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Author
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Topic: What information is not.
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Stephen Wright
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Member # 195
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posted 20. December 2006 11:50
Matt and Daniel,
The two separate areas or levels of meaning for information, as a term, continue to confuse. Please considered the following categories of process knowledge about information:
Semantic information – Art, philosophy, psychology, creative writing, technical writing, communication studies, education, sociology and all other humanities
Formal information – Thermodynamics, logic, communication mathematics, cybernetics and algorithmic information theory
When Daniel states,
quote:
, “The question is: Are we the source of information? Or are we merely conduits for its transmission? If not the source, then we, like the abacus, the computer, the answering machine, etc. are only doing what we're programmed to do.”
I would infer that Daniel means semantic meaning, as guidance. If both sender and receiver are capable in computational processes that use information (formal) - and can decode the processes into semantic meaning – then adaptive behavior should be expected from two-way communication. An abacus or answering machine will not qualify as being able to decode into semantic meaning, however a computer with an AI program – should be able to offer new (or adaptive) semantic meaning beyond preprogrammed responses.
An understanding of cybernetics quickly corrects the idea that there is an ultimate source of all information (formal), in a universe where novel things happen. The process model where a source just sends information (both in formal and semantic versions); NEVER adds information. Between source and sender transferred information (formal) is lost, due to noise and therefore semantic meaning can be lost after decoding. This one-way model creates only mutual information (a formal term). New information comes from exchanging between two sources – where either or both sources gains semantic information from feedback.
Please note that dialogue – or two-way transmission – is the classic paradigm of education and learning methodology.
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Stephen Wright
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posted 20. December 2006 13:52
2ndclass,
I offer the following iconic fact. An eye – symbol of information perception and mental understanding – has the optic nerve as its linkage. This is the location where the sense data, containing the formal information gained from sight, exists. This part of the visual system where the eye sends signals to the brain via the optic nerve – is called the Blind Spot! The conundrums of language foster confusion throughout the topic of information theory.
Let me try to pick my way through the language problems to resolve this question of information as immaterial. The result will find that the modern paradigm and majority opinion finds information, both formal and semantic, as physical abstraction.
Materialism was a valid conceptualization in a worldview prior to modern science. LaPlacian materialism is based on the model: cause and effect. Newtonian physics engenders the idea of surety and determinism of physical reactions. As of 90 years ago – the idea of matter’s tacit state of “grounding” reality became obtuse, due to new models of how things work.
First of all, matter is not actually separate from energy (or information) – so its foundational role is now shifted to a more relativistic status. Second, as of 1947, the philosophy of science model of a message as sender – channel – receiver adds a means to quantify vectors of functionality or purpose. Materialism was not conceived to handle this secondary level of causality from intentional guidance. Materialism is a dated paradigm – replaced with Physicalism.
Physicalism still carries the “grounding” implication but it does so in a clearly defined manner. Information (formal) is said to be physical because every transformation of information (formal) is done through a physical channel, by definition. Physicalism, with uncertainty, stochastic results from non-linear dynamics and entropy accounted in its purvey; can handle the modern paradigms of science including the different aspects of information theory.
Semantic information can be decoded and converted from formal information, which is tied to physical expression of bits as charged particles or other decodable configurations. So, information (formal), as data, represents information (semantic). Data, as coded structure, are tokens for the meaning. In turn, physical configurations are tokens for bits. In two steps – meaning is tied to physical configurations that “hold” it. The term for “hold” is subsumed. (J. Kim) Physicalism assumes all information to be subsumed by a physical configuration.
So – while it is clear that information (formal) is not matter (immaterial) – it can be said that how we use the term information (formal) it is defined as physical. The materialistic paradigm from last century confusingly deals with information as immaterial or not – Physicalism is clear that non-physical information is assumed to not exist by definition.
I see blind spot problems with the two-step logic that reduces all “meaning” to physical configuration. It is not easy to follow what tokens represent what. Abstraction, as a term, means to “draw out from” and “fits” well with physical science terms, so that abstractions are subsumed by the physical circumstances from which they are drawn. However, this posit is from a tautological definition based on a metaphysical premise that a correct model of does not allow non-physical information to be causal.
I suggest that this model can be bettered.
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Stephen Wright
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posted 20. December 2006 14:09
quote:
Matt - “it simply would not be possible to program anything—a super quantum computer or the human brain—to perceive or interact with nonphysical phenomenon”
This is likewise an acceptance of the tacit assumption of materialism. In the manner I have tried to model informational processes – I think it becomes clear that there is a way that computer programs, brains and minds interact with nonphysical or unmanifested events.
The category of events involved in this interaction would be logical structures (concepts) gained as new information from virtual events.
Think of a simulation of football game, like the Madden popular video games. All of the simulation IS tied to physical tokens that represent bits of information (formal). We, as observers of the screen can give the meaning to events because the computer program uses the “rules” in a similar way as we as humans decode them. If we, likewise, know the rules well – the events are a logical model of a real game. However, the virtual game is not a physical event, as would be an actual NFL sponsored happening on Sunday. The statistics of the real event are empirical data.
So, the information (formal) of the virtual game is physical, as tokens, but not real physical action. The strategy, based on logical deductions from the rules, is an abstraction that applies to both. What is the status of a strategy developed from watching a simulation? It is an abstract concept based, not on the physical substrate of a real game, but on the testing of virtual aspects.
Just as in material science where simulations explore reality; a coach or player can learn real semantic meaning, as strategy, discovered while playing a virtual exercise. One can say that there is a physical substrate – the digital processing – but the strategic logic is not subsumed at the digital level – it is only made manifest in the environment of the game. It cannot be assumed that all strategy from a virtual reality is going to be empirically proven. Yet, when a strategy or adaptation based on the “sim” proves valid – can it really be said to have been subsumed by a virtual event?
I suggest that it perfectly natural that humans and all living things interact with their own and others dreams, imagination and future probabilities.
Under the guise and scope of Physicalism - that contains the tacit exclusion of the non-physical as real – to include all virtual reality and fantasy becomes problematic, and to me blurs the meaning of what is empirical.
Under the guise and scope of Informational Realism – measurement of the real import of the non-physical, as information structures that are not manifest - makes perfect sense.
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Daniel Smith
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posted 20. December 2006 15:14
Stephen,
Most of your posts are way over my head, but I think your basic point is that, because all information can be represented physically, information is a physical abstraction. Is that correct?
I don't believe that all information can be represented physically. I'll give an example. You mention our thoughts and dreams. I know I've had dreams that would be nearly impossible to represent physically, first because I wouldn't even be able to adequately describe them, second because even if I could, there's no way to represent an exact image of what's in my head. I'm sure a close approximation can be made, but it will never be exact. I could paint a picture with words, but the image you "see" in your head would always differ from the image I see in mine. I could create the most realistic computer animation, but it would still lack the realism of the totally encompassing environment I experience within my imagination.
So the image in my head is a unique image that cannot be adeqately represented physically. Yet I can always close my eyes and "see" the image clearly.
Music is another example. As any recording engineer will tell you, it's virtually impossible to make a recording that captures all that you experience when you hear the music live. CDs, with their digital representation of music, are worse than analog methods, but even the analog recording methods are at best still an approximation of the real thing. And then, even those listening to the real thing in a live setting still "miss" some of the information presented. If you're standing too close to the guitarist, you might not hear the bass and etc.
I guess what I'm saying is that there are thoughts, concepts, images, music - etc., that, no matter our best efforts and technology, cannot be totally represented in a physical medium. So, information is greater than all our efforts to capture and represent it.
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Stephen Wright
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Member # 195
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posted 20. December 2006 16:19
Daniel,
Don't worry - I have an awkward style of writing, so my drift may not be easy to catch. I do encourage keeping the 2 levels of info separate and identified. Yes - information that is measured in communications transmission or as "heat energy available and configured to do work" as measured in thermodynamics; it is based on physical tokens.
Your post is about information as meaning. Capturing meaning is the subject matter of art and expression.
However, please expect those who are Phyiscalistic minded to point out that your brain IS the physical state that subsumes your experience at any moment.
Surely any representation doesn't capture an "actual occasion" of a subjective experience. But we are in the humanities area, where meaning can be vague and implied via mulitiple mediums. Poetry being a wonderful example, as is music.
Information science has little to say about the meaning of Mozart's Magic Flute. However, the advances in information science - have made the transfer of digital recordings via the internet - an amazing reality of the modern day.
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Matt Connally
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posted 20. December 2006 21:58
Stephen,
quote:
In the manner I have tried to model informational processes – I think it becomes clear that there is a way that computer programs, brains and minds interact with nonphysical or unmanifested events…The category of events involved in this interaction would be logical structures (concepts) gained as new information from virtual events.
Just because we can learn something new—whether in science or in football—from virtual studies and simulations, that is not evidence that the simulator interacted with or created information. Would that not be like saying that a telescope is able to “see” simply because we have been able to use it to collect data that we could not otherwise collect?
These are still nothing but tools in our hands which we are able to use to leverage information—massive amounts of extremely complex information. These tools are comparable in power to the usefulness of an ocean liner, deep see oil well, etc. The rules for football allow for infinite variety of strategies for competition, but just as we authored the rules so also we author the tools for exploring different strategies.
If we are going to say that a physical machine is capable of perceiving or interacting with information, then somewhere along the line of reasoning we will have to modify the definition of information so that it has physical properties. Isn’t the alternative totally incoherent?
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Matt Connally
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Member # 3076
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posted 20. December 2006 22:17
Daniel and Stephen,
That's very interesting whether information requires a physical medium. I've heard that there is quite a bit of evidence that every sensation and thought we've ever had has been recorded in our brain. And so, for example, during brain surgery, a doctor can stimulate parts of the brain and the patient will have vivid sensor memories of a past event.
But there is an enormously profound exception which we know to be true. There is an aspect of information which not only does not but also cannot have a physical medium: infinity.
Mystery of mysteries, infinity is a thoroughly coherent concept. In fact, without it we would have little to none of our modern technology or science. Yet it cannot be represented or imaged at all, ever. (This ties back into my earlier post about comparing the concrete & abstract to rational and irrational numbers.)
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Daniel Smith
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posted 21. December 2006 14:38
Stephen,
quote:
your brain IS the physical state that subsumes your experience at any moment.
Our brains don't even adequately capture or represent all of the information that surrounds us. Take for example, the varying eyewitness accounts of any accident. In fact, our brains often "create" events that didn't really happen. We think we remember something perfectly only to find out that our memory is flawed. I once wasted half a day at work tracing the wrong circuit because I thought I saw a different wire number on a wire. I, to this day, can still "see" that wire in my memory and it still has the wrong wire number on it. But when I went back and looked, I had remembered it wrong.
So what happened there? Did I invent new information? Is wrong information still information? A guy could go crazy thinking about this stuff!
Bottom line though: there remains no way to adequately express information in any physical medium - even our own brains.
The concept of "information" is greater than any means of expressing it.
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Daniel Smith
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posted 21. December 2006 23:52
Stephen and Matt,
For me, the term "information" embodies more than semantics and more than mere data. For me, Information means "all that can be known about something". Maybe "Information" is not the correct term?
I'm looking around the room right now and I see desks, lockers, computers, (I'm at work), chairs, tools, light fixtures, walls, windows, and a whole host of other objects - as well as people milling about - and I'm thinking "How much Information is there just in this room?". The answer is mind boggling! It's got to be an astronomical number - especially if you're talking binary, simply because there are so many levels of it.
To describe every detail, of every object, all the way down to the sub-atomic level, and then to explain it's relationship to everything else in the room and to anything else in the world for which there exists a relationship, would take... well if not forever, then a very long, long, LONG time. And that's just this room!
I think that:
If "Information" = "What can be learned", then Information is infinite.
[ 21. December 2006, 23:55: Message edited by: Daniel Smith ]
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Stephen Wright
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Member # 195
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posted 22. December 2006 09:54
quote:
Daniel - "all that can be known about something"
The above is a practical handle on a defintion for information in general terms. But it has a problem. Are information and truth related? One can certainly "know" something about a target thing, event or process; and be wrong, either completely or just some percentage of the time.
The Adams paper follows modern thinkers working on this topic and cites a forthcoming paper by L. Floridi. This paper has now been published and I think it deals very clearly with the issue.
http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/pdf/iimd.pdf
[ 22. December 2006, 09:57: Message edited by: Stephen Wright ]
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Matt Connally
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posted 23. December 2006 16:48
Stephen and Daniel,
Daniel, that's a very good point about the infinitude of information. I'm going to meditate on that one a while. It seems to me to be tied in very much not just with rationality and intelligence, but also with creativity. I don't think either rationality or creativity would be possible with out the infinite options that are a fact of language and math.
Stephen, thanks for the paper and website. I am eager to read over them--over the holiday I hope.
Now I am still fully persuaded that we can prove (and even that is an appalling understatement) that any and all information--whether it is true, false, clear, vague, or confusing--is immaterial. Whether it is conveyed through concrete language or abstract language; whether it is scientific language or artistic language; regardless, the meaning of the data/words/communication is always, only nonphysical.
Does not all of Darwinism completely evaporate in light of that one fact? Does it not mean that all of the communication which scientists discover in nature is from a rational, creative source that is immaterial? After all, information is constantly changing like the images on a TV screen, or the notes of a musical piece, or the words of Someone speaking...
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Zarathustra
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Member # 3407
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posted 25. December 2006 21:19
Time's up, gentlemen. Matt's proposition needs to be consigned to those realms reserved for the non-existent, where entities of vapid jejuneity vie for ascendance over pretenders to jejune vapidity.
As only a moment's reflection will reveal, "yesterday" cannot ever be said to actually exist, and therefore belongs in the realms of the non-physical. It would be extremely wrong to conclude that some kind of archetypal "yesterday" has always been lurking around in a shadowy nether dimension. No, it's just an abstract concept, an artifact of human cognition.
Matt:
quote:
Now nature is of course jam packed with creative information.
No, it isn't. The "information" is manifest only in the minds of those perceiving it. If I see three ducks, where is the number three? Is it in the ducks? Is the number three floating around somewhere, just waiting to be used? Can someone remind me how many irrational numbers there are, by the way?
Matt has made the error of reification. Information does not "exist" in any objective sense. Four and a half billion years ago, when the Earth did not even exist, there was no "information", since there were no brains to interpret and/or abstract any observations.
Matt is using the immateriality of information as an excuse to mount the wildest horses of unwarranted conclusion. Darwinian theories can not be cut down with a non-existent sword, since it lacks any edges at all. Spirituality? A non sequitur. Does that rely on the independent existence of free-floating information? Pah!
Will Matt treat us to an explanation of how such an immaterial substance as information is made physically present in the brain? Perhaps he should nominate the Pineal Gland as a cross-over point. If it was good enough for Descartes, then we shouldn't let modern science get in the way.
JT75:
quote:
And I would say that if information is a type of knowledge than it has relationship with both the knower and the thing known, so I concede the point that information cannot be completely in the mind but must have its basis in the world of facts, that was a good clarification.
Whilst your thinking has been strong otherwise, you have fallen short here, alas.
1) "has relationship with" is a sloppy phrase
2) the "world of facts" is that set of things that are known. Those things that are "known" occur necessarily in the mind, so one must conclude that "information" is there also.
What information can be said to exist in things that we know nothing about?
Matt:
quote:
I am arguing that we know for certain that information is not composed of little quantum particles (such as of an electric current) or little neurons or anything else.
If you have such an argument, then you should present it. So far, you have not done so.
[ 25. December 2006, 21:21: Message edited by: zarathustra ]
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Matt Connally
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posted 26. December 2006 07:55
Zarathustra,
You haven’t actually engaged my argument (in the opening post). Perhaps that’s because it is absolutely unassailable, and the only hope that a naturalist and/or materialist has is to declare my questions should not be asked. Ah, but they are abundantly clear, direct, outrageously simple questions and the answers are observable, testable, and falsifiable. But it would seem your trying to toss out a red herring or two:
quote:
As only a moment's reflection will reveal, "yesterday" cannot ever be said to actually exist, and therefore belongs in the realms of the non-physical. It would be extremely wrong to conclude that some kind of archetypal "yesterday" has always been lurking around in a shadowy nether dimension. No, it's just an abstract concept, an artifact of human cognition.
Well this is both a red herring and a straw man. Besides all that (Oh why am I going to chase this one down?!), it is obnoxiously silly and absolutely false. You sound like Bertrand Russell when he pretended to doubt that the wooden desk he was sitting at was made of wood or actually existed at all (The Problems of Philosophy). The fact is that no sane person is even remotely capable of doubting whether yesterday existed any more than you can doubt the planet exists, anymore than you can doubt that the meaning of the word “exists” exists. You can pretend to doubt such things, but no, you can’t actually doubt them. Why? Because the word “doubt” is as intimately connected with its context as the word seven is connected with and nuanced by the words “five,” “six,” “eight,” “eight thousand,” etc. And the context of the word doubt is that collection of things which we do not doubt, such as the furniture in our office or the rising and the setting of the sun. If we doubt absolutely everything, then the word loses any and all meaning.
Not even a skeptic can doubt such things. There are other words for describing the person who is so unsure of reality that they wonder if the sun rose yesterday. We do not say they are skeptics. Instead, we say they are in a state of hysteria, madness, or unbridled terror. But again, those words do not describe Russell or you. You’re just pursuing a game of play-pretend, wishing desperately that such statements as this could be true:
quote:
The "information" is manifest only in the minds of those perceiving it.
So we are the authors of reality? That would render all of science completely null and void. Science depends upon the belief that information is objective. Right now we are using the Mars Rovers to collect information that was there long before our little robots landed on the red planet.
quote:
Will Matt treat us to an explanation of how such an immaterial substance as information is made physically present in the brain?
Like I said a couple of times already, this is of course a non-question. Since the brain cannot perceive something immaterial, we must not be our brains. We must be something immaterial (as immaterial as, say, mathematics; I’ll call us souls) that is using our brains. Wrapping your mind around this takes much, much more imagination (the kind of creative imagining that it took to plan Mars missions) than Russell’s game of make-believe.
quote:
If you have such an argument [that information is immaterial], then you should present it. So far, you have not done so.
Did you even read my post? Are you just pretending that I didn’t make an argument?
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Daniel Smith
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posted 26. December 2006 09:15
zarathustra,
quote:
Four and a half billion years ago, when the Earth did not even exist, there was no "information", since there were no brains to interpret and/or abstract any observations.
The only way the above statement can be true is if information only exists in our brains. Since we already know this to be false (information exists with or without us), your position on the matter does not merit serious consideration.
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