Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
I think Tom is right that the path to solving mysteries like this is often to look outward rather than inward. Part of the point of William James's somewhat mysterious Stream of Consciousness expositions was to point out that at the most basic level experience is a unified whole - i.e. the experience of the firecracker at the ball game after a win is more basic than the experience firecracker. While it is useful for some purposes, it is unnatural to break up experience and consider individual experienced things in isolation. Thus, there is novelty to be found not just in the difficult to discern differences between each firecracker, but also between firecrackers-in-context. Eric On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 11:27 PM, Marcos stalkingt...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 9:53 PM, Tom Johnson t...@jtjohnson.com wrote: 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? No, I don't think so. The notion of context exists within the domain of the cognitive, although within that domain, one might imagine that there are domains of gradients of their own which exists in the social sphere. But in this case, I'm talking at the level of raw data. In the same way that potential and kinetic energy reflect or are symmetric each other (in the sense that the total amount at any given time is constant), that, similarly, that the total sum e (energy) + H (information) always stays constant within a closed system. So in the given example, the actual physical, energetic vibrations are turned into data by tickling the fine hairs of the human listener. And, furthermore, it would seem that the brain was the universe's answer to the entropy problem as we seem naturally inclined to continue repeating explosion after explosion because at some level deeper than the cognitive, the brain is cataloging all that data and rewarding us (at least boys) for the novelty (in the information-theoretic sense) that it confers with each explosion even though there's hardly anything new at our own cognitive level. Consciousness was nature's way of solving the problem of the heat death of the universe, or alternately, those universes which didn't have observers simply died out long ago and we're one that remained. marcos 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 Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
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 == 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 9:53 PM, Tom Johnson t...@jtjohnson.com wrote: 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? No, I don't think so. The notion of context exists within the domain of the cognitive, although within that domain, one might imagine that there are domains of gradients of their own which exists in the social sphere. But in this case, I'm talking at the level of raw data. In the same way that potential and kinetic energy reflect or are symmetric each other (in the sense that the total amount at any given time is constant), that, similarly, that the total sum e (energy) + H (information) always stays constant within a closed system. So in the given example, the actual physical, energetic vibrations are turned into data by tickling the fine hairs of the human listener. And, furthermore, it would seem that the brain was the universe's answer to the entropy problem as we seem naturally inclined to continue repeating explosion after explosion because at some level deeper than the cognitive, the brain is cataloging all that data and rewarding us (at least boys) for the novelty (in the information-theoretic sense) that it confers with each explosion even though there's hardly anything new at our own cognitive level. Consciousness was nature's way of solving the problem of the heat death of the universe, or alternately, those universes which didn't have observers simply died out long ago and we're one that remained. marcos 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
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 On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 10:35 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Owen, We could do a Wedtech in September on it. Do you have a cc you could circulate to get us all on the same page? N -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore Sent: Monday, June 06, 2011 10:17 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week Nick: Next you are in town, lets read the original Shannon paper together. Alas, it is a bit long, but I'm told its a Good Thing To Do. -- Owen On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Grant, This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here. I thought..i thought .. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver. So, let's say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say heads you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none. The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver. This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation. Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Grant Holland Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week Interesting note on information and uncertainty... Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms. Shannon called it uncertainty, contemporary Information theory calls it information. It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case. In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows: U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ). Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ). Grant On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy. I'd be tempted to counter: Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience). It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking. The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition. The more we know, the less we understand. Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy. Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters. - Steve On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.com wrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated philosophy with new age, as much of science owes itself to philosophy. marcos 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 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Owen, We could do a Wedtech in September on it. Do you have a cc you could circulate to get us all on the same page? N -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore Sent: Monday, June 06, 2011 10:17 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week Nick: Next you are in town, lets read the original Shannon paper together. Alas, it is a bit long, but I'm told its a Good Thing To Do. -- Owen On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Grant, This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here. I thought..i thought .. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver. So, let's say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say heads you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none. The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver. This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation. Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Grant Holland Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week Interesting note on information and uncertainty... Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms. Shannon called it uncertainty, contemporary Information theory calls it information. It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case. In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows: U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ). Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ). Grant On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy. I'd be tempted to counter: Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience). It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking. The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition. The more we know, the less we understand. Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy. Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters. - Steve On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.com wrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated philosophy with new age, as much of science owes itself to philosophy. marcos 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 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Grant, This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here. I thought..i thought .. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver. So, let's say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say heads you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none. The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver. This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation. Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Grant Holland Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week Interesting note on information and uncertainty... Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms. Shannon called it uncertainty, contemporary Information theory calls it information. It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case. In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows: U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ). Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ). Grant On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy. I'd be tempted to counter: Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience). It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking. The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition. The more we know, the less we understand. Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy. Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters. - Steve On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.com wrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc : Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated philosophy with new age, as much of science owes itself to philosophy. marcos 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 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Nick: Next you are in town, lets read the original Shannon paper together. Alas, it is a bit long, but I'm told its a Good Thing To Do. -- Owen On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Grant, This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here. I thought……i thought …. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver. So, let’s say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say “heads” you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none. The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver. This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation. Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Grant Holland Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week Interesting note on information and uncertainty... Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms. Shannon called it uncertainty, contemporary Information theory calls it information. It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case. In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows: U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ). Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ). Grant On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy. I'd be tempted to counter: Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience). It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking. The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition. The more we know, the less we understand. Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy. Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters. - Steve On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.com wrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated philosophy with new age, as much of science owes itself to philosophy. marcos 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 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 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
It seems backwards to almost everybody. Me too. So much so that this little conundrum pushed me to take a deeper look into information theory. The key for me was realizing that I.T. is addressing how much information THERE IS in a situation (probability distribution) - rather than how much information YOU HAVE (one has) about that situation. I think Owen is right: taking a look at Shannon's The Mathematical Theory of Communication is good. Try to get the edition with the Warren Weaver essay in the front - an essay /about/ Shannon's paper. Weaver talks about the measure in section 2.2 (p. 9 in my copy). He talks in terms of logs of the number of available choices rather than inverses of probabilities. Weaver refers to what is being measured as information. Most telling, on page 50, Shannon uses the terms information, choice and uncertainty in the same breath as being measured by his entropy formula. Another very good popular-level book is Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information [2010] by Information Theorist Vlatko Vedral. He begins the book with this conversation. Grant On 6/6/11 8:17 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: Nick: Next you are in town, lets read the original Shannon paper together. Alas, it is a bit long, but I'm told its a Good Thing To Do. -- Owen On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Grant, This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here. I thought……i thought …. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver. So, let’s say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say “heads” you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none. The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver. This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation. Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Grant Holland Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week Interesting note on information and uncertainty... Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms. Shannon called it uncertainty, contemporary Information theory calls it information. It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case. In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows: U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ). Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ). Grant On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy. I'd be tempted to counter: Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience). It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking. The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition. The more we know, the less we understand. Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy. Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters. - Steve On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmesrob...@holmesacosta.com wrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated philosophy with new
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Is anybody else tickled at how this Quote Of The Week elicited a flood of philosophical observations? --Doug On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.comwrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cagehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc : Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. —R 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Oops. I meant to say I am very tickled! (not ticked :-{ )
Grant
On 6/6/11 9:48 AM, Grant Holland wrote:
I'm very ticked. The point seems to be that one pick your favorite -
philosophy, physics,... is supreme within some dependency hierarchy
of disciplines.
I wondering, epistemologically, if maybe the relationships among these
disciplines are inter-dependencies that are better modeled as an
autocatalytic network?
Grant
On 6/6/11 9:24 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote:
Is anybody else tickled at how this Quote Of The Week elicited a
flood of philosophical observations?
--Doug
On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes
rob...@holmesacosta.com mailto:rob...@holmesacosta.com wrote:
From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc:
Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper,
it's easier and some people seem to prefer it.
—R
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
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
If you're interested, I've written a wiki pagehttp://cs.calstatela.edu/wiki/index.php/Entropythat describes entropy. The goal was to make the concept both rigorous and intuitive. If you look at it, let me know where it fails. *-- Russ * On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 9:08 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES e...@psu.edu wrote: Nick, The notion of information that Shannon proposes takes a very idealized understanding of communication. I think it is a good model for machine communication and things like that (i.e., metaphorical communication), but it will not make you very happy, what with your feet-on-the-ground study of actual communication between organisms. For example, as I understand Shannon's information theory, there must be countless things transmitted from one organism to another that do not count as information, but which nevertheless are 'sent' by one organism and alter the behavior of the other. Also, we cannot have a conversation over whether or not it is in the interests of the organism to base their behavior on the information they receive form other organisms, because 'information' has been defined as that on which it is good to base behavior. Also, also, we also cannot talk about the transmission of information already known by the receiver, because if it is already known, then the message is not information. That is, if 1) we are flipping a coin, 2) I see the coin land heads, 3) you say 'heads', then your message contained no information. Eric P.S. Oddly, for the last point, I probably need to say that your message contained no information 'about the coin.' In information theory land they don't want to count it as information that your saying 'heads' tells me that you also have seen the coin as landing a heads (i.e., they don't want to count the information it gives me about you). If they counted that, then all messages would contain information. On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 09:44 AM, *Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net* wrote: Grant, This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here. I thought……i thought …. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver. So, let’s say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say “heads” you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none. The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver. This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation. Nick *From:* friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Grant Holland *Sent:* Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week Interesting note on information and uncertainty... Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms. Shannon called it uncertainty, contemporary Information theory calls it information. It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case. In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows: U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ). Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ). Grant On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote: *Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it.* Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy. I'd be tempted to counter: *Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra* Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience). It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking. The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Doug - Is anybody else tickled at how this Quote Of The Week elicited a flood of philosophical observations? --Doug Utterly pink! PINK I tell you! And you are making it worse with your own tickling! /STO/! I just deleted one of my typical DNRTL (did not read, too long) missives and offer up instead a few simple relevant thoughts with links for the interested reader: * Russel Akoff's hierarchy of Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm. * Predictability as a dual of Banality http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/banal * Laplace's Daemon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_Demon and Determinism vs Predictability * Information theory in Cryptology: by expanding (or contracting) the system by as small of an amount as a decryption key, the (relative?) Entropy of a system goes from small to huge or vice-versa. Carry on! - Steve 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Steve, I promised myself I wouldn't do this, speaking of too long and don't read and all. But do you know how powerful you are, just by being superhumanly articulate? With one line, emphasizing knowing versus understanding, you directed the whole stream into a conversation about information theory. It seemed to me that the original quote had to do with the difference between thinking about doing something, or talking about doing something, and actually _doing something_. We work hard to make good language, with care for lexical items, syntactic rules, and whatever we can do to formalize rules for semantic composition. And I have great respect for people who then try to use that language carefully, recognizing that scientists often don't, as much as perhaps they could. But in the end, we have enough cases behind us that we should now understand that our best attempts to construct good language are always limited reflections of what we happen to have experienced up to that time. (French experience, _experiment_, ...) We could have discoursed, and argued, and reasoned, forever, about the meaning and use of the word time pre-relativity. But if we hadn't had to confront Maxwell's equations and various other experiences of the world, we probably could never have merely-talked ourselves into realizing that the word did not have an unqualified, reliable meaning in the way we were using it (who knows, in a different reality, maybe it could have, so logic alone could never have told us which reality we inhabit; I don't know). We had to be thrown back to a stage where the most desperate among us could say Will you stop talking about 'time' and start talking about clocks that tick, and people whose hearts beat and who get old _where they are_ even as they move about. And from that, we could learn for the first time how to build spacetime diagrams, and so forth, and at some level, once we knew how to be careful using the diagrams reliably, we were free to again use the word time, and perhaps even use it carelessly in cases (when its purpose was not to replace the diagrams, but merely to share attention to them), and still be able to carry out and anticipate acts in the world that we never could have before, with all the linguistic care in the world. I know this is the most shop-worn example, but I still think that it and several others like it carry a relevant piece of meaning. Renormalization and the theory of phase transitions did the same thing for the notion of object, and (simply passing by any rhetoric that doesn't produce distinguishable results for calculations or experiments), quantum theory taught us that state and observable were not even in principle the same kinds of concepts. Someday, a sensible theory of ecology, development, and evolution will hopefully lead to a similar sensible thinking about individuality. Each of these has been a wrenching experience, because we really have had to throw away a piece of what had been fundamental to our ability to speak and to reason, and to simply leave a void until we could build a new foundation out of different pieces. It was a very extra-conversational exchange with our world of experiences, even if it was supported all along the way by intense and labored conversation, trying to figure out how to get oriented. It seems that a combination of a willingness to mistrust language while still trying to use it well, but also, to continually try to be rebuilding it from experience, is the pragmatic thing that distinguishes science. Philosophers are good at recognizing the unreliability of language, so no corner on that market. And I think everybody, science and philosophy both, wants to both know and understand. But there is a sense in which scientists can be content if the language of science is something like the calls at a barn dance -- they keep us doing things together, they rely on shared experience, and they have to change as the community changes the dance -- and still do something productive, that seems to capture a major defining characteristic of the enterprise. Along with all the other stuff on information theory that is already in this thread, all of which I also like. Eric 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Eric - But do you know how powerful you are, just by being superhumanly articulate? Coming from you, of all people, this itself is a supreme compliment! One of the reasons I am on this list (and actually read most of it's traffic!) is that there are a number of incredibly articulate people, most of whom I envy for their relative brevity, but also (as in your case) their significant focus and depth! Some (including yourself) also challenge me nicely with superior detailed thoroughness (e.g. Vladymir). With one line, emphasizing knowing versus understanding, you directed the whole stream into a conversation about information theory. I wish it had been that intentional! If so, I could be Maxwell's Daemon of FRIAM! But yes, it did (d)evolve rapidly into something more interesting/actionable perhaps than the age old mud-slinging between disciplines. It seemed to me that the original quote had to do with the difference between thinking about doing something, or talking about doing something, and actually _doing something_. Ah yes... my many personalities are at war on this battlefield all the time. When I write my massive missives here, it is often evidence that one who prefers /talking about (?doing?)something/ has prevailed temporarily, usually because the ones who prefer /thinking/ or /doing/ are exhausted from too much of their preferred activities to fight it out with the former! I wonder if Sun-Tsu wrote a sequel to /Art of War/ known as /Art of Thinking Too Much/! I doubt I am alone in this crowd, on this topic. We work hard to make good language, with care for lexical items, syntactic rules, and whatever we can do to formalize rules for semantic composition. And I have great respect for people who then try to use that language carefully, recognizing that scientists often don't, as much as perhaps they could. Many scientists aspire to being technicians with things rather than words, some scientists are therefore also very good engineers. Words and things are not mutually exclusive: I love doing things with things... I do things all the time with things... stacking them, shaping them, joining them, fastening them, heating them, beating them into shapes that suit my needs (or whimsy), up to and including thinking about them. With words. At some point in my life words became things for me and for better or worse, I began to operate on them in ways similar to how I operate on physical things in the world. When I discovered tooling and jigs in my exploration of manipulating things I discovered self-modifying code, modern language is by definition self-modifying, seeing it in practice with physical objects made me think differently about thinking about thinking. Your own explorations into historical linguistics might be of relevance here... some of the (possible) phase transitions in human language? In the spirit of phylogeny recapitulating ontogeny, I notice that many of my own personal evolutions seem to parallel those of human historical ones... and I only come to appreciate the historical significance of phase transitions in human understanding when I myself have made those same transitions. Perhaps it is why most of us do not come to appreciate the history of various disciplines until later in life. But in the end, we have enough cases behind us that we should now understand that our best attempts to construct good language are always limited reflections of what we happen to have experienced up to that time. (French experience, _experiment_, ...) We could have discoursed, and argued, and reasoned, forever, about the meaning and use of the word time pre-relativity. But if we hadn't had to confront Maxwell's equations and various other experiences of the world, we probably could never have merely-talked ourselves into realizing that the word did not have an unqualified, reliable meaning in the way we were using it (who knows, in a different reality, maybe it could have, so logic alone could never have told us which reality we inhabit; I don't know). We had to be thrown back to a stage where the most desperate among us could say Will you stop talking about 'time' and start talking about clocks that tick, and people whose hearts beat and who get old _where they are_ even as they move about. And from that, we could learn for the first time how to build spacetime diagrams, and so forth, and at some level, once we knew how to be careful using the diagrams reliably, we were free to again use the word time, and perhaps even use it carelessly in cases (when its purpose was not to replace the diagrams, but merely to share attention to them), and still be able to carry out and anticipate acts in the world that we never could have before, with all the linguistic care in the world. Well said, well chosen example. I know this is the most shop-worn example, but I still think that it and several others like it carry a relevant piece of meaning.
[FRIAM] Quote of the week
From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cagehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc : Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. —R 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.comwrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cagehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc : Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated philosophy with new age, as much of science owes itself to philosophy. marcos 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
/Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. / Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy. I'd be tempted to counter: /Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra/ Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience). It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking. The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition. / The more we know, the less we understand./ Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy. Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters. - Steve On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.com mailto:rob...@holmesacosta.com wrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated philosophy with new age, as much of science owes itself to philosophy. marcos 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Richard Feynman said, Physics is like sex. It has useful applications, but that's not why we do it. An enterprising physics professor at U Texas Austin, who did lots of innovative things to induce more students to major in physics, made up lots of T-shirts with this quote. They were very popular. Bruce Sherwood 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
In fact, one could draw a parallel in my just-posted query between physics on the science side, and fundamentalist Christians on the other side. Both have a tendency, carried to extremes by some proponents, of claiming omniscience. Perhaps that Omni is the clue. Omni - science. Thou shalt hold no knowledge before Me. But human experience is filled with scintillating, shimmering changes; shifts in perception and conclusion that mitigate against Omni - anything. If we are truthful about our experience. So maybe it's Physics is to Human Experience as Sex is to Philosophy [using Steve's philosophy=understanding definition: which as the language referee here I will reiterate does mean 'the love of wisdom'] I'm off to Make Art (according to me) a topic I do not insert here, but worthy of its own thread and part of the equation above, in equal measure. And yes, Art is like Sex. Tory Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy. I'd be tempted to counter: Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience). It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking. The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition. The more we know, the less we understand. Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy. Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters. - Steve On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.com wrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated philosophy with new age, as much of science owes itself to philosophy. marcos 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 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
One things many philosophers might point out in response to such an assertion, is that we don't have a very good handle on the notion of determined'. In fact, there are quite a few big-named dead white guys, who would say that physical causality and mental causality are equally illusory (and by that, I mean, completely illusory). Thus, one of the BIG challenges for a realist philosophy is articulating a theory of causality. It is not nearly as simple as basic physics, with its naive realism, might make you think. In the last real chapter of my up-coming book on Holt (Nick circulated his chapter a little bit ago), Alan Costall argues (among other things) that naive realism leads to physics, and that physics undercuts naive realism, leaving the whole thing a big mess. Eric On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 04:30 PM, Marcos stalkingt...@gmail.com wrote: Not to mention, the white elephant in the room (which I brought up to Murray Gell-Mann to no avail), the relationship of consciousness to matter, and by implication: physics. To say consciousness is only a emergent property of matter, is to say that we're all deterministic robots, however transient within the view of cosmological history. That position, for me, is no longer tenable. mark 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 Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Alan Costall, by way of Eric Charles Sez: /naive realism leads to physics, and that physics undercuts naive realism, leaving the whole thing a big mess / It's a bit wordy for a Zen Koan but I think he's on the right track! One things many philosophers might point out in response to such an assertion, is that we don't have a very good handle on the notion of determined'. In fact, there are quite a few big-named dead white guys, who would say that physical causality and mental causality are equally illusory (and by that, I mean, completely illusory). Thus, one of the BIG challenges for a realist philosophy is articulating a theory of causality. It is not nearly as simple as basic physics, with its naive realism, might make you think. In the last real chapter of my up-coming book on Holt (Nick circulated his chapter a little bit ago), Alan Costall argues (among other things) that naive realism leads to physics, and that physics undercuts naive realism, leaving the whole thing a big mess. Eric On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 04:30 PM, *Marcos stalkingt...@gmail.com* wrote: Not to mention, the white elephant in the room (which I brought up to Murray Gell-Mann to no avail), the relationship of consciousness to matter, and by implication: physics. To say consciousness is only a emergent property of matter, is to say that we're all deterministic robots, however transient within the view of cosmological history. That position, for me, is no longer tenable. mark 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 Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Interesting note on information and uncertainty... Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms. Shannon called it uncertainty, contemporary Information theory calls it information. It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case. In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows: U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ). Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ). Grant On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote: /Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. / Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy. I'd be tempted to counter: /Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra/ Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience). It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking. The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition. / The more we know, the less we understand./ Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy. Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters. - Steve On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.com mailto:rob...@holmesacosta.com wrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated philosophy with new age, as much of science owes itself to philosophy. marcos FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
Hmmm . . . I would say this just slightly differently -- the amount of information an observer gains from observing an event is equal to the decrease in uncertainty the observer has from observing the event (e.g., if I am almost certain an event will occur, I gain almost no information from observing the event; on the other hand, if I observe an event I was very unsure would happen, I gain a lot of information). Decrease in uncertainty and gain in information are just two ways of talking about the same quantity. I'll also make the observation that, for me, information is not a property of an event, but rather of a combined system of event and observer. In particular, two different observers can gain different amounts of information from observing the same event (think about two students attending my lecture on information theory -- if one of them has been through my lecture several times before, they know what to expect, and hence have comparatively little uncertainty about what they will hear, and hence gain little information when they hear it . . .). This is part of why it is valuable to think of the quantity as being uncertainty decrease, rather than information gain -- it keeps some more emphasis on the observer, whose uncertainty is being decreased . . . Thanks . . . tom On Jun 5, 2011, at 8:06 PM, Grant Holland wrote: Interesting note on information and uncertainty... Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms. Shannon called it uncertainty, contemporary Information theory calls it information. It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case. In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows: U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ). Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ). Grant On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy. I'd be tempted to counter: Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience). It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking. The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition. The more we know, the less we understand. Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy. Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters. - Steve On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.com wrote: From the BBC's science podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage: Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it. Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated philosophy with new age, as much of science owes itself to philosophy. marcos 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 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 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 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
