Your challenge is akin to the idealist saying: just show me something that isn't mind. But that's actually a defect, but 'everything is X' is basically as good as 'nothing is X' as no sorting of entities is involved. The Absolute 'Information' is the night in which all cows are black. — Zugzwang

Ha, ha, I happen to be an idealist also, though now an enactivist. Information is fundamental. To know anything at all, you have to have information about it. That is the bottom line. This is how we are enacted / interacted in the world.

To me, 'all is information' is something like 'all is mind.' 'Matter' is an illusion or a misunderstanding or simply a concept in the system of concepts (and there is only concept-information-mind, something like that.) In general it's not testable, but it's not for digging ditches to begin with but rather (seems to me) for its pleasant psycho-active effects — Zugzwang

Regardless of how you personally might relate to the idea that matter and energy and information are equivalent, there is a growing trend toward this understanding. I see it as a monism, where everything is made of matter, energy, and information.

That everything is information is easily falsifiable ( Popper ) by providing something that is not information?

My question is: does it give us an afterlife we didn't have already? Will it usher in the age of Aquarius? Will we stop waging war, putting carbon in the air? Because we are enlightened finally with the final master word? — Zugzwang

Ha, ha. Who knows what might emerge from a shift in paradigm. :smile:

Before I do a deep dive, would you mind arguing for its practical relevance for me? Or for the species? — Zugzwang

Information is the fundamental quantity / quality, perhaps non quantifiable observable, that has the potential to completely reshape the materialist paradigm. I am still trying to understand it, so can not give you a complete rundown. Except to say that a definition that gets at the facts of what is happening might bring us closer to be able to understand information, and its full potential.

My sense is that now you are talking about data and AI. This stuff has obvious practical-political relevance. — Zugzwang

Yes that is part of the mix of considerations. My focus is on elucidating how information causes a change in mind state, similar to Mckay , and how this change in mind state is involuntary / subconscious - as described by enactivism. But really there is enormous potential in information philosophy to reshape understanding on almost all levels.

The Information Philosopher has a well developed web site for more info. I don't agree with his entire interpretation, but it will give you some clues.

Nevertheless I can't help but object to 'everything is information.' If everything is, then nothing is (a difference that makes no difference.) — Zugzwang

No that does not follow, imo. You will have to contend with a growing realization that everything is information.

it's because info theory isn't sexy to those who aren't technically minded — Zugzwang

To some extent that would be the case. But more specifically there is no way you can use Shannon info theory, to understand why information is such a valuable quantity today. How information shapes us. How it can be weaponized. How it can be used to control people, etc.

To have gone into meaning would have made him another opining poet-philosopher — Zugzwang

There are always divergent vested interests at play. I'm sure mathematicians, physicists, and engineers would have found Shannon's quantification of information more useful. However, this has resulted in much confusion about what information is, and what role it plays in life. There is momentum in the view that everything is information, but because of Shannon's meaningless definition of information, many people are clueless as to what information is.

Information is not about quantity. Information becomes you!

This is the relevant consideration in this information age, and even more so moving forward, imo.

:ok: Good day. — TheMadFool

Your welcome. :up:

Could you expand and elaborate on your definition of information as an evolutionary interaction of form?

1. What does "evolutionary" mean? At first I thought you meant biological evolution but that doesn't seem likely.

2. What does "interaction" mean? What's interacting?

3. What's "form"?

Thanks. — TheMadFool

If you read the OP, and watch the video, you will become acquainted with Systems Theory. It sounds complicated but is really quite simple. Order in the universe comes in the form of self organizing systems. It is the form of these systems that interact. A human being is a self organizing system.

The channel that made the video, has many such simple videos on systems theory. Getting acquainted with it is well worth anybody's time, imo.

That is not the definition of ‘information’, That is your definition.

‘The many live each in their own private world, whilst those who are awake have but one world in common’ ~ Heraclitus. — Wayfarer

Sounds like naïve realism to me? :chin:

It is a sadness to see, given we know that everything is information, that there are still people who are clueless as to what information is. :smile:

‘information’ is too poorly defined to be meaningful in the context. — Wayfarer

Information is the interaction of form. Or, information = evolutionary interaction.

But as that New Scientist article so adroitly points out, the result is confusion piled upon confusion. — Wayfarer

Not for information philosophers. The result is clearer by the moment.
Of course in Yogic logic, this is ancient history. :smile:

"Three modes of evolution have thus been brought before us: evolution by fortuitous variation, evolution by mechanical necessity, and evolution by creative love. — Wayfarer

Now we are looking at evolution as a function of information, where information is the interaction of systems - similar to mechanical necessity, but a little more spiffy, wouldn't you say?

In the end everything needs to fit together. Matter, brains, information, communication. — Mark Nyquist

:up: Yes, everything needs to be unified and integrated. Understanding how this works and how everything is a product of this, will be the basis of Information philosophy, imo.

gets at a fundamental that gives a universal definition. — Mark Nyquist

That is the idea. :up:

This type of brain held dynamic information matches well with a communication model that use strict encoding and decoding of physical matter for brain to brain communication. — Mark Nyquist

If you could provide a link I would be interested too read it?

A contender to Shannon, Donald Mckay suggested that information should be defined as “the change in a receiver’s mind-set," and this is very similar to my definition. Mckay's definition is prior to Systems Theory, Constructivism, Enactivism, and IIT. I am trying to define the information implied in these theories. It is a panpsychist definition.

I'm so glad I checked in and am so surprised at your last post. — Mark Nyquist

Hi Mark, I'm not sure what you mean. I hope I am not giving the impression that I know precisely how neuroplasticity works. I am trying to conceptualize it to some level, which I think is the best one can do at the present moment, given the limited information on hand.

If the Enformationism thesis is "grounded" in any model, it would be the recent revelation of Matter-Energy-Information equivalence. And that equation crosses the artificial boundaries between Scientific, Philosophical, and Religious worldviews. :nerd: — Gnomon

:up: It's the way of the future my friend! Cellular biology will bring Panpsychism home.

The observing is the cause of the information
— Pop

Then what's the cause of the information in the observer? If information is interaction will not the form of the superposition (and its collapse) form a patternn (by interaction or per se) in the mind's world?

What interactions will particles force to form a circle? Or a squaere? — MikeBlender

In the act of observing the form of an object will cause a change to the form of the neural patterning of an observer. The change in the neural patterning in the observer is the information, and this is distinct against the patterning previous to the observation. The neural patterning of one moment of consciousness, is disturbed by the patterning of the next moment of consciousness, this forms the distinction of one part to another that is information. New information overlaps old information in a continuous process, thus creating distinction and hence time, and evolution.

Circles or squares are mental abstractions of information - Platonic forms. As far as information is concerned there is no difference between observed ( sense mediated neural disturbance ) and imagined mental manipulations. The change in neural patterning is similar. It is this change in neural patterning that is information, as per this more detailed comment.

Regarding the wave function collapse.

For example, if the possibility space includes A and B, the message A collapses the uncertaintly A or B (2) to the certainty A (1). Only one step was required; ergo A contains 1 bit of information. — TheMadFool

Where have you defined, or even described what information is? As I have said previously, the minimum number of yes / no questions quantifies information. It does not tell us what information is.
Information is not about quantity. Information becomes you!

This is Shannon's original paper. How did Shannon define information? “Shannon's theory defines information as a probability function with no dimension, no materiality, and no necessary connection with meaning" -Robert K. Logan. How you connect this with Skeptisism and Dogmatism leaves me speechless. :chin:

According to this interesting paper, an early critic of Shannon's definition was Donald Mckay:
"He suggested that information should be defined as “the change in a
receiver’s mind-set, and thus with meaning” and not just the sender’s signal [6]. The notion of
information independent of its meaning or context is like looking at a figure isolated from its ground.
As the ground changes so too does the meaning of the figure.
Shannon, whose position eventually prevailed, defined information in terms of the transmission of
the signal and was not concerned with the meaning. The problem with MacKay’s definition was that
meaning could not be measured or quantified and as a result the Shannon definition won out and
changed the development of information science". People that shared MacKay’s position
complained that Shannon’s definition of information did not fully describe communication. Shannon
did not disagree–he “frequently cautioned that the theory was meant to apply only to certain technical
situations, not to communication in general".

This is why I have defined it as the evolutionary interaction of form. This definition fits information as implied in those four theories.

In science information is distinction. Note distinction requires the interaction of two forms. One form distinct against the other. This is the fundamental relationship that is the basis of logic. That is the basis of our relational understanding. What is being informed is you.
Life is a procession of such moments of distinction , and what you are is the accumulative sum of those moments.

Please read the relevant Wikipedia pages. — TheMadFool

How about you take some of your own advice, and also read some background on the history of his Theory of Communication, as it was initially published.

Or simply tells us what information is according to Shannon, and how this is relevant to philosophy. Here is the original paper.

The cat can thus be dead or alive without us observing or measuring. Of course we will only know upon observing but this observing is not the cause — MikeBlender

The observing is the cause of the information. There is no information one way or the other until an interaction occurs. This interaction may also be purely mental, such as when you posit theoretical situations - however that can not occur either until you have the thought, and so this too is an interaction, though a neural one.

Shannon's definition centers around uncertainty (skepticism). — TheMadFool

Shannon's theory centres around quantifying the amount of information traveling over the wires of the phone company he worked for. Nothing to do with Philosophy.

Bell phone company needed to quantify the data they were handling, and he found a way to do it.

To me, it's very relevant. How would your definition of information aid or expand our understanding of information? Shannon's definition is both philosophical and practical. — TheMadFool

I have explained above how my definition aids in philosophical explanation. Please enlighten me as to how Shannon's theory does this?

The particle needs interaction (an observer is not needed) to localize the wavefunction. The cat can die too if we dont look. — MikeBlender

You need an observer or a measuring device. You don't know the situation of either until a measurement is made. ** You have no information until an interaction occurs.

Nope, I don't think that's correct. — TheMadFool

It was a guess. Its not really relevant for my purposes.

How would we measure something that hasn't been defined? — TheMadFool

The order of the wire minus its entropy. I think.

Well,withou me being informed (informationed?) the particle can still exist. — MikeBlender

Not until somebody interacts with it. Think Schrodinger's cat.

But energy is a particle too. Photons are pure energy, not moving in time. The can give their energy, their pure energy to massive particles like electrons which change their state of motion (the pure energy, kinetic energy through space only, is changed in kinetic energy through space and time). I can't see information in a single isolated particle. If non-interacting its wavefunction will get dispersed over space (or localized in momentum space). — MikeBlender

How will you know about it without the information describing it?

In this case it is you who is interacting with a photon.

I can't seem to tell the difference. Kindly edify me. — TheMadFool

"Information" is : the evolutionary interaction of form, tells you what information "is ". That it is the interaction of form .

Shannon's theory tells you how to quantify the amount of information traveling over a wire.

Do you think even an elementary particle is information? — MikeBlender

Yes, Information is fundamental. This is the trend, as I read it, these days. with proposals such as the mass - energy - information equivelence principle.

It used to be that everything was matter, then due to Maxwell, Einstein, and Rutherford, etc. matter became equal to energy. Now there is a push, from various directions to include information in this mix.

My approach is scientific to the extent I'm capable of that. Your idea of what information differs from the standard set down by Claude Shannon. I reckon that Shannon too must've wondered about how information could be defined - there are so many ways, yours included - but he settled for one that could be quantified (measured) and also had just enough philosophy (uncertainty) to silence his critics. — TheMadFool

Shannon did not define information. He quantified it. There is a very important difference.

One thing's for sure, we can define information any which way we want. — TheMadFool

I don't think this is true. Information is a very difficult thing to define, because everything is information. Other definitions do not recognize this, so it is very difficult to understand how information works to enact us in the world. How information is something that is incorporated into the person that we become. How there is nothing outside of information.

Integrated Information Theory tells us that consciousness exists as moments of integrated information. Systems Theory tells us that interaction is information, and nothing exists outside of interaction. Enactivism tells us that we are enacted / interacted in the world informationally, and Constructivism tells us that it is a body of integrated information that becomes knowledge, in an evolving and idiosyncratic fashion and what we are is a product of this. All that is missing is a definition of this information, and I think this one fills the bill.

Could be. But the Butterfly Effect (In math: sensitive dependence on initial conditions) won't necessarily exist. Takes many tugs. :cool: — jgill

:up: Yes, the Butterfly effect is overreach. It is a well known popular idea, that is true figuratively, rather then literally.

This concept from dynamical systems is sometimes assumed to exist in many if not all circumstances. In fact, the opposite can occur: disturbances in one area fritter out and don't really affect other areas. Or, as Stanislaw Lem conjectured, certain movements have lives of their own and are relatively immune to minor disturbances. Rise of the Third Reich, etc. — jgill

As far as I can see, the systems view is relevant in all circumstances. I have only really considered it in very fundamental situations, and not so much in situations of great complexity such as the evolution of the Third Reich. But in considering the history of the build up of the Nazis, it fits very well. In any systems scenario there is a build up of information, such that an informational body evolves and has it's own momentum. It would need to be met with an informational body of equal weight and momentum to be diffused, which it eventually was.

I liken this to the information accumulation and momentum of personal understanding - how it is somewhat like a large oil tanker heading in a certain direction, and will not be swayed by the efforts of one tug boat ( one differing view ) but If enough tug boats join the effort, then it might be veered off course?

The butterfly effect makes them diverge away from each other. The need each other to realize themselves. A bee is the same as a whale and at the same time completely different. You're not alone... :smile: — MikeBlender

:up: So good to hear.

Looks like this will be one of those threads where I talk to myself. :sad:

In Darwin's evolution, there is evolution and natural selection. Theoretically there are explanatory gaps.

Using systems theory and this definition of information we can fill them.

What is evolving is a physical self organizing system, due to the evolutionary interaction of something else physical - something that has physical form, which all systems do. Normally, not all things physical are understood as systems ( though strictly speaking they are ) but all things physical have form.

So, the evolution of a self organizing system is due to information, where information is the interaction of physical form.

I think this way of understanding gets closer to what is happening. It explains information’s role in the evolution of everything, and particularly ourselves. It explains why everything is information.
Systems are informationally created bottom up, and then they interact laterally with all other systems in the same manner. They are totally enmeshed together. Movement in one system spreads throughout the others, causing what is popularly known as the Butterfly effect.

That's not evidence that the mind 'is' the brain. — Bartricks

Are you arguing that a lobotomy would not change your mind?

I can show you how "the mind is immaterial" can be derived, validly, from a set of assumptions each one of which is self-evident to reason 14 times. — Bartricks

A lobotomy might change your mind about this. :chin:

Does thinking take place in the human brain?

Firstly, Human thought requires the approximately 86 billion neurons that the brain contains. However, we have to ask what created this brilliant arrangement such that we can have such complex thought?
As we dig down to the source of thinking we get to the source of life, and from the point of view of biology, chemistry, geophysics astrobiology, biochemistry, biophysics, geochemistry, molecular biology, oceanography and paleontology, self organization created life. The only exception to this point of view would be God, but when we ask who created God, then it seems God too would have had to self organize into existence. So, self organization does the thinking.

Life is the evolution of self organization, and it is a process that from it's very begging integrates information to some form. The simplest of conceptions exists as information in some form. And the form of our understanding interacts with the form of the simplest conception, to create information about what does the thinking.

Not sure what you mean when you state at the beginning that you are not interested in insight, — Constance

The point I was trying to make is that we can deconstruct to gain insight, but then we have to construct new understanding in terms of our new insight.

Ultimately what is needed is an understanding of the big picture, into which we can situate our narrative, and insight. This is what I try to do, but on re-reading my comment, I can see you would be hard pressed to understand me. It is a bit too much to unload in this setting. Thanks anyway for the chat. :smile:

Are we not all connected? Do my opinions not matter as much? Do I not have the right, same as you, to look at the world and question it? Is that not what philosophy is? The coming together of people to talk and learn? — Jem

Sounds like philosophy to me. Welcome to the forum. :up:

Never occurred to him (that I have read) that deconstruction really meant destruction to achieve insight. Can't imagine his type "sitting quietly, doing nothing", but then, this is what I privilege over all esle, for it opens the door to, well, sheer openness, which is where philosophy is directing us. — Constance

We can either deconstruct to achieve insight, or construct a big picture consistent with science and physics which I prefer to do. And when I do I find it is all about the evolution of forms. These forms are all self organizing, and they are made of endlessly variable informational structure. So really, everything can be reduced to the self organization of information. We know what information is - the evolutionary interaction of form, but we don't know what self organization is. We know self organization is what creates order in the universe, from which structure and life evolves.

When I consider this issue, I find that if I say self organization is caused by God, or physics, or the anthropic principle, etc. I do not change what it is, but I change myself. I limit my ability to experience reality. It becomes something like Wit's word game, or as I prefer to call it information game. Ultimately this becomes a process of information, where what occurs is an interaction of forms. :smile: So we cannot escape the fact that everything is information, because everything is information from every perspective.

So it makes sense to me not to define the source of self organization, rather to call it consciousness, and this way there is consciousness and information in its many forms. This way I do not limit my ability to experience reality, and in this knowledge I also learn to respect the various forms of reality of others.

If she is saying that the value of any philosophy is the end point reality it creates, I would agree. :100: But if we differ dramatically in these conceptions, then we set ourselves up for conflict. So finding something we can all agree on is crucial.