Information Complication (General)

by dhw, Thursday, December 03, 2015, 17:39 (3276 days ago) @ BBella

BBELLA: I assume, if intelligence (in the sense I am using it) was so easily describable or detectable, we wouldnt be having this discussion. Science works very hard at trying to capture intelligence at work and naming it, as an idea of specific words. And even the dictionary seems to find it hard to pin-point it's meaning exactly. But for me, that which maintains ATI in existence seems as close as I can imagine the meaning of intelligence to be in a universal way (the main reason I gave the link is because it expresses that several times). -I don't think there is any problem defining intelligence in the conventional sense of an ability to perceive, learn, understand, use information (specially for David, that one!). It may be difficult to identify and classify degrees of such intelligence, but what is far more difficult is to change that conventional meaning. When David describes his God as a universal intelligence, I doubt if many people will think of it as anything but a conscious force with all those abilities. The EPOC website does not offer a definition, but its founder signs off “God bless”, so maybe he's just being cagey? I'm sure eastern philosophies have just the right word for your concept, but nothing comes to mind at the moment! (Ah, where is Matt?)
 
BBELLA: As for differing degrees of intelligence or pin-pointing intelligence here or there, is where the lines become fuzzy. In a similar way to me pointing to the ocean and saying, there is the ocean, then placing drops of the ocean in a jar and saying, and still be correct by some standards, the ocean is in the jar. But if I pour drops of the ocean onto the sand I would not point to the sand and say there is the ocean (altho in some sense I would still be correct), because what was ocean is now hidden in the sand and it would take science to try and distinguish the ocean water from the sand. Of course I am not saying intelligence and ocean water are comparable. I am saying ATI is being maintained in it's place, and in that very act of maintenance, I see intelligence - altho it may not always be obvious - it is there nonetheless. Not meaning one conscious, self aware intelligent being - just intelligence maintaining ATI.-I like the ocean image, but again it would fit in with whatever word you chose to describe the something that maintains ATI. I seem to remember a process theologian (Frank) talking about particles of God, which is a similar panpsychist concept (that all materials have a mental aspect), though not what you mean. I also struggle with the very idea that ATI has a “place”. I'd say there are two approaches: either ATI is the product of “intelligent design”, which entails things having a place, or ATI just happens to be what and where it is, and could just as easily be something and somewhere else. Perhaps it's order v disorder, so I'll take that post of yours next (in answer to Smolin's “smooth” single orderly system versus Carroll's “chunky” quantum mechanics disorder):
 
BBELLA: Not sure why it has to be one or the other. The "demonstrated reality of spooky action at a distance" speaks to me of order as well as intelligence and in no way cancels out general relativity.-I must say the mixture appeals to me, but probably not in the way you visualize it. ATI is constantly changing but so long as the universe carries on existing one can say there must be some kind of order. Within that order, things can go their own way until they finish being what they are and turn into something else. There are all kinds of analogies that would fit in with this pattern, including human society. Each group has its own order, but within that order you have the endless variety of individuals doing their own thing. Evolution might be another example, though David won't agree: there are certain orderly elements (e.g. reproductive plus adaptive and innovative mechanisms, natural and environmental restrictions), but within that framework individual organisms follow their own paths.
 
BBELLA: [...] But when you get right down to it and name our informational parts, we are made of what already has been and what will always be. Nothing is ever brand spanking new since everything is made out of available resources.-The materials are not new, but the combination is. If “ATI is never static and is always changing what IS”, I still can't see a case for saying ATI is the same as ATW! But one can certainly argue that through cause and effect everything is related to everything else, including past, present and future. -This post is itself a little disorderly, but the bits and pieces are linked by our attempts to define what is actually the nature of ATI. As usual, I am pretty clueless, but it's interesting and instructive for me to delve into your ideas, for which many thanks.