Does information need a physical substrate?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Belindi wrote: October 14th, 2018, 12:51 pm Do newborns have much in the way of neural connections? I understand that they learn amazingly rapidly and we can safely take it that the brain and the mind correlate in all regards.
Foetuses start making connections from the get go. As soon as senses develop it starts to try to build its brain. They feel changes in blood supply; heat, light, pressure etc.
BigBango
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by BigBango »

ThomasHobbes wrote: October 14th, 2018, 2:37 pm
Belindi wrote: October 14th, 2018, 12:51 pm Do newborns have much in the way of neural connections? I understand that they learn amazingly rapidly and we can safely take it that the brain and the mind correlate in all regards.
Foetuses start making connections from the get go. As soon as senses develop it starts to try to build its brain. They feel changes in blood supply; heat, light, pressure etc.
As Belindi says they are born with some neurological wiring in place. As TH says, as soon as the senses develop its brain is built, as Piaget discovered that brain is built through the child's engagement in physical activity. What I am saying and other dual aspect theorists are saying is that there is "intelligence", with "information" that is at a lower level from the very beginning. Intelligence and/or information is never restricted by size as our physicality is. However, this nascent intelligence of the fetus needs to develop a brain that has causal efficacy over our familiar physical world. For that purpose it develops a "physical/neurological" brain that can sense our physical world and also direct motor responses to what it senses.

For that reason, we need to look at "mind" as being at least two tiered, with information at the top tier having a familiar physical substrate and information at the lower tier instantiated in a lower fractal level of reality.
BigBango
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by BigBango »

Think about it Thomas you have the fetus building it's own brain without a "brain" to guide its development. Those inanimate molecules are sure smart!
Fooloso4
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Bigbango:
Think about it Thomas you have the fetus building it's own brain without a "brain" to guide its development. Those inanimate molecules are sure smart!
They are not inanimate molecules, they are living cells. Cell differentiation is a remarkable biochemical, that is, physical process. Here is one way in which science proves its superiority to philosophy. While philosophers may posit some undemonstrable, unexplained “something” that must be going on undetected, the science, even though still incomplete, is deserving of the title knowledge. Whereas any philosophy that ignores the science in favor of some unknown is superstition.
BigBango
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by BigBango »

Fooloso4 wrote: October 15th, 2018, 7:34 pm Bigbango:
Think about it Thomas you have the fetus building it's own brain without a "brain" to guide its development. Those inanimate molecules are sure smart!
They are not inanimate molecules, they are living cells. Cell differentiation is a remarkable biochemical, that is, physical process. Here is one way in which science proves its superiority to philosophy. While philosophers may posit some undemonstrable, unexplained “something” that must be going on undetected, the science, even though still incomplete, is deserving of the title knowledge. Whereas any philosophy that ignores the science in favor of some unknown is superstition.
Fooloso4, you have expressed the current status quo of biology very succinctly and correctly, I give you that. In support of my "philosophizing" I would beg to differ with you that the answers must go undetected and therefore merely amounts to superstition. I do not deny that this current science is knowledge. I am simply trying to address it's incompleteness, its basically descriptive rather than explanatory status. To just assume that the cause of the discovered behavior of molecules within cells will be found without the discovery of any, as yet unknown agency, actually amounts to hoping that "vitalism" will be revived and the purposeful behavior of molecules will be found to be inherent in the dead chemical matter that it is.

Science must "imagine" answers to these difficult questions before it can construct models with which it can gather corroborating or falsifying data. I would never just suggest that my propositions should just be believed.

The problem with science is that its hard empirical proofs are based on the use of instruments made only of the kind of matter that we are already familiar with, visible electromagnetically active matter, yet we know that is only 10% of the mass of the universe. For that reason, we must broaden our methods by introducing "forms" that are not just imagined but are derived from our knowledge of reality and might be true at lower "fractal" levels of the world. (see my topic "The fractal evolution of the universe". Once one has a good idea of what might be present within cells, to account for the behavior of molecules within the cells, then one can do the hard work of discovery just as we did with the spread of disease.
Eduk
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by Eduk »

The problem with science is that it keeps on having demonstrable results again and again. Whereas the problem with 'not science' is that it keeps on not having demonstrable results again and again.
Unknown means unknown.
Fooloso4
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by Fooloso4 »

BigBango:
I do not deny that this current science is knowledge. I am simply trying to address it's incompleteness, its basically descriptive rather than explanatory status.
It is precisely its explanatory power that earns it the title of knowledge. Its incompleteness is far superior to speculative fancy that does not even begin to explain how cells differentiate and posits instead some unidentified agency as if this represents a deeper knowledge.
To just assume that the cause of the discovered behavior of molecules within cells will be found without the discovery of any, as yet unknown agency, actually amounts to hoping that "vitalism" will be revived and the purposeful behavior of molecules will be found to be inherent in the dead chemical matter that it is.
You’ve got it backwards. It is this “agency” that is akin to vitalism, something underlying the physical that makes it work. Your notion of dead chemical matter needs to be revised, starting with the assumption that there is a clear definition of life.
For that reason, we must broaden our methods by introducing "forms" that are not just imagined but are derived from our knowledge of reality and might be true at lower "fractal" levels of the world. (see my topic "The fractal evolution of the universe" …
At what scales do we see the repeating fractal patterns of cellular development that leads to a human being? Do you imagine that if we only look close enough we will find a tiny homunculus? Is there one in the egg and one in the sperm or half in each?
BigBango
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by BigBango »

Fooloso4 wrote: October 16th, 2018, 9:11 am BigBango:
I do not deny that this current science is knowledge. I am simply trying to address it's incompleteness, its basically descriptive rather than explanatory status.
It is precisely its explanatory power that earns it the title of knowledge. Its incompleteness is far superior to speculative fancy that does not even begin to explain how cells differentiate and posits instead some unidentified agency as if this represents a deeper knowledge.
Does biology offer up the "explanatory" details about why molecules act as they do? I think not. It "describes" how the molecules behave, from inspection, and assumes this knowledge of their behavior explicates the actual powers that molecules have in spite of the fact that we already know what powers molecules have from a clear understanding of the electrodynamic forces that exist between atoms and molecules from our clear knowledge of chemistry and physics.

These actual powers are necessarily due to some form of "vitalism". Either an internal vitalism as was proposed by someone that electrons were conscious, haha, or an as yet discovered, external to atoms, agency.
Fooloso4 wrote: October 16th, 2018, 9:11 am You’ve got it backwards. It is this “agency” that is akin to vitalism, something underlying the physical that makes it work. Your notion of dead chemical matter needs to be revised, starting with the assumption that there is a clear definition of life.
Your, or science's, definition of life cannot be "assumed" it must be derived from the facts of biology. (See Schrodinger's riddle" in, I think, "The way of Life"')
Fooloso4 wrote: October 16th, 2018, 9:11 am At what scales do we see the repeating fractal patterns of cellular development that leads to a human being? Do you imagine that if we only look close enough we will find a tiny homunculus? Is there one in the egg and one in the sperm or half in each?
Fractals are not like "Russian Dolls" or "Turtles all the way Down" We will not see a tiny being inside an already living organism. What we will see are technologically advanced civilizations that existed from before the BC/BB and have come back to the remnants of their collapsed world to exploit its energy resources and continue their adventure while also preserving what they valued from before their universe collapsed and exploded.
Fooloso4
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by Fooloso4 »

BigBango:
What we will see are technologically advanced civilizations that existed from before the BC/BB and have come back to the remnants of their collapsed world to exploit its energy resources and continue their adventure while also preserving what they valued from before their universe collapsed and exploded.
You should have led with this. I am not interested in discussing your science fiction fantasy.
Belindi
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by Belindi »

Big Bango wrote:
The problem with science is that its hard empirical proofs are based on the use of instruments made only of the kind of matter that we are already familiar with, visible electromagnetically active matter, yet we know that is only 10% of the mass of the universe. For that reason, we must broaden our methods by introducing "forms" that are not just imagined but are derived from our knowledge of reality and might be true at lower "fractal" levels of the world. (see my topic "The fractal evolution of the universe". Once one has a good idea of what might be present within cells, to account for the behavior of molecules within the cells, then one can do the hard work of discovery just as we did with the spread of disease.
"Just as we did with the spread of disease" was a new paradigm. The paradigm that preceded the germ theory of disease was the miasma theory of disease. Each of those theories was within the materialist (physicalist)theory of existence.

By contrast if we introduce " "forms" that are not just imagined but are derived from our knowledge of reality" we'd be thinking outwith the materialist(physicalist) theory of existence.Reality is what we seek to find when we do science, and it would be unproductive to rely upon any theory unless there was also empirical evidence. Fractal levels of the world are not evidence.

I'm not against leaps of fantasy. I do however trust current science more than I trust science fiction.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Big Bango wrote:
The problem with science is that its hard empirical proofs are based on the use of instruments made only of the kind of matter that we are already familiar with, visible ...
This is exactly what science has in its favour.

..electromagnetically active matter, yet we know that is only 10% of the mass of the universe.
Dah! You cannot pretend to quantify that which you do not know - obviously.
Eduk
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by Eduk »

Dah! You cannot pretend to quantify that which you do not know - obviously.
This is an incredibly common mistake.
Unknown means unknown.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Eduk wrote: October 18th, 2018, 10:58 am
Dah! You cannot pretend to quantify that which you do not know - obviously.
This is an incredibly common mistake.
:) 99% of all mistake go unnoticed!! LOL
BigBango
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by BigBango »

Fooloso4 wrote: October 18th, 2018, 8:18 am BigBango:
What we will see are technologically advanced civilizations that existed from before the BC/BB and have come back to the remnants of their collapsed world to exploit its energy resources and continue their adventure while also preserving what they valued from before their universe collapsed and exploded.
You should have led with this. I am not interested in discussing your science fiction fantasy.
Sorry I went too far on my chain of thought to alienate you. Greta, who is also very smart and has a wonderful imagination has said I could have a block buster science fiction movie! I really do not want to lose your or Greta's feedback. I think your comprehensive knowledge of Plato is very important as is Greta's breadth of knowledge about the state of modern cosmology. Not to mention Tamminen who has carved out of the "physical" the ontological place of the "subject".

I am willing to discuss more contemporary scientific analyses that are presented in "fractal.org". The emergence of human consciousness from fractal layers of neural networks. These speculations assert that human consciousness must emerge from fractal connections between levels of reality that could not exist in a "Russian doll" structure. This is because "Human Consciousness" depends on a flow of information that exists only in a "fractal" structure as opposed to a decomposition of a thing in a thing.

In a "fractal" structure higher levels are physically connected to lower levels enabling the possibility of the flow of information from one level to another.

The important thing to remember about fractals is this, listen up Greta. Our usual assumptions about reality is that the complex evolves from the simpler. In the case of fractals we have a different dynamic. The lower fractal levels can age and evolve and transform themselves into a younger version of themselves. That is what has occurred in the transformation of the universe preceding the BC/BB into the world we are familiar with.
BigBango
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Re: Does information need a physical substrate?

Post by BigBango »

I don't mind being dismissed as a purveyor of science fiction. There is both "fantasy" science fiction and "realist" science fiction where there are ideas presented that are leaps of imagination that do not violate known scientific fact but push the boundaries of our imagination into new realms.

It is quite clear that a "fractal" interpretation of the evolution of our universe could explain many of the conundrums that we argue about incessantly to no avail. Where in our augments about cosmological laws is the role of technology. Nowhere! Our perception of cosmology consists in finding the physical laws that we must just be victims of.

My claim is that in a collapsing universe, as existed before the BC/BG there were civilizations that had advanced technology. I assume that a collapsing world is an old world. In an old world the technology of its inhabitants was vastly superior to our own.

My point is that "fractal" structures, rather than Russian doll structures or homunculus structures allow the lower fractal levels to be more technologically advanced than the fractal levels they give birth to. We are a young world that was given birth to by an ancient world.

Thank everyone who takes the time to consider these ideas.
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