Information
I don't know much about philosophy of information and it's showing up in a book I'm reading. I'm going to try to sort through the SEP articles on information starting with the one on semantic information.
Semantic information may or may not be linguistic. A picture in a manual is information if it has well-formed, meaningful data.
Well-formed means the data follows the rules of a certain domain. This is syntax. An example of syntax is the rules of movie making. An old Hollywood movie conveys information according to a well known set of rules, such as that the camera is supposed to be perpendicular to the plane of action.
A director may break this syntactic rule, but she risks diminishing the meaningfulness of the movie.
So meaning comes last. The well-formed data has to adhere to meanings associated with the structures created by the presentation. So the good guy in a Hollywood movie is supposed to win in the end. If a director breaks this rule, the audience may be left uncertain, befuddled, and possibly violent.
This simple map of information is meant to be just a starting point. Comments?
Semantic information may or may not be linguistic. A picture in a manual is information if it has well-formed, meaningful data.
Well-formed means the data follows the rules of a certain domain. This is syntax. An example of syntax is the rules of movie making. An old Hollywood movie conveys information according to a well known set of rules, such as that the camera is supposed to be perpendicular to the plane of action.
A director may break this syntactic rule, but she risks diminishing the meaningfulness of the movie.
So meaning comes last. The well-formed data has to adhere to meanings associated with the structures created by the presentation. So the good guy in a Hollywood movie is supposed to win in the end. If a director breaks this rule, the audience may be left uncertain, befuddled, and possibly violent.
This simple map of information is meant to be just a starting point. Comments?
Comments (39)
Hollywood movies are usually written to evoke emotional responses from viewers, the stronger the better. Visual effects such as scenery, action as part of a story, and the looks and personality of the actors imply some moral or existential message then follow from the sum total of the two hours of imaginary life experience gained. Or maybe is it just entertainment without meaning?
A picture is worth a thousand words. When I attempt to describe a quite familiar picture or just any picture I happen to come across this old proverb proves to be convincing. Looking at it the other way isn't simple either. It might be quite a challenge to illustrate this paragraph so that any meaning can somehow be passed on to a non-English speaker.
One issue is whether there is any meaning in the passage itself without the contributions of a writer and a reader. Is there a message at all if the reader is naive to the subject and the language employed? A writer might or might not have intended to convey a message to specific or all readers. Am I just spinning meaningless words?
Information in the digital world is alluringly concrete, manageable, and purposeful, for computers that know how to write and read it, yet also for human purposes at a higher level of meaning. It would appear then that information and meaning are not simple, and I am correct in being confused. Clearly the keys I press somehow create meaning that reach your mind with the help of or perhaps in spite of the hidden electronic information that made it possible.
Daniel Chandler's Semiotics for Beginners
From my own perspective, I am intrigued by the philosophical differences between the approaches of Saussure and Peirce. Is meaning a fleeting thought or an object to be examined? Is information more than the vehicle for meaning?
Probably not. But information doesn't have to be a message that's sent from writer to reader. It could just be you looking into the night sky, as if to ask: "Where is the north star?"
When you find it, you have information: it's over there. Is this semantic information?
In-form-ation, as the name implies, takes on many forms. In its generic form, I call it EnFormAction.
My personal worldview is based on the concept that Generic (general, all-inclusive) Information is the fundamental element of our world. It is the basic substance of everything from Physics to Linguistics. That may sound far-fetched, but my Enformationism thesis traces Information from its source, as encoded in the Big Bang Singularity, to its biological form as the genetic code in DNA, then to the kind of conventional meaningful Information (knowledge) that resides in human brains, and finally to its current application as an abstract vessel (Shannon Information) for carrying various values & meanings in modern computers. Even physical Energy is a dynamic form of Generic Information. So, you are correct that, "information may or may not be linguistic". :nerd:
Information :
A quality of physical patterns and processes that stimulates meaning to emerge in a mind. Since it has few directly perceivable qualities itself, generic information is usually defined in terms of its context or container. Unlike colorless, odorless, and formless water though, Information gives physical form to whatever contains it. In the Enformationism thesis it is the single Substance of the whole World.
http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page9.html
Enformationism : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/
Quoting frank
The word "information" means the act of creating recognizable forms. But Shannon stripped the term of its original meaning in order to make an empty shell to contain whatever meaning we want to give it. What once was first, is now last. :smile:
Information :
[i]* Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
* For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
* When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.[/i]
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
So the general definition of information (GDI) is:
information is data plus meaning
Semantic information is made of data, and diaphoric definition of data (DDD) is:
A datum is a putative fact regarding some difference or lack of uniformity within some context.
This definition can be further analyzed. The first component is data de re. This entity is a product of inference. We see ourselves as information systems. This implies an external source for the ground of experience. So we're talking about proto-epistemic data which we think of as a lack of uniformity. We can't give an example of this kind of data because it's uninterpreted.
Here's my own personal general definition of Information :
Information :
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those ratios are also called "differences". So Gregory Bateson* defined Information as "the difference that makes a difference". The latter distinction refers to "value" or "meaning". Babbage called his prototype computer a "difference engine". Difference is the cause or agent of Change. In Physics it’s called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology it’s called "Conflict".
I also distinguish Semantic Information from Shannon Information :
Information :
[i]* Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
* For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
* When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.[/i]
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
Although Shannon's work was specifically about transmission of information through communications systems.
Quoting Gnomon
Again, I'm questioning whether information can be regarded as 'an element' on the basis that it's not 'elementary'. What is elementary are, for instance, the periodic table of elements, because they're the fundamental varieties of atomic matter that are found in nature. But information doesn't have a generic form, for it has to specify something, or mean something, in order to be 'information'. A random sequence of letters or numbers doesn't constitute 'information', so what could 'generic information' possibly mean?
Shannon believed that information is anything that stands out - the more novel, the more unexpected, the more shocking something is, the more information there is. This understanding of information squares with what @unenlightened once said viz. that to make universal claims has a downside to it viz. the loss of meaning: if everthing is red then redness becomes meaningless - redundant and useless. A quality chosen must be able to bring out differences between things in the world and only then can meaning or use arise. Similarly, if everything is uniform, proceeding as per preset laws/plans, information content is very low. The moment plans go awry or laws are violated, there's a spike in information.
So the meaning of red contains its negation.
Data, if defined as a basic lack of uniformity is the beginnings of meaning, or it's at the core of meaning; it's the grain of sand in the meaning oyster.
Yes, but the meaning of those transmissions is extracted from the digital code by the mind of the receiver. As philosopher Edward Feser noted : "Shannon was concerned with information in a syntactical rather than semantic sense". Syntax is the formal structure (grammar) of information transmission, and the vehicle or carrier of Meaning (Semantics). Syntax is like Morse code, which is nothing but conventionalized dots & dashes. Those abstractions have no specific concrete meaning until extracted by a conscious mind, trained to interpret the code. A biological analogy is the chemical arrangement of DNA, which is inert & meaningless, until interpreted by transcription factors into proteins. :smile:
Quoting Wayfarer
Information is not found in the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. And Shannon didn't think of Information as elementary or fundamental. It was just a useful tool for his engineering purposes. But physicists are now coming to the conclusion that quantum scale Information is the fundamental "substance" of physical reality. It's a Primary Substance in the Aristotelian (ousia ; essence)) sense, and the Universal Substance in the Spinozan (God-Nature) sense. Physicist Paul Davies proposed "grounding [natural] laws . . . in information considered as the 'ontological basement' level of physical reality". This unconventional view of immaterial Information --- as the basic element of Matter, Energy, and SpaceTime --- is not yet accepted by all scientists, but it is an idea on the leading edge of scientific progress. :nerd:
Is Information Fundamental ? : https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/is-information-fundamental/
Is information the only thing that exists? : Physics suggests information is more fundamental than matter, energy, space and time
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431191-500-inside-knowledge-is-information-the-only-thing-that-exists/
Is Information Fundamental? : Could information be the most basic building block of reality?
https://www.closertotruth.com/series/information-fundamental
The basis of the universe may not be energy or matter but information : In this radical view, the universe is a giant supercomputer processing particles as bits.
https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/the-basis-of-the-universe-may-not-be-energy-or-matter-but-information
Yes. It's well-known in philosophy that Universals and Generals are abstract and non-specific, hence lacking in concrete specified meaning. But that very abstract universality of Shannon's code (1s & 0s) is also its power. The two-digit code can carry any of zillions of possible meanings. But the specific intended meaning must be interpreted by a trained mind similar to that of the encoder. :smile:
For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
John Searle's Critique of Computer Cognitivism : "if left un-interpreted the symbols will not carry semantic information".
BUT, this is not philosophy, it’s data science, about transmission of data through electronic media. Out of his theory grew the algorithms for data compression. I’m sceptical of the way it’s been generalised as a general theory of meaning. At best it generates suggestive analogies.
Thanks for those refs, I notice Paul Davies is mentioned there, and I’m reading Demon in the Machine. But I still say the idea of ‘generic information’ is self-contradictory. Information has to specify something or inform something specific. It’s like the equivalent of Aristotle’s ‘prima materia’ which is a metaphysical idea, not something that exists in reality.
Quoting Gnomon
Right - an important point.
When science scans the universe for SETI, then it’s looking for the biochemical signature of life (or signals sent by an advanced culture). Nothing has been found to date. But the point is, during this search the instruments collect billions of terrabytes of data, none of which contains information specifically denoting the existence of life.
The ‘information signature’ which is associated with life is morphological - it is information that gives rise to biological forms. So in relation to living organisms, information is significant because it is what is managed and transferred by DNA/RNA. That is the ‘signature’ that SETI is looking for.
But is it meaningful to consider the structure of inorganic matter in terms of ‘information’? Science has long since come to understand the atomic weight of the elements in the periodic table, which constitutes information about the nature of the elements. But is it meaningful to represent the elements as being actually ‘composed of information?’ Even if everything about the elements could be represented mathematically - and mathematical physics has many gaps in its accounts - is it true to say that this mathematical information is the substance from which the elements are constituted? That’s what I am dubious about.
I wonder if ‘information’ has been singled out as a fundamental concept because of the shortcomings of materialist ontology; something always seems to be missing, maybe we can designate that something ‘information’? After all, there is a subject called ‘information science’, this is more scientifically appealing than ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’.
(Actually I have a ref to provide also, Marcelo Barbieri, What is information?. The point about his paper is defining ‘information’ in respect of biological science in particular, which provides a scope that I think is missing in many of these other discussions.)
That's exactly the point of the Enformationism thesis. Generic (general, universal, creative) Information is Meta-physical. But it has the power to transform into Physical things,including living things --- just like Energy --- and like Plato's Forms. This radical notion is explained further in the thesis and the blog. The "specification" is in the Intention. And in Evolution, the fittest physical form is "selected" (specified) from among a random assortment of potential forms. Natural Selection is an algorithm. :smile:
EnFormAction is not a physical force, pushing objects around. It’s more like Gravity and Strange Attractors of Physics that “pull” stuff toward them. It is in effect a Teleological Attractor. How that “spooky action at a distance” works may be best explained by Terrence Deacon’s definition of “Absence”.
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html
Evolution Algorithm :
A genetic algorithm is a search heuristic that is inspired by Charles Darwin's theory of natural evolution. This algorithm reflects the process of natural selection where the fittest individuals are selected for reproduction in order to produce offspring of the next generation.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=natural+selection+algorithm
Quoting Wayfarer
That invisible intangible Energy can somehow transform dead matter into living beings is well known. Many ancient traditions have postulated some kind of Vital Force or Chi or Prana or Soul. Since these "energies" have not been found by Physical Science, the names must refer to some Meta-physical power. In the Frankenstein novel, even the raw power of lightening was imagined as the vitalizing force. But nobody knows exactly how the "mechanism of organism" works. It seems to be related to the phase change from a collection of parts, to a single unified organic biological Whole.
I can't specify all the transitional steps from Matter to Life to Mind, but it seems to be merely a highly-evolved kind of Phase Transition --- like liquid to gas to solid. Terrance Deacon uses terms like "Morphodynamics", "Teleodynamics", & "Emergent-dynamics" to describe some of the higher-level phase transitions.
To clarify, I don't consider EnFormAction to be a magical force, but it is meta-physical in the sense that the origin of natural Energy is unknown, and is assumed to exist eternally, like Plato's Forms. :nerd:
Terrance Deacon : . . . phase transition between morphodynamics and teleodynamics . . .
https://informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/deacon/
Meta-Physics :
* "Physics" refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. "Meta-physics" includes the properties, and qualities, essences, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form; purpose; cause); physics is the product (shape; stuff; effect). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
Morphological : relating to the form or structure of things.
Note -- EnFormAction is Morphological.
Quoting Wayfarer
Barbieri : What is not clear, however, is the ontological status of information,
The "ontological status of information" is the subject of the Enformationism thesis.
FWIW, my review of Paul Davies' book :
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page6.html
Well, all due respect, I don't think you've really clarified it. But then, it's a very deep question.
Did you notice the brief discussion of Hubert Yockey in that paper?
Quoting Gnomon
Good review - and I must finish reading it myself.
// there's a lot in that review that I agree with, and I'm generally sympathetic to your project//.
If everything were red, its opposite wouldn't be something not-red but would be nothing. An intriguing implication of this would be the possibility that what we regard as things and whose opposite we consider is nothing may have opposites that are things themselves. Like red objects have non-red objects, things may have non-things but note, as non-red objects aren't nothing and are themselves [i[things[/i], these non-things aren't nothing.but are things too.
Imagine a universe A in which all things are red contained within a universe B that contains, in addition to the red things of universe A, blue things too. For a person living inside universe A, not-red is equivalent to nothing for all things are red but for a person in universe B, not-red isn't nothing, not-red is blue. Similarly, in our universe, what we treat as things may actually have opposite not-things in a universe that contains our own but aren't nothing. Just as the not-red in universe A is nothing for an inhabitant of universe A but the not-red is blue for a person living in universe B, what we treat as nothing in our universe may be something in another universe, one that contains our universe as a subset.
Quoting frank
Quoting Wayfarer
To both of you
Well, look at it this way. Suppose there are three people X, Y and Z. X has no information at all on both Sunday and Monday i.e. X's information = 0 bits on Sunday and 0 bits on Monday. Y has 5 bits of information on Sunday and 5 bits of information on Monday and Z has 5 bits of information on Sunday and 8 bits of information on Monday. X has no information i.e X has 0 bits of information from Sunday to Monday. Y has 5 bits of information on Sunday but on Monday Y still has only 5 bits of information. Y's information on Monday (5 bits) - Y's information on Sunday (5 bits) = 0 bits. X's information on Monday (0 bits) - X's information on Sunday (0 bits) = 0 bits. In other words, uniformity/constancy in information over time is equivalent to having no information at all. Z, on the other hand, because of a discontinuity in the general pattern, has a net information of 3 bits (8 bits on Monday - 5 bits on Sunday) over a time period of 2 days (Sunday to Monday).
Consider now the most common method of assigning meaning, genus-differentia definitions. First, a background pattern (uniformity) is established with the genus and then a specific set of differentia (breaks in the pattern) are chosen to pick out the class/object thus defined.
The more complex something is, the more information there is.
If information only exists in minds and data exists everywhere else then meaning would be arbitrary and imaginary. If there are reasons some data exists, then those reasons would be the meaning of the data. Those causal relationships are already there prior to some mind apprehending them. So information appears as data when the causal relationship is not apprehended, and it appears as information when it is apprehended.
Quoting Wayfarer
Correction. They collect billions of terabytes of information, but none of it pertains to the existence of extra terrestrials, or was CAUSED by extra terrestrial activity. It was still caused so there is information there in the data, just not the type of information NASA is looking for.
That's what Richard Dawkins believes. Did you read his book, The Devil's Chaplain? In it he suggests a simple test for complexity - if the number of words required to describe X (information) is more than the number of words required to describe Y (again information) and provided the descriptions are at the same level of complexity/organization, X is more complex than Y.
Quoting Harry Hindu
You seem to have something going on with causality from what I've gathered from your posts. What is it about causality that interests you? Anyway, you mean to say that information is data understood (apprehended)? Pray tell, what is data then as information seems to supervene on data.
"Information" Is an ambiguous term which allows the modern materialist, or physicalist, through the use of illusion, to escape the need for God in metaphysics. It is directly related to time in the second law of thermodynamics, and this allows the premise that if there is time, there is information. The problem though is that under this definition "information" is necessarily the property of a system, as entropy is defined as the property of a system. If the metaphysician ignores this fundamental requirement of "information", one can also ignore the fact that a "system" is an artificial thing with definite boundaries. The boundaries of "the system" in this modern form of metaphysics will be the beginning and ending of time. But as you can see this is a sort of logical incoherency, an epistemological trick, because the proposal is to assume that something with unknown boundaries must have actual boundaries. The illusory assumption therefore, is that we can start from the premise that the boundaries are known, as is necessary to describe this "system", and proceed using the "system" which we describe from this premise.
Quoting Gnomon
This is a very good example of how the ambiguity of "information" allows a metaphysician to avoid the need for God. Since the second law of thermodynamics describes entropy as increasing while time passes, the beginning of time is described as the most highly informed, or organized state. This allows that the information can pass into any other possible highly organized states as time passes and the system entropizes. The premise that the system starts from the highest possible state of organization allows that the system transforms itself into other highly organized states through random changes of entropization. But we ought to see through this smoke and mirrors illusion, to realize that this is only possible because the most highly organized state possible is premised as the beginning state. And of course such a beginning state could only be created by an omniscient Being. So the premise that information is fundamental, implies that God is even more fundamental. But this implication is simply ignored or denied by the informationist.
As you said, the ontological status of "Information" is a complex topic with many aspects. In order to understand my personal attempt at clarification, you'd have to read the whole Enformationism thesis. Some may find it tedious and irrelevant to science, but I think it's a novel, even radical re-interpretation and consilience of the original meaning of "Information" as Knowledge in a mind, and the new concepts of "Information" as an abstract code, and as the essence of causal Energy : the ability to enform, :smile:
Consilence : agreement between the approaches to a topic of different academic subjects, especially science and the humanities.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes. I think he's missing the key point of the Enformationism thesis : that information is not just a carrier of Data, but of Mind and Life. How do you think DNA information can enform not only proteins, but put them together into a living body? As a god-fearing person might ask, "at what step in the development of an embryo is the Soul imparted?" Maybe the potential for Life & Mind was in there from the beginning as Intention or Purpose or Teleology. :cool:
Yes. I was led by my exploration of the Enformationism thesis to conclude that something like a Divine Creator -- or First Cause of our space-time sequence of secondary causes -- is reasonable to assume; perhaps even necessary to believe. But the very generality & universality of Information in the real world, does not specify any particular traditional deity concept. Nor does it imply any humanoid characteristics, such as motherly love or fatherly commandments.
That's why, in my thesis and blog, I refer to the Enformer by many names, including the deliberately non-specific term "G*D". I take the necessary existence of The Programmer as an axiom in my worldview. But even more fundamental than a creative Prime Cause is the eternal power to exist, which I call BEING. Yet I don't have any reason to expect the Designer of Evolution (The Lawgiver) to make an exception to the universal rules of Nature, for poor little me. I also don't see any evidence of a revelation, apart from that which Science uncovers, to any particular tribe of humans.
So all those Metaphysical roles affect me in a philosophical way, but not in any particular physical difference or emotional charge. Like the Supreme Being of Deism, my G*D does not not intervene in the implacable automatic execution of the Evolutionary Program. Hence, while I am sympathetic to traditional notions of Supernatural Gods, I don't have any motive to worship or pray-to that Universal Agency. Enformationism is a philosophical worldview, not a romantic religion. :cool:
PS___I assume the "informationist" you refer to is restricted to the technical mechanical Shannon interpretation, and omits the Bayesian criterion, which includes a parameter for personal beliefs and opinions.
No. It's not.
First, I'm not a materialist. Second, I'm not trying to escape the need for anything except unnecessarily complex assertions using terms that you don't even understand what they mean, and can't be consistently or properly be used.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, causality is related to time, however I don't see how it follows that that would mean it is a property of a system. Again, here you are using words that are vague or superfluous. "God" and, "time" are two examples. What is "time"? Isnt time just another word for change? Is change fundamental, or is the substance that changes fundamental? Can you assert that one is more fundamental than the other? Does it even make sense to separate one from the other?
What interests me is how effects are about their causes and how causes are about their effects. It is also interesting to note that every effect is also a cause of some subsequent effect and that all effects carry information about all prior causes.
The division between data and information is epistemological, just like order and chaos. They are distinctions made based our current understanding of some process. An understood process appears orderly and contains information, while a process that is not well understood appears as random data.
Yes, I agree with you. To the extent that I'm aware, this comes from my acquaintance with detective work, the effect contains telltale signs of the cause. How else is a detective supposed to operate? Working backwards from the crime scene to the crime itself is how a detective earns his keep. Note, however, that you used information in a sense that suggests that it has to do with more than just causality. If the two were identical you wouldn't/shouldn't have said, "...all effects carry information about all prior causes", right? I would like you to expand on the non-causality aspect of information.
Yes, that is an example that I like to use, too. I also like to use the example of a tree stump with tree rings. The tree rings carry information about the age of the tree. The tree rings were caused by how the tree grows throughout the year. The meaning of the tree rings is not in the mind of an observer. It is in the process that created the tree rings. This implies that meaning and information exists independent of observers and their minds.
Quoting TheMadFool
What I mean is that information is that relationship between cause and effect. Causes and effects are epistemological snapshots of the entire process. Causes and effects are the objects and events that we talk about.
Our words are caused by our ideas and our intent to communicate them. That is what some string of words mean. Meaning and information are the same thing. So you could say that meaning is the relationship between cause and effect, too.
1. What?
2. Where?
3. When?
4. Who?
5. Which?
6. How?
7. Why?
Each object/phenomenon/event is a point in this information space defined by the values of these six dimensions.
So, let me give you an example of the ambiguity then.
Quoting Harry Hindu
See the ambiguity in your usage? You start out by saying information is in the complex thing. Then you end up saying that this is really "data", and it only appears to be information when apprehended by a mind. So which is it, is information in the thing as what we call "data", or is it how the data appears to the mind when apprehended? You do understand that there is a difference between these two don't you? And to switch back and forth is to equivocate.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I wasn't talking about "causality", I was talking about "information". Why change the subject? The second law of thermodynamics stipulates a direct relationship between entropy and time. Further, entropy is a defining feature of information theory through the concept of "uncertainty". So we have a direct relation between information and time, through the concepts of uncertainty, entropy, and the second law.
And, "entropy" is by definition the property of a system. It refers to that system's capacity to do work. Any system loses its capacity to do work, as time passes, simply as a function of time passing. That's how the possibility of a perpetual motion machine is ruled out. The system loses its capacity to do work, because energy is actually lost from the system, but there is "uncertainty" as to exactly what happens to that energy, it simply cannot be accounted for within the system. But the first law of thermodynamics stipulates that energy must be conserved, so the uncertainty as to what happens to that energy is expressed as a loss of information. If we assume a closed system, and maintain the first law, then energy which can be accounted for is information, and energy which cannot be accounted for is entropy.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I don't see how any of this is relevant. I used "time" in the way that it is used in the second law of thermodynamics. Any other way that "time" might be used is irrelevant and a distraction.
Nothing to add/subtract although the most pressing concern regarding information being sought, given the teleological slant of many of our predecessors, seems to be WHO...is...behind...all...this? [the questioner takes his last breath, his eyes glaze over, and then his body goes limp]
Quoting Harry Hindu
Well, that doesn't seem to be all that helpful if you don't mind me saying so. Why have a word "information" supposedly an attempt to invent an entirely new concept category if it ultimately boils down cause and effect? We already have the notion of causality, right? If information is simply the relationship between cause and effect, then why all the hullabaloo?
Too, what exactly do you mean by "relationship" between cause and effect. The only relationship that exists between these two is causality. Are you suggesting information = causality? If you are then that brings us back to the question I asked, what's the point of the whole exercise of inventing the word "information"?
I don't understand the question. "WHO" is behind what?
Quoting TheMadFool
Yes, causality = information = meaning. However, I don't understand your aversion to synonyms. Do you not use some words interchangeably? Also, I think "information" provides that sense of aboutness that "causality" does not seem to imply.
No. I said that the more complex something is, the more information there is. There is information in simple systems, just not as much as in complex systems. The system being the causal process that leads to the effect that we are talking about.
Information is the relationship between causes and their effects. Apprehending that relationship is the act of syncing our knowledge with the way things are. Many people use the term information interchangeably with knowledge. If you have knowledge, you have information. We have terms that have more than one definition, so I don't understand this sudden aversion to different words meaning the same thing, or words that have more than one definition. It would only matter if the definitions contradicted each other, and they don't.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I wasn't. They are the same thing.
It doesn't matter if you didn't understand the question.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I get synonyms but information, last I checked, isn't synonymous with causality. They're treated as distinct concepts. To add, you said
Quoting Harry Hindu
and that threw me off. In what sense would effects "carry information" if not in ways distinct and separate from causation itself? For instance, running with my detective example, if Sherlock Holmes sees the tables and chairs overturned in a room, he concludes that there had been a scuffle in the room. The information that there was a scuffle in the room is distinct from the scuffle itself right? is the inference of a scuffle identical to the scuffle itself? if it is then every time I gather causal information, whatever it is that I inferred should actualize in reality too, no?
Are you saying that all relations are causal? What about something like Joe is heavier than Ron? Isn't that information which is not a matter of causality?
Quoting Harry Hindu
You can commit the fallacy of equivocation without the definitions contradicting each other, all that is required is that the word has two distinct meanings.
Yea yea. I know what you mean. For me, the big implication is that we always think in terms of opposites. This is why there is no information in uniformity.
If uniformity was a country you could visit, you wouldn't be able to think there and you wouldn't remember anything about the trip.
Now, not only do I not understand the question, but I don't understand your reason for asking it if you're just going to say that it doesn't matter if I understood the question or not.
Quoting TheMadFool
That's weird to say that information isn't synonymous with causality when you were the one that provided the example of a detective at a crime scene observing the aftermath of a crime and garnering information about the crime from the crime scene. I agreed with you. Would you agree that others would agree that that is a good example of how effects carry information about their causes? You're the one throwing me off.
The scuffle is the cause, the overturned chairs is the effect. The relationship between them is information. You basically have three separate things, but really those three things can't exist on their own ontologically, except in our minds.
Excellent question. Thanks.
No. I'm not saying that all relations are causal. Causality is a kind of relationship. So, if you are saying that there is information in the comparison of Joe's weight with Ron's, then information is actually in all relationships. That is fine with me. I sometimes use "relationships" and "process" instead of "information" to define the fundamental layer of reality. My "Information Philosophy" is very similar to Process Philosophy.
On the other hand, it seems to me that both Joe and Ron's weight is information, and Joe being heavier than Ron is a comparison of those two bits of information that then creates more information by inference - that Joe is heavier than Ron. So could you get the information that Joe is heavier than Ron without first having the information of Joe and Ron's weight, or Joe and Ron's physical appearance? In a sense, Jon being heavier than Ron is an inference, or an effect, of comparing the information of Joe and Ron's weight or physical appearance.
Why "process"? Do you deny the possibility of a static relationship? Are not the relationships between 1 and 2, 2 and 3, etc., static?
Quoting Harry Hindu
How is Joe's weight, or Ron's weight causal? That's what I don't understand. If a thing's weight is the product of a measurement, then this information is caused. But how would you account for the information within the thing itself? Clearly there must be some sort of information within the thing itself which is called "Joe", to validate the measurement as true. Isn't it the case that this information is there within Joe whether or not it acts as a cause in the case of Joe being measured?
Good point! That is why I say that Energy is Information (the power to enform), but Information is not just mechanical Energy. Information also causes Meaning in a mind. :smile:
Information :
[i]* Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
* For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
* When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.[/i]
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
Here, I would just say that static relationships are less complex than dynamic relationships, therefore static relationships have less information than dynamic ones. I do prefer to use "information" for the prior reasons I've stated. As I said, Process Philosophy is similar, not exactly the same as my "Information philosophy".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Measurement are just comparisons, just like Joe being heavier than Ron. What is measured is the relationship between their body's mass and the Earth's gravity.
The thing itself is information in that it is caused. The thing being the effect, and it's reasons for existing here and now in the way that it does being the cause. So an organism carries information about it's parentage, it's eating habits, it's understanding of a native language, it's life and ancestral history essentially.
When we acquire information to compare, like two people's weight, then that is the cause of the inference that Joe is heavier than Ron. In other words, reasoning is causal. You point to reasons (causes) for your beliefs (effects), and point to your beliefs as causes for your actions (effects). Your actions carry information about your beliefs, which is how many of us can interpret what one believes based on their actions.
Yes. Like Pierre Simon Laplace, Claude Shannon had "no need for that [God] hypothesis" in his definition of Information. In both cases the researcher was following the principles of Methodological Naturalism. As the quote below indicates, by eliminating supernatural causes from consideration, scientists could avoid getting entangled in insoluble perennial philosophical / theological wrangling over intangible & non-empirical Metaphysical concepts.
Ironically though, as the 20th century progressed in its understanding of Quantum foundations of the natural world, the less physical and more metaphysical it seemed. Now, instead of hard little atoms of matter, Physicists talk about cloud-like "Fields" composed of intangible "Virtual" particles. So, the term 'virtual" is another smokescreen "to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind" [Orwell on political speech]. Such terminology is only illusory if taken to refer to Actual existence, when they only point to Potential existence. They seem to be potential in the same sense as Plato's Forms : the general potential to enform particular things.
Now, the 21st century descriptions of Nature are technically Meta-beyond-Physical, and are literally ambiguous : "wave-particle". So, it's not surprising that most physicists prefer not to consider philosophical questions about the mushy foundations of Physics. But not all. Paul Davies is a highly credentialed physicist with a philosophical inclination, who does not shy away from the "hard problems". So, he uses the "G" word openly in his books. And he is not alone. Many of his fellows have come around to see that Information is not just ideas in a mind, or just data in a computer, but also the creative power of Energy. Still, he is careful to avoid committing to any traditional god-myth. Specifically, his notion of God is not the supernatural bible-god, but a natural information-god : The Enformer/Creator of everything in this world, both Matter & Mind. :smile:
Methodological Naturalism : Methodological naturalism, as a definition of the scientific method, is rather ill defined except for its main idea, namely that science, explicitly, by fiat, and with malice a-fore-thought, rejects God, gods, and the supernatural from all its considerations. . . . But Laplace gave the real reason for God’s absence: parsimony—there is no need of that hypothesis
https://www.quantumdiaries.org/2011/09/16/there-is-no-need-for-god-as-a-hypothesis/
Potential vs Actual : Aristotle describes potentiality and actuality, or potency and action, as one of several distinctions between things that exist or do not exist. In a sense, a thing that exists potentially does not exist, but the potential does exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality
The Mind of God : The Scientific Basis for a Rational World
https://www.amazon.com/Mind-God-Scientific-Basis-Rational/dp/0671797182/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=paul+davies&link_code=qs&qid=1608860627&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-2&tag=mozilla-20
God and the New Physics :
https://www.amazon.com/God-New-Physics-Paul-Davies/dp/0671528068/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=paul+davies&link_code=qs&qid=1608860774&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-3&tag=mozilla-20