[Fis] [External Email] A little methodical remark

Thu Jul 9 18:41:20 CEST 2020

Dear Jaime,

> On 8 Jul 2020, at 21:46, Jaime Cardenas-Garcia <jfcardenasgarcia en gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Marcus and Bruno,
> 
> I notice you share an ability to misrepresent my name:
> 
> Marcus => JAMIE
> 
> Bruno => James
> 
> I just want to tell you that I do not appreciate this, in the context that with all other names you seem to do just fine. Including with Pedro’s name, which I don’t see written as Peter or Perdr. Maybe it reflects bias on your part, or simply mental laziness.
> 

I am sorry. There is no bias, though. 

> Marcus,
> 
> As to your question regarding Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies by Cesar Hidalgo, a physicist by training, I would suggest that you ask him that question. As to his work (https://cesarhidalgo.com/ <https://cesarhidalgo.com/>), it is an interdisciplinary undertaking:
> 
> César A. Hidalgo is a Chilean-Spanish-American scholar known for his contributions to economic complexity, data visualization, and artificial intelligence. He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Notre Dame and a Bachelor in Physics from Universidad Católica de Chile. 
> 
> Hidalgo currently holds a Chair at the Artificial and Natural Intelligence Institute (ANITI) at the University of Toulouse. He is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Manchester and a Visiting Professor at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Between 2010 and 2019 Hidalgo led MIT’s Collective Learning group as an Assistant and then Associate Professor. Prior to joining MIT, Hidalgo was a research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Hidalgo is also a founder of Datawheel, an award winning company specialized in the creation of data distribution and visualization systems.
> 
> Hidalgo’s contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2018 Lagrange Prize and multiple Webby Awards (see below). Hidalgo's is also the author of several books, including Why Information Grows (Basic Books, 2015), The Atlas of Economic Complexity (MIT Press, 2014), and How Humans Judge Machines (MIT Press, Forthcoming 2020).
> 
> The Atlas of Economic Complexity treats economic development in a unique way and ties everything together. It’s worth taking a look if you are interested in looking at all the economic, technological innovation and other interconnections in any society.
> 
> Bruno,
> 
> Clearly, we see ‘reality’ differently. I don’t think it is a matter of what assumptions you make.
> 

We might interpret what we see differently. I don’t follow Aristotle in taking what we see/observe/measure as the fundamental reality. I have reason to believe that Plato is less wrong, and that what we see is not reality, but the shadow of a deeper and more fundamental reality, which is what I am searching. I can explain that if we assume Mechanism (Descartes, Darwin, Turing) then eventually what we see is more *like* in dream or a video game, although it is not a dream (the “like” is important). Eventually the physical reality emerges from a (first person and relative) statistics on all computations. 

> We share a ‘reality’ that is in front of us
> 
So, that is what I am not sure. We share some reality, but what is in front of us is an emerging information pattern. Physicists measure numbers, and infer some (mathematical) relations between those numbers. With mechanism, it can be shown that such relations comes from a statistics on the partially computable relations in arithmetic.

> and to which we have access to through our sense organs. It is very simple. It goes back to the fundamental problem of information: how do we become what we become. A problem statement with which many of you might agree or disagree since Shannon has a different take. I would say that this is still an unanswered question, no matter what your musings.
> 

What is missing with mechanism. To my knwoledge it provides the answer, explains both quanta and qualia, and their relation, in an explicit testable way.

The empirical reality might refute this, but up to now, it fits with the observation. 

> Your musings and any other musings, one cares to make, suffer from the fact that in expressing them, after info-autopoietic construction (info-autopoiesis has no relation to Maturana or Varela), are done syntactically (language, symbols, writing,
> 

I can be OK with this.

> mathematics, sounds, elementary arithmetic, food, perfumes, etc.).
> 

But here, most of the basic of those things are not syntactical. The elementary (first order) arithmetic is beyond all syntax, theories, proofs, etc. Tarski called such realm “essentially undecidable”, which means that not only each effective theory on such domain are incomplete, but they are incomplete-able. No matter how we extend the theory, if the extension leads to an effective theory (so that we can check the proofs) the entire truth elude us.

> Syntactic expressions always lose something in their manifestation (mainly meaning).
> 

Absolutely. 

That is a key point with Mechanism. With mechanism we can attribute a conscious personal presence supported by a machine relative to us, but the conscious person herself cannot attribute a machine to herself, only an infinity of computations, and, furthermore, they have to invoke some notion of truth. 
Such truth notion is a highly non computable notion, not even definable by the machine when it encompasses the (true) beliefs of the machine.

That is the matter subject of most of Mathematical Logic: the gap between theories and their semantic.

That is also why the machine develop a theology: they are aware of their incompleteness (as Gödel foresaw in 1931, but that will be proved by Bernays and Hilbert in 1937). In that way, in all consistent histories, the machine can explore that gap, which is a sort of generalisation of something in between psychology and theology: the set of non provable truth.

At the propositional level, that gap is entirely axiomatised by the modal logic G* minus G, where G¨and G axiomatise the provability logic of the self-refrenetially correct machine. It is computer science’s minus computer’s computer science, or “Tarski minus Gödel”, or “meaning minus its syntactical representations”. 

> So, in my naïve and simple world, all constructions that rely on syntactic expressions are flawed by definition. No matter how much scientific rigor you throw at it.
> 

The universal machine agree with this. What you say is true for the soul of the machine. The universal machine (+ some induction axioms) is already aware that she has a soul, that such a soul is not definable without invoking a notion of truth, that she will never been able to consistently prove the existence of that soul to anybody, that such a soul is NOT a machine, nor anything capable of being described with any third person term. This leads to a theory of knowledge and subjective time close to Dogen, Brouwer, Heraclite, … yet in a Platonic framework, quite limited (Pythagorean).

Gödel’s theorem kills reductionism in the whole science, and it begins in killing the reductionist theory about machines and numbers. The term “machine” has a different meaning after Gödel and Turing. The logicians have hoped to discover a machine able to answer all (simple) mathematical question, but they discover only a new total unknown asking new complicated question.

The “living question” will not be “can a machine support a thinking person”. It is more like “do you accept that your daughter marry a machine (like a poor guy so unlucky in his youth that at the age of 20, all its organs were “artificial prostheses”, brain included).

> Also, when you start having thought experiments, they don’t really lead anywhere except where you want them to lead.
> 
Not at all. When that happens, it means that they have been misused. The thought experience are shortcut of more lengthy reasoning, as you can convince yourself by doing them in the methodic stepwise way. They are also simpler than the formalisation, but if you desire, you can go directly to the formalisation, which is done in the logic of provability of arithmetic. 

I do not claim any truth, but I try to explain that the machines, when we listen to them, expose already a sort of neoplatonist theology, making it testable, as that theology determines entirely the physical laws.

The only weakness is that it leads quickly to complex conjecture in mathematics and physics, and even the decidable part of it is quickly untractable. 

> Imagination might be a blessing, but it also can be the curse of lack of progress in the ‘real world’, whatever that is.
> 

I use a very common hypothesis, already use quasi explicitly by Darwin, and then made mathematically precise thanks to the incredible thesis of Church and Turing (and Emil Post, Stephen Kleene, foreseen by Babbage, smelled by Leibniz and the Chinese philosophers, and others). 

The “only problem” is that it leads to a metaphysic inconsistent with “weak materialism”: the belief in some ontological matter, whose existence would not be reducible to something non physical.

The beauty of Mechanism, is that with the Church-Turing thesis, we can translate the philosophical problem into mathematical problem, and indeed already study what the machine can say, and not say, about all this.

Having said this, I would like to insist, Jaime, that I terribly agree with you when you say exactly that "Imagination might be a blessing, but it also can be the curse of lack of progress in the ‘real world’, whatever that is.”

Unfortunately, when we have separate theology from science (through Tyran wanting to misuse it for special interest), we have given the fundamental subject to the charlatan which exploits the fear, and the imagination, and many tricks, to make people stopping thinking on the subject, calling them heretic, or whatever. 

> Each of us is blessed with the ability to believe whatever we want to believe
> 

We better should not believe what is wrong. I would not like to take a plane and learn that the pilot believes that the clouds are elephants.

The idea that we are free to believe what we want is exactly the kind of propaganda that the tyran, and even sometimes the rich democracy, want us to believe.

We can have different beliefs on yet undecided question, but we better should revise our beliefs in front of internal contradiction or discrepancies with some “solid facts”.

> and makes us happy, but if after many years our work leads nowhere, we better take a second look at other musings by other individuals.
> 

Why not come back just at the moment where we have separated theology from science? When I found the immaterialist consequence of the Digital Mechanist hypothesis, I was told that this was not original, and indeed, the question of the nature of reality (material or mathematical or something else) was the debate and inquiry of the rather “rigorous” attempt to figure out what is reality/god from Pythagorus (-500) to Damascius (+500).

We have to come back when the subject of religion (God, reality, Meaning, …) was the object of experiences, studies, dialogs, critics, and doubts, and modesty. Obviously, by mixing religion and authoritarian state, we can be led only to obscurantism. 

That separation leads to the separation of the human science from the exact science, which makes not only the human science inexact and the exact science inhuman, but it makes the exact science inexact and the human science inhuman.

> Myth is not only built out of imagination; it can also be built out of complex mathematical and physical formulations and imagination. That is why whatever is scientifically valid today may not be tomorrow.
> 
> 

What is scientifically valid tomorrow is scientifically valid today. If there is a contradiction, it means that we were not scientifically valid today or yesterday. That is why it is preferable to have clear hypothesis, so that we can clearly be shown wrong. Let us push the logic of mechanism at its extreme, and see what we got, and compare with the observation and experiences.

The problem here, is that we have separate theology from science, and people have forgotten that the original question was about the nature of reality, and about the existence of a primary physical universe, and some people talk like if “science” has already decided that question, which is not the case, even if some modest results just reminds us that rationalism and materialism are not synonymous. People confuse all the time the belief in a physical reality, with the belief that the physical reality is the fundamental reality.

My logical point, which I can explain in detail, or give references, if interested, is that Digital Mechanism (the belief that we can survive with a computer instead of a biological body/brain) is logically incompatible with weak materialism (up to annoying technical nuances I don’t want to bother you with).

Then mechanism makes a link between Shannon types of information, and meaning, and this at multiple variate levels, from the decoder of instruction to the many semantic of Turing complete theories.

Gödel’s theorem kill all reductionism, to begin by killing the reductionist conception of the machine that most mathematician had before Gödel.

The pessimist will say: —to bad, I am just a stupid machine…
The optimists will say: — nice! So the machine can be as much as I am!

Note that the expression “I am machine” is misleading, as it means only I am supported by a machine.
In fact, If I-the-body is a machine, I-the-soul is not a machine”.

We might agree on more than what you think. Mechanism is a wonderful tool to avoid falling in a reductionist trap, even if it leads to some ontological apparent restriction.

Kind regards,

Bruno

PS This is my second and thus last post of this week. I might comment on the whole post next week. 

> Loet,
> 
> I don’t know why agents always creep into the conversation. We are not agents since we are an expression of nature that no one knows how it came to be. We are organisms-in-our-environment that can have no claim to agency. I don’t even know what agency means. From a fundamental perspective, if you do not control your origin, you cannot aspire to agency even though you might claim that you have agency.
> 
> As an organism, the only meaning that is worth having is the one that leads to satisfaction of our physiological and relational needs, as part of an ecological network that we did not devise, except as unwilling participants. The future ecological network that we will inherit, because of our greed, might take its revenge against us hapless beings with no agency. This is the context of information and eventually meaning. Matter/energy are fundamental, ‘differences which make a difference’ are derived from use of our sensory organs. What is our motivation? Satisfaction of our physiological and relational needs, as part of an ecological network. Action potentials may be viewed as the bits (binary digits) that result in information. That is what needs discernment and discovery. How does that happen? Your two-dimensional probability distribution is not far off the mark, if you consider that our sensory organs are at least two-dimensional in nature. Again, this is what needs further exploration and discernment. But my belief is that it is not a probabilistic distribution problem.  
> 
> Stan,
> 
> Info-autopoiesis, or the self-referenced self-production of information is a process that yields information in many forms and guises from the detection by our sensory organs of moving matter/energy in our environment. This means that there is no information in the environment, i.e., our sensory organs are not organs for detection of information. This leads to the conclusion that there is no information in the genome. Also, my feeling is that the only emergent processes that exist are the ones we do not understand, because if we did understand how they came about, there would be nothing unexpected about them. This also means that the only effect of the creation of information is the instantiation of actions within/without an organism, consciously or unconsciously.
> 
> Moisés,
> 
> Info-autopoiesis is a process of self-referenced self-production of information (Bateson information) where,
> 
> To begin the journey of determining differences using our five primary senses, it is important to note that our senses deal with commensurable quantities/qualities, i.e., quantities/qualities that have a common measure. For example, the sense of touch (whose multidimensional structure includes mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors, nocireceptors, proprioceptors) might be, for simplicity, arbitrarily ascribed as being sensitive only to pressure. In that limited role, our sense of touch is able to keep track of all pressure sensations that come into its sphere of action. As might be imagined, from one instant of time to the next, pressure sensations are felt by the human in question and become part of her experience. This is how quantitatively and unambiguously “a (pressure) difference” becomes qualitatively “a (pressure) difference which makes a difference”. In a similar way, the other dimensions of the sense of touch contribute with their own unique quantitative/qualitative characteristics. Thus, in toto contributing to a multidimensional sensory experience that consists of temporal/spatial differences. This is the process of information that Bateson discovered and is applicable to any and all of our primary senses, which not only act individually but in concert. Our primary senses provide for us our only contact with our environment and are key to our development.
> 
> This is a short description related to our five senses. Notice that with these five primary senses we are able to get to any level of multi-dimensional information that we devise. It is a process of differences on top of differences on top of differences. Notice that we are having this conversation, whether agreeing or disagreeing. Also, every organism-in-its-environment has its unique set of primary senses that allow it to perceive a signature of the environment that is particular to their experience. I invite you to read my paper as presented earlier.
> 
> My best wishes for everyone's continued health in this pandemic that has all the fingerprints of a Trump COVID-19 pandemic (Trump virus?) in the United States (Wuhan virus indeed!).
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Jaime
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 3:00 PM Stanley N Salthe <ssalthe en binghamton.edu <mailto:ssalthe en binghamton.edu>> wrote:
> Joseph -- What you have added here, as I understand it, is the idea of ‘resistance’ to an unfolding of a physical potential in an interaction involving (or maybe only triggered by) it. I’m unsure of whether there is ALWAYS resistance (implied by you via Lupasco), and to what extent that resistance could modify or even nullify the potential via the interaction, thus leading to an emergence where the potential has been effectively screened out.
> 
> STAN
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 1:35 PM Krassimir Markov <markov en foibg.com <mailto:markov en foibg.com>> wrote:
> Dear Joseph and FIS Colleagues,
>  
> Thank you very much for the nice posts!
> Please excuse me for the delay of my current post!
> During the last weeks I had been occupied with organizing the ITHEA® ITA 2020 International Scientific Events, including the GIT 2020 Int. conference.
>  
> Now, I want to make a little methodical remark.
>  
> If we take 0 and 1 as phenomena which we want to investigate we have to make choice.
> To take 0 as primary concept and to try to explain 1 by it or vice versa.
> In both cases, we couldn’t do any reasonable conclusion.
> Our two concepts – 0 and 1 – are concepts at the same level.
>  
> We need a third concept to be accepted as a primary and to explain our concepts by it.
> In mathematics this problem had been solved centuries ago. 
> Here I want to remember it.
>  
> The third concept can be the concept “Digit”.
> This way, 0 and 1 may be explained easily as concrete states of Digit.
>  
> The same problem was pointed by Stan. The dialectical unity of two opposite states.
> Following the reasons given above, we can solve the problem with dualism of concept “Information” by taking an other concept as primary.
>  
> Such concept for me is the concept “Reflection”.
>  
> As I already had written, the information and data are kinds of reflection which differ only on the basis of subject’s or agent’s possibility to connect the reflection to other his/her mental models.
>  
> Friendly greetings
> Krassimir
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> From: Joseph Brenner <mailto:joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2020 4:38 PM
> To: fis <mailto:fis en listas.unizar.es>
> Subject: Re: [Fis] Krassimir's question about information
>  
> Dear Friends,
> 
> A short dialogue:
> 
> Stan: Krassimir: “Is information primary or derived/secondary?” My (Stan’s) restatement is:  "Is information, as physical form, potential? -- or emergent upon having an effect? This formulation shows that there is no difference between these concepts.”
> 
> Joseph: HOW is it both? What does it mean “to be both” at the same time?
> 
> Stan: My “potential” refers to ‘in itself’, which (at any moment) is timeless, and is Krassimir’s “primary information”. While my “having an effect” refers to a particular moment when a primary physical form is acting, or being acted upon, when its form may have consequences, or become consequential. In this event its form generates “derived/secondary information".
> 
> Joseph: This is what requires explication and where I think Lupasco had something to offer, in his  basic principle of dynamic opposition (Stan: generating “derived/secondary information). This is no more and no less than that a falling object instantiates kinetic and potential energy at the same time (Stan: That is, its primary form still exists, even if deformed), except that real complex processes do not “fall to the bottom” (no 0 nor 1).
> 
> Stan:  Effects necessarily emerge from potentials (IF they emerge at all). But are both potential and emergent 'at the same time' only while the potential is unfolding: a physical situation embodies a potential, which can inform. When/if that potential unfolds the potential is realized, and emerges in its effects.
> 
> Joseph: I agree, but in my view your correct expression, “while the potential is unfolding” has two significant consequences: the process is neither instantaneous nor spontaneous. In the Lupasco view of dynamics, a potential ‘unfolds’ against some actual resistance to that unfolding, and the effects, in almost the same language, emerge, actualized, as a consequence of that opposition. The word “only” to modify “at the same time” is justified for simple processes which do go to an ideal limit of 0 or 1, not for complex, informational processes. Is there an ‘end’ to this dialogue?! And is information not present throughout it?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Joseph
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
>  <https://www.avast.com/antivirus>	
> L'absence de virus dans ce courrier électronique a été vérifiée par le logiciel antivirus Avast. 
> www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/antivirus>
> 
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> 
> -- 
> Jaime F. Cárdenas-García, PhD, PE
> JFCardenasGarcia en gmail.com <mailto:JFCardenasGarcia en gmail.com>
> (240) 498-7556 (cell)
> 
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