And metaphysics. — Wayfarer

I guess.

In that article, the application to ‘information’ is mainly in respect of using entanglement to provide secure communications a.k.a. ‘quantum cryptography’. Nowhere does it say that information is a constituent of matter, unless I missed it. — Wayfarer

"In this regard, in 1999, one of us (A.Z.) has put forward an idea which connects the concept of information with the notion of elementary systems. For the subsequent line of thought, we first have to make ourselves awareof the fact that our description of the physical world is represented by propositions, i.e. by logical statements about it. These propositions concern classical measurement results. Therefore, the measurement results must be irreducible primitives of any interpretation. And second, that we have knowledge or information about an object only through observations, i.e. by interrogating nature through yes-no questions.It does not make any sense to talk about reality without the INFORMATION about it." - Zeilinger

Noise was a known problem before Shannon because their technology was analog. — frank

Sure. But analog signal filtering or analog computation are not revolutionary in the sense of achieving the kind of strict dichotomous separation I'm talking about.

A digital understanding of information turned both noise and signal into definite countable bits - binary degrees of freedom. And then having reduced everything to this same common ground - a mark could be a symbol for a noise, or a symbol for a signal - you could start to build your system back up from an absolutist stance.

I'm quite surprised by your attitude. Lately you have provided some great links to the Royal Society, on how biology was going down the informational route. As I see it, this is the wider trend in science in general. I see nothing controversial about it.

But the OP says:

The information a gene, quantum process etc. contains is not ontologically distinguishable from the structure of its components, so any realist account of biological occurrences must involve a substance, — Pop

So - what is the 'substance'? The passage you quote says 'It does not make any sense to talk about reality without the INFORMATION about it' - but this doesn't say anything about there being 'a substance'. Indeed it's the existence of an objectively existent substance which is called into question by quantum mechanics!

I'm quite surprised by your attitude. Lately you have provided some great links to the Royal Society, on how biology was going down the informational route. — Pop

But I said that in that article, the precise meaning of 'information' is specified with reference to genetic inheritance and the transmission of hereditable traits. It's not a vague claim about 'everything being information'.

It's not a vague claim about 'everything being information'. — Wayfarer

I have provided you with a negatable statement. Very simple to negate!

In the OP I quoted some definitions. Not my definitions. The purpose of the thread is to answer what is Information? I have my ideas, but I am willing to listen. Do you have a definition? When all things are considered a definition is a difficult thing to deduce.

A digital understanding of information turned both noise and signal into definite countable bits - binary degrees of freedom — apokrisis

Telecommunications transmission didn't become digital until the 1960s, so I assume you're using "digital" in a different way.

For a binary variable, there's a low amount of information. For a point in an analog waveform, there's a much more information because of the number of possibilities.

So here I think the attempt is to avoid a dualism of mind and matter by saying that this modeling perspective doesn't exist separately from the material domain - ' The information a gene, quantum process etc. contains is not ontologically distinguishable from the structure of its components.' — Wayfarer

I'm agreeing that some kind of dualism is needed. And I'm saying science has gone down that road - on its way to the triadic systems view that makes sense of it all.

And I also agree @Pop is doing the opposite of conflating everything that ought to be kept separate. He is using the folk confusions over both quantum theory and information theory to make a simple-minded monist claim where information states = conscious states ... because "information integration", or "information parallelism", or whatever monist hand-waving confusion seems to serve the purpose.

But I think underlying this attempt is the assumption that material substance, or the domain of objects presented in everyday experience, is fundamentally real. — Wayfarer

Again I agree. Materiality sans information dissolves into radical uncertainty, as quantum theory illustrates. We need to return to the original Aristotelean definition of substance as in-formed being - or fluctuation constrained.

He doesn't seem to want to go full idealist, but it's hard to avoid. — Wayfarer

The problem with full idealism is that it is normally just an alternative form of monist substantialism. It is treating the mind as something physically real rather than our term for a systematic, and therefore irreducibly triadic, process.

So idealism is as bad as materialism to the degree it incorporates the idea that one kind of stuff explains things because that stuff happens to have, for some reason or other, substantial properties. Like either material reality, or mental reality.

In challenging hard materialism, quantum theory doesn't then force you to adopt hard idealism. Rather, it shows that reality emerges as an epistemic habit. And modern quantum interpretations - such as ones applying information theory - reflect that directly.

Reality is composed of the definite answers it can give to counterfactual questions. And two dichotomously opposed questions can't logically be asked of the one moment, or one event.

You can ask a particle about its location with infinite precision, but then that rules out asking about the other thing of its momentum.

You can ask a particle if it is still there or has decayed. But then the more frequently you check in to see, the less chance it has to in fact evaporate.

So good old fashioned substantial reality is formed by having this overlay of informational constraint on material uncertainty. And that means the ultimate Planckian grain of Being is based on this logical counterfactuality - the ability to ask the two contrasting questions that are needed to pin the truth of something elemental, like a particle, to some pair of definite measurements.

Zeilinger thinks not: "No, we [need] both concepts. But the distinction between the two is very difficult on a rigorous basis, and maybe that tells us something." Instead, we need to think of reality and information together, with one influencing the other, both remaining consistent with each other.

That's what I'm talking about.

Sounds an awful lot like 'mind' to me. — Wayfarer

And it sounds an awful lot like semiotics, cybernetics, hierarchy theory, etc, to me.

Where you are saying it sounds like a justification for another kind of monist realism, I am saying, yep, that is exactly the kind of irreducibly complex triadic metaphysics that anyone actually wrestling with the problem of "the mind" has already arrived at.

Telecommunications transmission didn't become digital until the 1960s, so I assume you're using "digital" in a different way. — frank

Yep. The basic distinction goes back a few thousand years to when H.sap stopped counting in terms of "one, a few, a great many".

And I also agree Pop is doing the opposite of conflating everything that ought to be kept separate. He is using the folk confusions over both quantum theory and information theory to make a simple-minded monist claim where information states = conscious states ... because "information integration", or "information parallelism", or whatever monist hand-waving confusion seems to serve the purpose. — apokrisis

Are you familiar with IIT Theory? It seems not.

"According to the theory, just as the quantity of consciousness associated with a complex is determined by the amount of information that can be integrated among its elements, the quality of its consciousness is determined by the informational relationships that causally link its elements" - An information integration theory of consciousness

Are you familiar with IIT Theory? It seems not. — Pop

Very familiar.

Very familiar. — apokrisis

Then what is this all about?

He is using the folk confusions over both quantum theory and information theory to make a simple-minded monist claim where information states = conscious states ... because "information integration", or "information parallelism", or whatever monist hand-waving confusion seems to serve the purpose. — apokrisis

The statement “everything is information” is also applicable to you. If you cannot provide something that is not information, It follows, everything is information, including consciousness. Note the information in consciousness is integrated.

The statement “everything is information” is also applicable to you. If you cannot provide something that is not information, It follows, everything is information, including consciousness. Note the information in consciousness is integrated. — Pop

All you are demonstrating is that you don't understand your own sources.

Consciousness as a neural process is as much about differentiation as integration. So any simple claim about "quantities of information" is entirely missing the point.

That is why I prefer architectural approaches like Friston, Grossberg and Freeman (to name a few) that positively emphasise the brain's ability to ignore the world - to limit its "information". They get into what is going on at a deeper conceptual level.

Tononi isn't wrong. He just offers the shallow end of the pool story. ITT builds in the faulty psychology of Cartesian representationalism. And that is the bit you have picked up on and presented here.

It follows information is a co-element of any substance. — Pop

So (Matter-Information)? That seems like a new kind of dualism. Are brains even required?
This is better:
Matter--->Brain(Information; the perception of matter).

ITT builds in the faulty psychology of Cartesian representationalism. — apokrisis

What on earth are you talking about?

So (Matter-Information)? That seems like a new kind of dualism. Are brains even required?
This is better:
Matter--->Brain(Information; the perception of matter). — Mark Nyquist

IIT is panpsychist. Mass - energy - information is the new way forward. :smile: The mass-energy-information equivalence principle

What on earth are you talking about? — frank

The familiar distinction between the old cogsci approach of the brain as a data display vs the embodied cognition approach where the brain is engaged in a pragmatic modelling relation with the world.

One is dualism rehashed. The other is a triadic systems paradigm.

The Carl Popper method of negating an argument is dependent on how you define information and your definition is clearly untestable. Your perception of (Matter-Information) is a hallucination of your mind.
Edit: Karl Popper.

One is dualism rehashed. The other is a triadic systems paradigm. — apokrisis

Neither is IIT.

↪Pop The Carl Popper method of negating an argument is dependent on how you define information and your definition is clearly untestable. Your perception of (Matter-Information) is a hallucination of your mind. — Mark Nyquist

It is an integration of information. "What is information" is what this thread is supposed to be about.

IIT is panpsychist — Pop

Yep.

Mass - energy - information is the new way forward. — Pop

That particular equivalence applies at the Planck scale. So it has nothing to do with the equivalence scale that actually matters for life and mind.

Biology begins at the nano-scale where there is a convergence of all the critical forms of energy that thus creates a "frictionless" mechanical switching of physical actions from one form to another.

Biology (and neurology) is about applying mechanical constraints on physical outcomes. This is why encoded information can have some effect on the world. And - fortuitously it seems - the world just happens to provide a second level where the equivalence principle can apply.

The Planck scale explains the existence of the Cosmos. The convergence of all classical forces at the nanoscale in tepid water is then a further remarkable foundation that accounts for how life and mind could arise as semiotic processes able to control material dynamics.

Phillips, R., & Quake, S. (2006). The Biological Frontier of Physics Physics Today 59

Neither is IIT. — frank

IIT is panpsychist. — Pop

:lol:

I think we'll just have to put up with being bombarded by weird opinions and little curiosity.

Anyway, next week:. the holographic principle for dummies. :cool:

That particular equivalence applies at the Planck scale. So it has nothing to do with the equivalence scale that actually matters for life and mind. — apokrisis

Are you saying that the Planck scale is irrelevant to life and mind? Did they just pop into existence separated from the foundations supporting them?

↪Pop
I think we'll just have to put up with being bombarded by weird opinions and little curiosity.

Anyway, next week:. the holographic principle for dummies. :cool: — frank

:up: Looking forward to it.

Are you saying that the Planck scale is irrelevant to life and mind? Did they just pop into existence separated from the foundations supporting them? — Pop

Straw man argument.

All you are demonstrating is that you don't understand your own sources.

Consciousness as a neural process is as much about differentiation as integration. So any simple claim about "quantities of information" is entirely missing the point.

That is why I prefer architectural approaches like Friston, Grossberg and Freeman (to name a few) that positively emphasise the brain's ability to ignore the world - to limit its "information". They get into what is going on at a deeper conceptual level.

Tononi isn't wrong. He just offers the shallow end of the pool story. ITT builds in the faulty psychology of Cartesian representationalism. And that is the bit you have picked up on and presented here. — apokrisis

All of this is an expression of your consciousness. Note, it is vaguely integrated.

It is integrated information! :lol:

All of this is an expression of your consciousness. Note, it is vaguely integrated.

It is integrated information! — Pop

Straw man followed by plain silliness. Yet you seem to want to be taken seriously.

Straw man followed by plain silliness. Yet you seem to want to be taken seriously. — apokrisis

You provide me with expressions of your consciousness, that contain integrated information about it, whilst rubbishing me and IIT, all the while your expressions prove you wrong. You have got to laugh?

Then when you stop laughing, you have got to come on board. Information is the way to link things. Think about it.

Information refers loosely to the variability in any interaction. How we structure this in terms of logic, idea and affect encompasses the topic at hand.

There is a tendency to assume a particular qualitative structure of embodiment in any approach without specifying it - ie. acknowledging its limitations. The main difference between classical and quantum physics is this recognition that we’re approaching ‘information’ from the perspective of an observer-event, with which anyone must qualitatively align in order to make sense of the results.

This is most important when we talk about ‘information’, with its multiple ‘simplest’ forms, the most stable of which consists of three interrelated ‘events’, the least useful consisting of a paradoxical ‘relation’ of six-dimensional ‘meaningfulness’, and the most dynamic - and potentially confusing - a combination of ‘object’, ‘event’ and ‘potential’ (a differentiated triadic structure of 3-4-5).

The most difficult part about understanding ‘information’ I think is how we incorporate an awareness of our approach into this understanding. Even the question “what is information?” assumes a process of differentiating what it is from what it’s not, even though no answer can be given for “what is not information?”

IIT is panpsychist. Mass - energy - information is the new way forward. — Pop

Hold your horses - IIT is an interesting theoretical approach, but is firmly grounded in Cartesian dualism, and based on an assumption that it’s even possible to qualify consciousness as a consolidated event and then isolate it as a stable evaluation applicable to any interaction. But in reality, consciousness must be qualified differently for interactions between different systems. So there’s still a lot of work to do before one can even meaningfully ask ‘are you a 1 or a 0?’ of an event in relation to consciousness, even though IIT downplays this and carries on as if this value structure is real. It’s a placeholder that proponents of IIT have named and put their faith in, without evidence. As exciting as it may seem to throw your lot behind this idea (and you know I’ve explored this theory with enthusiasm), it’s still an empty promise...

And why does every 'thing' need to irreducibly contain information? So would you say something elementary like a hydrogen atom has some information pixies hanging about. How does that work. Why not make it easy on yourself and identify it as a hydrogen atom, period. — Mark Nyquist

Because to identify it as “a hydrogen atom, period” would be inaccurate to a certain extent, if we’re being honest. A hydrogen atom doesn’t so much ‘contain’ as consist of information that is variable in a way that transcends its definition as such. This variability contributes to any interaction in a way that is not accounted for in its consolidation as a hydrogen atom. This indeterminate ‘difference that makes a difference’ to any interaction is what we’re referring to when we talk about ‘information’ in a ubiquitous sense. Most definitions of ‘information’ are qualified structures of this variability, such as Shannon information. Because unqualified information is random, meaningless ‘noise’.