’s historical information ( biological and social ), bodily sensation, and environmental information is integrated to a point, — Pop

What does that mean?

Yes, from my perspective, it seems your implying being subject to error implies everything is an error. Which is absurd. How could we be wrong about everything? Just because we can make a mistake does not imply Santa Claus. Who clearly exists and shepherds us to the land of the dead.

Ok, so, can we agree that information is "an idea that can be conveyed that may or may not be subject to error"? aka flat out wrong?

basically a flat out lie is information, though wrong, remains equal with an absolute accurate account? alongside a deeply held belief of something that just so happens to be wrong?

In a moment of consciousness All of one’s historical information ( biological and social ), bodily sensation, and environmental information is integrated to a point,
— Pop

What does that mean? — Banno

Informational structure goes all the way down. Assuming electromagnetism is the fundamental substance, then a Wavicle is the finest grain of reality. When two Wavicles integrate, it is their information ( frequency and amplitude ) that is combined. This Wavicular combination continues until the energy density becomes an elementary particle. The elementary particles combine to form atoms, atoms combine to form molecules, molecules combine to form proteins, proteins combine to form cellular structure, on, and on. What is combining is the form of one substance with another - so it is information that is combining. We evolve as an informational structure. This is also true for all our social history, where experience creates informational structure as per neuroplasticity. Environmental data has its neural correlates. So, a moment of consciousness is created when all of this information comes to a point.

In the end Consciousness = integrated information

Ok, so, can we agree that information is "an idea that can be conveyed that may or may not be subject to error"? aka flat out wrong? — Outlander

Yes. A lot of what we know is what people tell us and some of it isn't correct.

basically a flat out lie is information, though wrong, remains equal with an absolute accurate account? alongside a deeply held belief of something that just so happens to be wrong? — Outlander

Equal in the sense of a subjective experience. Absolute accurate account should correspond to some state of affairs if it's indeed absolutely accurate. We don't place the same value on both types for obvious reasons. But, if information is an unknown error, then it is experienced like information that is accurate by definition.

I think there may be a speculative sense of information that directs space and matter apart from our observations of it. But, generally people talk about information as in the sense of human knowledge.

The shape that things take. — Olivier5

:up:

Informational structure goes all the way down. Assuming electromagnetism is the fundamental substance, then a Wavicle is the finest grain of reality. When two Wavicles integrate, it is their information ( frequency and amplitude ) that is combined. This Wavicular combination continues until the energy density becomes an elementary particle. The elementary particles combine to form atoms, atoms combine to form molecules, molecules combine to form proteins, proteins combine to form cellular structure, on, and on. What is combining is the form of one substance with another - so it is information that is combining. We evolve as an informational structure. This is also true for all our social history, where experience creates informational structure as per neuroplasticity. Environmental data has its neural correlates. So, a moment of consciousness is created when all of this information comes to a point. — Pop

I'm not buying into that. It's a mess. It's not physics, and it's not philosophy. It's nearest parallel is theology.

This is what happens when engineers try to do metaphysics.

I'd be careful with this whole information-centric approach. It's often not clear what is meant as it is used in a technical manner in engineering then borrowed to biology and physics.

The problem is that it can lead one to think that the world is literally "informed". But to be informed and to have information is something people do, not objects. Unless you are of the persuasion that objects have some kind of mind that processes information.

And if objects literally process information, then we have a bunch of intelligence all around us.

I think a more neutral term would be helpful.

I think you've got a pretty good understanding of generic information. I did a thread once on semantic information. To compare:

"Semantic information may or may not be linguistic. A picture in a manual is information if it has well-formed, meaningful data.

Well-formed means the data follows the rules of a certain domain. This is syntax. An example of syntax is the rules of movie making. An old Hollywood movie conveys information according to a well known set of rules, such as that the camera is supposed to be perpendicular to the plane of action.

A director may break this syntactic rule, but she risks diminishing the meaningfulness of the movie.

So meaning comes last. The well-formed data has to adhere to meanings associated with the structures created by the presentation. So the good guy in a Hollywood movie is supposed to win in the end. If a director breaks this rule, the audience may be left uncertain, befuddled, and possibly violent."

And:

"So the general definition of information (GDI) is:

information is data plus meaning

Semantic information is made of data, and diaphoric definition of data (DDD) is:

A datum is a putative fact regarding some difference or lack of uniformity within some context.

This definition can be further analyzed. The first component is data de re. This entity is a product of inference. We see ourselves as information systems. This implies an external source for the ground of experience. So we're talking about proto-epistemic data which we think of as a lack of uniformity. We can't give an example of this kind of data because it's uninterpreted."

And if objects literally process information, then we have a bunch of intelligence all around us. — Manuel

There is a way to understand things that leads to this conclusion, namely Panpsychism.

The evolution of informational structure might be a way to understand how inanimate matter could become animated.

Initially, before neurons, information was memorized in the form of things. DNA is an example of this. It is data / code as physical structure.

So semantic information's core idea is that there is no meaning in uniformity.

I'm quite familiar with panpsychism. It's a natural alternative that may be intuitive depending on how it's articulated.

You don't even need information to articulate pansychism, all you need is experience.

But that's just the thing, do things like "code" and "data" accurately capture what is actually happening in the world? A person can crack a code, build a code or get lost in code. As for data, that might be less problematic as it seems more neutral to me.

Still you need to say for something to be data it needs to be data for someone.

I know. This road can lead people into saying things like "atoms" or "particles" don't exist because we named them this way, but I don't suscribe to linguistic idealism per se. I don't think the names we give to things in nature brings things into existence.

But approaches that are laden with extremely human centric concepts like "information", "code", "processing" are problematic in a way that "particles" or "DNA" are not.

At least that's my feel of the topic.

I'm not buying into that. It's a mess. It's not physics, and it's not philosophy. It's nearest parallel is theology.

This is what happens when engineers try to do metaphysics. — Banno

Is this the product of determining the standards for utterance? The posters account is in English and follows a consistent theme. Faking bewilderment to prove a point and creating it to sell one seems dubious.

I'd be careful with this whole information-centric approach. — Manuel

Yep.

There's too much room here for equivocation, for jumping to grand solutions from far too little evidence. The need is to tighten the discussion.

Yep.

But it's become a big industry in pop-science books, like Davies'The Demon in the Machine, Gleick's The Information or Loewenstein Physics in Mind and many others.

It seems to me to be very dubious, taking concepts from less well formed sciences and incorporating them into fundamental physics to then explain mental processes.

Thanks for the pointers. Yes, I'm breaking some rules I'm sure, in changing the camera angle. It is a powerful concept, but also a difficult one since every Thing is information. So it risks itself becoming as you say, a uniformity. Still it is the only pathway that I have found that goes from start to finish. So as a basis of an understanding, it seems quite plausible.

information is data plus meaning — frank

What is meaning in this context? If it is understood, it is meaningful? And understood would imply it fits already established informational structure. Like in constructivism, If it does not fit established informational structure ( knowledge ), it can not be understood, and so is meaningless.

And understood would imply it fits already established informational structure. — Pop

That's in the previous post. :up:

And understood would imply it fits already established informational structure.
— Pop

That's in the previous post. :up: — frank

So it holds up pretty well. No substantive counterarguments thus far.

That would be how information integrates in mind. What makes information integrate generally is the big question?

And it is difficult, and counterintuitive. Consider this, from the previously cited SEP article:

Lemma: A subset A⊂S of a set S can contain more information conditional to the set than the set itself...
A direct consequence is that we can lose information when we merge two sets. An even stronger result is:
Lemma: An element of a set can contain more information than the set itself.

Information is mercuric. Reaching conclusions too soon is fraught with potential for error.

But this thread is for acts of faith, it seems.

Hey, Pop and I are talking about semantic information with a plan to discuss the black hole information paradox next week.

Could you two either contribute to the discussion or take your moaning somewhere else?

What are your thoughts, queries, arguments, definitions, and insights? It would be great to have a general understanding of information on this forum. — Pop

Yes again. But, I could be wrong.

I'll let others contribute to what may be valuable information...