An interaction consists of ongoing form, change and information. Form in this sense is not a static measurement, but a process. — Possibility

Yes! Yes! you got it. I love it!

Just saying it's something to consider. It's my approach and I've already commented.
I've never been a monist or a dualist because I think they are both wrong. What I do like is starting with physical monism and doing an expansion to a dualist form and a further expansion to specific mental content. Such as:

Brain state = BRAIN(mental content) = BRAIN(my birthday is XX-XX-XXXX)

Not bragging, just showing how I do it.

Brains are the tools we use to sort these things. — Mark Nyquist

You might find neuro-anthropology interesting.

Possibility seems to be very organized and systematic. I think we should leave it to her. But if she doesn't respond soon just do whatever you feel like. It should be something fun.

But your body also contributes to the state of this, doesn't it?

I think our total form, all of the information that our body possesses contributes to our consciousness.

For the equal signs to make sense you should look at it backwards. The specific mental content is evidence your brain state has the ability to contain this specific content.
I'm assuming a fully intact organism to support the brain. And it's bad manners to edit or embellish a quote.

It is the variability in this dimensional arrangement that informs, enabling an awareness of intentionality: the capacity to shift and rebalance a relational structure of form, interaction and change by rearranging energy, quality and logic. — Possibility

I think you are describing a shift in self here? Yes the self can shift slightly in how it relates to all this. And, I think, this occurs in tiny increments in every moment of consciousness, such that over long periods of time ( years ) can be quite different. There is the biological grounding, and I think things like life long memories, and relationships and groups we identify with would ground us in a sense of self that endures to a large extent. I wouldn't agree with Metzinger and co who say it only exists at the time it is considered, but there is an element of that, imo.

And it's bad manners to edit or embellish a quote. — Mark Nyquist

No offence intended.
Yes that works for me. I would also include the information from the body as part of the brain state.

@apokrisis

I'd like your opinion on an idea that I have about the connection between skepticism and information theory. You're well-versed in both these topics so I'll get right down to business.

Skepticism, doubt, is, in the final analysis, about uncertainty - given a proposition p, the skeptic holds that it's uncertain whether p or ~p. To then assert p or to assert ~p is to claim certain knowledge.

Shannon's information theory defines information as any message that reduces uncertainty from a given set of possibilities to ONE.

Information is basically the digital avatar of what in philosophy is termed as knowledge and skepticism is the state of lacking information. In other words skepticism = 0 bits (of information).

Will/should skeptics be offended/pleased that all of them together amount to 0 bits?

The way I was thinking of it (but didn't explain) is brain state would be only the basic minimum physical elements and configuration necessary to contain a specific mental content.

The way I was thinking of it (but didn't explain) is brain state would be only the basic minimum physical elements and configuration necessary to contain a specific mental content.
seconds ago — Mark Nyquist

:up: Are you familiar with Integrated Information Theory?

Sorry, no.

You pretty much understand the gist of it! :up:
It also would say brain states exist in a sequence of moments. And it attempts to measure them, but to what extent it can presently is debated.
The logic of IIT is very similar to the way I understand things. It also extends it's logic to outside the body, and thus becomes panpsychist.

If you are referring to neural corralates I would stick with brain states unless they mean exactly the same thing.

↪Pop Sorry, no. — Mark Nyquist

Harry Nyquist (1889 - 1976) Information Theory

Your namesake was one of the pioneers of information theory.

They are different expression for the same thing. I don't think we can get into too much trouble by using brain states. I need to go now, but will be back later.

:up: How about that?

Harry Nyquist preceded Claude Shannon in his work.

I understand his work was communication theory.

@Pop

Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of digital information. The field was fundamentally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. — Wikipedia

Ok.

You are looking for inconsistencies in my argument, and I appreciate it. Testing for inconsistencies and cracks is so difficult to do on ones own. However, insisting I should know how QM works is a little unreasonable. Who knows how QM works? But clearly form arises from it. No? — Pop

Well, technically everything arises from quantum foam, so...

Simply stating that ‘quantum foam somehow develops form’ is a leap of faith you’re expecting us to take with regards to your theory. You do need to understand how your model works with QM if you’re going to reference it to plug the gaps. Rovelli’s ‘The Order of Time’ is a good starting point, because it explains why it makes sense to describe reality as consisting of interrelated events, not objects.

How can it occur through spontaneous change? — Pop

I said that form can appear to develop through spontaneous change, depending on your intentional embodiment as observer. You need to be careful here, because all of these terms (form, interaction, change and information) can be defined as objects (3D), events (4D) OR potential (5D). If they’re all events, then all elements remain interchangeable. If even one of them is perceived as either fixed object or potential, then the observer is embodied, and there is a direction of intentionality/causation in play (5-4-3).

Everything is articulated, interrelated, and situated within the progressive forming of the universe. as illustrated in this graph. We are situated somewhere in there evolving interrelationally with everything else. The variety of form is open ended. The variety of forms of life is open ended, and the variety of forms of consciousness is open ended. If you accept consciousness is integrated information, you can appreciate the form of the integrated information is progressively evolving and can have no end. — Pop

The graph is based on an assumption that the universe is infinitely expanding, which is why the variety of form appears open-ended. But it’s not that simple. Rovelli describes two postulates of QM in relation to information theory, which I think is relevant here:

Postulate 1: there is a maximum amount of relevant information that may be obtained from a quantum system.
Postulate 2: it is always possible to obtain new information from a system.

At first glance, they appear to contradict each other. Is it ‘open-ended’ or not?

Everything exists as a self organizing system formed bottom up, where the underlying layer creates the layer on top. It is all vertically and then also laterally informationally connected. All the complexity of this can be simply represented by the form of one system interacting with the form of another system ( this captures everything - all the articulations). Information describes the process of form enabling the interaction of form. That something has form, enables it to interact with something else that has form. It does not enable it to interact with something else that does not have form, for our purposes at least since we can never know about it. The Definition information enables the interaction of form captures most of the facts: that things have to have form to interact, and that what is interacting is the form of the things. — Pop

This moves away from the process model even further - plus you’re using ‘form’ to describe both a process and a property here, which compounds the confusion. You’ve completely lost sight of the observer now. It is not that something has form (ie. as a property) which enables it to interact, but the process of form in relation to change and information that amounts to interaction. Things do not have to ‘have form’ to interact, but form as a process is present in any interaction.

Why only form? It could just as easily be about the creation of an interaction, or of change.
— Possibility

Form represents the underlying self organization that creates order in the universe. No form, no order, no universe. — Pop

This notion of self-organisation is your personal focus. You could just as easily say no interaction, no universe. Or no change, no universe.

I would say you do not play a stable part. You evolve interrelationally with everything else. In the variability of this dimensional arrangement, the multiplicity of causal factors converge to allow the emergence of random novel form. Because of the role the novel form plays in future integrations novelty of form is assured......... But for the most part I would agree with this paragraph. Intentionality is variously construed, particularly in phenomenology - can you be more specific? — Pop

Stable is not the same as static. I am a relatively stable living organism in an ongoing interaction (of a particular duration). This stability or dynamic balance is related to the notion of wu-wei in the Tao Te Ching: acting without attributing intentionality, or going with the natural flow of energy (chi).

Of course, I can also attribute intentionality (awareness of potential) to interaction, form, change or information, which directs the flow of energy in a particular direction and momentarily positions me somewhere in an intentional process (5-4-3). But there are many different ways to describe this shift.

emotions are the lynchpin of one's philosophy. E — Pop

What???

Emotions, enable experience, and without experience there could be no consciousness. — Pop

Do you mean that if I don't feel anything, I am emotionless, I can't experience anything and/or be conscious (aware) of anything? Do you really believe this?

But, anyway, let's see ... What is this topic about? Ah, yes. "What is Information?" :grin:

There are some child prodigies who can do high level calculus. — Corvus

I am done. Not even a child prodigy would do simple math without a teacher. Mathematical concepts do not automatically come with being human. Only the potential to learn comes with being human.

I am done. Not even a child prodigy would do simple math without a teacher. Mathematical concepts do not automatically come with being human. Only the potential to learn comes with being human. — Athena

That was just to say, that your example of child cannot do math is not relevant and not sensible in the arguments by giving you the contradictory case. It is just a logic.

I'm trying to point out that in the process of exchanging information two interacting systems get changed. Change is the necessary thing that needs to occur for information to take effect between any two or more substances. When we look at something it is not immediately clear, that this changes us physically by changing our neural patterning. ...........No the universe does not have a neural system, it incurs a physical change otherwise. — Pop

Awe, the word "effect" makes all the difference. We are all trying to exchange information and only rarely do we have the pleasure of success. The information can be all around us but that does not mean it affects us.

That was just to say, that your example of child cannot do math is not relevant or sensible in the arguments by giving you the contradictory case. It is just a logic. — Corvus

That was not logic, it was a stupid argument. We are not born with knowledge of math or anything else. We only have the potential to learn. When we are knowledgeable we gain the ability to create math and comfortable beds and high-rise apartments, etc.. The more knowledge we have the more we can learn. It took mankind millions of years to get to where we are today. Our capability to fill our heads with knowledge is not different but because we know more we can understand more. However, now we have unrealistic expectations of children and locking them up in classrooms and expecting them to learn what they have no interest in learning is not healthy.

That was not logic, it was a stupid argument. We are not born with knowledge of math or anything else. We only have the potential to learn. When we are knowledgeable we gain the ability to create math and comfortable beds and high-rise apartments, etc.. The more knowledge we have the more we can learn. It took mankind millions of years to get to where we are today. Our capability to fill our heads with knowledge is not different but because we know more we can understand more. However, now we have unrealistic expectations of children and locking them up in classrooms and expecting them to learn what they have no interest in learning is not healthy. — Athena

It is the most fundamental method of proving in Logic that the example was irrelevant and senseless for the argument. It shows the example proposed is not a universally true case by simply showing the contradictory case. I definitely read about the child genius cases with their IQ 200 doing calculus.

Not something I've heard said, but I guess any microstate is a unique collection of information. If that microstate has a probability of p, then the probability of you learning that precise set of information is also p (if you look). It would be a peculiar definition of 'message', which entails intentional _transmission_ of information, not just storage (intentional or otherwise).

In terms of quantum mechanics, entropy is the number of degenerate (equal energy) or near-degenerate microstates a system with a given energy may occupy and explore. Things that increase energy tend to increase entropy: heat it up, stir it, shake it shake it shake it baby... (Sorry, been listening to Tom Waits.) Doing these things changes the configuration of particles such that there are more permutations of each configuration available.

I'm not sure what either have to do with the OP; perhaps you can expand?

Nowhere. It is a noThing before it becomes form. — Pop

Where is "nowhere"? Do "forms" pop into existence like Venus, who emerged from the sea "fully formed", with no history behind her? What if "nowhere" is Plato's Ideal realm of Potential? His ideal Forms were basically the immaterial idea of a thing, before it is transformed into material forms or things. That's what I call "Enformation" : the potential for creating forms.

But where does Potential reside? If it's not actual, maybe it's the intangible metaphysical power of causation similar to human Will, that exists only in Minds, or Hearts if you prefer. When I act consciously, the action is preceded by the idea of a future effect. But that idea exists nowhere except in my Mind, which has no "where" in terms of Cartesian coordinates. So whose Mind is the imaginer or designer of Platonic Forms? :smile:

Platonic Forms :
The Platonic Forms, according to Plato, are just ideas of things that actually exist. They represent what each individual thing is supposed to be like in order for it to be that specific thing. . . .
According to Plato’s Theory of Forms, matter is considered particular in itself. For Plato, Forms are more real than any objects that imitate them.
https://owlcation.com/humanities/An-Introduction-to-Platos-Theory-of-Forms

Potential :
According to Aristotle, when we refer to the nature of a thing, we are referring to the form, shape or look of a thing, which was already present as a potential, an innate tendency to change,in that material before it achieved that form, . . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality
Note : Clay possesses the Passive Potential for being molded into many forms. But the Active Potential was in the mind of the sculptor, who imagined the future form, and then modeled the clay.