Paul,
"the ony meaningful definition of information is that which is a representation of something else."
As you can see from my essay, I am a great believer in the importance of representation: I spent almost all my professional life developing one. I also believe in the idea of "information" as contained in the representation.
But the central question of representation can only be approached scientifically via a representational *formalism*.
Lev
"But the central question of representation can only be approached scientifically via a representational *formalism*."
Not so. A representation is a represenation of something else. In discerning that something is a representation in the first place, and then determining whether it is a valid representation, one needs the something else which it is representing. As with information, you are applying this concept to everything, which is not the case, as I have just said in Vladimirs blog. Something is either existent or it is not. If it is, that is not inherently information. It may inform us, but that is irrelevant. We may construct a model to represent it, but that is irrelevant too, because it is a model, noit reality. It is whatever it is. The only correct application of the notion of information is in the context of light, etc. Because whilst that is physically existent, it is also a representation of something else that is physically existent.
Paul
Paul,
I'm quite curious about your view on the following.
Are you comfortable with the radically new way you propose to do science by "talking" rather than relying on some kind of formal language (as has been practiced for millennia now)? As you know, English or any other spoken language are very imprecise 'tools'.
Lev
No. In terms of representational devices narrative is a real problem. One can have a certain set of agreed terms etc, but after that I think only maths can cope with the complexity and precision necessary. In terms of methodology, calssification systems/models are fine, so long as they correspond with physical existence as it occurs.
What I am drawing attention to is what physical existence is, and how it must occur, which then means certain rules must be adhered to in a science which examines it. In simple language, what is now, somewhat derogatorilly referred to as 'classical' has not been properly understood and taken to its logical conclusion (ie sequence of disrete definitive physically existent states). It has been left at the ontologically incorrect everyday usage mode (ie it changes). This has resulted, along with the apparent outcomes of experimentation, even though experimentation could never differentiate such states, in the development of an alternative view (relativity, QM, spacetime). Which presumes some form of indefiniteness in physical existence. That is impossible. The contradiction is then 'resolved' by such mechanisms as observer intervention, and ever increasingly bizarre concepts, even that physical existence can occur out of sequence order, for example.
I have no doubt that despite this, much of the content of what has been discovered is valid. What needs to happen is that that must be re-ordered into a context of a physical existence where these false notions that it involves relativity, indefiniteness, time, have been eradicated.
Will that happen? Doubt it. Even I have been stunned by the inertia created by the status quo. People will engage in differences of detail, presuming the status quo, but not the status quo itself. However, it givesme something to do in the early hours as I do not sleep well.
Paul
Lev, first my sincere condolences.
Now to your essay, you rightly point out the ambiguity in the word information. A "information overload" is nothing more than an observation overload, nature cannot be overloaded with information.
Your section 1 and 2, I can follow and can agree with but then I get lost in trying to understand your ETS concept, the beers and wine I had this Sunday lunch do not make it easier, so I will have to come back
Thanks, Anton!
And the occasional "beers and wine" help to keep us sane in this, still quite 'primitive', society. ;-))
Update on the essay's community scores received so far:
3, 1, 10, 2, 6, 5, 5
Paul,
In view of your interests, I want to recommend an excellent book (that I have)-- "The Nature of Physical Existence" by Ivor Leclerc. You can buy it from one of the online bookstores (Amazon or AbeBooks).
An interesting development: for 'obvious' (?) reasons, FQXi community page (http://fqxi.org/community) already for quite some time now has stopped displaying the accepted essays (from this contest), as it did for the first several weeks.
Lev
OK, but I expect some proper two way dialogue once I have read this and presumably comment on it. Which is another way of saying I am not sure why you cannot address the content of what I am saying now, rather than suggesting I read a book first.
Paul
Lev
Given your comments in the thread which announced this essay competition, I could hazard a guess at what you are alluding to, but do you want to spell it out? I think those of us who took the time to write something, and those who then make an effort to generate proper debate need an 'insider's' view, and if necessary a change to the rules. I made a comment in response to your post, ie that very little in the way of debate would ensue, mostly 'nice essay, by the way in my essay...'. There is another fascinating correlation you can follow, which is ratio of posts to ratings.
Paul
Lev
Hmmm, this is estimated to take a month to ship.
Paul
Paul, I didn't mean this book as necessarily related to our discussion.
My dear ladies and gentlemen, the circus, or the show, must go on :-)) :
3, 1, 10, 2, 6, 5, 5, 1
Lev
I guessed that from the title, I thought commenting on it might illuminate what I am saying. Frankly I do not expect it to enable any improvement on what I already know, but I thought it was disrespectful to ignore your suggestion (the last one was Ray Munroe & Whitehead). The point is that I have developed a generic statement on the logic of physical reality (somewhat obviously, given my posts). It is easy, especially without 'baggage'. It can be expressed succinctly in a page and certainly does not take more than 15 to encompass all the angles.
I must stress the word generic, ie a logical statement of the physical circumstance. I am not interested in philosophy. And obviously what actually manifests is physics.
Paul
Hello Lev -- There's nothing intentional happening, so if there's a bug, we should try to fix it. Can you explain more what you mean---what list exactly are you looking at?
Brendan, I noticed that several weeks ago you stopped posting essay's heading (with parts of the abstracts) on your community page, and I wonder why.
Lev,
Your essay is certainly food for thought. The connections between these I think call for a type of mathematics involving systems of differential forms. These differential forms compute quantum numbers or ∫_aω = ∫_vdω = n, where a is the boundary of v. The differential form is evaluated on a basis of elements. However, these elements could be more general, forming the connections in these circuit diagrams between these "primitives."
Cheers LC
Hi Lawrence,
Good to see you participating in this contest also! And thanks for your interest.
However, Lawrence, you missed my important warning in the middle of p. 4 ;-) :
"Warning: The main difficulty for a scientifically mature reader is not to fall into the trap of the powerful habit of automatically interpreting the information presented (of necessity) in the pictorial form in a "familiar" way, independent of the main text.
This idea I spun off was nothing serious, but something that seems parallel. Your "cirucit diagrams" that connect this primitives appears similar to some representations of tensors and components of differential forms.
The one point where things seem most uncertain in your essay is with your discussion on quantum mechanics. Of course your presentation is rather brief, so I suppose there are some deeper elements to this.
Cheers LC