Yes, those 3 numbered sections outlining the theory pretty much outline the kind of central relationships I have about information, the brain and experience. The definition of information in 3. is also more or less the same kind of notion.

This part:

"An obvious question is whether all information has a phenomenal aspect. One possibility is that we need a further constraint on the fundamental theory, indicating just what sort of information has a phenomenal aspect. The other possibility is that there is no such constraint. If not, then
experience is much more widespread than we might have believed, as information is
everywhere."

was also a fundamental concern of mine where basically I was leaning toward the latter part on the basis of lack of reason to rule out other functional systems having experiences of some kind.

The biggest qualifier I would say is that the double-aspect part (whereby there is two different information ontologies - physical and phenomenal) is only a characteristic of our models and concepts (concepts and models which are embedded in, enacted in, function within our phenomena), and cannot be characteristic of reality itself inherently.

Ultimately though, I still have a skepticism that we can have some complete, exhaustive description or understanding of what reality is like... or that reality can describe itself effectively. There is inherent limitation in doing this and fundamentally you cannot explain experiential phenomena.

Thank you for the response, helps me to understand your viewpoint a little better.

But, saying that "Information is what it's like to be information" comes dangerously close to a tautology. — Gnomon
Well my notion of information here is even more basic than what you are talking about. Its just about distinctions. Experience and information are both primitive concepts in the sense that they cannot be further defined. So this tautology doesn't really add any danger that wasn't already there. — Apustimelogist

Sometimes a tautology is philosophically fundamental. Shannon defined Information physically, in terms of Energy/Entropy relationships. You seem to be defining Information metaphysically or essentially, in terms of meaningful experience, conscious awareness, or sentient knowing. Are you equating Sentience and Experience with the capability for being affected mentally by sensory impressions from the environment? Can you expand on that notion relative to The Hard Problem? :smile:

I don't think I am trying to make an especially deep metaphysical characterization of information, and it's certainly vague. It's closest to what you said before - differences that make a difference - or maybe just distinctions. Very vague, yes, but I think its just more being used as a kind of generic classificatory tool.

I think - in absence of any further possible way of explaining what phenomena exactly is or why - I am just saying that it is plausible to construe experiences as information. All I really know about my own experiences is that I am making or perceiving distinctions which are immediate to me.. which seems close to describing it in terms of information. Information seems to be one of the only property I can really ascribe to my experiences in a way that is articulable.

At the same time, the fact there seems to be a mapping or isomorphism to brain behavior suggests that if we can describe those brain interactions in terms of information or distinctions that brains can make about inputs, then phenomena seem to be what it is like to be those distinctions internally as it were. I do think though that the brains as we talk about them are still scientific constructs in our minds so I am not necessarily saying that there is an actual duality here between brains and phenomena. The duality is only in our models. This (lack of duality) can be naturally interpreted as panpsychism if one wants but personally this doesn't help me understand the world any further.

One thing I am dropping from my view is that reality - in whatever way you want to metaphysically theorize about it - is not like a set of objects that just permanently exist at one scale and can be arranged in different ways like marbles in a box.

Theoretical physics, from what I have read, seems to characterize particles and forces at the most fundamental level in terms of symmetries and invariances that possibly emerge and dissolve depending on the situation (maybe a good example in physics is that it is thought that during the development of the universe you had symmetry breaking where new forces, particles and even mass emerged where they did not exist before).

So maybe symmetries / invariances are fundamental.

However, symmetries are actually very generic concepts which can be applied to anything at all.
Symmetries can therefore be applied to any scale from small things in physics to brains and beyond; they would essentially emerge out of each other.

Interesting example here of someone applying it to perception:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncom.2021.681162/full

(Some examples of use in biology: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/symmetry/special_issues/Making_Breaking_Symmetries_Mind_Life)

Another interesting example suggesting invariances as a way of unifying many different types of theories. (Note, he has chosen to express this in terms of the price equation from evolution, but the choice is more or less preference afaik)

https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/20/12/978

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2019.0351

And what is said in these articles applies to information in terms of relative entropy and fisher information, interestingly. A quote from second article:

"All of the ‘information’ results in the prior section arose directly from the canonical Price equation’s description of conserved total probability. No notion or interpretation of ‘information’ is necessary. In many disciplines, information expressions arise in the analysis of the specific disciplinary problems. This sometimes leads to the idea that information must be a primary general concept that gives form to and explains the particular results. Here, the Price equation explains why those information expressions arise so often. Those expressions are simply the fundamental descriptions of force and change within the context of a conserved total quantity. In this case, the conserved total quantity is total probability."

So maybe what I am getting at here is that, if theoretical physics symmetries are fundamental, maybe all types of symmetries that exist within the universe are fundamental entities of the universe, at whatever scale. Those kinds of symmetries or invariances might also be a good way of characterizing what we mean when we say brains can distinguish things (or have information), because these distinctions are clearly on scales above elementary particles and instead at the level of organization of these systems as wholes in terms of neuronal activity. Brain perception therefore involves higher order symmetries (perhaps like in the article on perception above) which are themselves superimposed on lower symmetries such as those at the microscopic physics scale. But clearly, the emergence of these symmetries on top of each other is something that can naturally pulled out of the mathematical descriptions of these things (in principle) and isn't somehow unexpected or strange.

Our perceptions, our phenomena are then just what its like to be these various higher order symmetries which are coalescing together I guess.

Now, I am not trying to solve the hard problem. I think experiences are irreducible. I don't think we can know anything about the world beyond our experiences (even if we were to say that everything in the universe is experiential - that doesn't give me any extra useful knowledge). When I am talking about symmetries, invariances, information, these are just tools for organizing my knowledge and conceptual schemes, knowledge which is enacted within my own experiences. So I am not trying to say that experiences are the math that is being used to describe symmetries and invariances or anything like that. Those are observer-dependent constructs we use to predict things. I don't think I can in principle even imagine whats going on in the actual outside world, but talk of symmetries and fundamental entities is just helping me create a coherent model of reality. Experience is irreducible and metaphysical ontology is deeply inaccessible imo.

But by saying experiences are what it's like internally to be some kind of symmetries, invariances, structure, information, distinction... whatever... I am just giving it a coherent connection to the rest of our physical models. I think this particular way makes the combination problem easier by making it easier for macro-experiences to just emerge. But again, I am not trying to give an explanation for particular phenomenal experiences. But if they are the internal what it's like of symmetries or information in reality as I just described, then I kind of lean toward the view that there is just a brute fact that experiences have this kind of vivid discernibility to them as a reflection of the distinguishable degrees of freedom of systems as a whole - I would actually just call that vivid discernibility information - even if some immediate, subjective kind.

Now part of the whole rollercoaster of all this is I am trying to give an account of the objective world which I believe is absolutely fundamentally inaccessible, but also explicitly acknowledging that I am using descriptions that are fundamentally observer dependent.

So I think paradoxes and natural limits to what I am trying to describe are a given.
I cannot explain experiences but I think I can still coherently map it to information. Experiences are all I have access to but also, scientific models in physics, biology, computer science, etc. give me by far the best way of giving a good explanation of my reality in so far that I am capable of doing so under my own limits as an organism.

Again, what I have said is completely compatible with panpsychism imo or even idealism in the sense of saying everything is just experiences but seems there are still many open questions if you do that under this perspective.

Note: My perspective on symmetries as fundamental is not dissimilar from structural realists like James Ladyman (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/structural-realism/) but I am not explicitly realist. Without realism, I think the need to explain phenomena with mathematical models becomes less acute; but at the same time, by not having a preferred scale for symmetries or invariances, then there is less combination problem issues. Symmetries and invariance may not be the only structural concepts but probably there is importance there. Structuralism seems to be just the latest generation of naturalist ideas and I'd say its probably not unfair to say it arose from the need to have looser conceptualizations of the natural world than physics, just as physicalism arose from the need for a looser conceptualization of the world than materials (thus superseding materialism). I'd say structural things in is about as poorly defined as physicalist ontology is. The vagueness of structure also makes me think that that notion has significant overlap with my notion of information which is just about distinctions. I also think the idea of invariances maybe overlaps with that too since invariance seems to entail the notion of regularity, patterns and perhaps how they are separable from other things and noise.

I am just saying that it is plausible to construe experiences as information. All I really know about my own experiences is that I am making or perceiving distinctions which are immediate to me. — Apustimelogist

Information used to be defined in terms of knowledge / meaning contained in a mind, especially connotation or denotation that is personally relevant to the receiver. Hence, knowing is experiencing/feeling, either first hand, or from communication. But what is a sentient "person" : the body/brain or soul/mind, or both, in a symbiotic relationship? My money is on the Both/And answer.

On this forum, we always come back to the Either/Or, Physical vs Metaphysical, question. But, perhaps, as you suggest, the distinction merely reflects the difference-of-purpose for Science vs Philosophy. So, it depends on who's asking. Is the Brain or the Soul the experiencer of incoming Information? It seems that the brain processes the data, but the mind interprets its significance relative to the Self. Yet, one without the other is insentient. It takes two to know, to know that you know, and to know that you are two.

How could a scientist know what the brain knows, except by asking the knower --- who will respond with spoken or written tokens of meaning : words.*1 Yet, apart from an informed experiencing mind, those tokens are nonsensical. Does a parrot understand the meaning of the sounds it echoes? Obviously, the parrot perceives the sounds a human makes, but whether it conceives the encoded meaning is debatable.

When scientists began looking into how we communicate Information from one mind to another, they of course began to look for atoms of meaning (bits). But those bits are intangible and invisible. So Shannon defined a new kind of token that could be encoded into electric pulses, transported over wires, and then decoded back into meaning in a personal mind. But, in the process of exporting from one mind to another, the codes are encapsulated into mathematical abstractions that have no inherent personal meaning. But only conventional abstract significance : a logical state with only two possible values : yes/no, or true/false, or 1/0.

Since, information is so important to us, we have many different words to describe various facets of the process of enforming or encoding or experiencing meaning into a mind. So, your equation of "experience" with "information" agrees with common sense : I experience, and I know what I experience, and I imagine that a record of that experience is encoded physically in my brain. Yet, when we look at the tangles of neurons, we don't see anything identifiable as Information or Meaning. Mind-reading requires two minds and two brains. Therefore, I conclude that information/meaning is a holistic phenomenon of an integrated system of sensors and coders.

Is Consciousness purely a physical or metaphysical phenomenon, or a function of both Mind and Matter? I guess that depends on how you define "phenomenon". Does a camera knowlingly "observe" phenomena or just blankly record photons? The great philosopher Yogi Berra once noted : " you can observe a lot just by watching". :smile:


Denotation : the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.
Connotation : an idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning.

*1. See Mind-blowing mind-reading technology thread for pros & cons of the question.

I see philosophy as primarily concerned with the problems of meaning - and that in an existential, rather than a semantic, sense. Philosophy attempts to grapple with the perennial problem of 'what it means to be', and it's not an academic concern, as we are, in fact, beings. This is why I think Chalmer's paper is important - it is grappling with the problem of what it is like to be. It's pointing out that no matter how much we know about objective facts-of-the-matter, the problems of being are at once urgent and pressing, and somehow intractable to objective solution.

One thing I am dropping from my view is that reality - in whatever way you want to metaphysically theorize about it - is not like a set of objects that just permanently exist at one scale and can be arranged in different ways like marbles in a box.

Theoretical physics, from what I have read, seems to characterize particles and forces at the most fundamental level in terms of symmetries and invariances that possibly emerge and dissolve depending on the situation (maybe a good example in physics is that it is thought that during the development of the universe you had symmetry breaking where new forces, particles and even mass emerged where they did not exist before).

So maybe symmetries / invariances are fundamental. — Apustimelogist

Totally with you on that - I think that is an insight that is coming through a number of different people. But don't loose sight of the role which the mind plays in establishing relationships - by identifying them, by seeing how this relates to that in ways that would never be otherwise perceptible.

Is Consciousness purely a physical or metaphysical phenomenon, or a function of both Mind and Matter? — Gnomon

Recall that in Vedanta, consciousness (citta) is never a 'that'. It is never an object, or for that matter a phenomenon. The phenomenon is 'that which appears'; consciousness is 'to whom it appears'.

So, it depends on who's asking. Is the Brain or the Soul the experiencer of incoming Information? — Gnomon

Well, the way I view it, all concepts are ultimately constructs. Information to me is a very general and flexible one that can be applied to almost anything. For instance, in that 'Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness' article by Chalmers, that was posted a little earlier in the thread, he has the double aspect idea of both physical information space and phenomenal information space.

Now for me, double-aspect is a only in our models and not existing in reality beyond us. Also, when I try to break down what the notions of physical and phenomenal mean, they lead to dead ends. The phenomenal is fundamentally ineffable, indescribable and the physical is equally poorly defined, as many anti-physicalists attest to. Only concepts I have left to give tangibility are vague notions like 'structure' and 'information'. And as someone who is not necessarily a scientific realist, the fact that these notions are quite thin is not so bothersome since I believe we fundamentally cannot have access to lots of aspects of reality.

So, to answer 'Is the Brain or the Soul the experiencer of incoming Information?': for me, such a distinction is an artifact of our models of the world and limitations in knowing what the world is like. For me, the double-aspect (brain and soul) is in some sense illusory. Brains are in some sense constructed models enacted within our subjective states to explain empirical findings. We see them as representing something out there we cannot directly access as a third-person observer. Our own minds actually reflect part of that inaccessible stuff, but not all of it, and our own minds don't even have access fundamentally to everything about reality, what reality is like or about as a whole.

I see philosophy as primarily concerned with the problems of meaning - and that in an existential, rather than a semantic, sense. Philosophy attempts to grapple with the perennial problem of 'what it means to be', and it's not an academic concern, as we are, in fact, beings. — Wayfarer

Yes. Unfortunately, some on this forum seem to think that the job of Philosophy is simply to criticize our use of language. Perhaps the noun "being" and the verb "to be" are the most difficult concepts to "grapple with", since we directly experience Being, but can only imagine Non-Being. Likewise, we experience Consciousness, but unconsciousness is the lack of experience. Our language can express "what it's like to see", but fumbles with "what it's like to be".

What is it like to be unconscious? Do we continue to Be when unconscious, or asleep, hence not experiencing? Those are rhetorical questions, for another lifetime . . . another Beingness. :smile:

Recall that in Vedanta, consciousness (citta) is never a 'that'. It is never an object, or for that matter a phenomenon. The phenomenon is 'that which appears'; consciousness is 'to whom it appears'. — Wayfarer

I'm not very familiar with Vedanta, but that's similar to what I meant by distinguishing between Brain & Soul, or Body & Person. Materialists typically deny the existence of a Soul, probably because it is not a perceivable phenomenon. Yet, Soul and Person are conceivable noumena; even though their mode-of-being is debatable. I'm also not familiar with Materialist literature on the topic of Noumena*1. Is it a legitimate topic of philosophical "grappling"? Or best left to the religious myth-makers? :cool:

*1. Noumena : The Self-concept we call "Soul" is definitely a metaphysical idea, not a physical thing. But is it a ding-an-sich? Who knows?

So maybe symmetries / invariances are fundamental. — Apustimelogist

In a philosophical sense, I think of "Symmetries" as logical relationships, which are the essence of Information. Existentially, those inter-relationships may well be fundamental to Reality in it's multiplicity. For example, when a Singularity divides into a Diversity, symmetries are born, and can later be broken : e.g. matter/anti-matter. The immensity of this cosmic notion is astronomically over my head, but I'll put it on the docket for further exploration. :nerd:


Symmetry and Symmetry Breaking :
The term “symmetry” derives from the Greek words sun (meaning ‘with’ or ‘together’) and metron (‘measure’), yielding summetria, and originally indicated a relation of commensurability
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/symmetry-breaking/

In a philosophical sense, I think of "Symmetries" as logical relationships, which are the essence of Information. Existentially, those inter-relationships may well be fundamental to Reality in it's multiplicity. — Gnomon

Good philosophical sense. I was thinking about the minimum possible information and it seemed to me information is something that can be communicated AKA derived from a system.

We can assert something like 'here is a point'. We go ahead and define it 'has no parts' just to establish the simplest possible object. IOW we assert things, but we can't derive anything, and if it doesn't tell us something, it ain't information.

If we say there are two points, one relates to the other and vice versa. Then we have information.

Because each point is unitary and has no information in themselves, the minimum possible information is what they can tell us about each other.

In basic info theory the minimum is a bit. The query is, On or off? The answer is, If on then not off. Common logic: If p then not q

Using symmetry the query is, what information is fundamental to the (2 part) system? The answer is: A is to B as B is to A

Anyway, a bit nerdy, nothing to do with consciousness, off topic, but that's why I thought you make philosophical sense.

Hey, Throng, welcome to thephilosophyforum. Intriguing post. (Oh, hey, I looked up your membership page, 8 years eh? Anyway...)

Now for me, double-aspect is a only in our models and not existing in reality beyond us. — Apustimelogist

I will assume that your philosophical "reality beyond" is something like Plato's Ideality, or Kant's mysterious realm of the ding-an-sich ; not a religious other-world populated with meddling gods & avenging angels. The comments here only skim the surface of my information-based BothAnd Monism. One holistic uber-reality with dual aspects.

Dualism is a philosophical issue only because our mental models can include referents to both perceived objects, and "things" that we know only by imagination. To wit : Ancient people inferred that there must be something invisible about humans that explains how they are different from animals (Reason), and how a living body is different from a dead body (Animation). Early labels for that unseen something (e.g. Greek psuche) seemed to equate Life & Mind as dual aspects of a universal Elan Vital.

So, eventually the Soul (Ghost) was imagined as a separate being, temporarily merged with a material body. But, Descartes' dualism focused mainly on the essential difference between a 3-dimensional physical body (res extensa) and a zero-dimensional metaphysical mind (res cogitans). And, Kant postulated that there must be a noumenal "reality" (or Ideality) beyond the scope of our phenomenal senses. He admitted that we can't actually know anything about that Platonic realm. Yet, he concluded that we can use reason & imagination to infer some logically necessary properties of such an immaterial sphere of unformed potential.

But, another perspective on the Platonic world of archetypal forms says that it is the True Reality --- a sort of heaven --- and our physical senses can detect only vague hints of what's really real. Even so, faced with a big-bang beginning, we can conjecture that our space-time world is not absolute, but merely a passing shadow (a model) of a more all-encompassing timeless realm of Potential. It's that extra-sensory speculation, though, that Materialism denies, and for good practical reasons. So, only impractical philosophers concern themselves with things they can't see or touch, but only imagine. Moreover, for Materialists, anything imaginary is immaterial, possibly illusory, and can't be proven to exist in any sensible manner.

So, there are at least two alternatives to traditional Body/Soul dualism : A> Matter-only monism, or B> Mind-only monism. Yet the latter is literally unrealistic, and the former is essentially mindless. So, I prefer a philosophical model, based on Information, that makes sense, both physically and metaphysically. For example, the Brain is a biological processor of Information, and the Mind is merely its operational Function, which is only a name for an abstract input-output process of Living & Thinking. The process is not the thing, and we infer functions only by meta-physical inference, not by physical sensation. Yet, viewed as a whole system, that mind/matter duality is a singular Person : You. :blush:


Is the information stored on a computer metaphysical or physical? :
Great question. All information is metaphysical - necessarily so, in fact. Information exists as differences, and a difference is the one thing you definitely cannot prove exists in physics . . . . The physical structure is the material organisation. . . . . For this reason all information can be considered as sets of co-ordinates, but the actualisation of the information (the manner in which it becomes intelligible) involves the solution of the differences.
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-information-stored-on-a-computer-metaphysical-or-physical
Note --- Well-informed people have argued for both sides of the physical/metaphysical question. So, I conclude that Generic Information must take on both forms. If not physical, computers would not be able to process it. If not metaphysical, humans could not make sense of it. So, the Information of which our world, and our world models, are constructed is Both-And, not Either-Or. BothAnd is a Monism.

If we say there are two points, one relates to the other and vice versa. Then we have information. — Throng

Your post reminded me of the old idiom : "that's my two bits worth" ; typically referring to an unsolicited opinion. The monetary reference was to a quarter dollar : $.25. But where did the term "two bits" come from? The explanation I found said it referred to a "spanish dollar" worth eight reales (pieces of eight?). Hence : two pieces = a quarter dollar. But my source says, there was no "one bit" coin.

Is that a cosmic coincidence, that one bit has no inherent value (meaning), except in relation to another bit? :joke:

ORIGIN OF 2 BITS :
https://sunfarm.com/images/2bits.htm

Yet the latter is literally unrealistic — Gnomon

What makes you say this, out of interest?

I will assume that your philosophical "reality beyond" is something like Plato's Ideality, or Kant's mysterious realm of the ding-an-sich — Gnomon

I am not too familiar with those, but the parts of reality we cannot directly access independently of our perception.

Mind is merely its operational Function, which is only a name for an abstract input-output process of Living & Thinking. — Gnomon

Does that include qualia?

Does that include qualia? — Apustimelogist

Isn't 'qualia' just a bit of philosophical jargon for 'quality of experience'? And the difficulties it causes merely due to the fact that the physical sciences are wholly quantitative? After all the point of physics is that its objects can be represented precisely in terms of mathematical quantities, but there's no provision for qualities of experience in that model. Which is the source of the whole argument. Secondly because the physical sciences are concerned with what exists independently of any mind, so they 'exclude the subject' as a matter of principle; but then wish to account for the subject as an epiphenomenal or emergent illusion generated by the objects of scientific analysis.

Yet the latter is literally unrealistic — Gnomon
What makes you say this, out of interest? — Apustimelogist

The adjective "unrealistic" was intended only as definitive, not derogatory. Matter is "realistic" in the sense of hands-on practical or pragmatic utility, while Mind is "unrealistic" in the sense of literally intangible & immaterial, hence not something you can directly manipulate for real-world purposes.

Mind-world Ideals, such as Utopias. are considered to be literally unrealistic & out-of-reach. But . . . . and this is a big Butt . . . . "mere" Ideas, when coupled with Will & Intention, can have real-world consequences*1. So, although I am Materialistic & Realistic relative to practical or scientific questions, I am Mentalistic & Idealistic regarding philosophical (open-ended) or potential questions. Does that answer your question? :cool:

Quote from post above :
"A> Matter-only monism, or B> Mind-only monism. Yet the latter is literally unrealistic, and the former is essentially mindless."

*1. Elon Musk's "unrealistic" video-game goal of saving humanity by emigrating to Mars, has driven him to develop many practical stepping stones on the path to that "impossible dream" : electric cars, re-usable rockets, low-orbit communication satellites, etc.

Mind is merely its operational Function, which is only a name for an abstract input-output process of Living & Thinking. — Gnomon
Does that include qualia? — Apustimelogist

Yes. The physical brain is a quantitative bio-machine, which processes countable units of matter & energy, in order to produce the qualitative products that we know as Ideas, Imagination, Experience, Consciousness, etc.

Similarly, the function of your Cell Phone is not to spit-out physical objects, such as a paper-tape of calculations. Instead, it processes Information and produces "Communication", which is not a quantifiable thing, but a process with a qualitative value to sender & receiver. "Communication" (share + action) is a noun that refers not to a particular Thing, but to a purposeful act or procedure, that can be imagined as-if a particular thing. Likewise, a Function is a rationally-inferred goal-directed on-going process that is sometimes treated, abstractly, as-if an observed static object. But the purposeful Quality is a mental noumenon, not a physical phenomenon. :smile:

PS___ Wayfarer's reply above may be more to your point.

Qualia are often referred to as the phenomenal properties of experience, and experiences that have qualia are referred to as being phenomenally conscious. Phenomenal consciousness is often contrasted with intentionality (that is, the representational aspects of mental states).
https://iep.utm.edu/qualia/

...while Mind is "unrealistic" in the sense of literally intangible & immaterial, hence not something you can directly manipulate for real-world purposes. — Gnomon

Sounds like something, that someone who didn't want his attempts to manipulate people's minds to be recognized as such, might say.

What makes you think that minds can't be manipulated for real world purposes? Do you actually believe that?

.while Mind is "unrealistic" in the sense of literally intangible & immaterial, hence not something you can directly manipulate for real-world purposes. — Gnomon
What makes you think that minds can't be manipulated for real world purposes? Do you actually believe that? — wonderer1

Anesthesia seems fairly direct.

Yea, I think I agree with this; I just use terms like 'qualia' and 'phenomrna' etc interchamgeably.



ah alright, fair enough

But, saying that "Information is what it's like to be information" comes dangerously close to a tautology. — Gnomon
Well my notion of information here is even more basic than what you are talking about. Its just about distinctions. Experience and information are both primitive concepts in the sense that they cannot be further defined. So this tautology doesn't really add any danger that wasn't already there. — Apustimelogist

Perhaps, as an Epistemologist, you are using "information", in an Ontological sense, as a synonym for "experience" or "knowing"*1. Anyway, your what-it's-like formulation of Information may be getting at the essence of what it's like to be human : the experience (feeling ; knowledge ; consciousness) of being an information creator as well as consumer.

All physical objects intake & export Information in the form of Energy*2. Some animated objects also exchange Information in the form of meaningful Communication. And humans process both physical Energy and metaphysical Information into Culture. So, just as Matter is the essence of objects & animals, Mind is the essence of Man. And Mind is the faculty of processing & storing & communicating Information in all its various forms.

I just read an article in The Information Philosopher*3 that reminded me of your notion of "what it's like" : "To the extent that the information in the mind is isomorphic with the information in the object, we can say that the subject has knowledge of the external world. Information philosophy is a correspondence theory*4. To the extent that information in other minds is isomorphic to that in our minds, we have intersubjective shared knowledge, something impossible to show with words or logic alone." Does that formulation of Information-Consciousness make sense to you? :smile:


*1. Information (knowing ; experience) is what it's like to be

*2. Energy :
Scientists define “energy” as the ability to do work, but don't know what energy is. They assume it's an eternal causative force that existed prior to the Big Bang, along with mathematical laws. Energy is a positive or negative relationship between things, and physical Laws are limitations on the push & pull of those forces. So, all they know is what Energy does, which is to transform material objects in various ways. Energy itself is amorphous & immaterial. So if you reduce energy to its essence of information, it seems more akin to mind than matter.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

*3. The Information Philosopher :
Mind as actionable information
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/mind/

*4. Correspondence : isomorphic similarity of forms
a. a logical connection between things:
b. a mathematical relationship between things
c. a mental observation of similarity

I have probably written here more than once, but, I like the question, so I will reply again.

The hard problem of consciousness seems to hard, because we have forgotten about the hard problem of motion, which we do not understand, but can study quite successfully.

And, then, I think if we clearly look at the situation, we have many hard problems, the problem of morality, the problem of will, the problem of identity, the problem meaning, the problem of mind, the problem of magnetism, the problem of first origins and on and on and on.

For whatever curios reason, consciousness is taken to be specifically more problematic than any of these. I don't see a reason to believe it.

Seems hard for me to rule out that there could be a mapping between experiences and all possible forms of information. — Apustimelogist

I was surprised to see this side-topic dialog still going-on, and even jumping from Evolution to Consciousness forums. Your original formulation --- "information is what it is like to be information" --- sounded odd to me at first. But I eventually came to see more-or-less what you were aiming at*1. The difficulty here may stem from the many Specific forms of Generic Information. Another hurdle may be that you are approaching the Information/Consciousness equation from a different background (technical vs philosophical) from & myself.

Here's a technical Neuroscience article on the topic of how Information is related to Qualia*2. It's over my head, but you may be better able to follow the argument. In my thesis, I refer to Information as a shapeshifter. For example : Generic Information (relationships, connections, associations, patterns) Information as physical Energy (hot/cold proportions) ; Information as material Structure (brain tissue organization) ; information as abstract Data (mathematical-statistical correlations) ; Information as Qualia (subjective experience or feeling) ; Information as Knowledge (personal meaning). In my own thesis, the "direct mechanism" is metaphysical instead of physical. I'd be interested to know if you are proposing another "shape" of Generic Information. :smile:



*1. Information (subjective experience) is what it's like (experience or feeling) to be information (knowledge). Please correct me, If I missed your intention. There are several possible ways to interpret the original phrase.

*2. Information and the Origin of Qualia :
This article argues that qualia are a likely outcome of the processing of information in local cortical networks. It uses an information-based approach and makes a distinction between information structures (the physical embodiment of information in the brain, primarily patterns of action potentials), and information messages (the meaning of those structures to the brain, and the basis of qualia). . . .
The really challenging problem in consciousness studies is to find an answer to the question of the origin of subjective experience itself. . . .
There have been some attempts to explore the origin of phenomenal experience. . . .
However, there is no theoretical account that shows a direct mechanism whereby certain neural activities should lead to a phenomenal outcome. This article is one attempt to link the purely physical with the phenomenal, and it builds on a previous article on the topic
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2017.00022/full

I like seeing information/consciousness being placed side by side. Do you think, in a technical sense, they are closely related or even have the same physical basis? Words are defined by their common usage so if we use common definitions we may be building in confusion to the problem of consciousness.

Something else that may help in the problem of consciousness is to consider order of operations.
For example in mathematics the convention is parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. In philosophy, we can also set for ourselves a sensible order of operations. I like starting with physical matter as the primary consideration first and stating that outright so if someone has an objection they can suggest an alternative. Then you could move on to information-consciousness being derived from physical matter and stating how that is physically supported. This eventually leads to the mental worlds that we inhabit. Someone like Wayfarer may object to this as reductionism and I'm sympathetic to that view, however the benefit is that by following an order of operations we might eliminate some physically unsupported mental content that we seem to be prone to.
An example of physical constraints in our mental content would be time perseption. We time travel in our minds in a way physical matter does not permit and there is a need for philosophy to address this.
So the problem of not having an order of operations is that you'll get stuck defending mental constructs without considering physical limits. Say like believing time travel is possible.

however the benefit is that by following an order of operations we might eliminate some physically unsupported mental content that we seem to be prone to. — Mark Nyquist

Could this be prone to just having various orders of operations being discussed with no real road to resolution?

I know what you mean. It's hard to get any consensus here. It's worth considering as opposed to not. I think it's a good mental habit to be aware of it.

I think it's a good mental habit to be aware of it. — Mark Nyquist

Agreed

I like seeing information/consciousness being placed side by side. Do you think, in a technical sense, they are closely related or even have the same physical basis? Words are defined by their common usage so if we use common definitions we may be building in confusion to the problem of consciousness. . . .
Something else that may help in the problem of consciousness is to consider order of operations. — Mark Nyquist

Yes. I see Information & Consciousness as elements of the same cosmic continuum. But Information (power to enform ; to create meaningful & useful forms/patterns) is divergent, and often takes on physical forms, while Consciousness is emergent, and strictly meta-physical. Unfortunately, human languages are inherently based on sensory knowledge, hence "common usage" is fundamentally materialistic. That's why philosophical language was developed, in order to deal with concepts that go beyond the physical limitations of the senses, such as Potential vs Actual.

Creative Evolution is both divergent --- producing new species from old forms --- and emergent --- producing new wholes from old parts. I imagine the process of evolution as a computer Program. It begins as a meta-physical Idea in the mind of the Programmer, then is converted into a mathematical code (Singularity???), that is implemented in a physical system consisting of matter & energy (Big Bang). But all of those phases are sub-forms of Generic Information (GI), the generator of all forms, that Plato called the "World of Forms"*1.

One way to picture GI is as Aristotle's Potentiality Principle*2. He distinguished Potential from Actual in terms of Ontology, but platonic Epistemology might be "Real vs Ideal". Real/Actual things are physical & observable phenomena (appearances) via the human senses. But Ideal concepts are meta-physical and abstract noumena (concepts), hence knowable only via the sixth sense of Reason (Inference ; Imagination). Conceptually, GI is pure Potential, and exists only in a metaphysical sense as the Possibility of Actuality.

If the notion is not too repugnant to you, you could think of GI as the design for a Cosmos in the mind of G*D. Alternatively, and materialistically, you could imagine the GI as an eternally evolving Multiverse, which has experimented with an infinite number of novel forms, to serve as input to the Big Bang computation, for no apparent reason.

Again, yes, the "order of operations" in the evolution of our world, is similar to that of a computer calculating a> input data (facts) & b> mission statement into c> desired output (function or purpose). So, just as the order of mathematical or language-elements makes a difference in meaning or solution, the order of evolutionary operations will affect the end-state of the whole process. "Order" (vs disorder) is just another word for "Information". :smile:


*1. Plato’s Theory of Forms :
a foundational metaphysical concept suggesting that true reality is comprised of abstract, ideal entities (Forms) which differ from how things appear.
https://www.thecollector.com/what-is-plato-theory-of-forms/

*2. 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
Note --- Potential exists only metaphysically as statistical possibility, until it is Actualized by some creative power. We could debate the source of that "power", but we have no empirical evidence, so it currently remains a hypothesis, similar to the imaginary Dark Energy of physics.

I asked someone here a few weeks ago if they thought being aware of their own consciousness and thinking about specific information had anything in common. They said no and that surprised me but maybe I shouldn't be surprised. The words in use have very different meanings so we are conditioned to think they are very different things. All I can do is give the rest of you a heads up that the physical basis for both is the same. That would be your physical brain supporting both things.

I think you guessed I would have a problem with GI, genetic information, and I do. I see it as a mental projection only. It exists physically in your brain state and does not exist physically in genetic material.

So information and consciousness physically exists as:
Information = a physical brain;(specific mental content)
And
Consciousness = a physical brain;(the experience of consciousness)

Neither can be technically defined without including the physical brain as a necessary component.

I think you guessed I would have a problem with GI, genetic information, and I do. I see it as a mental projection only. It exists physically in your brain state and does not exist physically in genetic material. — Mark Nyquist

My post spelled the term "Generic", not "Genetic, Information*1. In my thesis, I use GI as a modern version of Plato's "World of Forms" to suggest a singular ideal origin, and shared heritage, for all of the various forms (configurations of matter, energy & mind) in the world. Genetic information, in the form of chemical genes, is one of those manifold offspring of the pre-Bang Progenitor Form. Another philosophical term for that concept is First Cause. It's merely a logical necessity to hypothetically account for Darwin's "forms most beautiful"*2.

I agree that Genetic Information "does not exist physically" in DNA . . . . except in the material form of bio-chemical interlinkage, which is meaningless until interpreted (template translation) by the fertilized cell. The functional metaphysical Information of Nucleic Acids takes the geometric form of a double helix. But even that is an over-simplification of the essential inter-relations that characterize fundamental Information. Bare-bones Information is mathematical Ratios (note the root of Rational). But a mind-boggling form of Information is the Life that emerges from holistic complexes of cells.

In my concept of Generic Information, everything in the world is a form --- chip off the old block --- of the creative Power to Enform. A physical form of that power is Energy, and a metaphysical form is human Intention or Will. As a meta-physical philosophical concept, EnFormAction*3 is difficult to explain in our conventional materialistic language, without giving the impression of religious motives. So, I am forced to use common -- sometimes religious -- metaphors to illustrate my meaning. :smile:

PS___ I have no religious beliefs, but I do share some philosophical concepts, such as Holism, that have been adopted by world religions to justify their own meta-physical beliefs. For those opposed to metaphysics-in-general it's all the same non-sense.


*1. Generic : relating to or shared by a whole group of similar things; not specific to any particular thing: .
Genetic : relating to origin, or arising from a common origin.

*2. “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
― Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

*3. EnFormAction :
*** Metaphorically, it's the Will-power of G*D, which is the First Cause of everything in creation. Aquinas called the Omnipotence of God the "Primary Cause", so EFA is the general cause of everything in the world. Energy, Matter, Gravity, Life, Mind are secondary creative causes, each with limited application.
*** All are also forms of Information, the "difference that makes a difference". It works by directing causation from negative to positive, cold to hot, ignorance to knowledge. That's the basis of mathematical ratios (Greek "Logos", Latin "Ratio" = reason). A : B :: C : D. By interpreting those ratios we get meaning and reasons.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html