Re: [Fis] What is information? and What is life?
Dear Dick - I loved your analysis. You are right on the money. It also explains
why Shannon dominated the field of information. He had a mathematical formula
and there is nothing more appealing to a scientist than a mathematical formula.
But you are right his formula only tells us of how many bits are needed to
represent some information but tells us nothing about its meaning or its
significance. As Marshall McLuhan said about Shannon information it is figure
without ground. A figure only acquires meaning when one understands the ground
in which it operates. So Shannon’s contribution to engineering is excellent but
it tells us nothing about its nature or its impact as you wisely pointed out.
Thanks for your insight.
I would like to refer to your insight the next time I write about info and want
to attribute you correctly. Can you’ll me a bit about yourself like where you
do your research. thanks - Bob Logan
__
Robert K. Logan
Prof. Emeritus - Physics - U. of Toronto
Fellow University of St. Michael's College
Chief Scientist - sLab at OCAD
http://utoronto.academia.edu/RobertKLogan
www.physics.utoronto.ca/Members/logan
www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Logan5/publications
On Dec 19, 2016, at 6:48 AM, Dick Stoute wrote:
List,
Please allow me to respond to Loet about the definition of information stated
below.
1. the definition of information as uncertainty is counter-intuitive
("bizarre"); (p. 27)
I agree. I struggled with this definition for a long time before realising
that Shannon was really discussing "amount of information" or the number of
bits needed to convey a message. He was looking for a formula that would
provide an accurate estimate of the number of bits needed to convey a message
and realised that the amount of information (number of bits) needed to convey a
message was dependent on the "amount" of uncertainty that had to be eliminated
and so he equated these.
It makes sense to do this, but we must distinguish between "amount of
information" and "information". For example, we can measure amount of water in
liters, but this does not tell us what water is and likewise the measure we use
for "amount of information" does not tell us what information is. We can, for
example equate the amount of water needed to fill a container with the volume
of the container, but we should not think that water is therefore identical to
an empty volume. Similarly we should not think that information is identical
to uncertainty.
By equating the number of bits needed to convey a message with the "amount of
uncertainty" that has to be eliminated Shannon, in effect, equated opposites so
that he could get an estimate of the number of bits needed to eliminate the
uncertainty. We should not therefore consider that this equation establishes
what information is.
Dick
On 18 December 2016 at 15:05, Loet Leydesdorff mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net>> wrote:
Dear James and colleagues,
Weaver (1949) made two major remarks about his coauthor (Shannon)'s
contribution:
1. the definition of information as uncertainty is counter-intuitive
("bizarre"); (p. 27)
2. "In particular, information must not be confused with meaning." (p. 8)
The definition of information as relevant for a system of reference confuses
information with "meaningful information" and thus sacrifices the surplus value
of Shannon's counter-intuitive definition.
information observer
that integrates interactive processes such as
physical interactions such photons stimulating the retina of the eye,
human-machine interactions (this is the level that Shannon lives on),
biological interaction such body temperature relative to touch ice or heat
source, social interaction such as this forum started by Pedro, economic
interaction such as the stock market, ... [Lerner, page 1].
We are in need of a theory of meaning. Otherwise, one cannot measure meaningful
information. In a previous series of communications we discussed redundancy
from this perspective.
Lerner introduces mathematical expectation E[Sap] (difference between of a
priory entropy [sic] and a posteriori entropy), which is distinguished from the
notion of relative information Iap (Learner, page 7).
) expresses in bits of information the information generated when the a priori
distribution is turned into the a posteriori one . This follows within the
Shannon framework without needing an observer. I use this equation, for
example, in my 1995-book The Challenge of Scientometrics (Chapters 8 and 9),
with a reference to Theil (1972). The relative information is defined as the
H/H(max).
I agree that the intuitive notion of information is derived from the Latin
“in-formare” (Varela, 1979). But most of us do no longer use “force” and “mass”
in the intuitive (Aristotelian) sense. J The proliferation of the meanings of
information if confused with “meaningful information” is indicative for an
“
Re: [Fis] What is information? and What is life?
What is Information? Once more, Occam and the numbers give a simple, short and concise explanation. (There is more text and a formal definition of information in my book “Natural Orders” ISBN: 9783990571378.) The root of the term “information” is in the concept of order. The idea of order can be assumed axiomatic for people who are interested in the definition of information. For those who need a deictic definition of the term “order”: take n (n > 3) objects. One can use teddy-bears, shoes, pieces of paper, numbers, whatever. We sort the objects. The sequence that arrives after we have ordered the objects is the deictic definition of the term “order”. This might sound in deviance to the use of the term in mathematics; to reconcile the two concepts, we point out that the traditional definition in mathematics refers to order as a potential, realisable property of the collection, while here we speak of order as a realised instance of the general faculty of the objects to be in order. The distinction is always clear from the context. A collection that shows a sequence of its elements is an ordered collection. >From the order to the information: Whichever order exists, it has alternatives and a background. The alternatives are those variants of the order which are not realised, the background is that state of the world about which we cannot say anything definite. To repeat: N distinguishable objects have n! possible permutations. We take one specific of the permutations. In this permutation, a1 is on place p1. The alternatives are those permutations, where a1 is not on place p1. The background are those permutations where a2 a3, etc… can be on places px, py, pz, etc…. Novelty: We construct also such logical sentences which state something that is not the case. These are false logical statements. Traditionally, one does not use logical sentences that are false. This is not a rule given by a Supreme Logician from Heaven, but a convention of convenience. It would have been inconceivable to write up all those results of a false multiplication table that are not correct, besides the conceptual aversion against doing so. Now we have computers. These can register all that what is not the case, as long as we restrict ourselves to using rather few logical words while we utter a logical sentence. The brambling of an infant can be of a high scientific value, in case one wants to learn, how the achievement of language progresses during infancy. We now do not care, whether the sentence is logically true or not, as long as it is grammatically correct. We simply write up all possible sentences that a child can express. Among these, there are such in which the child states something correctly (e.g. recognises and names a toy), such where the child names an alternative (e.g. calls a doll a ball) and such which are the background, neither surely true, nor surely false (e.g. the child calls something a cluxtli and we do not know what the child has been looking at in that moment). We investigate all three aspects of the order: the actual sequence, its excluded alternatives and the background to these. Resume: Traditionally, tertium non datur, therefore that what is not the case is defined simply as .not. .t. = .false. Now we have a more complicated logic, and .unknown. is also permitted. After the unknown has softened up the trivial and lazy definition of “what is not true is false and we do not speak false”, there is a need for a word to describe that what is not true, but is a background to that what is true. Against this background, one may recognise the shadow of what is the case: this is what is definitely not the case. Information: Information is that what we do know AND do not know about the state of the world. (Footnote to “The world is everything that is the case”: “The alternatives to that what is the case are described by sentences about that what can not be the case and the background to that what is the case is described by sentences that state that what can be the case”. And to “About that what is not the case, one should keep one’s silence” the following: “unless and until one has found a way not to think with one’s own brain”.) Traditionally, that what is not the case has been seen as one solid logical entity, defined by – well, by that that it is not the case, as a contrast to that what reasonable people can speak reasonably about. Computers allow us to slice thinly between layers of what is not the case. That what oozes out is information. The relation among that what is the case, that what this implicates and that what is not affected by that what is the case needs some new words to allow precision in thinking. One of the words that are available is “information”. Scientists have always supposed that there is something hidden, yet obviously at work, behind symbols, bits and logical statements. Forcing this oyster open shows its inner life. The interdependence between what can be the c
Re: [Fis] Fwd: What is life?
Dear Bob (Ulanowicz), I hope I didn't come across as flippant about the political situation. The world is obviously in a very frightening and perilous state at the moment. Regarding ecology, Shannon and IT, the common denominator is "counting". This is far from trivial. The disastrous economic policies which have delivered inequality and austerity... along with Brexit and Trump... have relied on approaches to measurement and information which we must now question. In my understanding of your work in ecology, you count event regularities in the ecosystem. A change to our understanding of number and counting would change the way we see the world in a fundamental way (the recent discussion about Joe Brenner's work on Lupasco is fascinating and it's my Christmas job to dig into it). There's something important about a logic which transcends binary distinctions (Spencer Brown and Lou Kauffman, category theorists, etc all seem to be poking at this). I remain optimistic. Governor Jerry Brown (Bateson student) gave a wonderful defiant speech a couple of days ago. "sometimes people need to have a heart attack to get them to stop smoking. We've just had a heart attack." Some fundamental root and branch rethinking is required. Best wishes, Mark On 18 December 2016 at 23:34, Robert E. Ulanowicz wrote: >> Thank you Bob! >> >> The medium is a very restricted form of communication on the internet, of >> course... >> >> Are our circular deliberations about information victims of the so-called >> "information technology" which enables them? Is this a variety of >> Wittgenstein's realisation that the problems of philosophy were problems >> of language? Perhaps we cannot see the constraints that communications >> technology itself has on our discourse. How might we try to see them? > > Mark, I have long argued against identifying IT with communications > theory. You're right, doing so does place needless restrictions on the > discourse. As an ecologist, I use IT to quantify constraint and freedom > inherent in ecosystem trophic webs, which has nothing to do with > communication theory. In fact the whole discipline can be treated as > homologous to probability theory in total abstraction of communications. > >> Maybe this goes some way towards accounting for the strange political >> situation we find ourselves in at the moment! > > Almost everyone I know is feeling depressed and dreadful in anticipation > of what will happen after Jan 20. The feeling is that the Republic is very > much at risk. > >> Best wishes, >> >> Mark > > Cheers, > Bob U. > -- Dr. Mark William Johnson Institute of Learning and Teaching Faculty of Health and Life Sciences University of Liverpool Phone: 07786 064505 Email: johnsonm...@gmail.com Blog: http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] What is information? and What is life?
List,
Please allow me to respond to Loet about the definition of information
stated below.
1. the definition of information as uncertainty is counter-intuitive
("bizarre"); (p. 27)
I agree. I struggled with this definition for a long time before realising
that Shannon was really discussing "amount of information" or the number of
bits needed to convey a message. He was looking for a formula that would
provide an accurate estimate of the number of bits needed to convey a
message and realised that the amount of information (number of bits) needed
to convey a message was dependent on the "amount" of uncertainty that had
to be eliminated and so he equated these.
It makes sense to do this, but we must distinguish between "amount of
information" and "information". For example, we can measure amount of
water in liters, but this does not tell us what water is and likewise the
measure we use for "amount of information" does not tell us what
information is. We can, for example equate the amount of water needed to
fill a container with the volume of the container, but we should not think
that water is therefore identical to an empty volume. Similarly we should
not think that information is identical to uncertainty.
By equating the number of bits needed to convey a message with the "amount
of uncertainty" that has to be eliminated Shannon, in effect, equated
opposites so that he could get an estimate of the number of bits needed to
eliminate the uncertainty. We should not therefore consider that this
equation establishes what information is.
Dick
On 18 December 2016 at 15:05, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
> Dear James and colleagues,
>
>
>
> Weaver (1949) made two major remarks about his coauthor (Shannon)'s
> contribution:
>
>
>
> 1. the definition of information as uncertainty is counter-intuitive
> ("bizarre"); (p. 27)
>
> 2. "In particular, information must not be confused with meaning." (p. 8)
>
>
>
> The definition of information as relevant for a system of reference
> confuses information with "meaningful information" and thus sacrifices the
> surplus value of Shannon's counter-intuitive definition.
>
>
>
> information observer
>
>
>
> that integrates interactive processes such as
>
>
>
> physical interactions such photons stimulating the retina of the eye,
> human-machine interactions (this is the level that Shannon lives on),
> biological interaction such body temperature relative to touch ice or heat
> source, social interaction such as this forum started by Pedro, economic
> interaction such as the stock market, ... [Lerner, page 1].
>
>
>
> We are in need of a theory of meaning. Otherwise, one cannot measure
> meaningful information. In a previous series of communications we discussed
> redundancy from this perspective.
>
>
>
> Lerner introduces mathematical expectation E[Sap] (difference between of a
> priory entropy [sic] and a posteriori entropy), which is distinguished from
> the notion of relative information Iap (Learner, page 7).
>
>
>
> ) expresses in bits of information the information generated when the a
> priori distribution is turned into the a posteriori one . This follows
> within the Shannon framework without needing an observer. I use this
> equation, for example, in my 1995-book *The Challenge of Scientometrics*
> (Chapters 8 and 9), with a reference to Theil (1972). The relative
> information is defined as the *H*/*H*(max).
>
>
>
> I agree that the intuitive notion of information is derived from the Latin
> “in-formare” (Varela, 1979). But most of us do no longer use “force” and
> “mass” in the intuitive (Aristotelian) sense. J The proliferation of the
> meanings of information if confused with “meaningful information” is
> indicative for an “index sui et falsi”, in my opinion. The repetitive
> discussion lames the progression at this list. It is “like asking whether a
> glass is half empty or half full” (Hayles, 1990, p. 59).
>
>
>
> This act of forming forming an information process results in the
> construction of an observer that is the owner [holder] of information.
>
>
>
> The system of reference is then no longer the message, but the observer
> who provides meaning to the information (uncertainty). I agree that this is
> a selection process, but the variation first has to be specified
> independently (before it can be selected.
>
>
>
> And Lerner introduces the threshold between objective and subjective
> observes (page 27). This leads to a consideration selection and
> cooperation that includes entanglement.
>
>
>
> I don’t see a direct relation between information and entanglement. An
> observer can be entangled.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Loet
>
>
>
> PS. Pedro: Let me assume that this is my second posting in the week which
> ends tonight. L.
>
>
>
> ___
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
>
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