Since "infodynamics" is based on Shannon's definition of "information" in terms of Entropy & Thermodynamics, I tend to avoid that approach, in favor of a more general & less physical interpretation. Infodynamics may be a useful way to think about Information as a scientific concept. But my interest in Information is as a philosophical notion. Unfortunately, there are a few nagging gnats that view every topic from a reductive/scientific/materialistic perspective. I try to ignore them, but sometimes I have to swat at them, as they buzz in my face. It's OK though. They are a minor nuisance. :cool:The issue is then how do your recover what folk think they mean by meaning, consciousness, mind, intentionality, agency, etc, from an infodynamic perspective? . . .
The theory isn't complete until it is the meaningfulness of signs all the way down, coupled to the meaningless of material contingency all the way up. — apokrisis
Yes. When John A. Wheeler spoke of "bits" of Information, he was metaphorically imagining them as "atoms of form". Yet, "bits" by themselves have little-to-no influence on the real world. It's only in the corporate form of Systems or Wholes, and their related Processes, that atoms of information add-up to the dynamic physical swarms that we call physical objects.But to be a success, this reduction to "atoms of form" has to incorporate more than just a process metaphysics to take the edge off the hard materialism (that wants to oppose itself to the fluffy idealism). — apokrisis
Good question. I may get into the details of that dynamic "balance" in a later post. But it's all about creative Enformy counter-balancing destructive Entropy. :smile:So, it's all Information/EnFormAction, all the way down. — Gnomon
Yes. And that is matched to? And the third thing that is a meaningful balance of the opposing forces of spontaneity and constraint is being explicitly offered in the theory where? — apokrisis
But my interest in Information is as a philosophical notion. — Gnomon
It is the mysterious tendency for aimless energy to occasionally create the stable, but temporary, patterns we call Matter, Life, and Mind. — Gnomon
Note -- In thermodynamics, what I call "Enformy" (philosophical concept) is known as "Negentropy" (physical term). — Gnomon
Would you like to volunteer for the job of Information Semilologist? — Gnomon
Talk of "mysterious tendencies" need to be replaced by talk of entropic gradients, — apokrisis
Enformy (analogy to thermodynamics):
In the Enformationism theory, Enformy is a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend, opposite to that of Entropy & Randomness, to produce Complexity & Progress. It is the mysterious tendency for aimless energy to occasionally create the stable, but temporary, patterns we call Matter, Life, and Mind.
BothAnd Blog, post 28
Note -- In thermodynamics, what I call "Enformy" (philosophical concept) is known as "Negentropy" (physical term).
Metaphysics chooses worn-out words, such as the absolute, infinite, nonexistence, which do not display a trace of original coinage. — lll
we should start by defining "mysterious tendencies" as aspects of reality
What-is-gained is, as you say, a notion that is "more intuitive than mathematical". I am not a mathematician. So, as an amateur philosopher, with no formal training, if I tried to present my Information thesis in mathematical terms, I would be out of my depth. That's why I have to depend on links to specialists, for those who desire a more rigorous treatment. Please click on some of my links for "full rigour". :nerd:But my interest in Information is as a philosophical notion. — Gnomon
So more intuitive than mathematical? What is gained by sacrificing full rigour here? — apokrisis
Yes. I'm not pretending to be an expert in the science of Information. So, I merely use the speculations & conclusions of scientific professionals as evidence to support my own amateur philosophical conjectures. For example, the link below agrees with my contention that "information is the fundamental building block of the universe". If you have any technical questions, please contact the author. :smile:Of course telling your own tale in your own words is fair enough if you just want to arrive at your own synthesis of where modern science has got to. — apokrisis
Note : Shermer is the founder of Skeptic magazine, not SI. Coincidentally, I just read a Skeptical Inquirer article this morning, that mentioned the Plato & Aristotle concepts of "forms", "universals", and "essence". It's a review of Life is Simple, by geneticist Johnjoe McFadden, about "how Occam's Razor set science free". "William's heresy was to challenge the Church's view that theology was a real science . . ." We now understand that "theology" is philosophy, bound by an official mandate to support an authorized creed.I've never liked that 'Skeptical Enquirer' rag, although I noted with surprise the recent online interview between one of its founders, Michael Shermer, and Bernardo Kastrup, which was surprisingly congenial, I thought, causing me to re-consider a little.) — Wayfarer
because "mysterious tendencies" is the more general, and "entropic gradients" is the more specific. — Metaphysician Undercover
f you look at theories of parts and wholes in metaphysics, generally it is proposed that things are just the sum of their traits, and so traits are the logical unit of analysis. The primary opposing theories to this view hold that objects possess an essential haeccity, a substratum of "thisness." This substratum of bare being/identity makes a thing different from just its traits, and so neatly solves many problems of identity that come up when you posit that a thing is just the tropes/universals it possesses/instantiates. However, the substratum is unanalyzable, an ontic primitive, and so it can't be where your analysis starts, and is arguably a vaccuous concept entirely — Count Timothy von Icarus
Life forms slowly devolve into less and less complex organisms, sucking up entropy and breaking down complexity. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes. That's exactly what my coinage of Enformy proposes. Without some countervailing "force" to thwart destructive dis-organizing Entropy, randomness & disorder would prevail, and Evolution would become Devolution. Some scientists have made a weak acknowledgment of that downward-directional problem with the awkward term "Negentropy". Calling it negative though, permits them to treat the on-going progression of evolution as a quirky accident. However, giving that organizing principle a positive connotation allows us to interpret the singular direction of Time, and of Evolution, as-if it is working toward some teleological destination.So, if we flip the direction of entropy, we have a universe tending towards order. Life and other complex self-organizing systems emerge and begin increasing local entropy. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But, Occam concluded that "there was no need for any sort of vague, abstract, entity . . ." — Gnomon
Now this [late medieval nominalist] philosophy was itself the legatee of the greatest of all disruptions carried out in the history of European thought, namely that of Duns Scotus who for the first time established a radical separation of philosophy from theology by declaring that it was possible to consider being in abstraction from the question of whether one is considering created or creating being. Eventually this generated the notion of ontology and an epistemology unconstrained by, and transcendentally prior to, theology itself. — John Millbank
Thomists and other critics of Ockham have tended to present traditional realism, with its forms or natures, as the solution to the modern problem of knowledge. It seems to me that it does not quite get to the heart of the matter. A genuine realist should see “forms” not merely as a solution to a distinctly modern problem of knowledge, but as part of an alternative conception of knowledge, a conception that is not so much desired and awaiting defense, as forgotten and so no longer desired. Characterized by forms, reality had an intrinsic intelligibility, not just in each of its parts but as a whole. With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble.
In short, the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality. Preoccupied with overcoming Cartesian skepticism, it often seems as if philosophy’s highest aspiration is merely to secure some veridical cognitive events. Rarely sought is a more robust goal: an authoritative and life-altering wisdom. Notice: even if contemporary philosophers came to a consensus about how to overcome Cartesian doubt and secure certainty, it is not clear that this would do anything to repair the fragmentation and democratization of the disciplines, or to make it more plausible that there could be an ordered hierarchy of sciences, with a highest science, acknowledged as queen of the rest—whether we call it first philosophy, or metaphysics, or wisdom. — Joshua Hothschild
Your comment on "entities" may be a digression only in the sense of supplementary information. As I superficially understand the position of Nominalists, they were opposed to Realists, who didn't believe in anything non-physical anyway. For a non-physical abstract "entity", giving it a name doesn't make it a real thing.But, Occam concluded that "there was no need for any sort of vague, abstract, entity . . ." — Gnomon
A major digression, but I don't believe the nominalists ever properly understood the idea of the forms. A form is not a 'vague abstract entity' or an entity of any kind, if an entity is considered to be a thing. A form is more like a principle or defining characteristic, intelligible only to the 'eye of reason', and the loss of this understanding represents a watershed in the history of ideas. — Wayfarer
From that perspective, an Ideal entity, such as a Platonic Form, exists Abstractly & Potentially until Actualized physically. Of course, how that abstract-to-concrete transformation could occur, probably requires some notion of creation of Something (actual) from Nothing (potential). I suspect that concept of Potential existence does not compute in the worldview of Realists, Materialists, and Physicalists. For them, ideas & ideals, or principles & fundamental truths, are merely religious propaganda. — Gnomon
I would ask for more information on the "watershed event" stemming from the "eye of reason" notion. But that might be merely a digression from a digression. — Gnomon
The earth’s surface is measurably cooler where it is covered by a richer ecosystem
Doesn't this imply that life forms running in rewind would be increasing local entropy, — Count Timothy von Icarus
On a side note, if you were an extra dimensional traveler watching our universe run in reverse, I wonder what the opposite of the Big Bang would be? "The Incredibly Slow Warm Up?" — Count Timothy von Icarus
Thermodynamics is the ground for time. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Definition requires difference. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Logically, it would make more sense to start down at the very smallest differences that can be discriminated. If you wanted to define visible colors, you work your way around something analogous to a digital color wheel, and tweak the various shades in small increments until you've laid out a map of all the discernable colors. — Count Timothy von Icarus
If you look at theories of parts and wholes in metaphysics, generally it is proposed that things are just the sum of their traits, and so traits are the logical unit of analysis. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The primary opposing theories to this view hold that objects possess an essential haeccity, a substratum of "thisness." This substratum of bare being/identity makes a thing different from just its traits, and so neatly solves many problems of identity that come up when you posit that a thing is just the tropes/universals it possesses/instantiates. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Mysterious tendencies don’t lend themselves to formal treatment, just frantic hand waving. — apokrisis
But the problem with that view is, it doesn't allow for the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, nor for the fact that mathematics is governed by rules. So I'm firmly part of the 'mathematics is discovered' camp. — Wayfarer
Yes. I'm not a mathematician, but I think of Math as the Logic of the universe. It's the non-physical "structure" of the physical world. That invisible framework of reality consists of stable consistent patterns of inter-relationships upon which are hung the physical "furniture" of the real world. We can't perceive those intangible links, but we can conceive them via rational inference. So, we "discover" the logical scaffolding of physics, not by empirical probing, but by imaginary conception. We seem to fill-in-the-blanks between things by mentally constructing a pattern of links to fit the pattern of nodes. When a particular pattern is found to be consistent & essential, we call them Rules or Laws that metaphorically "govern" that particular category (set) of nodes.Where this started for me was with the realisation of the reality of numbers. . . .
The popular answer is that they exist in the minds of humans only, that they're a mental construction. But the problem with that view is, it doesn't allow for the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, nor for the fact that mathematics is governed by rules. So I'm firmly part of the 'mathematics is discovered' camp. — Wayfarer
What are those? I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of metaphysics articles, those are the big ones I was aware of. How do they get around it? — Count Timothy von Icarus
Nothing in the real world submits itself to "formal treatment". Formal systems are pure theory. — Metaphysician Undercover
When the math balanced-out, I could be assured that the "logic" of the structure was "sound". — Gnomon
_The mathematical & logical scaffolding of Nature forms the patterns-of-meaning that we call "Information". — Gnomon
Formal systems can be supported by acts of measurement. That makes them useful as models of the world. — apokrisis
The word 'matter' is etymologically related to 'mother': — Wayfarer
Sure, but the point is that the standards as to what constitutes "support" for a formal system cannot itself be a formal system. — Metaphysician Undercover
So it's wrong to characterize something which is not understood as a formal system as "frantic hand waving", or else formal systems would just be totally useless fictions or fantasies. — Metaphysician Undercover
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