Yes, but that firecracker -- as data not information -- needs to be understood in some context of space/time. A firecracker in my backyard on a 4th of July afternoon is quite different than a firecracker of equal size throw at cops during a riot.
Could it be that what you call a "observational/informational gradient" is what I call context? -tj On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Marcos <stalkingt...@gmail.com> wrote: > A fascinating thing for me is that the amount of surprise (i.e. > information) is like the creating of a *knowledge gradient* that > compares in an interesting way to energy gradients within > thermodynamics. And one might suggest that *observation* can > counter-act the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics by transforming an energy > gradient into observational/informational one. E. g., the observation > of a fire-cracker exploding confers a large amount of information to > the conscious observer/listener (especially if they never knew of such > things) whilst the physical energy in the system has been dissipated. > This new type of gradient can't really be measured in the physical > sense as the brain has stored it as a *pattern*, so it sits orthogonal > to the physical one. Further, this new [informational] gradient now > affects the behavior of the participant, so one might ask (again) what > is the relationship between consciousness and the evolution of the > universe? > > Also, each fire-cracker explosion, whilst seemingly the same each > time, must be an exceedingly novel event at some level of perception > finer than cognition, otherwise it wouldn't seem that we would > continue to repeat it hundreds of times. So the brain seems to be > parsing an enormous amount of information from each explosion.... > > There's probably a better example than a fire-cracker.... > > Marcos > > On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 7:09 AM, Tom Johnson <t...@jtjohnson.com> wrote: > > I certainly would be interested. I have issues with Claude's work and > what > > I think is its misconstrued application and definition, at least beyond > > physics. > > > > -tj > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com t...@jtjohnson.com ==========================================
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