<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear Arturo, dear FISers,<div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On 08 Nov 2017, at 22:11, <a href="mailto:tozziarturo@libero.it">tozziarturo@libero.it</a> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>Dear FISers, </div><div><br></div><div>science talks about observables, i.e., quantifiable parameters. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I can't agree more. Science measure numbers, and infer relations among them. But we know also that untestable ideas can be powerful tool. Most progress in mathematics and physics have relied on the axiom of infinity in mathematics, or belief in a physical reality. So let us be precise that indirect testing should be allowed. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><br></div><div>Therefore, describing the word "information" in terms of philosophers' statements, hypothetical useless triads coming from nowhere, the ridicolous Rupert Sheldrake's account, mind communication, </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I can understand up to here.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>qualitative subjective issues of the mind, inconclusive phenomelogical accounts with an hint of useless husserlian claims, and such kind of amenities is simply: NOT scientific. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Hmm... I disagree. This is NOT scientific. A reasoning which takes into account the "qualitative issues of the mind" (which is rather normal when we discuss information in some larger sense than Shannon one) MIGHT (and SHOULD) have observable quantitative consequences. You talk like if that was impossible, without providing an argument, which would be refuted by my contribution. Even point in "theology" becomes testable, when the definitions and reasonings are made clear and precise enough (which is the case when we use the suitable hypothesis to do just that.</div><div><br></div><div>Here it seems to me that you throw out the baby with the water bath. You seem to ask for direct testability, which is close to metaphysical positivism (which has been logically refuted).</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>It could be interesting, if you are a magician or a follower of Ermetes Trismegistus, but, if you are (or you think to be) a scientist, this is simply not science. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>It is science if it leads to a simpler theory fitting with the quantitative facts, or a more complex theory, being alone to fit some known quantitative facts.</div><div>But of course, such theories should not deny known and admitted psychological realities; if not "information" itself stops to make any larger sense than the one in the theory of Shannon or of Feynman-Deutsch-Landauer-Zurek. In that case we might suspect the widespread confusion between physics, and metaphysical physicalism, which is not scientific.</div><div><br></div><div>When working on "information", a theory fitting with the quantitative facts, but not with "common" qualitative facts should be considered unscientific, because it denies undoubtable and important aspect of information and reality. It hides data.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>Such claims are dangerous, because they are the kind of claims that lead to NO-VAX movements, religious stuff in theoretical physics, Heideggerian metapyhsics. Very interesting, but NOT science. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>You might go a bit far on this. If you deny the use of the scientific method on the religious terrain, you condemn that domain to remain in the realm of the superstition. Also, some people talk like if the existence of primary matter was a scientific fact: this too is unscientific. If we want related information and reality, I doubt we can progress if we don't try to make clear the metaphysical assumptions. When clear enough, as my work illustrated, they become quantitatively testable. It is just an historical accident that theology has been separated from science, and we know that the goal was to prevent research and use only violence and argument per-authority. There is no reason to pursue that way. We must just ask politely people to indicate how their ideas can be tested, directly or indirectly, in case it is not clear.</div><div><br></div><div>Best Regards,</div><div><br></div><div>Bruno</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div> </div><div>That's all: 'nuff said. </div><div><br><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0cm; margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify; line-height:115%;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><font face="courier new, monospace"><b>Arturo Tozzi</b></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0cm; margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify; line-height:115%;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><font face="courier new, monospace">AA Professor Physics, University North Texas</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0cm; margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify; line-height:115%;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><font face="courier new, monospace">Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0cm; margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify; line-height:115%;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><font face="courier new, monospace">Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0cm; margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify; line-height:115%;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><font face="courier new, monospace"><a href="http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/" style="font-size: 14px; color: rgb(5, 68, 126); line-height: normal; text-align: start;">http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/</a><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"> </span></font><br></p></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Fis mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es">Fis@listas.unizar.es</a><br>http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis<br></blockquote></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><a href="http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/">http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/</a></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></div></body></html>