Re: Life has no intrinsic interest in information...

r norman wrote:
On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:20:30 +1000, John Wilkins <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

In article <kmbfa5t149tf210mced1vp9at5pis34hv6@xxxxxxx>, r norman
<r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:04:37 +1000, John Wilkins
<john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <lo8fa51krmcvc7eajasjfimf7aq3pf99h2@xxxxxxx>, r norman
<r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:14:27 +1000, John Wilkins
<john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<0a1caacc-3b34-49eb-b8aa-d08041993dfa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
odin <odinoodin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

You can have a large amount of water, where it might have no
obvious effect that is important or meaningful to you, like on
another planet. Or you can have a small amount of water in your
windpipe during a water boarding session that is very important
or meaningful to you. Or you could have a small amount of water
in your canteen while you are lost in the Gobi desert that is
very important or meaningful to you. Information is like water.
The measurement of information is not is not the same as the
significance, meaningfulness or utility of that information.
And often information is meaningful to you when you least
expect it, as demonstrated in the Chaos Theory. Where do people
like SpinMeister get the idea that there is some magical force
that drives evolution towards greater information content. If a
mutation resulted in a reduction in information (what ever that
might mean) made that mutation would gain in frequency as a
result of natural selection. Life has no monopoly on
information.


It is, I believe, a holdover of Aristotelian hylomorphism; which
is the view that what makes things what they are is their form,
impressed on the substance (hyle means matter and morphe means
form). Information is just Aristotelian form (it "in-forms"
matter).

This has been in retreat and redefinition for decades, at least
since Dalton, but it is a pernicious philosophy that bolsters,
among other things, finalism, or the view that things are what
they are for a purpose or goal.

IMO there is no inherent information in anything; it's all an
artifact of the observers.

Of course. Without an observer we all (along with the rest of the
universe) would be simply a mass of uncollapsed wave functions!

The notion of information is a convenient and exceptionally
useful way of explaining why a specific pattern or organization
of matter has one effect on a system (a receiver) whereas a
different pattern or organization of exactly the same physical
matter with, to the best of our knowledge, an exactly equal
energy configuration has a very different effect. This latter
stipulation is to avoid your otherwise inevitable rejoinder about
the notion that everything is just a configuration of quarks and
leptons.

That many people write incredible nonsense about information and
its role in biological systems does not alter its place. Many
people write incredible nonsense about everything.

A lot of people say incredible nonsense about wave functions,
too...

Kodaly explained why his Hary Janos suite begins with a musical
sneeze: it is an affirmation of the truth of the accompanying
material. Hence my rather whimsical and offhand "sneeze" to begin
my post.

You, as a philosopher, are rightly concerned with making careful
distinctions between what really goes on in the world we inhabit and
what we say about what really goes on to let us make some sense of
it all.

I, as a scientist, am only concerned with making some sense of it.
If "information" and "emergence" help in that task, then fine. Do
they really "exist"? I'll let you worry about that part.

Ta. It is my observation that most scientists will make use of
anything they can to pursue a problem, ranging from alchemy to
algebra. This doesn't mean the operational tools that have utility
are representing anything real. Information is a mathematical
construct.

It seems like we have gone around on this a few dozen times before. It
seems to me that all of fundamental physics is a mathematical
construct. Or rather, different ideas about fundamental physics,
whether strings or wave functions or curved space-time are different
types of mathematical constructs. That is all we have.

In the past you also seemed to put some reality behind mathematical or
other forms of descriptive explanations relating to properties of
aggregate objects. Things like temperature or pressure or brittleness
or electrical conductivity. What about fitness? What about species?
Do these really exist in the objective universe or are they constructs
to help us understand what we observe? Or perhaps they are like what
we see in the mirror -- something that doesn't have any existence
whatsoever!

Interesting subject; I just can't wait for Ray to set it straight for us!

We all know we don't what day it is before Ray have told us.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Life has no intrinsic interest in information...
    ... water boarding session that is very important or meaningful to you. ... the substance (hyle means matter and morphe means form). ... of the observers. ... That many people write incredible nonsense about information and its ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Life has no intrinsic interest in information...
    ... amount of water in your windpipe during a water ... just Aristotelian form (it "in-forms" matter). ... all an artifact of the observers. ... That many people write incredible nonsense about ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Life has no intrinsic interest in information...
    ... Or you can have a small amount of water in your ... impressed on the substance (hyle means matter and morphe means ... artifact of the observers. ... I just can't wait for Ray to set it straight for us! ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Life has no intrinsic interest in information...
    ... Or you can have a small amount of water in your ... impressed on the substance (hyle means matter and morphe means ... artifact of the observers. ... I just can't wait for Ray to set it straight for us! ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Life has no intrinsic interest in information...
    ... water boarding session that is very important or meaningful to you. ... the substance (hyle means matter and morphe means form). ... That many people write incredible nonsense about information and its ...
    (talk.origins)
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