Trashing natural selection as a special case.

I strongly agree that "information of the non-Shannon type only makes sense with reference to a mind".  Think of mind doing things just like a body.

Let's agree to refer to information of the non-Shannon type, NS-information to help us move forward.

I would describe mind as an abstraction referring to information processing.

I view of your agreed on definition of NS-information, the above explanation of mind produces a circular definition.

Stephen, I am not trying to deliberately trip you up for the fun of it, I know that you idolise Prof Noble and his group and that you get your ideas from them. The TTW want to expose the shortcomings of neo-Darwinism without explaining what alternative there is within materialism!

Outside of Materialism, there is plenty of scope to explain evolution because you can then invoke some sort of design energy wherever you like.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the TTW likes to debate among themselves, rather than open the debate up to others. Do they have any videos where they open themselves up to potential critics? If there are not, you must surely admit that that doesn't look good for them!

David

Stephen, I am not trying to deliberately trip you up for the fun of it, I know that you idolise Prof Noble and his group and that you get your ideas from them. The TTW want to expose the shortcomings of neo-Darwinism without explaining what alternative there is within materialism!

I am not sure all the Third Way people are materialists?

Even some of the people @stephenw has posted aren't by necessity materialists?

A person can be non-materialist and still not believe in discarnate entities.

OTOH, there are people like me who do believe in discarnate entities not just in the past but existing now...yet I am still not sure there is a knock out argument for Intelligent Design?

Today modern science has developed a deep understanding of "Bodies" and the abstract term physical.  There is no magic in Physiology (note Dr. Noble).  Physical substances are defined and quantified.  The basic processes that are behind bodily functions, equally so.  The term "body" is fully characterized by physical processes.  The idea that there is any "perfect" magic substance is lost and people understand that their bodies are made only of known elements that were assimilated from the physical environment.  They understand that complex compounds are made creatively from only these elements, as functions of electrochemical regulation and development.  This is the transformational view of modern science.  The chemistry of bodies is a subset of basic chemicals in the environment.

I don't think this assessment of the physical is accurate, given the perpetual mystery of what matter is and - as per Feynman - the circularity in trying to define "forces". [See Chomsky's critiques of the "body" in the mind-body problem.]

There's also a few other issues such as the way the study of the physical ends up opening up the door back to mind as a possibility and the under-to-non explanation of Causality in the sciences. [Referring to QM interpretations and Cosmic Tuning, and to a degree the possibility of Intelligent Design which does seem to be gaining some traction.]

The abstract term mind has the same trajectory, but developed more recently.  It still includes, in the public worldview, magical experiences.  While I think these are very valid experiences, in science fields these are not part of the whole.  Many scientists and theorists are happy for these experiences to be part of spiritual phenomena and leave mind to science.  I am one of those.

Given the above shortfalls in the hard sciences mentioned above, I would say it isn't clear mind as the same trajectory unless we're talking about the failures of the hard sciences to genuinely grasp what the phenomena under study actually are.

There isn't really a way to quantify Subjectivity/Intentionality/Reason, which only deepens the mystery of Causation given that even *if* the hard sciences had a genuine explanation of causality the way Mental Causes and supposedly Non-mental causes relate would remain mysterious.

However, I do think the ability to model some aspects of the mental and whatever the "physical" is supposed to be has had obvious successes. And I think, in terms of actual long term prospects of acceptance of Psi, that Information Science will be an important role.

When reading your responses, you don't seem to understand my points, yet feel free to try to dictate my choices of explanations.  Darwin included Lamarckian adaptation in his theory.   That is when an organism is adapting purposefully to identifiable challenges in their environment.  That was explained well - by Dr. Noble, if you listened to the link from David.  I, in no uncertain terms, reiterate that I reject undirected bio-evolution!!!!  Why do you keep saying things like I am promoting it???

Your post that I responded to is quite ambiguous and hard to interpret, which is why I tried to boil it down to a concrete question. I did so, but to no avail. I guess I'll have to dissect and examine at least your beginning statement at length to try to explain why I asked my question.

The beginning of your statement was as follows: 

"My stance is that living things perform information processing that exhibits intelligence.  I may endorse a designer that designs top-level systems that support and promote intelligence in living things.  This removes the need for (most) direct interaction at the physical level, but focuses on evolution at deeply spiritual levels.  To accept this, one loses the magical and embraces Heavenly Design beyond human thought." 

I would interpret these words as meaning that first, living things perform intelligent information processing. This is obvious for certain living things, namely conscious human beings via their brains and intellects. It is not obvious and probably not the case for most lower forms of life in particular single celled organisms.

Then you say that you may (or evidently may not) promote some sort of designer that designs top-level systems that support and promote intelligence in living organisms. Since this statement is qualified it is kind of meaningless. Either you do or you don't. Also with this statement, what these "top-level systems" are is left unexplained, and it beats me. A "system" top level or not does not constitute consciousness, as revealed by the well-known Hard Problem of consciousness. And it is quite evident from the manifold failures of materialist RM+NS neo-Darwinism that conscious intelligence is needed to design living organisms. So these "top-level systems" can't even in principle remove the necessity for a conscious intelligence in the design of life.

I suppose the meaning here was to propose that somehow the complex irreducibly complex designs of living organisms are supposed to have naturally "emerged" from the basic laws of physics laid down by the Deity, not requiring intermediate conscious intelligent designer(s). If this is what was meant, it would have been good to have clarified the statement. In any case, such a suggestion has flaws too numerous to mention here.

Since the nature of this designer and these "top-level systems" is left unexplained, how this eliminates the need for the magical and embraces Heavenly Design is not apparent at all. What do you mean by "the magical"? I might imagine that this is supposed to be the usually proposed by ID advocates Intelligent Design by some undefined conscious highly intelligent agent(s). Is this the case? If so, then you mean that the only required intelligence is the ultimate Divine act creating everything in the beginning. But wait a minute, this actually requires a sort of magic: the magical creation out of no organized information of the vast amounts of functional complex specified information constituting the structures of living organisms. As I previously mentioned, this would amount to a vast amount of organized information somehow spontaneously appearing out of essentially nothing information-wise. 

You see how difficult it is to understand your post.

I would interpret these words as meaning that first, living things perform intelligent information processing. This is obvious for certain living things, namely conscious human beings via their brains and intellects. It is not obvious and probably not the case for most lower forms of life in particular single celled organisms.

Not only that, but since Stephen agreed that NS-information can only be discussed in relation to a mind, and single celled organisms don't have a mind, it makes no sense to talk of lower forms of life processing information!

The frustration I feel is that I am pretty sure Prof Noble knows damn well what he is doing! He knows it is logically wrong, but he wants to cover the laudable efforts of the TTW to demonstrate shortcomings in RM+NS.

So we have one group of scientists discussing this topic by creating an artificial soup of non-logic, while another group (the ID folk) tell the story as it is, except that some of them like to bring Yahweh into the story!

Stephen, definitions have to form a hierarchy. If NS-information is defined in relation to a mind, then it makes no sense to talk about NS-information in contexts where there isn't a mind!

David

I don't think this assessment of the physical is accurate, given the perpetual mystery of what matter is and - as per Feynman - the circularity in trying to define "forces". [See Chomsky's critiques of the "body" in the mind-body problem.]

There's also a few other issues such as the way the study of the physical ends up opening up the door back to mind as a possibility and the under-to-non explanation of Causality in the sciences. [Referring to QM interpretations and Cosmic Tuning, and to a degree the possibility of Intelligent Design which does seem to be gaining some traction.]


Given the above shortfalls in the hard sciences mentioned above, I would say it isn't clear mind as the same trajectory unless we're talking about the failures of the hard sciences to genuinely grasp what the phenomena under study actually are.

There isn't really a way to quantify Subjectivity/Intentionality/Reason, which only deepens the mystery of Causation given that even *if* the hard sciences had a genuine explanation of causality the way Mental Causes and supposedly Non-mental causes relate would remain mysterious.

However, I do think the ability to model some aspects of the mental and whatever the "physical" is supposed to be has had obvious successes. And I think, in terms of actual long term prospects of acceptance of Psi, that Information Science will be an important role.

Well you have me going in two directions.   Do I defend physicality and the empirical data backing math relations?  Or, the kick in the personals with a challenge to quantification of "Subjectivity/Intentionality/Reason"?

I will let the empirical data and the math relations of chemistry and physics fend for themselves.  Physical objects are understood at subconscious levels and in the common view are pretty secure in their role and expected transformations.  Since I have stripped them of their magic and assigned their "essences" to the informational environment, pragmatically they "work" in applied uses.

Quantification of information spaces/actions is a topic I am poorly qualified to defend.  That said, if reason is based on logic - then it is well modeled and yes/no answers to careful propositions is pretty secure.  Just like a definition of the physical is tied to an innate understanding of objects, so is an understanding (for me anyway) of information objects. 

Here is my rallying cry.  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3839564

   Third, it is suggested that an ontology of structural objects for OSR can reasonably be developed in terms of informational objects, and that Object Oriented Programming provides a flexible and powerful methodology with which to clarify and make precise the concept of “informational object”. The outcome is informational realism, the view that the world is the totality of informational objects dynamically interacting with each other. 

The concept here is that a simulation and the real thing it models - while one is a source and the other made of mutual information abstracted from it  -  does have useful value in science and engineering.   A computer sim can copy and predict outcomes (to a limited degree) caused by intention and motivation.  Enough so, that they can be studied in a non-subjective framework.  Subjectivity - can be like a biological sim.  Personal experience is made from source sensations and living things have access to mutual information gained from the signals it captures.  Once the mutual information from the senses is combined with personal viewpoints - it is now a source that can be communicated.

I am not looking to answer metaphysical questions, but to nail down the pragmatic and coherent picture created from making information happen in a separate environment.

Well you have me going in two directions.   Do I defend physicality and the empirical data backing math relations?  Or, the kick in the personals with a challenge to quantification of "Subjectivity/Intentionality/Reason"?

I will let the empirical data and the math relations of chemistry and physics fend for themselves.  Physical objects are understood at subconscious levels and in the common view are pretty secure in their role and expected transformations.  Since I have stripped them of their magic and assigned their "essences" to the informational environment, pragmatically they "work" in applied uses.

Quantification of information spaces/actions is a topic I am poorly qualified to defend.  That said, if reason is based on logic - then it is well modeled and yes/no answers to careful propositions is pretty secure.  Just like a definition of the physical is tied to an innate understanding of objects, so is an understanding (for me anyway) of information objects. 

Here is my rallying cry.  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3839564

The concept here is that a simulation and the real thing it models - while one is a source and the other made of mutual information abstracted from it  -  does have useful value in science and engineering.   A computer sim can copy and predict outcomes (to a limited degree) caused by intention and motivation.  Enough so, that they can be studied in a non-subjective framework.  Subjectivity - can be like a biological sim.  Personal experience is made from source sensations and living things have access to mutual information gained from the signals it captures.  Once the mutual information from the senses is combined with personal viewpoints - it is now a source that can be communicated.

I am not looking to answer metaphysical questions, but to nail down the pragmatic and coherent picture created from making information happen in a separate environment.

Nailed it!

Well you have me going in two directions.   Do I defend physicality and the empirical data backing math relations?  Or, the kick in the personals with a challenge to quantification of "Subjectivity/Intentionality/Reason"?

I will let the empirical data and the math relations of chemistry and physics fend for themselves.  Physical objects are understood at subconscious levels and in the common view are pretty secure in their role and expected transformations.  Since I have stripped them of their magic and assigned their "essences" to the informational environment, pragmatically they "work" in applied uses.

Quantification of information spaces/actions is a topic I am poorly qualified to defend.  That said, if reason is based on logic - then it is well modeled and yes/no answers to careful propositions is pretty secure.  Just like a definition of the physical is tied to an innate understanding of objects, so is an understanding (for me anyway) of information objects. 

Here is my rallying cry.  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3839564

The concept here is that a simulation and the real thing it models - while one is a source and the other made of mutual information abstracted from it  -  does have useful value in science and engineering.   A computer sim can copy and predict outcomes (to a limited degree) caused by intention and motivation.  Enough so, that they can be studied in a non-subjective framework.  Subjectivity - can be like a biological sim.  Personal experience is made from source sensations and living things have access to mutual information gained from the signals it captures.  Once the mutual information from the senses is combined with personal viewpoints - it is now a source that can be communicated.

I am not looking to answer metaphysical questions, but to nail down the pragmatic and coherent picture created from making information happen in a separate environment.

@Brian n"#82


Brian and Stephen, can you relate all this to the fact that Stephen already acceded to - that the concept of NS-information only makes sense in relation to a mind?

David

@Brian n"#82


Brian and Stephen, can you relate all this to the fact that Stephen already acceded to - that the concept of NS-information only makes sense in relation to a mind?

David

My understanding of the subject isn't as advanced as Stephen's but I imagine that from the basic information field itself, the link between mind and matter isn't linear.  I imagine mind is a more fundamental form of information than matter but I don't imagine a linear cause between them.  I see them as an integrated part of the whole that functions as a whole and that our polarizing and general separating of things is only useful if the information we gain from it is reapplied to the whole. I hope I have understood your question correctly.

Well you have me going in two directions.   Do I defend physicality and the empirical data backing math relations?  Or, the kick in the personals with a challenge to quantification of "Subjectivity/Intentionality/Reason"?

So are you taking a sort of "instrumentalist" approach here, and the "physical" is the set of observations that lead to applicable science?

Not really sure what a challenge to quantification of "Subjectivity/Intentionality/Reason"? means to be honest.

I will let the empirical data and the math relations of chemistry and physics fend for themselves.  Physical objects are understood at subconscious levels and in the common view are pretty secure in their role and expected transformations.  Since I have stripped them of their magic and assigned their "essences" to the informational environment, pragmatically they "work" in applied uses.

I don't see how one can assign essences, given the information we gain is relational. As per Smolin:

"We don't know what a rock really is, or an atom, or an electron. We can only observe how they interact with other things and thereby describe their relational properties.


Perhaps everything has external and internal aspects. The external properties are those that science can capture and describe - through interactions, in terms of relationships. The internal aspect is the intrinsic essence, it is the reality that is not expressible in the language of interactions and relations."

Or are you saying that, as per your concluding statement below, that by assigning essences you accept that "information" is based on utility and not determining what the "Ground of Reality" consists of?

Is information a useful means of modeling events that allows continuity between the "physical" and "mental", as in "the difference that makes a difference"? Or does information precede both the categories of the Dualist in a Neutral Monist sense?

Maybe a better way to pose this question is to ask are you an Information Realist?

Quantification of information spaces/actions is a topic I am poorly qualified to defend.  That said, if reason is based on logic - then it is well modeled and yes/no answers to careful propositions is pretty secure.  Just like a definition of the physical is tied to an innate understanding of objects, so is an understanding (for me anyway) of information objects. 

Regarding the "based on logic" part - The challenge for me is Nagel's question about what is the "groundless ground of Reason"? It seems to me this is part of the Hard Problem when it's split into the aforementioned Subjectivity/Intentionality/Reason.

Here is my rallying cry.  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3839564

The concept here is that a simulation and the real thing it models - while one is a source and the other made of mutual information abstracted from it  -  does have useful value in science and engineering.   A computer sim can copy and predict outcomes (to a limited degree) caused by intention and motivation. 

So a limited model that by its nature cannot grasp the causal roots....correct?

Enough so, that they can be studied in a non-subjective framework.  Subjectivity - can be like a biological sim.  Personal experience is made from source sensations and living things have access to mutual information gained from the signals it captures.  Once the mutual information from the senses is combined with personal viewpoints - it is now a source that can be communicated.

We can assign some probabilities to the relations, like they do in marketing plans on who will buy what, but we aren't solving the Hard Problems of Consciousness and Causality?

Which is fine, Information doesn't have to be "stuff". I am just trying to first grasp what Information is to you, though I do agree the opportunities that the concept of Information has for the sciences - including parapsychology - is vast.

I am not looking to answer metaphysical questions, but to nail down the pragmatic and coherent picture created from making information happen in a separate environment.

I confess I am not sure what this means. What does the "separate environment" refer to? Is the original environment the physical, and the separate one the mental?