[Fis] Is information physical? A logical analysis
Burgin, Mark
mburgin at math.ucla.edu
Thu May 17 04:20:39 CEST 2018
Dear FISers,
It was an interesting discussion, in which many highly intelligent
and creative individuals participated expressing different points of
view. Many interesting ideas were suggested. As a conclusion to this
discussion, I would like to suggest a logical analysis of the problem
based on our intrinsic and often tacit assumptions.
To great extent, our possibility to answer the question “Is
information physical? “ depends on our model of the world. Note that
here physical means the nature of information and not its substance, or
more exactly, the substance of its carrier, which can be physical,
chemical biological or quantum. By the way, expression “quantum
information” is only the way of expressing that the carrier of
information belongs to the quantum level of nature. This is similar to
the expressions “mixed numbers” or “decimal numbers”, which are only
forms or number representations and not numbers themselves.
If we assume that there is only the physical world, we have, at
first, to answer the question “Does information exist? “ All FISers
assume that information exists. Otherwise, they would not participate in
our discussions. However, some people think differently (cf., for
example, Furner, J. (2004) Information studies without information).
Now assuming that information exists, we have only one option,
namely, to admit that information is physical because only physical
things exist.
If we assume that there are two worlds - information is physical, we
have three options assuming that information exists:
- information is physical
- information is mental
- information is both physical and mental
Finally, coming to the Existential Triad of the World, which comprises
three worlds - the physical world, the mental world and the world of
structures, we have seven options assuming that information exists:
- information is physical
- information is mental
- information is structural
- information is both physical and mental
- information is both physical and structural
- information is both structural and mental
- information is physical, structural and mental
The solution suggested by the general theory of information tries to
avoid unnecessary multiplication of essences suggesting that information
(in a general sense) exists in all three worlds but … in the physical
world, it is called *energy*, in the mental world, it is called *mental
energy*, and in the world of structures, it is called *information* (in
the strict sense). This conclusion well correlates with the suggestion
of Mark Johnson that information is both physical and not physical only
the general theory of information makes this idea more exact and testable.
In addition, being in the world of structures, information in the
strict sense is represented in two other worlds by its representations
and carriers. Note that any representation of information is its carrier
but not each carrier of information is its representation. For instance,
an envelope with a letter is a carrier of information in this letter but
it is not its representation.
Besides, it is possible to call all three faces of information by
the name energy - physical energy, mental energy and structural energy.
Finally, as many interesting ideas were suggested in this
discussion, may be Krassimir will continue his excellent initiative
combining the most interesting contributions into a paper with the title
*Is information physical?*
and publish it in his esteemed Journal.
Sincerely,
Mark Burgin
On 5/11/2018 3:20 AM, Karl Javorszky wrote:
> Dear Arturo,
>
>
> There were some reports in clinical psychology, about 30 years ago,
> that relate to the question whether a machine can pretend to be a
> therapist. That was the time as computers could newly be used in an
> interactive fashion, and the Rogers techniques were a current discovery.
> (Rogers developed a dialogue method where one does not address the
> contents of what the patient says, but rather the emotional aspects of
> the message, assumed to be at work in the patient.)
>
> They then said, that in some cases it was indistinguishable, whether a
> human or a machine provides the answer to a patient's elucidations.
>
> Progress since then has surely made possible to create machines that
> are indistinguishable in interaction to humans. Indeed, what is called
> "expert systems ", are widely used in many fields. If the interaction
> is rational, that is: formally equivalent to a logical discussion
> modi Wittgenstein, the difference in: "who arrived at this answer,
> machinery or a human", becomes irrelevant.
>
> Artistry, intuition, creativity are presently seen as not possible to
> translate into Wittgenstein sentences. Maybe the inner instincts are
> not yet well understood. But!: there are some who are busily
> undermining the current fundamentals of rational thinking. So there is
> hope that we shall live to experience the ultimate disillusionment,
> namely that humans are a combinatorial tautology.
>
> Accordingly, may I respectfully express opposing views to what you
> state: that machines and humans are of incompatible builds. There are
> hints that as far as rational capabilities go, the same principles
> apply. There is a rest, you say, which is not of this kind. The
> counter argument says that irrational processes do not take place in
> organisms, therefore what you refer to belongs to the main process,
> maybe like waste belongs to the organism's principle. This view draws
> a picture of a functional biotope, in which the waste of one kind of
> organism is raw material for a different kind.
>
> Karl
>
> <tozziarturo at libero.it <mailto:tozziarturo at libero.it>> schrieb am Do.,
> 10. Mai 2018 15:24:
>
> Dear Bruno,
> You state:
> "IF indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive science,
> THEN “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical term,
> i.e. “physical” becomes a mathematical notion.
> ...Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a
> level of description of the brain/body such that I would survive,
> or “not feel any change” if my brain/body is replaced by a digital
> machine emulating the brain/body at that level of description".
>
> The problem of your account is the following:
> You say "IF" and "indexical digital mechanism is the HYPOTHESIS".
> Therefore, you are talking of an HYPOTHESIS: it is not empirically
> tested and it is not empirically testable. You are starting with a
> sort of postulate: I, and other people, do not agree with it. The
> current neuroscience does not state that our brain/body is (or can
> be replaced by) a digital machine.
> In other words, your "IF" stands for something that possibly does
> not exist in our real world. Here your entire building falls down.
>
> --
> Inviato da Libero Mail per Android
>
> giovedì, 10 maggio 2018, 02:46PM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal
> marchal at ulb.ac.be <mailto:marchal at ulb.ac.be>:
>
> (This mail has been sent previously , but without success. I
> resend it, with minor changes). Problems due to different
> accounts. It was my first comment to Mark Burgin new thread
> “Is information physical?”.
>
>
> Dear Mark, Dear Colleagues,
>
>
> Apology for not answering the mails in the chronological
> orders, as my new computer classifies them in some mysterious way!
> This is my first post of the week. I might answer comment, if
> any, at the end of the week.
>
>
>> On 25 Apr 2018, at 03:47, Burgin, Mark <mburgin at math.ucla.edu
>> <mailto:mburgin at math.ucla.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>> I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion
>>
>> Is information physical?
>>
>
> That is an important topic indeed, very close to what I am
> working on.
>
> My result here is that
> *_
> _*
> *_IF_* indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive
> science,
> *_
> _*
> *_THEN_* “physical” has to be defined entirely in
> arithmetical term, i.e. “physical” becomes a mathematical notion.
>
> The proof is constructive. It shows exactly how to derive
> physics from Arithmetic (the reality, not the theory. I use
> “reality” instead of “model" (logician’s term, because
> physicists use “model" for “theory").
>
> Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a
> level of description of the brain/body such that I would
> survive, or “not feel any change” if my brain/body is replaced
> by a digital machine emulating the brain/body at that level of
> description.
>
> Not only information is not physical, but matter, time, space,
> and all physical objects become part of the universal machine
> phenomenology. Physics is reduced to arithmetic, or,
> equivalently, to any Turing-complete machinery. Amazingly
> Arithmetic (even the tiny semi-computable part of arithmetic)
> is Turing complete (Turing Universal).
>
> The basic idea is that:
>
> 1) no universal machine can distinguish if she is executed by
> an arithmetical reality or by a physical reality. And,
>
> 2) all universal machines are executed in arithmetic, and they
> are necessarily undetermined on the set of of all its
> continuations emulated in arithmetic.
>
> That reduces physics to a statistics on all computations
> relative to my actual state, and see from some first person
> points of view (something I can describe more precisely in
> some future post perhaps).
>
> Put in that way, the proof is not constructive, as, if we are
> machine, we cannot know which machine we are. But Gödel’s
> incompleteness can be used to recover this constructively for
> a simpler machine than us, like Peano arithmetic. This way of
> proceeding enforces the distinction between first and third
> person views (and six others!).
>
> I have derived already many feature of quantum mechanics from
> this (including the possibility of quantum computer) a long
> time ago. I was about sure this would refute Mechanism, until
> I learned about quantum mechanics, which verifies all the most
> startling predictions of Indexical Mechanism, unless we add
> the controversial wave collapse reduction principle.
>
> The curious “many-worlds” becomes the obvious (in arithmetic)
> many computations (up to some equivalence quotient). The weird
> indeterminacy becomes the simpler amoeba like duplication. The
> non-cloning of matter becomes obvious: as any piece of matter
> is the result of the first person indeterminacy (the first
> person view of the amoeba undergoing a duplication, …) on
> infinitely many computations. This entails also that neither
> matter appearance nor consciousness are Turing emulable per
> se, as the whole arithmetical reality—which is a highly non
> computable notion as we know since Gödel—plays a key role.
> Note this makes Digital Physics leaning to inconsistency, as
> it implies indexical computationalism which implies the
> negation of Digital Physics (unless my “body” is the entire
> physical universe, which I rather doubt).
>
>> My opinion is presented below:
>>
>>
>>
>> Why some people erroneously think that information is physical
>> The main reason to think that information is physical is the
>> strong belief of many people, especially, scientists that
>> there is only physical reality, which is studied by science.
>> At the same time, people encounter something that they call
>> information.
>> When people receive a letter, they comprehend that it is
>> information because with the letter they receive information.
>> The letter is physical, i.e., a physical object. As a result,
>> people start thinking that information is physical. When
>> people receive an e-mail, they comprehend that it is
>> information because with the e-mail they receive information.
>> The e-mail comes to the computer in the form of
>> electromagnetic waves, which are physical. As a result,
>> people start thinking even more that information is physical.
>> However, letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all
>> physical objects are only carriers or containers of information.
>> To understand this better, let us consider a textbook. Is
>> possible to say that this book is knowledge? Any reasonable
>> person will tell that the textbook contains knowledge but is
>> not knowledge itself. In the same way, the textbook contains
>> information but is not information itself. The same is true
>> for letters, e-mails, electromagnetic waves and other
>> physical objects because all of them only contain information
>> but are not information. For instance, as we know, different
>> letters can contain the same information. Even if we make an
>> identical copy of a letter or any other text, then the letter
>> and its copy will be different physical objects (physical
>> things) but they will contain the same information.
>> Information belongs to a different (non-physical) world of
>> knowledge, data and similar essences. In spite of this,
>> information can act on physical objects (physical bodies) and
>> this action also misleads people who think that information
>> is physical.
>
> OK. The reason is that we can hardly imagine how immaterial or
> non physical objects can alter the physical realm. It is the
> usual problem faced by dualist ontologies. With Indexical
> computationalism we recover many dualities, but they belong to
> the phenomenologies.
>
>
>
>> One more misleading property of information is that people
>> can measure it. This brings an erroneous assumption that it
>> is possible to measure only physical essences. Naturally,
>> this brings people to the erroneous conclusion that
>> information is physical. However, measuring information is
>> essentially different than measuring physical quantities,
>> i.e., weight. There are no “scales” that measure information.
>> Only human intellect can do this.
>
> OK. I think all intellect can do that, not just he human one.
>
> Now, the reason why people believe in the physical is always a
> form of the “knocking table” argument. They knocks on the
> table and say “you will not tell me that this table is unreal”.
>
> I have got so many people giving me that argument, that I have
> made dreams in which I made that argument, or even where I was
> convinced by that argument … until I wake up.
>
> When we do metaphysics with the scientific method, this “dream
> argument” illustrates that seeing, measuring, … cannot prove
> anything ontological. A subjective experience proves only the
> phenomenological existence of consciousness, and nothing more.
> It shows that although there are plenty of strong evidences
> for a material reality, there are no evidences (yet) for a
> primitive or primary matter (and that is why, I think,
> Aristotle assumes it quasi explicitly, against Plato, and
> plausibly against Pythagorus).
>
> Mechanism forces a coming back to Plato, where the worlds of
> ideas is the world of programs, or information, or even just
> numbers, since very elementary arithmetic (PA without
> induction, + the predecessor axiom) is already Turing complete
> (it contains what I have named a Universal Dovetailer: a
> program which generates *and* executes all programs).
>
> So I agree with you: information is not physical. I claim that
> if we assume Mechanism (Indexical computationalism) matter
> itself is also not *primarily* physical: it is all in the
> “head of the universal machine/number” (so to speak).
>
> And this provides a test for primary matter: it is enough to
> find if there is a discrepancy between the physics that we
> infer from the observation, and the physics that we extract
> from “the head” of the machine. This took me more than 30
> years of work, but the results obtained up to now is that
> there is no discrepancies. I have compared the quantum logic
> imposed by incompleteness (formally) on the semi-computable
> (partial recursive, sigma_1) propositions, with most quantum
> logics given by physicists, and it fits rather well.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Bruno
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