Robin --
On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 7:42 AM, Robin Faichney <ro...@robinfaichney.org>wrote:
> Saturday, January 29, 2011, 9:39:09 PM, Stanley wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 6:41 AM, Gavin Ritz <garr...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
>
> > SS: Info theory presumably applies to everything and anything.
>
> > GR: It was never intended to apply to anything but communication
> > instruments. That is sending English language down a pipe.
>
> > S: Since it was abstracted from human communication systems, it has
> > taken on a 'life of its own', as any abstraction has a right to do.
>
> I agree with this. I'm no mathematician, but I believe that the
> broader significance of Shannon's work was a method of quantifying
> "pure pattern". This was then adopted by physicists who saw that
> material form can be treated as pure patterns, and thus we get such
> concepts as the conservation of "information" in quantum mechanics and
> in black holes.
Are 'pure patterns' three dimensional?
> "Conservation of information" can be translated as
> meaning that physical laws do not break down, and the state of
> affairs at one time can be considered "encoded" in the state of
> affairs at another time. For instance, events within the event horizon
> of a black hole (or, on the holographic principle, on the surface of
> the event horizon) could, in principle, be determined by examination
> of the Hawking radiation that escapes as the hole diminishes.
>
Nice, clearly put! Thanks. Of course, this is a (necessary!) assumption.
>
> > I think
> > the crux of the matter is being examined right now -- is information
> > ('bit') primal or is stuff ('it') primal? In my view there needs to
> > be stuff in order for there to be a perspective, and there needs to
> > be a perspective before there is anything to communicate.
>
> I share your focus on perspective (and also context), but I'm not
> clear why perspective requires "stuff" -- but see below.
>
Because a perspective would require stability of locale. I think that a
world of boson<->fermion transitions could have no specific locales.
>
> > Information is an abstraction related closely to form, which it is
> > supposed always could be translated to instructions in a computer,
> > creating 'bits' from inspection of 'its'. Then the supposition is
> > that The World also reckons with information, leading to" 'its from
> > 'bits' ". This, to me, is implausible.
>
> I tend to feel the same way about "it from bit", but I think it should
> perhaps be taken as implying that the idea of substance derives from
> form, which to me is highly plausible.
So, "form" here is potentiality. But where could this come from without
some constraints?
> We can take the view that form
> is what we encounter -- at all levels, personally and scientifically
> -- and substance a theoretical entity or set of such. This view is
> related to philosophical idealism, and is, like that, I believe,
> strictly irrefutable. By the same token, being unverifiable, it has no
> practical consequences. Which is more real, or which came first, form
> or substance? These questions are, strictly speaking, meaningless.
>
In a 'logical' sense, yes. But metaphysics transcends logic, and treats of
its preconditions as well. On 'verifiability', I'm afraid I have been
influenced by the Duhem-Quine thesis.
>
> Etymologically, "information" is extremely closely related to "form",
>
Strongly agree. Its function then is to constrain entropy production.
> and the concept of information used in physics simply IS material
> form, where that is generalised from shape to encompass all material
> properties. Just as past and future states of affairs are encoded in
> the present,
I suppose this takes into account historicity? Via statistics?
> so genetic information is encoded in DNA. Biological
> information is just a subset of physical information. DNA molecules,
> like all physical entities, encode the outcomes of all of their
> potential interactions, but in the case of DNA the outcomes are
> constrained by the cellular context.
>
But we now know that there is a good deal of material manipulation and
modification in between DNA code and protein complexes. You could say that
the DNA information is generic, while what emerges from metabolism is
particular.
>
> I'm currently working on a paper in which I argue that intentional
> information -- using "intentional" in Brentano's sense, and
> encompassing meaning and all mental content -- is best considered
> encoded in physical/biological information, being decoded in use.
>
But the DNA stuff is generic, use is particular.
> Perspective is obviously highly relevant here, but it seems to me that
> it can probably be explained in (literally) formal terms, that
> substance as such need not enter the picture, but perhaps I'm missing
> something?
>
As I said above, I don't see how there can be other than material
persectives, because only matter is 'sticky' enough to acquire a 'cogent
moment'.
STAN
>
> --
> Robin Faichney
> <http://www.robinfaichney.org/>
>
>
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