[Fis] INFORMATION: JUST A MATTER OF MATH
Bruno Marchal
marchal at ulb.ac.be
Mon Sep 18 19:12:18 CEST 2017
On 18 Sep 2017, at 18:25, Terrence W. DEACON wrote:
> All of these claims and counter-claims are null hypotheses -
> hypothetical axioms yet to be tested, both for logical coherence and
> empirical usefulness. Place your bets. Mine are on contrary
> assumptions: i.e. non-Turing computability, fundamental
> incompleteness,
Turing universal computability entails fundamental incompleteness.
> and a deep entanglement between information (including reference and
> functional value) and its necessary physical substrates.
So you are coherent. Mechanism is not compatible with materialism. If
you have fundamental substrates, you have to assume non mechanism. My
main result is
NOT Mechanism OR NOT materialism. (materialism in the weak sense of
assuming primitive physical elements).
You keep materialism, I keep mechanism. We are just working in
different theory.
> Of course for this to be science all need to eventually yield
> testable hypotheses.
The hypotheses are general and can never been tested, but we can test
the consequences, and improve our abandon the theory.
> This level of controversy over basic issues indicates to me that the
> science of information is still at an early stage and could be
> potentially held back by the hubris of certainty.
I have not claimed any truth, if this was not clear. I just say that
Mechanism and Physicalism are incompatible, and that if we keep
mechanism, the appearances of matter have to be derived in some way
from the universal machine introspection. The physical propositional
logic has been derived in that way, and up to now, it fits with the
quantum facts.
You can read the following papers:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html
Marchal B. The computationalist reformulation of the mind-body
problem. Prog Biophys Mol Biol; 2013 Sep;113(1):127-40
Marchal B. The Universal Numbers. From Biology to Physics, Progress in
Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2015, Vol. 119, Issue 3, 368-381.
I just keep mechanism, but take very seriously the mind-body problem.
Bruno Marchal
>
> — Terry
>
> On Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 2:07 AM, Bruno Marchal <marchal at ulb.ac.be>
> wrote:
> Dear Jose,
>
> On 15 Sep 2017, at 16:37, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero wrote:
>
>> Dear Arturo,
>>
>> Math is indeed a language that CAN describe scientific issues, but
>> it is not the only one. And its ability to cuantify scientific
>> issues do not necesarily make it superior.
>> Math and natural language face the same formal and logical
>> problems: they cannot make staments about themselves without
>> falling into contradictions or paradoxes (as can be inferred from
>> Gödel).
>>
>
> You seem to be too much quick on this. On the contrary, I would say,
> Gödel showed that when we translate the paradoxes of self-reference
> in arithmetic, we get fundamental limitation theorems, not
> contradictions. In fact Gödel has led, with the work of Löb and
> Solovay, to a complete axiomatization of the logic of machine self-
> reference (complete at the propositional level), and that logic re-
> introduce the nuances discovered by Plato and exploited by the
> Neopythagoreans and the Neoplatonicians theologians. Those
> "theologies" are "theories of everything": they contain physics, and
> so are testable, and the physics of the machine can be shown to be
> necessary quantum-like already.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>> And your statement is certainly self-contradictory: if it is true
>> then it is contradicted by the form of its performance (semantics).
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> El sep 15, 2017 10:17 AM, "tozziarturo at libero.it" <tozziarturo at libero.it
>> > escribió:
>> Dear FISers,
>> I'm sorry for bothering you,
>> but I start not to agree from the very first principles.
>>
>> The only language able to describe and quantify scientific issues
>> is mathematics.
>> Without math, you do not have observables, and information is
>> observable.
>> Therefore, information IS energy or matter, and can be examined
>> through entropies (such as., e.g., the Bekenstein-Hawking one).
>>
>> And, please, colleagues, do not start to write that information is
>> subjective and it depends on the observer's mind. This issue has
>> been already tackled by the math of physics: science already
>> predicts that information can be "subjective", in the MATHEMATICAL
>> frameworks of both relativity and quantum dynamics' Copenhagen
>> interpretation.
>> Therefore, the subjectivity of information is clearly framed in a
>> TOTALLY physical context of matter and energy.
>>
>> Sorry for my polemic ideas, but, if you continue to define
>> information on the basis of qualitative (and not quantitative)
>> science, information becomes metaphysics, or sociology, or
>> psychology (i.e., branches with doubtful possibility of achieving
>> knowledge, due to their current lack of math).
>>
>>
>> Arturo Tozzi
>>
>> AA Professor Physics, University North Texas
>>
>> Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy
>>
>> Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba
>>
>> http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/
>>
>>
>>
>> ----Messaggio originale----
>> Da: "Pedro C. Marijuan" <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
>> Data: 15/09/2017 14.13
>> A: "fis"<fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> Ogg: [Fis] PRINCIPLES OF IS
>>
>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>
>> As promised herewith the "10 principles of information science". A
>> couple of previous comments may be in order.
>> First, what is in general the role of principles in science? I was
>> motivated by the unfinished work of philosopher Ortega y Gasset,
>> "The idea of principle in Leibniz and the evolution of deductive
>> theory" (posthumously published in 1958). Our tentative information
>> science seems to be very different from other sciences, rather
>> multifarious in appearance and concepts, and cavalierly moving from
>> scale to scale. What could be the specific role of principles
>> herein? Rather than opening homogeneous realms for conceptual
>> development, these information principles would appear as a sort of
>> "portals" that connect with essential topics of other disciplines
>> in the different organization layers, but at the same time they
>> should try to be consistent with each other and provide a coherent
>> vision of the information world.
>> And second, about organizing the present discussion, I bet I was
>> too optimistic with the commentators scheme. In any case, for
>> having a first glance on the whole scheme, the opinions of
>> philosophers would be very interesting. In order to warm up the
>> discussion, may I ask John Collier, Joseph Brenner and Rafael
>> Capurro to send some initial comments / criticisms? Later on, if
>> the commentators idea flies, Koichiro Matsuno and Wolfgang
>> Hofkirchner would be very valuable voices to put a perspectival end
>> to this info principles discussion (both attended the Madrid
>> bygone FIS 1994 conference)...
>> But this is FIS list, unpredictable in between the frozen states
>> and the chaotic states! So, everybody is invited to get ahead at
>> his own, with the only customary limitation of two messages per week.
>>
>> Best wishes, have a good weekend --Pedro
>>
>> 10 PRINCIPLES OF INFORMATION SCIENCE
>>
>> 1. Information is information, neither matter nor energy.
>>
>> 2. Information is comprehended into structures, patterns, messages,
>> or flows.
>>
>> 3. Information can be recognized, can be measured, and can be
>> processed (either computationally or non-computationally).
>>
>> 4. Information flows are essential organizers of life's self-
>> production processes--anticipating, shaping, and mixing up with the
>> accompanying energy flows.
>>
>> 5. Communication/information exchanges among adaptive life-cycles
>> underlie the complexity of biological organizations at all scales.
>>
>> 6. It is symbolic language what conveys the essential communication
>> exchanges of the human species--and constitutes the core of its
>> "social nature."
>>
>> 7. Human information may be systematically converted into efficient
>> knowledge, by following the "knowledge instinct" and further up by
>> applying rigorous methodologies.
>>
>> 8. Human cognitive limitations on knowledge accumulation are
>> partially overcome via the social organization of "knowledge
>> ecologies."
>>
>> 9. Knowledge circulates and recombines socially, in a continuous
>> actualization that involves "creative destruction" of fields and
>> disciplines: the intellectual Ars Magna.
>>
>> 10. Information science proposes a new, radical vision on the
>> information and knowledge flows that support individual lives, with
>> profound consequences for scientific-philosophical practice and for
>> social governance.
>>
>> --
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> Pedro C. Marijuán
>> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>> Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
>> Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
>> Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta 0
>> 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
>> Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
>> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
>> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
>> -------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
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> --
> Professor Terrence W. Deacon
> University of California, Berkeley
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