↪Gnomon
:up: — Agent Smith
↪180 Proof
:up: — Agent Smith
Apparently you are trying to practice BothAnd philosophy by giving a thumbs-up to contradictory interpretations of the significance of essential Information : malleable Data vs causal Information. Did you watch the video? Are you now confused? Did you notice that it's about Shannon's abstract meaningless Data, not about Gnomon's mental meaningful Information? — Gnomon
Incorrigible incomprehension! Typical idealist (antirealist) conflation of epistemology (mapmaking) and ontology (territory). What's to be done with this uninformed "Enformer", amigos? :eyes: :lol:180's contrary interpretation may indeed undermine the authority of Physics for philosophical questions, because -- on the quantum level -- it's not describing Reality, but Ideality (human ideas about reality, not reality itself). Which is what Meta-Physics is all about. — Gnomon
But we’re talking about even more power here, enough apparently to render the checks ineffectual. He basically fired anybody related to investigations on his abuses. The authority should not have any authority over said checks, but they always do, especially when the abuses were embraced by an entire political part just because he wore the same color uniform. Police are the same way, almost impossible to prosecute for abuses because the police and even the courts stand behind their own most of the time. — noAxioms
What a strange conflation! A biological human cell is not a lifeform. (EDIT: in the sense that a skin cell wouldn't be considered an organism, because it cannot live by itself, it needs to be part of something bigger.) Humans are a combinatorial of many sub-systems yes but for me, the concept of 'life' applies to the brain. The natural body systems are 'replaceable,' depending on the tech available. You are still alive, if you have no arms or legs, etc etc.Our cells learned to cooperate into a larger entity, working for the entity and not the individual life forms. — noAxioms
No, democratic socialism supports majority rule. A ruling or policy not supported by a majority must fall, it will stand, if the dissenters are a minority. BUT, an informed majority that supports secular humanism, will always strive to accommodate minority needs and wishes, as long as those accommodations do not directly go against the well-being of the majority.The sort of authority I’m speaking of needs to act on the benefit of the collective, but here you are suggesting this cannot be done because it would involve actions not popular with the individuals. — noAxioms
That sounds like someone wearing a 'big brother' garb, deciding that a large majority of people are incapable of 'knowing what's best for it.' You make yourself sound like a person who should never be given significant authority over others.I’ve frequently said that the larger the group of people, the less mature they act as a whole. The term ‘mommy’ is deliberately to emphasize that, an authority over something far to immature to know what’s best for it. — noAxioms
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I accept that, but I also agree with 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.' I would not allow Google sized private profit making machines, to exist.Google is owned by the nefarious rich, who nurture profit more that people, what do you expect from such? Such companies have been ever thus!
Yes, but they started out wanting to do it right. Mozilla (a competitor) is still trying very hard not to be evil. — noAxioms
*1. Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by natural processes like natural selection. — Gnomon
As I have already clearly stated. My flag is firmly planted next to a sign stating 'empirical evidence is the final arbiter of all philosophical hypothesis.' I do want to slam the theistic/supernatural/woo woo door shut, for good and move on. BUT, I respect that I cant because I am a democratic socialist and I don't have a majority global consent to agree to slam that door shut for good. So ..... the debates will continue.*2. Replace "I think" with "I believe", and you will see the problem with trying to discuss empirical facts on a philosophical forum. — Gnomon
Absolutely! If it can do as you suggest and any new 'understanding,' is testable and falsifiable.Right, but instead of rejecting the insight for what is already familiar, should we let it actually inform our understanding in a new way? — punos
Sounds interesting.I have some ideas or notions on how to potentially go about determining the structure of the gap. We can talk about that. — punos
That's not a question, that's a fact. Of-course we can't have the tech before we understand the 'universal fundamental' that IS data.What if we can't have that technology until first we understand how data or information is universally fundamental — punos
That's putting it mildly!I think it's just going to take some "out of the box" thinking to get it right. — punos
But within a different paradigm it could be understood that if data is the fundamental thing of the universe then it's not a far stretch to surmise that the universe behaves as a computer, and if it behaves like a computer then it's not hard to surmise further that reality as we know it is as a simulation. If that concept makes sense then what is the difference from a subjective perspective which simulation we are in? The natural one or the artificial one. It may turn out that this is the nature of the universe.. simulation. — punos
We think of simulations as having to be created by some entity programmer, but that is like religious thinking, anthropomorphic. Simulations in a data or information centered paradigm can be seen as potentially emerging from chaos. Note how in cellular automata like in John Conway's "The Game of Life" where only the initial conditions are set (very simple) and out of that comes all kinds of phenomena and little critters like "sliders" that nobody programmed or predicted, and it's Turing complete. — punos
Again you suggest an 'outside' to our universe. Do you support 'outside' posits such as a multiverse?A simulated person would not consider the stuff, or "matter" (data, information) that he or she is made of as a simulation. That would appear counter intuitive, but from an outside perspective would seem obvious that it's simulated. — punos
:up:better techniques will begin to develop as we deepen our understanding of this kind of brain/machine interaction. — punos
GPT doesn't need to pass the turing test for this purpose, it just has to provide a language model that can interpret nerve signals to human language, and human language to machine language, and back. It would be a tool, not a fully developed sentient AI. That could be part of a whole other thing. — punos
Fair enough.I don't care whether or not Gnomon and I directly engage with one another again as much as I'm interested in ideas and discussing them without sophistry and evasions. — 180 Proof
By refusing to address those questions and doubling down on his demonstrable errors and poor reasoning, Gnomon makes ridiculing – his bookish charlatanry that's so desperate to be taken seriously even though he won't take his own "ideas" seriously enough to submit them to cross-examination – too damn easy. In this way, universeness, we take Gnomon's "ideas" more seriously than he does. — 180 Proof
My non-creedal Enformationism worldview is a calmly reasoned philosophical interpretation of 21st century Information & quantum theories; not an emotional eternal life expectation — Gnomon
Ok.my main point if you like, is not about how "data" and "information" are related. As I said, they are ofter interchangeable. I don't really mind if we use them as one and the same thing. — Alkis Piskas
I think that based on his delivery in the video, Jim Al Khalili thinks that information IS a universal fundamental. I found his evidence in support of such a hypothesis currently makes the hypothesis more that a hypothesis but still falls a little short of the 'theory' label.Yet, the most important question I brought up regarding the video, namely, if data have any meaning and purpose for the physical universe, is kind of lost and it is half-answered — Alkis Piskas
I still wait to hear, i.e. if the physical universe has a mind that can intrerpret and handle data and if yes, how? And not because we can and we are part of the the physical universe as you say, but independetly of us. — Alkis Piskas
For example, although it includes some concepts that are similar to New Age philosophy, Enformationism is not about New Ageism or Mysticism. Instead, it was inspired by scientific Quantum & Information theories, which themselves have philosophical similarities to New Age notions*1. — Gnomon
I suppose your intent was to focus on the plausibility of a technological Singularity. But my attention was drawn to the question of "Emergence . . . of new possibilities". — Gnomon
I see that, and I very much welcome your input as I do @180 Proof's rigorous critique.That question is central to my personal world view of Enformationism, which regards Generic Information (causation) as the Agency of Emergence, so to speak. — Gnomon
A good source of technical information on Evolutionary Emergence is the Santa Fe Institute*1. Its focus of research is on emergent complexity (such as Life & Mind) in the universe. Ironically, they use some surprising terminology, for a bunch of pragmatic scientists : e.g. Emergence ; Transcendence ; Teleology. In one chapter --- authored by mathematical cosmologist George Ellis, astrophysicist Keith Farnsworth, and biochemist Luc Jaeger --- they discuss the Emergence-related concept of "Downward Causation", which is another word for taboo top-down "Teleology". They say, "An essential element (and possibly a defining feature) of life emerges from this analysis. It is the presence of downward causation by information selection and control"(my emphasis). They go on to say, "Emergence is the appearance of phenomena at some scale of system organization that is absent from the lower elementary scales within it". Which is a roundabout way of defining Holism. The whole system "transcends" the properties of its parts, as a "transcendent complex" (TC). — Gnomon
I get negative feedback for using such taboo terminology, but these authors can get away with it because they have academic & professional credentials. — Gnomon
Well I reject all notions of god and I think that the god credentials can only be aspired to asymptotically. That is the only value I see in any omni style label. I dream, yes, but I focus on what I consider 'possible' in my dreams and I reject my impossible dreams and I understand them, from the standpoint that my mind is just trying to 'imagine' what might be possible. It's for me, myself and I to judge which dreams to value and which to reject. I remain in awe and wonder about how incredible life and consciousness is but I want TO OWN that wonder and awe and pass that as a RIGHTFULL INHERITENCE to each new generation of humans that experience life as I have. I will not assign the source of that wonder and awe to the whims of some supernatural, ineffectual, absentee, deity, as that would leave us with NOTHING of our own. What is emergent in humans would be of no significance AT ALL, if god exists. We would be mere impotent pawns and any notion of free will is moot!Likewise, theories of Technological evolution toward a Singularity, imply but don't make explicit the top-down Teleology of human intentions that transcend Natural Selection by means of Cultural Selection. Whether the dream of creating Artificial Life & Mind will ever come to pass is uncertain. But that humans can aspire to god-like powers, raises the question of how the ability to dream impossible dreams could emerge from mechanical grinding of material gears. — Gnomon
If we seek to know the self-organizing forces of the universe, as some read the bible and seek the word of God, we ourselves might come to greater harmony with that universe. — Athena
Why must we compare ourselves as greater or lesser or equal to that which we are an integrated part of?If we saw the universe as greater than ourselves, might we have some humility and peace? Rather than rule the universe we might seek our place in it. — Athena
consider this video summary on 'quantum information' — 180 Proof
Hey, professor! What do you think I'm doing on The Philosophical Forum. I'm an isolated retiree, with no academic environment for nurturing novel ideas. Agent Jones and 180proveit are my ad hoc thesis advisors. One tells me to abandon my thesis because it will never meet the stringent criteria for a scientific fact, while the other tells me to tighten-up the definitions.Frankly speaking, I recommend you develop your theory of information in more depth. At present it seems its definition is just too loose to be endorsed or critiqued. — Agent Smith
Whatever he's posited, that's the implication. It's unintelligible New Agery to me.Gnomon seeks to find common ground between science and the esoteric and I think there is none. But am I making an incorrect judgement of what Gnomon is positing — universeness
What does "universal fundamental" mean for you exactly? The essence, the basic element of the Universe, or what? And in what way? An example?I think that based on his delivery in the video, Jim Al Khalili thinks that information IS a universal fundamental. — universeness
I agree. In fact, I didn't see any kind of support for this hyposthesis, much less a proof. (Except of course if I messed it.)I found his evidence in support of such a hypothesis currently makes the hypothesis more that a hypothesis but still falls a little short of the 'theory' label. — universeness
"A team of physicists is now claiming the first direct observation of the long-sought Breit-Wheeler process, in which two particles of light, or photons, crash into one another and produce an electron and its antimatter counterpart, a positron. But like a discussion from an introductory philosophy course, the detection’s significance hinges on the definition of the word “real.” Some physicists argue the photons don’t qualify as real, raising questions about the observation’s implications."For me, we would have to be able to produce something like a REAL photon or quark, via a list of instructions alone. A mechanism would then produce a material photon or a quark or an electron by 'processing' the list of instructions. — universeness
Thank you for taking up my question about if the physical universe has a mind that can intrerpret and handle information.Information could be thee universal fundamental and the basis of a theory of everything without invoking any panpsychist or universal mind posits which are independent of us. — universeness
Gnomon is not qualified to critique the video : What If Physics IS NOT Describing Reality?. But several scientists, that I have linked to, have also concluded that "Physics is not describing Reality?". More to the point may be to say that physicists don't know how to interpret what quantum physics is trying to tell us about Reality *1*2. The Enformationism thesis is just my 2-cents worth on that long-debated topic Since the scientists can't agree on Reality, maybe philosophers can make a contribution*3. What Einstein called "a persistent illusion" is what Enformationism labels "Ideality"*4.consider this video summary on 'quantum information' and, since increasing disorder (entropy) increases information (emergence), point out to me what Gnomon gets right or the presentation here gets wrong. — 180 Proof
What does "universal fundamental" mean for you exactly? The essence, the basic element of the Universe, or what? And in what way? An example? — Alkis Piskas
"A team of physicists is now claiming the first direct observation of the long-sought Breit-Wheeler process, in which two particles of light, or photons, crash into one another and produce an electron and its antimatter counterpart, a positron. But like a discussion from an introductory philosophy course, the detection’s significance hinges on the definition of the word “real.” Some physicists argue the photons don’t qualify as real, raising questions about the observation’s implications." — Alkis Piskas
Now, based on your using of "could be", I see that we can only make hypotheses on the subject, either by considering particular philosophical views like e.g. panpsychism, universal consciousness, etc. or none, i.e. starting from an independent point of view. — Alkis Piskas
For example, I could consider that atoms "use" some kind of "information" to combine with other atoms and form molecules. Yet, even if something like this can be considered as a workable theory, description or explanation, it would always be a speculatiom and an interpretation of what we all know as "information". — Alkis Piskas
... or idealists/antirealist. :clap: :up:The laws of physics are human interpretations of what humans scientifically observe, but that does not mean that they necessarily, fully describe, the REALITY of the universe. I accept that, and I agree with that, but that does not mean we should therefore give succour to much much less reliable posits, such as those offered by theism or theosophists. — universeness
As one of the founders of quantum computing David Deutsch says (I paraphrase), 'The laws of physics enable our brains to generate ideas about the laws of physics such as quantum theory.' In other words, reality enables and constrains ideality (i.e. idealizations of reality), and not Gnomon's ass-backwards other way around. — 180 Proof
OK. But what are these "universal fundamentals?" :smile:For me, it means that current posited fundamentals are not fundamentals. A quark, an electron, a photon, a gluon, a higgs boson or even the proposed erebon or superstring are not fundamentals. — universeness
I agree.The laws of physics are human interpretations of what humans scientifically observe, but that does not mean that they necessarily, fully describe, the REALITY of the universe. — universeness
Right. So we actually have nothing in our hands. Yet, regarding abtract ideas in general --such as information-- scientists in their majority claim that they have found this and that, that they know how things work, etc. Yet, often w/o any solid evidence or even with no evidence at all. (Of course, they have to defend their trade in the same way religions do, only that they deal with more concrete and tangible stuff.)Yes, as our current science cant take us much further than 'could be,' not yet. — universeness
Thans for the suggestion. But my library is already full of -isms! :smile:You can even add more fringe posits such as @Gnomon's enformationism, for consideration. — universeness
Well, it was just an offhand example using a simple and very common subject. Not meant to be streched. Besides, as I said, it could lead at best to some interpretation, a different kind of information, its use and its purpose. Matter has no purpose, i.e. intention or desire. This is an attribute of life, even if its purpose is reduced down an urge to survive. And it needs and uses information for that purpose, Matter does not strive to survive. It does not strive for anything. It has no urge whatsoever. So, it doesn't need or can use any information.Well, atoms combine into molecules via chemical bonds and a qualified chemist could explain the details much better than I — universeness
I understand and respect this.My attempt to 'portray the above scenario,' is nothing more, than a measure of my own limited ability to I think there are many on TPF who could do a better job of it than I. — universeness
Absolutely! If it can do as you suggest and any new 'understanding,' is testable and falsifiable. — universeness
o me, you 'blur the lines,' between the terms 'simulation,' 'emulation,' and 'reality.' — universeness
This would also suggest that there exists a reference frame 'outside' of our universe which views this universe as a simulation. This let's god posits in again imo. — universeness
But what label are you assigning to your 'chaos' model? Real? Simulated? You are still left with 'well where did the 'chaos,' come from? — universeness
The point is that the 'initial conditions' you mention were SET BY A HUMAN called John Conway. He is the prime mover and the 'will'/intent, that caused the slider critters to become existent. He is the vital or it could even be claimed (and IS claimed by theistic doctrines of where humans came from) 'divine' spark! — universeness
Information as a universal fundamental, unfortunately, does not increase the ability of science to disprove god more than it can at the moment. — universeness
Again you suggest an 'outside' to our universe. Do you support 'outside' posits such as a multiverse? — universeness
I'm aware that "Teleology" & "Progress" are taboo terms in biological science, because of their traditional association with Christian dogma. But the Enformationism thesis is not about biology or doctrine, and not intended to pass muster with atheistic scientists. It's merely an interpretation of the broader role of Information in Evolution & Emergence. And in blog posts, I provide links & quotes to the use of such terms by scientists.Ok, but I emphasise the position that there is no empirical evidence, that teleonomy has ANY relationship AT ALL with 'natural selection.' — universeness
Please ask 180 to point to where Gnomon ever "suggested" such a thing. Due to his mis-interpretation of the thesis, He likes to put words in my mouth that he can easily refute. In Enformationism, Information = Energy = Work = Causation. :smile:Explain why a physical brain physically "burns a lot of" physical "energy" (i.e. calories) if, as you suggest, "Information" is not "Work" — universeness
Had I been putting words in your mouth, sir, you'd be making more sense with far fewer incoherent and inconsistent statements. For instance, in this post exchange below from last year you babbled at me that "information is non-physical", yet now you claim "information" is also equivalent to physical processes such as both "work" & "energy".In Enformationism, Information = Energy = Work = Causation — Gnomon
I don't misunderstand you, Gnomon; you're honestly confused and incorrigible. However, feel free to disabuse me by addressing the followingPhysical change is called "Work". Mental change is called "Information". In the human brain, Mental Work burns a lot of energy, even though the Brain does not change its physical form.
— Gnomon
Explain why a physical brain physically "burns a lot of" physical "energy" (i.e. calories) if, as you suggest, "Information" is not "Work". Oh, btw, the human brain functions by constantly changing its neuronal configurations (re: neuroplasticity) that encode *wait for it, wait for it* new information (i.e. updating current information —> memories, expectations, predictions, feelings, learning-conditioning, etc). — 180 Proof
OK. But what are these "universal fundamentals?" — Alkis Piskas
Right. So we actually have nothing in our hands. Yet, regarding abtract ideas in general --such as information-- scientists in their majority claim that they have found this and that, that they know how things work, etc. Yet, often w/o any solid evidence or even with no evidence at all. (Of course, they have to defend their trade in the same way religions do, only that they deal with more concrete and tangible stuff.) — Alkis Piskas
All we are debating here is definitions or manifestations of what we label 'matter.'Matter has no purpose, i.e. intention or desire. This is an attribute of life, even if its purpose is reduced down an urge to survive. And it needs and uses information for that purpose, Matter does not strive to survive. It does not strive for anything. It has no urge whatsoever. So, it doesn't need or can use any information. — Alkis Piskas
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