To understand psychosis we should remind ourselves that our brains have the capability to do what can't be done physically. For example the square root of two is an irrational number extending to infinity so it's a physical impossibility for our brains to hold this number. But since we understand what parameters the square root of two has (as mental content) we know that if we square it we will get two.

In psychosis, numerology, secret code and things like double messaging from media, advertising or news stories are held as mental content and have completely different parameters from what you find in physical systems. Content can appear and vanish at a whim for example. Unexpected content can cause surprise or panic. If the reaction is to process harder and faster the problems can accumulate faster than corrections can be made.

So this mental content running out of control is the cause of psychosis and not a problem of the underlying biology. No wonder these patients don't get along with their doctors. The doctors are clueless and the patients don't understand what is happening to them but have a sense that the problem is not in their biology.

So I brought up a few things in psychiatry's past that have been discredited like lobotomies and insulin shock therapy. Ice baths are still around so maybe haven't been discredited yet. Electro shock therapy is making a comeback according to some in the profession.

The bedrock belief in psychiatry that psychosis cases have their origin in failed biology seems destined to fail if you know the fundamentals. All psychosis cases involve information and mental content can be the entire cause and origin.

The fact that no medical test can identify a physical cause points in the direction of mental content as the cause.

There is also a problem of how professionals and the general population understand information. They have a dumbed down view of it like the information icon...you know the circle with the lower case ' i ' in it.

Lobotomies???
The medication protocol of today is no better.

Insulin shock therapy??? Let's bring this profession to account.

Of course sometimes drugs or alcohol are involved and, of course again, the conclusion is the psychiatric profession is completely incompetent.

Has anyone here noticed that
Information Mechanics:
Where information = brain state =
[ the physical brain, ( mental content ) ],
this being an irreducible unit where the parenthesis show a relation of dependence on the physical brain...completely resolves the question of monism or dualism in philosophy?
Yes it does. Mental content cannot exist absent the physical brain and any definition of information being an abstract concept cannot physically exist and must be corrected to include the physical brain. This being the state of things, the professions of psychology, psychiatry, and certainly philosophy should be judged incompetent as the question is in their domain and they have failed to answer it.

NetLogo has a virus on a network model that is analogous to false information in psychosis if anyone likes simulations.

These types of computer simulations can help anyone visualize the progression of psychosis..

This power dynamic comes into play because the patient has an inate sense that his treatment/forced medication are inappropriate for his conditions often claiming their brains feel normal. And the doctors see a patient acting irrationally and a danger to themselves or others and follow their training and force medication. As of current practice, neither knows the true cause and a downward spiraling relation develops.

As for 'Information Mechanics' as a psychosis research subject at universities, they won't study it because it won't be funded by the pharmaceutical companies.

If you don't know what causes psychosis or schizophrenia then how should you interpret recovery rates.

Since a person can show symptoms based entirely on mental content there is the district possibility their condition has no biological dysfunction whatsoever. And treating a nonbiological condition as a biological condition could complicate the interpretation of study results. It could be an entirely different treatment method would be better still.

An example would be mass conspiracy theories such as Dominion voting machines being rigged. You wouldn't claim this population has anything universal in their biology causing that belief.

It's very unfortunate that the professions treating these conditions lack a working knowledge of the mechanics of information.

Language and mathematics cannot exist without brains to support them. By observation, they exist as mental content and are emergent from and dependent on brain state.

Your use of the term 'disordered perception' reminded me of something involving racing thoughts. If someone thinks they are being sent coded messages they will be hypersensitive to physical stimulus and use an expanded set of algorithms to decode inputs. Since some false information is likely to get through, the ability to fact check in real time may be overwhelmed. Obviously an information mechanics failure and not a biological failure.
A psychiatrist would have no problem prescribing a medication based on the presented racing thoughts and false beliefs and would never understand the problem as mental content driven.

Do you see any other medical profession receiving so much negative feedback from the patients they treat as psychiatry. Burning down the asylum, assault, murder, suicide, vandalism, rule breaking, commandeering of resources, grandstanding...putting their medications in the morning oatmeal. And this is what the public hears about... probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Given the history of this profession why would peer review mean anything and why should they be trusted. So what causes psychosis? Put your cards on the table. Chemical imbalance? Genetics? Combinations or subtle mechanisms seem to show up a lot lately. So much has been debunked.

You seem comfortable with information as an abstract concept even in areas of science. Abstract concepts in the absence of biological brains reduce to non existence, so that's a problem for you.

Dictionary definitions of information reflect common usage and there are many uses. I'm suggesting that to place information in physical reality we need to examine the form in which it exists. Brain state and brain state only seems to be the best definition if you would like to study information in its physical form.

There are some good reasons a philosophy forum should pay attention to the profession of psychiatry especially in the area of psychosis. Within psychiatry there is an admission that psychosis, madness, insanity or schizophrenia are not well understood so heads up to all of us as the solution could come from the philosophy of mind.

Within psychiatry this could be ignored or resisted since research study funding is coming largely from the pharmaceutical industry. Even claimed philanthropic funding traces to big pharma through undisclosed donations and doner restrictions.

There is also a problem with the general public and scientists who know little about information
believing everything is information and information exists everywhere in the universe. Unless you put some rigor into this problem you will be unaware that information is brain state and only brain state. For example the term genetic information is a term that should never have been used. Genetic processes are entirely physical both in expression and replication so why would the use of the term information even be needed? More of a false projection of our minds onto our environment than anything real.

In the case of psychosis we are dealing with information in its true form. A physical brain and mental content. An example of how ridiculous the psychiatric profession is is the symptom of conspiracy theories. Clearly mental content but often used as a basis for forced drugging. And forced it is. If you observe these cases going through the courts there is no doubt people are being drugged against their wills with the backing of governments without knowing how bad the underlying science really is.

The concept of mental content as emergent from biological brains is key to understanding what the problem really is. In our person to person communication there certainly is a transfer of mental content but no transfer of physical matter. Some dualists might like this as their instincts are correct but the best understanding of this is that information is a special case of unique abilities that emerge from biological brains. Given that so many are lost in the subject of information a good reset would be that psychosis is universal to our existence.

A hunch or my opinion.
I didn't short you on the philosophic details. They're in my previous comments.

If psychiatry has a good working understanding of what information is or theories of mental content in psychosis cases then what are they?

My hunch is the psychiatric profession will be discredited.

As a best practice, I would recommend any practitioner or researcher in psychology or psychiatry abandon physical monism as a philosophy because of the problem of defining information. Information in a technically useable form is brain state and only brain state. And brain state is the physical brain and its contained mental content.

So, Information is Brain State = [the physical brain;(mental content)]

Where the square brackets [ ] represent an irreducible unit and the semi colon parentheses ;( ) represents mental content's dependence on the physical brain. This relation is universally present when information is present.

In the case of psychosis:
-a delusion is information as the physical brain and mental content.
-a false belief is information as the physical brain and mental content.
-a conspiracy theory is information as the physical brain and mental content.
-also memories, time perception, fears of the future, on and on, are information that exists as the
physical brain and mental content.

In troubleshooting a psychosis case this relation always should be considered.

To really make us slaves, a two part program would work best. Pump money into the economy through central banks and pull civilian resource out using investment scams to fund covert programs. Special Access Programs.

In the first line below, I make a claim.

Being countable is part of the makeup, part of the being of material things.
— ucarr — ucarr

The counting process is a brain process. And not just an abstract process. To count to ten takes me five seconds and counting to 100 would take 50 seconds and 1000 would take 500 seconds. Since all this counting is taking place in a brain, why not identify the brain as the source of Material Numbers?

So it seems the choice is do material numbers reside in matter or in brains? If a brain was absent then counting wouldn't even be possible.

Since you put stock in the physicality of numbers via neural networks, how do you reconcile this with saying the ascription of numericality to the external environment is a false perception? — ucarr

Something to test any model of material numbers is to understand that material numbers can only exist in the physical present. Any numbers that references the past or future cannot physically exist in a past or future location but must exist in a present physical form (brain state only). This should point out the necessity of numbers physically existing as brain state only. So references to past numbers can only exist in the physical present and the most obvious form is physical brain state...dynamic neural networks that physically exist in the physical present only.

When we think about material numbers it may be in a framework of a time continuum but the material state can only be in the physical present and located in a physical brain.

Duplicate deleted.

I'm not perfectly clear on whether or not you allow that number is a physical attribute present in material objects. Since the brain is a material object, and you believe information is answered by brain state and brain state only, this would seem to indicate you do make such allowance. — ucarr

Well, yes, I see it as my brain holding or containing the physical or numerical attributes of an external material object. That's my view and thanks for clarifying your original post. I'll try to read some more here.

I went round and round last summer on the 'What is information?' question and there never was much consensus so you might find the same pattern for a 'What are numbers?' question.

My questions originate from the opposite end of the continuum. — ucarr

I take this to mean you think numbers are metaphysical, however everything you listed as properties of numbers originated from your personal brain state which in a neurological sense is entirely physical and doesn't need a metaphysical explanation.

Likewise, the use of numbers by others is always inseparable from brain state. Can you show any way numbers exist in the absence of a biological brain state?

For me, the question of 'what is information?' is answered by brain state and brain state only. The question of 'what are numbers?' is a sub category of information and answered as brain state and brain state only. If your brain projects some meaning to the external environment that would be a false perception and it is still only a physical brain state holding a concept of numbers.

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

Sure, provide some links. I have checked your glossary links before.

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.

Something to laugh about is our over-estimation of our ability to transfer information from brain to brain...it almost never happens in a completely intact form, especially in philosophy.

A special case, were the most techincally accurate understanding of information possible is needed, is in the study of human psychosis. It could be that some psychosis cases could be information processing anomolies and not biological failure. I am especially interested in this mechanism if anyone has an opinion. The specific symptoms might be false beliefs, conspiracy theories, magical thinking which are all things based on information. This is actually an example of how the definition of information can be critical to an application because if you get the definition wrong you will also likely get the treatment of psychosis wrong. Like the wheel him down the hall and give him a good dose of electroshock and see if that helps approach. Or the give him some horse tranquilizer approach. Or the just lock him(or her) up forever approach. Maybe some of us know these people. One week they are normal and the next they are on a mission from GOD, and the next week they are confused or in a psychward. They don't know what happened and their Doctors are doing guesswork or doing experiments on them. (drug studies...here, sign this and we'll go easy on you)

I rambled on a little, so that's one view on why the definition of information can be critical to a specific application.

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.

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.

I'm still not sure if you think information should be both brain internal and brain external? The brain external information is what requires a brain as placeholder. There is a huge tendency to do this without acknowledging it or even being aware of it. So if you identify some brain external 'form' as being information then you should understand you are doing it, be aware of it, and acknowledge your brain is the source of it(the perception of information).

So, it's that invisible intangible mental model that we have to take for granted, in order to empathize and socialize. — Gnomon

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.

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

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.

Might be time for a new thread ? — Pop

This was a good one. 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.

Pop, this thread has been running a month now. Something that may be overlooked is the definition of the word definition. In the sense that information is a word, then any usage that exists could be used as the basis of a definition. The comments reflect that and a lot of options have been covered.

You have tried to focus on a universal definition but it still seems to go in every direction. It could be a problem of methodology. Maybe it's setting up a problem in a way that doesn't lead to a solution. Like given the word information, what is its meaning? A better method(or approach to the same problem) would be to start with an identified singular physical state, like brain state, and assign a word to it(like information). That way you avoid the endless posibilities. And you are moving from something that is primary(the physical state) to something that is secondary(the definition).

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.

Brain state as immaterial mind, is pretty much the end of the road theoretically. — Pop

I agree. The example is just to show how someone could hold this view but in fact it would be held as a physical state...brain state.

BRAIN(I have an immaterial mind) = BRAIN(mental content) = brain state = specific information

I like the definition of brain state is information. It could be the case that brain function is so advanced that most people just think everything is information.

Turing patterns are fascinating. — Pop

This is new to me. I looked into it a little on Wikipedia and an extension of Turing patterns schematized for biology (to deal with cell structure) can model LALI systems. The application models gene expression in developing limb formation as an example. Small changes in binding constants and diffusion rates can control growth rates to produce different structures. Looks like they can run computer models and various limb structures develop...so yes, fascinating. Probably not advanced enough to model entire organisms or complicated organs like brains.

My opinion, is Turing patterns don't involve information but are entirely physical states.
Like I said, it's new to me and I'm just trying to paraphrase Wikipedia.

is this what you are thinking? — Pop

I'm thinking our ingrained definitions shouldn't override things that are primary. Or, another way, our definitions should be based on what is primary.

I took a good look at the second study you mentioned.
Here's a link to the type of head/chin rest used for eye tracking in this study:

chinrest.net

Doesn't that look like a fun day?
Anyway, there are a few things that are salvageable but the authors are completely incompetent They identify information in the motion display entering the senses and being 'delivered' to the brain. And what they call a termination decision time is actually information formation time. They would have had a jewel of science if they had gotten it right. Maybe mutual incompetence is self reinforcing or maybe they are especially stupid.

So salvaging the information formation times in this study is still useful so maybe the poor study participants efforts weren't completely wasted.

"A dynamic brain state", as I understand, is work in progress. — Mersi

I try to use the word dynamic as it's used in physics. A momentary state can be static or dynamic. Brain state wouldn't be functional in a static state so a dynamic state should be recognized. You don't know if something is static or dynamic unless you have observations at times t0 and t1 to compare. This involves a duration of time.

When you say information exists as brain state is this a conscious state? — Mersi

If you define information/brain state based on a relation of mapping mental activity to brain state then you could try to map what you observe to be concsiousness to the physical state that supports it. I don't know? It's complicated, isn't it. There seems to be overlap in the physical matter that supports (or is) information and consciousness but maybe not the same depending on what consciousness is. That's really not an answer, just a posible way to approach the problem. Maybe getting an understanding of this relation of information as brain state first will help in understanding consciousness.

Perhaps this is even to be taken literally as certain "information" may activate certain areas of the brain, or as Nyquist may say, causes certain brain states. — Mersi

First, did you know the word 'literally' has two opposite meanings. Sometimes you can tell by the context and sometimes you can't. That's just a quirk of language.
Next, my view is that information 'exists' as brain states (not causes). The important implication is that information (this model) can not physically exist unless it's in the form of a completely physical brain state. There may be a tendency to imagine information in a disembodied form but that's not something that can physically exist.

Dynamic brain state = changing synapses = changing neural patterning

Sure, why not? All terms for the same thing unless you disagree.

an anthropocentric definition of information — Pop

That's a good name.

My argument is that if brains are present and the commom denominator, then I give credit were it's due, to brain based information.

The way I think of brain state is that what your brains mental content is, at any given moment, would physically exist as a specific brain state. So you define information as this relation. Information is specific mental content existing as a specific brain state.

I have applications I like using this definition/relation for and it's what works for me. The Shannon definition or 'everything is information' definition would have applications I would use in their own contexts. Time perception would be an applications of brain based information since brains are how we perceive time.

The first definition of information (if you must deal with more than one) should be brain information because it's what we use, what we are familar with, and what we ask the question with and answer the question with.

So information is more specifically brain information.
And brain information is dynamic brain states over durations of time.
This includes a defined ability of brain state to hold a wide variety of specific content.

Defining information is this way (definitions are ultimately arbitrary) can give focus to the special circumstance that we have information here on planet earth in the form of human brains in a way that exists nowhere else (that we know, of course). An 'information is everything' definition in this respect is extremely misleading. It completely ignores the uniqueness of our situation.

Actually what I linked to was a ridiculous example and it wasn't a simulation but recorded game play. Still something about the Push Me Pull You game reminded me of brain activity so maybe you saw it too.
There are better brains simulator videos on the web but they are really boring. They will put you to sleep.
Your examples are more fact based and certianly relevant to what information is.
I was also thinking how our brains handle tens of thousands of items of information per day but everything seems to happen on a single stage, almost one at a time. Like there is a central core to how we handle information with a lot of peripherals filling in the details.

I was looking for math models of information and found this push me pull you game on Wikipedia.

Push Me Pull You game

If you play the videos it might give you some insights into how math models could be used to simulate brain function. I'm not saying this example is how brain function works, just that this type of simulation could be useful in studying how neuron groups control information.