[Fis] INFORMATION: JUST A MATTER OF MATH

Wed Sep 20 02:00:26 CEST 2017

On 19 Sept 2017 at 1:26 AM Terrence W. DEACON wrote:

the science of information is still at an early stage and could be potentially held back by the hubris of certainty.

   Although I do not want to muddy the waters further, the distinction between information (to whom; or only to the statistician?) and physical sciences as we know them today may be in need of clarifying the nature of space and time underlying both the issues. So, suppose a fair coin toss game. If the tossing is repeated, the probability of heads or tails up would be just fifty-fifty. However, the outcome of each individual tossing-up would be either head or tail, and by no means in between like the fifty-fifty. What is more, the coin in focus assumes participation of a durable agent for repeating its toss-up.

   The statistician takes for granted the participation of the ordinary space and time or the static spacetime exclusive to the block-universe when the fifty-fifty probability is addressed. On the other hand, the agent involved in tossing the coin up is uncertain about the outcome of the next toss-up while the results of the preceding attempts already done remain definite. The future toward the capricious agent of tossing it up is open, while the content of the past has already been definitively fixed. The spacetime to such a playful agent is dynamically variable in distinguishing between the definite past and the indefinite future. The nature of the content of time differs between the past and the future. Information as an identifier of the distinction between the definite past and the indefinite future goes beyond the scope exclusive to the standard physics limited to the static block-universe, in the latter of which both the past and the future are definitively determinate at the present in a static manner. Nonetheless, there seems to be some hope in quantum mechanics in circumventing the present stalemate inflicting a heavy body blow on the stymied block-universe physics.   

   If both the occurrence of a pure quantum state and its measurement could happen to be likely in a natural or experimental setting, such a pure state may obtain its duration with probability unity under the conditions that the frequency of repeated measurements can be enhanced without facing any limit, thanks to the quantum Zeno effect. The quantum player underlying such a quantum toss-up game could turn out to be quite steady and durable rather than merely being capricious. Biology upholding a durable organization of a concrete particular nature seems to take full advantage of durable individual events of QM origin. 

   Although information seems to be quite a newbie in the philosopher-dominating time-honored discipline addressing the hard issue of what both space and time may look like, it might be able to enjoy some chance of bringing in something new empirically there.  

   Koichiro Matsuno

From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Terrence W. DEACON
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 1:26 AM
To: Foundations of Information Science Information Science <Fis at listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] INFORMATION: JUST A MATTER OF MATH

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, and a deep entanglement between information (including reference and functional value) and its necessary physical substrates. Of course for this to be science all need to eventually yield testable hypotheses. 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.

— Terry

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