But that idea exists nowhere except in my Mind, which has no "where" in terms of Cartesian coordinates. So whose Mind is the imaginer or designer of Platonic Forms? :smile: — Gnomon

In other words - who does the thinking? - the thing that integrates the information - my best guess is the anthropic principle. What is your best guess? The anthropic principle integrates the information, but acts on different information ( unique consciousness ) ?? :smile:

I've been thinking about the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, and the notion of an immaterial mind. I would normally think about them as bundled into the one unit, hence monism, but it occurred to me, due to comments you made, that no laws are broken in thinking of mind as either all matter, or all energy, or all information. So this might require a rethinking of monism to some sort of compatibilism?......Informational mind??

What I love about Information Philosophy is that there is so much unexplored philosophical meat!
At least as far as I am aware. :lol:

Awe, the word "effect" makes all the difference. We are all trying to exchange information and only rarely do we have the pleasure of success.The information can be all around us but that does not mean it affects us. — Athena

:up: Aint that the truth! :sad:

Do you mean that if I don't feel anything, I am emotionless, I can't experience anything and/or be conscious (aware) of anything? Do you really believe this? — Alkis Piskas

It is the belief of phenomenology, and the philosophical zombie argument.

Simply stating that ‘quantum foam somehow develops form’ is a leap of faith you’re expecting us to take with regards to your theory — Possibility

No not faith. Just take a look around yourself and understand all this was once quantum foam.

The Order of Time’ is a good starting point, because it explains why it makes sense todescribe reality as consisting of interrelated events, not objects. — Possibility

Please reread my previous post to you, and point out where I am not describing this. "Information describes the process of form enabling the interaction of form."

I said that form can appear to develop through spontaneous change, depending on your intentional embodiment as observer — Possibility

This was Apo's defence with the epistemic cut. Please yourself, but understand that your subjectivity is not ungrounded, but grounded entirely in information, in the sense I am describing it.

At first glance, they appear to contradict each other. Is it ‘open-ended’ or not? — Possibility

I think we have covered the QM angle of this argument.

Things do not have to ‘have form’ to interact, — Possibility

Right! So something without form - without any characteristics or perturbation or properties can interact?
No doubt due to your subjectivity again?

This notion of self-organisation is your personal focus. You could just as easily say no interaction, no universe. Or no change, no universe. — Possibility

You totally misunderstand. It is all evolution, not arbitrary change. A primer in systems theory would fix this.

This notion of self-organisation is your personal focus. You could just as easily say no interaction, no universe. Or no change, no universe. — Possibility

Self organization is what makes systems organize. Everything is a self organizing system in systems theory. Please catch up on it and we can speak again.

At some stage I will write my thoughts up coherently and in detail. At present, the ideas are just emerging, so nobody could blame you for misunderstanding, given they are presented as disintegrated bits of information here and there.

**In the end our philosophy is only as good as the reality it creates. I have given my views on this previously - why I argue what I do, and where it leads.

:up: How about that?

They are different expression for the same thing. I don't think we can get into too much trouble by using brain states. I need to go now, but will be back later.

You pretty much understand the gist of it! :up:
It also would say brain states exist in a sequence of moments. And it attempts to measure them, but to what extent it can presently is debated.
The logic of IIT is very similar to the way I understand things. It also extends it's logic to outside the body, and thus becomes panpsychist.

The way I was thinking of it (but didn't explain) is brain state would be only the basic minimum physical elements and configuration necessary to contain a specific mental content.
seconds ago — Mark Nyquist

:up: Are you familiar with Integrated Information Theory?

And it's bad manners to edit or embellish a quote. — Mark Nyquist

No offence intended.
Yes that works for me. I would also include the information from the body as part of the brain state.

It is the variability in this dimensional arrangement that informs, enabling an awareness of intentionality: the capacity to shift and rebalance a relational structure of form, interaction and change by rearranging energy, quality and logic. — Possibility

I think you are describing a shift in self here? Yes the self can shift slightly in how it relates to all this. And, I think, this occurs in tiny increments in every moment of consciousness, such that over long periods of time ( years ) can be quite different. There is the biological grounding, and I think things like life long memories, and relationships and groups we identify with would ground us in a sense of self that endures to a large extent. I wouldn't agree with Metzinger and co who say it only exists at the time it is considered, but there is an element of that, imo.

But your body also contributes to the state of this, doesn't it?

I think our total form, all of the information that our body possesses contributes to our consciousness.

Possibility seems to be very organized and systematic. I think we should leave it to her. But if she doesn't respond soon just do whatever you feel like. It should be something fun.

An interaction consists of ongoing form, change and information. Form in this sense is not a static measurement, but a process. — Possibility

Yes! Yes! you got it. I love it!

First Form of Information
— Gnomon

Gnomon calls it First Form of Information so I'm not the only one thinking about it. — Mark Nyquist

I don't think so. If you consider it in terms of evolutionary psychology, where language evolved before self awareness, and then a subsequent self concept, in terms of self awareness. You see a progression of form. Language > self awareness > self concept > then and only then do our interpretations of universe, god, the plot, etc come into being. As the progressive evolution of form? — Pop

As a monist, panpsychist, I would argue the first form of information is form itself. This is what seems to be evolving, creating everything in it's path.

We have to exist in some form!

The form of our existence is meaningful to us!

But I am happy to go wherever you like. :smile:

Thanks, neat :smile:

How do you link a post, pls?

Besides, you're still not seeing the distinction that Barbieri makes between the chemical and information paradigms — Wayfarer

Politics of paradigm? He makes a case for information as a fundamental observable, non measurable quantity. Every cellular structure then is code and their interaction is an exchange of information - in the sense that I am using it. It becomes just a matter of time, before this approach is extended to chemistry.

** This approach is then extended to mind, and outside the body, to transform monist materialism to monist panpsychism. :fire:

Then you have semiotics in its original sense, meaning interpretation of signs by humans. Code biology builds on that by the analysis of the sense in which living processes encode and transmit biological information e.g. by dna. — Wayfarer

Semiotics implies a dualism. One has to drop the idea of a mind ( interpretor ) in cellular biology to make any sense of it - that is what Barbeiri was on about. Instead one has to see form as identical to code, and their interaction as information, in the sense that I am using it.

**Information enables the interaction of coded form :100:

But where does the Meaning go, in between those transformations? I — Gnomon

Information enables the interaction of form. It doesn't go anywhere ( does not become immaterial ) since everything is situated and interrelated, evolving as a great mass of order. Articulated by information. As far as I can see. **Everything has to be integrated as a whole, by the form systems posses.

Where is Information before it is "encoded" in material form — Gnomon

Nowhere. It is a noThing before it becomes form.

If you were to say mind was integrated information, and integrated information is equal to form, then I would agree with you. IIT is on the right track, imo.

That is a pertinent point in Information Theory, that many hypotheses, including IIT, tend to ignore : Information is ultimately mind-stuff. — Gnomon

I don't think so. If you consider it in terms of evolutionary psychology, where language evolved before self awareness, and then a subsequent self concept, in terms of self awareness. You see a progression of form. Language > self awareness > self concept > then and only then do our interpretations of universe, god, the plot, etc come into being. As the progressive evolution of form?

What is information?
— Pop

I'd be hugely grateful to learn from Kenosha Kid or other physicists precisely if and where it is, within modern science, that one is compelled to interpret the probability of a thermal microstate as the probability of a message?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_in_thermodynamics_and_information_theory?wprov=sfla1 — bongo fury

That is a good point. I would like to hear Kenosha's opinion also.

The way I would reason it is: I would ask what is a thermal microstate to you, If not a message? And on the basis of my monist model, I would say it is the same thing to everything else that it interacts with.

↪Wayfarer I was surprised you held out for so long. — Banno

Banno, I'm sure you could find us something that is not information?

And whilst your at it, what is your theory of everything?

I suspected that Pop didn't really understand it either, but simply linked to it because of the title. — Wayfarer

You would be correct that I don't understand the math. :sad: My understanding comes from a different perspective, and I cited that paper, as well as all the others in support of my views - in the delight that different perspectives are converging to this same conclusion. :smile:

↪Pop One more question. I don’t really understand that mass-energy-information paper you linked to. What do you think the point of it is?
— Wayfarer
Pardon me for butting-in here. But, I think the point of that article, and others like it, is not that Mass, Energy, and Information are the same thing. But that they are different forms of the same universal "Substance" (essence), each with properties and qualities of its own. For scientists, the take-away is that each of these Forms can be transformed into the other. — Gnomon

:up: That is a better explanation, thanks. We should also say it is not absolutely a done deal, but seems like it might be. :smile: **The actual conversion is supported by theory, but has not actually been done, yet!

I did watch Daniel’s video, hence my question. — Possibility

You are looking for inconsistencies in my argument, and I appreciate it. Testing for inconsistencies and cracks is so difficult to do on ones own. However, insisting I should know how QM works is a little unreasonable. Who knows how QM works? But clearly form arises from it. No?

either through interaction OR through spontaneous change; — Possibility

How can it occur through spontaneous change?

Everything is articulated, interrelated, and situated within the progressive forming of the universe. as illustrated in this graph. We are situated somewhere in there evolving interrelationally with everything else. The variety of form is open ended. The variety of forms of life is open ended, and the variety of forms of consciousness is open ended. If you accept consciousness is integrated information, you can appreciate the form of the integrated information is progressively evolving and can have no end.

Everything exists as a self organizing system formed bottom up, where the underlying layer creates the layer on top. It is all vertically and then also laterally informationally connected. All the complexity of this can be simply represented by the form of one system interacting with the form of another system ( this captures everything - all the articulations). Information describes the process of form enabling the interaction of form. That something has form, enables it to interact with something else that has form. It does not enable it to interact with something else that does not have form, for our purposes at least since we can never know about it. The Definition information enables the interaction of form captures most of the facts: that things have to have form to interact, and that what is interacting is the form of the things.

Why only form? It could just as easily be about the creation of an interaction, or of change. — Possibility

Form represents the underlying self organization that creates order in the universe. No form, no order, no universe.

a momentary dimensional shift from (4,4,4) to (3,4,5). In the case of our interaction, it’s possible to shift as far as (5,2,5), recognising a two-dimensional difference (direction and momentum) between two minds. — Possibility

You may as well be talking Swahili. Sorry. :sad:

More importantly, if information appears as an ongoing event (consciousness), and I assume that the universe exists as an ongoing event (physics), then the stable part I play in this interaction as observer is that of an unintentional, ongoing event (organism). It is the variability in this dimensional arrangement that informs, enabling an awareness of intentionality: the capacity to shift and rebalance a relational structure of form, interaction and change by rearranging energy, quality and logic. — Possibility

I would say you do not play a stable part. You evolve interrelationally with everything else. In the variability of this dimensional arrangement, the multiplicity of causal factors converge to allow the emergence of random novel form. Because of the role the novel form plays in future integrations novelty of form is assured......... But for the most part I would agree with this paragraph. Intentionality is variously construed, particularly in phenomenology - can you be more specific?

But what was the initial argument? Ah, yes. "There is no agreement as to what emotions are" — Alkis Piskas

My reply to you was clumsy. I wanted to make the point that emotions are the lynchpin of one's philosophy. Emotions, enable experience, and without experience there could be no consciousness. This is the hard problem. Life is a procession of moments of experience.

You too, will have to take a punt on what you understand emotions to be, either from your own understanding, or from the understanding of others. and it will effect how you come to understand yourself, and what you understand life to be. Good luck with it. :smile:

But what about what we don’t know that we don’t know? — Possibility

I don't think it is about us Possibility ( nonanthropocentric ). I think it is about the creation of form. In the creation of more and more complex form, new function arises. In the case of our interaction, random elements will click, but we will maintain the momentum of our personal knowledge Juggernaut. Its direction and momentum cannot shift drastically, but will shift in some small respect in the process of interaction, even if only in understanding each other.

I am trying to describe information as something far deeper then what we normally conceive it to be. Information links all entities in the universe. It is a necessary component for the universe's existence, that it's components are linked, and interacting. Information understood as an enabler of the interaction of form achieves this. In the process of being informed we become embedded to the object / person informing us. There is no choice, If we accept neural correlation. We are transformed slightly in this process, and in the process become embedded in our personally construed reality, but due to an external informing. ( it is such a labyrinth to untangle :angry: )

This informational linkage of form creates all physical structure bottom up, and then laterally also everything is informationally linked. We can reduce everything to information, but we cannot reduce anything beyond information. We cannot interact with anything beyond information. So it is fundamental, and because of this we know logically that it is present in everything as the basis of everything. It is more then just a receiving of a message, it is fundamental reality.

To exist things have to have form, and they have to exist through an interrelation of other things. So information enables the interaction of form. This occurs in an ongoing evolutionary manner.

But how does quantum foam develop form without interaction? As I said, you need to look deeper. If quantum foam has no form, then what does form consist of? Let me try: quality, logic and energy... — Possibility

The theory is that through random interaction form develops. Daniel posted a video earlier of one way it might happen.

Form is endlessly variable. Form varies, but the underlying informational process is constant.

.

i believe Consciousness = is the information exchange in an ordered state from energy interactions. — Adughep

How about, an ordered state has form, and information **is the interaction of form.

Information is the interaction of form in systems, and information is the interaction of form between systems. Seems like a definition of information to me: Information is the evolutionary interaction of form. - What do you think?

I don't believe is random and probabilistic. It has form, but that form last only couple of nanoseconds in our time(other call this quantum entanglement). In quantum world time it can be days or maybe more. For now we don't have the devices to measure it and see which physics laws are working there. — Adughep

When we interact with it we change it - there is the problem of the informational link. If you agree with the definition of information above, then you will see we can only interact with something that has form. We cannot interact with something that does not have form.

I'm very into information at the moment. This is something I can work with and describe logically.
There is little I can do with QM, but Enrique is into quantum consciousness.

I have built a model, assuming monism, and neural correlation,
— Pop
The notion of "neural correlates of consciousness" is an attempt to draw a simple one-to-one map of the inter-relationships between empirical brain functions and rational mental functions. But, as a typical reductive scientific approach, it may place undue stress on the neurons themselves. They are just relay stations (nodes) in a complex web of functional relationships for processing information. Even the relatively-inert glial cells have been found to play a supporting role in the system — Gnomon

Neural correlates is a commonly used expression, of course I'm referring to the neuroplasticity of the brain, and as I said I am assuming that a change in brain matter occurs at the same time as perception.

The best we can ever achieve is to conceptualize mind at some level, and I think IIT has done a good job in this regard. Integrated information, and the difference of one state of integrated information to the next is much like Shannon's difference of a blank sheet of paper and the writing on it. The writing being information.

That's why I think the overall Monism of Information Theory is built upon a dualistic substrate consisting of both physical and meta-physical elements -- equivalent to Descartes's body/mind split. Most scientists try to avoid mentioning "Metaphysics" in their theories. — Gnomon

For me, monism means everything is made of the same substance, and we can describe that substance as energy + matter + information, or any other configuration of these that we choose. We can choose to see the world as all matter, or as all energy, or as all information.

When I speak of metaphysics, I'm speaking of the underlying logic that gives rise to something. I analyze things like information at their metaphysical base, the deepest depth that I can reach.

In the absence of information only nothing can exist is a metaphysical fact. I play with these logical constructs until I understand their limitations and potential, through this I gain a sense of how they work as the underlying patterning that underpins higher level complexity.

Perhaps I should drop the term metaphysics if it is so variously construed.

There is no agreement as to what emotions are.
— Pop
This is where dictionaries come in handy! :smile:
"Emotion" from Merriam-Webster (First definition): "A conscious mental reaction (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body"
(Stresses are mine. But disctionaries are not faultless: the phrase "in the body" at the end is not only redundant (since it is implied by "physiological") but also wrongly connected to the word "behavioral" (since behaviour is normally related to the mind and the human being iself).)

Classic example: it is a common fact that fear/stress increases heart rate and adrenaline, that hormones are released by anger, etc. — Alkis Piskas

This is a description of the effects of emotions. Not a description of what emotions are. Emotions are what we feel deep down. We never take side against our emotions. Emotions are something that can only be felt. If it was not for emotions all experiences would be the same. There would be no feeling good or bad or happy or sad, there would just exist an indifference to everything, including life and death. Whilst information can be conceptualized, emotions absolutely cannot be, so you will not find them described in a dictionary any time soon.

Instead read this Wiki source, and focus on all the different theories of emotion.

If something has no form, then it has no information - so cannot effect a change in our neural patterning.
— Pop

I am good with what you said up to the last line. Why did you have to add the term "neural system?" Does the universe have a neural system? — Athena

I'm trying to point out that in the process of exchanging information two interacting systems get changed. Change is the necessary thing that needs to occur for information to take effect between any two or more substances. When we look at something it is not immediately clear, that this changes us physically by changing our neural patterning. ...........No the universe does not have a neural system, it incurs a physical change otherwise.

↪Pop One more question. I don’t really understand that mass-energy-information paper you linked to. What do you think the point of it is? — Wayfarer

The point they are making is that Energy = mass = information. That paper was found in a rush. This paper is a better source. "John Archibald Wheeler proposed rethinking of basic physical notions and laws within the informational paradigm, aphoristically summarized as “it from bit”. Read the conclusion of this paper to get a sense of the rush to reinterpret everything in terms of information. Compare this to the 21 Royal society papers, to get a feel for where understanding is heading.

You would understand that E=mc2, and that this justifies seeing the world as made of energy? The trend now is to understand everything in terms of information, as @Gnomon and I have been spruiking to deaf ears for the last year. @Gnomon understands it from a realistic paradigm, so describes it as Enformation ( energy + information ). I used to also, but I like to take things to their logical conclusion and now say everything is information. This is falsifiable. It is not a party trick. It is what it is.
This is something that has been known to idealism since 5000 BC odd. As an idealist, and monist I see energy, matter, and information bundled into one material package. It is not very different to realism. As an idealist, I have slightly more explanatory power.

Do the legwork yourself, see if you can find well sourced counter arguments?

I think there's a lot of confusion and equivocation going on in this OP between information theory (from electronic engineering and information technollogy) and philosophy. That's my last comment on this thread. — Wayfarer

The various forms of sanity that we see, is the highest form of reality that there is! :halo: It is a reality that we create ourselves. In Yogic Logic, we always create our own reality from the concepts we take to be true. So the saying goes - choose your concepts wisely such that you create for yourself a joyous reality.

the idea of 'neural correlates' is a misunderstanding of the nature of representation. — Wayfarer

See my reply to Gnomon above your post.

You are describing the forming of energy into more complex forms, that we conceptualize as elementary particles, that form atoms, that form molecules, that form cellular proteins, that form cells, etc. Yes I agree with this. I suspect that the heart of consciousness is the anthropic principle ( the combined laws of the universe causing things to integrate in an interrelational and self organizing manner ) that cause this forming. But the quantum world seems random and probabilistic - it has no form - it only has probability. The double slit experiment, the wave function collapse speak of our inability to interact with the quantum world. When we interact with it we transform it to form - a point particle.

Yes we are still talking about an energetic particle, but it has been entangled to form. Consciousness has many forms. It is about information processing. Needs to memorize information to a stable form. We have been talking about this in the "what is information" thread. your views would be appreciated?

:up: Welcome to the forum. :smile:

Pop and I go way back...like three months of fighting. — Mark Nyquist

You have come a long way in those three months. :up: A sign of high intelligence.

↪Daniel I don't always agree with pop except by randon chance. — Mark Nyquist

:rofl: :rofl: That is the truth of it!! most of our thinking is determined, it maintains its determined momentum, except for random variation!!! That is what you are referring to, correct?