Mark, thanks for starting an interesting topic.I'd like to highlight a connection between question 2, and the title of this session, and some dynamics of story formation.> 2. Are there types or kinds of information that are not> encompassed by the general theory of information (GTI)?If you're referring to your specific theory, its ontology seems promising, from the perspective of narrative mechanisms. In a story, similar to your GTI model, the representable elements are only a portion of the whole phenomenological system (your principle 4, I think). Also important to narrative is the impetus and ability to transform, in the manner you describe (principle 2). For a story, this transformation is a central feature, the residue of which can be found in its actual structure. Your distinction between explicitly representable elements, and the overall phenomenon, strikes me as important.This is why: in stories, there are also non-explicit, non-represented phenomenological elements that affect the process of narrative formation, and therefore its information structures. In fact, I would go further to say that such transformations would not be possible without these virtual entities. Ted touched upon this aspect below, and I would like to extend his observation to example that you (Mark) unconsciously provided, at the start of the session:> But just as particle physics finds it handy to have virtual particles and transcendent symmetries over> them, so will we have information types that do not touch the world in an observable way; these will > be required to support clean laws of behavior, yet to be convincingly proposed.Let me focus on the influence of virtual entities, for a moment. I could write a long the explanation about the role of anticipative inference in stories, but here's a more enjoyable example of the same behavior:> *INFORMATION: MYSTERY SOLVING*> > *Mark Burgin*> Professor & Visiting Scholar> Department of Mathematics> University of California at Los AngelesEveryone that has posted towards this topic so far has been compelled, in some way, to generate information structures. This is explicitly expressed as emails in a browser window. But much of the impetus for creating that residue is non-explicit. Aside from everyone's personal urges, an important driver has been the prospect of a mysterious space, one that needs to be filled. Mark launched this session by proposing that an artifact is wanted, and seven of us have already been stirred to assemble ideas that climb towards that unwritten space. Some already-established, explicit structures have been used in the process, such as past theories, and the use of English words on this page. But if those safe forms could satisfy Mark's space of mystery, without any formulative effort from us, I don't think we would have bothered to compose our messages.In the story ecosystem, the drive to assemble a structure (if a writer) or consume it until the final sentence (if a reader), is key. In both cases, the impetus strives towards a shape that has not yet been formed, but aspects hinted at. This seductive pull seems to be stimulated by the interaction between multiple ontological contexts, and structural tensions between them, as well as inferences that there are some central, cohering artifacts that do not yet exist, but should. For this reason, Ted's quantum analogy is apt, as is Mark's reference to the way an information system leverages its own parameters. In stories, the collective, projected information structures of the emerging tale exert a pull over its explicit elements, as they are forming, and also causing them to form.So in response to question 2, I suggest the inclusion of the virtual and tentative factors that stimulate the assembly of information structures - some of which can be seen in a tantalizing nature of 'mystery solving.'
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