f you back engineered your brains exact physical states in the moments you composed these quoted sentences, you would have a progression of brain states. — Mark Nyquist
So in your view, the states of a computer are determined by its physics rather than its information? Complete measurement of its hardware state would let you back engineer whatever software routine it was handling? — apokrisis
But carry on with your efforts to champion nominalism. It must be at least 5 minutes since someone tried that. — apokrisis
. I view brain information as embedded in brain state and you need to think of it as existing only in a physical present(time — Mark Nyquist
All that the claim "information is physical" means is that it's either matter or energy or both, in and of themselves, or changes in them. So, either information is matter (has mass & occupies space) or energy (can do work) or are changes in mass/volume/energy.
— TheMadFool
The relationship between symbolic meaning and form is one of the issues. That was discussed in the other thread 'what is information'. Remember the Norbert Weiner quote, 'information is information, not matter or energy'? Information can't be reduced to the laws of physics, simpliciter. It is one of the many nails in the coffin of physical reductionism.
Of course, in terms of IT, then information has a physical meaning, because it is stored physically, in the form of binary code. But the philosophical implication of what information is, is a different thing again. One of the papers Apokrisis referred me to, The Physics and Metaphysics of Biosemiotics by Howard Pattee, is very useful on that (although Pattee's material is a tough read.)
All signs, symbols, and codes, all languages including formal mathematics are embodied as material physical structures and therefore must obey all the inexorable laws of physics. At the same time, the symbol vehicles like the bases in DNA, voltages representing bits in a computer, the text on this page, and the neuron firings in the brain do not appear to be limited by, or clearly related to, the very laws they must obey. Even the mathematical symbols that express these inexorable physical laws seem to be entirely free of these same laws.
— Pattee
So, they operate on a different level to physical laws. The relationships expressed by basic logic, for example, operate completely independently of physical laws, even though you can devise physical systems to instantiate them.
Killer argument for dualism, in my view. — Wayfarer
DO YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLISH — VincePee
I understand your view on information (non-entropic, ie, not equal to S=k lnN) but it's too abstract. — VincePee
I don't view it as completely analogous to computers and I don't go back far enough to know your view of brain information on this thread. I view brain information as embedded in brain state and you need to think of it as existing only in a physical present(time). — Mark Nyquist
All organisms posses more or kess the same relative entropy — VincePee
My view is neurosemiotic — apokrisis
Furthermore, a piano and a pianist will fall at the same rate if dropped from a height. That’s the sense in which ‘physical laws’ are applicable, in the context. — Wayfarer
X causes changes in physical systems or things. Name a non-physical, or merely abstract, which causes such changes. — 180 Proof
This is another way that the state of the brain at any given moment isn’t the whole story. — apokrisis
I never claimed or implied this categorical statement; instead I referred specifically to physical systems, etc. Take issue with my "logic" all you like but that's trivial so long as you don't / can't answer my question about 'non-physical causes'.You seem to be saying that if one thing affects another thing, it is to some degree, that other thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
Take issue with my "logic" all you like but that's trivial so long as you don't / can't answer my question about 'non-physical causes'. — 180 Proof
abstract and therefore are not in causal relation to facts — 180 Proof
The rest are physical. Please open a high school physics textbook, MU. — 180 Proof
. "Ideas" are abstract and therefore are not in causal relation to facts. — 180 Proof
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