Information; a computer scientist's take (Introduction)
by David Turell 
, Thursday, February 04, 2016, 15:21 (3214 days ago)
A Harvard professor's approach to learning and its possible application to evolution:-https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160128-ecorithm-computers-and-life/-"Valiant, a computer scientist at Harvard University, is hardly the only scientist to assume a fundamental equivalence between the capabilities of brains and computers. But he was one of the first to formalize what that relationship might look like in practice: In 1984, his “probably approximately correct” (PAC) model mathematically defined the conditions under which a mechanistic system could be said to “learn” information. Valiant won the A.M. Turing Award — often called the Nobel Prize of computing — for this contribution, which helped spawn the field of computational learning theory.-***-"He broadened the concept of an algorithm into an “ecorithm,” which is a learning algorithm that “runs” on any system capable of interacting with its physical environment. Algorithms apply to computational systems, but ecorithms can apply to biological organisms or entire species. The concept draws a computational equivalence between the way that individuals learn and the way that entire ecosystems evolve. In both cases, ecorithms describe adaptive behavior in a mechanistic way.-"Valiant's self-stated goal is to find “mathematical definitions of learning and evolution which can address all ways in which information can get into systems.” If successful, the resulting “theory of everything” — a phrase Valiant himself uses, only half-jokingly — would literally fuse life science and computer science together. Furthermore, our intuitive definitions of “learning” and “intelligence” would expand to include not only non-organisms, but non-individuals as well.-***-"It is a kind of calculation, but the goal of learning is to perform well in a world that isn't precisely modeled ahead of time. A learning algorithm takes observations of the world, and given that information, it decides what to do and is evaluated on its decision. A point made in my book is that all the knowledge an individual has must have been acquired either through learning or through the evolutionary process. And if this is so, then individual learning and evolutionary processes should have a unified theory to explain them.-***-"An ecorithm is an algorithm, but its performance is evaluated against input it gets from a rather uncontrolled and unpredictable world. And its goal is to perform well in that same complicated world. You think of an algorithm as something running on your computer, but it could just as easily run on a biological organism. -***-"Biology is based on protein expression networks, and as evolution proceeds these networks become modified. The PAC learning model imposes some logical limitations on what could be happening to those networks to cause these modifications when they undergo Darwinian evolution. If we gather more observations from biology and analyze them within this PAC-style learning framework, we should be able to figure out how and why biological evolution succeeds, and this would make our understanding of evolution more concrete and predictive.-***-"We know what we're looking for. We are looking for a learning algorithm obeying Darwinian constraints that biology can and does support. It would explain what's happened on this planet in the amount of time that has been available for evolution to occur."-Comment: Matt might consider this. How does biologic evolution learn and add information? Epigenetics?
Information; needed for evolution to progress
by David Turell , Thursday, May 04, 2017, 02:04 (2759 days ago) @ David Turell
Information must be added or evolution cannot proceed:
https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/05/evolutionary-informatics-marks-dembski-and-ewart-...
"Authors Robert Marks, William Dembski, and Winston Ewert bring decades of experience in search algorithms and information theory to analyzing the capacity of biological evolution to generate diverse forms of life. Their conclusion is that no evolutionary process is capable of yielding different outcomes (e.g., new body plans), being limited instead to a very narrow range of results (e.g., finches with different beak sizes). Rather, producing anything of significant complexity requires that knowledge of the outcomes be programmed into the search routines. Therefore, any claim for the unlimited capacity of unguided evolution to transform life is necessarily implausible.
***
"They describe how searches in engineering for some design outcome involve the three components of domain expertise, design criteria, and iterative search. The process involves creating a prototype and then checking to see if it meets the criteria, which functions as a teleological goal. If the initial design does not, the prototype is refined and the test repeated. The greater the domain expertise, the more efficiently adjustments are made, so fewer possibilities need to be tested. Success can then be achieved more quickly.
***
"the authors demonstrate the limitations of evolutionary algorithms. The general challenge is that all evolutionary algorithms are limited to converging on a very narrow range of results, a boundary known as Basener’s Ceiling. For instance, a program designed to produce an antenna will at best converge to the solution of an optimal antenna and then remain stuck. It could never generate some completely different result, such as a mousetrap. Alternatively, an algorithm designed to generate a strategy for playing checkers could never generate a strategy for playing backgammon. To change outcomes, the program would have to be deliberately adjusted to achieve a separate predetermined goal. In the context of evolution, no unguided process could converge on one organism, such as a fish, and then later converge on an amphibian.
"This principle has been demonstrated both in simulations and in experiments. The program Tierra was created in the hope of simulating large-scale biological evolution. Its results were disappointing. Several simulated organisms emerged, but their variability soon hit Basener’s Ceiling. No true novelty was ever generated but simply limited rearrangements of the initially supplied information. We have seen a similar result in experiments on bacteria by Michigan State biologist Richard Lenski. He tracked the development of 58,000 generations of E. coli. He saw no true innovation but primarily the breaking of nonessential genes to save energy, and the rearrangement of genetic information to access pre-existing capacities, such as the metabolism of citrate, under different environmental stresses. Changes were always narrow in scope and limited in magnitude. (my bold)
"The authors present an even more defining limitation, based on the No Free Lunch Theorems, which is known as the Conservation of Information (COI). Stated simply, no search strategy can on average find a target more quickly than a random search unless some information about that target is incorporated into the search process. As an illustration, imagine someone asking you to guess the name of a famous person, but without giving you any information about that individual. You could use many different guessing strategies, such as listing famous people you know in alphabetical order, or by height, or by date of birth. No strategy could be determined in advance to be better than a random search.
***
"biological evolution is directed by blind natural selection, which has no active information to assist in searching for new targets. The process is not helped by changes in the environment, which alter the fitness landscape, since such changes contain no active information related to a radically different outcome.
"In the end, the endogenous information associated with finding a new body plan or some other significant modification is vastly greater than that associated with the search space that biological offspring could possibly explore in the entire age of the universe. Therefore, as these authors forcefully show, in line with much previous research in the field of intelligent design, all radical innovations in nature required information from some outside intelligent source."
Comment: the nub of this essay is in the Lenski e. coli experiment. 58,000 generation and only a rearrangement of DNA and a slight change in what the bacteria were capable of doing. They were still E. coli. It is basically like changing the deck chairs on the Titanic. No effect on the eventual outcome. If the captain of the ship had received a radio message about the iceberg, the outcome would have been vastly different. The logic of this example is unassailable. Evolution requires new information. It cannot be invented from thin air. There must be a source.
Information; needed for evolution to progress
DAVID’s comment: the nub of this essay is in the Lenski e. coli experiment. 58,000 generation and only a rearrangement of DNA and a slight change in what the bacteria were capable of doing. They were still E. coli. It is basically like changing the deck chairs on the Titanic. No effect on the eventual outcome. If the captain of the ship had received a radio message about the iceberg, the outcome would have been vastly different. The logic of this example is unassailable. Evolution requires new information. It cannot be invented from thin air. There must be a source.
The nub of this essay, for all its fancy language, is what we all know to be the unsolved mystery of evolution, which is innovation. Of course the new information cannot be invented from thin air. It may come from intelligences combining and responding to new environmental conditions. The fact that nobody has ever observed this is balanced by the fact that nobody has ever observed ANY of the theories in action. That’s why innovation remains a mystery. As for the inventor of the mechanism that designs evolutionary changes, once again it is an unknown force (see my post under "Biological complexity"). That is not an explanation but an acknowledgement of our ignorance. The moment you call the force “God”, you load it with human attributes, no matter how hard you try not to.
Information; needed for evolution to progress
by David Turell , Friday, May 05, 2017, 01:57 (2758 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID’s comment: the nub of this essay is in the Lenski e. coli experiment. 58,000 generation and only a rearrangement of DNA and a slight change in what the bacteria were capable of doing. They were still E. coli. It is basically like changing the deck chairs on the Titanic. No effect on the eventual outcome. If the captain of the ship had received a radio message about the iceberg, the outcome would have been vastly different. The logic of this example is unassailable. Evolution requires new information. It cannot be invented from thin air. There must be a source.
dhw: The nub of this essay, for all its fancy language, is what we all know to be the unsolved mystery of evolution, which is innovation. Of course the new information cannot be invented from thin air. It may come from intelligences combining and responding to new environmental conditions. The fact that nobody has ever observed this is balanced by the fact that nobody has ever observed ANY of the theories in action. That’s why innovation remains a mystery. As for the inventor of the mechanism that designs evolutionary changes, once again it is an unknown force (see my post under "Biological complexity"). That is not an explanation but an acknowledgement of our ignorance. The moment you call the force “God”, you load it with human attributes, no matter how hard you try not to.
Nice side step. You didn't answer the analogy of the Titanic. There has to be initial information. Pure intelligence doesn't invent new information. It has to be discovered. We are intelligent but the new scientific findings I present from scientific papers is stuff that must be discovered and then understood by you and I. Innovation requires new information and then planning. Only a mind can do that based on our experience as humans. I don't think there is any mystery, as I assume God is that mind, but it is not a human mind.
Information; needed for evolution to progress
DAVID’s comment: the nub of this essay is in the Lenski e. coli experiment. 58,000 generation and only a rearrangement of DNA and a slight change in what the bacteria were capable of doing. They were still E. coli. It is basically like changing the deck chairs on the Titanic. No effect on the eventual outcome. If the captain of the ship had received a radio message about the iceberg, the outcome would have been vastly different. The logic of this example is unassailable. Evolution requires new information. It cannot be invented from thin air. There must be a source.
dhw: The nub of this essay, for all its fancy language, is what we all know to be the unsolved mystery of evolution, which is innovation. Of course the new information cannot be invented from thin air. It may come from intelligences combining and responding to new environmental conditions. The fact that nobody has ever observed this is balanced by the fact that nobody has ever observed ANY of the theories in action. That’s why innovation remains a mystery. As for the inventor of the mechanism that designs evolutionary changes, once again it is an unknown force (see my post under "Biological complexity"). That is not an explanation but an acknowledgement of our ignorance. The moment you call the force “God”, you load it with human attributes, no matter how hard you try not to.
DAVID: Nice side step. You didn't answer the analogy of the Titanic. There has to be initial information. Pure intelligence doesn't invent new information. It has to be discovered. We are intelligent but the new scientific findings I present from scientific papers is stuff that must be discovered and then understood by you and I. Innovation requires new information and then planning. Only a mind can do that based on our experience as humans. I don't think there is any mystery, as I assume God is that mind, but it is not a human mind.
The Titanic example merely confirms what I have explicitly accepted over and over again – that we only know about adaptation, not innovation, which requires new information. And I have explained how, in my hypothesis, the new information is acquired: namely, through interaction between organic intelligence(s) and the conditions to which the organisms are exposed. We do not know how that intelligence originated, and it is singularly unhelpful to say in one breath that pure intelligence doesn’t invent new information, and in the next to tell us that pure intelligence (your God) invented the new information as well as the intelligence that uses that information. Maybe it’s true. I’m an agnostic and I admit to being totally in the dark, but if something doesn’t make sense to me or demands blind, unreasoning faith, I can’t believe it. That is why I continue to reflect on different hypotheses, as opposed to closing my mind to all but one.
Information; applied to matter creates life
by David Turell , Friday, July 21, 2017, 01:15 (2681 days ago) @ dhw
An essay on that subject:
https://www.yhousenyc.org/yhouse-blog/all-posts/on-matter-and-information-the-origin-of...
"The relationship between matter and information is one of the great mysteries in all of science. Information itself has no material properties, it has no weight, it has no power to do anything. But when combined with enabling material technology, there are no limits to its power.
***
"It is especially digital information that can empower material systems in which it is utilized. Not only the system of zeros and ones in a computer, or the alphabets used in writing, but also the system of phonemes used in any human language employ digital representations. In contrast with analogue representations, where every distinguishable sound has only one specific "hard-wired" meaning, digital representations allow for sheer endless combinatorics. This is why most animals can express many subtle versions of emotions, but lack the combinatorial richness of, say, story telling. Different emotions may number in the hundreds, but the number of different stories one can tell is more than astronomical.
"Several virtual reality pioneers have pointed out that the invention of language provided humans with the first kind of virtual reality. The very notion of conjuring up a description of a series of events well beyond the location and time of the speaker and listener would have been mind boggling, had it happened all of a sudden. But of course, it must have happened gradually over time, during many generations, much more gradually than the invention of various scripts. In any case, language dates back to well before we started to create cave paintings as a way to abstract events around us into an inner language that we could then share with others.
"The use of DNA and RNA to provide a way to encode recipes for producing proteins from amino acids was discovered on Earth some four billion years ago, before the oldest common ancestor of any form of life that we know of. And the idea of a recipe, of some string of material symbols pointing to the potential to construct an altogether different and unrelated material structure, has the flavor of a virtual reality. The reality of the protein is virtually encoded in the information carried by the RNA or DNA.
"In contrast, before life appeared on Earth, rivers were flowing, volcanoes erupted, storms were churning the oceans, but all these activities were a direct consequence of matter acting on matter, according to the laws of physics. At no time or place before life appeared were there any recipes to be found.
"Of course, when we look at the exact way in which a ribosome uses the recipes provided by RNA into the manufacture of proteins, we can maintain that it is equally an application of the laws of physics to all the atoms and molecules doing the construction work. While in principle that is a true statement, in practice, the emergent property of the notion of a recipe, based on digital information, was a crucial step, if not in the origins of life directly, then certainly in making life robust, and able to evolve in its myriad forms present today.
"Seen in this light, we can identify the origins of life as the series of events that enabled the first information revolution on Earth."
Comment: No question, information plus matter had life appear.
***
Note this comment:
" One problem with the recipe metaphor is that it tends to suggest the presence of a cook--either a divine Cook or an intracellular homunculus. Both implications can, and have, been taken in some profoundly misguided directions. A related problem is that, even while recognizing that information is not matter, we still treat it as a substance, rather than a process. If as substance it is not intrinsically active, but must be acted with or acted upon, then recipes made of information once again appear to call cooks into being. Such principles in contemporary physical theory as the conservation of information exacerbate the problem: information is not matter or energy, but it is still somehow conserved?"
My comment: He forgets that information is immaterial. And it sure does suggest God.
Information; applied to matter creates life
by David Turell , Thursday, July 27, 2017, 21:49 (2675 days ago) @ David Turell
I found the original source for my previous entry on the importance of information for the appearance of life. See that previous entry for a complete understanding:
https://www.yhousenyc.org/yhouse-blog/all-posts/on-matter-and-information-the-origin-of...
The source:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/chasing-consciousness-and-the-infor...
"there appear to be deep-rooted commonalities between the emergence of complex chemistry and life, and the emergence of other phenomena - such as organism awareness, agency, and perhaps consciousness. Could it be that answers to all these puzzles converge on deeper principles?
***
"Since Erwin Schrödinger wrote his influential 'What is Life?' book in 1944, the idea that information, order and chaos, thermodynamics, and life are all connected has continued to inspire and baffle us. But we may be starting to see convergence on these issues, and it may not be entirely coincidental that the timing is in step with our new-found exoplanetary perspective."
Comment: Information which can be used by the proteins of life somehow creates active life. Since Schrodinger's book there is still no answer as to how this happens. The proteins are material but the mechanism of life itself is an immaterial process.
Information; origin of translation
by David Turell , Thursday, July 27, 2017, 23:13 (2674 days ago) @ David Turell
Life runs on codes from the beginning of life. This article wonders how translation arose:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/prebiotic-metabolic-pathways-another-nat...
"An interesting summary of an abiogenetic hypothesis of prebiotic metabolic networks can be found here.
"The hypothesis is based on the observed similarity of the core structure of metabolic networks across all organisms. It is then hypothesised that the core must have had an early evolutionary origin.
"As is expected of a naturalistic hypothesis, it relies on extremely favourable starting conditions (the lucky concentrations of all necessary reagents in an Archean ocean, the right temperature, etc.) and other physico-chemical constraints, which, according to its proponents, helped form a prebiotic metabolic complex.
"The summary makes a correct distinction between thermodynamically controlled reactions and self-replication. There is no need in replication mechanisms as long as a given product is constantly re-made because it is chemically stable. The question then is, how then did the information translation apparatus observed in all contemporary organisms arise?
"Physico-chemical constraints cannot by themselves cause information translation because for translation to happen, a material symbol must be physico-chemically inert and independent of the effect it evokes in the system. Furthermore, the rules of translation from symbols (e.g. nucleotides of messenger RNAs) to their meanings (polypeptides) must be arbitrary with respect to the physico-chemical necessity that holds the system together, in order to get ‘unlocked’ from this necessity for the system to be able to encode messages. In genetic translation, this arbitrariness is ensured by the absence of any physico-chemical bias in nucleotide polymerisation: every one of the four nucleotides can polymerise every other in water.
"Chemistry cannot produce the different roles that the material components of the translation apparatus play, namely: the symbol, the protocol and the effect! To organize translation it is necessary to impose an epistemic cut:
"Code/Interpreter
Sign/Matter
The measured/The measurer
The controlled/The controller
Motion of matter/Boundary conditions
"Such an epistemic cut, which is the essence of organization, is infeasible purely physico-chemically, i.e. as a consequence of solely the motion of matter. The reliance exclusively on physico-chemical constraints to produce organization is the primary category error in all naturalistic origin of life models, including this one.
"Organization (rules of behaviour as opposed to physico-chemical constraints) is only possible via intelligence external to the system being organized. Since intelligence is the only empirically warranted cause of organization, it must have been the cause of biological organization as well. There is no other option." (my bold)
Comment: Yes, life must start with intelligent input.
Information; origin of translation
QUOTE: "Organization (rules of behaviour as opposed to physico-chemical constraints) is only possible via intelligence external to the system being organized. Since intelligence is the only empirically warranted cause of organization, it must have been the cause of biological organization as well. There is no other option." (David’s bold)
DAVID’s comment: Yes, life must start with intelligent input.
We need to distinguish between the subjective opinion of the researchers (below) and the subjective opinion of the ID author (above). Your bold naturally sides with the latter and ignores the former:
"As is expected of a naturalistic hypothesis, it relies on extremely favourable starting conditions (the lucky concentrations of all necessary reagents in an Archean ocean, the right temperature, etc.) and other physico-chemical constraints, which, according to its proponents, helped form a prebiotic metabolic complex.”
While I am also sceptical of chance as the originator of intelligent life, I don’t know why the author should assume that rules of behaviour are only possible through an external intelligence. It is possible that the reorganization of existing systems comes about through an internal intelligence, e.g. intelligent cells/cell communities as organizers of their own evolution. Just trying to restore the balance here.
Information; origin of translation
by David Turell , Friday, July 28, 2017, 15:26 (2674 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Organization (rules of behaviour as opposed to physico-chemical constraints) is only possible via intelligence external to the system being organized. Since intelligence is the only empirically warranted cause of organization, it must have been the cause of biological organization as well. There is no other option." (David’s bold)
DAVID’s comment: Yes, life must start with intelligent input.
dhw: We need to distinguish between the subjective opinion of the researchers (below) and the subjective opinion of the ID author (above). Your bold naturally sides with the latter and ignores the former:
"As is expected of a naturalistic hypothesis, it relies on extremely favourable starting conditions (the lucky concentrations of all necessary reagents in an Archean ocean, the right temperature, etc.) and other physico-chemical constraints, which, according to its proponents, helped form a prebiotic metabolic complex.”
dhw: While I am also sceptical of chance as the originator of intelligent life, I don’t know why the author should assume that rules of behaviour are only possible through an external intelligence. It is possible that the reorganization of existing systems comes about through an internal intelligence, e.g. intelligent cells/cell communities as organizers of their own evolution. Just trying to restore the balance here.
No balance at all. The author is discussing pre-cell pre-life origination. You are countering with post-life existing functional cells! Nice leap of an illogic sequitor.
Information; origin of translation
QUOTE: "Organization (rules of behaviour as opposed to physico-chemical constraints) is only possible via intelligence external to the system being organized. Since intelligence is the only empirically warranted cause of organization, it must have been the cause of biological organization as well. There is no other option."(David’s bold)
[…]
dhw: While I am also sceptical of chance as the originator of intelligent life, I don’t know why the author should assume that rules of behaviour are only possible through an external intelligence. It is possible that the reorganization of existing systems comes about through an internal intelligence, e.g. intelligent cells/cell communities as organizers of their own evolution. Just trying to restore the balance here.
DAVID: No balance at all. The author is discussing pre-cell pre-life origination. You are countering with post-life existing functional cells! Nice leap of an illogic sequitor.
The paragraph I quoted is a generalization. I used the example (e.g. means for example) of evolution to challenge the generalization, but the claim that only an EXTERNAL intelligence is capable of pre-life biological organization is no more valid than reblak’s claim that unconscious Nature did it, that chance did it, or that some kind of internal panpsychist intelligence did it. It is the usual ID assumption with no scientific backing. I find all these hypotheses difficult to believe, and that is why I try to restore the balance when I see theists and atheists setting out to tip the scales with their assumptions.
Information; origin of translation
by David Turell , Saturday, July 29, 2017, 14:36 (2673 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Organization (rules of behaviour as opposed to physico-chemical constraints) is only possible via intelligence external to the system being organized. Since intelligence is the only empirically warranted cause of organization, it must have been the cause of biological organization as well. There is no other option."(David’s bold)
[…]dhw: While I am also sceptical of chance as the originator of intelligent life, I don’t know why the author should assume that rules of behaviour are only possible through an external intelligence. It is possible that the reorganization of existing systems comes about through an internal intelligence, e.g. intelligent cells/cell communities as organizers of their own evolution. Just trying to restore the balance here.
DAVID: No balance at all. The author is discussing pre-cell pre-life origination. You are countering with post-life existing functional cells! Nice leap of an illogic sequitor.
dhw: The paragraph I quoted is a generalization. I used the example (e.g. means for example) of evolution to challenge the generalization, but the claim that only an EXTERNAL intelligence is capable of pre-life biological organization is no more valid than reblak’s claim that unconscious Nature did it, that chance did it, or that some kind of internal panpsychist intelligence did it. It is the usual ID assumption with no scientific backing. I find all these hypotheses difficult to believe, and that is why I try to restore the balance when I see theists and atheists setting out to tip the scales with their assumptions.
Spoken like a true agnostic. His point and mine is the appearance of life is a miracle requiring a mind to create it.
Information; does it lie at the basis of reality
by David Turell , Monday, March 25, 2019, 23:36 (2068 days ago) @ David Turell
When physics breaks up matter all that is found at the bottom is particles and fields. Is this the result of mind?
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-min...
"as our understanding of physics progressed, we’ve realized that atoms themselves can be further divided into smaller bits, and those into yet smaller ones, and so on, until what is left lacks shape and solidity altogether. At the bottom of the chain of physical reduction there are only elusive, phantasmal entities we label as “energy” and “fields”—abstract conceptual tools for describing nature, which themselves seem to lack any real, concrete essence.
***
"Indeed, according to information realists, matter arises from information processing, not the other way around. Even mind—psyche, soul—is supposedly a derivative phenomenon of purely abstract information manipulation. But in such a case, what exactly is meant by the word “information,” since there is no physical or mental substrate to ground it?
***
"Our intuitive understanding of the concept of information—as cogently captured by Claude Shannon in 1948—is that it is merely a measure of the number of possible states of an independently existing system. As such, information is a property of an underlying substrate associated with the substrate’s possible configurations—not an entity unto itself.
***
“'Information is notoriously a polymorphic phenomenon and a polysemantic concept so, as an explicandum, it can be associated with several explanations, depending on the level of abstraction adopted and the cluster of requirements and desiderata orientating a theory.... Information remains an elusive concept.”
***
"Whereas vagueness may be defensible in regard to natural entities conceivably beyond the human ability to apprehend, it is difficult to justify when it comes to a human concept, such as information. We invented the concept, so we either specify clearly what we mean by it or our conceptualization remains too vague to be meaningful. In the latter case, there is literally no sense in attributing primary existence to information.
***
"we don’t need the word games of information realism. Instead, we must stick to what is most immediately present to us: solidity and concreteness are qualities of our experience. The world measured, modeled and ultimately predicted by physics is the world of perceptions, a category of mentation. The phantasms and abstractions reside merely in our descriptions of the behavior of that world, not in the world itself.
"Where we get lost and confused is in imagining that what we are describing is a non-mental reality underlying our perceptions, as opposed to the perceptions themselves. We then try to find the solidity and concreteness of the perceived world in that postulated underlying reality. However, a non-mental world is inevitably abstract. And since solidity and concreteness are felt qualities of experience—what else?—we cannot find them there. The problem we face is thus merely an artifact of thought, something we conjure up out of thin air because of our theoretical habits and prejudices.
***
"The mental universe exists in mind but not in your personal mind alone. Instead, it is a transpersonal field of mentation that presents itself to us as physicality—with its concreteness, solidity and definiteness—once our personal mental processes interact with it through observation. This mental universe is what physics is leading us to, not the hand-waving word games of information realism."
Comment: Basically the dhw bus will run you over, quantum findings or not.
Information; does it lie at the basis of reality
QUOTE: "Whereas vagueness may be defensible in regard to natural entities conceivably beyond the human ability to apprehend, it is difficult to justify when it comes to a human concept, such as information. We invented the concept, so we either specify clearly what we mean by it or our conceptualization remains too vague to be meaningful. In the latter case, there is literally no sense in attributing primary existence to information.
DAVID: Basically the dhw bus will run you over, quantum findings or not.
Thank you. I’ve picked out the above quotation, as it mirrors my own thoughts precisely. Information as I define it is nothing but passive facts or details which we extrapolate from what most of us assume are the realities of the world around us. It has no function of its own until it has a user.
Information; does it lie at the basis of reality
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 26, 2019, 17:00 (2068 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Whereas vagueness may be defensible in regard to natural entities conceivably beyond the human ability to apprehend, it is difficult to justify when it comes to a human concept, such as information. We invented the concept, so we either specify clearly what we mean by it or our conceptualization remains too vague to be meaningful. In the latter case, there is literally no sense in attributing primary existence to information.
DAVID: Basically the dhw bus will run you over, quantum findings or not.
dhw: Thank you. I’ve picked out the above quotation, as it mirrors my own thoughts precisely. Information as I define it is nothing but passive facts or details which we extrapolate from what most of us assume are the realities of the world around us. It has no function of its own until it has a user.
Generally correct, but consider that the universe is the passive receiver of formative information. Same for the Milky Way, the Earth, and the start of life. All passive, but once life is operational it is an active participant and user. As such, this may be why God found He had to use evolution and not direct creation of humans.
Information; does it lie at the basis of reality
QUOTE: "Whereas vagueness may be defensible in regard to natural entities conceivably beyond the human ability to apprehend, it is difficult to justify when it comes to a human concept, such as information. We invented the concept, so we either specify clearly what we mean by it or our conceptualization remains too vague to be meaningful. In the latter case, there is literally no sense in attributing primary existence to information.
DAVID: Basically the dhw bus will run you over, quantum findings or not.
dhw: Thank you. I’ve picked out the above quotation, as it mirrors my own thoughts precisely. Information as I define it is nothing but passive facts or details which we extrapolate from what most of us assume are the realities of the world around us. It has no function of its own until it has a user.
DAVID: Generally correct, but consider that the universe is the passive receiver of formative information. Same for the Milky Way, the Earth, and the start of life. All passive, but once life is operational it is an active participant and user. As such, this may be why God found He had to use evolution and not direct creation of humans.
I don’t know what you mean by “formative information”. According to my definition, the universe contains passive information, and it is living organisms (not life) that use it. If you disagree with my definition above, please give us your own. I have no idea how you manage to connect this discussion with your God’s one and only purpose being to design H. sapiens, and his need to spend 3.5+ billion years designing whale fins, cuttlefish camouflage and weaverbirds’ nests in order to do so. (See Big brain evolution”.)
Information; does it lie at the basis of reality
by David Turell , Tuesday, April 02, 2019, 15:41 (2061 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Whereas vagueness may be defensible in regard to natural entities conceivably beyond the human ability to apprehend, it is difficult to justify when it comes to a human concept, such as information. We invented the concept, so we either specify clearly what we mean by it or our conceptualization remains too vague to be meaningful. In the latter case, there is literally no sense in attributing primary existence to information.
DAVID: Basically the dhw bus will run you over, quantum findings or not.
dhw: Thank you. I’ve picked out the above quotation, as it mirrors my own thoughts precisely. Information as I define it is nothing but passive facts or details which we extrapolate from what most of us assume are the realities of the world around us. It has no function of its own until it has a user.
DAVID: Generally correct, but consider that the universe is the passive receiver of formative information. Same for the Milky Way, the Earth, and the start of life. All passive, but once life is operational it is an active participant and user. As such, this may be why God found He had to use evolution and not direct creation of humans.
dhw: I don’t know what you mean by “formative information”. According to my definition, the universe contains passive information, and it is living organisms (not life) that use it. If you disagree with my definition above, please give us your own. I have no idea how you manage to connect this discussion with your God’s one and only purpose being to design H. sapiens, and his need to spend 3.5+ billion years designing whale fins, cuttlefish camouflage and weaverbirds’ nests in order to do so. (See Big brain evolution”.)
I agree that information is of no use until used actively by some one. By 'formative info' I was referring to God forming the universe with information. God used information during evolution. We know all sorts of information underlies life's processes.
Information; does it lie at the basis of reality
QUOTE: "Whereas vagueness may be defensible in regard to natural entities conceivably beyond the human ability to apprehend, it is difficult to justify when it comes to a human concept, such as information. We invented the concept, so we either specify clearly what we mean by it or our conceptualization remains too vague to be meaningful. In the latter case, there is literally no sense in attributing primary existence to information.
dhw: I’ve picked out the above quotation, as it mirrors my own thoughts precisely. Information as I define it is nothing but passive facts or details which we extrapolate from what most of us assume are the realities of the world around us. It has no function of its own until it has a user.
DAVID: Generally correct, but consider that the universe is the passive receiver of formative information. Same for the Milky Way, the Earth, and the start of life. All passive, but once life is operational it is an active participant and user. As such, this may be why God found He had to use evolution and not direct creation of humans.
dhw: I don’t know what you mean by “formative information”. According to my definition, the universe contains passive information, and it is living organisms (not life) that use it. If you disagree with my definition above, please give us your own. I have no idea how you manage to connect this discussion with your God’s one and only purpose being to design H. sapiens, and his need to spend 3.5+ billion years designing whale fins, cuttlefish camouflage and weaverbirds’ nests in order to do so. (See Big brain evolution”.)
DAVID: I agree that information is of no use until used actively by some one. By 'formative info' I was referring to God forming the universe with information. God used information during evolution. We know all sorts of information underlies life's processes.
If your God exists, then of course he created and used all the universe’s information that now lies passively awaiting other users. But I cannot see any relevance to your hypothesis that his sole aim was to design H. sapiens and he was unable to do it until he had spent 3.5+ billion years designing anything but H. sapiens.
Information; does it lie at the basis of reality
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 03, 2019, 18:03 (2060 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I agree that information is of no use until used actively by some one. By 'formative info' I was referring to God forming the universe with information. God used information during evolution. We know all sorts of information underlies life's processes.
dhw: If your God exists, then of course he created and used all the universe’s information that now lies passively awaiting other users. But I cannot see any relevance to your hypothesis that his sole aim was to design H. sapiens and he was unable to do it until he had spent 3.5+ billion years designing anything but H. sapiens.
This is a discussion of the place of information in the process of making the universe, starting life, and evolving life. The only point is the use of supplied and possibly invented information. Through the use and interpretation of information humans are here.
Information; does it lie at the basis of reality
DAVID: I agree that information is of no use until used actively by some one. By 'formative info' I was referring to God forming the universe with information. God used information during evolution. We know all sorts of information underlies life's processes.
dhw: If your God exists, then of course he created and used all the universe’s information that now lies passively awaiting other users. But I cannot see any relevance to your hypothesis that his sole aim was to design H. sapiens and he was unable to do it until he had spent 3.5+ billion years designing anything but H. sapiens.
DAVID: This is a discussion of the place of information in the process of making the universe, starting life, and evolving life. The only point is the use of supplied and possibly invented information. Through the use and interpretation of information humans are here.
If your God exists as the first cause, he must have invented and then used the information. If he doesn’t exist, then the information must already have been present in primal energy and matter, and we don’t know how that energy and matter was able to use it. As for your last comment, you might just as well say that through the use and interpretation of information, the universe, the Earth and all life including the whale, the cuttlefish, humans and the duck-billed platypus are here. I suggest we drop the subject.
Information; does it lie at the basis of reality
by David Turell , Thursday, April 04, 2019, 15:28 (2059 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I agree that information is of no use until used actively by some one. By 'formative info' I was referring to God forming the universe with information. God used information during evolution. We know all sorts of information underlies life's processes.
dhw: If your God exists, then of course he created and used all the universe’s information that now lies passively awaiting other users. But I cannot see any relevance to your hypothesis that his sole aim was to design H. sapiens and he was unable to do it until he had spent 3.5+ billion years designing anything but H. sapiens.
DAVID: This is a discussion of the place of information in the process of making the universe, starting life, and evolving life. The only point is the use of supplied and possibly invented information. Through the use and interpretation of information humans are here.
dhw: If your God exists as the first cause, he must have invented and then used the information. If he doesn’t exist, then the information must already have been present in primal energy and matter, and we don’t know how that energy and matter was able to use it. As for your last comment, you might just as well say that through the use and interpretation of information, the universe, the Earth and all life including the whale, the cuttlefish, humans and the duck-billed platypus are here. I suggest we drop the subject.
With your now bolded statement I agree to drop, recognizing that without an interpreting mind, it is unlikely anything will happen.