<p dir="ltr">Dear FISers, </p>
<p dir="ltr">I recently came across an old interview to W. van Orman Quine and I got an idea -maybe not very original per se. Quine distinguishes two kind of philosophical problems: ontological (those referred to the existence of things) and predicative (what can we say and know about things). Against Quine materialism I came across the idea that ontological problems are undecidable -I think of Turing's Halting problem. The fact is that we cannot leave the predicative realm. All we have as scientists is scientifical statements (therefore I think of Science as a communicative social system differentiated from its environment by means of a code -I think Loet would agree with me in this point). As a system (I mean not the social system, but the set of statements taken as a unity) they all are incomplete. There are many ways to deal with it, as logicians have shown (in this point I confess I would need to examine carefully B. Marchal's ideas. I think I have many points of agreement with him but also of disagreement -but honestly I currently lack the knowledge to undertake a thorough discussion). Self-reference, I think, is one of the most coherent ways to deal with it. But this means we have to learn to deal with paradoxes. <br>
Accordingly, as information theorist we would need to identify the constitutive paradox of information and next unfold that paradox in a set of statements that represent what we know about information. The problem is that although we can have the intuition that information is real, physical as has been said, it cannot be proved. An external reference like "reality ", if we look carefully, acts as regulatory function within the system. I remember that in the "Science of the Society", Luhmann devised the concept of consistency proofs (Konsistenzprüfung).But reality as such, the Ding an sich, is inaccessible. In conclusion, Quine would say that we should not be asking us a question that cannot be answered. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Best,</p>
<p dir="ltr">JJ</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">El may 16, 2018 11:24 PM, "Burgin, Mark" <<a href="mailto:mburgin@math.ucla.edu">mburgin@math.ucla.edu</a>> escribió:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Dear FISers,<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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).<br>
<br>
Now assuming that information exists, we have only one option,
namely, to admit that information is physical because only physical
things exist.<br>
If we assume that there are two worlds - information is physical,
we have three options assuming that information exists:<br>
- information is physical<br>
- information is mental<br>
- information is both physical and mental <br>
<br>
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:<br>
- information is physical<br>
- information is mental<br>
- information is structural <br>
- information is both physical and mental <br>
- information is both physical and structural <br>
- information is both structural and mental <br>
- information is physical, structural and mental <br>
<br>
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 <b>energy</b>, in the mental
world, it is called <b>mental energy</b>, and in the world of
structures, it is called <b>information</b> (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.<br>
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.<br>
Besides, it is possible to call all three faces of information by
the name energy - physical energy, mental energy and structural
energy.<br>
<br>
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<br>
<b> Is information physical?</b><br>
and publish it in his esteemed Journal.<br>
<br>
Sincerely,<br>
Mark Burgin<br>
<br>
<div class="m_-6888820020232975365moz-cite-prefix">On 5/11/2018 3:20 AM, Karl Javorszky
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="auto">Dear Arturo,
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">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.</div>
<div dir="auto">(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.)</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">They then said, that in some cases it was
indistinguishable, whether a human or a machine provides the
answer to a patient's elucidations. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">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. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">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. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">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. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Karl </div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr"> <<a href="mailto:tozziarturo@libero.it" target="_blank">tozziarturo@libero.it</a>>
schrieb am Do., 10. Mai 2018 15:24:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p style="margin-top:0px" dir="ltr">Dear Bruno, <br>
You state: <br>
"IF indexical digital mechanism is correct in the
cognitive science,<br>
THEN “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical
term, i.e. “physical” becomes a mathematical notion.<br>
...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".</p>
<p dir="ltr">The problem of your account is the following:<br>
You say "IF" and "indexical digital mechanism is the
HYPOTHESIS".<br>
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.<br>
In other words, your "IF" stands for something that
possibly does not exist in our real world. Here your
entire building falls down. <br>
</p>
<div id="m_-6888820020232975365m_1048372877214317129mail-app-auto-default-signature">
<p dir="ltr">--<br>
Inviato da Libero Mail per Android</p>
</div>
giovedì, 10 maggio 2018, 02:46PM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal <a href="mailto:marchal@ulb.ac.be" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"><a class="m_-6888820020232975365moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:marchal@ulb.ac.be" target="_blank">marchal@ulb.ac.be</a></a>:<br>
<br>
<blockquote id="m_-6888820020232975365m_1048372877214317129mail-app-auto-quote" style="border-left:1px solid #85af31;margin:0px 0px 0px 10px;padding:0px 0px 0px 10px" cite="http://15259565360000035165">
<div class="m_-6888820020232975365m_1048372877214317129js-helper m_-6888820020232975365m_1048372877214317129js-readmsg-msg">
<div>
<div id="m_-6888820020232975365m_1048372877214317129style_15259565360000035165_BODY">
<div class="m_-6888820020232975365m_1048372877214317129class_1525973693">
<div>(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?”.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
Dear Mark, Dear Colleagues,
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Apology for not answering the mails in the
chronological orders, as my new computer
classifies them in some mysterious way!</div>
<div>This is my first post of the week. I might
answer comment, if any, at the end of the week.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On 25 Apr 2018, at 03:47, Burgin, Mark
<<a href="mailto:mburgin@math.ucla.edu" rel=" noopener noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">mburgin@math.ucla.edu</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="m_-6888820020232975365m_1048372877214317129Apple-interchange-newline_mailru_css_attribute_postfix">
<div>
<p style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Dear
Colleagues,</p>
<p style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">I
would like to suggest the new topic for
discussion</p>
<p style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"> <wbr>
Is information physical?<br>
</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>That is an important topic indeed, very
close to what I am working on. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My result here is that </div>
<div><b><u><br>
</u></b></div>
<div><b><u>IF</u></b> indexical digital
mechanism is correct in the cognitive
science, </div>
<div><b><u><br>
</u></b></div>
<div><b><u>THEN</u></b> “physical” has to be
defined entirely in arithmetical term, i.e.
“physical” becomes a mathematical notion.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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").</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The basic idea is that:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>1) no universal machine can distinguish
if she is executed by an arithmetical
reality or by a physical reality. And,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>2) all universal machines are executed in
arithmetic, and they are necessarily
undetermined on the set of of all its
continuations emulated in arithmetic. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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!).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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).</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<p style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">My
opinion is presented below:<br>
</p>
<div style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br class="m_-6888820020232975365m_1048372877214317129webkit-block-placeholder_mailru_css_attribute_postfix">
</div>
<div style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br class="m_-6888820020232975365m_1048372877214317129webkit-block-placeholder_mailru_css_attribute_postfix">
</div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Consolas;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span><span> </span>Why
some people erroneously think that
information is physical</span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Consolas;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span><span> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Consolas;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span><span> </span>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.</span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Consolas;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span><span> </span>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.</span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Consolas;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span><span> </span>However,
letters, electromagnetic waves and
actually all physical objects are only
carriers or containers of information.</span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Consolas;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span><span> </span>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.</span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Consolas;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span><span> </span>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.</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Consolas;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span></span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Consolas;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span><span> </span>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.</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>OK. I think all intellect can do that,
not just he human one.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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”.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best regards,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Bruno</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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