Philosophy Discussion Forums

Skydude wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 12:52 am All energy including matter is information(something either is or isn't, everything is relative to something else) check out some stuff in the field of quantum neuroscience it's crazy interesting. There are Some theories that use patterns of quantum phenomena and the superposition of sub atomic particles to explain conciousness, integrative intelligence theory is one of them.

I'm not aware of a single successful research program which has used quantum physics to explain consciousness or any of the mechanisms which give rise to it. I see a lot of talk and a lot of speculation that often views into New Age nonsense, but nothing approaching real science. At least not yet. Maybe there have been recent developments that I'm not aware of, but that is unlikely given how closely I watch out for this stuff.

Faustus5 wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 8:50 am

Skydude wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 12:52 am All energy including matter is information(something either is or isn't, everything is relative to something else) check out some stuff in the field of quantum neuroscience it's crazy interesting. There are Some theories that use patterns of quantum phenomena and the superposition of sub atomic particles to explain conciousness, integrative intelligence theory is one of them.

I'm not aware of a single successful research program which has used quantum physics to explain consciousness or any of the mechanisms which give rise to it. I see a lot of talk and a lot of speculation that often views into New Age nonsense, but nothing approaching real science. At least not yet. Maybe there have been recent developments that I'm not aware of, but that is unlikely given how closely I watch out for this stuff.

Yeah, it sounds like a bunch of nonsense. It certainly wouldn't be something for which we have any sort of experimental/research data. It would have to be a purely mathematical argument.

Not to mention, by the way that "all energy is information" is nonsense in the first place. Anytime I encounter "information" talk in a context like that my eyes glaze over, because the notion is so ill-defined, including by Claude Shannon, whose work on that is a bunch of gobbledygook.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 9:57 am Not to mention, by the way that "all energy is information" is nonsense in the first place.

All energy appears in some kind of configuration, and that configuration is information.

Greta wrote:All energy appears in some kind of configuration...

Are you talking about the relationship between energy and entropy?

Greta wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 10:05 am

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 9:57 am Not to mention, by the way that "all energy is information" is nonsense in the first place.

All energy appears in some kind of configuration, and that configuration is information.

First, energy only appears as matter in motion. So it's really dynamic matter.

At any rate, are you saying that all you mean by "information" is "not a completely uniform distribution; not completely homogeneous"? If so, that would be a novel definition for that term.

Also, why would we be saying that there's no completely uniform distribution of dynamic matter? What would make that impossible?

Faustus5 wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 8:50 amI'm not aware of a single successful research program which has used quantum physics to explain consciousness or any of the mechanisms which give rise to it. I see a lot of talk and a lot of speculation that often views into New Age nonsense, but nothing approaching real science. At least not yet. Maybe there have been recent developments that I'm not aware of, but that is unlikely given how closely I watch out for this stuff.

A basic problem quantum approaches to consciousness have is that there is no consensus among physicists as to which theoretical (or metaphysical) interpretation of the mathematical apparatus of quantum mechanics is correct.

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"[T]here is no agreement among physicists about how to understand quantum theory. Indeed, the very phrase 'quantum theory' is a misnomer: there is no such theory. Rather there is a mathematical formalism and some (quite effective) rules of thumb about how to use the formalism to make certain sorts of predictions. Here the difference between the ironworker and the philosopher of physics becomes acute. The ironworker (or the physicist in ironworker mode) doesn't particularly care about the nature of the physical reality: it is enough to calculate how various experiments should come out. The philosopher of physics cares about the underlying reality and attends to the predictions only insofar as they can serve as evidence for which account of the underlying reality is correct."

(Maudlin, Tim. Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. p. xiii)
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Quantum Approaches to Consciousness: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-consciousness/

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"Quantum theory introduced an element of randomness standing out against the previous deterministic worldview preceding it, in which randomness expresses our ignorance of a more detailed description (as in statistical mechanics). In sharp contrast to such epistemic randomness, quantum randomness in processes such as the spontaneous emission of light, radioactive decay, or other examples has been considered a fundamental feature of nature, independent of our ignorance or knowledge. To be precise, this feature refers to individual quantum events, whereas the behavior of ensembles of such events is statistically determined. The indeterminism of individual quantum events is constrained by statistical laws."
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Here the authors ignore Bohmian mechanics, which is a deterministic quantum theory.

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"Bohmian mechanics is about point particles in motion. …In a Bohmian universe everything is made out of particles. Their motion is guided by the wave function. That is why the wave function is there. That is its role. …Bohmian mechanics happens to be deterministic."

(Dürr, Detlef, and Stefan Teufel. Bohmian Mechanics: The Physics and Mathematics of Quantum Theory. Berlin: Springer, 2009. p. 6)
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Not to mention, by the way, that this would be completely ignoring conventional connotations of the term "information," so that it would have made more sense to simply come up with some neologism.

Terrapin Station wrote:First, energy only appears as matter in motion. So it's really dynamic matter.

You said this several times a long time ago in a different topic, when the world was very different to how it is today.

I never did understand how that view fits with the fact that when the government allows me to go outside I get a suntan.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 9:57 amNot to mention, by the way that "all energy is information" is nonsense in the first place. Anytime I encounter "information" talk in a context like that my eyes glaze over, because the notion is so ill-defined, including by Claude Shannon, whose work on that is a bunch of gobbledygook.

Shannon was well aware that…

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"The word 'information' has been given many different meanings by various writers in the general field of information theory. It is likely that at least a number of these will prove sufficiently useful in certain applications to deserve further study and permanent recognition. It is hardly to be expected that a single concept of information would satisfactorily account for the numerous possible applications of this general field."

(Shannon, Claude E. "The Lattice Theory of Information." 1950. Reprinted in Claude Elwood Shannon: Collected Papers, edited by N. J. A. Sloane and Aaron D. Wyner, 180-183. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 1993. p. 180)
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"In the twentieth century various proposals for formalization of concepts of information were made:

Qualitative Theories of Information

Semantic Information: Bar-Hillel and Carnap developed a theory of semantic Information (1953). Floridi (2002, 2003, 2011) defines semantic information as well-formed, meaningful and truthful data. Formal entropy based definitions of information (Fisher, Shannon, Quantum, Kolmogorov) work on a more general level and do not necessarily measure information in meaningful truthful datasets, although one might defend the view that in order to be measurable the data must be well-formed (for a discussion see section 6.6 on Logic and Semantic Information). Semantic information is close to our everyday naive notion of information as something that is conveyed by true statements about the world.

Information as a state of an agent: the formal logical treatment of notions like knowledge and belief was initiated by Hintikka (1962, 1973). Dretske (1981) and van Benthem & van Rooij (2003) studied these notions in the context of information theory, cf. van Rooij (2003) on questions and answers, or Parikh & Ramanujam (2003) on general messaging. Also Dunn seems to have this notion in mind when he defines information as “what is left of knowledge when one takes away believe, justification and truth” (Dunn 2001: 423; 2008). Vigo proposed a Structure-Sensitive Theory of Information based on the complexity of concept acquisition by agents (Vigo 2011, 2012).

Quantitative Theories of Information

Nyquist’s function: Nyquist (1924) was probably the first to express the amount of “intelligence” that could be transmitted given a certain line speed of a telegraph systems in terms of a log function: W=klogm, where W is the speed of transmission, K is a constant, and m are the different voltage levels one can choose from.

Fisher information: the amount of information that an observable random variable X carries about an unknown parameter θ upon which the probability of X depends (Fisher 1925).

The Hartley function: (Hartley 1928, Rényi 1961, Vigo 2012). The amount of information we get when we select an element from a finite set S under uniform distribution is the logarithm of the cardinality of that set.

Shannon information: the entropy, H, of a discrete random variable X is a measure of the amount of uncertainty associated with the value of X (Shannon 1948; Shannon & Weaver 1949).

Kolmogorov complexity: the information in a binary string x is the length of the shortest program p that produces x on a reference universal Turing machine U (Turing 1937; Solomonoff 1960, 1964a,b, 1997; Kolmogorov 1965; Chaitin 1969, 1987).

Entropy measures in Physics: Although they are not in all cases strictly measures of information, the different notions of entropy defined in physics are closely related to corresponding concepts of information. We mention Boltzmann Entropy (Boltzmann, 1866) closely related to the Hartley Function (Hartley 1928), Gibbs Entropy (Gibbs 1906) formally equivalent to Shannon entropy and various generalizations like Tsallis Entropy (Tsallis 1988) and Rényi Entropy (Rényi 1961).

Quantum Information: The qubit is a generalization of the classical bit and is described by a quantum state in a two-state quantum-mechanical system, which is formally equivalent to a two-dimensional vector space over the complex numbers (Von Neumann 1932; Redei & Stöltzner 2001)."

Information: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information/
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Faustus5 wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 8:47 amNope, it just updates Western philosophy to the 21st century. You seem to think Western philosophy never changes or learns things.

Maybe in 50-100 years it will be properly updated, but I'm stuck in the first half of the 21st century now.

The existence of phenomenal consciousness is indeed undeniable. That it resembles the fantasies of some philosophers who want to pretend it has properties which materialism cannot account is extremely deniable. In fact, materialism can account for them, and Dennett shows one approach for doing so.

I think not even the majority of philosophers with careers will agree with your "fact".

Then I challenge you to make your first attempt at decent scholarship in this thread: cite him saying something about information in his own words, then explain why it is "just plain nonsense". If he's really that stupid and you are really better informed, this should be breathlessly easy for you!

I'm not aware of this. Let me make another request for scholarship: cite the father of cybernetics saying that information exists distinctly from matter or energy, in his own words.

One can google most of these things. Some understanding how computers are built can also be useful.

Atla wrote: ↑May 15th, 2020, 12:08 amI'll burst your bubble anyway, Western philosophy in general doesn't reach critical depths on several issues.

Any examples?

Anyway, there is no such uniform thing as "Western philosophy", because there are many different Western philosophies. Likewise, there is no such uniform thing as "Eastern philosophy", because there are many different Eastern philosophies, including materialistic/naturalistic ones:

* Naturalism in Classical Indian Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-india/

* Lokayata/Carvaka—Indian Materialism: https://www.iep.utm.edu/indmat/

Atla wrote: ↑May 15th, 2020, 12:08 amAnd if they were more informed, they would know that the scientific process has already shown this. Seeing that materialism can't account for phenomenal consciousness isn't even difficult by the way.

"hasn't yet explained" and "can't explain" aren't synonyms!
You simply cannot know that the neuroscience of consciousness is incapable in principle of explaining it in materialistic (neurophysiological) terms.

Atla wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 10:41 am One can google most of these things.

That's the kind of excuse someone makes when they've been caught in a lie or can't actually back up their claims with a substantial argument. In fact, you cannot shows that Dennett has made factually incorrect or mistaken claims about information because he hasn't. And I doubt very much that the "father" of cybernetics has actually made the kind of claim you attribute to him.

Citations are requested for reasons--the adults in the room will always want to be having conversations about things philosophers and scientists have actually said and actually believe. Made up stuff is not for us.

Consul wrote: ↑May 16th, 2020, 11:08 am Any examples?

Anyway, there is no such uniform thing as "Western philosophy", because there are many different Western philosophies.

See above.

Likewise, there is no such uniform thing as "Eastern philosophy", because there are many different Eastern philosophies, including materialistic/naturalistic ones:

* Naturalism in Classical Indian Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-india/

* Lokayata/Carvaka—Indian Materialism: https://www.iep.utm.edu/indmat/

You don't say

"hasn't yet explained" and "can't explain" aren't synonyms!
You simply cannot know that the neuroscience of consciousness is incapable in principle of explaining it in materialistic (neurophysiological) terms.

That's your belief, and it was wrong a year ago, it was wrong six months ago, and it's wrong now. Of course we know that it can't explain it in principle in materialistic terms. Many people just don't think the issue through to realize this.