[Fis] Is information physical? A logical analysis - Can it be Improved?
Burgin, Mark
mburgin at math.ucla.edu
Thu May 24 04:26:55 CEST 2018
Dear Jerry, Joseph and all FISers,
The title of my contribution is Logical Analysis but not Formal Logical
Analysis. It means that I did not use any formal logic but thoroughly
applied simple mundane logic, which is frequently used in everyday life.
Sincerely,
Mark
On 5/18/2018 8:45 AM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:
> Mark, List:
>
> I find your analysis to be curious from the perspective of scientific
> information theories - that is, the nature of scientific beliefs that
> are used to do science pragmatically - in physics, engr., chemistry,
> biology and medicine. The practice of scientific information uses
> well-established symbol systems, abstractions that relate meaning of
> experience to symbolic meaning in the mind. Mental images (indices,
> icons, symbols, diagrams, etc,) are systematically manipulated within
> the particular framework of the scientific problem at hand, the focus
> of the inquiry.
>
> The internal representation of the situation under investigation is
> only a private interpretation of the external objects. It is created
> by the various sense organs, for example the critical roles of the
> senses of touch, smell, hearing, etc are essential to the natural
> sciences.
>
> So, who can define the meaning of the (mathematical?) varieties of
> “our model of the world”?
> How will such a “model” (path?, category?,) relate the static to the
> dynamic that we experience in our daily inquiries?
>
> Let me skip directly to the categorizational logic:
>> 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
>
> Given your premises, I concur with your conclusions. But...
>
> Philosophically, how does this logic differ from the Vienna Circle
> logic of “Unity of Science” of the 1930’s?
>
> Can you expand the premises to include the processing of informational
> flows in the natural sciences?
>
> It seems to me that the meaning to be associated with this
> categorization is obscured by the usage of the term, structural.
> For examples:
> Physical information can be considered structured.
> Mathematical equations are often considered as structures.
> Mental processes are dependent on anatomical structures.
> Is time structured?
>
> Where does this categorization take account of the mathematical
> representations of molecular biology, genetics, biological dynamics,
> human diseases, all of which depend on the handedness of biochemical
> isomers and Penrose twistors?
>
> Within this categorization, how are the processes of communication
> represented?
>
> Or, is communication not a component of the purposes for developing
> the categorization?
>
> My personal philosophy is that categorizations are always for a goal,
> purpose, objective, intent, etc. Thus, many many philosophers have
> proposed categorical theories.
>
> It appears that this proposed categorization of information could be
> improved by addressing the symbol systems used in the biological and
> other sciences. That is, addressing the forms of abstraction that
> relate representation to (in-) forms of physical structures.
>
> Cheers
>
> Jerry
>
>
>
>
>
>> On May 16, 2018, at 9:20 PM, Burgin, Mark <mburgin at math.ucla.edu
>> <mailto:mburgin at math.ucla.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> 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:
>>>
>>> (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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