[Fis] Information in her natural habitat

[Karl Javorszky]

Ten Technical Points



Dear Friends,



The pandemic has blurred the common shared experience of what is FIS. It
used to be a nice forum to exchange views, meet colleagues and every other
year meet in person in a nice venue. That part is gone: only the stars
know, if and when actual congresses will take place.

Pedro’s wise leadership will introduce the next distinguished researcher,
who will direct our attention to that aspect of information which is at the
centre of their professional interest.

There being this intermittent time between sessions, let me pick up
Howard’s suggestion to present one’s planned contribution to the next
public event.

Information is present on so many levels in our life that a unified concept
will be a tiresome work of many details and clarifications necessary. It is
evident, also underlined by the last few contributions, that a global
change of perspectives is unavoidable so that we are able to put the idea
of information in a context. The general background is what we need, the
system of agreed-on axioms, against which the peculiarities and
particularities of information can be recognised. The overall picture needs
to be agreed on, like the agreements on the heliocentric view of the world
allowed more reasonable explanations than the geocentric one, the model of
space offered by Descartes allowed detailed definitions of geometry, the
relativity concept allowed conceptualising relations between place, time,
mass and speed.

Presently, we are again in a situation, where a (the) general picture of
the mental landscape needs to be redrawn, so that we can observe
information doing its work, in its many shapes, forms, realisations and
implications. Many years now we have been circling around that slimy beast,
information, encouraging each other to keep up the hunt, to make it
understandable, explainable, agreeable and measurable.

It seems that we have indeed reached a success in our endeavours. The
concept of information is, after all, nothing weird, strange or alien.  Our
only task is that we have to arrange the background before we can see the
animal in its natural habitat. Dim the lights, switch on the thermal
cameras and place suitable resonance sensors: then you can see information
gnawing on certainties, creating walls, burrowing out holes and
constructing connections. The habitat has to be recognised first, in which
information spends her working days and leisure nights.

Let me offer you 10 technical points which are a description of the
habitat. Other persons would formulate and group the aspects differently:
what this perspective offers you relies on, makes use of the grown
confidence among each other, that it is possible to speak to each other and
expect a cooperative intellectual attitude.

1) Descartes.

Change the traditional concept of 3 axes constituting 1 space into a
concept that consists of 3 parts. Two Descartes-type spaces are both
concurrently present. They sort of crowd each other out, being two
independently existing worlds consisting of sentences with syntaxes: *a=c-b,
b=c-a. *Insomuch and insofar as a sentence about *(a,b) *can have a
realisation in both ways of expressing it, the sentence can be a picture of
what is actually the case. (Illogical things do not exist, at least we
cannot speak about them.) Inasmuch and insofar the sentence about *(a,b)*
is, above and beyond being interpretable in both syntaxes, in agreement
also to *a+b=c, *the sentence can be a picture of something being the case
in the traditional, Descartes style space, too.

2. Intuitions, Suspicions and Anticipations

Logical relations can solidify (structure) out of the Ursuppe of logical
proto-relations and create a logical fact. If one has a chance of winning *x
*in a game using *k *cards, under different rules, *x *can be won in a game
using *(k-1,k,k+1) *cards. The rule and the amount determine together, how
many cards are needed. The circumstances created by logical relations can
be equivalent to the existence of a physical evidence.

3. In a sequence or contemporary

The dichotomy exists in our heads only. The two sets of properties are
deeply related. The difference is caused by what we use as background. When
doing comparisons (building linear sequences), we observe the diversity of
the objects before the background of the similarity of places; when
grouping similar objects together, we observe the similarity of the objects
within the groups against the background of the diversity of the groups
among each other.

4) Periodic changes

We live on a planet which is subject to periodic changes (year, day,
tides). The changes are each a resorting procedure. Two resorts are a
reorder.

5) Planes

Each element has a sequential place in both sorts of a reorder: the
positions in the linear orders are *(x,y)* coordinates on a plane, of which
the two axes are the sorts. During a reorder, each element has 1 place on a
plane.

6) Cycles

A reorder is a collection of cycles. Cycles of one reorder run
concurrently. There is always 1 element of a cycle, which is in the state
[position, plane] *now.*

7) Paths

The members of a cycle in a reorder have places on a plane depicting the
reorder. These points can be connected and the length of the *run *of the
cycle established. The *carry *of the cycle is the summation over values *(a,b)
*of the cycle.

8) Conflicts and Compromises

Reorders can run concurrently (and they do so, as we see organisms adapted
to periodic changes affecting our planet), as long as the constituent
cycles do not pose incompatible requirements on the elements partaking in
the cycles. There is a common currency for requirements relating to *(number
of similarity-based-statements **↔ number of diversity-based-statements **↔
number of objects). *There exists a *Translation Key *for the threesome.

9) Information

 Information is the deviation between expected value and observed value.
This presupposes the existence of an inbuilt slack within the numbering
system. There is indeed one such. Its short mnemonic is: *If 66 is in its
form [it is true about 66 that it is] 6 times 11, it has more than enough
space to fit it, if 66 is understood to be one assembly of 66, it will not
fit into its space. *Information is basically a running measurement on the
variants of interactions of members of an assembly, how much they are
similar and how much they are diverse among each other. If space is more
compartmented, fewer elements can be contemporary.

10) Cyclic combinatorics

We can confidently rearrange the stage background, there can be no danger
of insanity and madness if we do so, because that what we observe doing the
work of information processing in its natural habitat, is nothing but a
huge and complicated *truth table. *The results of the tautomatic
operations cannot be other than true, as they are simply operations on
natural numbers [actually, pairs of natural numbers]. The tautomat is
indeed a bit more complicated than a Boolean truth table, but it is
nevertheless a truth table. It may appear as a huge Tenguely machine, but
it is in fact only the ultimate Rubic cube, representing the states of a
finite automat.  The software systems of a hedge fond or of an airport are
more complicated than the tautomat. The basic concept is combinatorics,
with additive elements, which can be re-translated, depending on
circumstances and combinatorics, into similarities and diversities of
observed and of expected kinds, depending on the number of objects. These
are translatable into each other. The whole system is a kind of *perpetuum
mobile*, until it runs out of either similarities or diversities or
objects, and then it collapses or explodes. In the biologic context, the
hypothesis is offered, that inevitable local breakdowns, arising from
incompatibilities of requirements posed on elements of cycles during
reorders, which can no more be bridged over by compromises, result in the
ganglia in the form of an electric burst. Nature can very well use the
locality and the frequency pattern of electric discharges, each reflecting
a local breakdown of the system in the course of a reorder, as input in a
feedback loop, as signals. Systemic, predictable local breakdowns occur as
a feature of the system undergoing periodic changes: that there are
unexpectedly more of such under specific circumstances opens up a
practicable way to picturing adaptation.

Once we have a laboratory prototype of an assembly undergoing periodic
changes in a sustainable and stable manner, one can add features of
predictable local breakdowns and one has the first sensory organ
dispatching signals towards the brain.



Dear colleagues, thank you for thinking through this suggestion of a
general mental landscape. Please share your thoughts.

Karl
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