[Fis] Idealism and Materialism

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Krassimir and Colleagues,

 

It has passed 70 years since Wiener’s Cybernetics and Shannon’s Mathematical Theory of Communication, and 20 years since this FIS forum found. During this period, there are innumerable researchers tried to find this "primary concept" of information but without success. Thing, knowledge, data, difference, perception, reflection, uncertainty, entropy, and so on. Therefore, I hope your "We need other primary concepts which will permit us to define information and to prove all consequences." won't arouse the enthusiasm trying to find it more, it is an endless task to such efforts. My opinion is that we had better turn our major attention to the new search such as the general principle that Pedro started several weeks ago, and theorem, axiom, etc. or other aspects about Information Science. Definition is not the only way to build a science. I agree with the view that Brenner regard Information Science as a pre-science, and only in this way we can slowly advance it into a normal-science, if possible.

 

Once we can put forward some basic knowledge such as the form of principle, theorem, axiom, etc., we need to illustrate them at once. This will immediately involves what you say: “Informatics lacks of well established primary concepts. The concept of information couldn't be primary because it couldn't be illustrated directly by real examples." In fact, standing on the position of Unified Information Science, all the general principle, theorem, axiom, etc. are very difficult to be illustrated, but they are rather easy to get the effective illustration in the Branch Informatics. In order to implement this strategy, the initial principle, theorem, axiom, etc. should also be based on Branch Informatics rather than Unified Information Science at first.

 

Best wishes,

Xueshan

 

From: fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Krassimir Markov
Sent: Sunday, November 5, 2017 9:07 PM
To: Foundation of Information Science <fis at listas.unizar.es>
Subject: [Fis] Idealism and Materialism

 

Dear Bruno and FIS Colleagues,

 

Thank you very much for your useful remarks!

 

This week I was ill and couldn’t work.

Hope, the next week will be better for work.

 

Now I want only to paraphrase my post about Idealism and Materialism:

 

The first is founded on believing that the Intelligent Creation exists.

 

The second is founded on believing that the Intelligent Creation does not exist.

 

Both are kinds of religions because they could not prove their foundations by experiments and real examples.

 

The scientific approach does not believe in anything in advance. The primary concepts have to be illustrated by series of real examples. After that the secondary concepts have to be defined and all propositions have to be proved.

 

Are the mathematicians materialists or idealists?

Of course neither the first nor the second!

 

Mathematics is an example of the scientific approach.

 

Informatics lacks of well established primary concepts.

The concept of information couldn’t be primary because it couldn’t be illustrated directly by real examples.

 

We need other primary concepts which will permit us to define information and to prove all consequences.

 

Friendly greetings

Krassimir

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Bruno Marchal

Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2017 12:30 PM

To: Foundation of Information Science

Subject: Re: [Fis] About 10 Principles

 

 

 

Dear Krassimir,

 

 

On 31 Oct 2017, at 15:07, Krassimir Markov wrote:

 

> Dear FIS Colleagues,

> 

> Many years ago, in 2011, I had written a special remark about 

> scientific and non-scientific approaches to try to understand the 

> world around.

> The

> letter of Logan Streondj returns this theme as actual today.

> 

> The interrelations between scientific and non-scientific creating and 

> perceiving the data and models as well the proper attitude to the 

> world cultural heritage is one of the main problems to be 

> investigated. The world common data bases make possible to exchange 

> data of any kind.

> Some

> data could not be proved easy, some are assumed as "clear". What is 

> the proper attitude to the ocean of the data we create and perceive? 

> In addition, now we have a new phenomenon – artificially created data.

> 

> 

> The Modern Societies

> --------------------

> Every group of Infoses, people in particular, forms a society if there 

> is an agreement for communication interactions. An important element 

> of this agreement is the availability of a common data base.

> We should not picture the data base like a number of drives with a 

> certain data recorded, although it is the way it has been since the 

> beginning – it was recorded on clay plates, papyrus, paper, etc. The 

> ability for digital storage of the data lays the beginnings of the 

> genesis of the “modern societies”. It is obvious that, there are as 

> many societies as many different data bases exist, and a single Infos 

> could belong to more than one society.

 

OK.

 

 

> 

> The difference between the beliefs and the science

> ---------------------------------------------------

> Every belief is a totality of models, which are assumed and followed.

> Where is the difference between the belief and the science, which is

> also

> a combination of models to be followed?

> The answer is in the way we perceive these models and the attitude

> to them.

> There are two approaches – a hard and an easy one.

> The easy one is wonderfully described by the motto of the medieval

> theologian Anselm of Canterbury, lately canonized as St. Anselm

> (1033-1109): "Credo, ut intelligam!" (I believe in order to understand

> [St.Anselm]). One has to believe in the model, to understand and

> follow

> it. This is the religious approach – every subjective notion can

> turn into

> a commonly accepted model or dogma, as long as there is someone to

> believe

> in it and follow it implicitly.

> The “difficult” approach is described with the phrase "Intelligo, ut

> credam !" (I understand in order to believe), used by the German

> reformer

> Thomas Muentzer (~1490-1525) [Muentzer]. You have to understand the

> model

> and only after then to trust it if possible. This is the scientific

> approach – every science builds models – hypothesizes, which are

> repeatedly tested before assumed to be true. The scientific approach

> includes a permanent revaluation and improvement of the existing

> models

> according to the permanently changing environment.

> In every society, building and exchanging of models are basic

> activities.

> Whether they are perceived with the “easy” or the “difficult”

> approach is

> a question only of the circumstances, executors and users.

> Keeping in mind the limited abilities of the human brain, we can

> presume

> that the “easy” approach would probably dominate. Just a small part

> of the

> humanity would be able to build and understand the “difficult”

> scientific

> models. The users will not have the strength to test the models for

> themselves so the only option left would be to “believe in order to

> understand”.

> The role and the importance of particular beliefs in a certain

> society are

> determined by the influence of the people ready to doubt the religious

> models, on the others who easily and “blindly” follow the dogmas. Let

> remark that in the scientific world the “easy approach” is everyday

> practice. We all believe that the scientific works represent proved

> facts

> (maybe by authors). However, who knows? We trust in authorities.

> 

> Sometimes we have to doubt!

> 

> That is why the background to modern science is in the wisdom of St.

> Augustin (354-430):  "Intelligo ut credam, credo ut intelligam!" [St.

> Agustin], i.e. it is in the harmony and dialectical unity of the

> scientific and beliefs’ approaches [K.Markov, 2008].

 

Very nice, although in my approach, I identify "science" and belief,

in a first axiomatic approximation. later, new axioms can be added to

introduce the nuances, when needed (and such nuances does exist, and

eventually are imposed by the working hypothesis (mechanism).

 

 

 

> 

> Materialism or Idealism

> -----------------------

> Very important theme, raised from letter of Logan Streondj, is about

> Idealism and Materialism.

> Let note that both are religious approaches but not scientific.

 

I agree. But if we decide to do metaphysics or theology with the

scientific method, we can put the metaphysics in the hypothesis, and

search for criteria of verification.

 

 

 

 

> The first,

> Idealism, is based on belief about existence of God, Free Information

> without material base, Intelligent Creation of the World,

> Information Cube

> which is transferred from one body to another, and etc. The second,

> Materialism, is based on the opposite belief - all phenomena pointed

> above

> do not exist. But both interconnect their reasoning to these

> phenomena.

> 

> The scientific approach is absolutely different. Scientists do not

> assume

> anything in advance and try to make reasoning based only on

> repeatable and

> controlled experiments.

> 

> I hope, the FIS List is a scientific forum and all posts nave to be

> based

> on repeatable and controlled experiments!

 

 

I agree with this partially. Metaphysics/theology *can* be done with

the scientific method. When we do that, the evidence are for Mechanism

and against Materialism.

Is it idealism? Well, all there is are numbers, and it is not a

problem to consider them as idea or programs, as this happens by

itself through the additive and multiplicative relations between the

numbers. This explains also where the information comes from, in the

form of first person histories-selection. There are no evidence for

Aristotle primary matter, which seems to have been a fertile

simplifying assumption only. But there are evidences for the many

histories in arithmetic (indeed those evidences are theorems), and for

the predicted statistics on those histories (the many-world aspect of

quantum mechanics without reduction).

 

 

 

 

 

> 

> About 10 principles of Informatics

> ----------------------------------

> Dear Pedro,

> I highly appreciate your proposition of principles!

> 

> I have no remarks about principles 6-10.

> But the principles 1-5 are not clear for me.

> My interpretation is given below marked by letter M (M1, M2, etc.).

> These of Pedro are marked by letter P (P1, P2, etc.).

> 

> In my practice these principles had been used many times to solve and

> explain practical problems.

> The primary concept I used is the concept of “entity” – there are many

> examples of real entities.

> Entities interact permanently and after each interaction some internal

> changes in the entities may appear.

> Such changes are called “reflections”. In Computer science the

> corresponded concept is “Data”.

> Further reasoning is given below:

> 

> P1. Information is information, neither matter nor energy.

> 

> M1. Information is a class of reflections in material entities. Not

> every

> reflection is information. Only subjectively comprehended

> reflections are

> information.

 

But here you seem to assume primary material entities? I agree that

human's information relies heavily on material entities. Just to

communicate with you, I am using a physical computer. But physicalness

is an internal phenomelogical view, relying on the statistics on all

computations already emulated in the "block-mindscape" constituted by

arithmetic. Matter exists in the digital machine or number's

phenomenology (as a consequence of the Mechanist theory, which is my

field of expertise: I do not claim it to be true, I claim it to be

testable, and plausible given what we know today).

 

The universal numbers (the universal machine run in arithmetic)

reflect each others already.

 

 

 

 

> 

> 

> P2. Information is comprehended into structures, patterns, messages,

> or

> flows.

> 

> M2. Reflections may be comprehended as structures, patterns, messages,

> flows, etc.

> 

> 

> P3. Information can be recognized, can be measured, and can be

> processed

> (either computationally or non-computationally).

> 

> M3. Reflections can be recognized, can be measured, and can be

> processed

> (either computationally or non-computationally).

 

Yes. OK. In fact machine's reflection is only very partially capable

of being measured, and machines' reflexion is only partially

justfiable. For example, we recover consciousness by the proposition

of the type "true, not doubtable, not rationally justifiable, not

expressible, yet individually knowable". That gives an equation with a

non empty set of solutions for a large class of universal machine

(those with enough rich introspection abilities).

 

 

 

 

 

> 

> 

> P4. Information flows are essential organizers of life's self-

> production

> processes--anticipating, shaping, and mixing up with the accompanying

> energy flows.

> 

> M4. Reflection flows are essential organizers of life's self-

> production

> processes--anticipating, shaping, and mixing up with the accompanying

> energy flows.

> 

> 

> P5. Communication/information exchanges among adaptive life-cycles

> underlie the complexity of biological organizations at all scales.

 

Same in arithmetic, when you plunge "meta-arithmetic" in arithmetic,

following the method of Gödel.

 

 

 

> 

> M5. Communication is based on special kind of reflections created by

> one

> entity and reflected by a second one. This way, the reflections

> comprehended as information by the first entity may be secondary

> (transitively) reflected by the second one. Such exchanges among

> adaptive

> life-cycles underlie the complexity of biological organizations at all

> scales.

 

OK. I think we agree on many things, except your curious invocation of

matter which is slightly ambiguous on its primary-or-not character.

 

I would not equate information with reflection though, but there are

important relationship between meaningful (true or possibly true)

information and reflection.

 

Material or physical information exists, but is of a very different

nature than mental and number-theoretical, or logical information. The

first one arises from limits defined from the machine's perspective,

when emulated by infinitely many computations in arithmetic. It is

that material aspect of machines handling of information which makes

the Digital Mechanist (alias computationalism) testable in the

empirical domain.

 

Of course we get closer to Plato and Neoplatonism (the monist Plato of

the Parmenides; not so much the one of the Timeaeus) than to

Aristotle's materialism. Eventually the physical science are reduced

to elementary arithmetic, but here I mean "intensional arithmetic",

where a number can be a code for a digital machine. Note that

intensional arithmetic is isomorphic to a part of extensional

arithmetic. Each universal number can be used to construct the

isomorphism, like Gödel already did in 1931.

 

Kind regards,

 

Bruno

 

 

> 

> 

> 

> Krassimir

> 

> Bibliography

> [St.Anselm] http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/middleages.html ,

> http://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/hop30.htm

> [Muentzer] http://www.thomas-muentzer.de/,

> [St.Agustín] http://www.conoze.com/doc.php?doc=157

> [K.Markov, 2008] K. Markov, S. Poryazov, K. Ivanova, I. Mitov, V.

> Markova. Culture Aspects of Inforaction. International Journal

> INFORMATION

> TECHNOLOGIES & KNOWLEDGE, Volume 2, 2008, Number 4, pp. 335-342.

> http://www.foibg.com/ijitk/ijitk-vol02/ijitk02-4-p06.pdf

> 

> 

> 

> 

> _______________________________________________

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> Fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:Fis at listas.unizar.es> 

> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis

 

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

 

 

 

 

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