Dear Russell, you wrote: >"This sounds like a terminological difference. To me, "data" refers to >mere differences. Information has meaning. Observation attaches >meaning to data, creating informations from that data." WHAT do you "observe" if you have to create the meaning? I find it a reverse route, to learn the quantities (data) and then enrich them with meaning to make it 'information'. Don't forget that there is ample information (meanings galore) - unquantizable, where the 'bits' don't even come into the picture. All those are "its" (in my nomenclature). I wonder if I am alone with this terminology? Far we are not: in my terminology to 'absorb' (acknowledge, imbibe) a difference implies the meaning part as well, so the datum gets it when it becomes information. Of course data can be non-quantitative. * Then you wrote: > "Again this is terminology. By "timelike" I was referring to the > process of bringing two entities together for comparison. Nothing > more, not less. Perhaps "pre-timelike" is a more accurate term, but I > like to egg the pudding!
You probably missed my example anticipating such reply: >>"... observation can compare e.g. overlapping pictures, >> atemporarily, in one.... "<< when WE do not "bring together" comparables one after the other. I don't deny the time factor, just want to leave open the possibility of an atemporal worldview (which is still a big problem for me, too). * Then again I have a reply to your: > Not sure how remark to point 4 relates to this one. Does it mean you > don't believe in QM? Or that QM is not universal within the >plenitude? (I'd agree with you there) Or that QM is an accidental >feature of our world? (I'm inclined to disagree with you here)< First I find it an 'out-of-bounds' argumentative twist to change my term "human representational way of OUR world model" into your "accidental feature of our world". The linear THEORY of QM about the - originally- (nonlinear?) world of microscopic physics is not a 'feature' of the world. I answered this differentiation after #4 (cf: Comp-Turing), that's why I referred to it after #5 (QM) as similarly a limited model based anthropologism. Sorry if a critical remark on QM hit mores sensitive chords. * Small potato: (on the religious discussion-example) > No ideas can be proven. Surely you know that from Popper. < Right you are, let's change it to 'justified'/'explained'. That can be logical, even if Sir Karl did not exclude it from existence. What I meant is: first the believers should explain what their belief is based on, then I can argue against it. Not in reverse (time!). I don't start to argue against something the existence of which I don't see justified or explained, just because the other side would like to put me into a more vulnerable position in the argumentation. * To your final par: > Comp & QM aren't part of the belief system here. They are interesting > afterthoughts. The belief system relates to ideas about what > information means - I don't really see you disputing this, although I > do see some misunderstandings; the existence of a plenitude of > data (which I don't see you disputing either); and the Anthropic > Principle, which you may well dispute, as its a decidedly dodgy proposition.> Information I coined more than 10 years ago (maybe a review is actual, one reason why I entered this discussion: to get new input ideas) was: Absorbed (acknowledged) difference. By any contraption capable of doing so ('meaning' implied). Any difference, from an electrical charge to an economical controversy in S-W Asia. Now I see 'observation' as very close to this. And: to 'experience' as well. My plenitude is a feature in my NARRATIVE (not even a hypo-thesis) needed for a story of Big Bangs (unlimited) to start the multiverse in a way acceptable for human logic (- without the controversies in the physical cosmological BB fable.) It lacks data, serves ONE purpose, I refuse to discuss details of it, it is unobservable and unexplained. Sorry, I did not read your paper on the AP, maybe you made some sense to it. So far I see in it only "us, god's real children as the most important feature in the world". Merry Xmas! (oops: it is past). John Mikes ----- Original Message ----- From: "Russell Standish" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "John M" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <everything-list@eskimo.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 8:19 PM Subject: Re: Belief Statements > On Tue, Jan 11, 2005 at 06:12:28PM -0500, John M wrote: SNIP, Quotes for reply see above in the text.