Information in its richest full blooded reality, is semiosis, meaning. Information really is informare, to "put form into" - what we encounter as conscious agents is signs, signs which mean something for us as interpreters, not some abstract notion of information. — Bodhy

Exactly.

Surely there's something on that list you did not know a minute ago. The information is now in your mind, and it's there because you read your computer screen. — Patterner

According to my theory, there is no information in that list, as if something passes from your mind to symbols on a screen. As I have tried to explain, the symbols on the screen have their own autonomy and cause effects in our learned language, generating meaning or information. In this sense, information never crosses anything but is constantly created. But we are under the illusion that something crossed from one mind to another, that we communicated something, when in reality what we have done is affect another person with the use of signs, causing meaning or information in that person.

In other words, information is always provoked but is never something that crosses things like a ghost contained in signs.

Consider the difference between your representation, of three distinct colours, and my representation of two distinct colours producing the appearance of a third, through mixing. The problem with yours is that it produces the need for two distinct boundaries, one between present and past, and one between present and future. This is what is required to isolate the present as distinct, and the only true "substance". That, I see as an unnecessary complication, actually producing three distinct substances. You class the two, future and past together, as other than being. But this is incorrect, because the difference between future and past disallows them from being classed together. The problem with mine is that it produces the need for skepticism and doubt concerning our "experience of the present". There is an appearance that the present is distinct, and separate from the past and future, as the substance of being, but that appearance is misleading. Which do you think i more logically consistent with your own conscious being, yours or mine? — Metaphysician Undercover

Hi,

The difference I explain between present, past and future is a difference in their constitutive roles. If the past and future are constituents of the present, then the present is not something pure, but something that does not participate in ousia or substance. There would be no need to make the present something totally different from the past and future, since all three do not participate in ousia. The difference between these three must be thought of differently from how we normally think of three different things, since they are not so different and their difference is erased at every moment.

Your position fails, i think, when it demands precision, since you are seeking to differentiate between past, present and future by treating them as substances. In other words, for me there is a complicity between the demand for precision and the idea of a classical difference between three substances. For me, it is necessary that the difference between past, present and future be unclear and constantly erased in order to show that consciousness is more than the present: it is being erased in a difference distinct from presence and ousia. For me, it is necessary that the difference between past, present and future is not clear and is constantly blurred in order to show that consciousness is more than just the present: it is being blurred in a difference distinct from presence and ousia. This implies introducing non-being as part of its essence. This implies that the world is not distinct from consciousness insofar as the world has been classically conceived as the non-being of consciousness. In this sense, the world is something different from consciousness, but it is also something equal to consciousness.

In other words, the conclusion I would reach according to my position is that the world and consciousness differ, but not according to a classical difference as we understand it according to the logic of identity. The difference shows us that there is something of the world in consciousness and there is something of consciousness in the world.

I don't think we can make this conclusion. The flow of time itself appears to be continuous, as a continuous activity, but consider what is happening. Future time becomes past time. August 29 will change from being in the future to being in past. In the meantime, it must traverse the present. What I propose is that the present acts more like a division between past and future, than as a union of the two. Therefore the relation between past and future is discontinuous. — Metaphysician Undercover

From my point of view, the division between past, present, and future is like a painting where three colors are differentiated without there being a clear division. There is a difference between past and future, but the difference is not clear. The discontinuous view of time requires punctuality in which each moment stops, and we would see how everything stops at each moment. But experience shows us the opposite

The difference between the deterministic world view, and the free will world view, is that the deterministic perspective assumes a continuity of existence, from past, through the present, to the future. This is what is supposed to be a necessary continuity, stated by Newton's first law. Things will continue to be, in the future, as they have been, in the past, unless forced to change. Any change is caused by another thing continuing to be as it has been, so that any change is already laid out, determined. That support a block type universe.

The free will perspective allows that as time passes, there is real possibility for change, which is not a continuity of the past. This violates Newton's first law. But in order to allow, in principle, for the possibility of this 'real change', we must break the assumed continuity of existence, past through present, into future. We must allow that at any moment of passing time, Newton's first law, the determinist premise, may be violated. This means that the idea of a thing having equal existence on the future and past side of present, would have to be dismissed as wrong. What this implies is that an object's existence is recreated at each moment of passing time. This is the only principle which will allow that a freely willed act can interfere in the continuity of existence, i.e. the continuity of existence is false. Of course, this is not difficult to accept, for those who believe that objects are a creation of the mind, anyway. The mind can only create the object as time passes. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand what you mean, thank you for the clarification.

Why do we need to guarantee such a unity? From the free will perspective this proposed unity makes no sense. Experience is entirely past. We have no experience of the future. We think of the future in terms of possibilities, but it is irrational for me to think that all possibilities will come to pass, and be a part of my experience. Only those possibilities which are actualized will be experienced. Therefore we cannot say that the future and past are united in experience. Only the past has been experienced, and future possibilities always remain outside of experience. — Metaphysician Undercover

I speak of guaranteeing the unity of experience simply because I am talking about consciousness and how time passes through it. In this sense, the time of consciousness is analogous to that of the world, but it is not strictly that of the world; it is only a point where a little time flows, so to speak. A small number of events compared to the vastness of all events in the universe.

I agree with this, except there is one big problem. The problem is that we understand the non-present to consist of two parts which are radically different, the past and the future. We know that with respect to the future there is real possibility in relation to what we will do, and what will come to pass. And, we also know that with respect to the past there is an actuality as to what we have done, and what has come to pass. So, if we accept this as a reality, that the past consists of actuality, and the future consists of possibility, dualism is unavoidable — Metaphysician Undercover

For me, the past and the future do not belong to being, so I cannot say that they are substances and therefore I cannot say that there is any dualism. Ousia is precisely present, and this can be found in Aristotle's physics. And when I speak of non-presents, I am speaking of something that is neither ousia nor substance. As I see it, we must opt for a category other than being and substance. Something other than substantialism. Derrida calls them traces, as things that are not present, but never totally absent, since we come into contact with them and they constitute us. According to this, we are made up of traces of the past and the future.

Protension is the way that we relate to the future, and retention is the way that we relate to the past. As being at the present, we recognize a significant, even substantial difference between the two, past and future. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly. But the flow of time implies that the relation with the past and the future is not discontinuous. That is why our present is constantly related to non-presents and non-consciousnesses in the flow of time.

Deterministic principles serve to dissolve this difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here you lost me. Can you explain this?

We can understand that within the conscious being, the two distinct substances of past and future, are united into one, as retention and protension, and this constitutes conscious being at the present. This implies that being at the present, consciousness, "is constituted at the most fundamental level", as a combination of these two distinct things, past and future. — Metaphysician Undercover

They cannot be two consciousnesses as two substances. Because we have to guarantee the unity of experience, for example that the past is a past of mine just as the future is a future of mine. In this sense we are body, where non-presents and non-consciousnesses constitute us. This body is the world that constitutes us.

The non-present, which is "the form of the world", must necessarily be divided into two, to accomodate an adequate understanding of it. This is due to that substantial difference between past and future, and the result is that some form of dualism is necessary in order to derive an appropriate conception of "the world" — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not a dualism it is simply two dimensions that relate to the present. But the important thing is that they are constitutive and non-present. In that sense consciousness is constituted by that which is not it. We do not perceive these dimensions in themselves unlike the present. There is something that is not conscious that constitutes consciousness. I call it the form of the world because we normally understand the world as something beyond consciousness and distinct from experience. There is an analogy with the non-present and the non-conscious.

In my opinion, in order to understand the other of consciousness, one must understand how consciousness is constituted at the most fundamental level. And consciousness is constituted at the most fundamental level as present and immediate time. Thanks to Husserl's analyses, we understand that consciousness is constituted at this level by diferences in protensions and retentions. This implies that there is always a non-present side with which consciousness is continuously in contact. This non-present is precisely the form of the world, as something not given in consciousness. In this sense, the existence of the world can be maintained as something distinct with which consciousness relates. But even more, it is consciousness itself that is constituted by the non-present, so it can be said that consciousness is constituted by the very nature of the world as non-present. To deny the world, we must deny the existence of the non-present. But that non-present is fundamental to consciousness and its functioning.

The world is like a note on the refrigerator. It is always pointing to the non-present. The dark side of the moon becomes a paradigmatic example of how experience works: we see it on one side, but within us there is always the hint of a non-present. This non-present is the dark side of the moon, which, if we see it, we stop seeing the other side, and the hint persists. Even to sustain the unity of the object, the hint of the non-present and the non-conscious is necessary. Its non-presence also guarantees its consistency and ultimately its existence. This is the world created by non-consciousness. Perhaps the moon does not have a dark side, but this "perhaps" is persistent and accompanies everything we call experience. It is the perhaps of what is not consciousness.

From my point of view, what we call reality does not validate our theories. In science, we work with phenomena and references, not with the aim of adapting our thinking to something we call reality. In scientific work, theories already work with phenomena and references, and this work is a kind of large mechanism in which phenomena and references function, for example, thanks to our technology and the operational practices of scientists that form the background to theories. A scientific theory is not something that is first created and then expected to be validated by something called reality; a theory is already involved in historical phenomena and references that give it a kind of validation and legitimacy.

In this sense, competing theories are not absolutely distinct from one another, since they have a historical foundation of other already legitimized theories that support them. This historical foundation is the work of scientists that precedes the creation of new theories. This historical foundation is also a practical-technical foundation in which new theories are embedded.

We must set aside the belief that our theories describe reality, but rather that they function with it, like the great machinery mentioned above. Thus, two competing theories can receive legitimacy and validation for different reasons, which may simply be socio-historical, but neither is more true than the other; rather, they may simply mesh better or worse with the entire historical and technical-scientific apparatus.

We must see science as just that, as a gigantic device of increasingly specialized practices carried out by human beings, and not simply as theories that fit reality. This device contains operations, references, phenomena, norms, legalities, practices, technologies, etc., where the theory/reality division has no place and is a mistaken and simplistic view.

. If you create an EEPROM Device, it has a format. It can form an index. And, even if you fill it with unknown characters of an unknown language, — Rocco Rosano

This is wrong once you understand the physics of a USB flash drive. That is why I have specifically referred to the cells and the charge they hold by setting up a binary language that the computer can read. But the problem is not the signs that the USB flash drive may or may not have (the cells and the charge) you have to distinguish between the language and the information. A binary language by itself does not mean anything until it is transcribed into a computer that can work with it and make us see something totally different than some 1's and 0's. That is, if you use a USB flash drive to get a Paper you have written when you understand the Paper you are reading something totally different from 1's and 0's. This implies that the information as a process jumps from language to language. But it does not jump as a preferred language, which makes it impossible to confuse our language with another language such as binary. In this sense, information is not deposited in the memory, signs are deposited that will be available for the human practice of information creation.

When information is stored, it is indexed in a memory device that has a structure to facilitate an interrogation and reply sequence. The device is generally a 'read-write' structure designed for retrieval. — Rocco Rosano

I claim that nothing is stored. Actually what happens is that it is physically configured in loaded and unloaded cells. We can associate between charge and discharge as a 0 and 1 (thus forming binary language). But a binary language by itself does not mean anything (except if we understand it, just like a pc processes it) and this is my point, it needs a translation or transcription into our language so that something like what we call information appears. Information appears and is created in the relationship, but it is never stored. Because what there is, literally are cells loaded and unloaded, then there are 0 and 1, and then there is the language that we understand. All this is a process of information, of in-forming, con-forming, trans-forming. The fiction is to believe that our language, the information that is created at an end point, is at a beginning. In reality it is a process where information is constantly created. But never stored.

In my opinion, we need to understand other aspect of consciousness. One must understand how consciousness is constituted at the most fundamental level. And consciousness is constituted at the most fundamental level as present and immediate time. Thanks to Husserl's analysis we understand that consciousness is constituted at this level by protentions and retentions. This implies that there is always a non-present side with which consciousness is continually in contact. This non-present is precisely the form of the world, as a thing not given in consciousness. In that sense one can maintain the existence of the world as a distinct other with which consciousness is related. But even more, it is consciousness itself that is constituted by non-presents, with which it can be said that consciousness is constituted by what is proper to the world as non-present. Consciousness is part of the world and the world is part of consciousness. To deny the world we must deny the existence of the non-present. But this non-present is fundamental for consciousness and for its functioning.

The beauty of the object, however, is only given as an external property in relation to a subject that interprets the sculpture. In this case the information, "the beauty" of the sculpture is given in the relationship. This is easy to prove in art, art is beautiful only in relation to us who interpret it.

But if the shape of the sculpture is beautiful, was it beautiful before anyone looked at it?

In what sense?

Either the USB has information or it doesn't. If the USB never gets information written to it then there was never any possibility that it would contain information in the first place. — Harry Hindu

Information is never in the first place. In the first place there are always signs arranged in one way or another. The difference is that there is an arrangement of signs that may enter into a meaningful (in-formative) relation or there may be no such arrangement such that the interpreter understands nothing or no relation is possible. I claim that what you call information processing is not processing of anything except signs and their arrangement. Whereby I cannot say that there is information being processed in the first place.

You are confusing information with acts on, or with, information. Being informed is being fed information. Information processing is integrating different types of information (inputs, or what you were fed) to produce new information (output). When the output becomes the input to subsequent processing, you have a sensory information feedback loop. — Harry Hindu

I cannot be confused because I do not believe that there is information about which there are acts, since the information if it is possible to substantiate it is in the result of a process of interpretation or in-formation. So there are no types of information in the first place. What there is is signs arranged in one way or another introduced as inputs as you say. But that input is not information. Because it's always the result of the processing of the signs that we confuse as being at the beginning of the process. For example, if you had a Paper (the information) in a USB memory, when you see and read the Paper in your PC you say "this was (passed) in the USB memory" when in fact it was not.

and there is a relationship between the sign and what it refers to - information. — Harry Hindu

The sign refers. But not to the information but to its process in which it will be included.

Interpretation is the act of integrating sensory information (the current number of rings in the tree) with information in memory (how the tree grows throughout the year). — Harry Hindu

I cannot call that information. Because in reality these rings are signs that refer precisely to the age of the tree. But this, the age of the tree, is given a posteriori. Then we can call it the result of the information process. Remember that I avoid substantivizing the word information, and I speak rather of in-formation as the act of giving form, as interpretation. In this case the signs give form to our cognitive apparatus and the idea of an age of the tree appears in us. That, that idea, is perhaps information as a sustantive, as a result of in-formation. But I prefer to avoid calling it this way so that there is no confusion. But what is clear to me is that the rings are neither information (the result of the process of interpretation) nor in-formation, they are signs.

In the case of the tree each ring is nothing more than a property of the tree. But in no case is it information because what you get from those rings you only get a posteriori as knowledge. That is, when we see the rings in general we ask "What information is here?" But in reality there are only signs that refer to other things, in this case the age of the tree. But those signs by themselves mean nothing. Necessarily there must be a process of interpretation to access knowledge like that, since it is never evident from looking at the rings that we are talking about age. That only goes a posteriori after a process of in-formation. The age itself is not contained in the tree, it is a ghost in the wood.

But if you are given a cleanly-formatted USB stick it is still correct to say that it contains no information — Wayfarer

I would say: you have no possible information. There is no possible in-formation/interpretation process due to the absence of signs. Or the absence of that of a specific configuration that can relate to an interpreter.

Every object contains information about its causes bottled up in its form and structure. — Harry Hindu

The thing is that what you call information is only given in the result of a process of interpretation. That is why I cannot call memory information. Memory are signs that are inscribed in a stable and perdurable way. But these are objects of any possible interpretation. Here interpretation is synonymous with in-formation. The signs of memory form something in the interpreter, they shape his language and his consciousness. they have an active role.

The type of Qualia that the subject conceives is due to the form of the object. To me, Qualia is not information so to me, the information is the form of the object. — MoK

For me qualia is a configuration given an information process. For I understand information not as a substance but as the relationship. Information for me is in-forming, con-forming trans-forming. So you have to distinguish the process with respect to the result. The qualia is the result. But I cannot agree that information is in the form of the object. You can call it information if you want but I can't call that in-formation.

If a l wrote a letter to my friend providing information on directions to my house. I can say I have transmitted this information by means of a letter. What was transmitted to him if he arrived at my house? — Richard B

From my point of view the signs contained in the letter did not contain information about your home address. What actually happened is that some signs, the signs in the letter have caused an effect on your friend. They have configured his language in such a way that he understands your home address. And this is evidently because you both share a language, a idiom, a context. But nothing has been transmitted since it is only ink on paper, or pixels on a screen.

Perhaps this is the right way of looking at it, but I would qualify this appraisal by affirming that the substance in itself is not doing any informing, and instead aver that the interpreter must first interpret, translate, transcribe the substance into a "form" that is understood by it as information. This I will call, tentatively, the communicative act. Interested in JuanZu's thoughts on this. — NotAristotle

I agree with the active role of the interpreter in communication. But I would also add an active role of the interpreted. Here it can be said that the substance also has an active role, as when we read a note on the refrigerator: the note informs and causes effects on us.

When we actually communicate what we do is to cause informational effects on the other person, without anything being transmitted. There is no ghost in the sound. We cause effects on their learned language, we shape it with our words. In communication the active and passive role varies from moment to moment, there is mutual transformation.

While information may be an act, not a substance, it would seem to rely on substance for its instantiation because there is something that is acted upon. In other words, for there to be an act of interpretation, what is there must be translated into what is meant. Does that sound right? — NotAristotle

Yes, You are right.

I agree only if we take into account that the shape of the object is distinguished from the information that will be created later. Since nothing is transmitted. We simply have signs as causes in a work of art that provoke different things in us. Just as a USB stick provokes things in a computer. But there must be a relationship between interpreter and interpreted, between the human and the work of art.

Information is the form in a substance. Take a bulk of clay that does not have any specific form. An artist can give a shape to the bulk of clay to convey something meaningful to his/her audience. — MoK

In that case, as I understand it, the bulk of clay is informed, but no longer in the sense of the result but in the sense of the act. The result is a system of signs with a form but it is not the act of informing, that is, the act of giving form. The audience is informed by the work of art in this case, that sign that is the work of art acts on people and then a new act of information appears. But before there was no information in the work of art. There were forms perhaps, but no information; information appears and is created in the relationship of the audience with the work of art. And appears as distinct effects on the audiencie, as interpretation.

The information exists in a form in a substance and the form is the result of the substance having specific properties. — MoK

I cannot say that information is the form in a substance. Information as I conceive it is the act of informing. That is, to cause significant effects on an interpreter.

1. I cannot speak of information as something that is interpreted because that makes us speak of it as a substance. But there is interpretation as the act of an interpreter who exerts a series of effects on a system of signs. For example a person who exerts his language and his context of interpretation on a book, what another person says, etc.

2. Can You give me more context to that question?

3. Since I conceive information as a relation always in act and not as a substance, I cannot say that information resides as an addition to anything. What appears is a system of signs that must be interpreted; and these have the quality of informing, in the sense of con-forming and trans-forming an interpreter.

The interesting question now becomes, if Joe and Jane are both "in-formed" in the same way, or with the same result, what fact about the interpreted (document, e.g.) allows this to be so? — J

In this case it is not so much the properties of the document if is the same for both, as the conditions imposed by the interpreters. Both have the same language for example, and the same context of interpretation.

Information is everywhere you care to look and which information is relevant is dependent upon the goal in the mind of the informed. — Harry Hindu

I would not reduce the interpreter to a mind for all cases. A computer can in-form itself by acting as an interpreter as soon as there is a process leading to a transcription effect. That is to say, as soon as the sign system "USB memory" enters into a causal relationship with the computer and its language.

Give me the information!" i.e., Hand over that document! vs. "What information does that document contain?" — J

In both cases the information is presupposed on the side of the interpreted. A correct expression according to my theory would be, "In-form me!" In the sense of causing something in the interpreter. To in-form him is to give form to the language of the one who says "In-form me!". In no case is something transmitted (like a ghost in sound, in ink, or in electric flow). In this case we are only talking about causes and effects, about how signs affect us and create things on the side of the interpreters.

This is quite counter-intuitive. But imagine it is but it is true theory. This prevents us from substantivizing information and treating it as an entity that passes from one side to the other. Which has many consequences for information theory like the ilusion of transmission.

I have no idea of what This possible means.

The information does exist in the USB stick, in the form of variations in electrical charge in different regions of a flash memory chip. This is why the device works as a memory. — wonderer1

Imagine that you use that USB flash drive to access a Paper you have composed. Now think about the memory itself, do you really see the Paper (the supposed information) inside the USB stick? No. You see exactly what you said, variations in electrical charge. But you don't see the Paper. The Paper is created at the moment of contact and transcription with the interpretant. But before, it did not exist.

Can you give it a name? — Wayfarer

The principle of reason.

Overall, I think that receptivity or hostility to the principle of sufficient reason might be closely tied to theist or non-theist views of the Universe. — Wayfarer

There is a text by Heidegger in which he speaks of the principle of reason and criticizes it in a certain sense. In the text he speaks of something more fundamental of the being of things than their casual reason. There appear phenomenological notions about light in which something is given and appears. Something more proper to the thing (its being) that is differentiated from the reference to something else (a cause or a reason). That is to say the criticism is made that when we speak of reason or cause we speak of something else other than what we should speak of. I recommend reading it. Especially because it is indirectly a critique of the notion of causality and the ontotheology of a causal God.

If we accept the scissors argument, we accept the idea of a universe that is out of the hands of a supposed creator and designer. In other words, God has not foreseen the evolution of the universe. And if this is so then why maintain the idea of a Great Designer? It is like saying that the designer is not such a designer and God who foresees everything does not foresee too much. Do you understand my point?

But as far as that being an analogy or argument for a 'divine creator', that was not the point. — Wayfarer

I claim that it is an argument against intelligent design. We can talk about the creator of the scissors or the creator of the universe. In both cases the becoming outweighs the intention or purpose. And the example of the scissors is important because it refers to the only case where purpose and intention seem to be present and can function as evidence for understanding intelligent design. That is, human action. And I say "seems" because in reality intention and purpose are not really able to saturate the being and existence of things created by man. Or created by God, as its first analogy. We can speak of scissors as of laws of nature, there is no distinction.

So you are not talking about scissors determined by the external agent, the great creator of scissors. You are talking about self-organizing systems. Is the universe a self-organizing system? But that excludes God, as the external cause of the organized being of the universe. So what is your point?

intrinsic reason — Wayfarer

Well, that's a concept. But I'm afraid experience contradicts it. We can give many uses to a scissors, why discriminate between one and another more than by an anthropomorphism?

Anyway I claim that scissors are more than scissors. And this "more" has to be explained, but it cannot be explained by the purpose.

Ok lets talk about scissors.

What I'm saying is actually quite simple. Think of other uses we can put those scissors to - which indeed it has. Those different uses are part of its existence and being. So linking a specific intention to its being is arbitrary. In this case, existence surpasses intention. It does not matter if when you created the scissors you were thinking of a purpose, what matters is also the becoming of the scissors that you were not thinking of, that is, not a purpose. In this sense the existence and being of the scissors surpasses the final cause that supposedly gave rise to it.

If you give an alien a pair of scissors, he might not know what to do with them. Or it could be that it would give them an extraordinary and different use than the great creator of the scissors. That is something that cannot be denied. The being and existence of the scissors surpasses purposes and final causes. So, literally, when we create scissors, we do not know what we create and the supposed main reason for the great creation of the scissors does not saturate the becoming of the scissors.

In reality what happens is that we introduce intentions into the events. But what we introduce (an intention) is never proven, not even a posteriori. When a technological apparatus works, it does so to the extent that we have expectations, but the technological apparatus can always fail. The question is: Where is the intention and the final cause in the technological apparatus that works differently from our expectations? If everything has a reason it should also have a reason for failure too, and we would have to say that we also intended it to fail. This implies that you can introduce any final cause to objects or events as you see fit. Which makes the final cause arbitrary. Actually Ontologically there is a gap between the supposed final cause (our intention) and the caused object. No object or events possess a final cause that passes mysteriously from cause to effect.

And yet we can build a whole body of knowledge, neurology, from the conscious study of what we call the brain. This implies, by right, an epistemological primacy of consciousness over neurology. From neurology we cannot know the consciousness, but from the consciousness we can know the brain.

Thus it is difficult to think of consciousness as simply something enclosed in an interiority (the brain). Consciousness seems to be thrown into the world and in a more direct connection with the world than the physical sciences themselves. For me this is the reason why the question of the external world seems implicated in consciousness, and even a dualism between consciousness and the world is problematic.