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Author
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Topic: What information is not.
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 28. December 2006 11:07
Matt Connally, I was wide awake at 6:00 this morning working out the issue of whether mathematics is information.
I considered taking a measuring tape to my environment. I could glean all sorts of measurements from my computer. All of these measurements would only be approximate, such is the nature of measuring. However, the measurements that I had taken would definitely be "information." (I note that when descrete objects are counted, the count can often be exact.)
However, it could be said that I was "gleaning" information from my environment. If I was "gleaning" it means that I was taking of what was already there. Therefore the measurements that I was copying truly exist, and rightfully could be called information. However, there remains something fundimentally different between the information that the height of my plant is whatever it actually is, and my measurement that it is about 8 ft, 7 1/2 inches tall. Further, when I do creative writing, or draw an abstract picture, I am also generating information, truly creating information. That information is again different from the previous two.
I therefore propose that information can be divided into three classes:
Soft information -- the creative product of a mind would be soft information, ie: my creative writing.
Hard information -- the actual measurables of the real world. (We recognize that though I refer to these as measurables, we usually cannot measure them "exactly".) Mathematics would then be hard information.
Firm information -- the measurements taken of the real world. These measurements are almost always in slight error. However, another person with a measuring instrument can now genuinely debate with me as to whose measurement of the real world is closer to "correct".
Martin, Kant is full of it! While it is true that nature cannot be exactly described by mathematical models, the error is in the statement, "I suppose that we can create mathematical rules that are valid and yet such rules can never be observed to occur in Nature." The rules of mathematics are fixed. If you attempt to generate different rules, you end up with a mathematical form that is internally inconsistent -- that is useless. There is only one mathematics, and it predated me and you. It probably predated the big bang, and therefore time, itself.
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Stephen Wright
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Member # 195
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posted 28. December 2006 12:55
Z speaks thusly;
quote:
"Information" does not exist in the absence of a being with the cognitive ability to interpret a representation of it. How could it?
I think that you are speaking with semantic information in mind. Here at ISCID - I am interested primarily in formal information such as is described by the terms entropy and negentropy that are math based conceptions. Complexity is likewise a term that has an Information Theoretic definition.
Your quote above is true for the formal term - Mutual Information. In many cases there is a target of perception - with its specificity being representable as information in another's database. There is the mutual information after an intelligent agent gains its data through a channel, from the targeted source. The "knowing" is the extent of the mutual information that is in the mind of the agent, about the target, transferred by observation.
But prior to its data being measured by the agent - its information exists - completely independent. Information in this formal sense is not dependent on a "knower" who can have mutual information configured in its mind.
Understanding information in its formal sense would remove your doubt about its intersection within the physical realm.
ps - your "blind dog" example leading to all knowledge as in the brains - is formally being developed by F. Adams and Ken Aizawa. I can offer a link to the developing paper, if interested.
[ 28. December 2006, 12:56: Message edited by: Stephen Wright ]
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Matt Connally
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Member # 3076
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posted 29. December 2006 06:32
Bruce,
Well I’ve been thinking of your question and finally got some resolution this morning at 5:06! (I’d been up feeding our 4-week old.) I like your classifications but am still stuck on what the common denominator is for information. Because if we are to say that mathematics is information and is objective, then it seems we will also have to say that any and all information is objective. Compare it to the physical world: we cannot create matter and/or energy, but we can use them creatively. Likewise, if information is objective then we cannot create it; we can only use it creatively.
But that would seem to mean that we do not even create language, for any and all language is pure information and purely mathematical--grammar, vocabulary, syntax, etc. (I talked about this some back on page 3 of this thread.) Now saying we don’t create language sounds outrageously weird, yet it is still coherent. (That’s not referring to language in terms of phonemes and morphemes, but in terms of the meaning of words.) We did not create numbers, colors, chemistry, grammar, etc.; we simply translate it all.
But if we do not create mathematics, and thus do not create any words at all but instead use them creatively (again, just as we do not create matter but use it creatively)…then what in the world do we create? That’s what I’ve been pondering for 36 hours. Now I’m hesitating to suggest an answer because the one that finally hit me sounds terribly unsophisticated.
What do athletes create when they author a bunch of rules for a sport? After all, sport is nothing more than writing a bunch of rules and then following them strictly. But if they don’t create the information in those rules but are instead using information creatively, then what are they creating?!
What to citizens create when they author constitutions and laws? If they’re not creating the information in those constitutions but are instead using information creatively, then what in the world are they creating?!
What does a young man create when he authors a poem for a girl? If he’s not creating the information in that poem but is instead using information creatively, then what could he possibly be creating?!
Rough answers, respectively: joy, peace, love…
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Matt Connally
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Member # 3076
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posted 29. December 2006 06:44
Martin,
What did you think of that riddle about the ducks: if ducks swim in a pond but no one is there to count them, do any particular number of ducks swim?
If the answer is yes then not just that number is objective, but all of mathematics.
Furthermore, it is all immaterial. Zarathustra declared this argument uninteresting because he said mathematics is not a “phenomenon”. Regardless, if we ask the questions (including the question in the opening post) the answers are abundantly coherent.
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Matt Connally
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posted 29. December 2006 07:08
Marin:
quote:
I would say that without "interpreter" information does not exist at all. Having for instance DNA from marsupial wolf we would never be capable recreate one because we do not have interpreter - maternal cell, zygote.
Regardless of the interpreter or translator, we can still look at the translations and conclude that whatever they have in common (i.e. rational, creative data), it is not physical. And if we do regard the translator or interpreter or author, they still have nothing physically in common. For example, this post does not in any physical way whatsoever resemble me or my brain or any tissue in my brain. Yet you are still able to read and comprehend it...(I hope...)
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Martin
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Member # 2001
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posted 29. December 2006 07:27
Bruce, Matt.
Using Kants thoughts I would say you will never be able to resolve the problem.
First of all both parties are right in some considerations. And it means the problem itself is
meaningless.
1) It seems to be correct that information somehow exist even before we recognise it.
2) Mathematics and as Matt correctly observed especially language cannot be drawn from reality. In Nature math and language do not exist and are connected only with humans or better with subjects capable of perception and judgment. Neverthenless math and language are essential for our ability to recognise and discern information.
So I would say you never will come to any agreement. It seems to me you are talking about problem if information exist "an sich". And it is beyond capacity of reasoning.
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JT75
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Member # 3262
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posted 29. December 2006 09:17
Zarathustra,
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify, you were concerned with the phrases quote:
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?
I agree with your point about reification, this is just what the confusion is over and the point I have been getting at. Using the phrase "relationship with" I am really thinking of Aristotelian categories (Substance, Quality, Quanity, Relation...etc.)and am pointing out that since Aristotle regards knowledge as a form of relation and if information is a type of knowlege, then it must be a type of relation (i.e. between the knower and the thing known). And instead of saying "world of facts" I should have said "extra-mental Reality." But when you say things known are in the mind, do you simply mean "as known things" (in which case I agree) or even that the object of knowledge is in the mind as well? For example, when I look at the keyboard on my desk what does my mind have access to, the keyboard itself or a mental representation of the keyboard only (I guess I am asking if you are more or less representational in your epistemology)?
Martin,
I have just recently read through Kant's Prolegomena and some of his first Critique. There are several problems with his philosophy. One question I would pose is that if math is wholly in the mind and makes no reference to the extra-mental world, then how is it used to describe phenomena, as in physics? For Kant, mathematics is mostly referring to geometry, a science of space, and for Kant, geometry is Euclidean geometry. The reason Kant is interested in making geometry a priori is that he is ultimately trying to save the necessity of natural laws (like those revealed in Newtonian physics) without resorting a form of realism that he sees leads to the antinomies (or contradictions of reason). At the same time he is trying to give an answer to Humean skepticism that allows him to ground the necessity of Newtonian physics. Recall that Hume called into question the ability to perceive causality or make necessary statements about "matters of fact" and therefore called into question the validity of the scientific enterprise (since science is in the business of deriving necessary laws about natural phenomena). Kant's brillant solution was to make all this phenomena, its laws, and the geometry that grounded these laws in the mind and functioning according to necessary intuitions (like of space and time)found in the mind.
The biggest problem I see with this is that although Kant's response to Hume was brilliant, the thing that made it so compelling in its own day (its amazing and detailed explanatory scope) is just what makes it untenable in our day. That is, Kant developed his system as a way to justify the our perceived understanding of Newtonian physics and the geometry that underlies it. But we live in day that is dominated by Einsteinian physics and some elements of non-Euclidean geometry. Either the laws of the understanding have changed (the very thing that grounded necessity for Kant) or they are not the only thing that enables us to make scientific discoveries (that is it is possible that revolutions in science are based on new information from the extra-mental world), either way Kant is wrong. Either he is in need of significant revision to account for a changing context of physics/geometry or his is not entirely correct about our inability to obtain knowlege from a reality that is outside ourselves.
Finally, the general critique of Kantian epistemology is that he continually refers to knowledge of a noumenal realm that he assures us is inaccessible to the human mind (this is not precisely correct, but I think it heads in the right direction).
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 29. December 2006 13:06
Matt Connally: quote:
Compare it to the physical world: we cannot create matter and/or energy, but we can use them creatively. Likewise, if information is objective then we cannot create it; we can only use it creatively.
If I write a book, the total sum of information in the world actually increases. Therefore, unlike matter/engergy, information can be created. If your statement, "if information is objective then we cannot create it" is true, then information is not all objective. I think that my proposal of three classes of information is helpful. It would seem to me very clear that hard information is objective. Soft information, on the other hand is extremely subjective. Firm information, on the other hand is semi-objective. That's my opinion and I am sticking to it -- unless you come up with a better one for me.
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Matt Connally
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Member # 3076
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posted 29. December 2006 14:08
Martin:
quote:
Mathematics and as Matt correctly observed especially language cannot be drawn from reality. In Nature math and language do not exist and are connected only with humans or better with subjects capable of perception and judgment.
I’m not familiar with Kant at all and still don’t understand the argument for saying math does not exist in nature. I’m not sure what is meant by “drawn from reality.”
Let me give some more examples to the ducks-in-a-pond analogy. If a cheetah runs across a plane in the Serengeti but know one is there to translate it’s speed into English and miles-per-hour, does that speed not exist? Of course it does. If no one translates the average kinetic energy of the air molecules around my house into English and degrees Fahrenheit, does temperature not exist around my house? Of course it does. Was not the meaning of the sentence “Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared” true long before Einstein ever translated it? Of course it was. (Granted, his was not a perfect translation but a very good one—an improvement on Newton’s—and dependable enough to use to put men on the moon.
Long before the meaning of these mathematical patterns had been translated into the patterns of the morphemes and symbols of a human language, the patterns still existed in nature, did they not?
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Matt Connally
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posted 29. December 2006 14:19
Bruce Fast,
Well what if, as Stephen pointed out earlier, the amount of information even in our immediate vicinity is infinite? Then it cannot increase. I’m not sure but it actually seems to me that your categories would still be effective even if we said that “soft information” is objective. J.R.R. Tolkeins’ books are outrageously creative, yet we can discuss them because they are objective.
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 29. December 2006 18:26
Ducks in a pond?
There exist primitive peoples whose number systems are not as extensive as ours. For example, here is one from the natives of Queensland who count “one, two, two and one, two twos, much.” The term much is used to number any quantity over four, in other words, they have no term to enumerate quantities such as seven or ten. Do not be tempted to think them unintelligent. While the numbers of their herds of sheep may be as high as one hundred and they can only tell you they have much, if one is missing they recognize it immediately because they know each animal’s face. I don’t know about you but I can’t take attendance in my class by whose face is missing.
Given the above, I can’t see how the number of ducks swimming in a pond can be objective. Let me ask you this; were the number of votes cast for Al Gore in the 2000 US presidential election objective? Certainly, the speed of the cheetah is not objective.
Every physical measurement we take involves error. Pure mathematics is about certainty. Using mathematics to measure real objects is about estimation. Mathematics is not real in the sense that it has no real connection to the physical world. Any connection is manufactured by construction. It can be useful but the mechanism is abstract having no physical manifestation. Mathematics is the tool, not the information.
-Mel
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Daniel Smith
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Member # 3004
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posted 29. December 2006 19:39
All,
Melvin said:
quote:
Mathematics is the tool, not the information
Bruce said:
quote:
If I write a book, the total sum of information in the world actually increases
I think we have a problem of definition.
Is information "reality", or is it "our description of reality"?
If information is reality, then neither math nor Bruce's book qualifies as information. If information is our description of reality - then both do.
I personally think of information as the infinite reality that surrounds us, or as I said earlier "all that can be known".
I think "the description of information" or "the description of reality" = knowledge.
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Matt Connally
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posted 30. December 2006 08:07
Melvin,
Each of your arguments takes for granted the context of a universal, objective mathematical truth.
quote:
There exist primitive peoples whose number systems are not as extensive as ours... Do not be tempted to think them unintelligent.
I certainly agree. Just because they have not developed words for numbers greater than four does not in anyway suggest they are not capable of developing or learning such a system. To the contrary it assures it.
quote:
Given the above, I can’t see how the number of ducks swimming in a pond can be objective. Let me ask you this; were the number of votes cast for Al Gore in the 2000 US presidential election objective?
The fact that the number of votes was objective was precisely the reason that the words “mess” and “confusion” made sense. We should have been able to figure out who voted for whom (i.e. known the objective truth) but we couldn’t. The fact that some people’s votes could not be determined means that there was an objective # of votes that could not be determined. Suspicion that schemers intentionally managed to hide some people’s enraged us because the objective truth could not be known.
quote:
Certainly, the speed of the cheetah is not objective.
So I can, sitting at my table, just unction that from here on out every cheetah runs at the speed I declare? Of course not; that would be (objectively!) incoherent. The fact that we can measure the speed and translate it into English (and from there translate it into other languages and/or systems of measurement) assumes that we are measuring something objective. Even figuring relativity into the equation does not mean the speed cannot be translated from one vantage point to the next. Let’s go really deep here: Einstein showed that space-time is curved, but curved in relation to what? If space itself is curved then there could be no such thing a straight line unless...an invisible, objective mathematical reality filled the entire universe.
quote:
Every physical measurement we take involves error. Pure mathematics is about certainty. Using mathematics to measure real objects is about estimation.
Again, error regarding what? Certainty about what? Estimation of what? Answers: the objective mathematical truth. Mathematics is the context and vantage point from which we do all science, philosophy, and deductive reasoning.
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Matt Connally
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posted 30. December 2006 08:53
Daniel,
I’m sorry, it was you and not Stephen who pointed out that there’s an infinite amount of information around us. I think you’re right on about having trouble with a definition. In fact, I’m starting to think it is crucial to acknowledge that a complete definition of information is literally impossible. And I mean literally because a definition itself will be pure information and so begging the question is inevitable. For example, “reality” is only as real as the abstract (immaterial!) word “real” is real.
But (at risk of repeating myself too much) a complete definition of information is not necessary to be certain about one fact: although we cannot know exactly what information is, we can know what it is not. Objectively, it is immaterial. We can take any communication authored by mankind, any example of information either in nature or in philosophy, or even any definition of information, and we can translate it through a variety of completely different physical mediums.
The various attempts so far to side-step this fact by declaring that it is not a “phenomenon” or that information is a “construction” or whatever—these are entirely futile in light of the observable, testable, falsifiable truth.
Yet to the extent someone is devoted to Darwinism they must make excuses to sidestep this fact.
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JT75
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Member # 3262
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posted 30. December 2006 12:04
Melvin,
I have to take issue with a few statements,
quote:
Every physical measurement we take involves error. Pure mathematics is about certainty. Using mathematics to measure real objects is about estimation. Mathematics is not real in the sense that it has no real connection to the physical world. Any connection is manufactured by construction. It can be useful but the mechanism is abstract having no physical manifestation. Mathematics is the tool, not the information.
There are a few things wrong with these statements:
1. How many of you are there Melvin? If "one" then we have established that counting can apply to the physical world (assuming you have some physical existence), and it can apply exactly (unless you assume there is actually more than one of you)
2. You seem to use "real" and "physical" interchangably, but they are not synonymous. If by "real" you mean that mathematics has no "physical" connection to the extra-mental world, then you are right. Also there is certainly a distinction to be made between Pure and Applied mathematics. The former representing purely mental, ratio-logical relationships and the latter being used as descriptors of natural phenomena. If we say, "there are 3 ducks on the pond" the part of this proposition that refers to the extra-mental world (as such) is "ducks on the pond," the "3" is a perception by a rational mind about the set of common animals (3 ducks) and the "there are" establishes this as an affirmation about the existence of the ducks and the pond with this particular pattern (3). Without the perception by a rational mind the ducks would just be sitting blissfully on the water without any notion of the triplet that they form and so in this sense the "3" does not exist. The reason the 3 is objective and true is based on the acutal existence of these ducks and the human mind's ability to properly perceive this existence. Even though the 3 is (in itself) an abstraction, it is no less true or objective because it is grounded in existing beings (the ducks). This is as opposed to just saying "three" to myself without any other referant, in this case it is purely a mental construct without any existential signifigance at all. This all assumes that what makes something true/real/objective is the world of being/existence and not the mind that merely perceives this being/existence.
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