Re: [Fis] Can the can drink beer ?
Dear FIS-ers, 1) A can is empty or filled. Its "emptiness" or "filledness" is an information. This is an objective property. It is independent of whether a conscious being perceives it or not. I generally argue for this non-subjectivity of information. 2) There is an information change when a filled can loses its content, independent of whether a conscious being pours the content, or that happens as a result of a damage by an earthquake. 3) Information is transmitted between two telephone exchange centers via wires (or wireless) by the way of electromagnetic impulses. Generally it is initiated by conscious human beings, and received by another (if one answers the call, or detects at her/his computer). In certain cases, the impulses can be modified by outside magnetic waves originating from the space, e.g., from the Sun. It is also a part of the transmitted information, and no "conscious information-processor" takes active part in it. This *information*(by its nickname e-mail), transmitted to you, has been in your computer even before you read (and perceived) it. Best, Gyuri On 2017.03.26. 11:39, Krassimir Markov wrote: Dear Brian, Arturo, Karl, Alex, Lars-Goran, Gyuri, and FIS colleagues, Thank you for your remarks! What is important is that every theory has its own understanding of the concepts it uses. For “foreigners”, theirs meaning may be strange or unknown. Some times, concepts of one theory contradict to corresponded concepts from other theory. For years, I have met many different definitions of concept “information” and many more kinds of its use. From materialistic up to weird point of view... To clear my own understanding, I shall give you a simple example: CAN THE CAN DRINK BEER ? CAN THE CAN EXCHANGE BEER WITH THE GLASS ? The can is used by humans for some goals, for instance to store some beer for a given period. But the can itself “could not understand” its own functions and what the can can do with beer it contains. All its functionality is a human’s consciousness model. Can cannot exchange beer with the glass if there are no human activity or activity of additional devices invented by humans to support this. Further: CAN THE ARTIFICIAL LEG WALK ? You know the answer ... Human with an artificial leg can walk ... All functionality of artificial leg is a result from human’s consciousness modeling and invention. In addition: IS THE “PHYSICAL INFORMATION” INFORMATION ? If it is, the first question is how to measure the quantity and quality of such “information” and who can do this? I prefer the answer “NO” – “physical information” is a concept which means something else but not “information” as it is in my understanding. From my point of view, “physical information” is a kind of reflection (see “Theory of reflections” of T.Pavlov). Every reflection may be assumed as information iff (if and only if) there exist a subjective information expectation to be resolved by given reflection. For physical information this low is not satisfied. Because of this, I prefer to call this phenomenon simply “a reflection”. And so on ... Finally: Human been invented too much kinds of prostheses including ones for our intellectual functionalities, i.e. many different kinds of electronic devices which, in particular, can generate some electrical, light, etc. impulses, which we assume as “information”; usually a combination of impulses we assume as s structure to be recognized by us as “information”. A special kind of prostheses are Robots. They have some autonomous functionalities but are still very far from living consciousness. The level of complexity of robot’s consciousness is far of human’s one. Someone may say that robots understand and exchange “information”, but still they only react on incoming signals following the instructions given by humans. Theirs functioning is similar to human ones but only similar. They may recognize some structures of signals and exchange such ones with other robots or living creatures. Maybe someone wants to call this “information exchange”, but, after Shannon, I call this “sending and/or receiving signals”. And automatic reaction to signals. One may say, the Robot (Computer) memory contains information but really it does not contain anything – it has its own structure which can be changed temporally of permanently by external electrical impulses. Is the human memory the same – a structure which can be changed temporally of permanently by external or internal signals? I think – yes, It is! What is the difference? Why we may say that the living creatures process information but not living couldn’t? The answer is: because the living creatures may create and resolve the “information expectation” with very high level of complexity. Maybe in the future robots will can do it ... Such robot I call “INFOS”. It will be artificial living creature. Possibly with some biological elements. It will be very interesting and amazin
[Fis] Can the can drink beer ? - No way! Convenient Fictions
Dear Jesse, Welcome to the group and thank you for your thoughtful presentation of a view of information. I would call this this standard physicalist view and say that while it applies in some simple cases, it does not capture the complex process that is represented by the word 'information'. Perhaps the following few points will suggest some possible additions or changes: 1. The simplistic example of the beer container and the contained beer is inapplicable and misleading. There is obviously no interaction to all intents and purposes between the beer and the can. This is not the case with regard to the energetic and meaningful (biotic, Logan) aspects of information. 2. The type-token distinction was 'invented' to cover simple examples of bivalent linguistic structure. Once you apply tokens to information, you have begged the question about its being abstract. 3. Biologists have apparently been unable to explain ' exactly' where information is in DNA, perhaps, in my view, because the question is badly posed: you are looking for a 'physical entity'. Suppose that what should be involved is not a fixed entity but a process that does not have an exact location and properties and is physical but in two senses, partly present and partly potential? 4. With this in mind, the debate about whether what is exchanged between non-living objects is information or not becomes otiose. As you imply at the end of your note, one should take a pragmatic position, provided in my opinion that any definition does not exclude properties of human information which while primarily intuitive, are not ipso facto totally separated from knowledge. Intuiting is also a physical process. 5. A third group of theories of information, among which I include the semiotic, may be characterized as insufficiently physicalist. I mean by this dependent on world-views which fail to integrate the dynamic physical properties of information and postulate other types of 'convenient fictions' as fundamental. Nevertheless, like all the approaches indicated, it has something to offer, without being the 'whole story'. As you say, the key is to have an open mind. Best wishes, Joe Brenner A Student - Original Message - From: Jesse David Dinneen To: fis@listas.unizar.es Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2017 10:15 PM Subject: Re: [Fis] Can the can drink beer ? - No way! Dear FIS colleagues, Though this is my first post I will spare my introduction to keep the message short. For now I'd simply like to thank everyone for the stimulating conversations and share a few thoughts regarding the current discussion, in which I sympathize with Krassimir, Bob, and others unconvinced that information transfer happens between non-living objects. For me this is caused by the following points: (a) One can identify identical information in non-identical physical phenomena, and non-identical information in identical physical phenomena, which suggests that information is not identical to (and therefore shouldn't be confused with) the physical objects that carry or afford it. I give examples and discuss this and other problematic beliefs about information in an article published in Library Trends 63(3), though it is written primarily for information professionals and thus may bore some FIS readers. (b) If information were physical, it couldn't be in two places at once, suggesting that information transfer would cause the source to lose the sent information. If we apply the type/token distinction we can instead say that in a case of successful information transfer the receiver obtains a token of the correct information type (i.e,. the same type as the source's token). Since types are abstract, so is information. Timpson argued this about Shannon information in his influential PhD dissertation about the nature of quantum information, and I adapted it to non-Shannon information in a short paper that will appear in this year's Canadian Association for Information Science conference proceedings. (c) In my experience, examples that seem like demonstrations of physical or natural information can be restated or explained with sufficient physical causes and effects and no mention of information. This and the above problems suggest information is not truly present in such cases (if information isn't physical, non-living objects can't exchange it) but is instead a convenient fiction superimposed by those describing the transfer. Indeed, when I have tasked biologists to explain where exactly the information is in DNA, it always remained couched in figurative speech and eluded confident identification with some physical entity. So, while it may be counter-intuitive (as Alex and Karl noted) to state that information transfer does not happen between non-living objects, I find it unsound to state that it does, and app
Re: [Fis] Can the can drink beer ? - No way!
Dear FIS colleagues, Though this is my first post I will spare my introduction to keep the message short. For now I'd simply like to thank everyone for the stimulating conversations and share a few thoughts regarding the current discussion, in which I sympathize with Krassimir, Bob, and others unconvinced that information transfer happens between non-living objects. For me this is caused by the following points: (a) One can identify identical information in non-identical physical phenomena, and non-identical information in identical physical phenomena, which suggests that information is *not* identical to (and therefore shouldn't be confused with) the physical objects that carry or afford it. I give examples and discuss this and other problematic beliefs about information in an article published in *Library Trends 63*(3), though it is written primarily for information professionals and thus may bore some FIS readers. (b) If information were physical, it couldn't be in two places at once, suggesting that information transfer would cause the source to lose the sent information. If we apply the type/token distinction we can instead say that in a case of successful information transfer the receiver obtains a token of the correct information *type* (i.e,. the same type as the source's token). Since types are *abstract*, so is information. Timpson argued this about Shannon information in his influential PhD dissertation about the nature of quantum information, and I adapted it to non-Shannon information in a short paper that will appear in this year's *Canadian Association for Information Science *conference proceedings. (c) In my experience, examples that seem like demonstrations of physical or natural information can be restated or explained with sufficient physical causes and effects and* no mention* of information. This and the above problems suggest information is not truly present in such cases (if information isn't physical, non-living objects can't exchange it) but is instead a convenient fiction superimposed by those describing the transfer. Indeed, when I have tasked biologists to explain where *exactly* the information *is *in DNA, it always remained couched in figurative speech and eluded confident identification with some physical entity. So, while it may be counter-intuitive (as Alex and Karl noted) to state that information transfer does *not* happen between non-living objects, I find it *unsound* to state that it does, and appeasing intuition is a desideratum, not a criterion, of the work of scientists and philosophers: I believe we owe more fidelity to knowledge than to common parlance or intuition, which are mercurial. I don't believe this means such views of information shouldn't be adopted for *use* -- the productivity of information theory or DNA 'information' is undeniable -- just that we should be careful *how* and *how far* we let our convenient fictions extend into theorising about and characterisation of *information*. But I continue to follow this topic with an open mind and look forward to reading others' views. Regards, Jesse David Dinneen McGill University On Sun, Mar 26, 2017 at 1:17 PM, Moisés André Nisenbaum < moises.nisenb...@ifrj.edu.br> wrote: > Dear Bob. > I agree 100%. We must classify information in abiotic and biotic, but, in > my opinion, both are parts of "information". > Some scientists, including Tom Stonier, tried to define information > considering the syntactic and semantic aspects of information. > Can we draw a parallel between these concepts? > Abiotic <--> syntactic <--> Shannon <--> machines > Biotic <--> semantic <--> human > Shall we abandon the insights from Shannon theory to construct a theory of > information (unified and non reductionist)? > > Attached a draw to illustrate the Von Newmann - Shannon talking :-) > > Um abraço > > Moisés > > > > > 2017-03-26 11:30 GMT-03:00 Bob Logan : > >> Hello Krassimir - I agree with the sentiments you expressed - they seem >> to parallel my thoughts. >> >> I am often puzzled by the use of the term ‘information’ in the way it is >> often used by physicists re the info of material objects . The way the term >> information is used in physics such as Wheelers its from bits does not >> conform to my understanding of information as a noun describing the process >> of informing. How can abiotic matter be informed as it cannot make any >> choices and hence cannot be informed. Living organisms make choices and >> use information to make those choices for all living creatures from >> bacteria to humans including physicists :-). The only information involved >> in the uses by physicists describing our universe of the word information >> is that associated with physicists becoming informed of what is happening >> in the universe they observe. I am happy that they want to discuss this >> info but I believe there is a need to distinguish between info (biotic) and >> info (abiotic) as used in physics. The use of a single w
Re: [Fis] Can the can drink beer ? - No way!
Dear Bob. I agree 100%. We must classify information in abiotic and biotic, but, in my opinion, both are parts of "information". Some scientists, including Tom Stonier, tried to define information considering the syntactic and semantic aspects of information. Can we draw a parallel between these concepts? Abiotic <--> syntactic <--> Shannon <--> machines Biotic <--> semantic <--> human Shall we abandon the insights from Shannon theory to construct a theory of information (unified and non reductionist)? Attached a draw to illustrate the Von Newmann - Shannon talking :-) Um abraço Moisés 2017-03-26 11:30 GMT-03:00 Bob Logan : > Hello Krassimir - I agree with the sentiments you expressed - they seem to > parallel my thoughts. > > I am often puzzled by the use of the term ‘information’ in the way it is > often used by physicists re the info of material objects . The way the term > information is used in physics such as Wheelers its from bits does not > conform to my understanding of information as a noun describing the process > of informing. How can abiotic matter be informed as it cannot make any > choices and hence cannot be informed. Living organisms make choices and > use information to make those choices for all living creatures from > bacteria to humans including physicists :-). The only information involved > in the uses by physicists describing our universe of the word information > is that associated with physicists becoming informed of what is happening > in the universe they observe. I am happy that they want to discuss this > info but I believe there is a need to distinguish between info (biotic) and > info (abiotic) as used in physics. The use of a single word information for > both categories is confusing, at least it is for me. This ambiguity reminds > me of Shannon's use of the term entropy to define his notion of information > having taken the advice of Von Neumann. A story is told that Shannon did > not know what to call his measure and von Neumann advised him to call it > entropy because nobody knows what it means and that it would therefore give > Shannon an advantage in any debate (Campbell, Jeremy 1982, p. 32 *Grammatical > Man: Information, Entropy, Language, and Life. *New York: Simon and > Schuster. ). Shannon defined information in such a way that he admitted > was not necessarily about meaning. Information without meaning has no > meaning for me. Kind regards to all - Bob Logan > > > > __ > > Robert K. Logan > Prof. Emeritus - Physics - U. of Toronto > Fellow University of St. Michael's College > Chief Scientist - sLab at OCAD > http://utoronto.academia.edu/RobertKLogan > www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Logan5/publications > https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/people/homepages/logan/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Mar 26, 2017, at 5:39 AM, Krassimir Markov wrote: > > Dear Brian, Arturo, Karl, Alex, Lars-Goran, Gyuri, and FIS colleagues, > > Thank you for your remarks! > > What is important is that every theory has its own understanding of the > concepts it uses. > For “foreigners”, theirs meaning may be strange or unknown. > Some times, concepts of one theory contradict to corresponded concepts > from other theory. > > For years, I have met many different definitions of concept “information” > and many more kinds of its use. > From materialistic up to weird point of view... > > To clear my own understanding, I shall give you a simple example: > > CAN THE CAN DRINK BEER ? > > CAN THE CAN EXCHANGE BEER WITH THE GLASS ? > > The can is used by humans for some goals, for instance to store some beer > for a given period. > But the can itself “could not understand” its own functions and what the > can can do with beer it contains. > All its functionality is a human’s consciousness model. > Can cannot exchange beer with the glass if there are no human activity or > activity of additional devices invented by humans to support this. > > Further: > > CAN THE ARTIFICIAL LEG WALK ? > You know the answer ... Human with an artificial leg can walk ... > All functionality of artificial leg is a result from human’s > consciousness modeling and invention. > > In addition: > > IS THE “PHYSICAL INFORMATION” INFORMATION ? > If it is, the first question is how to measure the quantity and quality of > such “information” and who can do this? > I prefer the answer “NO” – “physical information” is a concept which means > something else but not “information” as it is in my understanding. > From my point of view, “physical information” is a kind of reflection (see > “Theory of reflections” of T.Pavlov). > Every reflection may be assumed as information iff (if and only if) there > exist a subjective information expectation to be resolved by given > reflection. > For physical information this low is not satisfied. Because of this, I > prefer to call this phenomenon simply “a reflection”. > > And so on ... > > > Finally: > > Human been invented too much kinds of prostheses includ
Re: [Fis] Can the can drink beer ? - No way!
On 26 Mar 2017, at 16:30, Bob Logan wrote: Hello Krassimir - I agree with the sentiments you expressed - they seem to parallel my thoughts. I am often puzzled by the use of the term ‘information’ in the way it is often used by physicists re the info of material objects . The way the term information is used in physics such as Wheelers its from bits does not conform to my understanding of information as a noun describing the process of informing. Wheeler used "information" in the sense of Shannon. It is a quantitative measure of something, a degree of of surprise, where a subject can be informed of one bit of information by letting it able to distinguish two things, like 0 and 1. It is a sort of "atom" of digital information, and it has today a sort of cousin in quantum mechanics. It occurs also in arithmetic, because classical universal machine, nor the quantum one, can know which universal machine emulate them. How can abiotic matter be informed as it cannot make any choices and hence cannot be informed. Why? It can imprint the difference which makes the difference. Choice are relative to our ability to predict ourself, which we can't. "We" are not that abiotic matter, but abiotic matter can support determinatically "our" choices. But "our" is fuzzify by belonging to infinitely many histories. Consciousness, the first person experience is a selector. Living organisms make choices and use information to make those choices for all living creatures from bacteria to humans including physicists :-). And very plausibly mathematicians too :) And the numbers too, and all objects in any Turing universal system. The only information involved in the uses by physicists describing our universe of the word information is that associated with physicists becoming informed of what is happening in the universe they observe. Becoming informed in what happens in their brain, and assuming there is some most probable universal computation or neighborhood. But assuming mechanism, below our substitution level, there is an infinity of universal computations "in competition". I am happy that they want to discuss this info but I believe there is a need to distinguish between info (biotic) and info (abiotic) as used in physics. Is that not the difference between un code i and the function phi_i that it describes for some universal machine u? The use of a single word information for both categories is confusing, at least it is for me. It is a problem in the interdisciplinary fields. The solution consists in making clear which notion we use, and be careful in not mixing the different meaning of the terms. They can sometimes be related. In computer science: information is used in Shannon sense most of time, and information with meaning is handled by mathematical semantic, where a reality (alas called "model" by logicians) is "modeled" by mathematical structures, like groups, fields, (N, +, *), Hilbert space, but in AI it can be the plausible neighborhood of a robot. This ambiguity reminds me of Shannon's use of the term entropy to define his notion of information having taken the advice of Von Neumann. A story is told that Shannon did not know what to call his measure and von Neumann advised him to call it entropy because nobody knows what it means and that it would therefore give Shannon an advantage in any debate (Campbell, Jeremy 1982, p. 32 Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language, and Life. New York: Simon and Schuster. ). Shannon defined information in such a way that he admitted was not necessarily about meaning. Information without meaning has no meaning for me. I agree with you, sometimes "information" is used ambiguously. But I think we can solve that issue in making clear which sense we use in this or that context. Information without meaning has some meaning for Shannon, though, and for me too. In my approach, it plays some role, as you get one bit of Shannon information in a self-duplicating experience, but I use al lot information-with-meaning too. "meaning " refers to some reality we, or the machine/number in consideration, bet on. We can define it for simpler machine than us, but can't for machine like us, of or equivalent complexity. Computer science (mathematical logic) seems to explain why the meaning of "meaning" might be necessary deluding, preventing the machine from some reductionist theories. Note that the term machine is ambiguous. Sometimes it refers to the body, sometimes to the behavior, sometimes to the possible subjecst which that machine-body makes it possible for him/her to manifest itself relatively to the possible universal machines emulating them.The can can't drink the beer, indeed. Kind regards to everybody, ... er ... no, to every-soul :) Bruno Marchal ULB-IRIDIA http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ ___
Re: [Fis] Can the can drink beer ? - No way!
Hello Krassimir - I agree with the sentiments you expressed - they seem to parallel my thoughts. I am often puzzled by the use of the term ‘information’ in the way it is often used by physicists re the info of material objects . The way the term information is used in physics such as Wheelers its from bits does not conform to my understanding of information as a noun describing the process of informing. How can abiotic matter be informed as it cannot make any choices and hence cannot be informed. Living organisms make choices and use information to make those choices for all living creatures from bacteria to humans including physicists :-). The only information involved in the uses by physicists describing our universe of the word information is that associated with physicists becoming informed of what is happening in the universe they observe. I am happy that they want to discuss this info but I believe there is a need to distinguish between info (biotic) and info (abiotic) as used in physics. The use of a single word information for both categories is confusing, at least it is for me. This ambiguity reminds me of Shannon's use of the term entropy to define his notion of information having taken the advice of Von Neumann. A story is told that Shannon did not know what to call his measure and von Neumann advised him to call it entropy because nobody knows what it means and that it would therefore give Shannon an advantage in any debate (Campbell, Jeremy 1982, p. 32 Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language, and Life. New York: Simon and Schuster. ). Shannon defined information in such a way that he admitted was not necessarily about meaning. Information without meaning has no meaning for me. Kind regards to all - Bob Logan __ Robert K. Logan Prof. Emeritus - Physics - U. of Toronto Fellow University of St. Michael's College Chief Scientist - sLab at OCAD http://utoronto.academia.edu/RobertKLogan www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Logan5/publications https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/people/homepages/logan/ On Mar 26, 2017, at 5:39 AM, Krassimir Markov wrote: Dear Brian, Arturo, Karl, Alex, Lars-Goran, Gyuri, and FIS colleagues, Thank you for your remarks! What is important is that every theory has its own understanding of the concepts it uses. For “foreigners”, theirs meaning may be strange or unknown. Some times, concepts of one theory contradict to corresponded concepts from other theory. For years, I have met many different definitions of concept “information” and many more kinds of its use. From materialistic up to weird point of view... To clear my own understanding, I shall give you a simple example: CAN THE CAN DRINK BEER ? CAN THE CAN EXCHANGE BEER WITH THE GLASS ? The can is used by humans for some goals, for instance to store some beer for a given period. But the can itself “could not understand” its own functions and what the can can do with beer it contains. All its functionality is a human’s consciousness model. Can cannot exchange beer with the glass if there are no human activity or activity of additional devices invented by humans to support this. Further: CAN THE ARTIFICIAL LEG WALK ? You know the answer ... Human with an artificial leg can walk ... All functionality of artificial leg is a result from human’s consciousness modeling and invention. In addition: IS THE “PHYSICAL INFORMATION” INFORMATION ? If it is, the first question is how to measure the quantity and quality of such “information” and who can do this? I prefer the answer “NO” – “physical information” is a concept which means something else but not “information” as it is in my understanding. From my point of view, “physical information” is a kind of reflection (see “Theory of reflections” of T.Pavlov). Every reflection may be assumed as information iff (if and only if) there exist a subjective information expectation to be resolved by given reflection. For physical information this low is not satisfied. Because of this, I prefer to call this phenomenon simply “a reflection”. And so on ... Finally: Human been invented too much kinds of prostheses including ones for our intellectual functionalities, i.e. many different kinds of electronic devices which, in particular, can generate some electrical, light, etc. impulses, which we assume as “information”; usually a combination of impulses we assume as s structure to be recognized by us as “information”. A special kind of prostheses are Robots. They have some autonomous functionalities but are still very far from living consciousness. The level of complexity of robot’s consciousness is far of human’s one. Someone may say that robots understand and exchange “information”, but still they only react on incoming signals following the instructions given by humans. Theirs functioning is similar to human ones but only similar. They may recognize some structure
[Fis] Can the can drink beer ?
Dear Brian, Arturo, Karl, Alex, Lars-Goran, Gyuri, and FIS colleagues, Thank you for your remarks! What is important is that every theory has its own understanding of the concepts it uses. For “foreigners”, theirs meaning may be strange or unknown. Some times, concepts of one theory contradict to corresponded concepts from other theory. For years, I have met many different definitions of concept “information” and many more kinds of its use. >From materialistic up to weird point of view... To clear my own understanding, I shall give you a simple example: CAN THE CAN DRINK BEER ? CAN THE CAN EXCHANGE BEER WITH THE GLASS ? The can is used by humans for some goals, for instance to store some beer for a given period. But the can itself “could not understand” its own functions and what the can can do with beer it contains. All its functionality is a human’s consciousness model. Can cannot exchange beer with the glass if there are no human activity or activity of additional devices invented by humans to support this. Further: CAN THE ARTIFICIAL LEG WALK ? You know the answer ... Human with an artificial leg can walk ... All functionality of artificial leg is a result from human’s consciousness modeling and invention. In addition: IS THE “PHYSICAL INFORMATION” INFORMATION ? If it is, the first question is how to measure the quantity and quality of such “information” and who can do this? I prefer the answer “NO” – “physical information” is a concept which means something else but not “information” as it is in my understanding. >From my point of view, “physical information” is a kind of reflection (see >“Theory of reflections” of T.Pavlov). Every reflection may be assumed as information iff (if and only if) there exist a subjective information expectation to be resolved by given reflection. For physical information this low is not satisfied. Because of this, I prefer to call this phenomenon simply “a reflection”. And so on ... Finally: Human been invented too much kinds of prostheses including ones for our intellectual functionalities, i.e. many different kinds of electronic devices which, in particular, can generate some electrical, light, etc. impulses, which we assume as “information”; usually a combination of impulses we assume as s structure to be recognized by us as “information”. A special kind of prostheses are Robots. They have some autonomous functionalities but are still very far from living consciousness. The level of complexity of robot’s consciousness is far of human’s one. Someone may say that robots understand and exchange “information”, but still they only react on incoming signals following the instructions given by humans. Theirs functioning is similar to human ones but only similar. They may recognize some structures of signals and exchange such ones with other robots or living creatures. Maybe someone wants to call this “information exchange”, but, after Shannon, I call this “sending and/or receiving signals”. And automatic reaction to signals. One may say, the Robot (Computer) memory contains information but really it does not contain anything – it has its own structure which can be changed temporally of permanently by external electrical impulses. Is the human memory the same – a structure which can be changed temporally of permanently by external or internal signals? I think – yes, It is! What is the difference? Why we may say that the living creatures process information but not living couldn’t? The answer is: because the living creatures may create and resolve the “information expectation” with very high level of complexity. Maybe in the future robots will can do it ... Such robot I call “INFOS”. It will be artificial living creature. Possibly with some biological elements. It will be very interesting and amazing to see how the can can drink beer :-) And very dangerous – where the beer will be kept if the can can drink it? I hope, now it is clear why I assert that (now!) non-living objects COULD NOT “exchange information”. Friendly regards Krassimir From: Karl Javorszky Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 8:24 PM To: Alex Hankey Cc: Krassimir Markov ; Arturo Tozzi ; FIS Webinar Subject: Re: [Fis] non-living objects COULD NOT “exchange information” 1) Let me second to the point Alex raises: machines, computers, do exchange information. It would be against cultural conventions to say that the notification that the refrigerator sends to your phone's app "to-do-list" of the content "milk only 0.5 liter available" is not an information. The signals my car's pressure sensor sends to my dashboard, saying "tire pressure front right wheel is critically low" is a clear case of information, whether I read it or not. 2) Let me add to the point Alex states, namely that the "form of information that I presented to FiS a year ago offers the only scientifically based,mathematical physics form of 'information' that I have
