Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On 05 Mar 2013, at 19:14, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 12:03:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: You statement of need for a human to observe the pattern is the smoking gun to indicate a misunderstanding of semiotic theory on your part. I don't think that it has to be humans doing the observing at all. Specifically, you don’t need a human; a machine will do. A machine can only help another non-machine interpret something. I don't think that they can interpret anything for 'themselves'. You should study machine's self-reference. It is easy to program a machine interpreting data, by itself and for herself. This is not like consciousness. this is testable and already done. You confuse the notion of machine before Post, Church Turing and after. Bruno Not all machines are man-made. True, but what we see as natural machines may not be just machines. Man-made machines may be just machines. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:24 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit a jackpot on a slot machine - that may not have happened before, but the slot machine is designed to payout whenever it does. The jackpot already exists as a potential and sooner or later it will be realized. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Agree. But the converse - the acceptor can only accept information which has been included for delivery by intention (or accidentally I suppose). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where the task is to cull *bad* dried beans from *good* dried beans as they go by on a conveyor belt; the *bad* beans are removed by hand, so the line worker is constantly looking for *bad* beans while constantly being aware of the fact that not many of the beans are *bad*. The consciousness is aware of both that which is present and that which is not present. Yes, the expectation is key. I call that the perceptual inertial frame. There is an accumulated inertia of expectations which filters, amplifies, distorts, etc. Further, what any information that you emit means to you is irrelevant to the meaning that another may take for that information. Then how does art work? Music? Certainly it is pretty clear that what emitting Iron Man meant to Black Sabbath is different from what emitting the Four Seasons meant to Vivaldi. I
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On 06 Mar 2013, at 00:03, Stephen P. King wrote: On 3/5/2013 3:03 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig, You build an automaton, place it and turn it on, and from that point in time forward the automaton reacts to acceptable information all on its own. You contradict yourself – - I don’t think it has to be human – machines only help non-machines to interpret - - and if the human point is important, then surely you will accept your definition to be that it must be biological life, for a machine cannot be alive. A machine is either a machine or it is not a machine – a machine cannot be both a machine and not a machine at the same time. wrb Do we have a exact definition of what is a machine? This exists only for digital machine, today, assuming Church's thesis. You can define a digital machine or a digital process by anything Turing emulable, or emulable by a diophantine equation, or a combinator, etc. Bruno -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Thursday, March 7, 2013 6:55:25 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Mar 2013, at 19:14, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 12:03:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: You statement of need for a human to observe the pattern is the smoking gun to indicate a misunderstanding of semiotic theory on your part. I don't think that it has to be humans doing the observing at all. Specifically, you don’t need a human; a machine will do. A machine can only help another non-machine interpret something. I don't think that they can interpret anything for 'themselves'. You should study machine's self-reference. It is easy to program a machine interpreting data, by itself and for herself. This is not like consciousness. this is testable and already done. You confuse the notion of machine before Post, Church Turing and after. Interpretation is consciousness though. What is tested is that results correspond with expectations in a way which is meaningful to us, not to the machine. I can use a mirror to reflect an image that I see, but that doesn't mean that the mirror intends to reflect images, or knows what they are, or has an experience of them. We can prove that the image is indeed consistent with our expectations of a reflected original though. Craig Bruno Not all machines are man-made. True, but what we see as natural machines may not be just machines. Man-made machines may be just machines. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:24 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit a jackpot on a slot machine - that may not have happened before, but the slot machine is designed to payout whenever it does. The jackpot already exists as a potential and sooner or later it will be realized. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Agree. But the converse - the acceptor can only accept information which has been included for delivery by intention (or accidentally I suppose). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where the task is to cull *bad* dried beans from *good* dried beans as they go by on a conveyor belt; the *bad* beans are removed by hand, so the line worker is constantly looking for *bad* beans while constantly being aware
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 10:55:31 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The falling tree makes sound, the wind make sound, the … makes sound regardless of your presence (or the presence of others) to hear that sound. Regardless of my presence, of course, but to make sound, you need an ear and a medium which vibrates that ear. If you take the atmosphere away, then of course the falling tree could not make a sound to anyone. For the same reason, if you take all of the ears away, then there can be no such thing as sound. To argue anything else is utter nonsense. To the contrary. To assume that physics can simply 'exist' outside of a context of detection and participation is a statement of religious faith. We have never experienced an unexperienced world, so it would be unscientific to presume such a thing. This has nothing to do with human experience, its ontology. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 7:34 PM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:52:32 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: I do not hold that the acceptor must exist, for then I am making a value judgment, and I have already scolded Craig for the same thing. Think of it this way. A volume of gas has a measure of entropy. This means that the molecules are found in found by what? a specific sequence of microstates, and those microstates constitute an information state of the molecules. Who is it constituted to though? Empty space? The molecules as a group? Each molecule? What is validating that these molecules exist in some way - that there is a such thing as a microstate which can be detected in some way by something... and what is detection? How does it work? When these things are taken as axiomatic, then we are just reiterating those axioms when we claim that no acceptor must exist. In my understanding, exist and acceptor are the same thing. Alter that microstate sequence (as by adding or removing entropy) and the description of the microstate sequence changes correspondingly; entropy is information. Only if something can detect their own description of the microstate as having changed. We cannot assume that there is any change at all if nothing can possibly detect it. For example, if I take make a movie of ice cubes melting in a glass, even though that is a case of increasing thermodynamic entropy, we will see a lower cost of video compression in a movie of the glass after the ice has melted completely. In that case the image description can be made to follow either increasing or decreasing information entropy depending on whether you play the movie forward and backward. There is no link between microstate thermodynamic entropy and optical description information entropy. Craig Acceptors and signals; contexts and signs; … wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *John Mikes *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:13 PM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information Dear Bil B. you probably have thought in these lines during similar long periods as I did. It was ~2 decades ago when I defined i n f o r m a t i o n as something with (at least) 2 ends: 1. the notion (in whatever format it shows up) - and 2. the acceptor (adjusting the notion in whatever context it can be perceived - appercipiated (adjusted). I have no idea how to make a connection between information (anyway how one defines it) and the (inner?) disorder level of anything (entropy?). I dislike this thermodynamic term alltogether. Later on I tried to refine my wording into: RELATIONS and the capability of recognizing them. That moved away from a 'human(?)' framework. E. g. I called the 'closeness of a '(+)' charge to a '(-)' potential an information so it came close to SOME consciousness (=(?) *response to relations*), no matter in what kind of domain. Do you feel some merit to my thinking? John Mikes On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 2:06 AM, William R. Buckley bill.b...@gmail.com wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Wednesday, March 6, 2013 12:09:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Now we are getting some place. Exactly. There is simply action. Contexts react to sign. They react to their interpretations of a sign. The sign itself is a figure - a disposable form hijacked by the intention of the transmitter. The sign depends on sensitivities to be detected. When it is detected, it is not detected as the sign intended by the transmitter unless the semiosis is well executed, which is up to both the transmitter and receiver's intentional and unintentional contributions. Craig Nothing more. Nothing less. The complexity of action is open ended. wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Wednesday, March 06, 2013 4:12 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:48:19 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: The mistake you make is clearly stated in your words: “…doesn’t mean that they communicated with judgment.” You are anthropomorphizing. The value is no more nor no less than the action taken upon signal acceptance. That's ok, but it means there is no value. There is simply action. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:27 PM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:07:00 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The fact that a machine can act in a discriminatory based upon some signal (sign, information) input is demonstration of value judgment. Only in our eyes, not in its own eyes. It's like telling a kid to say some insult to someone in another language. The fact they are able to carry out your instruction doesn't mean that they communicated with judgment. Just as there is no **in** in a machine, so to there is no **in** in a biological organism; they both, machine and organism, But there is an 'in' with respect to the experience of an organism - only because we know it first hand. There would seem to be no reason why a machine couldn't have a similar 'in', but it actually seems that their nature indicates they do not. I take the extra step and hypothesize exactly why that is - because experience is not generated out of the bodies associated with them, but rather the bodies are simply a public view of one aspect of the experience. If you build a machine, you are assembling bodies to relate to each other, as external forms, so that no interiority 'emerges' from the gaps between them. are forms that treat other forms in certain proscribed ways. You cannot demonstrate otherwise. Sure I can. Feelings, colors, personalities, intentions, historical zeitgeists...these are not forms relating to forms. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:37 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:53:31 AM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Let´s say that what we call information is an extended form of sensory input. What makes this input information is the usability of this input for reducing the internal entropy of the receiver or increase the internal order. The receiver can be a machine, a cell, a person or a society for example. If the input do not produce this effect in the receiver, then that input is not information. The increase of internal order of the receiver is a symptom of an experience of being informed but they are not the same thing. It's not really even relevant in most cases. I would not call it an extended form of sensory input, but a reduction of sensory experience. Input is not a physical reality, it is a conceptual label. Consider Blindsight: I hold up two fingers and ask how many fingers? I don't know.' Guess 'two'. This example tells us about information without tying it to decreased entropy. My two fingers are a form. I am putting them into that form, so the process of my presenting my fingers is a formation of a sign. The sign is not information at this point. It means something different to an ant or a frog than it does to a person looking at it. If you can't see, there is no formation there at all unless you can collide with my fingers. When the patient responds that they don't know how many fingers, it is because they personally have no experience of seeing it. They are not being informed personally by the form of my fingers in front of their face because they have blindsight. When they guess correctly
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Thursday, March 7, 2013 1:39:25 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: I have before claimed that the computer is a good example of the power of semiosis. It is simple enough to see that the mere construction of a Turing machine confers upon that machine the ability to recognise all computations; to generate the yield of such computations. In this sense, a program (the source code) is a sequence of signs that upon acceptance brings the machine to generate some corresponding yield; a computation. Also, the intention of an entity behind sign origination has nothing whatsoever to do with the acceptability of that sign by some other entity, much less the meaning there taken for the sign. The meaning of a sign is always centered upon the acceptor of that sign. I agree but I don't think the machine can accept any sign. It can copy them and perform scripted transformations on them, but ultimately there is no yield at all. The Turing machine does not no that it has yielded a result of a computation, and more than a bucket of water knows when it is being emptied. In fact, you could make a Turing machine out of nothing but buckets of water on pulleys and it would literally be some pattern of filled buckets which is supposed to be meaningful as a sign or yield to the 'machine' (collection of buckets? water molecules? convection currents? general buckety-watery-movingness?) Craig wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Craig: When you say that interpretation is consciousness you contradict your prior statements regarding semiosis, that acceptance and action are not value. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 8:05 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Thursday, March 7, 2013 6:55:25 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Mar 2013, at 19:14, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 12:03:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: You statement of need for a human to observe the pattern is the smoking gun to indicate a misunderstanding of semiotic theory on your part. I don't think that it has to be humans doing the observing at all. Specifically, you don't need a human; a machine will do. A machine can only help another non-machine interpret something. I don't think that they can interpret anything for 'themselves'. You should study machine's self-reference. It is easy to program a machine interpreting data, by itself and for herself. This is not like consciousness. this is testable and already done. You confuse the notion of machine before Post, Church Turing and after. Interpretation is consciousness though. What is tested is that results correspond with expectations in a way which is meaningful to us, not to the machine. I can use a mirror to reflect an image that I see, but that doesn't mean that the mirror intends to reflect images, or knows what they are, or has an experience of them. We can prove that the image is indeed consistent with our expectations of a reflected original though. Craig Bruno Not all machines are man-made. True, but what we see as natural machines may not be just machines. Man-made machines may be just machines. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:24 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit a jackpot on a slot machine - that may not have happened before, but the slot machine is designed to payout whenever it does. The jackpot already exists as a potential and sooner or later it will be realized. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Agree. But the converse - the acceptor can only accept information which has been included for delivery by intention (or accidentally I suppose). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
I think that like light, being composed of two propagating waves, we should find sound to be composed of propagating pressure waves regardless of media. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 8:10 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 10:55:31 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The falling tree makes sound, the wind make sound, the . makes sound regardless of your presence (or the presence of others) to hear that sound. Regardless of my presence, of course, but to make sound, you need an ear and a medium which vibrates that ear. If you take the atmosphere away, then of course the falling tree could not make a sound to anyone. For the same reason, if you take all of the ears away, then there can be no such thing as sound. To argue anything else is utter nonsense. To the contrary. To assume that physics can simply 'exist' outside of a context of detection and participation is a statement of religious faith. We have never experienced an unexperienced world, so it would be unscientific to presume such a thing. This has nothing to do with human experience, its ontology. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: ] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 7:34 PM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:52:32 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: I do not hold that the acceptor must exist, for then I am making a value judgment, and I have already scolded Craig for the same thing. Think of it this way. A volume of gas has a measure of entropy. This means that the molecules are found in found by what? a specific sequence of microstates, and those microstates constitute an information state of the molecules. Who is it constituted to though? Empty space? The molecules as a group? Each molecule? What is validating that these molecules exist in some way - that there is a such thing as a microstate which can be detected in some way by something... and what is detection? How does it work? When these things are taken as axiomatic, then we are just reiterating those axioms when we claim that no acceptor must exist. In my understanding, exist and acceptor are the same thing. Alter that microstate sequence (as by adding or removing entropy) and the description of the microstate sequence changes correspondingly; entropy is information. Only if something can detect their own description of the microstate as having changed. We cannot assume that there is any change at all if nothing can possibly detect it. For example, if I take make a movie of ice cubes melting in a glass, even though that is a case of increasing thermodynamic entropy, we will see a lower cost of video compression in a movie of the glass after the ice has melted completely. In that case the image description can be made to follow either increasing or decreasing information entropy depending on whether you play the movie forward and backward. There is no link between microstate thermodynamic entropy and optical description information entropy. Craig Acceptors and signals; contexts and signs; . wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Mikes Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:13 PM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information Dear Bil B. you probably have thought in these lines during similar long periods as I did. It was ~2 decades ago when I defined i n f o r m a t i o n as something with (at least) 2 ends: 1. the notion (in whatever format it shows up) - and 2. the acceptor (adjusting the notion in whatever context it can be perceived - appercipiated (adjusted). I have no idea how to make a connection between information (anyway how one defines it) and the (inner?) disorder level of anything (entropy?). I dislike this thermodynamic term alltogether. Later on I tried to refine my wording into: RELATIONS and the capability of recognizing them. That moved away from a 'human(?)' framework. E. g. I called the 'closeness of a '(+)' charge to a '(-)' potential an information so it came close to SOME consciousness (=(?) response to relations), no matter in what kind of domain. Do you feel some merit to my thinking? John Mikes On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 2:06 AM, William R. Buckley bill.b...@gmail.com wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
The sign is what it is and contexts react to signs. The other words you use in your argumentation are unnecessary at the very least, and I think they lead to muddled thinking on your end. The sign takes no action; it simply is. The context takes all action, to include the action of doing nothing at all. Meaning is no more nor no less than the action taken by the context. The sign does not have some magical character called *sensitivity to detectability* Semiotics has nothing to do with Shannon’s information transmission problem. The reason for this is that Shannon assumes that both transmitter and receiver share a common context. You, on the other hand, don’t have that luxury. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 8:17 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Wednesday, March 6, 2013 12:09:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Now we are getting some place. Exactly. There is simply action. Contexts react to sign. They react to their interpretations of a sign. The sign itself is a figure - a disposable form hijacked by the intention of the transmitter. The sign depends on sensitivities to be detected. When it is detected, it is not detected as the sign intended by the transmitter unless the semiosis is well executed, which is up to both the transmitter and receiver's intentional and unintentional contributions. Craig Nothing more. Nothing less. The complexity of action is open ended. wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: ] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 4:12 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:48:19 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: The mistake you make is clearly stated in your words: “…doesn’t mean that they communicated with judgment.” You are anthropomorphizing. The value is no more nor no less than the action taken upon signal acceptance. That's ok, but it means there is no value. There is simply action. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:27 PM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:07:00 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The fact that a machine can act in a discriminatory based upon some signal (sign, information) input is demonstration of value judgment. Only in our eyes, not in its own eyes. It's like telling a kid to say some insult to someone in another language. The fact they are able to carry out your instruction doesn't mean that they communicated with judgment. Just as there is no *in* in a machine, so to there is no *in* in a biological organism; they both, machine and organism, But there is an 'in' with respect to the experience of an organism - only because we know it first hand. There would seem to be no reason why a machine couldn't have a similar 'in', but it actually seems that their nature indicates they do not. I take the extra step and hypothesize exactly why that is - because experience is not generated out of the bodies associated with them, but rather the bodies are simply a public view of one aspect of the experience. If you build a machine, you are assembling bodies to relate to each other, as external forms, so that no interiority 'emerges' from the gaps between them. are forms that treat other forms in certain proscribed ways. You cannot demonstrate otherwise. Sure I can. Feelings, colors, personalities, intentions, historical zeitgeists...these are not forms relating to forms. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:37 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:53:31 AM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Let´s say that what we call information is an extended form of sensory input. What makes this input information is the usability of this input for reducing the internal entropy of the receiver or increase the internal order. The receiver can be a machine, a cell, a person or a society for example. If the input do not produce this effect in the receiver, then that input is not information. The increase of internal order of the receiver is a symptom of an experience of being informed but they are not the same thing. It's not really even relevant in most cases. I would not call it an extended form of sensory input, but a reduction of sensory experience. Input is not a physical reality, it is a conceptual label. Consider
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Thursday, March 7, 2013 12:21:57 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: When you say that “interpretation is consciousness” you contradict your prior statements regarding semiosis, that acceptance and action are not value. I'm not sure what you're getting at. Acceptance in the sense of receiving a sign is not the same as valuing, interpreting, or being conscious of a sign. A router receives an electronic signal, but it has no interpretation or value of it beyond routing it to the next router. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Thursday, March 07, 2013 8:05 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Thursday, March 7, 2013 6:55:25 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Mar 2013, at 19:14, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 12:03:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: You statement of need for a human to observe the pattern is the smoking gun to indicate a misunderstanding of semiotic theory on your part. I don't think that it has to be humans doing the observing at all. Specifically, you don’t need a human; a machine will do. A machine can only help another non-machine interpret something. I don't think that they can interpret anything for 'themselves'. You should study machine's self-reference. It is easy to program a machine interpreting data, by itself and for herself. This is not like consciousness. this is testable and already done. You confuse the notion of machine before Post, Church Turing and after. Interpretation is consciousness though. What is tested is that results correspond with expectations in a way which is meaningful to us, not to the machine. I can use a mirror to reflect an image that I see, but that doesn't mean that the mirror intends to reflect images, or knows what they are, or has an experience of them. We can prove that the image is indeed consistent with our expectations of a reflected original though. Craig Bruno Not all machines are man-made. True, but what we see as natural machines may not be just machines. Man-made machines may be just machines. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:24 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit a jackpot on a slot machine - that may not have happened before, but the slot machine is designed to payout whenever it does. The jackpot already exists as a potential and sooner or later it will be realized. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
A machine can accept sign and yield alteration of its configuration (add to its parts, delete from its parts but most of all alter the complexity of its parts and their arrangement) such that the machine develops its ability to: 1. accept sign - one yield you did not consider 2. increase the complexity of constructs - another yield you did not consider 3. acquire Turing competence from incompetence - a third yield you did not consider wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 8:33 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Thursday, March 7, 2013 1:39:25 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: I have before claimed that the computer is a good example of the power of semiosis. It is simple enough to see that the mere construction of a Turing machine confers upon that machine the ability to recognise all computations; to generate the yield of such computations. In this sense, a program (the source code) is a sequence of signs that upon acceptance brings the machine to generate some corresponding yield; a computation. Also, the intention of an entity behind sign origination has nothing whatsoever to do with the acceptability of that sign by some other entity, much less the meaning there taken for the sign. The meaning of a sign is always centered upon the acceptor of that sign. I agree but I don't think the machine can accept any sign. It can copy them and perform scripted transformations on them, but ultimately there is no yield at all. The Turing machine does not no that it has yielded a result of a computation, and more than a bucket of water knows when it is being emptied. In fact, you could make a Turing machine out of nothing but buckets of water on pulleys and it would literally be some pattern of filled buckets which is supposed to be meaningful as a sign or yield to the 'machine' (collection of buckets? water molecules? convection currents? general buckety-watery-movingness?) Craig wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Right there, that is the problem: your reliance upon consciousness for your argumentation. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 9:34 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Thursday, March 7, 2013 12:21:57 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: When you say that interpretation is consciousness you contradict your prior statements regarding semiosis, that acceptance and action are not value. I'm not sure what you're getting at. Acceptance in the sense of receiving a sign is not the same as valuing, interpreting, or being conscious of a sign. A router receives an electronic signal, but it has no interpretation or value of it beyond routing it to the next router. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: ] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 8:05 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Thursday, March 7, 2013 6:55:25 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Mar 2013, at 19:14, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 12:03:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: You statement of need for a human to observe the pattern is the smoking gun to indicate a misunderstanding of semiotic theory on your part. I don't think that it has to be humans doing the observing at all. Specifically, you don't need a human; a machine will do. A machine can only help another non-machine interpret something. I don't think that they can interpret anything for 'themselves'. You should study machine's self-reference. It is easy to program a machine interpreting data, by itself and for herself. This is not like consciousness. this is testable and already done. You confuse the notion of machine before Post, Church Turing and after. Interpretation is consciousness though. What is tested is that results correspond with expectations in a way which is meaningful to us, not to the machine. I can use a mirror to reflect an image that I see, but that doesn't mean that the mirror intends to reflect images, or knows what they are, or has an experience of them. We can prove that the image is indeed consistent with our expectations of a reflected original though. Craig Bruno Not all machines are man-made. True, but what we see as natural machines may not be just machines. Man-made machines may be just machines. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:24 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit a jackpot on a slot machine - that may not have happened before, but the slot machine is designed to payout whenever it does. The jackpot already exists as a potential
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Thursday, March 7, 2013 12:32:21 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The sign is what it is and contexts react to signs. What is it though? This sentence... is it words? Letters? Pixels on a screen? Images in our visual experience? photons? All of these require detection and interpretation. The sign or text is just a perturbation of a given context. The other words you use in your argumentation are unnecessary at the very least, and I think they lead to muddled thinking on your end. No, in my experience they lead to perfect clarity. The sign takes no action; it simply is. It takes no action, but nothing simply is. A sign is an experience which interpreted as linking one experience to another - nothing more. It has no independent existence. The context takes all action, to include the action of doing nothing at all. Once the signal is given by the transmitter, then sure it is up to the receiver of the signal to interpret it. How the transmitter formats the signal will influence the receiver's reception and interpretation possibilities though. Meaning is no more nor no less than the action taken by the context. Not sure I get what you mean. A signal can still be meaningful even if you never take action on it. Your favorite baseball hero says hi to you and you remember it as meaningful. What does that have to do with any action taken or not taken? The sign does not have some magical character called **sensitivity to detectability** I agree, the sign is a figurative entity. It has no physical presence or capacities. Semiotics has nothing to do with Shannon’s information transmission problem. The reason for this is that Shannon assumes that both transmitter and receiver share a common context. You, on the other hand, don’t have that luxury. It makes sense to assume a common context if you are designing a communications system. I don't have an opinion on whether Shannon and semiotics are unrelated. Depends how you want to consider them. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Thursday, March 07, 2013 8:17 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Wednesday, March 6, 2013 12:09:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Now we are getting some place. Exactly. There is simply action. Contexts react to sign. They react to their interpretations of a sign. The sign itself is a figure - a disposable form hijacked by the intention of the transmitter. The sign depends on sensitivities to be detected. When it is detected, it is not detected as the sign intended by the transmitter unless the semiosis is well executed, which is up to both the transmitter and receiver's intentional and unintentional contributions. Craig Nothing more. Nothing less. The complexity of action is open ended. wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Wednesday, March 06, 2013 4:12 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:48:19 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: The mistake you make is clearly stated in your words: “…doesn’t mean that they communicated with judgment.” You are anthropomorphizing. The value is no more nor no less than the action taken upon signal acceptance. That's ok, but it means there is no value. There is simply action. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:27 PM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:07:00 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The fact that a machine can act in a discriminatory based upon some signal (sign, information) input is demonstration of value judgment. Only in our eyes, not in its own eyes. It's like telling a kid to say some insult to someone in another language. The fact they are able to carry out your instruction doesn't mean that they communicated with judgment. Just as there is no **in** in a machine, so to there is no **in** in a biological organism; they both, machine and organism, But there is an 'in' with respect to the experience of an organism - only because we know it first hand. There would seem to be no reason why a machine couldn't have a similar 'in', but it actually seems that their nature indicates they do not. I take the extra step and hypothesize exactly why that is - because experience is not generated out of the bodies associated with them, but rather the bodies are simply a public view
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
The context takes all action, to include the action of doing nothing at all. Once the signal is given by the transmitter, then sure it is up to the receiver of the signal to interpret it. How the transmitter formats the signal will influence the receiver's reception and interpretation possibilities though. How the transmitter formats signal, what sign the transmitter sends will influence the receiver's reception but only to the extent that the transmitted signal corresponds to a priori defined acceptance criteria in the receiver. This criteria is not under the influence of the transmitter. wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Thursday, March 7, 2013 12:56:01 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The context takes all action, to include the action of doing nothing at all. Once the signal is given by the transmitter, then sure it is up to the receiver of the signal to interpret it. How the transmitter formats the signal will influence the receiver's reception and interpretation possibilities though. How the transmitter formats signal, what sign the transmitter sends will influence the receiver’s reception but only to the extent that the transmitted signal corresponds to a priori defined acceptance criteria in the receiver. This criteria is not under the influence of the transmitter. Only the initial criteria. The signal can be switch to 88.9 mHz and use Morse Code or the ip address to use for future signals is the number of my favorite basketball player followed by .15.129.99. wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:48:19 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: The mistake you make is clearly stated in your words: “…doesn’t mean that they communicated with judgment.” You are anthropomorphizing. The value is no more nor no less than the action taken upon signal acceptance. That's ok, but it means there is no value. There is simply action. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:27 PM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:07:00 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The fact that a machine can act in a discriminatory based upon some signal (sign, information) input is demonstration of value judgment. Only in our eyes, not in its own eyes. It's like telling a kid to say some insult to someone in another language. The fact they are able to carry out your instruction doesn't mean that they communicated with judgment. Just as there is no **in** in a machine, so to there is no **in** in a biological organism; they both, machine and organism, But there is an 'in' with respect to the experience of an organism - only because we know it first hand. There would seem to be no reason why a machine couldn't have a similar 'in', but it actually seems that their nature indicates they do not. I take the extra step and hypothesize exactly why that is - because experience is not generated out of the bodies associated with them, but rather the bodies are simply a public view of one aspect of the experience. If you build a machine, you are assembling bodies to relate to each other, as external forms, so that no interiority 'emerges' from the gaps between them. are forms that treat other forms in certain proscribed ways. You cannot demonstrate otherwise. Sure I can. Feelings, colors, personalities, intentions, historical zeitgeists...these are not forms relating to forms. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:37 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:53:31 AM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Let´s say that what we call information is an extended form of sensory input. What makes this input information is the usability of this input for reducing the internal entropy of the receiver or increase the internal order. The receiver can be a machine, a cell, a person or a society for example. If the input do not produce this effect in the receiver, then that input is not information. The increase of internal order of the receiver is a symptom of an experience of being informed but they are not the same thing. It's not really even relevant in most cases. I would not call it an extended form of sensory input, but a reduction of sensory experience. Input is not a physical reality, it is a conceptual label. Consider Blindsight: I hold up two fingers and ask how many fingers? I don't know.' Guess 'two'. This example tells us about information without tying it to decreased entropy. My two fingers are a form. I am putting them into that form, so the process of my presenting my fingers is a formation of a sign. The sign is not information at this point. It means something different to an ant or a frog than it does to a person looking at it. If you can't see, there is no formation there at all unless you can collide with my fingers. When the patient responds that they don't know how many fingers, it is because they personally have no experience of seeing it. They are not being informed personally by the form of my fingers in front of their face because they have blindsight. When they guess correctly, they still have not been informed. Only we know that the information is correct. At this point you could say that there is some decrease in information entropy of the receiver as far as we are concerned, but in fact, for the receiver themselves, they have not increased any internal order. A machine has blindsight about everything. They can be queried and produce valid responses to inform us, but they are never informed themselves. There is no 'in' in a machine, it is an organization of forms which treat other forms in a proscribed way. Forms are copied, transformed, and presented in a context that it has no experience of. My computer sees nothing that I see on this screen. It reads nothing that I type here. It doesn't know what the Everything List is - not even Google knows what it is - only that the string of characters in the name is to be associated with an ip address. Craig 2013/3/2 William R
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Now we are getting some place. Exactly. There is simply action. Contexts react to sign. Nothing more. Nothing less. The complexity of action is open ended. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 4:12 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:48:19 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: The mistake you make is clearly stated in your words: “…doesn’t mean that they communicated with judgment.” You are anthropomorphizing. The value is no more nor no less than the action taken upon signal acceptance. That's ok, but it means there is no value. There is simply action. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: ] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:27 PM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:07:00 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The fact that a machine can act in a discriminatory based upon some signal (sign, information) input is demonstration of value judgment. Only in our eyes, not in its own eyes. It's like telling a kid to say some insult to someone in another language. The fact they are able to carry out your instruction doesn't mean that they communicated with judgment. Just as there is no *in* in a machine, so to there is no *in* in a biological organism; they both, machine and organism, But there is an 'in' with respect to the experience of an organism - only because we know it first hand. There would seem to be no reason why a machine couldn't have a similar 'in', but it actually seems that their nature indicates they do not. I take the extra step and hypothesize exactly why that is - because experience is not generated out of the bodies associated with them, but rather the bodies are simply a public view of one aspect of the experience. If you build a machine, you are assembling bodies to relate to each other, as external forms, so that no interiority 'emerges' from the gaps between them. are forms that treat other forms in certain proscribed ways. You cannot demonstrate otherwise. Sure I can. Feelings, colors, personalities, intentions, historical zeitgeists...these are not forms relating to forms. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:37 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:53:31 AM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Let´s say that what we call information is an extended form of sensory input. What makes this input information is the usability of this input for reducing the internal entropy of the receiver or increase the internal order. The receiver can be a machine, a cell, a person or a society for example. If the input do not produce this effect in the receiver, then that input is not information. The increase of internal order of the receiver is a symptom of an experience of being informed but they are not the same thing. It's not really even relevant in most cases. I would not call it an extended form of sensory input, but a reduction of sensory experience. Input is not a physical reality, it is a conceptual label. Consider Blindsight: I hold up two fingers and ask how many fingers? I don't know.' Guess 'two'. This example tells us about information without tying it to decreased entropy. My two fingers are a form. I am putting them into that form, so the process of my presenting my fingers is a formation of a sign. The sign is not information at this point. It means something different to an ant or a frog than it does to a person looking at it. If you can't see, there is no formation there at all unless you can collide with my fingers. When the patient responds that they don't know how many fingers, it is because they personally have no experience of seeing it. They are not being informed personally by the form of my fingers in front of their face because they have blindsight. When they guess correctly, they still have not been informed. Only we know that the information is correct. At this point you could say that there is some decrease in information entropy of the receiver as far as we are concerned, but in fact, for the receiver themselves, they have not increased any internal order. A machine has blindsight about everything. They can be queried and produce valid responses to inform us, but they are never informed themselves. There is no 'in' in a machine, it is an organization of forms which treat other forms in a proscribed way. Forms are copied, transformed, and presented in a context that it has no experience of. My computer sees nothing
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
I should have added that the context sensitivity of the relationship between sign and action is pure subjectivity. Any context able to evaluate itself will conclude that its actions are a direct consequence of choice taken by that context; i.e. values. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 4:12 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:48:19 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: The mistake you make is clearly stated in your words: .doesn't mean that they communicated with judgment. You are anthropomorphizing. The value is no more nor no less than the action taken upon signal acceptance. That's ok, but it means there is no value. There is simply action. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
I have before claimed that the computer is a good example of the power of semiosis. It is simple enough to see that the mere construction of a Turing machine confers upon that machine the ability to recognise all computations; to generate the yield of such computations. In this sense, a program (the source code) is a sequence of signs that upon acceptance brings the machine to generate some corresponding yield; a computation. Also, the intention of an entity behind sign origination has nothing whatsoever to do with the acceptability of that sign by some other entity, much less the meaning there taken for the sign. The meaning of a sign is always centered upon the acceptor of that sign. wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Let´s say that what we call information is an extended form of sensory input. What makes this input information is the usability of this input for reducing the internal entropy of the receiver or increase the internal order. The receiver can be a machine, a cell, a person or a society for example. If the input do not produce this effect in the receiver, then that input is not information. 2013/3/2 William R. Buckley bill.buck...@gmail.com Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above the reality of streaks of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with the information represented by that deformation, nor the increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder obtained from that deformation; these are but three of the *informations* to be found upon review of those streaks. Entropy is how nature sees information (not yet an established fact but I think the tea leaves read clear enough) but that has (presumably) nothing to do with how intelligent individuals see information, or as von Uexküll called such phenomena, signs. Most definitely the information is not to be found within the material of its expression, its representation. Rather, the information is already to be found within the interpreter. That which is information is so by virtue of the acceptor of that information; else, it is noise. And, write the information on a piece of paper and seal the paper within an envelope and you may justifiably claim that the information is contained; else, you are deluding yourself. has an inversely proportionate relationship with the capacity of sender and receiver to synchronize with each other. snip wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit a jackpot on a slot machine - that may not have happened before, but the slot machine is designed to payout whenever it does. The jackpot already exists as a potential and sooner or later it will be realized. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Agree. But the converse - the acceptor can only accept information which has been included for delivery by intention (or accidentally I suppose). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where the task is to cull *bad* dried beans from *good* dried beans as they go by on a conveyor belt; the *bad* beans are removed by hand, so the line worker is constantly looking for *bad* beans while constantly being aware of the fact that not many of the beans are *bad*. The consciousness is aware of both that which is present and that which is not present. Yes, the expectation is key. I call that the perceptual inertial frame. There is an accumulated inertia of expectations which filters, amplifies, distorts, etc. Further, what any information that you emit means to you is irrelevant to the meaning that another may take for that information. Then how does art work? Music? Certainly it is pretty clear that what emitting Iron Man meant to Black Sabbath is different from what emitting the Four Seasons meant to Vivaldi. I agree that the receiver bears the brunt of the decoding, but why deny that the broadcaster can do intentional encoding, when they know the audience? Indeed, it is via reliance upon -Cultural Norms- that your point regarding Morse Code becomes relevant. It is perfectly reasonable for an ornery person to simply reject such norms and act otherwise; your expectation originates in you, not the targets of information you broadcast. The truth of your statement is no reply to my claim, that how another receiver of signs responds is irrelevant to your knowledge, save the one case of conveyance of knowledge between semiotic units; where you intend for knowledge to be conveyed. In that case, it is behooving of the sender to ensure that the receiver can receive and understand the message. I'm not sure what you are bringing up here, but I would say that my point is that all messages have multiple levels of reception, perhaps as many levels as their are receivers in the universe. At the same time, if we are assuming human senders and receivers and a content range which is highly normative and
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Craig: You statement of need for a human to observe the pattern is the smoking gun to indicate a misunderstanding of semiotic theory on your part. Specifically, you don't need a human; a machine will do. Not all machines are man-made. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:24 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit a jackpot on a slot machine - that may not have happened before, but the slot machine is designed to payout whenever it does. The jackpot already exists as a potential and sooner or later it will be realized. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Agree. But the converse - the acceptor can only accept information which has been included for delivery by intention (or accidentally I suppose). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where the task is to cull *bad* dried beans from *good* dried beans as they go by on a conveyor belt; the *bad* beans are removed by hand, so the line worker is constantly looking for *bad* beans while constantly being aware of the fact that not many of the beans are *bad*. The consciousness is aware of both that which is present and that which is not present. Yes, the expectation is key. I call that the perceptual inertial frame. There is an accumulated inertia of expectations which filters, amplifies, distorts, etc. Further, what any information that you emit means to you is irrelevant to the meaning that another may take for that information. Then how does art work? Music? Certainly it is pretty clear that what emitting Iron Man meant to Black Sabbath is different from what emitting the Four Seasons meant to Vivaldi. I agree that the receiver bears the brunt of the decoding, but why deny that the broadcaster can do intentional encoding, when they know the audience? Indeed, it is via reliance upon -Cultural Norms- that your point regarding Morse Code becomes relevant. It is perfectly reasonable for an ornery person to simply reject such norms and act otherwise; your expectation originates in you, not the targets of information you broadcast. The truth of your statement is no reply to my claim, that how another receiver of signs responds is irrelevant to your knowledge, save the one case of conveyance of knowledge between semiotic units; where you intend for knowledge to be conveyed. In that case
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 12:03:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: You statement of need for a human to observe the pattern is the smoking gun to indicate a misunderstanding of semiotic theory on your part. I don't think that it has to be humans doing the observing at all. Specifically, you don’t need a human; a machine will do. A machine can only help another non-machine interpret something. I don't think that they can interpret anything for 'themselves'. Not all machines are man-made. True, but what we see as natural machines may not be just machines. Man-made machines may be just machines. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:24 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit a jackpot on a slot machine - that may not have happened before, but the slot machine is designed to payout whenever it does. The jackpot already exists as a potential and sooner or later it will be realized. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Agree. But the converse - the acceptor can only accept information which has been included for delivery by intention (or accidentally I suppose). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where the task is to cull *bad* dried beans from *good* dried beans as they go by on a conveyor belt; the *bad* beans are removed by hand, so the line worker is constantly looking for *bad* beans while constantly being aware of the fact that not many of the beans are *bad*. The consciousness is aware of both that which is present and that which is not present. Yes, the expectation is key. I call that the perceptual inertial frame. There is an accumulated inertia of expectations which filters, amplifies, distorts, etc. Further, what any information that you emit means to you is irrelevant to the meaning that another may take for that information. Then how does art work? Music? Certainly it is pretty clear that what emitting Iron Man meant to Black Sabbath is different from what emitting the Four Seasons meant to Vivaldi. I agree that the receiver bears the brunt of the decoding, but why deny that the broadcaster can do intentional encoding, when they know the audience? Indeed, it is via
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:53:31 AM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Let´s say that what we call information is an extended form of sensory input. What makes this input information is the usability of this input for reducing the internal entropy of the receiver or increase the internal order. The receiver can be a machine, a cell, a person or a society for example. If the input do not produce this effect in the receiver, then that input is not information. The increase of internal order of the receiver is a symptom of an experience of being informed but they are not the same thing. It's not really even relevant in most cases. I would not call it an extended form of sensory input, but a reduction of sensory experience. Input is not a physical reality, it is a conceptual label. Consider Blindsight: I hold up two fingers and ask how many fingers? I don't know.' Guess 'two'. This example tells us about information without tying it to decreased entropy. My two fingers are a form. I am putting them into that form, so the process of my presenting my fingers is a formation of a sign. The sign is not information at this point. It means something different to an ant or a frog than it does to a person looking at it. If you can't see, there is no formation there at all unless you can collide with my fingers. When the patient responds that they don't know how many fingers, it is because they personally have no experience of seeing it. They are not being informed personally by the form of my fingers in front of their face because they have blindsight. When they guess correctly, they still have not been informed. Only we know that the information is correct. At this point you could say that there is some decrease in information entropy of the receiver as far as we are concerned, but in fact, for the receiver themselves, they have not increased any internal order. A machine has blindsight about everything. They can be queried and produce valid responses to inform us, but they are never informed themselves. There is no 'in' in a machine, it is an organization of forms which treat other forms in a proscribed way. Forms are copied, transformed, and presented in a context that it has no experience of. My computer sees nothing that I see on this screen. It reads nothing that I type here. It doesn't know what the Everything List is - not even Google knows what it is - only that the string of characters in the name is to be associated with an ip address. Craig 2013/3/2 William R. Buckley bill.b...@gmail.com javascript: Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above the reality of streaks of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with the information represented by that deformation, nor the increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder obtained from that deformation; these are but three of the *informations* to be found upon review of those streaks. Entropy is how nature sees information (not yet an established fact but I think the tea leaves read clear enough) but that has (presumably) nothing to do with how intelligent individuals see information, or as von Uexküll called such phenomena, signs. Most definitely the information is not to be found within the material of its expression, its representation. Rather, the information is already to be found within the interpreter. That which is information is so by virtue of the acceptor of that information; else, it is noise. And, write the information on a piece of paper and seal the paper within an envelope and you may justifiably claim that the information is contained; else, you are deluding yourself. has an inversely proportionate relationship with the capacity of sender and receiver to synchronize with each other. snip wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Craig, You build an automaton, place it and turn it on, and from that point in time forward the automaton reacts to acceptable information all on its own. You contradict yourself - - I don't think it has to be human - machines only help non-machines to interpret - - and if the human point is important, then surely you will accept your definition to be that it must be biological life, for a machine cannot be alive. A machine is either a machine or it is not a machine - a machine cannot be both a machine and not a machine at the same time. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:14 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 12:03:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: You statement of need for a human to observe the pattern is the smoking gun to indicate a misunderstanding of semiotic theory on your part. I don't think that it has to be humans doing the observing at all. Specifically, you don't need a human; a machine will do. A machine can only help another non-machine interpret something. I don't think that they can interpret anything for 'themselves'. Not all machines are man-made. True, but what we see as natural machines may not be just machines. Man-made machines may be just machines. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: ] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:24 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit a jackpot on a slot machine - that may not have happened before, but the slot machine is designed to payout whenever it does. The jackpot already exists as a potential and sooner or later it will be realized. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Agree. But the converse - the acceptor can only accept information which has been included for delivery by intention (or accidentally I suppose). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where the task is to cull *bad* dried beans from *good* dried beans as they go by on a conveyor belt; the *bad* beans are removed by hand, so the line worker is constantly looking for *bad* beans while constantly being aware of the fact that not many of the beans are *bad*. The consciousness is aware of both that which
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
The fact that a machine can act in a discriminatory based upon some signal (sign, information) input is demonstration of value judgment. Just as there is no *in* in a machine, so to there is no *in* in a biological organism; they both, machine and organism, are forms that treat other forms in certain proscribed ways. You cannot demonstrate otherwise. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:37 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:53:31 AM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Let´s say that what we call information is an extended form of sensory input. What makes this input information is the usability of this input for reducing the internal entropy of the receiver or increase the internal order. The receiver can be a machine, a cell, a person or a society for example. If the input do not produce this effect in the receiver, then that input is not information. The increase of internal order of the receiver is a symptom of an experience of being informed but they are not the same thing. It's not really even relevant in most cases. I would not call it an extended form of sensory input, but a reduction of sensory experience. Input is not a physical reality, it is a conceptual label. Consider Blindsight: I hold up two fingers and ask how many fingers? I don't know.' Guess 'two'. This example tells us about information without tying it to decreased entropy. My two fingers are a form. I am putting them into that form, so the process of my presenting my fingers is a formation of a sign. The sign is not information at this point. It means something different to an ant or a frog than it does to a person looking at it. If you can't see, there is no formation there at all unless you can collide with my fingers. When the patient responds that they don't know how many fingers, it is because they personally have no experience of seeing it. They are not being informed personally by the form of my fingers in front of their face because they have blindsight. When they guess correctly, they still have not been informed. Only we know that the information is correct. At this point you could say that there is some decrease in information entropy of the receiver as far as we are concerned, but in fact, for the receiver themselves, they have not increased any internal order. A machine has blindsight about everything. They can be queried and produce valid responses to inform us, but they are never informed themselves. There is no 'in' in a machine, it is an organization of forms which treat other forms in a proscribed way. Forms are copied, transformed, and presented in a context that it has no experience of. My computer sees nothing that I see on this screen. It reads nothing that I type here. It doesn't know what the Everything List is - not even Google knows what it is - only that the string of characters in the name is to be associated with an ip address. Craig 2013/3/2 William R. Buckley bill.b...@gmail.com javascript: Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above the reality of streaks of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with the information represented by that deformation, nor the increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder obtained from that deformation; these are but three of the *informations* to be found upon review of those streaks. Entropy is how nature sees information (not yet an established fact but I think the tea leaves read clear enough) but that has (presumably) nothing to do with how intelligent individuals see information, or as von Uexküll called such phenomena, signs. Most definitely the information is not to be found within the material of its expression, its representation. Rather, the information is already to be found within the interpreter. That which is information is so by virtue of the acceptor of that information; else, it is noise. And, write the information on a piece of paper and seal the paper within an envelope and you may justifiably claim that the information is contained; else, you are deluding yourself. has an inversely proportionate relationship with the capacity of sender and receiver to synchronize with each other. snip wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript: . To post
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:03:31 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig, You build an automaton, place it and turn it on, and from that point in time forward the automaton reacts to acceptable information all on its own. Reacts, yes, but it isn't informed by the reaction. You contradict yourself – - I don’t think it has to be human – machines only help non-machines to interpret - Where was the contradiction? - and if the human point is important, then surely you will accept your definition to be that it must be biological life, for a machine cannot be alive. A living being can be used as a machine, but it is not defined by that function. A machine is either a machine or it is not a machine – a machine cannot be both a machine and not a machine at the same time. A creature can be more than a machine, but still act as a machine in many ways. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:14 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 12:03:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: You statement of need for a human to observe the pattern is the smoking gun to indicate a misunderstanding of semiotic theory on your part. I don't think that it has to be humans doing the observing at all. Specifically, you don’t need a human; a machine will do. A machine can only help another non-machine interpret something. I don't think that they can interpret anything for 'themselves'. Not all machines are man-made. True, but what we see as natural machines may not be just machines. Man-made machines may be just machines. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:24 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit a jackpot on a slot machine - that may not have happened before, but the slot machine is designed to payout whenever it does. The jackpot already exists as a potential and sooner or later it will be realized. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Agree. But the converse - the acceptor can only accept information which has been included for delivery by intention (or accidentally I suppose). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Dear Bil B. you probably have thought in these lines during similar long periods as I did. It was ~2 decades ago when I defined i n f o r m a t i o n as something with (at least) 2 ends: 1. the notion (in whatever format it shows up) - and 2. the acceptor (adjusting the notion in whatever context it can be perceived - appercipiated (adjusted). I have no idea how to make a connection between information (anyway how one defines it) and the (inner?) disorder level of anything (entropy?). I dislike this thermodynamic term alltogether. Later on I tried to refine my wording into: RELATIONS and the capability of recognizing them. That moved away from a 'human(?)' framework. E. g. I called the 'closeness of a '(+)' charge to a '(-)' potential an information so it came close to SOME consciousness (=(?) *response to relations*), no matter in what kind of domain. Do you feel some merit to my thinking? John Mikes On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 2:06 AM, William R. Buckley bill.buck...@gmail.comwrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where the task is to cull *bad* dried beans from *good* dried beans as they go by on a conveyor belt; the *bad* beans are removed by hand, so the line worker is constantly looking for *bad* beans while constantly being aware of the fact that not many of the beans are *bad*. The consciousness is aware of both that which is present and that which is not present. Further, what any information that you emit means to you is irrelevant to the meaning that another may take for that information. Indeed, it is via reliance upon -Cultural Norms- that your point regarding Morse Code becomes relevant. It is perfectly reasonable for an ornery person to simply reject such norms and act otherwise; your expectation originates in you, not the targets of information you broadcast. The truth of your statement is no reply to my claim, that how another receiver of signs responds is irrelevant to your knowledge, save the one case of conveyance of knowledge between semiotic units; where you intend for knowledge to be conveyed. In that case, it is behooving of the sender to ensure that the receiver can receive and understand the message. I'm not sure what you are bringing up here, but I would say that my point is that all messages have multiple levels of reception, perhaps as many levels as their are receivers in the universe. At the same time, if we are assuming human senders and receivers and a content range which is highly normative and practical (i.e. Morse code alphabet rather than emoticons, inside jokes, etc), then the information entropy is reduced dramatically. Maybe you can give me an example of that you mean by the irrelevance of the receiver's knowledge. Does that include the expectation of the possibility of there being a receiver? In all other cases, the recipient response is irrelevant; all values and measures originate in the sender of the message. I would tend to agree with that, although the expectation of the recipient response informs the motives, values, and measures of the sender - otherwise there would be no message being sent. The receiver of transmitted information is irrelevant to the mechanics of that transmission. I'm not sure what you mean. Again, maybe an example would help. We expect that human audiences can see, so we have TV screens to provide optical stimulation. If we didn't have eyes, there would be no mechanism of TV. The word should have been *reception* - receipt of information (acceptance of a sign) is a function of the value that
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
The machine is informed. Acceptance demonstrates the act of becoming informed. The yield of such acceptance is called meaning. Easily, trivially, this language can be applied to machine and organism without concomitant observation of the slightest distinction between them. The definition of a being has nothing to do (imposes no causal consequence) with a sign. Signs can be accepted by organisms and machines (non-organisms?) with equal dexterity to provide equal meaning. A community of machines (like Robbie the Robot) can equally define meaning to things as can a community of beings. That you claim need to impose human interpretation in order to obtain meaning is strictly the bailiwick of anthropomorphism. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:10 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:03:31 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig, You build an automaton, place it and turn it on, and from that point in time forward the automaton reacts to acceptable information all on its own. Reacts, yes, but it isn't informed by the reaction. You contradict yourself - - I don't think it has to be human - machines only help non-machines to interpret - Where was the contradiction? - and if the human point is important, then surely you will accept your definition to be that it must be biological life, for a machine cannot be alive. A living being can be used as a machine, but it is not defined by that function. A machine is either a machine or it is not a machine - a machine cannot be both a machine and not a machine at the same time. A creature can be more than a machine, but still act as a machine in many ways. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: ] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:14 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 12:03:28 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: You statement of need for a human to observe the pattern is the smoking gun to indicate a misunderstanding of semiotic theory on your part. I don't think that it has to be humans doing the observing at all. Specifically, you don't need a human; a machine will do. A machine can only help another non-machine interpret something. I don't think that they can interpret anything for 'themselves'. Not all machines are man-made. True, but what we see as natural machines may not be just machines. Man-made machines may be just machines. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:24 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:06:20 AM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I can agree that information could be considered a manifestation of entropy, to the extent that entropy is necessary to provide a contrast space for a distribution. To string an ellipses together, you need one dot, repetition, space, and a quality of measurement which yokes together the three dots aesthetically. Beyond that, you also need human observer with human visual sense to turn the distribution into a 'pattern'. Without that, of course, even distribution cannot cohere into a distribution, as there is no scale, range, quality, etc to anchor the expectation. If we are a microbe, we may not ever find our way from one dot to the next. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. Agree. Well, transmitters form the signs from their own sense of meaning as well. That's how we are having this discussion. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. Right. I mean it might be a bit more complicated as far as novelty goes. I don't know if the state of unconscious information is really what I have always known but that this particular constellation of meanings reflects the Totality in a way that it is only trivially novel. Like if you hit
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:07:00 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The fact that a machine can act in a discriminatory based upon some signal (sign, information) input is demonstration of value judgment. Only in our eyes, not in its own eyes. It's like telling a kid to say some insult to someone in another language. The fact they are able to carry out your instruction doesn't mean that they communicated with judgment. Just as there is no **in** in a machine, so to there is no **in** in a biological organism; they both, machine and organism, But there is an 'in' with respect to the experience of an organism - only because we know it first hand. There would seem to be no reason why a machine couldn't have a similar 'in', but it actually seems that their nature indicates they do not. I take the extra step and hypothesize exactly why that is - because experience is not generated out of the bodies associated with them, but rather the bodies are simply a public view of one aspect of the experience. If you build a machine, you are assembling bodies to relate to each other, as external forms, so that no interiority 'emerges' from the gaps between them. are forms that treat other forms in certain proscribed ways. You cannot demonstrate otherwise. Sure I can. Feelings, colors, personalities, intentions, historical zeitgeists...these are not forms relating to forms. Craig wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:37 AM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:53:31 AM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Let´s say that what we call information is an extended form of sensory input. What makes this input information is the usability of this input for reducing the internal entropy of the receiver or increase the internal order. The receiver can be a machine, a cell, a person or a society for example. If the input do not produce this effect in the receiver, then that input is not information. The increase of internal order of the receiver is a symptom of an experience of being informed but they are not the same thing. It's not really even relevant in most cases. I would not call it an extended form of sensory input, but a reduction of sensory experience. Input is not a physical reality, it is a conceptual label. Consider Blindsight: I hold up two fingers and ask how many fingers? I don't know.' Guess 'two'. This example tells us about information without tying it to decreased entropy. My two fingers are a form. I am putting them into that form, so the process of my presenting my fingers is a formation of a sign. The sign is not information at this point. It means something different to an ant or a frog than it does to a person looking at it. If you can't see, there is no formation there at all unless you can collide with my fingers. When the patient responds that they don't know how many fingers, it is because they personally have no experience of seeing it. They are not being informed personally by the form of my fingers in front of their face because they have blindsight. When they guess correctly, they still have not been informed. Only we know that the information is correct. At this point you could say that there is some decrease in information entropy of the receiver as far as we are concerned, but in fact, for the receiver themselves, they have not increased any internal order. A machine has blindsight about everything. They can be queried and produce valid responses to inform us, but they are never informed themselves. There is no 'in' in a machine, it is an organization of forms which treat other forms in a proscribed way. Forms are copied, transformed, and presented in a context that it has no experience of. My computer sees nothing that I see on this screen. It reads nothing that I type here. It doesn't know what the Everything List is - not even Google knows what it is - only that the string of characters in the name is to be associated with an ip address. Craig 2013/3/2 William R. Buckley bill.b...@gmail.com Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above the reality of streaks of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with the information represented by that deformation, nor the increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder obtained from that deformation
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Craig: The mistake you make is clearly stated in your words: “…doesn’t mean that they communicated with judgment.” You are anthropomorphizing. The value is no more nor no less than the action taken upon signal acceptance. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:27 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:07:00 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: The fact that a machine can act in a discriminatory based upon some signal (sign, information) input is demonstration of value judgment. Only in our eyes, not in its own eyes. It's like telling a kid to say some insult to someone in another language. The fact they are able to carry out your instruction doesn't mean that they communicated with judgment. Just as there is no *in* in a machine, so to there is no *in* in a biological organism; they both, machine and organism, But there is an 'in' with respect to the experience of an organism - only because we know it first hand. There would seem to be no reason why a machine couldn't have a similar 'in', but it actually seems that their nature indicates they do not. I take the extra step and hypothesize exactly why that is - because experience is not generated out of the bodies associated with them, but rather the bodies are simply a public view of one aspect of the experience. If you build a machine, you are assembling bodies to relate to each other, as external forms, so that no interiority 'emerges' from the gaps between them. are forms that treat other forms in certain proscribed ways. You cannot demonstrate otherwise. Sure I can. Feelings, colors, personalities, intentions, historical zeitgeists...these are not forms relating to forms. Craig wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: ] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:37 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:53:31 AM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Let´s say that what we call information is an extended form of sensory input. What makes this input information is the usability of this input for reducing the internal entropy of the receiver or increase the internal order. The receiver can be a machine, a cell, a person or a society for example. If the input do not produce this effect in the receiver, then that input is not information. The increase of internal order of the receiver is a symptom of an experience of being informed but they are not the same thing. It's not really even relevant in most cases. I would not call it an extended form of sensory input, but a reduction of sensory experience. Input is not a physical reality, it is a conceptual label. Consider Blindsight: I hold up two fingers and ask how many fingers? I don't know.' Guess 'two'. This example tells us about information without tying it to decreased entropy. My two fingers are a form. I am putting them into that form, so the process of my presenting my fingers is a formation of a sign. The sign is not information at this point. It means something different to an ant or a frog than it does to a person looking at it. If you can't see, there is no formation there at all unless you can collide with my fingers. When the patient responds that they don't know how many fingers, it is because they personally have no experience of seeing it. They are not being informed personally by the form of my fingers in front of their face because they have blindsight. When they guess correctly, they still have not been informed. Only we know that the information is correct. At this point you could say that there is some decrease in information entropy of the receiver as far as we are concerned, but in fact, for the receiver themselves, they have not increased any internal order. A machine has blindsight about everything. They can be queried and produce valid responses to inform us, but they are never informed themselves. There is no 'in' in a machine, it is an organization of forms which treat other forms in a proscribed way. Forms are copied, transformed, and presented in a context that it has no experience of. My computer sees nothing that I see on this screen. It reads nothing that I type here. It doesn't know what the Everything List is - not even Google knows what it is - only that the string of characters in the name is to be associated with an ip address. Craig 2013/3/2 William R. Buckley bill.b...@gmail.com Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
I do not hold that the acceptor must exist, for then I am making a value judgment, and I have already scolded Craig for the same thing. Think of it this way. A volume of gas has a measure of entropy. This means that the molecules are found in a specific sequence of microstates, and those microstates constitute an information state of the molecules. Alter that microstate sequence (as by adding or removing entropy) and the description of the microstate sequence changes correspondingly; entropy is information. Acceptors and signals; contexts and signs; . wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Mikes Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:13 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information Dear Bil B. you probably have thought in these lines during similar long periods as I did. It was ~2 decades ago when I defined i n f o r m a t i o n as something with (at least) 2 ends: 1. the notion (in whatever format it shows up) - and 2. the acceptor (adjusting the notion in whatever context it can be perceived - appercipiated (adjusted). I have no idea how to make a connection between information (anyway how one defines it) and the (inner?) disorder level of anything (entropy?). I dislike this thermodynamic term alltogether. Later on I tried to refine my wording into: RELATIONS and the capability of recognizing them. That moved away from a 'human(?)' framework. E. g. I called the 'closeness of a '(+)' charge to a '(-)' potential an information so it came close to SOME consciousness (=(?) response to relations), no matter in what kind of domain. Do you feel some merit to my thinking? John Mikes On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 2:06 AM, William R. Buckley bill.buck...@gmail.com wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where the task is to cull *bad* dried beans from *good* dried beans as they go by on a conveyor belt; the *bad* beans are removed by hand, so the line worker is constantly looking for *bad* beans while constantly being aware of the fact that not many of the beans are *bad*. The consciousness is aware of both that which is present and that which is not present. Further, what any information that you emit means to you is irrelevant to the meaning that another may take for that information. Indeed, it is via reliance upon -Cultural Norms- that your point regarding Morse Code becomes relevant. It is perfectly reasonable for an ornery person to simply reject such norms and act otherwise; your expectation originates in you, not the targets of information you broadcast. The truth of your statement is no reply to my claim, that how another receiver of signs responds is irrelevant to your knowledge, save the one case of conveyance of knowledge between semiotic units; where you intend for knowledge to be conveyed. In that case, it is behooving of the sender to ensure that the receiver can receive and understand the message. I'm not sure what you are bringing up here, but I would say that my point is that all messages have multiple levels of reception, perhaps as many levels as their are receivers in the universe. At the same time, if we are assuming human senders and receivers and a content range which is highly normative and practical (i.e. Morse code alphabet rather than emoticons, inside jokes, etc), then the information entropy is reduced dramatically. Maybe you can give me an example of that you mean by the irrelevance of the receiver's knowledge. Does that include the expectation of the possibility
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On 3/5/2013 3:03 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig, You build an automaton, place it and turn it on, and from that point in time forward the automaton reacts to acceptable information all on its own. You contradict yourself -- - I don't think it has to be human -- machines only help non-machines to interpret - - and if the human point is important, then surely you will accept your definition to be that it must be biological life, for a machine cannot be alive. A machine is either a machine or it is not a machine -- a machine cannot be both a machine and not a machine at the same time. wrb Do we have a exact definition of what is a machine? -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:52:32 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: I do not hold that the acceptor must exist, for then I am making a value judgment, and I have already scolded Craig for the same thing. Think of it this way. A volume of gas has a measure of entropy. This means that the molecules are found in found by what? a specific sequence of microstates, and those microstates constitute an information state of the molecules. Who is it constituted to though? Empty space? The molecules as a group? Each molecule? What is validating that these molecules exist in some way - that there is a such thing as a microstate which can be detected in some way by something... and what is detection? How does it work? When these things are taken as axiomatic, then we are just reiterating those axioms when we claim that no acceptor must exist. In my understanding, exist and acceptor are the same thing. Alter that microstate sequence (as by adding or removing entropy) and the description of the microstate sequence changes correspondingly; entropy is information. Only if something can detect their own description of the microstate as having changed. We cannot assume that there is any change at all if nothing can possibly detect it. For example, if I take make a movie of ice cubes melting in a glass, even though that is a case of increasing thermodynamic entropy, we will see a lower cost of video compression in a movie of the glass after the ice has melted completely. In that case the image description can be made to follow either increasing or decreasing information entropy depending on whether you play the movie forward and backward. There is no link between microstate thermodynamic entropy and optical description information entropy. Craig Acceptors and signals; contexts and signs; … wrb *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] *On Behalf Of *John Mikes *Sent:* Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:13 PM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: *Subject:* Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information Dear Bil B. you probably have thought in these lines during similar long periods as I did. It was ~2 decades ago when I defined i n f o r m a t i o n as something with (at least) 2 ends: 1. the notion (in whatever format it shows up) - and 2. the acceptor (adjusting the notion in whatever context it can be perceived - appercipiated (adjusted). I have no idea how to make a connection between information (anyway how one defines it) and the (inner?) disorder level of anything (entropy?). I dislike this thermodynamic term alltogether. Later on I tried to refine my wording into: RELATIONS and the capability of recognizing them. That moved away from a 'human(?)' framework. E. g. I called the 'closeness of a '(+)' charge to a '(-)' potential an information so it came close to SOME consciousness (=(?) *response to relations*), no matter in what kind of domain. Do you feel some merit to my thinking? John Mikes On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 2:06 AM, William R. Buckley bill.b...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where the task is to cull *bad* dried beans from *good* dried beans as they go by on a conveyor belt; the *bad* beans are removed by hand, so the line worker is constantly looking for *bad* beans while constantly being aware of the fact that not many of the beans are *bad*. The consciousness is aware of both that which is present
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
The falling tree makes sound, the wind make sound, the . makes sound regardless of your presence (or the presence of others) to hear that sound. To argue anything else is utter nonsense. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 7:34 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:52:32 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: I do not hold that the acceptor must exist, for then I am making a value judgment, and I have already scolded Craig for the same thing. Think of it this way. A volume of gas has a measure of entropy. This means that the molecules are found in found by what? a specific sequence of microstates, and those microstates constitute an information state of the molecules. Who is it constituted to though? Empty space? The molecules as a group? Each molecule? What is validating that these molecules exist in some way - that there is a such thing as a microstate which can be detected in some way by something... and what is detection? How does it work? When these things are taken as axiomatic, then we are just reiterating those axioms when we claim that no acceptor must exist. In my understanding, exist and acceptor are the same thing. Alter that microstate sequence (as by adding or removing entropy) and the description of the microstate sequence changes correspondingly; entropy is information. Only if something can detect their own description of the microstate as having changed. We cannot assume that there is any change at all if nothing can possibly detect it. For example, if I take make a movie of ice cubes melting in a glass, even though that is a case of increasing thermodynamic entropy, we will see a lower cost of video compression in a movie of the glass after the ice has melted completely. In that case the image description can be made to follow either increasing or decreasing information entropy depending on whether you play the movie forward and backward. There is no link between microstate thermodynamic entropy and optical description information entropy. Craig Acceptors and signals; contexts and signs; . wrb From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: ] On Behalf Of John Mikes Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:13 PM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information Dear Bil B. you probably have thought in these lines during similar long periods as I did. It was ~2 decades ago when I defined i n f o r m a t i o n as something with (at least) 2 ends: 1. the notion (in whatever format it shows up) - and 2. the acceptor (adjusting the notion in whatever context it can be perceived - appercipiated (adjusted). I have no idea how to make a connection between information (anyway how one defines it) and the (inner?) disorder level of anything (entropy?). I dislike this thermodynamic term alltogether. Later on I tried to refine my wording into: RELATIONS and the capability of recognizing them. That moved away from a 'human(?)' framework. E. g. I called the 'closeness of a '(+)' charge to a '(-)' potential an information so it came close to SOME consciousness (=(?) response to relations), no matter in what kind of domain. Do you feel some merit to my thinking? John Mikes On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 2:06 AM, William R. Buckley bill.b...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
There is information (I take information to be a manifestation of entropy) and it is always represented in the form of a pattern (a distribution) of the units of mass/energy of which the Universe is composed. I think that semiotic signs are simply specific bits of information; I will use the terms synonymously. Information has meaning only within context. For many people, context is taken to mean one piece of information as compared to another piece of information. I do not take this meaning of context when I discuss semiotics. Instead, I take semiotic context to be the acceptor of the information. Hence, all meaning resides a priori within information acceptors. What you know you have always known; the sign merely serves to bring that knowledge to your conscious mind. That you may have intention and so comport your delivery of information to another acceptor has not bearing upon the subsequent acceptance or rejection of that information by the target acceptor. Acceptance or rejection of information is determined solely by the accepting or rejecting context (acceptor). Your mere presence sends information regardless of some conscious intent. Indeed, your absence does equally deliver information, for the target acceptor will see a definite difference in available information sources whether you are present or not. Consider a line worker in a bean processing plant where the task is to cull *bad* dried beans from *good* dried beans as they go by on a conveyor belt; the *bad* beans are removed by hand, so the line worker is constantly looking for *bad* beans while constantly being aware of the fact that not many of the beans are *bad*. The consciousness is aware of both that which is present and that which is not present. Further, what any information that you emit means to you is irrelevant to the meaning that another may take for that information. Indeed, it is via reliance upon -Cultural Norms- that your point regarding Morse Code becomes relevant. It is perfectly reasonable for an ornery person to simply reject such norms and act otherwise; your expectation originates in you, not the targets of information you broadcast. The truth of your statement is no reply to my claim, that how another receiver of signs responds is irrelevant to your knowledge, save the one case of conveyance of knowledge between semiotic units; where you intend for knowledge to be conveyed. In that case, it is behooving of the sender to ensure that the receiver can receive and understand the message. I'm not sure what you are bringing up here, but I would say that my point is that all messages have multiple levels of reception, perhaps as many levels as their are receivers in the universe. At the same time, if we are assuming human senders and receivers and a content range which is highly normative and practical (i.e. Morse code alphabet rather than emoticons, inside jokes, etc), then the information entropy is reduced dramatically. Maybe you can give me an example of that you mean by the irrelevance of the receiver's knowledge. Does that include the expectation of the possibility of there being a receiver? In all other cases, the recipient response is irrelevant; all values and measures originate in the sender of the message. I would tend to agree with that, although the expectation of the recipient response informs the motives, values, and measures of the sender - otherwise there would be no message being sent. The receiver of transmitted information is irrelevant to the mechanics of that transmission. I'm not sure what you mean. Again, maybe an example would help. We expect that human audiences can see, so we have TV screens to provide optical stimulation. If we didn't have eyes, there would be no mechanism of TV. The word should have been *reception* - receipt of information (acceptance of a sign) is a function of the value that the acceptor puts on that sign. That value is most certainly not tied to the delivery mechanism, even if some delivery mechanisms are preferred over others. What matters to information acceptance is disposition of the acceptor to that acceptance. If the acceptor does not *like* the sign, it will reject the sign; of course, this means that all signs are accepted just long enough to decide if they are sufficiently meaningful or not; if so, they are accepted else they are rejected. Craig wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Friday, March 1, 2013 8:27:54 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I was intentionally starting out from the common assumption that messages contain information, and then quickly moved on to show how it is not the case. I like your envelope example though. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above the reality of streaks of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with the information represented by that deformation, nor the increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder obtained from that deformation; these are but three of the *informations* to be found upon review of those streaks. Yes, there are many public levels of what I would call formations, since they do not inherently cause any informing experiences by themselves. What I suggest is that entropy is the cost of significance, which balances out through all of time going forward. The Sistine Chapel exists not to break a lot of rocks and cover a ceiling with minerals, but for reasons which relate to interior experiences and attempts at capturing high quality experience. Unlike entropy's cruel mastery of emptiness, significance is a monopoly of quality seeking. Whatever entropy does, it does so by seeking nothing - relations are abandoned, objects lose their form into dissipation or are swept up in some giant sphere or drain. Entropy is how nature sees information (not yet an established fact but I think the tea leaves read clear enough) but that has (presumably) nothing to do with how intelligent individuals see information, or as von Uexküll called such phenomena, signs. Yes, this is important because it reveals how sense partitions public space with entropy and generates private significance through time. They are symmetric (or assymetric) conjugates, with space being the catabolic reconciliation of forms and time being the anabolic builder of experiential depth (significance). In doing this, indeed the public side of nature under-signifies information (making it de-formaiton), and the private physics of sense over-signifies it (making it signal's high priority). Most definitely the information is not to be found within the material of its expression, its representation. Rather, the information is already to be found within the interpreter. Yes. I would go so far as to say that the material of its expression isn't a representation, but rather a presentation of a form. The representation too resided with the interpreter as their semiotic expectations determine the nature of the message. Just as you point out the three levels of chalk on slate, of amorphous solid deforming, or entropy - there is a corresponding hierarchy of signal reception on the interpreter end. The message can be interpreted directly and simply as a message containing X characters, it can be read as a social contract requiring a response, it could be a warning to indicate that additional response would not be welcome. etc. At the high end, the message can be interpreted as an omen or metaphor for some larger level of participation in destiny. That which is information is so by virtue of the acceptor of that information; else, it is noise. Yes! And, write the information on a piece of paper and seal the paper within an envelope and you may justifiably claim that the information is contained; else, you are deluding yourself. Right. Craig has an inversely proportionate relationship with the capacity of sender and receiver to synchronize with each other. snip wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Saturday, March 2, 2013 12:37:15 AM UTC-5, Brent wrote: On 3/1/2013 8:39 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: And therein do you see the arbitrariness of either choice. The universe is subjective, not objective. Is that just your opinion...or is it objectively true. It's an educated guess, and a provocation. On what basis do we presume that objectivity is possible? Because our subjective experience is used to thinking of it that way? Read on semiotic theory as it will give much enlightenment on this issue, that is *meaning* versus *information* Was there something that I said which would suggest that I hadn't read semiotic theory? The fact that the interpreter can interpret means that the interpreter already knows the meaning of any accepted informational form. Isn't this how compilers and interpreters in a computer work? There is no the meaning, there are many meanings in various sensory modalities: Optical forms = visually informing - subconscious Graphic forms = phonetically informing - learning makes conscious experience subconscious. (MIS-IS-IP-EE = Mississippi = funny word) Grammatic forms = semantically informing - learning matches optical, graphical, and verbal forms to conceptual experiences.(Mississippi = river in the US). Beyond the explicit message, the context of the messaging, and of the interpreter can become more important that the explicit message. Mississippi could be a safe word in some kind of sex scandal about to expose a politician, or it could trigger a post-hypnotic suggestion a la Manchurian Candidate. How compilers and interpreters work is nothing like this. The computer stack looks like this: Physical forms = wires and microprocessors. There is no optical or audio experience here, only the electronic or mechanical connection between microelectronic events. Mathematical functions = physical properties of transistors allow for basic switching and checking the status of switches. As we might build a castle out of toothpicks, mathematical functions can be used to take on various technological facades - from dot-matrix printing that reminds us of letters to video screens with cartoons which remind us of people. In all of these cases, unlike a person, the computer does not grow to learn meanings, only to match characters and words to their statistically likely consequences. If you say Bonjour to the computer - it recognizes your input and searches the most likely output, but it has no idea what it is saying or who it is talking to. There's not person there, it's just a bunch of very small windmills. Sure. The Mars rover interprets the image of a rock because it was programmed to or learned to so interpret the image. It's program knows nothing about images or rocks. It knows the data which has been defined. We are the ones who defined them that way to correspond to our experiences of images in the rocks. As with all machines, the Mars Rover is forever in the dark. Its interpretation is realized by its behavior in going around the rock showing that for the rover the 'meaning' of the rock was 'an obstruction'. If the rock had looked differently or been in a different place it might have been interpreted as a 'geological specimen'. Then when we test the Rover with a fake rock, produced by a subroutine in the rockless lab, it's identical behavior of going around the rock that isn't there shows that there was never any meaning for rocks or obstructions or geological specimen. It's responding to programs, not to presences. Craig Brent wrb -Original Message- From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto:everything-javascript: li...@googlegroups.com javascript:] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 7:11 PM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On 3/1/2013 5:27 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above the reality of streaks of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with the information represented by that deformation, nor the increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder obtained from that deformation; these are but three of the *informations* to be found upon review of those streaks. Entropy is how nature sees information (not yet an established fact but I think the tea leaves read clear enough) but that has (presumably) nothing to do with how intelligent individuals see information, or as von Uexk�ll
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2013 6:02 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Saturday, March 2, 2013 12:37:15 AM UTC-5, Brent wrote: On 3/1/2013 8:39 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: And therein do you see the arbitrariness of either choice. The universe is subjective, not objective. Is that just your opinion...or is it objectively true. It's an educated guess, and a provocation. On what basis do we presume that objectivity is possible? Because our subjective experience is used to thinking of it that way? WRB- BINGO!!! Read on semiotic theory as it will give much enlightenment on this issue, that is *meaning* versus *information* Was there something that I said which would suggest that I hadn't read semiotic theory? The fact that the interpreter can interpret means that the interpreter already knows the meaning of any accepted informational form. Isn't this how compilers and interpreters in a computer work? There is no the meaning, there are many meanings in various sensory modalities: Optical forms = visually informing - subconscious Graphic forms = phonetically informing - learning makes conscious experience subconscious. (MIS-IS-IP-EE = Mississippi = funny word) Grammatic forms = semantically informing - learning matches optical, graphical, and verbal forms to conceptual experiences.(Mississippi = river in the US). Beyond the explicit message, the context of the messaging, and of the interpreter can become more important that the explicit message. Mississippi could be a safe word in some kind of sex scandal about to expose a politician, or it could trigger a post-hypnotic suggestion a la Manchurian Candidate. How compilers and interpreters work is nothing like this. The computer stack looks like this: Physical forms = wires and microprocessors. There is no optical or audio experience here, only the electronic or mechanical connection between microelectronic events. Mathematical functions = physical properties of transistors allow for basic switching and checking the status of switches. As we might build a castle out of toothpicks, mathematical functions can be used to take on various technological facades - from dot-matrix printing that reminds us of letters to video screens with cartoons which remind us of people. In all of these cases, unlike a person, the computer does not grow to learn meanings, only to match characters and words to their statistically likely consequences. If you say Bonjour to the computer - it recognizes your input and searches the most likely output, but it has no idea what it is saying or who it is talking to. There's not person there, it's just a bunch of very small windmills. WRB- There is no difference between your acceptance of information and the acceptance of information by a computer; that is, unless you hold to notions of intelligent design. Sure. The Mars rover interprets the image of a rock because it was programmed to or learned to so interpret the image. It's program knows nothing about images or rocks. It knows the data which has been defined. We are the ones who defined them that way to correspond to our experiences of images in the rocks. As with all machines, the Mars Rover is forever in the dark. Its interpretation is realized by its behavior in going around the rock showing that for the rover the 'meaning' of the rock was 'an obstruction'. If the rock had looked differently or been in a different place it might have been interpreted as a 'geological specimen'. Then when we test the Rover with a fake rock, produced by a subroutine in the rockless lab, it's identical behavior of going around the rock that isn't there shows that there was never any meaning for rocks or obstructions or geological specimen. It's responding to programs, not to presences. WRB- As with the Einsteinian Elevator experiment, the Rover control software can't tell if it is a real rock, in the real world, or a fake rock in a computational space. For you to hold otherwise suggests that you don't understand semiotic theory. Craig Brent wrb -Original Message- From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything- li...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 7:11 PM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On 3/1/2013 5:27 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Saturday, March 2, 2013 2:06:41 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2013 6:02 AM To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Saturday, March 2, 2013 12:37:15 AM UTC-5, Brent wrote: On 3/1/2013 8:39 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: And therein do you see the arbitrariness of either choice. The universe is subjective, not objective. Is that just your opinion...or is it objectively true. It's an educated guess, and a provocation. On what basis do we presume that objectivity is possible? Because our subjective experience is used to thinking of it that way? WRB- BINGO!!! Read on semiotic theory as it will give much enlightenment on this issue, that is *meaning* versus *information* Was there something that I said which would suggest that I hadn't read semiotic theory? The fact that the interpreter can interpret means that the interpreter already knows the meaning of any accepted informational form. Isn't this how compilers and interpreters in a computer work? There is no the meaning, there are many meanings in various sensory modalities: Optical forms = visually informing - subconscious Graphic forms = phonetically informing - learning makes conscious experience subconscious. (MIS-IS-IP-EE = Mississippi = funny word) Grammatic forms = semantically informing - learning matches optical, graphical, and verbal forms to conceptual experiences.(Mississippi = river in the US). Beyond the explicit message, the context of the messaging, and of the interpreter can become more important that the explicit message. Mississippi could be a safe word in some kind of sex scandal about to expose a politician, or it could trigger a post-hypnotic suggestion a la Manchurian Candidate. How compilers and interpreters work is nothing like this. The computer stack looks like this: Physical forms = wires and microprocessors. There is no optical or audio experience here, only the electronic or mechanical connection between microelectronic events. Mathematical functions = physical properties of transistors allow for basic switching and checking the status of switches. As we might build a castle out of toothpicks, mathematical functions can be used to take on various technological facades - from dot-matrix printing that reminds us of letters to video screens with cartoons which remind us of people. In all of these cases, unlike a person, the computer does not grow to learn meanings, only to match characters and words to their statistically likely consequences. If you say Bonjour to the computer - it recognizes your input and searches the most likely output, but it has no idea what it is saying or who it is talking to. There's not person there, it's just a bunch of very small windmills. WRB- There is no difference between your acceptance of information and the acceptance of information by a computer; that is, unless you hold to notions of intelligent design. Well, we know that it is possible for us to accept low level information and simulate higher level information depending on the end user/interpreter. I can use a phonetic transliteration to recite an Arabic prayer without even knowing what words are being spoken, let alone the meaning of those words. Since this is the way that we have programmed all computers, to digitize bottom up modules of information, I see no reason to expect that another computer could receive any high level meaning, especially when it is going to hit the cpu at a binary level, rather than one of evocative sensory content which is tied to personal experience. I don't know what intelligent design would have to do with that, but our own experiences do wind up shaping our genetic health, so I have no reason to assume that in the comsos there is only a one-way street of bottom up mutation causing natural selection. I would say that the more public the phenomena we focus on, the more evolutionary (teleonomic) and the more private the phenomena, the more teleological and participatory concerns drive outcomes. This is an interesting bit of research today: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-dartmouth-neuroscientist-free-neural-basis.html Recent neurophysiological breakthroughs reveal that neurons evaluate information they receive, which can change the way that other neurons will evaluate information and fire in the future. Tse's research shows that such informational causation cannot change the physical basis of current information, but it can change the neuronal basis of future mental events. This gets around the standard argument against free will that is based on the impossibility of self-causation
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
snip I can use a phonetic transliteration to recite an Arabic prayer without even knowing what words are being spoken, let alone the meaning of those words. If your argument is that you have no knowledge of what you are doing, of the sounds you make in recitation, then you have capitulated. In performing the act described above, you know your purpose and how another receiver of those signs responds is irrelevant. wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Saturday, March 2, 2013 3:59:14 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: snip I can use a phonetic transliteration to recite an Arabic prayer without even knowing what words are being spoken, let alone the meaning of those words. If your argument is that you have no knowledge of what you are doing, of the sounds you make in recitation, then you have capitulated. In performing the act described above, you know your purpose and how another receiver of those signs responds is irrelevant. There are multiple purposes and expectations. In reciting the prayer, I can fulfill the expectations of Arabic speakers as far as proper diction. I can fulfill the expectations of Arabic text recognition by faithfully matching the correct glyphs with the expected phonemes. But no mater what I do, I cannot fulfill any expectation of understanding verbal-semantic content of what is being said. I might be able to intuit some emotive content on the onomatopoeic level, or by reading the emotional temperature in the room, but my understanding still lacks an important level of communication. Even the receivers are not equal. Young and old, religious and secular, each have different ways of receiving the prayer. Craig wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Craig: The truth of your statement is no reply to my claim, that how another receiver of signs responds is irrelevant to your knowledge, save the one case of conveyance of knowledge between semiotic units; where you intend for knowledge to be conveyed. In that case, it is behooving of the sender to ensure that the receiver can receive and understand the message. In all other cases, the recipient response is irrelevant; all values and measures originate in the sender of the message. The receiver of transmitted information is irrelevant to the mechanics of that transmission. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2013 1:50 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Saturday, March 2, 2013 3:59:14 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: snip I can use a phonetic transliteration to recite an Arabic prayer without even knowing what words are being spoken, let alone the meaning of those words. If your argument is that you have no knowledge of what you are doing, of the sounds you make in recitation, then you have capitulated. In performing the act described above, you know your purpose and how another receiver of those signs responds is irrelevant. There are multiple purposes and expectations. In reciting the prayer, I can fulfill the expectations of Arabic speakers as far as proper diction. I can fulfill the expectations of Arabic text recognition by faithfully matching the correct glyphs with the expected phonemes. But no mater what I do, I cannot fulfill any expectation of understanding verbal-semantic content of what is being said. I might be able to intuit some emotive content on the onomatopoeic level, or by reading the emotional temperature in the room, but my understanding still lacks an important level of communication. Even the receivers are not equal. Young and old, religious and secular, each have different ways of receiving the prayer. Craig wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On Saturday, March 2, 2013 6:40:44 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: The truth of your statement is no reply to my claim, that how another receiver of signs responds is irrelevant to your knowledge, save the one case of conveyance of knowledge between semiotic units; where you intend for knowledge to be conveyed. In that case, it is behooving of the sender to ensure that the receiver can receive and understand the message. I'm not sure what you are bringing up here, but I would say that my point is that all messages have multiple levels of reception, perhaps as many levels as their are receivers in the universe. At the same time, if we are assuming human senders and receivers and a content range which is highly normative and practical (i.e. Morse code alphabet rather than emoticons, inside jokes, etc), then the information entropy is reduced dramatically. Maybe you can give me an example of that you mean by the irrelevance of the receiver's knowledge. Does that include the expectation of the possibility of there being a receiver? In all other cases, the recipient response is irrelevant; all values and measures originate in the sender of the message. I would tend to agree with that, although the expectation of the recipient response informs the motives, values, and measures of the sender - otherwise there would be no message being sent. The receiver of transmitted information is irrelevant to the mechanics of that transmission. I'm not sure what you mean. Again, maybe an example would help. We expect that human audiences can see, so we have TV screens to provide optical stimulation. If we didn't have eyes, there would be no mechanism of TV. Craig wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Craig: An excellent reply will come shortly. Minimally, I will show you how your intent in irrelevant to the message receiver. I do need a little time to construct the argument, given a few chores around the farm (we work from 6AM to 12PM 365.25 +/- days per year). wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Craig Weinberg Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2013 4:48 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On Saturday, March 2, 2013 6:40:44 PM UTC-5, William R. Buckley wrote: Craig: The truth of your statement is no reply to my claim, that how another receiver of signs responds is irrelevant to your knowledge, save the one case of conveyance of knowledge between semiotic units; where you intend for knowledge to be conveyed. In that case, it is behooving of the sender to ensure that the receiver can receive and understand the message. I'm not sure what you are bringing up here, but I would say that my point is that all messages have multiple levels of reception, perhaps as many levels as their are receivers in the universe. At the same time, if we are assuming human senders and receivers and a content range which is highly normative and practical (i.e. Morse code alphabet rather than emoticons, inside jokes, etc), then the information entropy is reduced dramatically. Maybe you can give me an example of that you mean by the irrelevance of the receiver's knowledge. Does that include the expectation of the possibility of there being a receiver? In all other cases, the recipient response is irrelevant; all values and measures originate in the sender of the message. I would tend to agree with that, although the expectation of the recipient response informs the motives, values, and measures of the sender - otherwise there would be no message being sent. The receiver of transmitted information is irrelevant to the mechanics of that transmission. I'm not sure what you mean. Again, maybe an example would help. We expect that human audiences can see, so we have TV screens to provide optical stimulation. If we didn't have eyes, there would be no mechanism of TV. Craig wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above the reality of streaks of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with the information represented by that deformation, nor the increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder obtained from that deformation; these are but three of the *informations* to be found upon review of those streaks. Entropy is how nature sees information (not yet an established fact but I think the tea leaves read clear enough) but that has (presumably) nothing to do with how intelligent individuals see information, or as von Uexküll called such phenomena, signs. Most definitely the information is not to be found within the material of its expression, its representation. Rather, the information is already to be found within the interpreter. That which is information is so by virtue of the acceptor of that information; else, it is noise. And, write the information on a piece of paper and seal the paper within an envelope and you may justifiably claim that the information is contained; else, you are deluding yourself. has an inversely proportionate relationship with the capacity of sender and receiver to synchronize with each other. snip wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On 3/1/2013 5:27 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above the reality of streaks of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with the information represented by that deformation, nor the increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder obtained from that deformation; these are but three of the *informations* to be found upon review of those streaks. Entropy is how nature sees information (not yet an established fact but I think the tea leaves read clear enough) but that has (presumably) nothing to do with how intelligent individuals see information, or as von Uexküll called such phenomena, signs. Most definitely the information is not to be found within the material of its expression, its representation. Rather, the information is already to be found within the interpreter. But where is it found within the interpreter? When the Mars Rover receives photons in it's camera which it interprets as an obstructing rock that interpretation is just physical tokens too. So isn't it a matter viewpoint whether to look at the causal chain of tokens or look at the behavior and call it interpreting information? Brent That which is information is so by virtue of the acceptor of that information; else, it is noise. And, write the information on a piece of paper and seal the paper within an envelope and you may justifiably claim that the information is contained; else, you are deluding yourself. has an inversely proportionate relationship with the capacity of sender and receiver to synchronize with each other. snip wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Messages Aren't Made of Information
And therein do you see the arbitrariness of either choice. The universe is subjective, not objective. Read on semiotic theory as it will give much enlightenment on this issue, that is *meaning* versus *information* The fact that the interpreter can interpret means that the interpreter already knows the meaning of any accepted informational form. Isn't this how compilers and interpreters in a computer work? wrb -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything- l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 7:11 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On 3/1/2013 5:27 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above the reality of streaks of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with the information represented by that deformation, nor the increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder obtained from that deformation; these are but three of the *informations* to be found upon review of those streaks. Entropy is how nature sees information (not yet an established fact but I think the tea leaves read clear enough) but that has (presumably) nothing to do with how intelligent individuals see information, or as von Uexküll called such phenomena, signs. Most definitely the information is not to be found within the material of its expression, its representation. Rather, the information is already to be found within the interpreter. But where is it found within the interpreter? When the Mars Rover receives photons in it's camera which it interprets as an obstructing rock that interpretation is just physical tokens too. So isn't it a matter viewpoint whether to look at the causal chain of tokens or look at the behavior and call it interpreting information? Brent That which is information is so by virtue of the acceptor of that information; else, it is noise. And, write the information on a piece of paper and seal the paper within an envelope and you may justifiably claim that the information is contained; else, you are deluding yourself. has an inversely proportionate relationship with the capacity of sender and receiver to synchronize with each other. snip wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything- list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information
On 3/1/2013 8:39 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: And therein do you see the arbitrariness of either choice. The universe is subjective, not objective. Is that just your opinion...or is it objectively true. Read on semiotic theory as it will give much enlightenment on this issue, that is *meaning* versus *information* The fact that the interpreter can interpret means that the interpreter already knows the meaning of any accepted informational form. Isn't this how compilers and interpreters in a computer work? Sure. The Mars rover interprets the image of a rock because it was programmed to or learned to so interpret the image. Its interpretation is realized by its behavior in going around the rock showing that for the rover the 'meaning' of the rock was 'an obstruction'. If the rock had looked differently or been in a different place it might have been interpreted as a 'geological specimen'. Brent wrb -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything- l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 7:11 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Messages Aren't Made of Information On 3/1/2013 5:27 PM, William R. Buckley wrote: Thinking about how information content of a message Big mistake. Information is never contained with but exactly one exception, an envelope. I made this point with Jesper Hoffmeyer regarding a statement in his book Biosemiotics, that information is represented but not contained in that representation. That marks of chalk upon slate may be taken to represent information at a meta level above the reality of streaks of a deformed amorphous solid has nothing to do with the information represented by that deformation, nor the increase of entropy associated with the greater disorder obtained from that deformation; these are but three of the *informations* to be found upon review of those streaks. Entropy is how nature sees information (not yet an established fact but I think the tea leaves read clear enough) but that has (presumably) nothing to do with how intelligent individuals see information, or as von Uexküll called such phenomena, signs. Most definitely the information is not to be found within the material of its expression, its representation. Rather, the information is already to be found within the interpreter. But where is it found within the interpreter? When the Mars Rover receives photons in it's camera which it interprets as an obstructing rock that interpretation is just physical tokens too. So isn't it a matter viewpoint whether to look at the causal chain of tokens or look at the behavior and call it interpreting information? Brent That which is information is so by virtue of the acceptor of that information; else, it is noise. And, write the information on a piece of paper and seal the paper within an envelope and you may justifiably claim that the information is contained; else, you are deluding yourself. has an inversely proportionate relationship with the capacity of sender and receiver to synchronize with each other. snip wrb -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything- list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
