Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind

Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind

So-called “information realism” has some surprising implications

Bernardo Kastrup

The untenability of information realism, however, does not erase the problem that motivated it to begin with: the realization that, at bottom, what we call “matter” becomes pure abstraction, a phantasm. How can the felt concreteness and solidity of the perceived world evaporate out of existence when we look closely at matter?

To make sense of this conundrum, we don’t need the word games of information realism. Instead, we must stick to what is most immediately present to us: solidity and concreteness are qualities of our experience. The world measured, modeled and ultimately predicted by physics is the world of perceptions, a category of mentation. The phantasms and abstractions reside merely in our descriptions of the behavior of that world, not in the world itself.

Where we get lost and confused is in imagining that what we are describing is a non-mental reality underlying our perceptions, as opposed to the perceptions themselves. We then try to find the solidity and concreteness of the perceived world in that postulated underlying reality. However, a non-mental world is inevitably abstract. And since solidity and concreteness are felt qualities of experience—what else?—we cannot find them there. The problem we face is thus merely an artifact of thought, something we conjure up out of thin air because of our theoretical habits and prejudices.

Tegmark is correct in considering matter—defined as something outside and independent of mind—to be unnecessary baggage. But the implication of this fine and indeed brave conclusion is that the universe is a mental construct displayed on the screen of perception. Tegmark’s “mathematical universe” is inherently a mental one, for where does mathematics—numbers, sets, equations—exist if not in mentation?

Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind

So-called “information realism” has some surprising implications

Bernardo Kastrup

"However, a non-mental world is inevitably abstract."

I would ask Kastrup to explain this. Apparently he thinks this is some sort of an inexorable logical conclusion. 

"And since solidity and concreteness are felt qualities of experience—what else?—we cannot find them there."

Yes, all we know and perceive are ultimately experiences of mind. But the world does a pretty good job of acting like a true objective reality. How about a little abductive reasoning - there is certainly a preponderance of evidence that an objective reality exists. Of course, not proof of any sort.

"However, a non-mental world is inevitably abstract."

I would ask Kastrup to explain this. Apparently he thinks this is some sort of an inexorable logical conclusion. 

"And since solidity and concreteness are felt qualities of experience—what else?—we cannot find them there."

Yes, all we know and perceive are ultimately experiences of mind. But the world does a pretty good job of acting like a true objective reality. How about a little abductive reasoning - there is certainly a preponderance of evidence that an objective reality exists. Of course, not proof of any sort.

Probably best asked on his forum, but as per my reading of his writing he isn't denying an objective reality?

Couple related papers by physicist Markus Muller of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI):

Could the physical world be emergent instead of fundamental, and why should we ask? (short version)

In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a major prerequisite of any kind of scientific reasoning. However, here I argue that we should consider relaxing this assumption in a specific way in some contexts. Namely, there is a collection of open questions in and around physics that can arguably be addressed in a substantially more consistent and rigorous way if we consider the possibility that the first-person perspective is ultimately more fundamental than our usual notion of external world. These are questions like: which probabilities should an observer assign to future experiences if she is told that she will be simulated on a computer? How should we think of cosmology's Boltzmann brain problem, and what can we learn from the fact that measurements in quantum theory seem to do more than just reveal preexisting properties? Why are there simple computable laws of physics in the first place? This note summarizes a longer companion paper which constructs a mathematically rigorous theory along those lines, suggesting a simple and unified framework (rooted in algorithmic information theory) to address questions like those above. It is not meant as a "theory of everything" (in fact, it predicts its own limitations), but it shows how a notion of objective external world, looking very much like our own, can provably emerge from a starting point in which the first-person perspective is primary, without apriori assumptions on the existence of "laws" or a "physical world". While the ideas here are perfectly compatible with physics as we know it, they imply some quite surprising predictions and suggest that we may want to substantially revise the way we think about some foundational questions.

Law without law: from observer states to physics via algorithmic information theory

According to our current conception of physics, any valid physical theory is assumed to describe the objective evolution of a unique external world. However, this assumption is challenged by quantum theory, which suggests that physical systems should not always be understood as having objective properties which are simply revealed by measurement. Furthermore, as argued below, several other conceptual puzzles in the foundations of physics and related fields point to possible limitations of our current perspective and motivate the exploration of alternatives. Thus, in this paper, I propose such an alternative approach (related to Solomonoff induction) which starts with a (rigorously formalized) concept of "observer state" as its primary notion, and does not from the outset assume the existence of a "world" or physical laws. Using tools from algorithmic information theory, I show that the resulting theory predicts, as a consequence of this, that it appears to observers as if there is a world that evolves according to algorithmically simple, computable, probabilistic laws. In contrast to the standard view, objective reality is not assumed on this approach but rather provably emerges as an asymptotic statistical phenomenon. The resulting theory dissolves puzzles like cosmology's Boltzmann brain problem, makes concrete predictions for thought experiments involving the duplication and computer simulation of observers, and predicts novel phenomena such as "probabilistic zombies" governed by observer-dependent probabilistic chances. It identifies some phenomena of quantum theory (Bell inequality violation and no-signalling) as typical consequences of information-theoretic features of an agent's memory, and suggests that we shift our attention in the foundations of quantum mechanics from "what is really going on?" to questions about algorithms, causality and computational models.

I'll have to revisit the math at some point when I've reviewed the underlying subjects but the papers were still interesting.

edit:

Couple related papers by physicist Markus Muller of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI):

Could the physical world be emergent instead of fundamental, and why should we ask? (short version)


Law without law: from observer states to physics via algorithmic information theory


I'll have to revisit the math at some point when I've reviewed the underlying subjects but the papers were still interesting.

edit:

Another one of his papers:

Mind before matter: reversing the arrow of fundamentality

in this contribution to FQXi's essay contest 2018, I suggest that it is sometimes a step forward to reverse our intuition on "what is fundamental", a move that is somewhat reminiscent of the idea of noncommutative geometry. I argue that some foundational conceptual problems in physics and related fields motivate us to attempt such a reversal of perspective, and to take seriously the idea that an information-theoretic notion of observer ("mind") could in some sense be more fundamental than our intuitive idea of a physical world ("matter"). I sketch what such an approach could look like, and why it would complement but not contradict the view that the material world is the cause of our experience.

edit: Also a previous thread with physicists extrapolating on Wheeler's idea of "Law without Law"

Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind

So-called “information realism” has some surprising implications

Bernardo Kastrup

Philosopher Bernardo Kastrup is not the first to take a swipe at IR, as did John Searle, 5 years ago, when he challenged Luciano Floridi directly.

The back and forth is worth the read.  https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/12...tion-desk/


Here is the quote from Kastrup, where he sees Floridi's conceptualization of information as weak.
 

One assumes that serious proponents of information realism are well aware of this line of criticism. How do they then reconcile their position with it? A passage by Luciano Floridi may provide a clue. In a section titled “The nature of information,” he states:

“Information is notoriously a polymorphic phenomenon and a polysemantic concept so, as an explicandum, it can be associated with several explanations, depending on the level of abstraction adopted and the cluster of requirements and desiderata orientating a theory.... Information remains an elusive concept.” (Emphasis added.)

Such obscure ambiguity lends information realism a conceptual fluidity that makes it unfalsifiable. - Kastrup

I don't think Floridi was giving-up on the rapid evolution of ideas now formalizing the information sciences, he was just flatly reporting the state of affairs where the process started.  It is not for me to defend Kenneth Sayre, who coined the term Informational Realism in the book Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind; or Floridi's version of Informational Structural Realism.  Their published works speak for themselves.  

I will defend the the simple implication of IR, that is pragmatic and methodological.  Information Science practice measures and reports on information transformations as a separate level of activity and using different units of measure, than transformations that are strictly physical.  As scientific method, both levels of analysis are equal and valid avenues to understanding reality.  J. Searle in his key shot at Floridi's version of IR says

Information is not primary in the structure of reality; rather it is dependent on consciousness, just as consciousness itself is a biological phenomenon dependent on brain processes that are themselves dependent on more basic features of physics and chemistry.  John Searle in the above link

Searle is decades out of date - not knowing that micro-orgasmism are processing vast amounts of information - some that has semantic content that underlies functionality.  Yet they lack nerves, let alone brains.  The bio-information from the DNA/RNA/Ribosome systems run the organic chemistry processes.  Studying how physical and bio-informational activities work together - has lead to a hot streak of genetic insight into evolution.

Bernardo Kastrup addresses the part of information science that measures syntax and coding, the equations of C. Shannon measuring information transfer - MTC  (mathematical theory of communication).

 Our intuitive understanding of the concept of information—as cogently captured by Claude Shannon in 1948—is that it is merely a measure of the number of possible states of an independently existing system. As such, information is a property of an underlying substrate associated with the substrate’s possible configurations—not an entity unto itself. 

The math equations are clearly about the statistics of possible states.  I strongly disagree that the unit of measure of bits (binary digits) - is a property of material science configurations in substrates.  Although material properties like magnetic particles can be used store bits, the polarized ions are not connected to the message.

Information is objective and is bought and sold in real life.  Information gets "meaty" when messages, as information objects, change real world probabilities when they are mutually shared in environments.  Information is natural and it is about the real world probabilities for interactions, both internally and externally; and not within any abstract substrate.  This thinking best is exemplified in terms of G. Bateson's description of information as "a difference that makes a difference".

Bits make a difference when communicated!  Measuring these "difference makers",  is best done as seeing the substrate as a source, the system activity as a channel and the output of this system as being available to us as receivers.  When we measure the bits - testing and decoding experts are not usually measuring the physicality of the source/substrate but are looking for an encoded affordance or a message.  Hence, any substrate, can carry a message that is different in meaning and independent of its physicality.  

The red light from a bulb can be measured as to its physical properties, such as wave length.  However, if the bulb is in a signal light at an intersection - the decoding key is located in your state's DMV manual as instruction to stop!

The possible states of information that are measured as probable outcomes, are mostly messages that are meaningful to living things.  In measuring the structures that "work" in communication such as signs, symbols and tokens - biology has opened new doors as to how to understand informational processes and how nature wields them with awesome skill.

I am a "glass half-full" kinda guy, about the progress science is making in tracking how natural information is as influential in its own context as are chem and physics labs in theirs.  There is nothing wrong with a materialist view of a problem.  It would help find a short in an electronic device.  Not so much, for finding a software issue, where an information science view is as helpful in its own informational space.  For me - informational realism is an applied science outlook where mutli-level approaches and non-linear thinking can be very successful in understanding nature.

Hell --- a lot of the recent progress in physics - is really progress in information science, as quantum computation moves forward.  Governments aren't pouring all that money and effort into something that might not be real.

Couple related papers by physicist Markus Muller of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI):

Could the physical world be emergent instead of fundamental, and why should we ask? (short version)


Law without law: from observer states to physics via algorithmic information theory


I'll have to revisit the math at some point when I've reviewed the underlying subjects but the papers were still interesting.

edit:

Haven't finished watching this yet, but I think it goes along with this thought experiment I was thinking about while driving today... I'll call it double slit coffee:

Say Bob drives to work every day on either Route A which has a Starbucks or Route B which has a Dunkin Donuts and he gets coffee. Both routes are identical length and Bob likes to split up his cash evenly between the two. At 11:00 AM Bob looks at the Starbucks cup on his desk and recalls that he took Route A today. Now suppose Bob has a workplace accident 5 minutes later and gets amnesia and can't remember anything that happened earlier that day. Now since nothing else consequential happened along his drive and he paid cash and no one he knew recognized him and there were no other clues even Sherlock Holmes could use to determine which route Bob took, then the type of coffee cup Bob finds on his desk is a point on a probability function and he might actually have both a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup AND a Starbucks coffee cup. Or he might have neither. Bob might have gone Route A or Route B or he might have decided he need an extra kick that day and gone back through both. He might have two cups or one cup or none (He sometimes throws them away). So Bob's history includes a definite origin point at his house which he remembers and a 2nd point at his office later that day, but what happened in between is in superposition because it is sufficiently inconsequential as to be considered all 1 path.

So we can think of moments in time with high significance as being nodes and there are many paths existing between nodes and how wide the variance in path is determined by the degree to which things that happen are memorable and significant. The ambiguity surrounding everything as well as chaos theory mean that there is an "event horizon" beyond which we cannot be certain about exactly what happened or what will happen because many paths intersect the present point.

Anyway, carry on.