Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

Gnomon

Knowledge is not information, knowledge is 'understood information'. Ability to know is not information, ability to know is ability to understand information. — Zelebg

Knowledge is just one form of Generic Information. In my thesis, Consciousness is a highly evolved form of Generic Information. Generic Information is essentially abstract mathematics, and is physically manifested as Energy. Mathematically, Energy is a proportion --- a ratio between Cold & Hot, for example. And metaphysical mathematical Energy, according to Einstein, is equivalent to Mass (ratio of inertia to acceleration) , which is the measurable property of physical Matter. But, Meaningful Information is in the relationship, not the things.

So, Information (knowledge) in it's traditional sense is a property of Mind, of Consciousness. In my view, it's both the ability to know (verb; action; to enform), and the thing known (noun; object; a physical form). The multiple functions of Information can get confusing when you switch from Physics to Metaphysics, but it's both Quanta and Qualia. That's why my thesis proposes Enformationism as a modern update of ancient Materialism. The thesis goes into much more detail to explain that apparent paradox, and the underlying unity of Mind & Matter, Brain & Consciousness. Enformationism seems to be related to Mathematical Platonism, but I'm not very familiar with that contentious concept .

Mathematical Platonism : Mathematical platonism has been among the most hotly debated topics in the philosophy of mathematics over the past few decades
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism-mathematics/

What is EnFormAction? : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html

Gnomon

But I'm sorry to say that I think the extraction of a 'metaphysics' from information theory is pure science fiction, I don't think that definition of 'information' would pass muster in any serious journal or department. (Sorry to be so blunt.) — Wayfarer

That's OK. My thesis is also quite esoteric, and is not amenable to mainstream reductionist materialist Physics. But there are plenty of Physicists and Mathematicians out there on the fringes, that hold a more holistic worldview. Some of them (e.g. physicists Paul Davies and Max Tegmark) are published in serious journals, and hold their own in both scientific and philosophical debates. Unfortunately, for me, such holistic ideas are readily accepted by those of the New Age persuasion (e.g Deepak Chopra), but they tend to lean a bit too much toward Spiritualism for my comfort. :confused:

Wayfarer

↪Gnomon

How could there be 'generic information'?

I've read a bit of Paul Davies and actually shelled out for his latest, Demon in the Machine, which is about information and biology - which reminds me, have to get around to reading it.

Zelebg

↪Gnomon

Knowledge is just one form of Generic Information. In my thesis, Consciousness is a highly evolved form of Generic Information. Generic Information is essentially abstract mathematics, and is physically manifested as Energy. Mathematically, Energy is a proportion --- a ratio between Cold & Hot, for example. And metaphysical mathematical Energy, according to Einstein, is equivalent to Mass (ratio of inertia to acceleration) , which is the measurable property of physical Matter. But, Meaningful Information is in the relationship, not the things.

To LearN the MeaninG of the WordS look into DictionarY. YoU may use yoUr own PersonaL LanguaE to talk with yoUr ImaginarY FriendS, but in the ReaL WorlD it only makes you InsanE and IncompetenT to have ConversatioN.

Perhaps if any of what you say had any practical relevance you would have a chance to realize purposelessness of your hallucinations. For example, think about why you didn't answer my question. You had a chance to finally apply some of your theory to something concrete, but you could not because it's nonsense. God HelP yoU, kiDDo!

sime

How does ghost in the machine solve the problem? How do you explain subjective experience of the ghost? And whose ghost is it? Mine? Or is it some shape shifting lizard alien playing some game through my avatar? — Zelebg

Ghost-in-the-machine metaphysical problems are what happens when a plurality of different phenomenological senses are (mis)interpreted as a plurality of substances.

For example, I can directly imagine an object that I assert is 'red'. But here my private expressive use of 'red' does not assume nor appeal to external definitional criteria. Hence this use of 'red' has no necessary connection to the public use of the term 'optical red' which relates to physical experiments concerning the electromagnetic spectrum. This latter is use is representational and communicative rather than imaginative. This is all that needs to be said, phenomenologically speaking. There isn't a 'hard problem' to explain here, unless one conflates private expressives with public representations.

3017amen

↪Gnomon

↪sime

Yeah, not to drop book titles again, but Paul's 'The Mind of God' is a pretty awesome read! I refer to it often. You guys are inspiring me to pick-up another one of his books....

deletedusercb

↪Wayfarer

I wouldn't relegate it there, though perhaps you would. IOW you may like this notion, but he was not correct in relation to me whom he was responding to.

Mww

numbers and so on are not actually objects at all, they’re intelligible ideas. They’re an aspect of reason. So I don't accept the idea that information constitutes the world or physical objects. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. The argument sustaining those is also the paradigm shift in epistemological philosophy.

I don’t think anyone with a half-metaphysical brain doubts the reality of abstract mathematical objects. I mean, mathematics itself doesn’t even exist in Nature; it is a science constructed by humans in response to a need to facilitate talking about quantities. That’s all it was ever meant to do, just as logic was created by humans solely in response to a need to talk about relations. It follows that anything invented by humans is necessarily predicated on whatever idea serves as ground for the very form of its respective science. Things exist in Nature, but how many things, or how things relate to each other, is not a concern of Nature.

If information constitutes the physical world, we are at a loss as to how to explain cases in which separate observers do not arrive at the exact same experience of a singular given thing. Even if the exception to the rule is very much less the case, it still serves to falsify the principle of induction, which is the necessary ground for the idea that pervasive information should result in non-contradictory, hence invariably consistent, observations.

The argument claims that it is absolutely impossible to tell the difference between whether an object consists of its properties in order for us to know them as they are, or we install the properties in objects such that we know how we are affected by them. This dichotomy is exactly the same as whether information constitutes physical objects, or we are merely informed about physical objects in accordance with how our intrinsic cognitive system treats them.

The real irony is, the one thing on which humans in general will always agree, despite differences in language or culture, is the principles governing the very sciences they all themselves construct.....math and logic. They can argue the a posteriori truth of “the sun is in the sky”, but none of them can argue the a priori truth “no figure is possible with two straight lines”.

Mww

The reason I mentioned that passage is because there is an arguable similarity between the Kantian transcendental ego and the Vedantic 'atman'. — Wayfarer

Agreed.

Humans: in particulars the more they differ, universally the more they remain the same.
———————-

But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.' — Wayfarer

Nothing against iep, but that is one LOADED assertion, right there.
———————-

But, our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.' — Wayfarer

Taken straight outta British Enlightenment empiricism: a priori knowledge is useless, if not altogether impossible. The claim we know things solely from the habitual experience of cause and effect, whereas the truth of the matter is that claim is catastrophically wrong, which cleared the way for the reality of a priori knowledge, and thereby, abstract mathematical objects.

Disclaimer: I couldn’t find that 1973 paper, so it may be he wasn’t talking about that at all. In that case....my bad. I just wrote the first thing that popped into my head that seemed to relate to that snippet I quoted in this section.
———————-

On mathematical Platonism:

Man, I dunno. I reject the opening statement in the SEP article, out of hand. Mathematical objects only really exist if we objectify them, so I don’t see how they can be independent of our language, thoughts or practices. That which the mathematical objects express certainly exist independently of us, re: spatialtemporal distinctions, quantities, distance and the like, but we cannot know anything about those things, other than the fact of them, without the abstract objects we create as the means for it. It’s pretty obvious the Earth and the moon aren’t in the same place, so.......take it from there.

Zelebg

↪Mww

Mathematical objects only really exist if we objectify them, so I don’t see how they can be independent of our language, thoughts or practices.

Yes. Ortodox science does seem stuck in a way some "unexpected" discovery of wide consequences is needed for further progress. Still, those kinds of propositions are useless unless they can answer some of those questions we are stuck at, and I don't see that particular one even tries.

Zelebg

↪Gnomon

You're spamming the thread by self-advertising your personal English dictionary, lunacy of which is not funny anymore.

Gnomon

To LearN the MeaninG of the WordS look into DictionarY. YoU may use yoUr own PersonaL LanguaE to talk with yoUr ImaginarY FriendS, but in the ReaL WorlD it only makes you InsanE and IncompetenT to have ConversatioN. — Zelebg

I'm sorry you feel that way. Since I'm breaking new ground in the Enformationism Thesis, rather than just recycling old ideas, I am forced, like many philosophers and scientists, to coin new words to express novel ideas. Have you ever heard of a "wavicle"?

With "imaginary friends" like you in mind, I have provided an extensive Glossary of Terminology, and a Blog to expand on difficult concepts. In order to learn the meaning of my words, you'll have to look into my dictionary. :nerd:

Neologisms : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism

Lexicon of Neologisms : http://www.emory.edu/INTELNET/lex_philosophy.html

Enformationism Glossary : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/

Zelebg

↪Gnomon

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.

10 print "hello world!"
20 goto 10

In degrees of uncertainty, how much information is in this program?

I am forced, like many philosophers and scientists, to coin new words to express novel ideas.

No, you were childishly redefining existing word "information" and confused it with existing word "knowledge". See above, and note the question while you're at it.

In order to learn the meaning of my words, you'll have to look into my dictionary.

Exactly. And to think you did something usefulf there or that anyone should care is insane.

Mww

some "unexpected" discovery of wide consequences is needed for further progress. — Zelebg

“...There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement...”, spoken by Al Michelson, 1894, who went on to disprove luminiferous ether, which, ironically enough, refuted the first by doing the second.

Tidbit of useless trivia.

Wayfarer

However, if you are not aware of the ubiquity and versatility of Information in the real world, none of this will make sense to you — Gnomon

That's not the reason it doesn't make sense to me.

On mathematical Platonism:

Man, I dunno. I reject the opening statement in the SEP article, out of hand. Mathematical objects only really exist if we objectify them, so I don’t see how they can be independent of our language, thoughts or practices. — Mww

I have some passages from Frege where he says that mathematical primitives - integers I presume - 'exist independently from anyone's understanding of them', in the same sense that planets do - 'grasped by the mind in the way a pencil is grasped by the hand'. I presume the same applies to e.g. Pythagoras' theorem, the law the excluded middle, f=ma and many other such principles.

Reason is able to discern these principles, but then, as reason is independent, it can also invent similar kinds of ideas - for example algorithms or artificial mathematical systems or synthetic chemicals.

But when natural principles are discerned or discovered, then we're seeing something about nature, not simply projecting human ideas onto nature.

Besides humans are not really outside of, or apart from, nature. (This insight originates with non-dualism). This notion we nowadays have that nature is dumb stuff governed by physical laws, and the mind is internal to the hominid brain, is grounded in the sense of 'otherness' that is one of the distinctive characteristics of modernity. Our experience of reality is a single whole, with inner and outer aspects, but both 'inner' and 'outer' are still representations or constructs (vorstellung). Reason doesn't inhere in either pole but pertains to the structure of the understanding itself. (I am very impressed by this passage on Augustine on Intelligible Objects.)

In pre-modernity there was an instinctive sense of relatedness to the cosmos - that the mind was an expression of an order which both created it and allowed it to understand the world. Whereas now 'understanding' is seen merely as adaptation and is devoid of any purpose save that of survival and instrumental utility.

To relate all this back to the hard problem of consciousness - for the materialists, such as Dennett (and those here), there is no 'hard problem' because they have so thoroughly internalized the modern outlook that they've lost all sense of what is problematical about it.

Gnomon

That's not the reason it doesn't make sense to me. — Wayfarer

Other than my arcane vocabulary, is the "reason" you're dubious because Enformationism combines Physics and Metaphysics? Most scientists are careful to not cross that line. But I'm not a scientist, nor a professional philosopher. So I don't have to worry about being ridiculed by my peers. Or, is there another reason? I'd like to address it if possible.

PS__Christof Koch, in his recent book, Consciousness, subtitled it : Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist. His basic question is one that crosses those same taboo lines : "What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysical, subjective, conscious states? Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience." [my emphasis.]

In The Feeling of Life Itself, Koch admits that, "Speculations about ultimate "why" questions are enjoyable at the intellectual level. But they also contain more than a whiff of the absurd, trying to peek behind the curtains that hide the origin of creation only to find an endless set of further curtains." [my emphasis]

Note : Koch's theory of Consciousness is based on Integrated Information Theory, which is compatible with my own thesis.

Wayfarer

Other than my arcane vocabulary, is the "reason" you're dubious because Enformationism combines Physics and Metaphysics? — Gnomon

You're trying to come up with an explanation of foundational principles. I don't think you realise quite how big an undertaking that is. The 'first principle' or 'ground of being' or 'source of what is' can't be so easily depicted in a new catch-phrase like 'enformationism'.

I agree there is a move towards understanding 'information' as fundamental, but I think you're viewing it naively.

There's a well-known quote by Norbert Weiner, inventor of cybernetics:

The mechanical brain does not secrete thought "as the liver does bile," as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.

I certainly agree with this quote, but I don't take it to mean that 'information' can be assigned the role that was hitherto assigned to matter (or matter-energy) which is what I think you're doing with this idea of 'generic information'. Besides, the question of what 'information' means, in any general sense, seems highly obscure to me. Atoms made sense, because they were indivisible and eternal, and so could plausibly be depicted as a mode of unconditioned reality. But 'information' is a polysemic word, that is, it has multiple meanings, so the phrase 'generic information' means precisely nothing.

Pfhorrest

↪Wayfarer

Think of it as though the entire universe is a computer program, but there is no hardware running the program, the software is the primary level of reality. Every object in reality is a little "program", a function of some kind. Every interaction between objects is a signal between these "programs", an output from one function feeding into another function, with the objects defined by their function, how they map inputs into them into new outputs to other things. Those signals being communicated between those functional objects are thus the fundamental ontological stuff of reality, in terms of which the objects are defined. Signals are exactly the thing that Shannon information is describing.

Human brains are made out of those functional objects, big complex highly reflexive functional compound objects, and human experiences are the input from the rest of the world feeding into the function of those brains (and, significantly, from the brain feeding back into itself). So you can equally well think of all of this "software" as phenomenal experiences, or think of the universe as being made of "thought" in a rough sense.

This is entirely compatible with the mathematicism I was earlier propounding. The concrete universe is an abstract object, a Platonic form if you like to think of it that way, a mathematical thing, just like a computer program is (software is made of math and logic). The only thing that differentiates that abstract object that we can sense from other ones that we can only think about is that we are a part of the abstract object that is the concrete universe.

This is also entirely compatible with physicalism as I mean it. The signals output by each object, the things those objects do to those observing them, their behavior in a broad sense, constitutes the empirical properties of those objects, which constitute the entire being of those objects. "Physical" just means "empirical", so this universe, or multiverse, made entirely of "mental", abstract, "Formal" information is still entirely physical. Minds are "programs" running on brains made of matter that is itself made of "programs" that are as mental as the stuff going on in the minds.

You seem to think that any view that doesn't maintain a separation of mental, intelligible, otherwise non-physical stuff from physical stuff is trying to do away with the non-physical and reduce everything to non-mental, unintelligible, dumb little billiard balls clicking around. And yeah there have been and still are some people who push that view, but that's not the only alternative to this impenetrable wall between the mental/intelligible/etc and the physical: some of us just think that everything is kinda both at the same time, that there isn't a clear separation between them.

An analogy I thought of a while back, that's not perfect but I think helps: there is no clear distinction between software and data. Every hunk of data is in principle executable, just most of it will immediately crash and not do anything interested if executed. And every bit of software is stored as a bit of data. It's useful to differentiate executable files, that do useful things when executed, from the data upon which they act, but when it really comes down to it they are fundamentally the same stuff. Likewise with mind and matter: two different ways of looking at the same stuff, where minds are executable-like and matter is data-like, but when you get down to it it's all just bits.

Zelebg

↪Wayfarer

But 'information' is a polysemic word, that is, it has multiple meanings, so the phrase 'generic information' means precisely nothing.

I hope it's clear by now why words like communication, knowledge, news, or intelligence are not synonyms for the word information, which is far more basic.

So, what else is there, go ahead and name some more of those supposed multiple meanings, and if it does not encapsulate "spatial arrangement of matter", or if it assumes anything more, I will explain why it is in fact not appropriate substitute for the word ‘information’.

Zelebg

↪Pfhorrest

Think of it as though the entire universe is a computer program, but there is no hardware running the program, the software is the primary level of reality. Every object in reality is a little "program", a function of some kind.

That's a generalization, kind of opposite of explanation. So why would anyone think that? What's the point, what do you with it, what questions does it answer we could not answer before?

The concrete universe is an abstract object, a Platonic form if you like to think of it that way, a mathematical thing, just like a computer program is (software is made of math and logic).

The concrete universe is a byproduct of parasitic animals from the 5th dimension. Can you name a reason or evidence why your theory of Platonic realm is better than my theory of Parasitic realm?

Pfhorrest

As I said before, progress in philosophy is most often made by dissolving problems, thinking about things in ways that do not give rise to those apparent, intractable problems. Such problems are like paradoxes: the fact that you've run into one shows that you made some error somewhere along the way to there.

The software thing is just an analogy or illustration of the underlying philosophy I'm talking about. I come to that philosophy, to massively simplify things (I literally wrote an 80,000 word book about the whole system), from trying to think about the world and the mind in as unencumbered a way as possible.

What are we trying to talk about when we talk about the world? Most basically, we're talking about the stuff that we can see and hear and otherwise sense. Everything about anything in the world comes down to some impact on my senses, so I'm lead to something like a "bundle theory": objects are bundles of attributes, which are all empirical properties. Phenomenal consciousness on the other hand seems to be talking about the other side of that exact same thing: my "phenomenal consciousness" is the bundle of sense-experiences that I have, something like a bundle theory of self. Combine that with old philosophical adages like "to do is to be" or "to be is to do", thinking in more detail about what it means to have a sensory experience of something, and you start thinking of sense-experiences of things as interactions between yourself and them: the sight of an object just is the photons it sends my way, and its visual appearance more generally is what kind of photons it sends my way under what conditions of what photons are sent its way, what it does in response to what it done to it; specifically what it does to me, and how I interact with those photons, what my eyes are sensitive to, etc. (I'm skipping on elaborating on this for all senses because this is already getting too long). That lends to thinking about objects as being defined in terms of function, of mapping of input to output: a thing is a bundle of empirical properties, and an empirical property is a propensity to do something in response to something else. That dissolves all the philosophical problems about the ontology of physical stuff: materialism, idealism, it's all irrelevant, there doesn't have to be any substrate at all, all that matters is the network of sense-data interactions.

On a separate topic, about access consciousness, we've already got functionalism pretty well-established there: access consciousness is a kind of function, a mapping of inputs to outputs, including internal states as a kind of output, all regardless of the underlying substrate. (The exact specifics of that function are up for empirical investigation). So now that we're already thinking of all objects as functional "bundles" or nodes in a web of interactions of sense-experiences, and of phenomenal consciousness as just being on the receiving end of such sense-experiences, and of the important aspects of human consciousness being the details of our complex functional access consciousness, then it seems like phenomenal consciousness in that sense is naturally attributable to everything, and what differentiates human consciousness is the specific, complex functionality of our brains, access consciousness. All of this is completely independent of whatever any "underlying substrate" might be; we don't need to concern ourselves at all with what that is or whether there is such a thing, it makes no difference in explaining the world in as it appears to us. That dissolves all the philosophical problems about mind-body interaction and what phenomenal consciousness is, because minds and bodies are made of the same stuff and "phenomenal consciousness" (that doesn't even really deserve to be called consciousness) is a trivial aspect of that stuff, what really matters is what kind of functions are going on in human minds.

So we're basically just talking about everything in terms of exchanges of sense-data now, basically already thinking of the universe in terms of the information that describes it. When it comes to descriptions of things, there is the old adage that "the map is not the territory", but a perfect 1:1 map of something just is a perfect copy of that territory (e.g. if you build a map of a city down to the atom, what you've done is replicate the city). So whatever complete theory of everything it is that perfectly describes the physical world in every last detail, that would just be a perfect copy of the physical world. Such a theoretical model would also be an abstract object. Perfect copies of abstract objects are identical to each other, even expressed in different terms: for example the series of sets and set operations that behave identically to the natural numbers and arithmetic are considered by professional mathematicians to be the same objects and functions as the natural numbers and arithmetic, just expressed differently. So the physical world, as a bunch of (sense-)data, being indistinguishable from whatever mathematical model perfectly describes it, just is identical to that mathematical model: if you ran that model on an actual computer somehow, and it gave rise to sub-structures just like us humans in that virtual universe, those structures would find themselves having sense-experiences of an apparent physical universe just like we do. So at least one abstract, mathematical object is definitely real: the concrete, physical world. If that's the case, then like with modal realism, which addresses why the actual world exists instead of some other possible world by assuming all possible worlds exist and "the actual" world is just the one we're in, likewise we can dissolve a lot of philosophical questions about why the concrete world follows the mathematical laws that it does by assuming that all mathematical structures exists, and "the concrete" world is just the mathematical structure of which we're a part. That also then dissolves the problem of whether and how abstract objects exist, neither having to deny their reality nor having to posit some kind of weird other realm for them to exist in: they're just like the world we're familiar with, ontologically, except we're not a part of them. (Again, just like modal realism dissolves the question of the ontology of possible worlds by assuming there's nothing special about them at all, they're just like the actual world, except we're not in them).

TL;DR: the reason to think of things in this way is that it makes a bunch of apparently-intractable problems about ontology and consciousness go away like the illusory problems they are (by responding to questions about "how do you explain this special weird thing?" with "that's not weird or special, that's normal and unremarkable, everything's like that and couldn't not be"), and lets us focus instead on the contingent particulars about exactly what functions human minds and other physical objects in our actual concrete universe execute.

Wayfarer

Think of it as though the entire universe is a computer program... — Pfhorrest

Italics added - so, this is a metaphor. And, no computers are spontaneously occurring, they are built by human agents to perform a function. So the notion of the universe being a program irresistibly suggests a programmer - which I'm sure you don't want to do.

There's instinctive sympathy for analogies of the universe being a simulation, or a computer program, or like a computer, which is understandable, given the technological nature of the culture. But it is still an analogy.

You seem to think that any view that doesn't maintain a separation of mental, intelligible, otherwise non-physical stuff from physical stuff is trying to do away with the non-physical and reduce everything to non-mental, unintelligible, dumb little billiard balls clicking around. — Pfhorrest

Like this, you mean?

Daniel Dennett, in one of his characteristic remarks, assures us that “through the microscope of molecular biology, we get to witness the birth of agency, in the first macromolecules that have enough complexity to ‘do things.’ ... There is something alien and vaguely repellent about the quasi-agency we discover at this level — all that purposive hustle and bustle, and yet there’s nobody home.” Then, after describing a marvelous bit of highly organized and seemingly meaningful biological activity, he concludes:

Love it or hate it, phenomena like this exhibit the heart of the power of the Darwinian idea. An impersonal, unreflective, robotic, mindless little scrap of molecular machinery is the ultimate basis of all the agency, and hence meaning, and hence consciousness, in the universe. — Steve Talbott

...signals being communicated between those functional objects are thus the fundamental ontological stuff of reality... — Pfhorrest

Not really. 'Ontology' is about 'types or modes of being'. And this doesn't say anything about ontology, or how 'those signals' come to be, other than today's universal assumption that it relies on an ability that 'must have evolved'. But that is back to neo-darwinian materialism, which is very much what is at issue in all of this. You're not 'dissolving' the problem at all, you're simply singing from the neo-darwinist songbook.

go ahead and name some more of those supposed multiple meanings (of 'information', and if it does not (simply) encapsulate "spatial arrangement of matter" — Zelebg

Think of a simple item of information: 'The cat sits on the mat'. I can write that in any one of a number of languages, all of which consist of arrangements of different symbols in a different order. I can write it in pencil on a piece of paper, or I could send it by morse code, or even flags or smoke signals. In all cases, the information remains the same, but the physical form is completely different.

Therefore, the information is different to the physical form.

Now, what arranged that matter to convey that meaning? Clearly, humans did that. And when we speak of 'information', I'm pretty sure we're generally talking of something that humans have generated or understood. It makes no sense to speak of 'information' in respect of inanimate matter; matter contains no information, as such. Scientists have spent decades scanning interstellar space for signs of life. Any sign of 'information transmission' would be the biggest headline in history. No luck, so far.

There's only one naturally-occuring range of phenomena with respect to which I think it's meaningful to speak of 'information' being encoded and transmitted - and that is DNA.

Zelebg

↪Wayfarer

Think of a simple item of information: 'The cat sits on the mat'. I can write that in any one of a number of languages, all of which consist of arrangements of different symbols in a different order. I can write it in pencil on a piece of paper, or I could send it by morse code, or even flags or smoke signals. In all cases, the information remains the same, but the physical form is completely different.

Therefore, the information is different to the physical form.

Are you kidding me?!?!!

1. you are a robot
2. YOU ARE A ROBOT

The same information can be embedded or transmitted in different spatial arrangements of matter. And the point is, again, that in all the cases information itself is defined by the spatial arrangements of matter.

Now, what arranged that matter to convey that meaning?

Dear god, you are still unable to differentiate between "information" and "meaning"! I'm out of here.

jorndoe

Regarding the post above...
Sample reasoning:

1. think of rocks, small and large, different shapes, multicolored and dull-colored
2. individual specimens of basalt, marble, limestone, etc
3. they're all rocks, but their physicals are different, and they're not the same rock
4. therefore rock is different to any physical rock (independent thereof)

What arranged the rock exercise?

• going through the exercise above requires thinking
• there are numerous naturally occurring rocks that are all rock

What to make of this stuff, @Wayfarer ...?
Populating Platonia? Hypostatization? ...?

3017amen

They can argue the a posteriori truth of “the sun is in the sky”, but none of them can argue the a priori truth “no figure is possible with two straight lines”. — Mww

I think the dichotomy rears its head when we try to reconcile a priori truth's with a posteriori truth's.

Meaning the fact that a priori/mathematical truth's describe the physical universe (a posteriori/cause and effect) so effectively, remains an unsolved mystery of sorts.

I don’t think anyone with a half-metaphysical brain doubts the reality of abstract mathematical objects. I mean, mathematics itself doesn’t even exist in Nature; it is a science constructed by humans in response to a need to facilitate talking about quantities. — Mww

Interesting comment. Seems one could make a case for the opposite occurring in nature. Meaning, if the language of mathematics (metaphysical abstracts) is encoded into all of the physical/natural world, what does that infer? To me, it infers that a metaphysical reality exists.

The next question would be here, did that metaphysical truth/reality always exist independently, or did humans invent it(?). Objectively, not sure anyone knows...

Zelebg

↪3017amen

Meaning, if the language of mathematics (metaphysical abstracts) is encoded into all of the physical/natural world, what does that infer? To me, it infers that a metaphysical reality exists.[/quote]

So we notice there is some space where two lines meet and we call it an "angle". Then some thousands of years later we somehow forget that thing we call angle is our own construct and start thinking it is actually the angle that makes the lines and not the other way around.

Mww

mathematical primitives - integers I presume - 'exist independently from anyone's understanding of them', (...) I presume the same applies to e.g. Pythagoras' theorem, the law the excluded middle, f=ma and many other such principles. — Wayfarer

While I agree Nature has its dynamic procedures independent of our understanding, it is we that legislate the principles for them, as you say....

Reason is able to discern these principles — Wayfarer

.......given some relevant observation, the sole purpose of which is to make those dynamics understandable to us, hence accessible to our knowledge. Pythagoras’ Theorem being a perfect example: it is impossible to derive the relationship between the boundaries of a triangle merely from the fact a space is enclosed by three straight lines. And Galileo had absolutely no means to derive 32ft/sec/sec, a perfectly natural mathematical primitive existing independently of our understanding, from watching an object fall out of a tower window. That’s why it’s so much fun to listen as post-Kantian analytical philosophers try to annihilate the synthetic a priori adaptation of the human cognitive system. It just can’t be done without the guy attempting it immediately contradicting himself. Substituted for, maybe; refuted......not a chance.

Not sure why integers would be considered mathematical primitives. That a symbolic representation of a completed series presupposes “quantity”, sure, but that implies quantity is itself a mathematical primitive. Maybe that’s what Frege was getting at. There’s no contradiction in the occurrence of a natural series of continuous spacetime events independent of our understanding, for its negation is quite absurd, so maybe that’s qualification for “primitive”.
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Besides humans are not really outside of, or apart from, nature. (This insight originates with non-dualism). — Wayfarer

Dunno if that originates with non-dualism, but the idea holds within some dualisms as well. Awful hard to justify being outside the very nature, re: Nature, we’re using to justify our own physical existence. Kinda funny, really. Nature gifts the ability to think, but doesn’t gift the ability to restrict thinking. In all her wonder, she left it to reason itself, to think without thinking too much, to think more than its qualifications admit. Sorta like giving a 5yo a chess set for his birthday: he stands as good a chance of learning the basics of the game as he does using the pieces to suit his imagination.
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On Augustine:

Interesting. I can see it for the most part. From where I sit though, being a pseudo, or pre-modern, the possibility of the immutability of intelligible objects is irrelevant, if I have no means to know anything about them. Wisdom, e.g., may indeed be higher than reason and be the judge of reason, but for me, it doesn’t matter if that is the case. I am restricted by my very nature to employ reason to both discover and understand anything about wisdom, including whether or not I even have any. THAT it is may be given, but I want to know WHAT it is, how it manifests, what it does for me. This goes back to my “kinda funny” above: we had to think of wisdom as being immutable, otherwise we couldn’t claim that it is, because obviously no outside source told us it is, then made the attempt to show how it must be above the means we used to think it in the first place. Rational dog chasing its metaphysical tail.
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Whereas now 'understanding' is seen merely as adaptation and is devoid of any purpose save that of survival and instrumental utility. — Wayfarer

Agreed. Understanding has become the red-headed step-child of the adoptive cognitive neuroscience. Which is fine, if you got a machine strapped to your head. But I don’t, and never will, so I need my understanding to do its damn job.....you know.....as the intelligible object it is.......in order to function in the world alongside my kind. As far as the hard problem goes, I’d say it is indeed hard, given from the excruciatingly simply reason we don’t know enough empirically about it sufficient to justify the speculative ground on which it is based.
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so thoroughly internalized the modern outlook that they've lost all sense of what is problematical about it. — Wayfarer

What do you think entails the problematical? How would you characterize it?
(Addendum: did you mean Steve Talbot’s “love it or hate it”?)

javra

Meaning, if the language of mathematics (metaphysical abstracts) is encoded into all of the physical/natural world, what does that infer? To me, it infers that a metaphysical reality exists.

The next question would be here, did that metaphysical truth always exist independently, or did humans invent it(?). Objectively, not sure anyone knows... — 3017amen

Stepping away from mathematics for a moment, I’ll address the possible metaphysical reality of first principles.

Consider the law of identity (A = A). Is the law of identity something that exists apart from our understanding of it? Or is it something we’ve created axiomatically and then put to use which we then reify into a metaphysically real given?

Since its impossible to create it sans the a priori existence of the law itself, and since young enough preadolescents have no understanding of it while yet making use of it (ostensibly, as do lesser animals), I heavily lean toward it being a non-created, a priori, metaphysical reality.

The same can then be stated of a priori mathematical givens: they can become intelligible to us, but exist apart from our understanding of them, all the while constraining what can be.

And as with laws of thought, we're free to concoct any mathematics that we please axiomatically, but those which are metaphysically real shall always remain irrespective of what we assume.

3017amen

So we notice there is some space where two lines meet and we call it an "angle". Then some thousands of years later we somehow forget that thing we call angle is our own construct and start thinking it is actually the angle that makes the lines and not the other way around. — Zelebg

Sure. Likewise, one decides to design a roof truss, and using simple arithmetic, in order to determine rise over run (roof pitch), it is thus created. Could it have been created otherwise, sure it could. Man could use spatial-perceptive abilities to build it. (Just like we don't-or need to- calculate the laws of gravity in order to avoid falling objects in the jungle.)

Metaphysical abstracts are alive and well! Next question could be, why do we have two ways to know the world when one is not needed(?).

↪javra

Zelebg

↪3017amen

Metaphysical abstracts are alive and well!

Just like unicorns. I'm afraid to ask what is it you actually mean to say there, but whatever it is, can it explain anything about qualia, sentience, or 1st person nature of experience?

Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

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