Information, to my mind, is a mental concept that humans use, on a practical basis to make concrete the abstract...while the term 'information' is itself abstract in nature. I think information's defining feature is the interaction between whatever units humans delineate in a given system.

Kevin Arthur Crowley, thanks and welcome to this discussion.

My attempt has been to take up a more general meaning of it. For example, many speak of units of information in informatics, AI information that is stored in the internet in various repositories like the Cloud, information as the background ether of the universe, loss of all information in the black hole, the quantum-cosmological re-cycling of information in the many worlds that get created (like mushrooms) without any cause but (miraculously-) quantum-cosmologically (!?!?!?), etc.

Add to this list also the human meanings that you mentioned. Thus, we have a more general spectrum of the concept of information.

In this general sense of the term 'information', we need to broaden it from the human use of the term as a symbolic instrument in language, and extend it to some conglomeration-effect that is already being carried out out-there....

Let me suggest to you a more complete discussion on this sort of a general system:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are_artificial_and_biological_intelligence_and_information_non-causal_not_based_on_energy

Preprint CAUSALITY IN ARTIFICIAL AND BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE (Summary...

Poster CAUSAL PROCESS, MIND, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. A PHENOMENOLO...

Presentation RECONCILING CAUSALITY AND FREEDOM: PAN-EXPERIENTIALIST, MINI...

Article CAUSALITY IN PHYSICS, TECHNOLOGY, AI, AND MIND. Book. DEFINI...

Preprint PHYSICAL ONTOLOGY OF COGNITION

There are also the following discussions that may further be useful for clarification of some concepts being discussed in the above:

Preprint MATHEMATICS AND CAUSALITY: A SYSTEMIC RECONCILIATION

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_propagating_energy_wavicles_really_be_massless_or_relatively_massless

Presentation UNIVERSALS BEYOND PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. Raphael Neelamkavil

Preprint THE WORLDS OF STOCHASTIC AND UNIVERSAL CAUSALITY

Preprint GRAVITATIONAL COALESCENCE PARADOX (GCP)

Kevin Arthur Crowley,

One more discussion to suggest to you:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/ARE_INFORMATION_AND_ITS_VIRTUAL_WORLD_simply_MATTER_OR_ENERGY_OR_MATTER-ENERGY_OR_ANYTHING_ELSE

This is very short. But there are interventions by others and my answers in it. If you have time, kindly open this too.

Kevin Arthur Crowley, thanks again for your intervention. It has helped me to revise the lead-text of this discussion, by including an answer to what you suggested. This is included in the final paragraphs of the lead-text.

Raphael

Kevin Arthur Crowley

My attempt above has been to take up a more general meaning of the notion ‘information’. For example, many speak of “units of information in informatics”, “information of types Artificial Intelligence, Internet, etc., that is stored in the internet in various repositories like the Cloud”, “information as the background ether of the universe (strange!!)”, “loss of all information in the black hole”, “the quantum-cosmological re-cycling of information in the many worlds that get created (like mushrooms) without any cause but (miraculously-) quantum-cosmologically (!?!?!?)”, etc.

Add to this list now also the humanly bound meanings of the notion of ‘information’ that we always know. The human aspect of it is the conglomeration of various sorts of brain-level and language-level concatenations of universal notions (in the form of nouns) with other language-level and brain-level aspects. These concatenations are the brain-level and language-level concatenative reflections of conglomerations of universals (which I call “ways of being of processes”) of existent physical processes (outside of us and inside us), which have their mental reflections as conceptual concatenations in brains and conceptual concatenations in language (which is always symbolic). Thus, including this human brain-level and language-level aspect, we have a more general spectrum of the concept of information.

In view of this general sense of the term ‘information’, we need to broaden its definition from the human use of the term as a symbolic instrument in language, and extend it to some conglomeration-effect that is already being carried out out-there....

“…The most direct interpretations of the concept of information in both informatics and in the philosophy of informatics are (1) that “information is nothing more than matter and energy themselves”,”.…..”

- that looks as too strange claim, really in both informatics and in the philosophy of informatics there is no such original concept of information that “information is nothing more than matter and energy themselves”;

- though yeah, Norbert Wiener, who was one of fathers of cybernetics and informatics wrote in 1961 [book “The cybernetics, or the control and communications in the animal and in the machine”] "Information is information, not Matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive nowadays”,

- but that

“….or (2) that “information is something mysterious and unidentifiable, but is different from matter and energy themselves”….”

-isn’t correct, in mainstream philosophy and informatics .there exist a lot of “theories of information” – the Shannon theory, theories of algorithms, complexity, etc. which by no means are “mysterious”, and the authors quite frankly believe that they develop nothing mysterious; despite that, say, there exist dozens, if hundreds, of different definitions of this phenomenon.

Nonetheless really in the mainstream the fundamental phenomenon “Information” is completely mysterious, including in practically all cases “Information” is considered only as something that is used exclusively by humans

– and that is because of that in the mainstream all other really fundamental phenomena/notions, first of all in this case “Matter”, “Consciousness”, “Space”, “Time”, “Energy”, are also fundamentally completely transcendent/uncertain/irrational – “mysterious”; and, correspondingly, the phenomenon “a human” really for mainstream humans is really completely mysterious as well, but they quite frankly believe that that isn’t so.

However humans quite widely use information at communicating with each other, studying of environment, etc., having at that mostly no necessity in quite natural in this case questions “so what is “Information”?” , why it is used?, why it is equally effective at communications between humans and communications with well evidently different from humans material objects?, etc. – and so no necessity in answers to these questions.

Really scientific answers to the questions above [and not only, of course] are possible, and many ones are given, only in framework of the really philosophical 2007 Shevchenko-Tokarevsky’s “The Information as Absolute” conception, recent version of the basic paper see

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363645560_The_Information_as_Absolute_-_2022_ed

- where it is rigorously scientifically proven that there exist nothing else than some informational patterns/systems of the patterns that are elements of the absolutely fundamental and absolutely infinite “Information” Set; and all fundamental phenomena/notions above are really rigorously scientifically defined. Including what is the fundamental phenomena “Consciousness”, so what is “Life” and “humans”; “Matter/matter”; “Energy/energy”, etc.

More see the linked paper, here only note also that the phenomenon “Information”, despite that it is absolutely fundamental, well complex and paradoxical, fundamentally isn’t “mysterious”, and can be rationally scientifically cognizable in framework of the SS&VT conception above.

Cheers

Sergey Shevchenko,

You took just the first number within my sentence and began to argue against that. I said also a second kind of it under the number (2). Why did you not consider them together? I was not in support of none of them. I meant only that the mainstream tendency seems to be this.

Wiener, Shannon, etc. have, in their own way, simply mystified the concept of information in a physicalistic or non-physicalistic manner, whatever their main tenets have been. But I hope you will admit that they never attempted to explain what the stuff of information is.

To add, I have not so far found anyone who explains what information is. This is the problem I face. I have already worked a book on this theme: Cosmic Causality Code and Artificial Intelligence: Analytic Philosophy of Physics, Mind, and Virtual Worlds. It consists of the physical-ontological foundations common to physics, biology, language, information, and AI, their connections to matter-energy, brains, and machines, and the ultimate criteria of existence for the various ever-newly posited unobservable entities in science. It is not about all these sciences, but about their common ontological basis. It is a philosophy of flexible and ever-augmentable grounds of science. The direct and exhaustive implications of existence and knowing. A bridge between the old metaphysics, recent philosophies, and contemporary sciences. A systemic philosophy of science. Theoretically clear but complex. Systemic on the processes and phenomena in physical and biological bodies, minds, languages, AI, and information.

You admitted, nonetheless: "Nonetheless really in the mainstream the fundamental phenomenon “Information” is completely mysterious, including in practically all cases “Information” is considered only as something that is used exclusively by humans."

But you say also:

"– and that is because of that in the mainstream all other really fundamental phenomena/notions, first of all in this case “Matter”, “Consciousness”, “Space”, “Time”, “Energy”, are also fundamentally completely transcendent/uncertain/irrational – “mysterious”; and, correspondingly, the phenomenon “a human” really for mainstream humans is really completely mysterious as well, but they quite frankly believe that that isn’t so."

I myself did not say that “Matter”, “Consciousness”, “Space”, “Time”, “Energy”, are also fundamentally completely transcendent/uncertain/irrational. I do not hold so. There may be persons who hold so.

And then you give one RG document of yours (which I have read many times previously) saying that you have "proved" that information is fundamental. To say "proved" is easy. But at least in the philosophy of physics (and of course in philosophy of mathematics, philosophy in general, etc. too) such claims do not get acceptance.

I do not claim that it is not fundamental. But it can be true only if "information" exists on par with physical things / processes exist. If not, we will have to base information on existent physical things, not merely on the mathematical and AI existence of information. This latter is a different sort of existence, of which analytic philosophy is saturated of talking. Kindly take a look at that.

Friends, in view of further clarity, I have elaborated the lead-text (which was one page in A4) into three pages and sub-titles.

Raphael

Preprint WHAT IS THE MYSTERIOUS STUFF OF INFORMATION? BRIEF BUT CLEAR...

OK brief and clear

INFORMATION= I0+I

IO: Content stored within Laws of Nature (not energy based)

I: Information stored in Matter (energy based, Matters Structure, i.e. DNA, electron mass, ..)

Remark not necessary but:

The Information a human being speaks about and think about is unique in nature but is made from IO and I. The "interpretation" of mind (consciousness) becomes nonsense or another reality - made from IO+I

A basic law of Nature is Causality. (Physicist forgot this meanwhile)

I have written it down 400 pages. At least Nonsense, except some of the few letters above - my information or answer, may be be superfluous too. IO+I(consciousness), natures plan not to become superfluous?

Manfred Geilhaupt,

Thanks. The one thing I liked most here is your directness on Causality as the most basic law of nature. I suggest that it is a pre-scientific law in the sense that whatever exists is given in a causal manner, and it is not produced out of some sciences but for all sciences and all modes of existence and thought.

Although the laws of nature are understood by minds, the fact that we have them not merely out of ourselves bears witness to the fact that our understanding of them is inherited from the ways of being (physical-ontologically, "universals") of nature. In that sense, it is necessary to interpret causally also the subject-based creation of the laws of nature. That is, we need causal explanations for everything.

I have dealt with some of these, especially of Universal Causality, in some of my questions for discussion. I have given detailed lead-texts there.

Some instances:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are_artificial_and_biological_intelligence_and_information_non-causal_not_based_on_energy

https://www.researchgate.net/post/A_GAME-CHANGER_CAUSALITY_FOR_PHYSICS_Beyond_the_Two_Millennia

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Gravitational_Coalescence_Paradox_GCP_Introduction_to_Gravitational_Coalescence_Cosmology_GCC

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_Does_Physics_Know_The_Epistemology_Presupposed_by_Physics_and_Other_Sciences

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Do_Electromagnetic_Quanta_and_Gravitational_Quanta_Gravitons_Gravitate_from_Within_Do_they_Exist_or_Are_They_Mere_Mathematical_Equations

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Minimal_Metaphysical_Physicalism_MMP_vs_Panpsychisms_and_Monisms_Beyond_Mind-Body_Dualism

Dear Raphael

"Although the laws of nature are understood by minds,.."

If you or I would not exist, laws of nature exist independent of (mind-) energy.

Causality (Einstein never wanted to give up) me too, independently of Einstein. (That's why GR+TD is so successful old theory)

By the way Causality as the most fundamental law predicts laws of nature must exist. AND allows a free will-time-window to exist - even if random and statistically based.

best wishes

"I have dealt with some of these, especially of Universal Causality, in some of my questions for discussion. I have given detailed lead-texts there."

give me the most important link concerning physics and causality or concerning daily life.

thanks

Thanks. These two are the important ones:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are_artificial_and_biological_intelligence_and_information_non-causal_not_based_on_energy

https://www.researchgate.net/post/A_GAME-CHANGER_CAUSALITY_FOR_PHYSICS_Beyond_the_Two_Millennia

Raphael Neelamkavil,

“…Sergey Shevchenko,

You took just the first number within my sentence and began to argue against that. I said also a second kind of it under the number (2). Why did you not consider them together? I was not in support of none of them. I meant only that the mainstream tendency seems to be this. Wiener, Shannon, etc. have, in their own way, simply mystified the concept of information in a physicalistic or non-physicalistic manner, whatever their main tenets have been. But I hope you will admit that they never attempted to explain what the stuff of information is.……”, etc.

- in the SS post on page 1 it is generally, rather completely, and clearly – with reference, of course, to the really philosophical 2007 SS&VT “The Information as Absolute” conception – it is explained what is the absolutely fundamental phenomenon/notion “Information”, and so in the post all Paras in the thread question introduction are really answered.

Including in the post it is pointed that really in mainstream philosophy and sciences the phenomenon “Information” really is completely transcendent – or, by using your word, “mystified”; and that

- “that is because of that in the mainstream all other really also fundamental phenomena/notions, first of all in this case “Matter”, “Consciousness”, “Space”, “Time”, “Energy”, are also fundamentally completely transcendent/uncertain/irrational – “mysterious”; and, correspondingly, the phenomenon “a human” really for mainstream humans is really completely mysterious as well, but they quite frankly believe that that isn’t so”.

So I can only to add to what is written in the SS post on page 1, that really – the reality is such – all the absolutely and simply fundamental phenomena/notions above can be scientifically defriend on ly together, humans, who really want to understand what is “Information” first of all should understand – what they are, and why they are as they are.

More see the linked in the SS post on page 1 paper with recent version of the conception.

Cheers

I agree that we need to understand the physical reality and humans together. But are humans mysteries? And what dou you mean by mystery? I mean by it anything conceptual that is not causally based on existent matter-energy.

But concerning the alleged absolute / mysterious status of information, it is not enough to assert that it is so, based merely on the fact that there are some realities that seem to be mysterious to us.

Physics by definition is Energy-Based proved by Experiment.

Nature's Medal is: One side is Physics.

The laws of nature determine both sides, ruled by Causality not restricted to physics energy based actions.

(private speculation only, or better mysterious information)

You have written:

"Physics by definition is Energy-Based proved by Experiment.

Nature's Medal is: One side is Physics."

Ich finde es schwierig zu verstehen, was Sie meinen. Vielleicht könnten Sie es auf Deutsch bisschen erklären!

Raphael

Preprint COSMIC ISOTROPY, CONFORMAL CYCLIC COSMOS, ETERNAL INFLATION:...

Nature's Medal is: One side is Physics."

Ich finde es schwierig zu verstehen, was Sie meinen. Vielleicht könnten Sie es auf Deutsch bisschen erklären!

Gern versuchen:

Die Natur-Phänomene, die mit Energie zu tun haben, Evolution der Materie, Licht Fortpflanzung, etc werden sehr gut beschrieben durch Physik und ihre Theorie und Experimente. Die Energieerhaltung ist ein Prinzip, das im täglichen Leben sich uns offenbart. Daran zu glauben, ist offensichtlich sinnvoll, weil es viele Experimente erst verstehen läßt.

Kurz gesagt: Glauben kann man nicht in "Joule" messen. Materie von Masse und Licht (Experimente) wohl.

Daher gibt es (für mich als Hypothese) zwei Seiten der Natur: Eine Seite die sich mit Joule beschäftigt und eine andere Seite, die nichts mit Energie zu tun hat und nicht mit Energie erklärt werden kann, aber notwendigerweise existieren muß, da sonst das Kausalitätsprinzip nicht immer gültig sein kann, wenn es die zweite Seite der Medaille nicht gäbe.

Das ist meine Sicht aus der Ecke der Physik. Bin sicher, dass man die Physik aber nicht als Grundlage für Philosophie braucht. Einstein: Wem der Schuh drückt, weiss am besten wo. (Die Physiker haben das K-Prinzip durch Parallel-Universen ersetzt. Aus meine Sicht Unsinn, weil man da nicht experimentell hinkommt.)

Danke sehr für die Erklärung Ihrer Position. Nur, daß die Wissenschaften die andere Seite Ihrer Sichtweise (der Medaille) ohne genug wissenschaftliche Beweise, oder ohne mindestens genug stichhaltige Argumente zu haben, nicht akzeptieren können. Sie wissen es schon.

Über Parallel-Universen: Sie haben Recht. Ich habe in ResearchGate einige Diskussionen eingeführt, die etwas damit zu tun haben. Nehmen Sie bitte Zeit, einige davon zu lesen:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Cosmic_vacuum_energy_arguments_are_in_effect_an_eyewash_to_keep_cosmological_questions_under_the_desk

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Gravitational_Coalescence_Paradox_GCP_Introduction_to_Gravitational_Coalescence_Cosmology_GCC

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Reconciliation_of_Causation_and_Freedom_Unifying_and_Axiomatizing_the_Sciences

https://www.researchgate.net/post/If_the_cosmos_is_1_finite-content_or_2_infinite-content_Is_there_finite_or_infinite_creation

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_the_cosmic_or_local_black_hole_singularity_be_of_infinite_density_and_zero_size

Rafael

Danke sehr für die Erklärung Ihrer Position.

Nur (m)eine Meinung!

Mathematik ist eine Vermittlersprache, die keine eigene Meinung enthält.

Just found this yesterday

A series of simulations offer a new perspective on the Universe’s structure

https://www.techexplorist.com/series-simulations-offer-new-perspective-universe-structure/57758/

Thanks.

THE PLANCK ERA / QUANTUM ERA and “DISAPPEARANCE” OF PHYSICAL CAUSALITY: “OMNIPOTENCE” OF MATHEMATICS

https://www.researchgate.net/post/THE_PLANCK_ERA_QUANTUM_ERA_and_DISAPPEARANCE_OF_PHYSICAL_CAUSALITY_OMNIPOTENCE_OF_MATHEMATICS

Raphael Neelamkavil,

“…But are humans mysteries? And what dou you mean by mystery? I mean by it anything conceptual that is not causally based on existent matter-energy….”

- after you will understand that

- in the mainstream philosophy and sciences the phenomenon “human” really is completely mysterious – i.e. that all what the mainstream knows in this case really by no means answers to the question “what is “human””?, so why “human” is as it is? including why “human” use the other phenomenon “Information”? – and what is “Information”? , including why It is as It is? – etc.

- and so, though really human exist and use “Information” as a “data” mostly rationally and adequately to the objective reality, including at communicating with “matter-energy”, they really do that completely mysteriously

– i.e. do only completely instinctively. Say, bacteria do all that quite equally as humans, while for bacteria all that is evidently mysterious – bacteria, say, seems evidently don’t know words “Information”, “data”, “cause”, “effect”, “logical rules”; etc., but use all that mostly rationally and adequately to the objective reality;

- - you rather probably will understand what is written else in the SS posts and in the whole really philosophical 2007 Shevchenko-Tokarevsky’s “The Information as Absolute” conception, recent version of the basic paper see

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363645560_The_Information_as_Absolute_-_2022_ed

- where all the questions above – and a lot of others – are rigorously scientifically, and quite clearly defined/explained for humans who are able to think, though firstly instinctively, but really rationally, logically, and objectively [why that is, nonetheless, possible – again see the references above], and non-standardly.

Cheers

What exactly is the mystery in humans and other living beings?

Can some physicists suggest that gravitation is a background external to the cosmos, and hence works as a medium for the cosmos, and is constructed out of information? Do they have compelling reasons?

Raphael Neelamkavil Preprint nonlocal causality

Looking forward to your book. Sounds most interesting.

All best,

Tom

Here local causality:

Research Proposal t ime -Dilation

Preprint PLANCK ERA or QUANTUM ERA,and ”DISAPPEARANCE” OF CAUSALITY. ...

Can quantum mechanics not be given a realisticinterpretation? Many would say, ‘yes.’ Einstein said, ‘no.

Just a single note:

Concerning the naked wave-function: NO, generally

Concerning the effective value of the wave function: YES, in so far as the effective value is related to Energy (available in Joule by experiment)

Manfred Geilhaupt

You have said it very well. Beautiful.

R. Poznansky

TIME AND INFORMATION ARE IDENTICAL...?

I did not think I knew the answers to all here! You may have thought so in a linear fashion!

R. Poznansky

The meaning of nonlinear time IMO is in its nonlocal origin. Because we are 3-dimensional creatures with 4-dimension brain-minds, we are born into an already self-organized world, of which we comprise a physical part, on which we impose our own idea of time and mathematical order. Being already one generation removed from the cause, we are compelled to assume that the cause is nonlocal. Much of this is covered my 2007 conference paper Conference Paper Time, Change & Self Organization

All best,

Tom

What can the information be?

Information, as we know it, is either stored materially in memory chips or is on the way as electromagnetic wave in a medium. But both refers to the "carrier" of the information, matter as particle or energy e.g. as wave. But this is not itself the information. The human being must use aids to transmit or "hold" information.

Let's come to the black holes. One of the theories to the information preservation at the black hole comes from Hawking and says that the information is deposited at the event horizon. E.g. as turbulences,.... on the horizon. That would be an example that this information can be no matter and also no energy, because the particle falls into the black hole. So it is quasi "virtual". I would call it the most original form of the information. It was produced by matter or particles. Is now without a space-time extension nevertheless present.

What's about:

Electrons carry "information" (structure and its degeneration due to same mass-energy is different information base on same rest-energy)

R. Poznansky

Why does biological consciousness need to be explained if we already use it with profound wisdom and self-assuredness already?

Consciousness is not part of physics. Information you can tell about must be physically (biologically) based. If you have information at a least step in reality of physics, so must come out of consciousness otherwise the principle of causality brakes down. If this is the case or your reality, consciousness does not exist or simple is mutated into probability. Nothing new as it should be here in our reality.

R. Poznansky

R. Poznansky

R.

Consciousness here is considered to be brain-based and not cosmic or universal.....as explicated by Frank van den Bovenkamp

OK, then it is brain-based conclusion based on information (feelings included). This process of thinking is physically (biologically) based. You might, I call it consciousness physically based

Fundamental Laws of Physics (better Nature) I would call CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE UNIVERSE not only physically based. It is generally based. Exists without thinking

R. Poznansky

"Consciousness here is considered to be brain-based and not cosmic or universal.....as explicated by Frank van den Bovenkamp"

Well... it's rather that consciousness does not come from out of space, which is naïve mysticism or mystification. It's also critical of idealism in philosophy, which excludes materialism, and thus could be called "eliminative idealism", indeed a pun on "eliminative materialism".

I prefer that experientiality or simply mind is brain based - is uses and depends on the body and brain as material basis. If that's the case, consciousness is the name for the inferred principle, exactly as in physics energy and action* are the inferred principles. This connection may lead to mature mystical experience, which is of existential and not of cognitive nature.

As without energy and action there's no physics, without consciousness there's no experientiality.

In this well established context, the literal idea that consciousness is brain based, is equally immature and illogical from a physics point of view.

*as in physics' Principle of Least Action

All, to debate consciousness from a physical basis does make non-mass based consciousness devoid of sentience, does it not? Unless for explaining what?

R. Poznansky

R. Poznansky

"without experiential time there is no consciousness..."

Paraphrasing Manfred Geilhaupt just before: consciousness, as energy and action, exist without thinking. The crux is how to understand "is" in "...there is no consciousness". Consciousness, like energy and action, does not exist in the absolute sense but is superior to its effects and inferred by them. The "superior" clause is critical, as every physicist immediately understands.

Therefore, I would reject "eliminative idealism" in the favor of "progressive idealism". This means that we consider consciousness as primary, in precisely the same vein as a physicist considers energy and action as primary.

As a scientific position this is no more related to (mature) mysticism than physics is. Energy and action don't come out of the universe in some naïve fashion, nor does consciousness. Just like energy and action manifest, in the sense of are inferred in (the interactions of) physical matter, consciousness manifests in animate matter. If no-one's there to make these inferences, that doesn't make energy and action and consciousness "idealistic" in the philosophical sense.

Like matter is a shelter for energy and action, but not strictly the cause or basis of it, the brain (and arguably all living matter) is a shelter for consciousness.

The personal challenge is how to "experience experientiality" or simply how to witness the mind for what it is and what it does without being identified with it. This is not an easy task, and by definition not something that can be achieved by the thinking intellect - it is an existential art.

When considering consciousness, we ideally go beyond our own version of being conscious, do we not?

There, here, who here can agree on what consciousness is? Who can do that before then accusing AI of doing something wrong?

R. Poznansky

Are you sure you're asking the right if not wrong questions to make this discussion debateable?

R. Poznansky

Certainly it is not an easy task even to define consciousness, never mind explain it, which as far as I have read no such definition has yet been agreed. My principal interest on which I have been laboring too long in fits and starts, is to explain memory's operation, and without an acceptable understanding of the latter, I do not see how it might be possible to explain consciousness, so that it is also a question of priorities when it comes to the practicalities of a possible resolution.

Without memory, the gaining and build up of experience in a living organism is impossible, or so it seems to me. My basis of explanation is similar in a number of ways to Sheldrakes' morphic resonance, rather to his surprise when I first contacted him in 1983. I use principles of physics, with amendments, which Rupert, as a bio-scientist, tends more to avoid. I less elegantly describe my thesis as Duplication theory, and which very much depends on memory's operation being eidetic at a fundamental level.

The latter is the subjective ability to recall everything registered, mainly in humanity by an individual's visual observation (together with the other less cognitive senses). Since this would be an impossible amount of information to store physically in one brain, then this has to be based on a quantum effect of past information being re-experienced by the brain, albeit reduced to working memory in rapid series of curtailed sequences of these past experiences. These would be invoked by engrams, physically stored and similar to the present experience currently being registered at the time.

This might seem just too highly conjectural to be considered seriously, but without an explanation for memory, my subjective view is that it is very unlikely that much palpable progress will be made on the mind's operation and consciousness. The resolution of a few other major unknowns, such as, for example, Gravitation (why mass attracts other mass) might make major contributions at a fundamental level, or so one would hope, and on which I comment in related papers.

www.mindandmemory.net

The greatest personal challenge, is it each other? Or, is the greatest challenge something else? When we think of computers and sentience, are we comforted with how we convince one another there?

R. Poznansky

Let's say consciousness is a card game where your house rules, is that a good start?

R. Poznansky

Everyone here is on that same page.

When it rains I'm happy, if I'm not happy it still rains.

What here is consciousness?

What is information?

What is logic?

What's about uncertainty?

Nicholas Greaves

"The personal challenge is how to "experience experientiality" or simply how to witness the mind for what it is and what it does without being identified with it. This is not an easy task."

I fully agree! How else could I, as you copy/pasted this phrase from my comment. No offence taken, just sayin'.

Manfred Geilhaupt

"When it rains I'm happy, if I'm not happy it still rains."

Of course. As a matter of fact you're questioning solipsism.

R. Poznansky

If intentionality is something else than computable cognition, and is neither feelings nor consciousness, then what is it?

"We have argued that this is aided through negentropic entanglement (not to be confused with quantum entanglement)."

This is yet another example of borrowing quantum vocabulary. The better term is negentropic action.

My view is that two particles are entangled through negentropic action, presently not studied in physics.

Frank

As a matter of fact you're questioning solipsism

Nevertheless NATURE has two sides of one medal (energy, ?)

?="consciousness not brain made" is a need here

My (franks) view is that two particles are entangled through negentropic action, presently not studied in physics.

correct

the electron structure contains information (due to causality) but not brain-made like consciousness.

Manfred Geilhaupt

"... consciousness not brain made" is a need here"

Of course. However:

"NATURE has two sides of one medal..."

Energy ⇋ Consciousness is incomplete and confusing. It's:

{ Energy + Action } ⇋ { negentropic + entropic effects }, or

{ Energy + entropic effects } ⇋ {Action + negentropic effects }.

The effects are objective, so Action + Energy are "subjective" but not in the common psychological sense. Chalmers is 100% history.

As the Action is central in the whole functional model of consciousness, we have:

• neutral action = action → energy = standard physics
• entropic action = action → entropy = pro-matter; physical vibration
• negentropic action = action → negentropy = pro-mind; mental propensities

Pertaining to the title question, the "mysterious stuff of information" is mind-stuff or the combined entropic and negentropic effects. E.g. we see a rose - that's a combination of light waves and colors. The rose we see is made of mind stuff. Or, we see a brain, same: the brain is made of mind stuff. Our actual perceptions are the hidden co-ordinators of time and space (that's why the universe is so miraculously fine-tuned for life).

This is all said and done, not my idea. No need to reinvent the wheel.

The quest of making AI sentient, of putting a person into AI, is it really possible without first consulting ideas like ghosts? Is the idea of a ghost sentient according to all this? Is there such a thing as a @ghost according to all this?

The whole "mysterious stuff of information", it's such a broad if not ignorant poke.

Some people seem very concerned about AI taking over humanity which they seems to consider possible and not a good thing at all. My initial and almost automatic reaction to such concerns is that until we have an agreed understanding on some new basic principle involved in the operation of mind and memory, about which we have as yet no inking, we have nothing to worry about from a mere machine taking over.

However the moment AI starts to be able to think or draw conclusions intuitively, as I consider an essential part of the brain's operation, then things might be rather different. AI has an impressive ability to store information to then regurgitate the opinions of many others on demand. However, it has no subjective intuitive ability to judge the quality of which version of many proposed resolutions might most accurately reflect reality, other than to mirror the then current majority opinion of many experts. The latter tends to be often unreliable: the accelerating expansion of the universe being a fine fairly recent example, as will particulate dark matter if it transpires to be something very different.

Instead it is the occasional and often sudden intuitive and unanticipated ability of a few fortunate individuals to happen upon an answer from an unanticipated direction especially on fundamental issues, that often enables radical break throughs. AI, at its present stage of development, shows little sign of such ability. In which case no worries there yet.

Is building castles in the sky an example of sentience, or is it more like the mysterious stuff of information?

Who in history and modern day is the greatest proponent of noting the difference between what is real and what is fantasy?

To put a satellite holding data in orbit, is that really a castle in the sky that needs a space force. Sure, maybe, yet is that an example of sentience? That's still just basic brick building on a large scale, is it not?

Now, let's look at a super massive computer with a super massive memory.

Who here has seen DEVS (the TV show)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devs_(TV_series)

Westworld is also a good example of how AI is allowed a hall pass:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_(TV_series)

Even there, there's a great difference between how those shows are reported as compared to how one critques their own way.

R. Poznansky

I humbly propose that I have presented such a structure. I am of the opinion that the strongest possible compression of information is the mod2 relation. I reach this conclusion because thought is a 4-dimensional process. Expressed as Z/2Z, the division of integers into odds and evens, we can make an image 0 1

1 0 in which additive and multiplicative identities merge into the complex plane quadrature.

For this same reason, I have made a non-mathematical distinction between a space containing zero information, and a measure space of infinite information potential. It is only in a defined measure space where events occur at speeds

T. H. Ray , Is this science though that confirms General Relativity and the known problems of entropy with time's arrow?

Frank:

{ Energy + Action } ⇋ { negentropic + entropic effects },

in so far as it is not an equation I can agree 100%

By the way

E=m(t)*c^2 + Q(t)=const is the invariance equation needed to combine GR with Quantum Particles. My private "freie Erfindung des menschlichen Geistes" führt zu:

S=k*ln(W)

I invented W=1/3 the Probability to go (x,y,z) Space Direction. This leads to a first Newtonian Approximation (1988)

alpha=3/4*(1+ln(W))^2=1/137.0124

In 2000 I got this

Preprint Fine Structure & Schwarzschild-Metric

Manfred Geilhaupt

Indeed it is not (yet) an equation. Physics so far mainly considers neutral and entropic action, as in E=hf, and many QP equations are just variations on the same theme.

The principle of symmetry breaking (presently Higgs mechanism) takes it a big step further in the right direction, but has issues.

I remember we discussed your α idea in quite some detail.

R. Poznansky

Time is the mind's measure to detect integral action as continual motion. The "structure of time" is something different altogether - an allusion to the 4 internal faculties of the consciousness process discussed before.

To say that consciousness is "brain based" is as pointless as to say that energy is candle based - it's just an unfounded, visceral bias.

Stephen Jarvis I am not sure I fully understand your question. I hope you would agree that general relativity is a theory of gravity, mathematically complete, contained entirely within its axioms. The connection to entropy, I perceive, is at the extreme of the theory's predictions--singularities. Hawking's prediction that black holes are self extinguishing extends the singularity on a 1-dimension line (see Bekenstein-Mayo, "Black holes are One Dimensional") where information is dynamic and self-reinforcing, like audio feedback in an out of control state (positive feedback). Obviously nonlinear. Impose the control state--negative feedback--and one creates the damping effect that makes action behave. In doing so, one has suppressed all dimensions except one.

This one dimension is made 2, physically and analytically, by complex analysis--where on the 2-dimension complex plane, a line is treated as a point. Hawking's treatment of imaginary time follows, as 2 dimensions are projected onto 4 dimensions.

The sticking point is that entropy flows backward as well as forward and sideways--but it is observer dependent and insofar as energy entropy is equivalent mathematically to information entropy (Shannon) the observer's view is highly asymmetrical--using that arrow analogy, many arrows fired at a black hole, only one returned. I tried to capture the asymmetry, and then scale it, in Preprint gravity snd escape velocity

All best,

Tom

T. H. Ray

Tom

I was fascinated years ago when I by chance read Mach's Science of Mechanics, and although I have no mathematical ability at all to understand your attached paper, I have copied an extract below as best as my IT skills allow, since I found it most intriguing. This is because I have this thesis which shows how dark matter is easily explained as a gravitational effect provided only if the universe is considered as a bounded sphere. For us as observers, this is exactly what it is as the observable universe expanding outwards at light speed, with humanity at its centre.

There can be no doubt of that, and I assume that such a definite conclusion of the structure of the universe for us as observers, ought to have useful implications for consideration. Having said that, I have never hear or read of anybody else examining the possible consequences, have you?

Coincidentally two years ago, I read a paper by Stephen Wolfram that explained how the problem of reconsidering Einsteinian classical physics with Quantum mechanics could be rationalised if the universe was considered to be closed. This matched my proposals on dark matter especially on flat spiral galaxies (but not spherical globular clusters) assuming gravitation could be explained via an application of the Lorentz transformation effect on stars systems moving at near light speed at the outer periphery of the expanding universe. Further more I could more or less grasp Wolfram's description of his rationale involving randomness and order, in terms of computational irreducibilty and the second law of thermodynamics.

So I wrote to Wolfram at the time, and not too surprisingly no response, However, I heard back recently two years later from one of his colleagues, who expressed interest. But it seems Wolfram is more absorbed in the world of the ability of computers on which I am clueless, and there the issue has been seemingly dropped again. But your description below, as a particle in motion relevant to the centre of all other masses in the universe is exactly my rationale, and which I find encouraging.

This is especially so since if I also make an assumption that gravitation acts repulsively, then dark energy, a much more significant problem than dark matter, becomes easily explicable, provided that gravitation of large stellar masses had a blanketing effect on others near by, as indeed happens with the transmission of EM and photons to receivers if conducting material is placed between them.

......attempt to eliminate space as an active cause in the system of mechanics. According to him, a material particle does not move in unaccelerated motion relatively to space, but relatively to the centre of all other masses in the universe; in this way, the series of causes of mechanical phenomena was closed, in contrast to the mechanics of Newton and Galileo. In order to develop this idea within the limits of the modern theory of action through a medium, the properties of the spacetime continuum that de.....

I have always considered that Mach's principle is likely due gravitation, probably on a simple geometric basis which would seem very feasible within the confines of the observable universe: well at least seemingly rational and satisfyingly simple enough to visualise. But I have no idea whether anybody else has developed such a theme. However, Wolfram seems not too far distant from my thesis on his computational irreducibility, but it would take up too much space to attempt or copy a description of the latter here.

My paper on dark matter and the observable universe is included on my website, numbered 12 under section K, should anybody be bothered to check.

www.mindandmemory.net

R. Poznansky

"Tom, I have read your article, but no mechanism exists where this notion of nonlinear time can be applied in conscious reality."

That depends on whether conscious reality can be modeled physically. A 4-dimension reality is not truly mechanical--the best we can do is trace a mathematical path that suppresses 3 of the 4 dimensions in which we live.

I agree with you that consciousness is brain-based, i.e., local. That does not rule out nonlocal causality, which we have explained as resonant with our native 3 dimensional existence and thus in principle tractable to 4 dimension complex analysis. Because the set z is not well ordered, we can pick any 0 point on the 4-dimension (complex, Riemann) sphere, and make it the beginning of creation, and the nonlinear path resulting is a natural, built-in destination on the sphere.

As you've said before, if the paths of time and information are identical, the phenomena are identical.

"What we have done is to suggest a thermodynamic mechanism to construct the structure of time.".

Fair enough. I agree. This suggests a Ricci flow model to me. I'll have to catch up with your research.

"You mention giving time a physical interpretation independent of space.

Does that include or exclude Newtonian (classical) physics in which time is treated as duration?"

You refer to this part of my 2007 paper:

1.1.3 Negative feedback, on the other hand, is a control system. As such, negative feedback resembles a continuous function, in which the rate of change is measured by intervals between chosen connected events, and time is defined as duration.1.1.4 Newtonian (classical) physics belongs to the class of scientific theories in which time is treated as duration. In fact, such is the very basis of Newton’s invention of the calculus to describe the rate of change of the rate of change (accelerated motion). Gravity—because it operates in one direction only, toward the center of mass, can be viewed as a negative feedback mechanism, a universal control system (3) (PDF) Time, Change & Self Organization. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275521377_Time_Change_Self_Organization [accessed Sep 15 2023].

So yes, Newton is included. The function is continuous and linear under gravitational influence. But that is only 1 dimension.

All Best,

Tom

Frank

I remember we discussed your α idea in quite some detail.

YES

h*f(alpha)=m(alpha)*c^2

Energy in different shape with restmass

here we speak about restmass OR oscillation (reduced Dualism) and do not speak of Einsteins light based formula from 1921

h*f=mo*c^2

Energy in different shape without restmass

The thread question is rigorously scientifically answered/commented in SS posts on pages 1, 2,3.

Cheers

R. Poznansky

The mysterious stuff of information is where it came from, "what it means", its origins, and even more specifically was it in the past, is it from the future, or is it an ever-present thing?

Today, especially with cosmology in looking in that virtual lens of the past, we are hit with historical information.

There’s no mystery to information, the mystery is how we choose to find and use it through the varying dimensional paradigms.

One way of deciphering information is using a thing called “zero-dimesional mathematics”.

Here in this paper the idea of taking the mathematical idea of a point in space and moment in time is used to ask how then information is harbored in that context:

Preprint Zero Quantum Gravity

No one has to be Einstein to understand where the idea of counting pebbles came from, and if not why such a thing was necessary. That's infinitesimal calculus, and it can be understood more basically with a zero-dimensional basis not available at the time of Archimedes.

T. H. Ray

"I have always considered that Mach's principle is likely due [to] gravitation"

Related to, not caused by. Space itself is a by-product or indicator of a local gauge condition (as is time flow). "Nonlocal" therefore does not mean "spread out over space", but "prior to space". Mach's principle only concerns local symmetries and conservation laws, or simply an experiential condition. The primordial "substance" or unconditional state I think is quite adequately represented by the action (the physics principle as in Principle of Least Action).

Manfred Geilhaupt

"alpha..."

α = e2 / 2hcε0 I find somewhat unintuitive. If you take E=hf and c=λf, you can write e.g. E = e2 / 2αλε0. Point being, as α is dimensionless, by some means or another it must have a geometric definition, and this formulation could be useful. Assuming the geometrization includes not only a gauge- but also a scalar field self-interaction, you can relate α to elementary masses, as you seem to suggest.

Frank

α = e2 / 2hcε0

This is the wrong physical "question" simply based on Sommerfeld alpha-number definition

e^2= 2αhcε0 is the more correct physical question

What is charge e (physically)? If you answer this question you get alpha by the way as a consequence when solving the corresponding differential equation, so alpha depending on the Einstein metric number g44 - your point mentioned above.

See all here in more detail

Preprint Fine Structure & Schwarzschild-Metric

"Consciousness can be understood by a functional structuralist paradigm. Consciousness is a  biological process/phenomenon by which intrinsic information is encoded at different granularity scales. This has strong implications on the structure of time in the brain."

If not to be understood by functionalism, then why by functional structuralism?

And how does information encoding at different granularity scales imply the structure of time in the brain? Would you please clarify?

R. Poznansky

"the "spooky" idealistic notion of consciousness located on the 7th cloud or in the cosmos somewhere between Saturn and Jupiter as Frank van den Bovenkamp would like us to believe."

This is a hopeless strawman argument and / or shows lack of attention span. Using "spooky" here is particularly disingenuous.

I've argued that saying that consciousness is brain based is the same as saying that energy is candle based. The idea that consciousness comes out of the cosmos amounts to "eliminative idealism". You need read more, memorize better and meditate deeply on why you cater so much to an unfounded personal bias which is not how science works.

Experientiality relates to consciousness like a candle flame relates to energy. As a neuroscientist you only need to explain how the candle can burn and why the flame has the shape it has, not re-invent energy.

Raphael Neelamkavil

"And how does information encoding at different granularity scales imply the structure of time in the brain"

Space + time + a personal observer constitute the framework in which information is created which did not exist beforehand. The brain, like a pencil or a rock, is an object in this framework information refers to.

R. Poznansky

"...mystic universal cosmic consciousness"

Again, consciousness is as much brain-based as energy is candle based. Instead, physics has an intrinsic definition of energy (as well as action).

Are all physicists universal cosmic mystics because of that?

My doubt is whether there is "the structure of time in the brain" and what it means!

The structure of time in the brain = the structure of time in a high school physics textbook. The point of interest is the structure or status of time in consciousness, prior to the framework of time, space and person.

R. Poznansky

The example illustrates the difference between objective effects and inferred principles which are superior to those effects and don't depend on them. This is standard physics, there's nothing mystical or paraphysical about it.

Sure consciousness cannot be associated with pure energy, because the latter is a blind force. Instead it is associated with energy + action. In that sense the example was simplified.

It is the combination of action and energy that informs the laws of classical and quantum physics as shown in any introductory class on variational calculus.

The challenge for biologists is to figure out how the same informs the laws of biochemistry, i.e. in a progressive negentropic scenario, and for neuroscientists, how that relates to cognition and experientiality.

This is exactly your "process of energy in the brain", only, it is not created by the brain, the brain is created and operated by it, on all levels.

Arguably, with this approach, provided worked out conscientiously, the whole idea of "consciousness" as a separate principle is redundant.

Frank van den Bovenkamp One is conscious because one has a brain, or one has a brain because one is conscious?

Chicken and egg. It seems to me that R. Poznansky

If consciousness is all feathers and beak, the egg is redundant.

Best regards,

Tom

R. Poznansky

I like the term "panexperiential physicalism", albeit with some obvious caveats.

"Material composition is fundamental"

You're not paying attention. Energy and action and perhaps elementary particles are fundamental, as early QM has shown.

"Although one could model consciousness as independent of the brain that will form idealism."

Classical idealism practically means eliminative idealism. Inferred principles such as energy and action do not imply idealism. Arguably they imply non-eliminative idealism, but there's no need for -isms as it's just physics.

"(mind) is the fundamental entity that causes the appearance of the matter-in-itself since the matter-in-itself is unknown."

This is not a well thought-out idea and effectively solipsism. Mind is consciousness involved in animate physical interaction, just like matter is energy + action involved in inanimate physical interaction.

T. H. Ray

"One is conscious because one has a brain, or one has a brain because one is conscious?"

Neither of the two. If consciousness relates to evolved biology, the cognitive faculty interprets that in hindsight as if there is a separate "someone" who is "conscious" and lives in a physical universe. Analogous to a candle flame seeing itself as a thing that is or has energy. But physical existence is just a metaphor.

This is the line of Hoffman, Spira, Kastrup, Eckard, Sarkar, I'd say having a rational panpsychist, non-eliminative idealist signature.

R. Poznansky

What I talk about is the fact that energy and action are principles, superior to their effects and inferred by them. "Superior" simply means independent, prior to the laws of physics.

Physicists routinely translate this into physical motion using the Euler-Lagrange equation. All that matter is and does, is predicated on this - it is at the heart of how the physical world works.

What I propose is that the same applied to animate matter has a rational panpsychist, non-eliminative idealist signature, and when done conscientiously, obsoletes "consciousness" as a separate concept.

If this is "in between Jupiter and Saturn" to you, then by the same token one must assume that panexperiential materialism aka brain-based consciousness comes from Uranus, which as everyone knows is squarely misaligned to the larger ambiance.

R. Poznansky

It's just physics - read textbooks or see physics video's on YouTube.

How consciousness resp. psychological processes influence the physical world indicates a bias and is not the right question. Better ask, how negentropy can progressively be incorporated into physics, and how this relates to psychological processes.

R. Poznansky

"I frankly have no idea what you are talking about !"

As long as you cherry-pick your literature in search of confirmation, and not in search of truth, you'll never have the right idea.

"Physics plays no role in consciousness because it lacks the notion of functional organization."

As for present physics, I mostly agree. But how then can consciousness be "brain based", as the brain is a physical object? It's made from the food you eat, there's nothing paranormal or metaphysical about it.

"...this cannot be ascertained using physical forces."

No-one suggests it should, to the contrary, the laws of physics are known to be subordinate to the superior, inferred principles. This is daily practice for any physicist.

The task of a biologist is to study how these inferred principles function in biochemistry, and of a neuroscientist, how that relates to cognition.

What tangled webs we human beings weave!

Decades ago, Norbert Wiener said (See Chapter 1, Part 1) that information is nether matter nor energy but something else.

I think that in these difficult questions, best to cut out everything extraneous. Information is carried by matter or is carried carried by other forms of energy, without itself being matter or energy.

The information content, carried by whatever form of energy, what we usually call "data," initially comes from the output of sensors, could subsequently also be the processed output of sensors, could be combined output of sensors, could be also the product of human imagination, the product of human creative thought. Again, to me, all of this is carried by energy.

The most direct interpretations of the concept of information in both informatics and in the philosophy of informatics are, generally, either (1) that “information is nothing more than matter and energy themselves”,

Sorry, this makes no sense to me. Easy example: The information conveyed by a photograph is not merely the paper or screen that photograph is carried over. The paper or screen, or RF wave pattern, are the media used to carry the information, not the information content per se.

or (2) that “information is something mysterious, undefinable, and unidentifiable, but surprisingly it is different from matter and energy themselves”.

More like it. Although, I do not find this surprising.

What would have been his motive while positing information as such a mysterious mode of existence? I was surprised at this claim, because it would give rise to all kinds of sciences and philosophies of non-existent virtual stuff considered to arise from existent stuff or from nowhere!

Again, my approach would be to cut out the excess. First, whatever we perceive as "reality" comes from the processed output of our sensors. So I think this is where we have to begin.

https://www.livescience.com/60752-human-senses.html#:~:text=There%20are%20five%20basic%20human%20senses%3A%20touch%2C%20sight%2C,us%20understand%20and%20perceive%20the%20world%20around%20us.

There are five basic human senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste. The sensing organs associated with each sense send information to the brain to help us understand and perceive the world around us. However, there are in fact  other human senses in addition to the basic five that you couldn't live without. These lesser-known senses include spatial awareness and balance. Here's how the human senses work.

(These "lesser known" senses come from a combination of the data of the well known sensors, combined and processed in the brain.)

The human sensors provide information, using electrical signaling which the brain can decode. And then the human brain, and also human-designed machines, can process that information any number of ways, creating more data.

"Spatial awareness" is processing of sight, from two eyes (stereoscopic), and sounds, from two ears (stereo audio), to derive a model of our current environment. Balance is achieved through a combination of information from eyes, touch/pressure, and cochlea in the inner ear. (Amazing how difficult it is to achieve balance if these sensors appear to provide conflicting information!!)

I'd say the origin of all of this is our own sensor information, which creates the model of what we consider to be reality, and then processing of these data and creative thinking in the brain.

I searched for books and articles that deal with the stuff of information. I found hundreds of books and thousands of articles in the philosophical, ethical, informatically manipulation-oriented, mathematical, and on other aspects of the problem, but none on the question of information, as to whether information exists, etc.

To me, always good to begin with examples. Many examples exist. I like EM theory, so use that.

EM waves can be modulated (varied) in their amplitude, frequency, and phase. (Sound waves are much the same, in this respect.) EM waves consist of energy, sure, but the way they carry data, which will become information with subsequent processing, is by encoding the data as variations in amplitude and/or frequency and/or phase.

Or, ink on paper. The information is neither the paper nor the ink. Information is carried by the shapes of the lines drawn by the ink on the paper.

Get down to the basics, I think it helps.

I dont agree much with any of

Physicalized or mathematicalized

Desciptions.

They measure it only without saying impact

On brain.

Significant for A but garbage for B

Albert Manfredi, thanks. Very well said. I have been creating a system of thought -- that is sufficiently flexible on the definitions of terms in view of furtherance -- in order to systematize the matter-energy-based sensing even in biological information (BI), let alone artificial information (AI). I have written in it mostly theory, and hence I thought of publishing it only after giving some concretizing stuff in this direction.

I do not intend to claim that all other viewpoints are useless. In the meantime, I have about 3 years from now to develop my ideas, since I am supposed to submit it as a research dissertation. This is a new development not expected till a few days ago.

One manner of thinking I hold here is that any viewpoint suggesting that information and/or mental activity are based on "something more" than matter-energy-based transfer is bound to fail.

Some might use such (what I call false) ways of introducing "something more" in order to differentiate the biological from the purely physical, and still insist on Daniel Dennett type physicalism. This type, in my opinion, will easily find publishers, but I do not know how these authors connect or disconnect.

Other sorts of authors make outright judgments without theoretically showing that what they hold is rationally tenable. Just holding that an uttered word is something more than the brain movements, tongue movements, air movements, etc. is not an argument. Yet another example is about a picture being different from its parts and its mental production movements. There they continue to remain at the level of Wiener and even of Shannon. When I read such statements, I smile and keep quiet.

I smile because I am still to show a way beyond. I hope to work it out. Difficult, but thinkable and tenable, in my opinion. Even here, I need to be open to criticism. I do mean to receive criticism from a good number of open-minded professors before naming it a probable but tenable solution. But I do not intend to approach people of the type of D. Dennett. That sort of neuroscience and neurophilosophy are already outmoded, I believe.

Raphael Neelamkavil,

Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. Only one small point here:

Some might use such (what I call false) ways of introducing "something more" in order to differentiate the biological from the purely physical,

I would say, not biological. I don't think that is a differentiator. What we are saying here applies equally to non-organic machines.

If I'm following what you're saying, let me suggest that there are two major components being addressed here:

1. The signal. (RF, optical, sound, voltage on wire, ink on paper, nerve pulses, ...)

2. How that signal is interpreted.

Organisms and machines have to deal with those same two components. Sense signals arriving from the environment, converting those to some usually electrical format, and then process them.

I think that when you say "something more," you are referring to how the signal must be interpreted when it is processed. I very much doubt we would get anywhere if we stopped at just describing a signal.

Let me try this. It is very possible that two different sensors generate the same physical signal, let's say the same electrical waveform. And yet those two waveforms are representing vastly different information, each one having to be interpreted in a particular way.

(Shannon stops before getting into interpretations. He uses bits per second as a way to normalize how much information can be carried per unit time, max theoretical, by an EM wave.)

I appreciate this response. I do not have in mind to differentiate the organismic and the purely physical so radically as the organismic ceases to be primarily a physical structure. On the contrary!

I know that Shannon has simply fallen short of any interpretation. This is what we find often even in philosophers of information, both mechanical and biological. For a theory of manipulation of information, this might, to some extent, suffice. What I plan is something different.

The only thing I do not find too acceptable in your statements is: "Sounds like you have your work cut out for you." Let me at least try. There will be others who then either abandon my work and work out something better. And then there will be yet others to improve their work or bring out something radically new. We humans have no better limits before us to accomplish!

Pertaining to the actual thread's question:

information is a conservative principle, analogous to, and virtual identical to the same in physics, put in the context of (gauge) symmetries by Noether's theorem, an aspect which per my quick assessment was omitted by Shannon. It's the universality or non-arbitrariness of the latter that makes information more than just quantitative or quantifiable patterns.

For example, we see that a rose is red. That's information. The red-ness in and of itself is not information, it's the perception like that of a very small infant who doesn't know about roses, and can't even tell themselves apart from their surroundings. The latter is closely analogous to Noether's gauge symmetry, which, as per her Theorem, is virtually identical to a conservation law. Physicists use either alternately, as convenient. By the same token, the wavelength of the color red is information everywhere and at all times.

Hence, cognition is essentially Noether's Theorem come alive in organic matter, that is, unlike in current physics, in relation to mental propensities. Experientiality is the perpetuated "informationalization" or simply gauging of those propensities.

The discussion however is not complete without considering the action (the precise physics principle as in Principle of Least Action). This should be studied and internalized, in order for a discussion on the nature of information (and equally, conservation laws), to be worthwhile.

I asked ChatGPT below summary. Especially note the concept of invariance. Bold and caps under 4) mine - "IDENTIFY" ⇋ information. Suggested definition: information is the identification of conserved quantities with gauge symmetries.

-

Default (GPT-3.5)

USER

In physics, how should we exactly explain the role of the action (-principle) in Noether's theorem?

ChatGPT

Noether's theorem is a fundamental result in theoretical physics that connects symmetries in a physical system to conservation laws. The role of the action principle in Noether's theorem is essential for understanding how symmetries lead to conserved quantities. Let me break down the key components:

In summary, the action principle in physics is the foundation upon which Noether's theorem is built. It allows us to derive the equations of motion for a system in a way that naturally reveals the conserved quantities associated with symmetries, making it a powerful tool for understanding the fundamental principles governing the behavior of physical systems.

Moreover, in short below chat. Conclusion: there's a whole open field of research opportunity.

USER:

Are you aware of any relation in literature, between action and information, such as Shannon information?

ChatGPT:

[...]

In summary, there is indeed a connection between the action principle in physics, as expressed through the concept of entropy, and information theory, particularly Shannon information

USER:

But how is the action principle applied in entropy? Any definitions, formula's?

ChatGPT:

In summary, the connection between the action principle and entropy is a conceptual analogy that highlights the optimization aspect in both cases.

USER:

In honest I find this an overly optimistic analogy, wouldn't you agree?

ChatGPT:

I understand your perspective, and you're correct in pointing out that the analogy between the action principle and entropy is not a perfect or direct one.

I think it's quite mysterious that information is a commodity.

R. Poznansky

"Transdisciplinary research requires understanding not mere recitation of knowledge using Wikipedia"

That's absolutely true. Let alone being ignorant of even certain basics such as on Wikipedia.

The only scenario where approximately "time has a structure" is prior to cognition and prior to gauge conditions and is well known in literature. The brain, on the contrary, is a thing in time and space - like all "things" a cognitive metaphor for the underlying paradigm. If time has a mysterious "structure" inside that same brain, that's a ghost in the machine, attributing paraphysical properties to a physical aggregate.

Confirmation bias can happen, and even though it's not good form, it's not therefore considered intentional. Confirmation bias that is intentional cannot even be considered research.