Dear Krassimir
When I cut up brains in my young days I never found any mental contend in
brains. This inside outside metaphor is very interesting, but I am not sure it
is productive for the advancement of knowledge. “The brain “ is our
physiological model of the central nervous system and there is nothing in our
knowledge from that level of reality that help us making a model of how mental
qualia is produced. That does not change when we go to the quantum level. We
lack a transdisciplinary model encompassing the quantitative, the qualitative
and the formal to get to a more fruitful formulation of the problem.
Best
Søren Brier
From: Fis <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Krassimir Markov
Sent: 28. april 2018 13:23
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Fis] “The information is “Real” or “Mental” depending of point of
view!”.
Dear Mark and Colleagues,
The question “Is information physical?” is very important as well as so
important are the questions “Is information chemical?”, “Is information
mechanical?”, “Is information electronic?”, and etc. .
All questions above may be summarized to “Is information real?” and, of course,
the question “Is information mental?” immediately rises!
My answer to all these question is “YES!”.
At the first place, let me remember what is “Real” and what is “Mental”.
I have written, that our brains are prisoners in the Plato sense (remember the
Plato “Prisoners in the cave”).
All what is outside the brain is reflected true the receptors (sensors).
So, the “Real” is what exists outside my brain and “Mental” is what is inside
of my brain.
Taking in account current knowledge about brain, we may say that the same
classification may be applied for the brain subsystems.
The Right brain hemisphere is outside of the Left one.
So the first is “Real” for the second and vice versa, and corresponded
“internal brain receptors” exist.
Going further, we may see the same for the different zones of the Right and
Left hemispheres.
My brain is outside of yours as well as your brains are outside of mine.
And what is “Mental” for you is “Real” for me.
The conclusion is: “The information is “Real” or “Mental” depending of point of
view!”.
To be continued...
Friendly greetings
Krassimir
From: John Collier<mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2018 1:00 PM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Fis] Is information physical? OR Does the information exist
without the carrier?
Dear group,
I think that linguistic philosophy is largely thought now to be a dead end. I
agree with the second point, though.
I especially agree with Loet's point in response to Lou Kauffman. Scientific
measurement, not to even mention testing of hypotheses.
My preference rather than for communications studies is general systems theory,
which applies to all levels. I don't think a full reduction to physics, even in
some physical sciences like mineralogy, is possible.
Best,
John
On 2018/04/28 8:28 AM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
Dear colleagues,
Not only logic, but also language is not directly and one-to-one coupled to
physics. The hidden positivism of claiming priority for physics by some of us,
is at odds with the linguistic turn in the philosophy of science. Furthermore,
the issue is not directly related to the definition of information as
probablistic entropy or otherwise.
I agree with most of what Lou Kauffman said, but:
We come to investigate both reason and physicality through each other and our
ability to sense and feel.
Sensing and feeling and measurement are our terms for those places where
concept and the physical arise together in our perception.
The emphasis in the above remains on the individual sensing and feeling,
mediated by measurement. However, scientific observation is not such immediate
feeling, but careful and discursively constructed articulations of expectations
which are tested against observations. The cocon of language (a la Maturana) is
opened at specific places which are carefully reasoned. The feelings do enter
only after having been articulated into observational reports. The latter
contain knowledge claims which are validated discursively. No escape! The
observations enable us to improve the codification in the specialist language
(jargon).
Physics is part of this edifice of science. It has no privileged access to
reality, but constructs its own reality. Nobody senses the particles at CERN.
The observational reports are readings from an instrument which have to be
discussed before one can interpret.
If any science can claim priority, it is communication studies. The specialist
languages are shaped in processes of communication. How does this work? Can it
be improved?
Best,
Loet
5. Beyond those places where significant related pairs of opposites that cannot
be separated (complementarities) occur there is our (in at least my tradition)
personal reality of unity — whereof nothing can be said.
6. We cannot sever philosophy and logic and reason from science, AND for
science we must open to the largest possible access to precision and
understanding.
Best,
Lou
On Apr 27, 2018, at 4:38 AM,
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Bruno,
You claim: "all computations exists independently of the existence of anything
physical".
I never heard, apart probably from Berkeley and Tegmark, a more untestable,
metaphyisical, a-scientific, unquantifiable claim.
Dear FISers, we NEED to deal with something testable and quantifiable,
otherwise we are doing philosophy and logic, not science! Even if information
is (as many FISers suggest) at least in part not physical, we NEED to focus
just on the testable part, i.e., the physical one. And, even if physics does
not exist, as Bruno states, at least it gives me something quantifiable and
useful for my pragmatic purposes.
Even if information is something subjective in my mind (totally untestable, but
very popular claim) who cares, by a scientific standpoint?
If I say that Julius Caesar was killed by an alien, the theory is fashinating,
but useless, unless I provide proofs or testable clues.
--
Inviato da Libero Mail per Android
venerdì, 27 aprile 2018, 10:10AM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>:
Hi Lou, Colleagues,
On 25 Apr 2018, at 16:55, Louis H Kauffman
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Dear Krassimir and Mark,
Let us not forget the intermediate question:
How is information independent of the choice of carrier?
This is the fruitful question in my opinion, and it avoids the problem of
assigning existence to that which is relational.
The same problem exists for numbers and other mathematical entities. Does the
number 2 exist without any couples?
The mathematical answer is to construct a standard couple (e.g. { { }, {{}} }
in set theory or two marks || in formalism) and say that
a collection has cardinality two if it can be placed in 1-1 correspondence with
the standard couple. In this way of speaking we do not have to
assign an existence to two as a noun. The Russelian alternative — to take two
to be the collection of all couples — is a fascinating intellectual move, but
I prefer to avoid it by not having to speak of the existence of two in such a
way. Two is a concept and it is outside of formal systems and outside of the
physical
except in that we who have that concept are linked with formalism and linked
with the apparent physical.
And let us not forget the other question.
What is "the physical”?
What we take to be physical arises as a relation between our sensing (and
generalized sensing) and our ability to form concepts.
To imagine that the “physical” exists independent of that relation is an extra
assumption that is not necessary for scientific work, however
attractive or repelling it may seem.
Indeed, the existence of a physical ontology is an hypothesis in metaphysics,
and not in physics. It was brought mainly by Aristotle and even more by its
followers.
What can be shown, is that if we assume Digital Mechanism in the cognitive
science, then the physical cannot be ontological, and physics has to be reduced
to the psychology, or better the theology of the digital machine. My
contribution shows this testable, and the physical observations, up to now,
favour the non existence of primary matter (as amazing and counter-intuive this
could seem).
What many people seem to miss is that the notion of universal machine and the
notion of computations (Turing, Post, Church, Kleene) are purely arithmetical
notion. Anyone who is able to believe that (3^3) + (4^3) + (5^3) = (6^3) is
necessarily either true or false even without verifying which it is, should be
able to understand that all computations exists independently of the existence
of anything physical, and then a reasoning can show that it is easier to
explain the illusion of an otological matter to complex number relation, than
to explain the numbers in term of complex relation between primary matter. In
fact it is impossible, and the notion of primary matter adds unnecessary
insuperable difficulties in the “mind-body” problem.
Now, Landauer, and others, have given some evidence that some notion of
information is physical (like quantum information). That does not contradict
the idea that information is not physical. The illusion of physical appearances
is real, obeys laws, and physics is eventually reduced into an internal
statistics on all computations in arithmetic, and that can explain some special
form of physical information (and indeed the quantum one is already explained
in some testable way).
The origin of information comes from the fact that aTuring machine cannot
distinguish the physical reality from the arithmetical reality (which emulates
all computations) except by observation. The machines are distributed in
infinitely many exemplars in arithmetic, and that defines a sort of indexical
differentiating consciousness flux, leading to (collective) sharable deep
dreams which we call the physical.
Now, all this is long to explain, and I’m afraid this can look too much
provocative, if I do not add the proofs and much more explanations. People can
consult my papers, but needs to study a bit of mathematical logic.
Physicalism/materialism is a long lasting habit of thought, and, as I have
experienced my whole life, some materialist defend the dogma with more
integrism and violence than some (pseudo)-religious radicals in history.
Once we assume mechanism, all we need to assume to get both mind and matter is
*any* universal machine or machinery, and then the usual platonic
epistemological definitions can be used (but they can also be motivated through
some thought experience).
For the universal machinery, I use (very) elementary arithmetic, because
everyone is familiar with them, and can accept that “17 is prime” is true
independently of them, which would not be the case with ((K K) K) = K in
combinators theory (generally not known). But we can derive arithmetic, and the
physical dreams from just very small theories, like
((K x) y) = x
(((S x) y) z) = ((x z) (y z))
(Axioms of the SK-combinators: that is Turing Universal!)
Or, very elementary arithmetic (Peano arithmetic without induction, + the
predecessor axiom), i.e, classical logic +
0 ≠ s(x)
s(x) = s(y) -> x = y
x = 0 v Ey(x = s(y))
x+0 = x
x+s(y) = s(x+y)
x*0=0
x*s(y)=(x*y)+x
That is already a Turing Complete theory.
So information/numbers are independent of the carrier, and the carrier becomes
only an appearance from some self-referential modes of the universal number or
“machine”. Pythagorus was right, at least provably so in the frame of the
Mechanist Hypothesis. Primary Matter is perhaps the last phlogiston of the
human mind. With mechanism, weak materialism is false, and physics is not the
fundamental science. The physical reality appearance has a
*reason*/*explanation* relying on the notion of (Turing) universality.
All the best!
Bruno
Lou Kauffman
P.S. With this letter, I reach my quota for the week and will remain silent
until next Monday.
If anyone wants a private email conversation, I shall be happy to carry on in
that fashion.
On Apr 25, 2018, at 2:20 AM, Krassimir Markov
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Dear Mark and Colleagues,
Very nice “simple question”: “Is information physical?”
I agree that “letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all physical objects
are only carriers of information”.
The brain is carrier of information, too.
Now, I think, what we need to clear is another “simple question” closely
interrelated to yours:
Does the information exist without the carrier?
In other words, can the color, speed, weigh, temperature, time, etc., exist
without objects which these characteristics belong to and may be measured by
other objects.
To understand more clearly, let see the case of “time”.
Does the time really exist?
Does the time exist without real regular processes which we may reflect and
compare?
The time is falling drops of water, the movement of the pendulum, etc.
One may say, the time is information about all these processes.
OK! But, if these processes do not exist, will we have “time”?
I think, we have a question in two interrelated explanations:
- Is information physical?
- Does the information exist without the carrier?
Friendly greetings
Krassimir
From: Burgin, Mark<mailto:[email protected]>
the movement of the pendulum
falling drops of water
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2018 4:47 AM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Fis] Is information physical?
Dear Colleagues,
I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion
Is information physical?
My opinion is presented below:
Why some people erroneously think that information is physical
The main reason to think that information is physical is the strong belief
of many people, especially, scientists that there is only physical reality,
which is studied by science. At the same time, people encounter something that
they call information.
When people receive a letter, they comprehend that it is information because
with the letter they receive information. The letter is physical, i.e., a
physical object. As a result, people start thinking that information is
physical. When people receive an e-mail, they comprehend that it is information
because with the e-mail they receive information. The e-mail comes to the
computer in the form of electromagnetic waves, which are physical. As a result,
people start thinking even more that information is physical.
However, letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all physical objects
are only carriers or containers of information.
To understand this better, let us consider a textbook. Is possible to say
that this book is knowledge? Any reasonable person will tell that the textbook
contains knowledge but is not knowledge itself. In the same way, the textbook
contains information but is not information itself. The same is true for
letters, e-mails, electromagnetic waves and other physical objects because all
of them only contain information but are not information. For instance, as we
know, different letters can contain the same information. Even if we make an
identical copy of a letter or any other text, then the letter and its copy will
be different physical objects (physical things) but they will contain the same
information.
Information belongs to a different (non-physical) world of knowledge, data
and similar essences. In spite of this, information can act on physical objects
(physical bodies) and this action also misleads people who think that
information is physical.
One more misleading property of information is that people can measure it.
This brings an erroneous assumption that it is possible to measure only
physical essences. Naturally, this brings people to the erroneous conclusion
that information is physical. However, measuring information is essentially
different than measuring physical quantities, i.e., weight. There are no
“scales” that measure information. Only human intellect can do this.
It is possible to find more explanations that information is not physical in
the general theory of information.
Sincerely,
Mark Burgin
On 4/24/2018 10:46 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
Dear FIS Colleagues,
A very interesting discussion theme has been proposed by Mark Burgin --he will
post at his early convenience.
Thanks are due to Alberto for his "dataism" piece. Quite probably we will need
to revisit that theme, as it is gaining increasing momentum in present
"information societies", in science as well as in everyday life...
Thanks also to Sung for his interesting viewpoint and references.
Best wishes to all,
--Pedro
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------
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--
John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Collier web page <http://web.ncf.ca/collier>
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