So the way I see it intelligence identifies problems and wisdom formulates solutions. — HardWorker

Another way to say it, is that "Wisdom is the practical application of Intelligence". For example, homo sapiens is noted for its Intelligence relative to animals, but not so much for its collective Wisdom. That's why the world needs a few Philosophers to ascertain the difference between raw Intelligence and mature Wisdom. To keep us smart apes headed in the right direction. :joke:

Is it possible for things to be both true and false at the same time or neither true or false at the same time? Or must things be either true or false at any given time? — TiredThinker
This is my old refrain. Most things that get people, at least philosophers, excited are neither true nor false. Examples:
Free will vs. determinism
The nature of reality
The nature of truth — T Clark

This is also the old Reductive versus Holistic refrain. If you look at particular things or events, each can be evaluated as Good or Bad, in the specified context : relative to me, to you, to everybody. But if you look at everything-in-general, the values are not so Black & White.

That's why my personal Holistic philosophy is summarized in the BothAnd Principle. From that perspective, it's hard to get too excited about any single example of the duality of reality. It's characterized by neither of the extremes (all-good or all-bad), but a moderate mixture of both. Otherwise life in the real world would be heavenly or hellish. So, the job of Philosophy (Wisdom) is to evaluate in terms of relative values : more-or-less Good or Bad ; True or False ; Real or Ideal. The Middle Path, the Way of Tao. :smile:

Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Einstein's Special Relativity applies to physical objects. But General Relativity includes the subjective observer in the network, as a node in the whole pattern, by taking a god-like perspective, from outside the system looking in — Gnomon
I think both special and general include observers. That's not the usual distinction. Accelerated motion and other features are considered in general. — jgill

I doubt that Einstein himself made the distinction I was referring to. It was just my interpretation. I was extrapolating from the terms "Special Relativity" (reductive) and "General Relativity" (holistic). If my reference to "Einstein" -- to make a long story short -- seems wrong to you, please delete the name from the sentence. It's not essential to the concept. :smile:

Yes, cause and effect. Equal and opposites. The point is that humans, being that their ability to modify themselves and their intelligence is fundamental, not physical, makes them capable of true self-modification. Whereas a robot requires transistors, hard drives, memory or whatever it has to do it's processing therefore must depend on them working correctly to continue functioning. — AlienFromEarth

AFE, I generally agree with your position on the distinction between human intelligence (HI) and artificial intelligence (AI). But I just finished reading The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, by physicists Barrow and Tipler, and with a foreword by famous physicist John A. Wheeler. Using the language of Physics & Mathematics, they argue for teleological evolution toward a far future "Omega Point". Even though there is no religious language in their argument, it's what would call "non-physical woo-of-the-gaps". That's because the Primary Protagonist of the argument is not an individual flesh & blood human, but the metaphysical abstraction : "Intelligent Life". (IL)

The authors concede that the current form of IL (homo sapiens) may die-out in the not-too-distrant-future, but that some form of Intelligent Life -- including self-reproducing & self-repairing robots -- will continue the mission of becoming-the-universe (my words) at the Omega Point. "When life has encompassed the entire universe and regulated all matter contained therein. Life begins to manipulate the dynamical evolution of the universe as a whole". In other words, the non-physical abstraction "Life", will essentially become God. When summarized in such terms, this sounds like Science Fiction. And it is, in the sense that conjectures about millions of years into the future are inherently fictional. But the authors support their speculations with state-of-the-art Physics, as of 1986. Most of which still holds-up to attempts at falsification.

I don't know if their positive assessment of the Future of Life, is correct. And I don't expect to be there to witness the apotheosis of Life. But it gives us a lot of positive plausible information to consider, when faced with hopeless negative apocalyptic worldviews. :cool:

Apparently everything in this world has a mathematical foundation, and Math is an abstract form of Generic Information. — Gnomon
Is it that the world has a mathematical foundation or that the ability to measure and count is what enables us to get its measure? Math starts with the process of abstraction, whereby the measurable attributes of a given phenomenon are abstracted and quantified. But it's not as if that mathematical abstraction is inherent in the object, rather it is the only means by which we can subjugate the object to mathematical analysis — Wayfarer

I agree. When I said that the physical world has a mathematical foundation, I was referring to the pattern of inter-relationships that the human mind interprets as Logic. Math is not a physical object, but a metaphysical network of relative values (relationships ; proportions). The interpreted values, or meaningful patterns, are not inherent in any particular thing, but are evaluated by the observing mind, relative to self and to the whole system. Einstein's Special Relativity applies to physical objects. But General Relativity includes the subjective observer in the network, as a node in the whole pattern, by taking a god-like perspective, from outside the system looking in.

As I view it, the rational Mind "measures" those invisible links between things, and assigns both numerical values and emotional values. The numerical values are abstractions that we can convey to others in language, including mathematical notation. But the emotional values must be inferred from the behavior of the observer, including inflections of speech and emoticons in text. Disclaimer : I don't really know what I'm talking about. I'm just extrapolating from my personal worldview of Enformationism. :wink:


Logos :
Greek term meaning “word”, “reason”, “proportion”. It was used by philosophers in a technical sense to mean a cosmic principle of order and knowledge. In ancient Greek philosophy and theology, Logos was the divine Reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
Note -- Reason is applied Logic, which "enables us" to recognize the design (order, organization ; form) in the objects of our perception. The mental evaluation of such an observation is what we call a Concept.

PATTERN RECOGNITION :

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

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.

But then, Aristotle wrote two books summarizing the current state of philosophical understanding. The first was labelled The Physics, because it was all about specific aspects of Nature (matter + energy). And the second volume was later designated The Meta-Physics, because it discussed various general notions about Nature (ideas, information). However, by the "age of Enlightenment", knowledge of the physical had made little progress, and the focus was on religious beliefs & speculations, on idealized concepts and spiritual matters. That's why the early scientists, Galileo etc, turned away from ivory-tower ideal metaphysical conjectures, and turned their attention back to the "real" world.

Today, however, modern Science has revealed that the foundations of Reality are not as firm as once assumed. Relativity & Quantum Theory have undermined our Classical worldview, and re-opened our axiomatic beliefs to question. Now, instead of solid Atoms & Matter, scientists talk about Virtual Particles and Abstract Mathematical Fields. As a consequence, even sober scientists are forced to think like philosophers. You might call this era "The Re-Enlightenment" or "The Information Age".

Therefore, while my Enformationism thesis is grounded in modern Physics, and Information theory, it is theoretical, not empirical. The website discusses such things as "the physical basis of information, time perception, artificial intelligence and computing". But, it is more concerned with general & universal concepts, than specific details and data. :nerd:


Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

Philosophy and Its Contrast with Science :
Science is about contingent facts; philosophy is also about necessary truths (if they exist). Science is about descriptive facts; philosophy is also about normative truths (if they exist). Science is about physical objects; philosophy is also about abstract objects (if they exist).
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=science+vs+philosophy+debate

FWIW :
http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/


Science vs Philosophy debate :
https://medium.com/predict/science-vs-philosophy-a-debate-on-youtube-between-physicists-and-philosophers-45c5bc103604

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

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:

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

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'm still not sure if you think information should be both brain internal and brain external? — 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?

Speaking of communicating, your "brain only" model implies that communication of Information would have to send a little chunk of your brain (the material machine) to the brain of the receiver. But physicist Paul Davies refers to the immaterial contents of your brain as "the demon in the machine" (the Mind or Soul). http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page6.html

Now that I have introduced that taboo term "Soul" into the conversation, let me quote from a book by astrophysicist John Barrow, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. In a chapter on Life and the Final State of the Universe, he says : ".. . an intelligent being -- or more generally, any living creature -- is fundamentally a type of computer [an information processor] . . ." Then, ".. . we may even say that a human being is a program designed to run on particular hardware called a human body . . . the essence of a human being is not the body but the program which controls the body; we might even identify the program which controls the body with the religious notion of a soul". So, the distinction between Qualia and Quanta is equivalent to the ability to discriminate between a Computer and its Program. The machine (quanta ; hardware) without a program (qualia ; software) is a "brick". Likewise, a Brain without a Mind is a Philosophical Zombie. Is your Brain running a Program, or are you a Zombie? :joke:


Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures designed to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike the ones in films or witchcraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like us, and some even spend a lot of time discussing consciousness.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/

Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Note : in order to avoid the obsolete religious connotations of "Soul", I prefer to refer to the human Program as the "Self" or "Self Concept".

If you are arguing for this kind of externally mobile information you might need to explain how that works. — 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:

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

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:

Physics & Metaphysics :
Two sides of the same coin we call Reality. When we look for matters of fact, we see physics. But when we search for meaning, we find meta-physics. A mental flip is required to view the other side. And imagination is necessary to see both at the same time
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

Aboutness :
Philosophers often remind us, and each other, that mental contents have the property of 'aboutness'. Indeed, this is their distinguishing feature.
About Aboutness | Issue 132 | Philosophy Now
https://philosophynow.org › issues › About_

Qualia : Individual instances of subjective, conscious experience

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

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".

A statement by Marshall McLuhan, meaning that the [container] of a message (print, visual, musical, etc.) determines the ways in which that message will be perceived.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/the-medium-is-the-message
Note -- I added the brackets, replacing "form", to indicate that the Amazon box your new phone is delivered in, is not the object you ordered, but its easily recognized smile carries a message of its own, that a porch pirate can interpret : valuables within.

2. Since when are philosophers content with simplistic models? Occam's Razor is a pragmatic rule-of-thumb for reductive empirical science. But for holistic theoretical science (philosophy) the situation is seldom that simple. Neurologists study physical neurons. and infer (hypothesize) related non-physical brain states. But they don't claim to actually "see" the states we call "Meaning". Philosophy is all about Meaning. :nerd:

Intel launches its next-generation neuromorphic processor—so, what’s that again?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/understanding-neuromorphic-computing-and-why-intels-excited-about-it/

An Internet meme, more commonly known simply as a meme (/miːm/ MEEM), is an idea, behavior, or style that is spread via the Internet,
___Wiki
Note -- a Meme is the meaning (content), the medium (internet) is merely the vehicle (container)

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

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.

We only infer the existence of ideas in another brain, by projecting our personal subjective experience onto the other person. Doubting that inference leads to Solipsism. We can cut the other person's head open to confirm that he has a Brain. But we can't verify that he has a Mind. He might be a philosophical Zombie. However, partly due to our mammalian trait of Empathy, humans have almost always assumed that other humans experience, and model the world, in a manner similar to our own. So, it's that invisible intangible mental model that we have to take for granted, in order to empathize and socialize.

Unfortunately for the Solipsistic Skeptic, Platonic "Form" is the core concept of the modern word "In-Form-Ation". Yet, in modern usage, there are two referents for the same term : the ghostly mental platonic qualities (Qualia), and its tangible physical empirical properties (Quanta). For clarity, I call the subjective qualia "Form", and the objective quanta "Shape". 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. However, unlike animals in general, rational philosophers do not have to rely on apparent Shapes for all knowledge of the real world. They also construct mental models of their environment, that are imbued with personal meaning. But, when we dissect their brains, those meanings or essences or Forms are nowhere to be found.

It's a simplistic truism that all Information accessible to our physical senses is embodied in physical matter. But, in the process of embodiment, the subjective meanings are stripped-out. So, in order to know what another person is knowing and feeling, we are forced to empathize with them, by imagining what we would know and feel, if we were in a similar situation. By communicating & comparing our mental models (our ideas about reality) via the process I call "Enformation" (the act of communicating Forms between Minds). Therefore, if the brain is nothing-but "a placeholder for Form", we would all be Zombies. :cool:


Physics envy :
"Physics envy" refers to the envy (perceived or real) of scholars in other disciplines for the mathematical precision of fundamental concepts obtained by physicists. It is an accusation raised against disciplines (typically against social sciences and liberal arts such as literature, philosophy, and psychology) when these academic areas try to express their fundamental concepts in terms of mathematics, which is seen as an unwarranted push for reductionism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_envy

Infer : deduce or conclude (information) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements.
Google (Oxford Dictionary)

Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds :
Rather, the solipsist can attach no meaning to the supposition that there could be thoughts, experiences, and emotions other than his own.
https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
Note -- none of those objects of philosophical study are physical objects made of Matter. Instead, they are all made of Mind-stuff (ideas). And they are all General concepts, that can exist simultaneously in a variety of Brains.

All the three above senses, their nature (quantitative), falls within the domain of physics and, by extension, mathematics — TheMadFool

That's an interesting observation. Which leads me to postulate that the Sixth Sense of Reason is also a sort of mathematical discrimination. Rational thought compares two or more ideas or objects in terms of ratios, evaluated on a range from 0 to100%, or False to True. I'm not sure what the cosmic implications of that might be, other than the Mathematical Universe hypothesis, or the Information Universe theory. Apparently everything in this world has a mathematical foundation, and Math is an abstract form of Generic Information. Perhaps the "number sense" is just a specialized aspect of the typical human ability to parse the world into qualitative Good / Bad relationships, relative to Me & Mine. :nerd:

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

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. *

Of course, this being a material world, the change in mental state we call Consciousness or Meaning is preceded by a change in the physical state of the brain. The external patterns ** we observe make a difference in the mental patterns of our Mind. This may sound like mere semantics to a Materialist, but it helps to explain what Bateson labelled The Difference That Makes a Difference. In other words, its the change that makes a meaning (some pattern that is significant to the observer). The difference is expressed mathematically as a ratio, such as the difference between Life & Death. :gasp:

The Difference :
Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist is credited with this phrase. He was talking about information and how it can affect things. What information can we know that will completely change the situation/experiment/culture?
https://www.stephanie-burns.com/blog/2017/3/25/the-difference-that-makes-the-difference
Note -- in physical terms : "The potential difference (which is the same as voltage) is equal to the amount of current multiplied by the resistance." And metaphorically, a mental difference has the potential to complete a circuit (meaning ; meme) in another mind.

* 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:

What would have happened if there was no Big Bang? :
What if there was no Big Bang, no dark matter, no dark energy, and everything is swamped in some kind of weird quantum probability field. ... The Big Bang, as we currently understand it, says that everything in the universe started out as a single, infinitely small point, or singularity.
https://www.seeker.com/what-if-the-big-bang-never-happened-1792546415.html

** Pattern is an intelligible form. We see the invisible relationships between a group of material objects, and recognize it as a form we are already familiar with.

But other than worrying about food, threats or a mate - ie sex they do not appear to worry. — David S

Yes. That's why humans were forced by their internal rational conflicts to develop Laws, Ethics, and Morality : we worry too much about the unintended consequences of our freedom. :smile:

There is an asymmetry in the interaction of forms, otherwise they annihilate. — Pop

Absolute symmetry is perfect & changeless. Change requires asymmetry (difference) in order to allow room for something new to happen. :smile:

which would imply that "meaning" is the last information integrated by a body of information? — 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:

Thanks for the answer, and for humoring my speculations. — 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:

It's by exchanging views that we learn to see things from a different perspective. And we gain a new vocabulary in which to express our private mind-states. For example, I hadn't thought of Information in terms of "self-organization" before your post on a Short Theory of Consciousness. But that's exactly what EnFormAction is. It causes disorganized random patterns to organize into orderly meaningful patterns of information. Although technically, each transformation (change) has an external cause, since that cause is invisible, the new form appears to be "self-organized". Some think that the Big Bang organized itself from nothing-but invisible "Laws", which are necessarily Causal. Only the First Cause would be self-caused.

Even the universe itself can be understood as an Organism. Ironically the question remains : "is the Universe self-organized, or is it organized by an outside Self"? Is our world self-conscious? I don't know the answer, but it's worth looking into. :chin:

PS__Sorry, I got carried away with imaginary nonsense and speculative pseudo-woo. :cool:

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

Yes. EnFormAction causes changes in both physical material, and in meta-physical states. It's the subsequent chain-of-causation after the First Cause. That initial impetus necessarily possessed 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 execution of a no-D Program of Potential EnFormAction, which being metaphysical (mind stuff) requires no space for storage, or time for its virtual static state. That's how a sub-Planck-scale pinpoint of Potential could give birth to a universe, that is currently a zillion times larger, and has existed for zillions of Planck seconds. *

Of course, this being a Real material world, the change in Ideal mental state we call "Consciousness" or "Meaning" is preceded by a change in the physical state of the brain. The "external" patterns we observe make a difference in the mental patterns of our Mind. This may sound like mere semantics to a Materialist, but it helps to explain what Bateson labelled The Difference That Makes a Difference. In other words, its the change that makes a meaning (some pattern that is significant to the observer). The difference is expressed mathematically as a ratio, such as the difference between Life & Death. :gasp:

The Difference :
Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist is credited with this phrase. He was talking about information and how it can affect things. What information can we know that will completely change the situation/experiment/culture?
https://www.stephanie-burns.com/blog/2017/3/25/the-difference-that-makes-the-difference
Note -- in physical terms : "The potential difference (which is the same as voltage) is equal to the amount of current multiplied by the resistance." And metaphorically, a mental difference has the potential to complete a circuit (meaning ; meme) in another mind.

* Some physicists are still trying to imagine an explanation for the beginning and expansion of the universe, that doesn't require a something-from-nothing beginning.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/09/17/if-the-big-bang-wasnt-the-beginning-what-was-it/

This is important to the idea that information is an interaction of forms. It would be a helpful if you could confirm, or deny this? — Pop

I'm not qualified to confirm or deny your concept that "information is the interaction of forms". But I tend to focus on information as meaning, which is something more than a simple collision of "forms". In the absence of an observer, the forms may simply annihilate, like matter/anti-matter. Any meaning of that "interaction" is enformed only in the mind of the independent observer.

However, the Wiki article (below) on the double-slit experiment concludes that a conscious Observer is not the cause of the collapse of the wave form into a particle form -- merely a by-stander. If so, it would imply that the slit effect is caused by a meaningless mechanical interaction of matter/energy (particles), with no input or output of meaning. It would also deny my assumption that the extraction of meaning by a conscious observer is, perhaps not necessary, but sufficient to cause an amorphous wave of potential to convert into a point of actual matter. By that I mean, the interaction could be meaningful or meaningless, depending on the context (the experimental setup). If no observer, there is no memory of that ephemeral event. If no-one ever looks into Schrodinger's box, how would we know what happened?

I have never bought into the woo-ish interpretation that Consciousness is capable of magical mind-over-matter effects. Instead, I imagine the cause/effect in terms of ordinary energy exchanges, which I label EnFormAction. Energy is one form (a waveform) of Generic Information, while Meaning is another form (meta-physical) of the same universal substance. Since I'm not an expert in quantum physics, all I can say is that the "cause" question is controversial and debatable. In any case, I can generally agree with your formulation of the conclusion, that interacting "forms" result in producing new "information", i.e. new forms (particles), that may be different from the original forms (waves). From my perspective though, the original "forms" possess the Potential for causing novelty. And the interaction of two old forms will usually cause a change in both of the originals.

That "interaction of forms" I would liken to the mechanism of Evolution. For example, an existing species can mutate into a potentially viable or non-viable form. Such mutations are equivalent to the non-local un-certain waveform of the slit experiment. But when two or more of those different forms combine (via sexual or asexual pathways), the output of that "interaction" is a novel combination of the original genes (potentials). Then, statistical natural selection weeds-out (annihilates) the non-viable forms, and allows the viable forms to continue the process of evolution. In the slit analogy, the random formless potential of a light wave, when perturbed by interaction with a physical obstacle (the slit), is forced to materialize into specific enformed particles of energy. :smile:


Observer Effect :
The need for the "observer" to be conscious is not supported by scientific research, and has been pointed out as a misconception rooted in a poor understanding of the quantum wave function ψ and the quantum measurement process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)

Quantum Consciousness :
Does the change in the behaviour of particles seen in Young’s double-slit experiment really suggest that consciousness can alter matter and exist separately from the brain?
https://medium.com/science-first/the-double-slit-experiment-demystified-disproving-the-quantum-consciousness-connection-ee8384a50e2f

Interacting Waves result in positive (reinforcement) or negative (null) changes :
reinforcement = particle . . . . . null = annihilation

I think Landauer's principle might be relevent to it. I think we are saying something similar just with different language and concepts. — Pop

Landauer says that "erasing" information is equivalent to Entropy, which is the result of deleting Energy from a system. So, extracting Energy is also the removal of Information, and vice-versa. That's why I conclude that when a human observer "measures" an experiment, he is literally extracting Information from that system, into his own mental system. The energy loss may be minor, but the gain in meaning could be significant to the observer. In any case, that act of measurement makes a change in the thing observed : such as a wave collapse. :smile:

there is no information before collapse. — Pop

I would re-phrase that assertion, to say that "there is intrinsic information, but no meaning to the observer, until the collapse. Before the observation, the meaning of that information is merely Potential. But the act of measuring converts it into Actual (manifest) meaning (knowledge) in the mind of the observer. :cool:

Potential :
Unrealized or unmanifest creative power. For example the Voltage of an electric battery is its potential for future current flow measured in Amps. Potential is inert until actualized by some trigger.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html
Note -- EnFormAction is analogous to Energy : it exists in both Potential and Actual forms.

PS__(re: "different language") I think you have more of a formal philosophical or scientific background than me. I have only seriously pursued Philosophy in my old age. So my language tends to be idiosyncratic and eccentric.

In the double slit experiment, an observer is replaced with a measuring device, and the wave collapses just the same. — Pop

Some have noted that it's not the dumb measuring instrument, but the intelligent scientist who looks at the abstract read-out, and realizes what just happened. In that case, the collapse doesn't occur until the experimenter opens Schrodinger's Box, and realizes the the cat is not half-dead, or all-dead, but fully alive. In other words, it's not the measuring stick that does the trick, but the extraction of that information into a receptive Mind. The mind is the ultimate "measuring device". Those mechanical devices don't care one way or the other. What matters is the meaning. :nerd:

Does Consciousness Cause Quantum Collapse? :
On this view conscious experience is something in addition to the brain processes that accompany it, something non-physical.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/121/Does_Consciousness_Cause_Quantum_Collapse

What is the meaning of Mensura (to measure)? :
a doctrine first propounded by Protagoras holding that humankind is the measure of all things, that everything is relative to human apprehension and evaluation, and that there is no objective truth.
(Latin, mens- = mind)
mind, intention, brain, intellect, faculties, understanding
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=latin+mind

I'm agnostic on the existence of a deity for reasons this thread will elucidate. But while previously I was rather agnostic about merely a creative force behind our existence, I am now somewhat interested in a teleological reason for our existence, one that derives from a "creator". — Jerry

You may not get a lot of sympathy, on this forum, for your apostasy from atheism to deism. But I too, went from a Theistic childhood, to an Agnostic adolescence, and finally to a Deistic senescence. I don't have any divine revelations to rely on, but I do have some rational reasoning to support the idea that an Aristotelian First Cause, of some kind. is necessary to explain the contingent existence of our universe, and its questioning creatures. :smile:

Why when animals are able to form order and organisation without this does the human stand alone. — David S

Mythically, the root of human ethics is in the freedom to choose what seems to be in the ego's best interest, without regard for the interests of the whole ecosystem. That's how mammal's evolved-over-eons innate-Emotional-directives are subject to being over-ridden by homo sapiens' still naive Reason, based on local & limited information. It's the ago-old conundrum of Nature versus Culture. And it's why we have to use that same rational faculty to get us out of the tight-spots that it previously got us into. :cool:

The links below compare the notion of the "neural correlates of Mind" with the filamentous structure of the material universe. Some others have proposed that the universe is actually the brain of God. I don't take it too seriously, or literally. It's just philosophical candy for musing & chewing. :grin:

Neural Correlates of Cosmos :
https://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/the-strange-similarity-of-neuron-and-galaxy-networks
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/neuron-web-in-human-brain-is-similar-to-the-network-of-galaxies-in-the-universe-9034231.html

Information is the interaction that occurs at all perspectives of such systems.
— Pop
That's similar to what I call "inter-relationships" — Gnomon
I'm glad we have a similar in outlook. — Pop

The book I'm currently reading, about The Anthropic Principle, frequently uses the words "crux" and "crucial". The metaphorical reference is to the point where paths cross and change occurs ( a coincidence). Which is also where "interaction" occurs, and where we "see" inter-relationships with the mind's eye of Reason. One example might be isolated sub-atomic particles that come together (accidentally or coincidentally), and are thereafter "entangled", into a holistic system.

Entanglement is a mysterious relationship, but it seems to have something to do with Conscious minds. In some sense, each particle is Informed by the other. And conscious observers are somehow able to measure the meaning (or value) of that inter-action-at-a-distance. Which Einstein thought was "spooky", and couldn't be true, because it seemed Magical instead of Physical. Yet, a century later, we seem to be stuck with that spooky reality. Moreover, the effect of an Observation on the super-position of an intangible "wave", which magically & instantly converts from Meta-physical mathematical "wave-function" into a Physical "particle" of matter, again implies the old mind-over-matter concept that has traditionally been applied to Magic.

Like Einstein, I don't believe in Magic -- in the traditional sense -- but I do believe in the power of Information to affect & influence both Mind and Matter. That's what I call EnFormAction, the power to cause changes in form, of both Objects and Ideas. It's not Magic, it's a Coincidence. And that's the crux of Enformationism. :nerd:

Quantum Entanglement :
Entangled particles can become widely separated in space. But even so, the mathematics implies that a measurement on one immediately influences the other, regardless of the distance between them.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2012/03/08/20152/einsteins-spooky-action-at-a-distance-paradox-older-than-thought/
The verb "To Measure" originally meant : to extract information from an object into a mind (L. mens-). To take-the-measure of something, is to remove a piece of the "essence" of that thing. And I think that "intrinsic quality" is what we now call Information about the thing.

An entangled system is defined to be one whose quantum state cannot be factored as a product of states of its local constituents;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement

Check-out this site : https://www.incrementalcompressionconjecture.com/summary
The link is in the PF thread : https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11872/a-conjecture-that-consciousness-is-based-on-quantum-information

I've only read the Summary. But, "incremental compression" sounds like another way to say "integrated information". Some people are looking for the secret of Consciousness in the Quantum Realm, but they may be missing the Whole, while looking at the Parts. Sometimes we can't see the Forest for the Trees. :smile:

Information is the interaction that occurs at all perspectives of such systems. — Pop

That's similar to what I call "inter-relationships"

Systems Theory :
A system can be more than the sum of its parts if it expresses synergy or emergent behavior. Changing one part of the system usually affects other parts and the whole system, with predictable patterns of behavior. More parts, means more interrelationships, and more complex properties & activities, including mental functions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory

There seems to be an information game at play, where information informs and constricts our reality, — Pop

If our reality is a game, who is the player, and who are the pawns? :wink:

Without getting into a debate about this. I do not see a reason to assume dualism? — Pop

OK. Apparently "dualism" means something different to you. You may be thinking in terms of Body/Soul Dualism, while I'm talking about Property Dualism or Substance Dualism. In any case, it's all Information to me. :smile:

•What is the metaphysical status of IIT? :
•materialism, dualism, idealism,
panpsychism, Russellian monism?
http://consc.net/slides/iit.pdf

Take the God out of pandeism, and you get panpsychism. Put mind into all matter, and you don't need dualism. — Pop

The "god" of PanDeism, or as I prefer PanEnDeism, is only invoked to explain the contingent existence of this world. I call it "The Enformer". And as the Eternal Mind, the Enformer puts "mind into all matter". :cool:

Mind/Body Problem :
Philosophers and scientists have long debated the relationship between a physical body and its non-physical properties, such as Life & Mind. Cartesian Dualism resolved the problem temporarily by separating the religious implications of metaphysics (Soul) from the scientific study of physics (Body). But now scientists are beginning to study the mind with their precise instruments, and have found no line of demarcation. So, they see no need for the hypothesis of a spiritual Soul added to the body by God. However, Enformationism resolves the problem by a return to Monism, except that the fundamental substance is meta-physical Information instead of physical Matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem

PanEnDeism :
Panendeism is an ontological position that explores the interrelationship between God (The Cosmic Mind) and the known attributes of the universe. Combining aspects of Panentheism and Deism, Panendeism proposes an idea of God that both embodies the universe and is transcendent of its observable physical properties. https://panendeism.org/faq-and-questions/
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

That would be a gag-order for the whole profession, and for us amateurs. — Gnomon
No I don't think so at all. — Pop

I think you missed my tongue-in-cheek point. :joke:

The theory seems to be pretty simple - If information is fundamental, then everything is information from every perspective. :grin: — Pop

Yes. I suspect that you envision that Fundamental Information in a form similar to Spinoza's Universal Substance, which is singular, but has "multiple attributes". The Wiki article says : "The single essence of one substance can be conceived of as material and also, consistently, as mental." Which is why some interpret that all-encompassing concept as some kind of physical empirical stuff (perhaps like Dark Matter or Dark Energy), while others view it as a type of meta-physical intangible stuff (like Plato's Ideal Forms). Even Spinoza was ambivalent about his ultimate stuff, calling it deus sive natura (God or Nature).

However, in order to account for the contingent existence of the Natural Physical Universe, we are compelled to look beyond the beginning (Big Bang) to a pre-universal First Cause. Spinoza assumed that physical Nature was eternal, but we can no longer take that for granted. And that's where the timeless & spaceless notion of "Meta-Physics" comes in : as 1> an eternal Multiverse, or 2> an infinite array of Parallel Universes, or 3> as a singular self-existent Creator. In the book we call The Metaphysics, Aristotle discussed and analyzed, not physical things, but human ideas about Nature (Physics). He didn't specifically contrast those Immaterial ideas with Material objects, perhaps because he was uncomfortable with Plato's notion of non-empirical imaginary Eternal Ideals. Or because he didn't want to give credence to the popular concept of invisible-yet-real gods in an ideal realm.

I too, am wary of sounding conventionally religious, when I base my worldview on the axiom of a non-physical (ideal ; eternal ; incorruptible) entity that remains hidden from our empirical eyes. But, I see no alternative, if we are to look at our world, in which less than 5% is empirically knowable, "from every perspective". And in which, we still can't agree on a definition for the only thing we know for sure : our own personal non-empirical Consciousness (cogito ergo sum). :smile:

There is only one possibly immaterial thing amongst this, and it would be the source of self organization - the forces causing the creation of ordered / informational bodies — Pop

That is what, in Enformationism, I call "EnFormAction" (the causal energy or power to create novel forms), or "Enformy" (the universal force opposing disorderly Entropy, allowing the creation of "ordered / informational bodies", including ideas and memes in the mind). :nerd:


EnFormAction :
Ententional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. It’s the creative force (aka : Divine Will) of the axiomatic eternal deity that, for unknown reasons, programmed a Singularity to suddenly burst into our reality from an infinite source of possibility. AKA : The creative power of Evolution; the power to enform; Logos; Change.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Enformy :
In the Enformationism theory, Enformy is a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend or force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce complexity & progress. [ see post 63 for graph ]
1. I'm not aware of any "supernatural force" in the world. But my Enformationism theory postulates that there is a meta-physical force behind Time's Arrow and the positive progress of evolution. Just as Entropy is sometimes referred to as a "force" causing energy to dissipate (negative effect), Enformy is the antithesis, which causes energy to agglomerate (positive effect).
2. Of course, neither of those phenomena is a physical Force, or a direct Cause, in the usual sense. But the term "force" is applied to such holistic causes as a metaphor drawn from our experience with physics.
3. "Entropy" and "Enformy" are scientific/technical terms that are equivalent to the religious/moralistic terms "Evil" and "Good". So, while those forces are completely natural, the ultimate source of the power behind them may be super-natural, in the sense that the First Cause logically existed before the Big Bang.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

This is similar to the information philosopher, and I'm glad information philosophy can accommodate both monism and dualism, although it will probably lead to two distinct information philosophies. — Pop

Actually, Enformationism is dualist in the particular space-time setting, but monist in a holistic infinity-eternity context. It's obvious that the Real world is characterized by oppositions : matter-antimatter, positive-negative, left-right, up-down, good-evil, etc. But on the whole, those opposites tend to balance-out to a neutral state. Yet, it's only in the absence of dichotomous space-time that complete harmony can be achieved. Like any other philosophical position, a single coin has two sides, but what you see depends on how you look at it, your viewpoint or attitude. :smile:

Unity of opposites :
The unity of opposites is the central category of dialectics, said to be related to the notion of non-duality in a deep sense. It defines a situation in which the existence or identity of a thing (or situation) depends on the co-existence of at least two conditions which are opposite to each other, yet dependent on each other and presupposing each other, within a field of tension.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_of_opposites

These physical manifestations are assumptions based on all external information having a physical basis. But I don't want to get into a debate about it with you. There is room for different understandings. — Pop

Since philosophy is mainly concerned with immaterial Meta-Physical questions, most answers are uncertain and open-ended. Leaving lots of room for "different understandings". But, as you said, the physical "manifestations" of Information are much easier to pin down. I was simply amused by the image of Philosophers being unable to "draw distinctions" about immaterial non-physical subjects. That would be a gag-order for the whole profession, and for us amateurs. Empirical scientists, studying "physical manifestations" are usually able to come close to a consensus on their distinctions. But philosophers try to accurately dissect things (ideas, concepts) -- that have no physical manifestations -- into neat categories, so it's hard to cut them "at the joints". We could debate those -- ideally pre-divided, but somewhat subjective -- "distinctions" till kingdom come. :joke:

Carving Nature at Its Joints :
Plato famously employed this “ carving ” metaphor as an analogy for the reality of Forms ( Phaedrus 265e): like an animal, the world comes to us predivided. Ideally, our best theories will be those which “ carve nature at its joints. ” Such agreement is certainly suggestive.
https://philarchive.org/archive/SLAILF

when in Enactivist fashion the two [energy & Information] are integrated, material reality is created. It would beg the question - is matter real? :lol: — Pop

Is the "Enactivist fashion" a physical event, or meta-physical? How do both "aspects of reality" co-exist in a world where two real things cannot occupy the same space at the same time? In what sense, does "Enaction" create material reality? Out of what raw-material? If Energy is Real, what is Information? Can both of those "aspects of reality" be integrated empirically, like fusion, or integrated conceptually, like the notion of Holism?

My own term for that creative & integrative principle in the Real world is EnFormAction. It converts what's statistically Possible or metaphysically Potential into what we know as physically Real, and empirically Actual. But in its statistical state, that not-yet-real stuff is immaterial, and merely a gleam in the eye of the "Creator". Which I call "The Enformer". :wink:


EnFormAction :
The concept of a river of causation running through the world in various streams has been interpreted in materialistic terms as Momentum, Impetus, Force, Energy, etc, and in spiritualistic idioms as Will, Love, Conatus, and so forth. EnFormAction is all of those.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

I would say, these all have their physical manifestation as the neural patterning of our brain. . . .
Whilst you are free to believe what you wish, an immaterial mind has no information, so it is a dead end theoretically. Note, only physical things that have form have information - there are no distinctions in immateriality. You need those distinctions for information. — Pop

Yes. I'm obstinate in my belief that Generic Information is, not just "immaterial", but also "meta-physical". Yet I use that term in the Aristotelian sense, not the Aquinas sense. My insistence on using the "meta" word, is what leads some woo-woo-poo-pooers on this forum to label my worldview as "Pseudo-Science". As a long-time Skeptic of pseudoscience, I am keenly aware of the gray area on the fringes of science *. Yet, I think philosophy is the best, maybe only, way to shed light in the darkness. And abusive labels are counter-productive. But now, Information Theory has begun to aim a floodlight into the dim mysteries of both Psychology and Philosophy.

The original referent of Aristotle's "metaphysics" (see below) was to mental concepts, as opposed to the physical things he addressed in The Physics. However, concepts have no physical properties, hence are invisible, intangible, and imaginary. As such, they are easily confused with ghosts & souls. Moreover, abstract Ideas are accessible only to Reason and human imagination, hence not real, as far as our animal senses are concerned. But humans are distinguishable from animals in one essential trait : the ability to know and to communicate abstractions : non-physical mental representations of things and concepts. That's why humans can deal with hypothetical scenarios, and philosophical theories, and what-if scenarios, that are not sensible to our physical means of perception. And it's why I make a distinction between sensory Perception and mental Conception (Ideation). Perception allows us to navigate the Real Natural world, but Conception gives us the ability to know and to communicate the abstractions, such as "Information", that constitute the Ideal Cultural world.

I found your assertion that "there are no distinctions in immateriality" amusing, On this philosophical forum, what do we do, besides draw distinctions (general categories), like lines in the air? Ironically, you referred to "physical manifestation" as-if it was a ghost materializing. By contrast, it's metaphysical conceptions that "manifest". That's what is happening when someone says, "I just realized . . .". By that, they mean an invisible Idea suddenly appeared in their mind, as if it was becoming real. I would hope that, by now, you would realize that my unique usage of "metaphysics" is not a religious or supernatural reference. Instead, it's the Ideal subject "matter" that Aristotle wrote a whole book on.

Since the Enlightenment Era of Empirical Science, word-wrangling philosophers began to be left behind in the dust by scientists, who experimented with real things, and got real results. Which is why scientists, such as Feynman, could express their disdain of feckless philosophers in succinct words : “The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.”. And non-empirical philosophers were stung by such derision. One response was to change from metaphysical vocabulary to physical jargon -- displaying what some commentators referred to as "physics envy" -- while others dug-in and couched their sagacity in the impenetrable prose of Post-modernism.

But I am not an academic philosopher, so I don't take such put-downs personally. I merely investigate whatever is of interest to me, and use whatever vocabulary seems to convey my immaterial ideas to other meta-physical minds, locked into calcified skulls. "He who has (mental) ears to hear, let him hear (grasp an abstract concept)". Sorry, my early training was not in Science or Philosophy, but in Bible-ology. :joke: :cool:


Concept : an abstract idea; a general notion.
Universal, in philosophy, an entity used in a certain type of metaphysical explanation of what it is for things to share a feature, attribute, or quality or ...
Note -- Aristotle's Metaphysics dealt with Universals and Generalities, that have no physical instances
Imagination : the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.

* The Demarcation Problem :
". . . the concept of pseudoscience is 'without real content' . . . Instead . . . pseudoscience is simply a term of abuse applied to views that scientists regard as threatening." . . . . "what philosophers call the 'demarcation problem' -- finding a principled way to distinguish science from pseudoscience -- and concludes that the problem is intractable."
Skeptical Inquirer Magazine (09-10, 2021), by Glen Branch

Metaphysics :
1. the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
2. abstract theory with no basis in reality.

Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

I'm starting to see information as an entirely physical process. It seems to be physical everywhere else as the interaction of systems - causing a change in them. But I have some work ahead of me if I am going to convince immaterial minds. :smile: — Pop

Yes. I am one of those obstinate "immaterial minds" disguised as a material body & brain. But that ideal ghostly metaphysical Me only exists as an abstract inference from our experience with the physical world. It is not real --- except in the sense of Information Realism.

Mathematicians have no problem thinking of math "objects" as real, in some meaningful sense. That's because they are used to constructing invisible metaphysical "structures" that are an essential part of their personal reality. Of course, being invisible, they must be represented as chalk or pencil marks on a black or white background. For the rest of us, it makes little difference whether such ideas are real or not, as long as we can take them for granted. For example, "Zero", the number with no referent, and the abstract irrational number "Pi", and the abstract ratios of Logarithms are essential to higher math, and modern technology. But, they all are lacking in material substance, even though the concepts of such numbers can be applied to any set of physical objects..

ZERO, by Charles Seife, is a book about literally nothing. Nothing material, that is. But it opened my eyes to the reality of nothingness, and the real utility of the concept of something missing. More recently, Incomplete Nature, by Terrance Deacon, has revealed the reality of Absence in the real world. We use such references to that-which-is-not-here-&-now (physically ; in the flesh) without giving a thought to how strange it is to talk about that which does not exist, as-if it does exist. Yes, that notion allows some people to "see" ghosts, but it also allows scientists and mathematicians to manipulate things, such as Dark Matter, that have no sensible material substance, and are only known by their mysterious effects on the material world. So, we need to be careful, not to throw-out the well-informed Information with the notional nonsense. :smile:

Notional : existing only in theory or as a suggestion or idea.

Informational Realism :
What is the ultimate nature of reality? This paper defends an answer in terms of informational realism (IR). . . . The outcome is informational realism, the view that the world is the totality of informational objects dynamically interacting with each other.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262350693_Informational_Realism

Information Ethics :
The book’s arguments are situated in Floridi’s contention that we are living through an ‘informational turn’ or ‘fourth revolution’, following the scientific revolutions of Copernicus, Darwin and Freud.
https://theoccasionalinformationist.com/2014/07/29/floridis-information-ethics/

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea :
Some empty-headed genius improved the traditional Eastern counting methods immeasurably by adding zero as a placeholder, which allowed the genesis of our still-used decimal system. It's all been uphill from there, but Seife is enthusiastic about his subject; his synthesis of math, history, and anthropology seduces the reader into a new fascination with the most troubling number.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QUEHLM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Photons and gauge fields in general are pure energy. — Jeunesocrate

What are the intrinsic physical properties of "pure energy" fields? As noted below, they are imaginary abstract models of hypothetical (immaterial) mathematical "structures". In Architecture school, I built models of buildings that were not-yet-real, and never became real. Their only reality was in their effects on the observer, who might decide to construct a full-scale model.

Those "naive" (pretend) models had some superficial (virtual) resemblance to a real building, but were not suitable for occupancy. They were useful only for thinking and planning for the real thing. So, in what sense is a quantum field real? It affects matter, but is not itself matter, being merely a mental construct. Scientists detect the effects of those ghostly fields with their instruments, but not the field an sich. Likewise, ghost hunters with gadgets search for physical effects of nearby ectoplasm, which they imagine as a pure energy field. But, as far as I know they have never "seen" a ghost with their eyes, only with their imagination.

I don't believe in ghosts, and I don't believe in quantum fields, which like building models are merely useful illustrations . But I can observe the effects of those imaginary objects on believers. At least, the concept of fields is useful for guiding scientists in their mathematical manipulations. Unlike ghost theory, quantum theory sometimes actually leads to real results in the material world. In magic, physical effects are identified with non-physical causes. And in mathematics, physical effects are identified with virtual causes. :nerd:

Pure Energy : uncontaminated with gross matter.

Quantum fields are composed of particles. Okay, virtual particles,
https://www.quora.com/If-the-quantum-field-is-not-composed-of-particles-what-is-the-field-made-of

Virtual : not real ; not actual ; quasi-real
"not physically existing as such"
"being such in essence or effect"
.
In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity and quantum mechanics.[1]: xi  QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles and in condensed matter physics to construct models of quasiparticles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_field_theory

What's naive about it? — Jeunesocrate

Do you think that Idealists are uninformed, irrational, or biased? :smile:

Naïve realism :
In social psychology, naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology)

All said and done, AI (artificial intelligence) is going to be a machine that will have to follow a set of instructions (code/programming) but there's a catch - to qualify as true AI it has to be able to defy these very instructions. — TheMadFool

FreeWill is indeed the crux of the AI debate. And it's obvious to me, that current examples of AI are not free to defy their coding. But, I'm not so sure that human ingenuity and perseverance won't eventually make a quantum jump over that hurdle. Some thinkers today debate whether intelligent animals have the freewill to override their genetic programming. Even humans rarely make use of that freedom to defy their innate urges. Nicotine and Opium addicts are merely obeying their natural programming to seek more and more of the pleasure molecule : dopamine. Can you picture future AI, such as Mr. Data hooked on (0100101100010)? :wink:

It's not that we form mental images of objects and that we don't have access to the objects themselves. That's a kind of logical empiricism that would make my loved ones very unreal indeed. The situation can be compared with that of math in physics. The "shut up and calculate" attitude says that we will never know the objects an Sich. But the math is merely descriptive. It describes some objective properties. Math is merely a mental construction that we project upon the physical universe. The formalist approach is untennable. The intuitive approach bears fruit. — Platoon

Yes. The intuitive understanding of objects is that of naive Realism. And normally, it "bears fruit". But optical Illusions and drug-provoked Hallucinations bear bad fruit. What you "see" ain't always what is out there. :cool:

What is formalist approach? :
Formalism may be defined as a critical approach in which the text under discussion is considered primarily as a structure of words. That is, the main focus is on the arrangement of language, rather than on the implications of the words, or on the biographical and historical relevance of the work in question.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-20768-8_2
Note : sounds like Postmodernism to me. No relation to Enformationism.

concept of holism, self organization, and then later to the Enactivist view of subject / object, amongst many other things. — Pop

I was not familiar with the term "Enactivism", although I think you have referred to it before. To me, it seems to focus on the two-pronged Informative power of EnFormAction : the ability to create both physical (things) and meta-physical (ideas) Forms. Information is both the physical structure of Material objects and the rational structure of Meaningful ideas. :smile:


Enactivism is a position in cognitive science that argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. ... this domain does not exist "out there" in an environment that acts as a landing pad for organisms that somehow drop or parachute into the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enactivism

I don't agree. The electron and proton in formation have a physical effect. Energy has detectable properties. The frequency of a photon can be measured. Gravitons curve spacetime. — Rstotalloss

I agree with your first statement. But not with the second. Can you give an example of an Energy "property" that is not known by its secondary "effect" on matter? Effects are caused by an outside force. But Properties are inherent in the object observed.

One Effect of light energy is Color, but color is not intrinsic to photons -- it is a noumenon in the mind of the observer, and is mediated by the structure of the physical object. It takes two to make an observable, measurable property : energy plus matter.

So, Electrons, Protons, and Information have physical effects, but noumenal (metaphysical ; mental) Information has no physical properties : it's colorless, odorless, and shapeless. This is an example of Kant's ding an sich, which some people can't wrap their minds around. Phenomenon versus Noumenom is an ancient philosophical conundrum. :smile:

Noumenon :
In philosophy, a noumenon is a posited object or event that exists independently of human sense and/or perception. The term noumenon is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term phenomenon, which refers to any object of the senses.
Wikipedia

Ding an sich :
(in Kant's philosophy) a thing as it is in itself, not mediated through perception by the senses or conceptualization, and therefore unknowable.

I wanted to emphasize that information is physical in the sense that it causes our brain patterning to change. — Pop

Certainly, Information has physical effects, but like Energy it has no detectable physical properties (color, size, density). Energy was originally defined as the "ability" or "capacity" to do work, or to cause change in physical things. But Ability and Capacity are qualitative potentials, that have no Actual quantitative substance. However, in a philosophical (metaphysical) sense, Information is the "substance" (i.e. essence ; form) of reality. Aristotle was more of a "realist" than Plato, whose Ideal Forms existed in a non-physical Potential state, until realized into physical Actual things. Of course, that's an abstract philosophical distinction, which may not appeal to some folks.

Even Aristotle made a distinction between "universal" forms and "specific" things. So, his notion of Essential Substance is essentially the same as Plato's Ideal Forms. Philosophically, Universals are Holistic, while Individuals are Particular. Our five senses perceive Individuals, while only the sixth sense of Reason can detect Universals (commonalities, inter-relationships). Such distinctions have been controversial between philosophers even before Plato and Aristotle. That's because only Particulars are Real (empirical ; objective ; quanta ; photons), while Universals are Ideal (debatable ; subjective ; qualia ; redness).

Personally, I resolve such either/or debates with my BothAnd principle. So, you could call me a Pragmatic Idealist. For me, Information exists in both physical and meta-physical forms. :smile:

Ideal Forms are Universal :
Aristotle distinguishes between “substantial” and “accidental” forms. A substantial form is a second substance (species or kind) considered as a universal . . . . Matter, not form, is the principle of individuation.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle/Physics-and-metaphysics

Universals are a class of mind-independent entities, usually contrasted with individuals (or so-called “particulars”), postulated to ground and explain relations of qualitative identity and resemblance among individuals. . . . Realists endorse universals. Conceptualists and Nominalists, on the other hand, refuse to accept universals and deny that they are needed. Conceptualists explain similarity among individuals by appealing to general concepts or ideas, things that exist only in minds. Nominalists, in contrast, are content to leave relations of qualitative resemblance brute and ungrounded.
https://iep.utm.edu/universa/

Qualia ; Quale :
Latin term for immaterial properties, such as color & shape, of physical objects. Usually contrasted with Quanta, referring to unique things that can be counted. Qualia are subjective aspects of sensory perceptions (e.g. redness), as contrasted with the presumed objective existence of material things. Yet, all we ever know of real things is the mental images created in the mind, in response to sensory stimuli, not the things-in-themselves.
1. Qualia are metaphysical Properties considered apart from physical Things. Properties are mental attributions or essences (e.g colors), rather than physical sensations (e.g vibrations). Mathematical relationships (ratios) are virtual properties.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page17.html

Pragmatic Idealism :
This term sounds like an oxymoron, combining practical realism with otherworldly fantasy. But together they describe the BothAnd attitude toward the contingencies of the world. Pragmatic Idealism is a holistic worldview, grounded upon our sensory experience with, and knowledge of, how the mundane world works, plus how Reality & Ideality work together to make a single whole. As a personal philosophy, it does not replace scientific Realism — and doesn't endorse fantasies of magic, miracles & monsters — because every thing or fact in the “real” parts of the world is subject to logical validation or empirical testing prior to belief.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page17.html

Do you know much about Cybernetics? It seemed to start with a bang, but then fizzled out, any idea why? — Pop

Yes. At the early stages of the Information Age and Computer Era, Cybernetics was a novel concept, which took a holistic approach to all processes. But, like computers themselves, that notion has become commonplace, and hence has lost its novelty, but not its utility. :nerd:

I would disagree that it is invisible and intangible, I would say information has its neural correlates. — Pop

Yes. The physical "correlates" are visible & tangible. But what does the "meaning" look & feel like? Generic Information takes many different forms, some physical and some metaphysical (mental). I think it's important to emphasize that, in it's meaningful form, Information is immaterial. That's not woo-talk though, because Energy is the same. No-one has ever seen Energy, they only see its Effects on Matter. For example, light rays traveling in dark empty space are invisible, and only become visible when they interact with the chemical Rhodopsin in the eye, thence conveyed to the "neural correlates". If a spacewalker is looking perpendicular to the beam of photons, he will see nothing. Only by putting his eyes directly in the path of the ray does he "see the light".

BTW, I finally got the Patternicity image for my previous post. It's an illustration of the distinction between random background information, and ordered meaningful foreground information. My browser was getting 404 and 403 errors, and it took a long time to realize that the browser was at fault. Fortunately there was an alternative. Like many-faceted information, there's more than one way to "skin a cat" (local idiom). :joke:


Information philosophy considers a material object as an "information structure," from which the immaterial information can be abstracted as meaningful knowledge.
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/information/

He is wrong!! information is not equal to consciousness. Information is the interaction of information, which when integrated becomes consciousness. — Pop

Yes. It's understandable that some might define Information in terms of Consciousness. But they are not the same. And the difference makes a difference in understanding. Information is what we are conscious of : aboutness, relationships, meaningful patterns, structure. In its native "wild" form, Information is meaningless potential, metaphorically equivalent to the static voltage of a battery, compared to the flowing amperage of an electrical circuit. Only when the circuit is complete (whole, unified) is it capable of doing work (energy ; useful relevant meaning).

Likewise, only when integrated into a holistic concept, does information become conscious meaning-or-value-or-significance to the "first person" observer. In terms of quantum physics, an observation extracts information (energy, mathematical values, personal values), which causes the metaphorical "collapse" (manifestation) of an uncertain state into a certain value, such as a vector (position + direction). So consciousness is about information, but is not information per se. You could say that Consciousness is the transformation of Potential information into Actual meaning. Or perhaps, Consciousness is the integration of an amorphous pattern (discrete parts) into a meaningful pattern (a whole concept or image). :smile:

PATTERNICITY