You might have heard of the term “natural selection”.

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?

You might have heard of the term “natural selection”. — apokrisis

Never heard of it. I mean, can you give an example? Who is selecting?

Who is selecting? — VincePee

Nature. :razz:

Nature. — apokrisis

Who is Nature?

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

No, I said what I said. If you want to make another point then make it and take credit for it. Don't take it personally. It's common around here.

I get your point though and agree with it. Some parts only.

Does one ask “who” of the general rather than of the particular?

But carry on with your efforts to champion nominalism. It must be at least 5 minutes since someone tried that.

You said brain states are physical. I am asking in what sense does their physics determine a “progression” of states.

If you agree it doesn’t do so in a computer, then why are you so apparently sure it does in a brain?

But carry on with your efforts to champion nominalism. It must be at least 5 minutes since someone tried that. — apokrisis

I don't understand. I just asked you if you could give me an example of "formal constraints" and you end up not knowing an answer to the simple question who Nature is.

If you want to ask ungrammatical questions, that’s your lookout.

ungrammatical questions — apokrisis

What's ungrammatical about asking if you can give an example of "formal constraints on material uncertainty" and who's Nature? DO YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLISH (it could be off course that you're American...)?

I mean, I understand your view on information (non-entropic, ie, not equal to S=k lnN) but it's too abstract.

By progression I meant an exact physical state of relevent matter changing through a duration of time. I was trying to explain it in dynamic terms rather than static terms if that makes it clearer.
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).

. 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

What information? Your brain state contains the same amount of information as mine. But they are completely different states.

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

I'm inclined to agree with what you said if only because the same symbol e.g. C can represent the chemical carbon, a test grade, the first note in an octave without undergoing any physical transformation which, to me, should be impossible if information is physical. Reminds me of Wittgenstein's claim, meaning (information) is use. @Banno.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLISH — VincePee

Well enough to know that questions of who-ness relate to the logically particular rather than the logically general.

So you may wish to presume your answer by framing it nominalistically from the get-go. As a realist on generality, I simply reply your question is mal-formed.

I understand your view on information (non-entropic, ie, not equal to S=k lnN) but it's too abstract. — VincePee

Too abstract for whom?

As if entropy or information were concrete simples.

Well, abstraction is nice. But sometimes it takes away too much. All organisms posses more or kess the same relative entropy (a number), but boy, how different they all are. I agree with your view on information! :smile:

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

My view is neurosemiotic. So it is more about the way an organism is embedded in its world via a modelling relation.

An organism develops stable habits of interpretance which stand the test of time. So as a computer architecture, it is more along the lines of a Bayesian prediction engine. Like a neural network, there isn’t a clear hardware-software distinction. Or rather, the cut between the physics and the information runs through every level of analysis. It is interaction across all scales in a nested hierarchical fashion.

That is why, for example, I think it quite misleading to talk of states and progressions of states. The brain is “processing” it’s understanding of the world over all its available scales. The older you are, the wiser you get. You have a larger weight of experience to apply to any passing moment.

And the brain defies simple state description by being also a prediction-based system. It tries to guess the state of the world so it doesn’t then need to react to the world. This is another way that the state of the brain at any given moment isn’t the whole story. Or if we happen to be running on automatic pilot in a very predictable situation, even a significantly large part of the story.

The neural network is capaple of representing all physical structures in the universe. There are no memories. Instead a huge variety of patterns or forms or symbols can appear. As thoughts, as visions, as sounds, as words, or whatever. Animals are bound, the human animal is free. There are about 10exp(10exp40) possible signal pathways (a 1 followed by 10exp40 zeros!).

All organisms posses more or kess the same relative entropy — VincePee

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.

My view is neurosemiotic — apokrisis

Ever run across https://neuroanthropology.net/ ? It’s a fascinating site, I’ve dropped in there from time to time for years.

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

The living brain in a living pianist falls lndeed like a piano. The brain processes (if artificially separated from body and external world) proceed according to the laws of non-perturbative QFT. But that doesn't explain the fact that you see thoughts or hear sounds (hard problem of consciousness).

X causes changes in physical systems or things. Name a non-physical, or merely abstract, which causes such changes. — 180 Proof

The point is that your logic is sorely deficient. Whether or not I can give you an answer of something non-physical which affects the physical (which is easily done, ideas, as evidenced by the existence of artificial things) is not what is at issue here. What is at issue is the logical basis of your principle, "whatever affects the physical is, at least in part, physical".

What I have issue with, is your proposed annihilation of the separation between things which makes them distinct things.. You seem to be saying that if one thing affects another thing, it is to some degree, that other thing. This I believe annihilates the separation between distinct things, saying that if they interact they are in some sense conjoined, But this is clearly not the way that we currently understand the reality of the universe. We allow that things which do not appear to be conjoined can interact with each other.

So the moon interacts with the earth for example, through gravity, though the two are understood as distinct objects. Now physics can represent the "affects" of gravity, but they have no representation of gravity itself. So to answer your question, with a more sophisticated answer, gravity causes changes in physical systems, and it is itself, non-physical. And once you come to understand this, you'll see that all forces talked about by physicists are non-physical, and that's the way that physicists represent the interactions between physical bodies, as occurring through a medium which is non-physical. So physicists understand distinct physical bodies as interacting with each other through non-physical mediums, such as potential energy, and fields. The physical body causes a change to the non-physical, then the non-physical causes a change to another physical body, and that's how physicists understand distinct physical things to interact.

This is another way that the state of the brain at any given moment isn’t the whole story. — apokrisis

My point in mentioning the physical present is that there can be no off board activity. Everything has to happen on the physical playing field in a present moment. As you model it mentally you should have no off board place holders.
If you want to make modeling easy, define information as brain state. That is how information is held, manipulated, originated and terminated. Communication takes place by encoding and decoding matter.

The medical profession uses some different definitions of brain state but if you follow the context as
I described it you should understand my useage.

I think I understand your view and agree with most of it.

You seem to be saying that if one thing affects another thing, it is to some degree, that other thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

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'.

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

Huh? You didn't read my post? I gave you a whole slew of examples of non-physical things which cause changes in physical systems. Let me go back and see if I can name them all, in the order they appear in my post: "ideas", "gravity", "forces" "potential energy", "fields". Do you simply ignore anything which is inconsistent with your metaphysics?

I ignore error and nonsense. "Ideas" are abstract and therefore are not in causal relation to facts. The rest are physical. Please open a high school physics textbook, MU. :roll:

abstract and therefore are not in causal relation to facts — 180 Proof

What do you think "causal relation to facts" means? I can't figure it out. Did you ever take lessons on how to use the English language, 180?

The rest are physical. Please open a high school physics textbook, MU. — 180 Proof

What are you suggesting, that all terms used in a physics textbook refer to something physical because they are in a physics textbook? That's another stellar example of an extremely deprived faculty of logically reasoning.

My English is perfectly clear to educated members for whom English is their first language.

. "Ideas" are abstract and therefore are not in causal relation to facts. — 180 Proof

I think I've figured out what you're saying here. You're saying that ideas are abstract, non-physical, therefore they can't have any causal relation to the physical. Isn't that just begging the question?

If ideas cannot have any causal relation with the physical, how do you account for the relationship between ideas and artificial things which are physical?. How can there not be a causal relation between the ideas and the artificial thing which comes into existence when someone puts the ideas into action?