An event that has only one possible outcome has no associated information. — frank
And what physical stuff is mathematics made of? — Gnomon
Philosophically, I tend to think of Information, because of its ubiquity and universality, in terms of Aristotle's essential "Substance" -- which is not physical, but meta-physical. Moreover, the core concept of the term "information" recalls Plato's Forms, which were abstract definitions of real things. — Gnomon
And some cutting-edge physicists have concluded that even physical Matter is made of metaphysical (abstract) Information. — Gnomon
Philosophically, I tend to think of Information, because of its ubiquity and universality, in terms of Aristotle's essential "Substance" -- which is not physical, but meta-physical. Moreover, the core concept of the term "information" recalls Plato's Forms, which were abstract definitions of real things.
— Gnomon
Yep. But the shift is from thinking that form in-forms stable matter to thinking of how form acts to regulate material instability, or pure potentiality. — apokrisis
A metaphysics of stuff can't account for its own origin. It leads to the irresolvable paradox of getting something out of nothing.
A metaphysics of statistically emergent regularity can replace that by starting with the "everythingness" of a vagueness or uncertainty. Anything at all might be the case. Then the mathematics of patterns tells us the kind of determination in terms of self-consistent form that must then constrain that everythingness to a more organised somethingness. — apokrisis
For me, this diagram solves or (at least keeps straight in my mind) the problem of identifying the nature of ‘information’ in any discussion, in relation to any assumptions made regarding the observer and the observed. — Possibility
Information literally changes our form ( neural correlates ) . But we have to understand this in terms of constructivism, so it is a build up of form............... The change in form is memorized. — Pop
The quote Wayfarer gave from Barbieri, for instance, talks about life manufacturing observable information as molecular artefacts, as if from nothing. But I’m thinking it isn’t from nothing - rather it’s constructed from what we don’t know, in this way. — Possibility
In a long series of articles and books, Hubert Yockey has underlined that heredity is transmitted by factors that are ‘segregated, linear and digital’ whereas the compounds of chemistry are ‘blended, three-dimensional and analogue’.
Yockey underlined that: ‘Chemical reactions in non-living systems are not controlled by a message … There is nothing in the physico-chemical world that remotely resembles reactions being determined by a sequence and codes between sequences’.
Yockey has tirelessly pointed out that no amount of chemical evolution can cross the barrier that divides the analogue world of chemistry from the digital worldof life, and concluded from this that the origin of life cannot have been the result of chemical evolution. This is therefore, according to Yockey, what divides life from matter: information is ontologically different from chemistry because linear and digital sequences cannot be generated by the analogue reactions of chemistry.
At this point, one would expect to hear from Yockey how did linear and digital sequences appear on Earth, but he did not face that issue. He claimed instead that the origin of life is unknowable, in the same sense that there are propositions of logic that are undecidable. This amounts to saying that we do not know how linear and digital entities came into being; all we can say is that they were not the result of spontaneous chemical reactions. — Marcello Barbieri, What is Information?
- excellent!Data plus meaning equals information. — frank
Meaning in this sense occurs when the information fits already existing information? — Pop
This sounds like a theory of meaning. — frank
Meanwhile I know what meaning and meaningless are. I see the potential for progress in the development of a testable theory of consciousness. — frank
Meaning occurs when information fits already established ( informational) structure. — Pop
Information creates meaning, through a construction of form - Lego brick by Lego brick. — Pop
The only context "information" and "meaning" have is consciousness! imo. Integrated Information — Pop
I think meaning is supposed to be a constituent of semantic information. So how can it create meaning? — frank
I guess consciousness is in the background of this line of thought because we're talking stuff that's knowable in principle, but the information discussed there isn't associated with any conscious being. — frank
This is due to the mind dependent nature of the world. — Pop
At metaphysical base - no matter how deep we may dig, what we will find is a "substance" and its "information". But the question is - How are these things different? — Pop
The intersection is the relationship of two systems exchanging information. The systems are mutually changed in his exchange.
Please see my post above regarding enactive world. I would love a comment? — Pop
I mentioned before that metaphysics isnt my bag. I don't really have a lot of philosophical baggage. :razz: No metaphysics, no theory of meaning. — frank
Enactive in this context simply means that we are part of any interaction, and cannot objectively talk about ‘information’ without including ourselves — Possibility
We cannot extract ourselves. The exchange and ourselves, to some extent, become one. — Pop
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