What is Information?

[Gertie]

I'm a little confused as to why some of you feel the need to bend over backwards in order to require an interpreter to define information. I've seen "unexperienced information" and "potential information". It's seems obvious that there is something there that people refer to as information even if there is no interpretation. Otherwise this sentence makes no sense: "I know the information I need is in this book, but I don't understand Russian."

Also, I note that Philo_soph wasn't satisfied saying No audience = no information. It had to be "no information communicated", but then the statement isn't about information. The statement is about communication.

I guess it's fine to require an audience, but then I'm more interested in the proto-information. What is it that makes something proto-information?

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Think of information as ways of describing and communicating descriptions of actual stuff/events, rather than being actual stuff/events itself.

If the information you need in the Russian book is about how to mend a flat tyre for example, that means someone has used symbolic representations (Russian words) to describe actual stuff (tyres and tools and processes). And your problem is not knowing how these unfamiliar symbolic representations/descriptions relate to the actual stuff, so the information (description) isn't able to be communicated to you, only people who understand Russian.



Now if you happen to have a set of understandable instructions for responding to the symbolic representations (Russian words) appropriately, you could still mend the flat tyre without understanding what the symbols mean. That's the Chinese room computer, but Russian. The Russian Room computer could still function as if it understands the symbols/coded descriptions, just by following pre-set instructions of how to respond to specific symbols. But somewhere down the line there had to be a programmer who understood that what the symbols mean, who wrote the instructions to the computer giving the appropriate way to respond.


So where's the information in all that? It's in descriptions of stuff being communicated. So calling stuff and processes which aren't described (eg the big bang, stars forming) 'proto-information' seems inappropriate to me, because those things only became describable when conscious critters finally happened to come along. They were there regardless, doing their thing. And still would be whether we later described in them in symbols or not. Like the processes of photosynthesis are happening in my pot plant right now, whether I describe that process or not.

Information is to do with how we symbolically model the world, create coherent narratives, not the world itself. I think.

[JamesOfSeattle]

Philo_soph and Gertie, you both seem to want to confine your consideration of information to communicated information. This is fine as long as you understand that you are excluding the broader concept of information. But I think you need the broader understanding if you want to understand how the narrower concept of communicated symbolic information came to be, and in any case I think the OP is asking about the broader concept.

Instead of the example of the Russian book (which contains symbolic information) I could have said "I know this geologic formation (which contains indexical information) has the information I'm looking for (say, the age of.a fossil) but I don't know how to interpret it".

It makes complete sense to say there is information in the input, whether or not there is ever a system to interpret that information. In order to interpret the input information you need a system (geologist) which also contains separate information in the form of knowledge.

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[Philo_soph]

First, there is no broader perspective and we don’t confine ourselves to anything.
The question is not about input, output or even processing, because these things apply to both natural (rock formation) and artificial (computer system) entities. By refereeing to a geological interpretation, I try to show that there is no pre-existing prototype of information.

In both human communication and human-nature discovery, we have a “receiver” who interprets some signs in a meaningful way (information). My point is simple: whether we take internationally informative content (e.g. a book) or unintentionally informative entities (e.g. rock formation), we are producing the information “ourselves,” thus placing a “reader” or “receiver” in the center of information definition. That is, under any circumstances, information is valued by a receiver (so there is no Realistic basis behind information).

More specifically, the geological example shows the best test for evaluating the “reader-based” approach here. We totally removed a first-party (e.g. a writer) from the equation. But the reader/receiver still remains. In both communicative interaction and human-nature discovery, the ontological element of reading is present. So even if we remove “intention” from our definition, we still need an interpreter. That interpreter is a producer of narratives.

[JamesOfSeattle]

Philo_soph, I very much appreciate your patience. I think frustration is mounting in my desire to change your mind, and I fear that it may be starting to show in my tone.

I'm completely on board with what you are saying, with the obvious exception. You refer to a "receiver" who "interprets". What is your term for that which the receiver receives? And what term would you use for that same thing in the event that no receiver has received it?

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[Philo_soph]

No more terms is really needed. The framework, which is at least something we can evaluate, functions according to the conditions explained above. But those questions will open up subsidiary discussions. I would use Heidegger’s notion of unfoldment, something that is revealed to the subject who interprets (principles of phenomenology also apply here). If no one manages to interpret something, that thing remains as a "possible entity with potential information." Science is in fact a coherent system of ignorance which constantly tries tries to find potential information.

[Gertie]

James

Philo_soph and Gertie, you both seem to want to confine your consideration of information to communicated information. This is fine as long as you understand that you are excluding the broader concept of information. But I think you need the broader understanding if you want to understand how the narrower concept of communicated symbolic information came to be, and in any case I think the OP is asking about the broader concept.

Instead of the example of the Russian book (which contains symbolic information) I could have said "I know this geologic formation (which contains indexical information) has the information I'm looking for (say, the age of.a fossil) but I don't know how to interpret it".

It makes complete sense to say there is information in the input, whether or not there is ever a system to interpret that information. In order to interpret the input information you need a system (geologist) which also contains separate information in the form of knowledge.

I believe in this example information is still reducible to a constructed representational description (of the actual thing in itself and its processes). In this case a description of how long actual geological processes take.



I'm not convinced information is anything more than an abstracted conceptualised framing of the actual thing in itself. Often a very useful framing for us as part of our way of understanding the world, but not a thing in itself property of what we're describing with its own independent existence. So you can say that rocks contain information as an abstract description, but not that rocks contain actual stuff except for limestone or granite undergoing physical processes.

Input-Output is also a constructed abstract type of framing, describing actual things in themselves and their processes, with no independent existence.

And because information is only a description, not a thing in itself, it can't have the sort of properties a thing in itself has, like causation. It can only have a causative role when conscious critters who create and/or decode these descriptive representations are involved and add their meaning/desires, and act. Hence the notion of a rock containing information is simply an irrelevance without people around to construct that type of framing. It's still a fact that the rock has undergone rocky processes for so many years, but that fact has no causative power without a person to frame that fact in a meaningful-to-them model.


What else specifically is your broader interpretation of information introducing than what I'm saying here?

[Jamonit]

I agree with Gertie. However, humans have an inadvertent tendency to add meaning to terms. With that in mind, the term "information" can be broadened to even include things such as applying heat to water, whereas water at room temperature receives information (heat). We do not generally think of "information" in those terms because language usually requires a consensus and the term "information" is not used in this context in English. It wouldn´t be until we do use the term in this manner, that we might understand it that way.

Anyhow, to answer the above question: What is information? To me it is anything that has an effect or alters some other thing. Merriam- Webster defines it as "knowledge that you get about someone or something: facts or details about a subject", as its first entry.

[Eaglerising]

Thought adds meaning to data there by you have knowledge. In other words, knowledge and thought have an indestructible relationship. Each exist because of the other. You cannot have one without the other.

[JamesOfSeattle]

Gertie, you wrote:

What else specifically is your broader interpretation of information introducing than what I'm saying here?

So it seems you are willing to accept the statement "there is information in the rock", full stop. You say that the information simply isn't relevant until you have an interpreter. That's fine.

Now let's change the input from a rock to a chemical gradient. Will you accept the following statement?

"A chemical gradient contains information, and a bacterium interprets this information via chemotaxis, i.e. by moving either towards or away from the source of the gradient."

If you accept that statement my work is done. You may quibble with the term "interpret", but then I would ask you for a better term which means "responding to information in a meaningful way".

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[Tamminen]

"A chemical gradient contains information, and a bacterium interprets this information via chemotaxis, i.e. by moving either towards or away from the source of the gradient."

And an electron has information which another electron receives by exchanging virtual photons with it, and therefore moves away from it. So we can say that all causal connections convey information, if we want to use the word 'information' in these cases. This is of course a totally different way of using the term than our everyday use of it. I would like to agree with Gertie and say that in the above cases we should speak of properties of things, not information.

[JamesOfSeattle]

Tamminen, while I would say it is correct that the first electron has information, it is not correct to say that the second electron is interpreting that information, unless you can explain how somthing gains value from the exchange.

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[Gertie]

James

Your work here is not done

Gertie wrote:
What else specifically is your broader interpretation of information introducing than what I'm saying here?

So it seems you are willing to accept the statement "there is information in the rock", full stop.

I said something significantly different. We construct an abstract framing of the rock as a thing which 'contains information'. Information itself is a conceptualised type of abstract framing, our constructed description/representation of actual stuff and processes.

Hence you can't have a lump of information, it is always information about something - the actual thing in itself, the rock. Which as far as I can see doesn't add anything to the fact that stuff and processes do what they do (following the laws of nature). So information in itself can't have properties of its own, such as causality. Unless the universe runs in a different way to our established models, which is possible, but our models work and describing them in abstract terms of Information rather than stuff and processes doesn't seem to add anything.

Do you disagree? If you think I'm missing something, what is it?

Or do you agree that simply describing stuff and processes in terms of Information doesn't discover additional properties such as causality which can't be accounted for by our current Standard Model?

You say that the information simply isn't relevant until you have an interpreter. That's fine.

To repeat, I'm saying Information is a constructed representational framing/description/model of actual stuff in itself, it has to be constructed (by us) before it can be interpreted (by us). It doesn't exist independently in the rock or eslewhere as a thing in itself, only in our minds as a concept.

Information Causality only comes into play with conscious people finding meaning-to-them in the world of actual stuff and its processes. Hence the constructed framing of stuff and processes as Information isn't relevant until conscious people create that framing and find meaning-to-them in it, and in/with each other. The processes continue whether we're here to frame them as Information or not.

Now let's change the input from a rock to a chemical gradient. Will you accept the following statement?

"A chemical gradient contains information, and a bacterium interprets this information via chemotaxis, i.e. by moving either towards or away from the source of the gradient."

I don't know what chemical gradients and chemotaxis are, but I get the gist of your question.

I would say that framing these sort of physical processes in terms of information adds nothing to what's going on, it's stuff following the laws of nature - bio-chemistry. I have no prob framing it terms of interpreting information, as long as you don't confuse the abstract analogy with the reality. Only sophisticated conscious creatures like ourselves can create abstract conceptualised models like Information Exchange and interpret them in those abstract terms. As far as we know bacteria don't literally interpret information because that requires sophisticated consciousness, so that isn't their causal driver, rather it's an analogy with what conscious beings like ourselves do. What is literally happening is chemistry and biology.

[Webplodder]

Excellent point Webplodder! It's nice to see people thinking outside the box, asking questions which stumps thought.

-- Updated May 20th, 2017, 9:11 am to add the following --

Or, suggesting alternative "possibilities."

Thank you Eaglerising.

[Webplodder]

Webplodder wrote

I can imagine a thought experiment where, suddenly, everyone in the world disappears. Now, despite nobody being about all of the information still remains, however, can we really say it is information if it isn't being 'informative?'

I prefer to think of it as 'potential' information, i.e, patterns that need to be combined with an 'interpreter.' In the thought experiment all the animals would remain but as far as the information is concerned, nothing changes.

Your “thought experiment” rests on a contradiction. If all people suddenly disappear, then WHO is there to ask the question: “can we really say it is information if it isn't being 'informative’?”

“Informative” to whom? A narrative system is only meaningful when there are producing and receiving agents. Also, we don’t really need a radical thought experiment to imagine information without audience. Think of a person how writes his world experiences in laptop and finally buries it under ground. No audience = no information communicated.

I thought that was the point I was making.

You are presenting an identical scenario to the one I gave, surely.

[Webplodder]

"The contradiction is due to the dichotomy of thought. This is why it’s important to rely upon something other than thought. Something that is multidimensional and not limited.

Here is something to ponder upon, if the past, present, and future coexists, then there isn’t anything unknown, even if we are unaware of it. Does our unawareness of it render it useless? Does ignoring or rejecting the knowledge we have render it useless?"

Yeah, but you're back to the problem of there existing some kind of agency that is in a position to interpret past, present, and future, even if they do co-exist.