Absolute symmetry is perfect & changeless. Change requires asymmetry (difference) in order to allow room for something new to happen. :smile:There is an asymmetry in the interaction of forms, otherwise they annihilate. — Pop
Yes. Metaphorically, meaning is like the right-hand image in my last post. It begins as isolated dots, with no apparent connection. But the mind connects-the-dots or fills-in-the-blanks (integrates), resulting in a meaningful pattern of information. No longer random, that mental pattern relates to our personal experience in some way. :nerd:which would imply that "meaning" is the last information integrated by a body of information? — Pop
You're welcome. Us "woo-mongers" don't get much positive reinforcement on this forum. We are talking about unconventional concepts, that sound "weird" (like Quantum Physics) to those with a classical mindset. :joke:Thanks for the answer, and for humoring my speculations. — Pop
PS__Sorry, I got carried away with imaginary nonsense and speculative pseudo-woo. :cool: — Gnomon
Yes. EnFormAction causes changes in physical material, and in meta-physical states. It's the subsequent causation after the First Cause. That initial impetus had potential for both physical effects and meta-physical effects. That's why our current reality includes both Matter and Mind. The Big Bang was not just a fireworks explosion of matter & energy -- no room in the Singularity for a universe full of 3D spatial matter. Instead, I envision it as the engagement of a no-D Program of Potential EnFormAction, which being metaphysical (mind stuff) requires no space for storage, or time for its static state. That's how a sub-Planck-scale pinpoint of Potential could give birth to a universe, which is currently a zillion times larger, and has existed for zillions of Planck seconds. *Yeah. I would think of information as being the change in mental state, due to an interaction with an externality. So much the same thing. — Pop
* Some physicists are still trying to imagine an explanation for the beginning and expansion of the universe, which doesn't require a miraculous something-from-nothing beginning. But so far, all of those woo-ish proposals assume the eternal existence of The Potential for a new world. And like Voltage, Potential is the idea of a future something -- an imaginary state of mind ; a snap-shot of the future -- not necessarily a physical substance -- nor even a ghostly "weird probability field". "Potential" is merely probability with the power of Intention. :chin: — Gnomon
Pop, this thread has been running a month now — Mark Nyquist
If you asked in your terms "Is neural patterning the basis of information?" some of us would agree and others would not but it would help focus the issue — Mark Nyquist
Might be time for a new thread ? — Pop
That dualistic Cartesian worldview -- mental Form vs physical Brain -- is a common stumbling block for discussions of Information : 1> the ideal essence (concept, design, idea, theory, abstraction) of a thing, and 2> its real physical embodiment. Ironically, for a philosophy forum -- where many posters are influenced by Physics Envy -- the notion of disembodied (non-empirical) ideas seems to be off-limits, because they can't be dissected under a microscope, or accounted with numbers.I'm sceptical of the comments on information existing as 'form' where you still need a brain as a placeholder for form...forgot who...I forget more in a month than I remember. — Mark Nyquist
So, it's that invisible intangible mental model that we have to take for granted, in order to empathize and socialize. — Gnomon
Our physical senses deliver information to our minds about the physical shapes, as abstracted from the world outside our mental model into mentally-meaningful Forms. — Gnomon
That's because you are confusing two separate methodologies : Empirical Science and Theoretical Philosophy. Qualia and Quanta are not real things, but ideas about things. And those terms were invented specifically so we could separate them in our minds -- to examine their properties and qualities in isolation. In the real world, Information is always embodied -- as far as our physical senses are concerned. But Rational Analysis is not a physical dissection of objective objects -- it's a meta-physical scalpel for parsing subjective ideas. It does not literally cut any material object, but it metaphorically slices & dices human concepts about such objects. Philosophy is not a physical science ; it's a meta-physical science. Qualia (attributes) can "exist in the absence" of Quanta (properties) only when abstracted into the ideal vocabulary of the rational mind. Where there are Minds, there are Qualia. :smile:It almost seems this invisible intangible mental model is what you are arguing for. But I'm not sure. Since you mentioned Qualia and Quanta, do you view them as inseparable or stand alone objects? I don't see how Qualia can exist in the absence of Quanta. — Mark Nyquist
1. Regarding the "mobility of Information", it's what we call "communication". And we don't communicate by boring holes in heads, in order to rearrange their neurons into "states". Instead, we package ideas into Memes, and transmit them in the form of Words. Communication uses physical media, but is not itself physical. McLuhan was not speaking literally, when he famously noted that "the medium is the message".Isn't just a physical signal delivered to our brains sufficient to form mental models? If you are arguing for this kind of externally mobile information you might need to explain how that works. Brain only information is a simpler model as you only need to identify information as brain state. — Mark Nyquist
FYI -- I do "explain how that works" in my website and blog. If you are really interested, I'll give you some links. :smile:If you are arguing for this kind of externally mobile information you might need to explain how that works. — Mark Nyquist
Unless you are a professional philosopher, you may never have to use those technical terms for the fundamental distinction of Reality (quanta) and Ideality (qualia). But if you intend to post on this forum for amateur philosophers, you will often need to make that crucial discrimination between Things and Ideas-About-Things. :smile:That's the first and last time I will ever use the words Qualia and Quanta. I maybe don't understand parts of it. Thanks for the explanation. — Mark Nyquist
If you are a professional scientist, the physical brain is indeed the best subject for study. But if you are a layman, it will be useful to be able to distinguish between Physical Matter and a Meta-physical Process. The process we call "Thinking" does not take place in space, but in time. That's why it is not subject to empirical testing, but only to theoretical modeling. Your "brain only" view is missing half the picture. :cool:I can't back off on brain only information being the best model... and communication becomes a simple process of encoding and decoding physical matter. — Mark Nyquist
Let me clear-up that uncertainty. I do think that Information is both physical (brains) and meta-physical (minds). It's common nowadays for philosophers to claim that there is no such thing as a Mind. They justify that view by labeling the Conscious Contents of your brain as "illusions". If that is the case, then everything you think you know, including your model of the world, is an illusion. But the question arises : who is deluding who? Are you constructing a fake world in your brain? If that mental model has no relevance to reality, what good is it? And if the other posters on this forum are likewise deluded by their private illusions, what's the point of communicating with them?I'm still not sure if you think information should be both brain internal and brain external? — Mark Nyquist
FYI -- I do "explain how that works" in my website and blog. If you are really interested, I'll give you some links. :smile: — Gnomon
That's fine with me. But, if you are not interested in metaphysics, my views on Information won't interest you. That's because Enformationism is a philosophical treatise, not a scientific report. In the beginning of philosophy, the Greeks especially, didn't make a distinction between Physics & Metaphysics. They had no sense-expanding instruments, so had no choice but to use their rational faculties to investigate mysteries.I do tend to avoid metaphysics because my interest is in physically based processes. Things like the physical basis of information, time perception, artificial intellegence and computing. — Mark Nyquist
We may have begun to understand evolution as the marriage of selection and self-organization". Which is the function of what I call EnFormAction. :smile: — Gnomon
These interactions of forms are information. Information creates a sense of time, and drives our evolution. — Pop
Without memory our body mechanisms would fail. We would not survive — Benj96
Landauer's principle
It holds that "any logically irreversible manipulation of information, such as the erasure of a bit or the merging of two computation paths, must be accompanied by a corresponding entropy increase in non-information-bearing degrees of freedom of the information-processing apparatus or its environment". - Wiki.
This is something that may be relevant to consciousness. In the process of information, as an interaction of one part to another, there is an element of entropy which changes the deterministic nature of the relation, such that a tiny degree of randomness arises - perhaps this is what causes emergence?
Could Landauer's principle explain it? — Pop
Postscript to my previous post about the "self-organizing" function of Information. In the same book and chapter, philosopher Rolston mentions "autopoiesis" (self-creating) in passing. That seems to be a more provocative term, in that it could imply a teleological tendency, intrinsic to the mechanism of evolution, toward the emergence of self-aware entities. Such organisms are "unique" in the universe, which remains -- after all these years of incremental evolving -- mostly inorganic, and unaware. — Gnomon
Yes. (self-aggrandizement aside) I characterize the Enformationism thesis as a sort of Theory of Everything, because it reveals the foundations of both physical Reality, and meta-physical Ideality. The new Atom is the Bit. Of course, my amateur thesis is not a scientific TOE, but as a preliminary philosophical TOE, it could form the kernel of a new scientific worldview. And I think information-based science & philosophy is already in the early stages of a New Enlightenment.But I think the time is ripe, and in so doing one virtually obliterates all previous philosophy, and in it's place one gains a theory of everything as self organizing informational bodies. Life and consciousness emerge and evolve along with the complexity of information integrated - everything is solved - end of enquiry - How do you like it? — Pop
The new Atom is the Bit. — Gnomon
Yes. Any single isolated thing is meaningless. The meaning is in relationships (e.g. ratios ; values). So, if you put two Bits together, the result many be an "interaction". Therefore, the basic element of meaning is the Byte -- an ensemble of bits; a system ; an integrated whole.But a bit is not meaningful. We need a meaningful bit. — Pop
Yes. Any single isolated thing is meaningless. The meaning is in relationships (e.g. ratios ; values). So, if you put two Bits together, the result many be an "interaction". Therefore, the basic element of meaning is the Byte -- an ensemble of bits; a system ; an integrated whole. — Gnomon
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