David Gould

I am not attributing anything mystical to it.
However, I think that as soon as you say 'we attribute meaning to it' where does the meaning that we attribute to it actually come from?

I do not actually think we are in disagreement here. However, I do think that information is more than us simply attributing meaning - I think that information exists outside of our attribution - and I do not think our attribution creates information...

For example, the information in the DNA of an acorn leads to an oak, given time and the right conditions. (and time and the right conditions is more 'information')

We do not have to be there for this to happen. Our assigning names and relationships to things does not create information - it merely helps us relate to information that I think already exists.

David Gould

I understand your point about keeping the meaning consistent.

However, I disagree that information can be destroyed. Shredding it merely makes it more difficult to access - the paper can be put back together with the input of some time and energy and thus the message is not lost.

I agree that there are examples (burning of the paper, for example) that would make it extremely difficult to reconstruct the message.

However, I do not see that it is impossible in principle as all physical processes are reversible.

Francois Tremblay

If we talk about language, it comes from the fact that we learned what these symbols mean in school. Nothing mystical about that either.


That's odd. How can the information exist without our cognition ? Take the letters on this screen. How, without language, could they be meaningful ? They are just odd patterns on a screen.

Perception is both dependant on the object perceived and the senses : I'd say much is the same for information.


In the case of DNA, one needs the reproductory system in order to give it meaning. If our reproductory system was any different, the meaning of the information contained in DNA would be different.

I understand your general point, though - that information can be used to non-volitional means also. It's a good point. But my basic definition remains (i.e. information as interpreted pattern).


I am not sure what the assignation of names and relationships has to do with the issue. Perhaps you could be more precise.

David Gould

I do not think that language is mystical, either -in fact, that is one of my points. Our words do not create information.

This is the example that I gave previously in the other thread:

A tree and the word 'tree'.

By assigning the word 'tree' to the object that is a tree, we have created a relationship. We have no created any new information - the word 'tree' still has a t and an r and two es in it and a tree still has the same charachteristics it had before we named it.

The only thing we did is create a relationship between them. We did not create any new information. The difference is that now the word 'tree' contains the information inherent to it and to the object tree and the object tree contains the information inherent to it and the word 'tree'.

That is my thesis - that information is never created or destroyed but simply changed.

I need to understand a lot more, though.

Francois Tremblay

A tree is not information, it's just a tree. No pattern of the tree's existence has any exterior meaning. Likewise, when you circumscribe a new concept (such as the concept designated by the word "tree"), you do not create new information, you create new means to deal with and create information.

David Gould

In what sense is a tree not information? It has a pattern to it, like a horse or the pattern in a human brain.

Are you saying that information only exists if there is intelligence to interpret it?

I find that pretty 'mystical' myself.

If there is a rock on the ground next to a stick and a hill next to a river and I point at the river and then at the stick and then at the mountain and then at the rock, have I created information?

I do not think so. I think that all I have done is create a relationship between two different sets of information.

I realise this is more opinion than debate but I wonder what example you can give of information creation?

excreationist

For information to be meaningful, there needs to be a decoding mechanism. So a set of encyclopedias is meaningless information unless someone can read them. The people who have learnt to read use part of their brain to make the shapes they read trigger hierarchies of concepts in their heads. So if it is talking about a tree, the person would imagine a generic tree which they had already learnt about.
So it takes a very complex mechanism to decode information.
Another example is a video cassette. It contains hundreds of thousands of images and hours of sound. This is just encoded as some magnetism. Without a decoding device there are no images or sound there.

excreationist

I don't think it's mystical, assuming that you're talking about less than human intelligence. e.g. bees - which can learn or be trained to associate visual data with food (and seek it).

It would require space in the brain to store or encode this relationship.

This isn't addressed to me, but I'll try and answer it anyway....
Let's say that the brain worked in a simpler way and it had a limited storage capacity, like a hard-drive. So when the person was born, the hard-disk would be fairly empty, and when they learn things - to extract large-scale patterns from their experiences and to associate things together - storage space was being used up. But that's not about creating information I guess...
Well what about this - let's say you combined a lot of memories to create a mythical creature -
e.g. a shynthigen. It might be green with purple stripes and have five legs and four heads. That's creating information I think...
Or say you're a computer manufacturer and you decide to make 4 GHz computers (rather than 2 GHz) - that is just recombining old patterns but the idea as a whole is unique - so that is kind of like new information.
Or you might be inventing the concept of heaven, a long time ago. You already knew about sickness and death and the concept of "absence", then you combined the patterns together and created the concept "an absence of sickness and death". So even though it involves the concept of eternity, which we haven't experienced directly, it is really just a reworking of old information.

Francois Tremblay

No, because these "patterns" are meaningless. Since they have no interpreted meaning, they cannot serve as information.


Not necessarily intelligence, as you pointed out in the DNA example. Don't tell me you forgot already ? (^_^)


How is it mystical ? Information is both contingent on the structure and the interpreter.

Just like perception is contingent on the object perceived and the sense modalities. Do you think perception is mystical ? No, it's a simple physical process.


The post you just made is such an example (^_^)

Mageth

No, because these "patterns" are meaningless. Since they have no interpreted meaning, they cannot serve as information.

There is much meaningful information one can garner from a tree, if you know what you're looking for and how to interpret it. For example, tree rings are full of information on age, growth rates, climate, fires, disease, infestations, etc. As another example, branch configuration may be used to interpret what the surrounding forest was like when the tree was growing; a tall, narrow tree typically grew in the midst of other trees, and a shorter, widespread tree grew in an isolated environment. A bent tree indicates prevailing wind direction. You can even examine a tree's leaves to determine the health of the tree, whether the previous spring was wet or dry, etc.

Similarly, practically everything in nature is chock full of such information waiting to be interpreted.

[ February 05, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>