Information and Randomness
The greatest degree of information is found in the most random or irrational sequences.
I find this strange and counter intuitive.
Randomness seems aimless, useless. Entropy is disorder. And this seems so unpredictable and chaotic that it couldn't possibly hold much information compared to systems like life with organised sequences of DNA that confer complexity, and the ability to process information in order to survive etc.
Yet, sequences that are predictable can be compressed to a simple formula which take up little storage.
Irrational numbers cannot. And they're infinite.
So of the two, there's more information in entropy than there is in order.
If you take pi or the golden ratio or eulers number for example, eventually it will detail your entire genetic sequence from start to finish. Statistically, given its randomness and infinity, it mist contain this information at some point in its course.
That gives me goosebumps.
I find this strange and counter intuitive.
Randomness seems aimless, useless. Entropy is disorder. And this seems so unpredictable and chaotic that it couldn't possibly hold much information compared to systems like life with organised sequences of DNA that confer complexity, and the ability to process information in order to survive etc.
Yet, sequences that are predictable can be compressed to a simple formula which take up little storage.
Irrational numbers cannot. And they're infinite.
So of the two, there's more information in entropy than there is in order.
If you take pi or the golden ratio or eulers number for example, eventually it will detail your entire genetic sequence from start to finish. Statistically, given its randomness and infinity, it mist contain this information at some point in its course.
That gives me goosebumps.
Comments (125)
But if the source can produce ANYTHING, then you can never know what you will receive, and what you receive will be full of information.
That's a misleading way of putting it. Random strings of characters are impossible to compress because they contain no order. An ordered string, say a sentence, folllows rules, which enables you to compress it because the rules can be used to eliminate redundancies or repetition. Compression relies on patterns, repetition, and predictability. If a sequence follows a set of rules, as ordered strings like sentences do, redundancies can be identified and used to compress the data. In essence, the more predictable or ordered a sequence, the more it can be compressed, reducing its entropy. Whereas a string of several thousand random characters can't be compressed at all - but, so what? That doesn't mean it contains 'more information'. It means it's harder to compress.
I think you might be applying Shannon's theory beyond its intended scope. Shannon's theory is fundamentally a mathematical framework designed to optimize the encoding and transmission of data over communication channels. It deals with the quantity of information, measuring how much information is present or how efficiently it can be transmitted and stored, without regard to the content's meaning or significance. It's tremendously fashionable to try and extract a metaphysic from it, but it really isn't one.
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Quoting Benj96
Ah, I think that this is the finding that infinite strings as being infinite also then do have the text of Tolstoi's "War and Peace" written in binary code...because there infinite.
But this is a statistical probability. And notice when you have something infinite, then you have a problem with statistical probabilities.
Yet this "information" on a random sequence is simply useless, because of the simple fact that you cannot handle infinite sequences. You can handle only finite parts of any random sequence. Thus finding your genetic sequence or Tolstoi's "War and Peace" in binary form or both from some finite part of a random sequence is, well, we can round that probability to 0, even if it's a very small positive number. Even if finite parts can be quite big. Now finding an exact sequence in very large finite strings is an interesting discussion itself...
And can there be a random sequence that doesn't have your genetic sequence and Tolstoi's "War an Peace" in binary form? I guess so. Can I prove it? Absolutely not! With randomness you slip easily to the part of mathematics that is unprovable, uncountable, etc. Yet it's still math.
Hence this is a bit of an illusion, I would say.
Pi contains the information about the ratio of diameter to circumference - I'm not convinced of the other type of information.
At least that pi is a transcendental number means you cannot square the circle as it otherwise could be possible, if it would be rational number (or Real Algebraic number). So there's that information (if I got it right).
Here perhaps the separation of 'information' and simple raw 'data' might help.
A random string might have by random (how else?) a string of data that looks similar to 'information'. Like the binary string 01000001" is the digital code for "A". And we might find in some random sequence
01000001" and say "Hey! This random sequence has "A" in it."
Usable information shouldn't require you to already know the information you're looking for in order to find it, right? It would be like a dictionary that requires you to know the definition of a word in order to find the definition of a word. That wouldn't be a useful dictionary at all
Pi is effectively a seeded random number generator. A deterministic-yet-chaotic generator of digits.
We call it random, even though, no matter the size of the circle, we don't have to [I]predict[/I], we absolutely [I]know[/I] what any digit will be?
Gotcha. Thanks.
I think Shannon entropy can be described in terms of either an observer's uncertainty about the outcome they will get out of some system/random variable, or in terms of the kind message-generating capacity of that system (more messages it can produce, the greater the entropy).
I guess the last description could reasonably be a way of describing how we think of information but information as we semantically use it is also about the notion of reducing uncertainty. The more information you have gained from an observation, the more uncertainty you have reduced. So in that sense it could also be conceptualized as almost the inverse of entropy.
Either way, I guess a key point is that when hearing people talk about information with regard to entropy, one should interpret them as talking just about the mathematical meaning of entropy first and foremost in order to understand what they are saying, rather than paying attention to the word 'information' which is often not being used in any specific way other than to refer to the mathematical usage. Care needs to be taken moving from the mathematical notion to the casual semantics of information which may be very different.
(Edited: just clarified some bits in the last section, no pun intended)
The shortest possible way to write a program that produces a given string is called its Kolmogorov Complexity or algorithmic entropy. Shannon Entropy by contrast take a given string and then measures the amount surprise in it, based on how likely the string is compared to some background distribution.
Questions about how to view statistics (frequentism vs propensity vs Bayesianism vs logicalism, etc.) affect how we interpret information.
From the perspective of Shannon Entropy, you might say that a computation that outputs pi up to some very high number of decimals produces zero information. Even though there is a very large number of digits, they all occur where they occur with a probability equal to 100% given the program input. This ties into the "scandal of deduction," the finding that deterministic computation/deduction produces no new information.
It's also worth noting that the program that outputs pi doesn't really contain your genome. Information is necessarily relational. We could map your genome onto any string with a sufficient amount of variance, but such information doesn't exist "in itself."
A simple random bit generator produces all possible finite strings given enough time, but that doesn't mean that the Kolmogorov Complexity of all strings is equal to the simplest random string generator. You need a program that will output some string, e.g. your genome, and JUST that thing. So, while a program that outputs pi might output very many possible encodings of your genome, the program still needs some way to recognize that encoding, halt, and output it. So the information in your genome isn't really "in" the program that outputs pi, anymore than a random string generator "contains" the information for all possible programs/strings.
I wrote an article on this a while back for 1,000 Word Philosophy, although they weren't interested in the topic.
https://medium.com/@tkbrown413/introducing-the-scandal-of-deduction-7ea893757f09
And a deeper dive:
https://medium.com/@tkbrown413/does-this-post-contain-any-information-3374612c1feb
I think there is a ton of relevance to metaphysics, it's just that bad inferences are sometimes made. Paul Davies has a great anthology called "Information and the Nature of Reality," with entries by Seth Lloyd, Terrance Deacon, and others, including philosophers and theologians, that is quite good.
Information theory has allowed for a unification of disparate fields, from physics to biology to economics to cognitive science. This alone makes it of philosophical merit, a set of general principles that has explanatory and predictive power across the social, life, and physical sciences.
Hey! Your last name isn't von Icarus!!
:lol:
I'm reading his Demon in the Machine at the moment, and I've been reading Deacon. But I'm still dubious that 'information' has fundamental explanatory power - because it's not a metaphysical simple. The term 'information' is polysemic - it has many meanings, depending on its context.
I have a suspicion that a famous Norbert Wiener quote, in Cybernetics, is behind a lot of this theorisation. He said Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day." So what do we do? Admit it, and start developing a metaphysics, so-called, which accomodates it. And just as 'the machine' became the prevailing metaphor during the industrial era, so 'information' becomes the prevailing metaphor during the information age. But it's still entertained within a generally physicalist framework, at least for a lot of people (although maybe the times they really are a'changin'.)
Quoting Apustimelogist
There's an amusing anecdote I often re-tell in this context about the connection between information and entropy. A famous conversation is said to have occurred in around 1941 in a discussion between Claude Shannon and John von Neumann, during Shannons postdoctoral research fellowship year at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. Neumann was one of the main faculty members, and during this period Shannon was wavering on whether or not to call his new logarithmic statistical formulation of data in signal transmission information or uncertainty (of the Heisenberg type). Neumann suggested that Shannon rather use the entropy of thermodynamics, because: (a) the statistical mechanics version of the entropy equations have the same mathematical isomorphism and (b) nobody really knows what entropy really is so he will have the advantage in winning any arguments that might occur (source).
The concept of entropy also became combined with Erwin Schrodinger's 'negentropy' from his What is Life? lecture series. It's become part of the conceptual architecture of bio-informatic philosophy.
Some information is what I might call [I]passive[/I]. Books are a good example. Books are filled with information. We know what the squiggles on the page represent, because we invented the information systems of language and writing. So when we read a book, we can take that information in, and learn many things.
But that can always be, and often is, the end of it. We can entirely ignore and disregard the information we've gained. We can think about it, but still choose to not do anything related to it.
DNA is a different kind of information. It represents chains of amino acids and proteins. It seems to compel action. Those amino acids and proteins are manufactured. The information is not interpreted by thinking beings like us, although we have come to be able to interpret this information system that we did not create. The things that interpret the information encoded in the base pairs don't seem to have a choice about whether or not to act on it. The information compels action. Instead of [I]passive information[/I], it is... what... [I]Compulsory information[/I]? Whatever it's called, isn't that some explanatory power?
100%. I guess I didn't explain myself very well. What I was getting at is the issue of treating information as if it is a reduction base, in the way that matter was supposed to have been by materialism. But of course DNA encodes biological information and that information is causative, there's no disputing that. But biological information is very different from the information encoded in binary on a computer, or written content.
Quoting WayfarerYes, very different. Our information is not compulsory. (I think I like [I]active information[/I] better. But what is it actually called?) Have we created active information systems? That might help with making artificial consciousness.
Quoting Benj96
But no support for was provided.
That common mis-understanding of Information theory is indeed counterintuitive, because we know from experience that randomness is the antithesis of meaning-bearing Information. But Shannon was not claiming that random sequences are inherently meaningful. Instead, he compared mental Information to physical Entropy. And noted that it is "surprising" to find meaningful information in random patterns*1. That eye-opening distinction of meaning from background noise is what semiotician & cyberneticist Bateson called "the difference that makes a difference"*2. . The first "difference" is the Surprise, and the second is the Meaning.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, all order ultimately decays into disorder. And yet, here we stand on a tiny exception to that rule in the vast universe : the pocket of organization we call home. As far as we know, this is the only instance of Life & Mind in the universe. Ironically, some thinkers miss the exceptional nature of Information, and are still looking for communications from little green men, or the advanced race of San-Ti, out there in the near infinite crucible of random accidents. Information is not accidental. :nerd:
*1. Information is the surprising exception to common randomness :
The core idea of information theory is that the "informational value" of a communicated message depends on the degree to which the content of the message is surprising.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)
*2. Information as a difference :
We propose a difference theory of information that extends Gregory Batesons definition that information is any difference that makes a difference.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0960085X.2019.1581441
CAN YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE ?
Surprising Signal within Meaningless Noise
Did Shannon ever write or say anything about 'mental information'? And have you read the origin of how Shannon came to start using the term 'entropy' in relation to information, on the prompting of Von Neumann, who was a peer, and who said one of the advantages of using the term is because he would always win in arguments if he used it, because 'nobody knows what it means'?
Reference?
Interesting read. I think there's one absolutely fundamental issue here at play to this discussion: as you point out in Introducing the Scandal of Deduction, conclusions have to be implicit in the premises. It's all quite deductional and as you say, "no new information is generated by deduction".
Randomness cannot be so. Something random creates that "information" all time when the random process/string is continued. In fact I'm coming to the conclusion that something random has to follow a certain rule that it achieves Kolmogorov-Chaitin randomness/algorithmic entropy. The rule/algorithm is also used in the Turing Machines example or other undecidability results: negative self-reference. This can be seen from the complexity strings.
A rational number like 7/11 in decimal form is 0,3636363636... and it has a very low complexity. To write it the decimal form you have the rule "After zero and comma, write 36 and repeat it forever". Another rational number has also has low complexity, but isn't as easy to write as 7/11 has the rule for it's decimal representation "After zero and comma, write all the telephone numbers in the 1973 Seattle telephone book in the order they are listed and repeat it forever". Again a rational number with low complexity as that above rule wasn't long to write.
For a random string there cannot be any algorithm that gives all the information of the number with less complexity. A random string can be presented only by itself in it's entirety to have all the information. So how can that be then done? Only a sequence that doesn't repeat itself can be random. Hence it has to self reference itself on the negative: if you start from an arbitrary point, then what came before cannot be repeated later or define what later comes. Hence the negative self reference.
So basically the question is what are those Gödel numbers that are undecidable? At least part of them are all the numbers that are random and quite unique to themselves.
This is my brainstorming and the above can be easily wrong or not easy to follow. I do hope some remarks, though.
As you said in the piece "Likewise, our knowledge of mathematics comes from experience. Axioms are experimental truths; generalizations from observation.", this is the real question here. Are our axioms correct? Or are we mission some "self evident" things in mathematics. In my view we obviously are: there simply is a realm of mathematics that is uncomputable, where easy deductive proofs aren't possible. Would thus there be an axiom for this?
I think there could be one.
No, Shannon was not concerned with the metaphysical aspects of Information. He was focused on physically communicated Data, not metaphysically (semiotics, metaphors, analogies) communicated Meaning. In my post I used the "mental" term to distinguish Metaphysical from Physical forms of information. In my Enformationism thesis, I refer to Generic Information (universal power to transform) as a "Shapeshifter", taking-on many physical and metaphysical forms in the world. That notion is based, in part, on Einstein's E=MC^2 formula. In my view, Causal Energy is merely one of many forms of Generic Information (EnFormAction).
Yes, I'm aware of the "entropy" backstory. That abstruse term may be responsible for the common mis-understanding that Information is essentially random. It is instead, the Order within Chaos ; the Surprise within Randomness ; the Relevant bits within the mass of Irrelevant bytes. :smile:
von Neumann Versus Shannon Entropy :What is the difference between entropy and Shannon entropy? :
The intuition for entropy is that it is the average number of bits required to represent or transmit an event drawn from the probability distribution for the random variable. the Shannon entropy of a distribution is the expected amount of information in an event drawn from that distribution.
https://machinelearningmastery.com/what-is-information-entropy/
Your ambiguity (uncertainty) about Deacon's novel notion of Information as Absence is understandable, because Shannon defined his kind of Information*1 as the presence of detectable data. The essence of his statistical definition is the Probability ratio of 0% (nothing) to 100% (something) : 0/1 or 1/0, and everything in between. So, information is like a quantum particle in that a Bit exists only as a Possibility until measured (understood). Moreover, several quantum theorists concluded that Probability (not yet real) was converted into Certainty by the evaluation of an inquiring mind. That sounds magical & mystical, but the scientists' intentions were pragmatic*2.
Deacon saw what others missed in the statistical nature of Information : Probability is nothing until Actualized somehow. But that nothingness (absence) is the metaphysical power behind all Change (causation) in the world. He referred to that invisible power as "Constitutive Absence"*3, which is the capability (force + control) to construct something from scratch. The most familiar causal power in science is labeled "Energy", and defined as the ability to do useful work. Yet the substance of that power is left undefined, because it is not a material object, but more like a metaphysical force, which is knowable only after it has done its work and moved on.
In my personal information-based thesis, I merged several of those polysemantic applications of "Information" into a single "metaphysical simple"*4 : the power to transform. Which I labeled EnFormAction to make it signify Energy + Form + Action. I'm sure that Deacon has never heard of that term, and he may not think of his Constitutive Absence as a metaphysical concept. But I think it can be used to narrow down the various meanings of Information to something like a philosophical Atom, brimming with potential causal power. :smile:
*1. What is Shannon information? :
[i]Although the use of the word information, with different meanings, can be traced back to
antique and medieval texts (see Adriaans 2013), it is only in the 20th century that the term begins
to acquire the present-day sense. Nevertheless, the pervasiveness of the notion of information
both in our everyday life and in our scientific practice does not imply the agreement about the
content of the concept. As Luciano Floridi (2010, 2011) stresses, it is a polysemantic concept associated with different phenomena, such as communication, knowledge, reference, meaning,
truth, etc.[/i]
https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/10911/1/What_is_Shannon_Information.pdf
*2. Information, What is It? :
Deacon addresses many of those self-referencing feedback-loop mind-bogglers in his book. But perhaps the most fundamental enigma is the ultimate nature of Information itself. The original usage of the term was primarily Functional, as the content of memory & meaning. Then Shannon turned his attention to the Physical aspects of data transmission. Now, Deacon has returned to the most puzzling aspect of mental function : Intentions & Actions. For example : a> how one persons mind can convey meaning & intentions to another mind; b> how a subjective intention (Will) can result in physical changes to the objective world? How can invisible intangible immaterial (absent) ideas cause physical things to move & transform. Occultists have imagined Mind as a kind of mystical energy or life-force (Chi; psychokinesis) that can be directed outward into the world, like a laser beam, to affect people and objects. But Deacon is not interested in such fictional fantasies. Instead, he tries to walk a fine line between pragmatics & magic, or physics & metaphysics.
http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page26.html {click here}
Note --- Jesus told his disciples that Faith can move mountains. But his brother James explained "Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works. Today, if you want to move a mountain, it helps to make use of dynamite and earth-moving equipment : pragmatic faith.
*3. Constitutive : having the power to establish or give organized existence to something.
___Oxford Languages
*4. Metaphysical Simple : an immaterial atom ; a non-physical element ; the fundamental constituent of a complex structure
Quoting Gnomon
The relationship of logical necessity and physical causation is a deep topic and one of interest to me. It is fundamental to Humes Treatise where he argues that deductive proofs are true as a matter of definition, whilst facts derived from observation have no such necessity. Its the distinction between observed facts (a posteriori, known by experience) and deductions (a priori, matters of definition), pretty much in line with your point 2 above.
But then, Kant believed that his answer to Hume dealt with the issue with the concept of facts that are 'synthetic a priori' (definition).
Quoting Gnomon
I think where it shows up is in Wigner's unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. Look at the way that physics applies mathematical logic to physical objects and forces. It is fundamental to modern scientific method. This is, of course, a dense metaphysical question, and generally speaking modern philosophy is averse to metaphysics.
See my earler thread Logical Necessity and Physical Causation for a discussion.
My point regarding Terrence Deacon in particular is that it appears to me that he's attempting to bridge this gap by explaining how it is that symbolic logic can arise as both a consequence and cause in the physical order of things.
I have come to think of human-constructed Mathematics as our synthetic imitation of the natural Logic of the universe. By that I mean, chemistry/physics is an expression of fundamental Logic in the substance of Matter (functional organization) and the action of Energy ("physical causation"). Another way to put it is that "all Math is Geometry", where we can extend the geo-centric label to include all causal & formal inter-relationships in the entire Cosmos.
If so, then the "effectiveness" of Math, in scientific endeavors, is an indication that we humans have correctly interpreted the Logic of the universe --- "constraining affordances" --- as natural laws and mathematical ratios. Hence, our artificial "designs" (e.g. computers) are workable as information processors, even though they may not yet be literally "semantic engines" (apologies to ChatGPT). :smile:
The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design
by Luciano Floridi
This is a book on the logic of design and hence on how we make, transform, refine, and improve the objects of our knowledge. The starting point is that reality provides the data, to be understood as constraining affordances, and we transform them into information, like semantic engines.
https://academic.oup.com/book/27824
Randomness & Information : inverse logical/mathematical relationship
[i]In a statistical mechanics book, it is stated that "randomness and information are essentially the same thing," which results from the fact that a random process requires high information. . . . .
But, later it says that entropy and information are inversely related since disorder decreases with knowledge. But, this does not make sense to me. I always thought that entropy and randomness in a system were the same thing.[/i]
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/447465/understanding-entropy-information-and-randomness
Entropy & randomness are directly related; but randomness & semantics (meaning ; useful information) are inversely related.
Quoting jgill
https://youtu.be/sMb00lz-IfE?si=7hnqXoiyVOdTHOJLQuoting L'éléphant
Interesting. What is characteristic of my topics? I'll admit perhaps I jumped the gun on this one but I was captivated by veritasiums video on the notion and wished to share it here.
Please see reference link
Perhaps "the randomness and information are essentially the same thing" simply means that you cannot compress something that is random or you will lose information (about the random sequence). At least that is the way I understand it.
If you have a random sequence, the only accurate way to model it perfectly is by writing the sequence in it's entirety. If you have a sequence that isn't random, let's say Tolstoi's War and Peace. I can refer to it and not copy paste here the whole book. An accurate shorter version is just to refer what book, when printed and perhaps which translation in what language from Russia.
The disorder decreasing with knowledge is quite another issue.
You can't compress a random sequence of characters or a random collection of objects, you can only describe it, and that description will be 1:1. Whereas as soon as it is ordered, that order can be leveraged to create meta-data about the object.
I don't know if I agree with Verisatium's reasoning in this regard (that's the video that is referred to above which was the source for this thread) - chaos doesn't contain or convey information of any kind. It can't be compressed but how is that a criterion for 'information-bearing'? At 3:17 where he says that a completely compressed file is completely random - not sure about that, either. Otherwise, how could it be de-compressed, or intrepreted, at the receiving end? If it were totally random, then there'd be nothing to interpret. So I'm still not sold on the 'information=entropy' equation.
But I like that he recognises that quantum physics undermines LaPlace's daemon. Kudos for that.
Sorry, I tried watching it. But the minute I heard the word "random" I lost interest. They were talking about examples such as the sun rising. Randomness is not the opposite of atmospheric stability or climate stability.
I think as a community of philosophy, we've become lazy and throw here and there clichés like "randomness" and "predetermined".
As to the characteristic of your OP -- normally they were thoughtful. Not this one.
That's what I tried to say, but that's a better way saying it. And the statement describing "information" is basically about this inability of compression. I guess.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think the problem is that the meaning of "information" here is quite specific and doesn't relate to what we usually think of "information". Perhaps using the term "raw data" would be more appropriate. Data refers to "things known or assumed as facts, making the basis of reasoning or calculation", so that isn't helpful either. I think people would understand the difference between "information" and "data" better.
And if someone thinks that a random sequence if continued to infinity has the all the information in the World, shows just how difficult it is for us to grasp infinity.
The sun rising is not an atmospheric stability nor climate stability phenomenon. Let's not conflate the cosmological with local planetary climate trends.
I'm inclined to agree with you. I don't see how a compressed file can be both random and decryptable. Something random would not be informative at all. Perhaps I was mislead by some parts of the video
Quoting Benj96
Well compressing a file is eliminating all the redundancies or regularities in the data. So if you keep compressing data you are removing all the patterns in it. Like you said, random data cannot be compressed. Why? Has no regularities or redundancies in it. If it did, then it follows you can make further compressions.
That said, I frequently watch that Youtube channel, he's a very good popular science commentator. But I think this was not one of his better efforts.
Again you missed.
I said, "examples such as". My next statement is a generalization of the way that videos like this develops. I'll explain to you the misuse of randomness: We argue in favor of randomness whenever there is a phenomena that goes out of order, unexpected, or out of place. Randomness has become the crutch for anything that falls outside of intelligibility. Instead of just saying unintelligible, we say random. You know why we say it? Because we don't like to think that everything has an explanation, that everything has an origin. Ultimately we don't like to think that there's always something, rather than nothing. There was never a point in the universe, that the nothing existed. This is what is hard to comprehend.
Here is a short passage:
Yeah, I guess that is fair. I haven't watched the video so I can't comment too much. Maybe it again comes down to this whole use of the word 'information' being ambiguous again. In one sense, when talking about code, you could argue all the semantic information is with the whoever is coding and de-coding, and the information they both have or don't have shapes the kind of messages they are required to send to each other. The information isn't in the code itself.
"The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem. The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set of possible messages. The system must be designed to operate for each possible selection, not just the one which will actually be chosen since this is unknown at the time of design."
Shannon's information theory was I think intended to be about formal constraints on representing variables that produce distinct events probabilistically. (Edit: but the information being represented is with those using the code, not strictly in the code).
I never believed there was such a point in the universe when nothing existed. I dont find that hard to comprehend. My focus on randomess is not contignent on that.
Not really sure what it has to do with randomness as a phenomenon. If randomness is born from the very fundamentals of physics (which quantum physics seems to suggest), then even if everything from that point onwards is deterministic, explicable and predictable, the underlying origin is still random and unpredictable.
In that case randomness would appear to trump the determined and explicable, the patterned. If we cannot know exactly where particles will appear or annihilate but only give a statistical wave function of the distribution of possible locations, that would entail a trickle up effect of integral chaos within the system.
I don't believe all information in the universe is predictable because of heisenbergs uncertainty principle. Sure 99% of things can be non random but even if the fundamental 1% is that throws a huge spanner in the works
The definition of randomness as incompressibility is due to Kolmogorov.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity
There are other definitions of randomness in various other fields.
The rationale of Kolmogorov's idea is that, for example, there is absolutely nothing random about the digits of pi. They're the deterministic output of any number of closed-form expressions that can be programmed on a computer. The same goes for every other familiar irrational constant like sqrt(2), [math]e[/math], the golden ratio, and so forth. These are all computable numbers. Their infinitely-long digit sequence can be deterministically cranked out by a computer program or mathematical expression having relatively few characters.
Whether this satisfies or offends anyone's individual philosophical sensibilities is a matter of personal preference.
Yes, but then it is another issue how that might relate to what people call information.
There are other definitions of the word, as I indicated in my post. Back in the day you could dial 411 and a nice lady would come on the phone and say, "Information." Alas there are no more dials.
Quoting fishfry
That would suggest you are implying information is randomness; the original point of my post presupposes this is not necessarily the case.
I'm not Kolmogorov. I only identified him as the originator of the idea that randomness is measure by the degree of incompressibility. I said in my post, "There are other definitions of randomness in various other fields."
I'm having trouble following your posts. I gave Kolmogorov's definition then said there are other definitions. I have no disagreement with anything you wrote, but I don't see how it bears on what I wrote.
As I said, the point of K's idea is that when we give a finite-length description of the digits of pi, as we can easily do, we are showing that pi only encodes a finite amount of information. That's Kolmogorov's idea.
Suppose I want to transmit the sequence of the decimal digits of pi to my friend via telegraph, back in the day when telegrams were expensive. (Are telegrams still expensive? Do they still exist? I have no idea). I could sent each of the infinitely many digits. Or, I could just sent one of the closed-form, finite-length expressions for pi. Much cheaper. That's compressibility. It shows that the digits aren't random at all, but strictly deterministic.
Now, I can see how one would object to saying that shows pi doesn't contain much information. But it doesn't! I can express all of its infinitely many digits with a short, finite-length string of symbols. That takes very little information.
I am not planting a flag and saying this is the only definition of information. I'm just trying to motivate Kolmogorov's idea. And failing badly, apparently.
I just don't understand what the intention of your initial comment was. From my perspective it doesn't follow from the rest of the thread I was following.
Oh I see. I can explain what I had in mind.
The OP was inviting discussion on the intuitively confusing idea that a random sequence of symbols contains the most "information." Many people think that if you're transmitting information, it's NOT random. It's noise. So the compressibility argument seems to be saying that there's more information in the noise than in the signal. So it's a seeming paradox.
Then the thread as I understood it, though I was not reading closely, became a discussion of how sensible a definition of randomness that was. I gather this had been exposited by 3Blue1Brown Youtube channel, and some people were even questioning the video. I'm repeating all this from a very shallow glance at the sense of the thread over the last few days.
Hold that thought and let me change the subject for a moment. In another thread, a paradoxical puzzle was presented that seemed to violate our intuitions about how probability works when randomly choosing a natural number.
I happened to know the puzzle could be explained through an understanding of the axioms of probability devised by the Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov in 1933. So I wrote that up over in that thread.
Then I remembered that it was the very same Andrey Kolmogorov who had come up with the idea that you could measure the randomness of a string of symbols by its incompressibility. And that this was a measure of information. Kolmogorov is both the probability guy and the incompressibility guy.
I said to myself, "In that other thread [meaning this one], people are discussing the compressibility idea, and whether it makes sense. I thought pointing the thread to the originator of the idea might help add context.
So I popped in over here to toss in a little factual nugget that was not intended to change anyone's mind about anything. I was not referencing anything in the thread. I only wanted to let people know where the compressibility idea came from, so they could place it in context in the study of information.
Just intending to add a factoid, not making any argument at all.
I can see how I could have contextualized my remark better.
It's from a channel now called Verisatium, although under an earlier name. The original video wasn't cited until the top of page 2, you can review it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMb00lz-IfE. (I've viewed quite a few Verasatium presentations and overall found them pretty good, but I'm very dubious about some of the claims in this one.) I can definitely see the relevance of the Kolmogorov complexity idea, the video would have been better if it had been informed by it.
This provides a good representation of this thread. Use a term with sufficient ambiguity, "information" in this case, so that the unintelligible is adequately hidden within what is proposed as intelligible, and it will appear like you are saying something intelligent. The majority of people are fooled by appearances.
Veritasium, right. Thanks for the correction. I like Veritasium but didn't watch this video. He has some off days as we all do. If he mentioned compressibility but didn't credit Kolmogorov, I can see why that would lead people to think he was expressing a fringe idea, or whatever the criticism of the video was.
ps -- Just watched half the vid. Hopelessly muddled, definitely a misfire for Veritasium. I gave up when he started trying to claim that quantum mechanics is the cause of increasing information. This video was totally confusing. I can see why it sent the thread down a rabbit hole.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You just described your own posting style.
That's very observant of you fishfry. Generally speaking, one's language use is a reflection of the conventions and habits which the society has immersed that person in. I like to seek, determine, and then exaggerate within my own usage, the various ambiguities, misleading implications, false representations, and overall misgivings of deceptive habits and conventions which permeate our communications, thereby laying them bare, exposed for the world to see, so that perhaps, at some point in time, the general population will start to realize that something needs to be done about this situation. Wayfarer knows me as the obfuscator.
That's fair. I didn't actually think you were making an argument, I just didn't know where you were coming from. To me it looked like you had misunderstood the intention of my quote.
Your thesis is that someday, Internet archeologists are going to discover this thread and go, "My God, math is wrong!"
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Wish I'd figured that out long ago.
It's actually an ongoing process, the evolution of thought. Look at Russel's paradox for example.
In the evolution of thought, people are going to decide math is wrong because it doesn't actually refer to anything? I thought that was a feature.
I see what's going on with the Lounge. All the political posts, Trump and Ukraine and Gaza, got moved over there.
What kind of philosophy considers only lofty, abstract issues, and turns its face from matters of life and death in the world today? Of course those topics generate heat. From what I can see, the Lounge is now the best part of this site.
Have we hopelessly hijacked this thread? What happened to information and randomness?
In practise the math always refers to something. In theory it is designed to be applicable to a very wide range of circumstances. When the theory is not being used to refer to anything, it sits idle. So it only "doesn't actually refer to anything" if it never gets used, in reality it refers an endless number of things.
Quoting fishfry
It is a pretty cool place to hang out, lots of activity down there. And they call it The Lounge. Now that's a misnomer.
In application, math is used to refer to something. But math itself does not refer. This was the great philosophical insight that followed the discovery of the logical consistency of non-Euclidean geometry.
I was trying to be helpful, but I only ended up hijacking and essentially terminating the thread. Not my intention at all. Perhaps someone has something interesting to say about information, randomness, entropy, and murky Youtube videos. I've seen better work from Veritasium.
Math is a field of study, it's not a symbol, sign, or even a group of such, so it's not used to refer to anything. But that's irrelevant. So this discussion is useless from the start
I don't agree with the use of random here. Stochastic phenomena are just simply not precise (this is the word I was looking for) as an analysis. Commonly, (and I say erroneously) it is the precision upon which we judge whether something is random, or in the case of Heisenberg, uncertain. But to further judge a phenomena as undetermined is really troubling.
Quoting Benj96
No. No one says that "random" (here I am speaking your language) occurrences are unanalyzable. The difficulty we face is with precision. All data are analyzable, but not all data can be analyzed with precision. That is the difference.
I agree with this. The appearance of randomness is created by the system which analyzes, it is not a feature of the thing being analyzed. That the analyzing system does not apprehend the patterns being searched for and produces the conclusion of "random", is an indication that the system is not properly formulated for the application it is put to.
I couldn't have said it better.
Randomness is not a feature of the thing being analyzed.
It's possible that sometimes it is.
For example if we flip a coin, that's only epistemically random, in the sense that it's a purely mechanical procedure that could be predicted by Newtonian physics, if we only knew all the variables precisely enough we could predict the flip. Yet since we can't, it's random in a practical sense. It's random only relative to what we can know. Hence epistemically random.
Compare to something that's ontologically random -- inherently random in and of itself.
Some people think quantum events are ontologically random.
But perhaps the low order bit of the femtosecond timestamp of the next neutrino to hit your detector was determined at the moment of the big bang. If it was, that would mean the entire universe is determined. But if not ... then there are things that are ontologically random.
It's an open question, but ontological randomness is at least logically possible, as far as we know.
Quoting L'éléphant
I think the popular idea is that the elementary particles are lurking in a kind of fuzzy cloud, awaiting measurement; when in reality, they have no definite location, and therefore no definite existence, until theyre measured. Until then there are only degrees of probability, there are not definite particles in the realistic sense generally understood. This is the subject of comments by John Wheeler, in one of his popular essays, Law Without Law. Here he is referring to interpretations of a particular experiment in quantum physics which is associated with the well-known 'observer problem':
The implication being, the Universe does not comprise independently-existing elementary particles which exist as a kind of material ultimate. That is no longer a new realisation, although the implications are still being debated.
Ontological randomness may be logically possible but it's philosophically repugnant. The problem being that if something is deemed as random, it is in that sense unintelligible. So if something is deemed as ontologically random, and it is considered to be unintelligible, then there is no will to attempt at figuring it out.
Now the problem is that if something appears to be random there is no way of knowing whether it is epistemologically random, or ontologically random, because of the unintelligibility of it. So we won't know which until we figure it out, therefore we must assume it to be epistemologically random. And even if it is ontologically random, we will still never know that this is the case, so we will always have to assume that it is epistemologically random, and try to figure it out. The category of "ontological randomness" is absolutely useless.
Is there a name for the logical fallacy that "P is repugnant, therefore not-P." That happened with non-Euclidean geometry. A priest worked out the implications of rejecting the parallel postulate, and derived results that he regarded as geometrically repugnant. So he rejected them.
Later mathematicians realized that although his conclusions were seemingly repugnant, they were nevertheless logically consistent; and perfectly true, in certain axiom systems.
Looked it up. Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri. He discovered non-Euclidean geometry in 1733 but rejected it because, "the hypothesis of the acute angle is absolutely false; because it is repugnant to the nature of straight lines".
Striking that he used the same word you used, repugnant. But repugnance is not a logically argument, and what's repugnant in 1733 may turn out to be exactly what's needed to model general relativity in 1915. You never know.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is the argument from despair. If the universe is random my life is meaningless so I might as well kill myself. Isn't this what the Existentialists try to figure out? The problem of living in a meaningless world.
So one can despair of the meaninglessness; or one can go to the beach. It's a personal choice. We're alive, we might as well make the most of it. We know that life can be extinguished in an instant, so we make the most of it. Either way you look at it, it's not an argument against the randomness of the universe. It's another argument from "feelings, nothing more than feelings ..."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I agree with this.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Fair enough.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I agree. That's the existentialist solution, isn't it? I actually don't know the details of the philosophy. But if you are saying that, "We don't know what life is, but we might as well make the most of it," I perfectly well agree.
In this sense you are putting the idea of a random universe in the same category of solipsism. You can't prove it's false, but it's pointless to believe it because it leads nowhere. Therefore we should reject it on that basis. They're both essentially nihilistic ideas.
I think I might disagree with that. Solipsism really is nihilistic. But if the underlying physical reality is random, there's still the question of what it means to create and perceive order.
In any event, I conclude that it's still logically possible that the true nature of the universe, if there even is such a thing, is random. And then we can still wonder ... how does all this apparent order arise from underlying randomness? So the philosophers would still have something useful to do, even in a fully random world.
"Repugnant", is a commonly used word in philosophy. The argument I gave is logical, but what is concluded is that the assumption, "there is ontological randomness" is philosophically repugnant, because it would be counter-productive to the desire to know. Therefore it's more like a moral argument. The desire to know is good. The assumption of ontological randomness hinders the desire to know. Therefore that assumption is bad and one ought not accept it.
Since the argument concerns an attitude, the philosophical attitude, or desire to know, you're right to say that it is an argument concerning "feelings". But that's what morality consists of, and having the right attitude toward knowledge of the universe is a very important aspect of morality. This is where "God" enters the context, "God" is assumed to account for the intelligibility of things which appear to us to be unintelligible, thereby encouraging us to maintain faith in the universe's ability to be understood. Notice how faith is not certainty, and the assumption that the universe is intelligible is believed as probable, through faith
Quoting fishfry
Not only is it pointless to believe it, but I would say it is actually negative. Choosing the direction that leads nowhere is actually bad when there are good places to be going to.
Quoting fishfry
I agree that it is very important to leave as undecided, anything which is logically possible, until it is demonstrated as impossible. Notice what I argue against is the assumption of real randomness, that is completely different from the possibility of real randomness. That we ought to leave logical possibilities undecided was the point I argued Michael on the infinite staircase thread. Michael argued that sort of supertask is impossible, but I told him the impossibility needed to be demonstrated, and his assumption of impossibility was based in prejudice.
I believe that paradoxes such as Zeno's demonstrate an incompatibility between empirical knowledge, and what is logically possible. Most people will accept the conventions of empirical knowledge, and argue that the logically possible which is inconsistent with empirical knowledge is really impossible, based on that prejudice. But I've learned through philosophy to be skeptical of what the senses show us, therefore empirical knowledge in general, and to put more faith and trust in reason. So, to deal with the logical possibility presented in that thread, we must develop a greater intellectual understanding of the fundamental principles, space and time, rather than appeal to empirical knowledge. Likewise, here, to show that the logical possibility of ontological randomness is really impossible, requires a greater understanding of the universe in general.
I'm not convinced this is the case for people that use seemingly ambiguous words. There is nuance and often careful selection in the language used to express an idea. And many time the popular terms are so heavily loaded with assumptions that people prefer to use newer or more alternative ones to approach the topic with less baggage.
For example: I often avoid the word God and use "entity" or "being" with X, Y or Z characteristics if im approaching a theological or cosmological discussion. So I don't end up in a death spiral debate about "fairy sky daddy" or "walking on water" or get instantly labelled as a theologist or an atheist due to my choice of language.
I use the term "information" myself because I think it is useful and has its own flavour of characteristics outside of just energy transfer or material arrangements.
Perhaps it's better to ask someone to clarify how they use a seemingly ambiguous term- because the ambiguity rarely comes from the user of the word. They usually know exactly how they're using it. Therefore ambiguity is more based on the interpreter which may not be sure what thr details of their definition are.
Appeal to consequences?
That "flavour of characteristics" is what I call ambiguity. Your use of this word conflicts with the idea you expressed above, about using well defined words with less baggage.
Quoting Benj96
I flatly disagree with this. In a place such as this, TPF, the use of ambiguous words is more often than not an indication that the person does not know what they are talking about. It's like a child, just learning to talk, who uses big words to sound proficient, but really doesn't say anything with those words.
Notice, in your referred article, that when the argument's conclusion concerns good and bad, rather than true or false, it is not considered to be a fallacy.
Your whole argument for less ambiguity is based on an impractical desire for words to be absolutely concrete and defined.
That's simply not how human languages work. This isn't binary code nor mathematics. Poetry isn't based on exacting definitions.
More so, no one uses the same words in the same personal context. They have nuanced differences in meaning for literally everyone. So my suggestion would be to accept that language is and always has been inherently flexible in meaning and definitions and instead just try to understand how another person uses the words rather than complaining about ambiguity.
We cannot ignore that some words are inherently more ambiguous than others and many of those ill defined terms reside in metaphysics.
Ambiguity is the product of 2 different people using a common language.
I can even reduce all this wordy response above to a simple, well defined rebuttal: Ambiguity exists. Get over it.
Thanks.
No, it's not based on such a desire at all. I recognize that to be impossible. My desire is that the writer of the material which I am reading, would have a good understanding of what they are saying, so that they can express themselves with clarity, instead of using ambiguous words to coverup the fact they know very little about the subject that they pretend to be knowledgeable of.
Both of you may be correct. You're just focusing on different aspects of the Uncertainty problem. seems to be assuming that the world itself is fundamentally stochastic, while seems to be saying that the uncertainty is an observer problem. In truth, the answer to the "troubling" emotion caused by the random appearance of quantum phenomena may be to do as the quantum pioneers did : accept the inherent limitations of both observer and object.
As long as scientists were observing macro scale objects, their assumption of predictable mechanical determinism was pragmatic. But now, as we delve into levels of reality that the human mind and eye were not adapted to, for all practical scientific applications, non-classical sub-atomic physics is indeterminate & uncertain. Hence, for theoretical philosophical purposes we must accept the ambiguity of our knowledge (measurements) of reality at the fringes of technological precision and human decision. :nerd:
Is reality fundamentally random? :
The answer is that yes, as far as we can test, all quantum interactions that rely on a statistical or stochastic effect are random, as far as we can measure. The less helpful answer is that we don't know, because there is fundamentally no way to know if something is truly random just by its output.
https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/does-true-randomness-exist-quantum-physics-question.1497773/
Is anything in nature truly random? :
This is a problem about the philosophy of physics; it's sometimes known as Laplace's demon. Our current best theories of the fundamental laws of nature are quantum mechanical in nature. In this theory, the outcome of measurements is truly random; however, whether this implies that nature contains fundamental randomness depends on how you think the measurement problem should be solved.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskPhysics/comments/lls1tk/is_anything_in_nature_truly_random/
Laplace's Demon :
The future is determined. This is known as scientific determinism. Laplace expanded this idea to the entire universe if some {omniscient} creature knew everything's position and motion at one moment, then the {mathematical} laws of physics would give it complete knowledge of the future. That creature is Laplace's demon. {my brackets}
https://elements.lbl.gov/news/spooky-science-laplaces-demon/
Note --- From the perspective of the all-knowing demon, the physical world is precisely determinate and predictable, but in the view of a mortal scientist, using imperfect machinery, the quantum realm is indeterminate & unpredictable, and perplexing. Which may be "troubling" for those who can't deal with ambiguity.
The philosophical point about sub-atomic physics is mainly that it torpedoed the notion of an ultimately-existing material point-particle - 'the atom' of classical thought. C S Pierce, with his 'tychism', would have been perfectly comfortable with the uncertainty principle. But for those seeking the atom as a kind of bedrock foundation of reality - no joy. And it is amazingly difficult for a lot of people to cope with that.
By the way, I love Zizek's take on this. He says that when God was programming the universe, like when programmers create background scenery on a video game, he thought 'why should I bother programming the atom? People are too stupid to see down to that level'. He left it undetermined. But then we out-smarted God - we caught 'God with his pants down', so to speak.
It is not useful to assume spontaneity, just like it is not useful to assume randomness. Are you familiar with the theory of "spontaneous generation"? It used to be the accepted "scientific" theory for how tiny organisms like maggots come into existence. They just kind of pop out from inanimate matter. Of course the theory has been disproven, I think by Louis Pasteur. However, old habits die hard, and now we have the very similar "scientific" theory of abiogenesis and other things like spontaneous symmetry breaking. In general spontaneity does not serve as a good explanatory principle.
'I cannot believe that God plays dice', said Einstein, in response to the discovery of the so-called 'quantum leap'. (Bohr used to say 'stop trying to tell God how to manage the Universe'.) But it is a known fact, as is the stochastic nature of radioactive decay. That doesn't mean that maggots spring fully formed from damp cloth, of course, but that there is an inherent element of unpredictability at the most basic strata of nature.
At the lowest strata of the bedrock of All, where the bucks stops, we can deduce total randomness, given that there can't be any certain direction supplied to it at its most basic level. The same if it always was (eternal). The same if it somehow had a beginning for no reason.
I can agree with your reasoning that one "ought" not to accept it, but the reason is extra-logical. That is, if we are going by pure logic, you have not argued against it. It's like solipsism. Can't refute but pointless to believe it.
But consider: If the world is not random, then it's determined. And is that not equally repugnant? Nothing matters because we have no choice.
What do you say to that? It's repugnant either way. Either there's no meaning or ... there's no meaning. Is there a way out?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
God transcends logic, fair enough. But again, that's not a logical argument.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Determinism is worse.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In that case we are entirely in agreement. I never pretend to know the ultimate nature of the world. It may be random, it may be determined, it may be a combination of both, or it may be something entirely else such that the random/determined dichotomy is rendered meaningless.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But yes!! Here you are arguing that just because an idea is repugnant is no logical reason to reject it! So you should apply the same reasoning to randomness.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think it's highly unlikely that the world will turn out to be a mathematical continuum like the real numbers. The real numbers are far too strange.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I agree with you there. I agree with most of what you wrote. Still I do want to understand why you see that @Michael is wrong to say that supertasks are logically impossible, when they are merely repugnant; yet you seem to reject that same reasoning when applied to randomness.
Also, don't you think determinism is at least as repugnant as randomness?
Yes. Pierce seemed to be comfortable with flexible fundamental Chance, working in opposition to mechanical cause/effect Necessity*1. Yet, the general scientific attitude toward Nature is that nothing is left to Chance. Although some might prefer that nothing is certain. Anyway, that may be why Einstein thought Quantum theory was missing some hidden variables*2, that would cancel-out undetermined Randomness (essential uncertainty) and justify absolute Determinism (mathematical certainty).
In my own musing about the vagaries of Nature, and of moral freedom, I concluded that the Program for evolution must have included opposing YinYang forces of accidental Chance and intentional Destiny. Hence, all changes in the world can be either Positive or Negative, but average-out to Neutral (balanced). An ethical or religious reason for allowing exceptions to determinism, might be to include gaps in the chain of Destiny (necessity) for moral Choice (freedom). If so, we didn't "outsmart G*D", but belatedly discovered that, in making the rules (natural laws), S/He had made allowances for He/r not-so-stupid little gods to make free (unforced) choices, using the willpower of moral agency. :smile:
*1. Tychism (Greek: ????, lit.?'chance') is a thesis proposed by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce that holds that absolute chance, or indeterminism, is a real factor operative in the universe. This doctrine forms a central part of Peirce's comprehensive evolutionary cosmology. It may be considered both the direct opposite of Albert Einstein's oft quoted dictum that: "God does not play dice with the universe" and an early philosophical anticipation of Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tychism
*2. God Plays with loaded Dice :
Einstein described his "private opinion" of quantum physics in one of the 1945 letters by referencing a phrase that he had already made famous: "God does not play dice with the universe." In the letter, he wrote: "God tirelessly plays dice under laws which he has himself prescribed."
https://www.livescience.com/65697-einstein-letters-quantum-physics.html
Paradox of FreeWill :
Consequently, Unwin concluded that Quantum Theory indicates that At the bottom of everything, the smallest particles that exist are ruled by chance. Nothing is predestined. I happen to agree. But I added a slight twist from my own musings on fatalism :Or, everything is probably predestined. Like him, I found reasons for assuming free-agency in the paradoxical probabilistic underpinnings of our seemingly certain cosmos. Its true that science can rely on the same effect following the same cause, to an accuracy of several decimal points of probability but not always to the point of certainty. So, it seems that any self-determination or freedom-from-causation we humans possess must be found in that tiny statistical gap between cause & effect. You might call that an odds of the gaps argument.
https://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page13.html
Although I assumed I knew what you were referring to in the OP, I also think has a good point. Perhaps most of the never-ending argumentation on this forum hinges on ambiguity in language. That's why Voltaire challenged, "If you want to converse with me, first define your terms". Verbal precision is difficult, but not "impractical".
It's true that the term "information" has spawned many new shades of meaning*1 since Shannon redefined it for his data engineering purposes. So, broadly referring to that inherent ambiguity as "the flavour of characteristics" does not pin down the particular Flavour of Information you are connecting to Randomness in the OP.
That's why my Information-based blog has attempted to define the term, as I use it in the blog posts. Unfortunately, some ambiguity is unavoidable, since it is a "shapeshifter" with many ordinary and exotic "flavours". The links below are just two of several attempts to clarify the various ways the term is now used in scientific & philosophical discussions. Terrence Deacon, author of Incomplete Nature, may have touched on MU's need for either/or information on both/and Information*2. :smile:
*1. The many faces of Information :
[i]Colloquial info = Predicate; a noun: what it's about; the meaning; what is gained; the referent.
Shannon info = Quantified; a verb; what it does; gain vs loss; energy.
Boltzmann info = Randomized, absent, what was lost; entropy.
Deacon info = Referential; statistical; pointing to an absent future state.
Teleodynamic info = Semiotic; symbols; words that point to absent things; indicate future possibilities.[/i]
http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page29.html
*2. The Many Forms of Information :
He points out an unintended consequence of the statistical definition of Information, By stripping the concept of its links to reference, meaning, and significance . . . The result is that the technical use of the term information is now roughly synonymous with difference, order, pattern, or the opposite of physical entropy. . . . This redefinition of the concept of information as a measure of order has, in effect, cemented the Cartesian cut into the foundation of physics. . . . implicitly support the claims of both eliminativism and panpsychism.
http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page29.html
What is Information? :
So, in answer to a request for a general definition, as it pertains to inorganic (physical), organic (biological), and semantic types of information, I have defined Information in the context of various real-world instances of ubiquitous enforming power.
https://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page16.html
That's metaphysics not science.
Historically, Luck does play a role in scientific discoveries. But, I assume the pragmatic scientists don't like (metaphysical attitude) to depend on fickle Luck or capricious Serendipity.
Perhaps I should have limited my scientific attitude assessment to Einstein's "god doesn't play dice" remark. Could that general/universal assertion apply to both physics and metaphysics? :joke:
As already argued in this thread, above, the so-called "stochastic nature" of radioactive decay, is best understood as a feature of the means employed to understand it, rather than as a feature of the named activity itself. In other words, it is better to assume that the appearance of randomness is due to the deficiencies of the theories and methods used to understand the object, rather than to assume that the randomness inheres within the object.
Quoting fishfry
There is no such thing as "going by pure logic", toward understanding the nature of reality. "Pure logic" would be form with no content, symbols which do not represent anything. All logic must proceed from premises, and the premises provide the content. And premises are often judged for truth or falsity. But as explained in the passage which referenced, in the case of an "appeal to consequences", there is no fallacy if the premises are judged as good or bad, instead of true or false. That's why I said that this type of logic is very commonly employed in moral philosophy, religion, and metaphysical judgements of means, methods, and pragmatics in general. So for example, one can make a logically valid argument, with an appeal to consequences, which concludes that the scientific method is good. No fallacy there, just valid logic and good premises.
Therefore it is not the case that the reasoning is "extra-logical", it employs logic just like any other reasoning. What is the case is that the premises are a different sort of premises, instead of looking for truth and falsity in the premises we look for good and bad. So this type of judgement, the judgement of good or bad, produces the content which the logic gets applied to.
Quoting fishfry
No, that is not the case, because there are two very distinct senses of "determined". One is the sense employed by determinism, to say that all the future is determined by the past. The other is the the sense in which a person determines something, through a free will choice. In this second sense, a choice may determine the future in a way which is not determined by the past. And, since it is a choice it cannot be said to be random. Therefore it is not true that if the world is not random then it's determined (in the sense of determinism), because we still have to account for freely willed acts which are neither determined in the sense of determinism, nor random.
Quoting fishfry
As I said above, it is not a matter of transcending logic, the conclusions are logical, but the premises are judged as to good or bad rather than true or false. So from premises of what is judged as good (rejecting repugnant principles), God may follow as a logical conclusion.
Quoting fishfry
No I was not arguing that. In that case I was arguing that the idea ought not be accepted (ought to be rejected) unless it is justified. In the case of being repugnant, that in itself is, as I explained, justification for rejection. You appear unwilling to recognize what wonderer1's article said about the fallacy called "appeal to consequences". It is only a fallacy if we are looking for truth and falsity. If we are talking principles of "ought", it is valid logic. Therefore the argument that the assumption of randomness ought to be rejected because it is philosophically repugnant, cannot be said to be invalid by this fallacy, and so it may be considered as valid justification.
Quoting fishfry
But Michael did not show that supertasks are philosophically repugnant. He showed that they are inconsistent with empirical science, and his prejudice for what is known as "physical reality" (reality as understood by the empirical study of physics) influenced him to assert that supertasks are impossible. As I explained in the other thread, in philosophy we learn that the senses are apt to mislead us, so all empirical science must be subjected to the skeptic's doubt. So it is actually repugnant to accept the representation of physical reality given to us by the empirical sciences, over the reasoned reality which demonstrates the supertask. And this is why that type of paradox is philosophically significant. It inspires us to seek the true reasons for the incompatibility between what reason shows us, and what empirical evidence shows us. We ought not simply take for granted that empirical science delivers truth.
Quoting fishfry
As explained above, I am not taking a standpoint of determinism. There are two very distinct senses of "determine", one consistent with determinism, one opposed to determinism (as the person who has a very strong will is said to be determined). I allow for the reality of both.
More broadly speaking, Einstein always stood for a realist attitude: that everything is determined by or subject to general laws. That's why he couldn't abide the implications of quantum physics - entanglement ('spooky action at a distance') and uncertainty being prime examples.
I've read two good popular books on this subject - Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality, Manjit Kumar, and also Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science David Lindley - and note the similarities between the book titles, published five years apart.
Quoting NY Times Review of Lindley
My heuristic is that 'the modern period' is book-ended roughly by the publication of Newton's Principia Mathematica at the beginning, and the publication of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity at the other. That, and the discovery of the indeterminate nature of sub-atomic particles, marks the advent of the post-modern period, with the abandonment of the idea of absolute objectivity that characterised the previous period. And notice, those two book titles, the reference to 'debates' and 'struggles' over the nature of reality. Even though Heisenberg's uncertainty is really quite specific in its application, it
is as metaphor that it really captures the zeitgeist, in my view.*
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Says you. That is precisely the point at issue! Why do you think Neils Bohr, after presenting a lecture to a sanguine group of positivists, on the radical implications of quantum physics, and receiving only polite applause, said 'if you're not shocked by quantum physics then you can't possibly have understood it!' What do you think he means? I'm sure he doesn't mean that the indeterminate nature of quantum phenomena is simply due to gaps in our knowledge. There is a genuine indeterminacy, ontological as much as epistemological, which is something that a positivist audience, of course, was duty bound to ignore.
-------
* 'Freud remarked that the self-love of mankind has been three times wounded by science, referring to the Copernican revolution, Darwins discovery of evolution, and Nietszches declaration of the Death of God. Maybe the 'Copenhagen Interpretation' of quantum physics gave back to humanity what the European Enlightenment had taken away, by placing consciousness in a pivotal role in the observation of the fundamental constituents of reality. While this is fiercely contested by what Heisenberg termed dogmatic realism it has nevertheless become an influential theme in modern cultural discourse.'
Call it anything you like, but not logic! Logic means something else. That term is already taken. You are using extra-logic. Morality, right or wrong, productive/nonproductive. All well and good, but not logic. If logic is to mean anything, it has to mean something.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Let's agree to disagree on that point.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
God's going to hurl thunderbolts at you for so blithely enlisting him on your side to make such a specious argument. If I'm choosing good versus bad I'm not using logic, I'm using feelings. Logic says kill the one rather than the million. But if the one's you or yours, you kill the million. It's been done. Feelings trump logic. But your feelings are not logic!!
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes but the contrary proposition of determinism is even more repugnant, as I've noted. Shouldn't we (logically!) choose the lesser of two repugnancies?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And you have not shown randomness philosophically repugnant. By the time I thought about it a little, I realized that randomness is our only hope for salvation. It's the only way we're not automatons. Clockwork oranges. So you haven't made your point here. I am a proud randomite.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There's no empirical science in these silly omega sequence paradoxes like the effing lamp and the effing staircase. That's the massive category error everyone makes. They posit these physics-defying scenarios then claim they're talking about the physical world.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I believe I made the same claim, but qualified it to "presently known physics."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is way past the lamp. The lamp is not a physical thing. These puzzles have no bearing on physical reality. That's a cognitive error everyone makes about them.
Also, there's more bad reasoning than "reason" in the discussions about these problems.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You say randomness and determinism are compatible, and your justification is to use an alternate and unrelated meaning of the word determined?
But as of now, in this very post, I've convinced myself that I'm a randomist. But then again I've always suspected I'm a Boltzmann brain, and that's how randomists come into existence.
I backed it up with logic. It was suggested that there was a fallacy involved in the logic, the fallacy of appeal to consequences. But referral to a description of that fallacy indicated that it is only a fallacy if the logic claims to deal with truth and not a fallacy if the logic deals with good and bad, "ought". So the logic shows why we ought not accept such an assumption. Here, I'll reprint it:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Wayfarer
On the contrary, I think that's exactly what he means, except he's not talking about simple "gaps" in our knowledge, he's talking about a huge chasm, hence the word "shocked". What the baffling nature of quantum phenomena reveals to us, is that the reality of the world is very far outside of our current ability to understand it. "Indeterminate" means beyond our capacities to determine, and why he thinks that we ought to be "shocked by quantum physics" is that these "indeterminate" aspects are so significant, and have been shown to be so far outside our capacity to understand, that it reveals how shockingly minimal our current capacity to understand the reality of spatial temporal existence actually is.
So what we currently know about physical reality is just like the proverbial tip of the iceberg, and the vast majority lies hidden from us. Meanwhile, the commonly held idea in the conceit of humanity, is that we're on the verge of knowing everything there is to know, and all of reality which is intelligible, is very close to being within our grasp. That's why he thinks that if we're not shocked, we don't understand, because what is revealed through an understanding of quantum reality annihilates that commonly held self-idolatry idea. It does this by revealing to us that we really only have a very slight grasp of a very small portion of the complete intelligible reality.
This is the reason for Aquinas positing God as fundamentally intelligible, and the most highly intelligible, despite the fact that the human intellect in its current condition of being united with matter, has not the capacity to understand God. We allow that the highest principles of reality are intelligible, yet the deficiencies of the human intellect are what make them appears as unintelligible to us. Aquinas' representation here, of God as a Form, makes God most highly intelligible, despite the fact that we cannot understand Him in our current condition. And this is how Christian theology put an end to the dead end direction which was Neo-Platonism, and Plotinus' representation of the highest principle, "One" as outside the realm of intelligibility.
Therefore, it is not simply "my opinion" which I am expressing. I have the support of some of the best metaphysicians and theologians who have lived, in my judgement as to which assumptions we ought to accept and ought to reject.
Quoting fishfry
Slow down, you are not taking the time to understand what I said. In the application of logic, there is two aspects to soundness, the truth or falsity of the premises, and the validity of the logical process. The term "logic" refers to the validity of logical process, it does not apply to the premises. All applications of logic utilize premises as providing the content. The logical process is the form. A valid logical process may utilize faulty premises, and this will result in faulty conclusions even though the logic is valid, and in this case we say that the conclusions are valid, and logical, yet they are unsound.
Accordingly, what I've presented is logic! Moral philosophy uses logic, and it is rightfully called "logic", and it is valid. The issue is that it uses a different sort of premise. Instead of judging the premises as true or false, and the soundness of valid logic being decided according to such a judgement of the premises, the premise are judge according to principle of good and bad. If there was such a thing as what is "truly good", then the premises of moral logic could be judged as true and "sound" in the sense of true. But due to the is/ought incompatibility, there is really no such thing as the truth about "the good".
Therefore, we must respect the fact that moral arguments can proceed with valid logic, from premises which receive their "soundness" from moral judgements of good and bad. You might argue that all moral arguments are unsound, because soundness requires true premises, but to argue it's "not logic!" is an untenable principle. It is logic, using the very same formal systems for validity, only it employs different criteria for soundness, because it uses a different type of premise, as required by a different type of content.
Quoting fishfry
The issue is that in most applications of logic, we do not use logic to judge the premises. And, in all applications premises are required. If it was always required that the premises are judged by logic, we'd have an infinite regress, these premises are justified by logic based in those premise, which are justified by premises based in a further set of premises, ad infinitum. So, we use principles with lesser degrees of certainty to support the premises, inductive reasoning (which is sometimes called logic), abductive reasoning, and most often principles which are just accepted by convention. These premises which are accepted because they are the convention are the social standard, or norm, so they are accepted as truth without doubt. The conventional principles, which account for very many premises in logical arguments are no different from a judgement of good and bad.
So, choosing good versus bad, is not a matter of using logic, just like you say. But neither is most instances of judging premises for truth or falsity. And even if premises are judged using logic, the premises of that logical process must be judged, so at some point the premises of all logic must be judged by something other than logic. Since much of this judgement is based in nothing other than what is the social norm for truth, it is fundamentally the very same type of judgement as choosing good versus bad. The difference is that "truth" deals with "what is" and this is justified by past experience, whereas "ought" deals with what should be, and this is justified by what we want for the future.
Quoting fishfry
As I explain, there is another option other than "determinism".
Quoting fishfry
I suggest that the reason you are like this, is that you do not respect the fallibility of scientific knowledge. There are specific axioms, or fundamental laws of physics, such as Newton's first law, which create the illusion of determinism. The illusion is the assumption that all will continue to be as it has been in the past, unless "caused" by a force, to change. The force here is generally understood to be the energy of something else which has continued to be as it has been in the past. The result is causal determinism. However, when we allow that free will "causes" change in a way which is not determined by the past, we break this illusion. However, this requires accepting that there is a fundamental incompleteness of Newton's laws, which implies that physical reality is really not the way that it is represented by the laws of physics.
Quoting fishfry
The "bearing on physical reality" is always the way in which it is applied. This is no different from mathematics in general. Mathematics has no bearing on physical reality other than its application. This is why it is so important to distinguish between the logical process itself, and the axioms or premises, which determine the applicability. The relationship between the logic and physical reality, is a matter of the application, or practise, and this is the way that we take content from our beliefs about the way that the physical world is, and our beliefs about what is good and what ought to be, and apply the logical process to these beliefs. In philosophy it is assumed that the basic axioms ought (notice recognition of the overall supremacy of ought here) to be self-evident truths. But in mathematics, the basic axioms are simply whatever is desired for the purpose of the individual mathematician who is designing the applicability of the logical system. (So desire is veiled under the hidden intention of the mathematician rather than recognized as the overarching principle.
Quoting fishfry
I did not say that randomness and determinism are compatible. You offered the dichotomy, randomness or determinism, with no other option. I offered another option, free will, as a type of determining which is not consistent with determinism, nor is it consistent with randomness. Determinism is based in a highly restrictive sense of "determine" which limits any form of determining to a meaning of having itself been determined by prior causation. This sense of "determine" employed by determinism excludes the possibility of a free will act. It also excludes the possibility of a first act, which is demonstrably problematic. So the problem with your proposed dichotomy is that by restricting the definition of "determine" to that employed by determinism, which is a demonstrably faulty restriction, it does not give us realistic options.
Yes, it was that "Realist Attitude" that I was referring to in my post above : "Yet, the general scientific attitude toward Nature is that nothing is left to Chance". I suppose the necessity for mixing subjective Metaphysics*1 with objective Quantum Physics is what Realists and Materialists most strenuously object to. By "chance" I refer, not to Luck or Fate, but to the free-wheeling randomness underlying the apparent mechanical determinism of macro reality.
Since I'm an amateur philosopher, not a professional scientist, the "contamination" (impurity) of Reality with a bit of Ideality is a feature of sub-atomic science, not a fault. The 17th century Enlightenment revolution prided itself on empirical Objectivity (reality) & mathematical Precision (certainty), as opposed to the Subjectivity (private revelation) & Assurance (dogmatic faith) of Christian theology. So, it's understandable that the attribution of lawlessness on the frontiers of civilized Reality would be unbearable to those trained in the law & order certainties of Classical Physics.
Since modern Science was the legitimate offspring of secular Greek philosophy, I'm not offended by the family resemblance manifesting in the margins of observable reality. Besides, even the reality of Reality is not as unambiguous as philosophical Realism portrays it. Due to my BothAnd*2 attitude toward Science & Philosophy, I am able to accommodate the Yin and the Yang opposition in a single complementary worldview. ??
*1. Metaphysical subjectivism is the theory that reality is what we perceive to be real, and that there is no underlying true reality that exists independently of perception. One can also hold that it is consciousness rather than perception that is reality (idealism).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivism
*2. Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
No, I don't think that was Bohr's attitude, based on the books I mentioned in the previous post. Bohr felt that his discovery of the 'principle of complementarity' resolved many of the apparent paradoxes implied in quantum physics. So much so, that when he received imperial honours late in life from the Danish Crown, he commissioned a coat-of-arms that had the ying-yang symbol at its center and was embossed with Contraria Sunt Complementa ('Opposites are Complementary'):
I think what he says is 'shocking' is precisely the implications for common-sense realism, the idea that the world exists independently of the way in which we perceive it. I think that commonsense realist view is innate, the 'natural inclination of the intellect' as Bryan Magee says in his book on Schopenhauer, and that questioning it is often violently rejected, even by the highly educated. But I think Bohr was relatively sanguine about it. He said 'everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real' and 'Physics is not about how the world is, it is about what we can say about the world.' I think he accepted the limitations of knowledge, in a rather Kantian way. (There's an excellent youtube lecture by philosopher of science Michel Bitbol on Bohr's Complementarity and Kant's Epistemology if you wish to explore that further.)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Isn't it possible that the world considered as a physical system is unintelligible (Plato's 'shadows on the cave wall')? That this is why, the greater the discoveries, the bigger the questions! You will recall from the discussion of the Eric Perl book Thinking Being, that intelligibility in the sense metaphysics understood it, was completely different from today's mathematical physics. So much the worse for it, many will say, but then Robert Jastrow did say, in God and the Astronomers,"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
I'll try and find time for that video, the first presenter, Beau Lotto, also figured in a video I attached to the Mind Created World OP. As for 'subjectivism', I almost accept that, with the crucial caveat that we are all subjects of similar kinds, and so the world occurs for each of us in similar ways. The subjective, so-called, is an ineliminable pole of reality, but there's no use looking for it, because it is what is doing the looking.
We're just arguing about a word. If you want to claim that "I prefer chocolate to vanilla" is an example of logical reasoning, what is the point of my arguing with you about a thing like that?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In the sense that we can argue a conclusion from moral premises, I agree.
But "I find such and so repugnant, therefore such and so is logically false," is simply bad logic. Or not even logic. As you prefer. But it's not good logic. I'm certain of that.
I appreciate that you wrote a lot. I haven't the heart to continue this line of discussion, my apologies. "Randomness is repugnant to me therefore it's false" is not good logic. As to whether it's bad logic, or not even logic, I'll leave open.
I think that this principle says something about our capacity to observe. It might resolve paradoxes, but it does so by recognizing the limitations of the human being. These limitations are analogous to the fact that we cannot be watching with our eyes, in two different directions at the same time. Such limitations have significant impact on our capacity to understand.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think that this supports very well, what I argued. "Physics" refers to our knowledge about the world, "what we can say about the world", it is not about how the world is. This indicates the huge gap, what I called a chasm, between our knowledge, and the way the world is. The world is not to be blamed for this, the chasm is evidence of deficiencies in our knowledge. We ought not blame the world for our own inabilities.
Quoting Wayfarer
To begin with, a "system" is by definition intelligible. If it were unintelligible (random) it could not be called a system. Next, do you believe that the shadows on Plato's cave wall are unintelligible? I thought the shadows were like representations which the cave dwellers took to be reality. The shadows are very real, and intelligible, as representations, however the cave dwellers mistake them for reality. This is not a case of unintelligibility of the shadows, but a mistake of the cave dwellers.
But the significant point here, as I've been discussing with fishfry, is that I still believe we ought to allow for the possibility that the world, or even some aspects of it, are in fact, unintelligible. This is because we do not know, and what we do not know, we cannot claim to have certainty about. So this is believed as a possibility, and that is a very distinct belief from the assumption that the world, or some aspect of it, actually is unintelligible.
Now, because we do not know whether or not the world is intelligible, we can only take it as a possibility that the world is intelligible. But we can cultivate faith in the idea that it is intelligible. And this faith supports, inspires, and propagates the will to speculate, hypothesize, observe, inquire, experiment, and the will to know in general. That is the philosophical desire to know. On the other hand it is utterly pointless to take it on faith that the world or any aspect of it, is unintelligible, because this kills the will to speculate, hypothesize, observe, inquire, experiment. and the will to know that aspect, in general. Simply put, to have faith in the idea that the world or part of it is random or unintelligible, annihilates the philosophical desire to know that part of the world.
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't quite see the image here. In the example, the scientist has faith in the power of reason. The theologians have been saying that the current state of human reason is deficient, and is incapable of a complete understanding of the universe. The scientist comes to the end of his own capacity for understanding, but this ought not make him give up faith in reason, because there will be many more who come after him, and the human capacity to reason will always be growing. So is the example supposed to show a unity between science and theology, or a disjoint?
Quoting fishfry
The word is "logic", and I think it's pretty important to a discussion like this, to have good agreement as to what this word means.
If I simply assert, as if a true proposition, "chocolate is better than vanilla", there is not logic here. But if I state my premises, I am allergic to vanilla, and to have an allergic reaction is bad, then my stated preference "i prefer chocolate to vanilla" is supported by logic and is logical. Do you agree? .
Well, it's not logical to reject a possibility on the grounds that you don't like it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You're allergic to randomness? Is that the argument you're making?
If you said that believing in randomness makes you break out in a rash, and therefore you prefer to not believe in randomness, that would be logical. But it would be a logical argument for why you hold that belief. It would not be a logical argument against randomness.
It's not even predictable to the demon, if the demon is part of the world itself and has to interact with it.
You don't need to assume the quantum realm, this is totally true even in an purely classical Newtonian universe also.
I understand your qualification of acceptance regarding absolute Subjectivism*1, which would be essentially Solipsism. We moderns avoid the slippery slope of solipsism by comparing our private personal point-of-view with the publicized perspectives of others (e.g. TPF), in order to find commonalities between them. Modern Scientists tend to treat those common denominators*2 as-if they are Objective facts about True Reality*3.
As you suggested though, Subjectivism entails the Part looking at the Whole, from within the system being observed*4. That's why naive Solipsism must be viewed through a lens of reflective Skepticism*5. Those "Other Minds" may filter information about True Reality through their own private or communal prejudices. But that couldn't be true of Moi, could it? :cool:
*1. Subjectivism is the theory that perception (or consciousness) is reality, and that there is no underlying, true reality that exists independent of perception.
https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_subjectivism.html
Note --- Subjectivism = no absolute or objective Truth
*2. common denominator : a fact or quality that is shared by two or more people or groups.
*3. Empirical Science reveals the "Mind of God" without direct revelation :
[i]Many early scientists were not only inspired to do science because they believed in God; they also thought that the natural world revealed the attributes and reality of God. . . . . Sir Isaac Newton argued that the delicate balance of forces at work in our solar system revealed an intelligent and powerful Being. . . . .
So how did we get from these great founders of modern sciencewith their conviction that science reveals the handiwork of Godto the modern New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Victor Stenger who think that science properly understood renders belief in God untenable?[/i]
https://stephencmeyer.org/2021/04/01/scientific-discoveries-reveal-the-mind-of-god-behind-the-universe-2/
Note --- The "handiwork" is self-existent? Hence no "hand" or "mind" needed?
*4. What is my invisible Milieu? :
Two young fish are asked by an older fish, How's the water? and one young fish turns to the other and says, what the hell is water?
https://humanitiesmoments.org/moment/this-is-water-banalities-of-living/
Milieu : environment ; ambience ; surroundings ; context ; background
Caveat : a warning or proviso of specific stipulations, conditions, or limitations.
*5. Solipsism and Skepticism :
What is most distinctive about solipsism lies in what it calls for us to be skeptical of. Solipsism tends to involve skepticism about our knowledge of the world itself. It also involves a skepticism about the minds of others.
https://www.thecollector.com/what-is-solipsism/
Kastrup's 'dissociated alters'.
Willard von Orman Quine :razz:
Fishfry doesn't quite grasp the reality of the fact that the judgement of true or false, which we subject premises to, is really just a judgement of repugnant or not repugnant. OED, repugnant: 2 "contradictory", 3 "incompatible".
Actually, the "other minds" I referred to are the perspectives of physically & mentally different people, who presumably have their own peculiar Solipsistic worldviews. Does Kastrup view his 'dissociated alters' as Other Minds in that sense?
My understanding of DID is more like demon possession. Jesus asked a demented man's possessors "what is your name?". The answer : My name is Legion, he replied, for we are many. {5 or 6 thousand soldiers}
Since I am an Introvert, a crowd of 100 alters, all babbling at the same time, would be confusing and unbearable. I would find single-self Solipsism more comfortable. In that case, other minds would be just a theory. But Wayfarer is a pretty good hypothesis. :joke:
Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds :
Solipsism is sometimes expressed as the view that I am the only mind which exists, or My mental states are the only mental states.
https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/
Dissociative Identity Disorder
Alters are your alternate personalities. Some people with DID have up to 100 alters. Alters tend to be very different from one another. The identities might have different genders, ethnicities, interests and ways of interacting with their environments.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9792-dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder
By definition a metaphorical demon is not part of the real world, hence super-natural. It "interacts" only in hypothetical worlds. Hence, its predictions would be true only in the context of the metaphor. :joke:
Are different bodies of water other waters? The theory is, that each individuals particular memories, proclivities, likes and dislikes is what differentiates one from another. Hence the idea of union, henosis as the culmination of philosophy in Greek philosophy.
It was incorporated into Christian theology by the Greek-speaking Fathers, with the crucial caveat that according to the Christian doctrine, the individual soul eternally maintains its identity, which, according to them, is lost in other forms of mystical union, Plotinus included. Although that is a recondite argument!
I believe it was Paul who insisted on the individual identity of the resurrected soul.
I'm afraid I don't get the joke.
I'm not sure that Laplace himself thought so. His idea was this kind of idea of extrapolation to the extreme, if an entity would have all the information at hand and all the laws of nature. That idea is false, because it doesn't take into account that any entity is part of the world. This is usually referred to being part of the problem that Quantum physics brings to us, but surely the problem is far more general.
As I was developing my own personal philosophical worldview, I was prejudiced against Intelligent Design arguments by the mainstream scientific accusations, that it required faith in the God of Genesis. But I had rejected that ancient hypothesis when I reached the age of Reason. Instead, I was impressed by emerging developments in various threads of scientific understanding in the 21st century, pointing toward Teleology or Teleonomy in evolution.
Surprisingly, even Darwin, in the primitive 19th century, postulated something like natural laws that regulated biological change in order to "select" fitter organisms for reproduction*1. Unfortunately, he lacked knowledge of chemical genes to serve as biological memory from one generation to another. In our own time though --- using randomly generated mutations and electronic memory and software selection (regulations, algorithms) --- computerized engineering*2 has learned to emulate Nature in its law-like limitations on replication to design improved or novel forms of technology.
Anyway, the term "orthogenesis" was "obsolete" long before my time. So, I had to rediscover the concept of directional evolution on my own. Several threads of empirical and theoretical science were attesting to the complementary roles of disorderly Randomness and orderly Natural Laws. But they carefully avoided any words suggestive of Teleological progression. Consequently, I had to coin my own terms --- EnFormAction and Enformy --- to encapsulate the concept of a natural tendency toward increasing complexity & coordination in physical processes. Being inherent in nature, these "laws" required no occasional divine interventions.
Another such orthogenetic thread is the surprising effectiveness of Artificial Selection in designing complex products for specific functions*3. Also, to the chagrin of most scientists, Secular Cosmology arrived at the Big Bang model of our universe, ironically reminiscent of a creation event. From that First Event, the physical world began to expand & evolve, from near nothing to almost everything*4, along a "unilinear" Arrow of Time, as portrayed in the image below. Note the progressive Phases*5 that emerge along the way, despite the random fluctuations within the quantum foundation of physical reality. Another thread was the developments in Information Theory, which portray mathematical information as both a causal and organizing force in the physical universe*6.
I could present lots of circumstantial scientific evidence in this post, but none of it would carry the weight of scientific orthodoxy that Modern Physics has constructed as a wall of separation between Religious Dogma and Empirical "Truth". FWIW : my personal name for that "internal or directional force", powering & guiding evolution, is EnFormAction (causation + information), of which physical energy is the best known form. :smile:
*1. Laws of Evolution :
[i]Correlation of Growth, as Darwin called it. This law states that the specialised forms of separate parts of an organic being are always bound up with certain forms of other parts that apparently have no connection with them. . . . .
"The gradually increasing perfection of the human hand, and the commensurate adaptation of the feet for erect gait, have undoubtedly, by virtue of such correlation, reacted on other parts of the organism."[/i]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272577459_Orthogenesis_and_Evolution
*2. Evolutionary Programming :
Special computer algorithms inspired by biological Natural Selection. It is similar to Genetic Programming in that it relies on internal competition between random alternative solutions to weed-out inferior results, and to pass-on superior answers to the next generation of algorithms. By means of such optimizing feedback loops, evolution is able to make progress toward the best possible solution limited only by local restraints to the original programmers goal or purpose. In Enformationism theory the Prime Programmer is portrayed as a creative principle (e.g. Logos), who uses bottom-up mechanisms, rather than top-down miracles, to produce a world with both freedom & determinism, order & meaning
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html
*3. Evolutionary programming [i]is one of the four major evolutionary algorithm paradigms. It is similar to genetic programming, but the structure of the program to be optimized is fixed, while its numerical parameters are allowed to evolve.
It was first used by Lawrence J. Fogel in the US in 1960 in order to use simulated evolution as a learning process aiming to generate artificial intelligence.[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_programming
Note --- The software is structured by specific limitations (laws) on selection, while the intermediate forms produced are free to explore many unspecified niches (random). Note the irony of using ChatGPT to research the roots of its own evolution.
*4. Orthogenesis and Evolution :
Misinterpretations of orthogenesis describing it as mystical, teleological and linear are invalid. The orthogenetic aspect of evolution was recognized by Darwin as "laws of growth", but was neglected in favor of natural selection. Although an internal component to evolution is recognized by contemporary biologists, it is often considered to be secondary to natural selection. Where recognition is given to an internal tendency for evolution to proceed without requiring the action of natural selection, terms such as "constraints," "bias," and "potential" may imply orthogenesis.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272577459_Orthogenesis_and_Evolution
*5. Teleological Emergence :
Expand that notion to a Cosmological perspective, and we can identify a more general classification of stratified phase-like emergences : from Physics (energy), to Chemistry (atoms), to Biology (life), to Psychology (minds), to Sociology (global minds). Current theories attribute this undeniable stairstep progession to random accidents, sorted by natural selection (a code word for evaluations of fitness for the next phase) that in retrospect appear to be teleological, tending toward more cooperation of inter-relationships and entanglements between parts on the same level of emergence. Some AI enthusiasts even envision the ultimate evolution of a Cosmic Mind, informed by all lower level phases.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html
*6. The Guiding Force of Evolution :
Glattfelder reaches the same conclusion that other Information theorists have inferred : that we live in a universe built of Information. Again, that insight is in agreement with the Enformationism thesis. Likewise, he concludes that overall, the universe appears to be guided by an invisible force driving it to ever higher levels of self-organized complexity.
https://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page19.html
Note --- Glattfelder is a "Theoretical physicist turned quant, turned complexity scientist, with a strong commitment to philosophy."
TELEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION :
Would you agree that an omniscient entity is preternatural? Non-omniscient human observers of quantum events cannot be as objective & well-informed as a metaphorical demon seeing the world from a privileged perspective. Hence, the Quantum Observer Effect. :smile:
Laplace's supernatural demon :
The demon must be an outside observer of the deterministic universe.
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/104560/could-laplaces-demon-be-the-universe-itself
Well, that's basically my point. And do note that Laplace really didn't make this point at all. Yet notice, that isn't actually something that has been told earlier when discussing Laplace's demon. The link you gave gives it in one way. But notice that this is actually a very important thing.
Outside observer without any interaction means that objectivity can exist. But then if you define that everything existing is part of the universe, the simple conclusion is that this kind of omniscient entity doesn't exist. Or otherwise you would have a peculiar World view reality + the external entity. The external viewer is simply meaningless. It's as meaningless as a logical system where everything is provable and correct, starting from 0=1. Yes, you can create such axiomatic system, but it's simply useless.
Hence I would conclude: A subjective entity simply cannot be omniscient objective knowledge about everything. It's the subjectivity that limits this "perfect objectivity".
Quoting Gnomon
Omniscient?
You can turn that other way: anything part of the university cannot be omniscient.
Yes. That's why Laplace postulated a preternatural "demon" instead of a natural scientist, to keep track of all positions and motions in the world, from his objective observatory outside the universe.
Laplace had confidently responded to Napoleon's question, about a place for God in his theories of a deterministic world : "I have no need for that hypothesis". Yet, his argument for determinism used a god-substitute to make his point that natural laws leave no gaps for divine intervention. Ironically, the demonic entity would need to know all natural laws and all physical properties in order to predetermine the future development of the whole universe.
On the other hand, Maxwell's demon --- organizing only gas particles in a box, instead of an entire universe --- may not need to be omniscient, just uncannily knowledgeable and quick ; in order to violate the Second Law. In both cases of teleological determinism, the prophetic or organizing entity must be able to comprehend current complexity and future complications arising from lawful interactions of zillions of zooming particles. :cool:
PS___ A> Teleological Determinism is not the same as B> Theological Determinism. "A" requires only an unidentified philosophical (axiomatic) First Cause, while "B" specifies the creator deity of some historical religious myth.
[i]Q: How is quantum mechanics an obstacle for the demon?
A: The demons job is to determine the future of the entire universe from initial conditions and the laws of physics and hes got the brains to do it.[/i]
https://elements.lbl.gov/news/spooky-science-laplaces-demon/
Laplace's demon as a secular substitute for an omniscient God with perfect foreknowledge.
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/laplaces_demon.html
Laplace's demon is omniscient and god-like: no mortal could ever hope to have the kind of perfect knowledge that Laplace alludes ...
https://www.bayesianspectacles.org/laplaces-demon/
The future is determined. This is known as scientific determinism. Laplace expanded this idea to the entire universe if some creature knew everything's position and motion at one moment, then the laws of physics would give it complete knowledge of the future.
https://elements.lbl.gov/news/spooky-science-laplaces-demon/
This is what Laplace thought is "all" that needed. But Laplace really missed the point that a forecast of the future can have an effect on the future, the subjectivity of this entity. It's simply negative self reference, just as the trick is in all incompleteness results. You simply cannot "just assume" something to get rid of this problem in science. In religion, you simply can start with the axiom of God being omniscient and omnipotent.
It's quite similar if I ask you @Gnomon to give an response that you don't ever give. Are there those kind of responses? Sure, a lot. Can you give them? No, not you specifically.
Why is this important? My view is that people think this is some kind of "problem" that needs to be fixed, averted or bypassed by some method. In fact it's a very important limitation itself, especially when you think just what something "random" should be.
So what is something random? It is something that doesn't repeat itself, doesn't have some algorithm that can define it less than itself. Wouldn't here what you need be exactly that negative self reference?
I don't know that Laplace "missed the point". Perhaps, in order to keep his metaphor simple, he avoided getting into the open-ended question : "is foreknowledge deterministic?" :smile:
Quoting ssu
I'm not sure what "this" refers to : a> foreknowledge = determinism? b> omniscience = omnipotence? c> randomness = incompleteness?
I'm also not sure of what the "problem" is that needs to be fixed : a> subjectivity = negative self-reference? b> randomness = indeterminism? c> negative self reference = unquestioned assumptions?
What does "this" have to do with Laplace's demon or the OP question about the equation of randomness and information? :nerd:
At least you are open-minded on the question of origins. Some posters on TPF are self-labeled Absurdists*1. For them, asking about Origins & Causes is irrelevant to their meaningless life. But I suspect that most of us on this forum are not quite so apprehensive or pessimistic about open-ended philosophical questions. We humans seem to be innately curious*2 about the causal history prior to important observed events and processes : i.e. a Reason for Being. Rather than using contemporary humanoid gods to explain the existence & operation of our world, Plato and Aristotle postulated descriptive abstract labels such as First Cause and Prime Mover.
Darwin's theory of Evolution was probably intentionally left open-ended. But subsequent scientists have never ceased to push back the Chain of Change, seeking a priori. For example, 20th century astronomers attempted to turn-back the clock, with empirical evidence, to see when/where the first step in cosmic expansion/emergence occurred . This led to the Big Bang conjecture, which only incited additional questing for a more satisfactory beginning of the storyline than just "once upon a time".
Non-empirical hypothetical attempts to fill-in the before-big-bang gap include : a> quantum field fluctuations, b> eternally cycling Multiverse, c> Penrose cycling universe, d> exponential inflation of low entropy universe, e> zero-point energy of empty space, etc. All of these assume eternal existence of some unspecified or vague Creative Potential. And most are simply mechanical or accidental or Random, with no awareness or intention or Purpose (enabling Information). But whatever that cryptic world-causing Event/Entity*3*4 was, we know for sure that it has created creatures with both awareness and intention : us TPF posters, for example.
So, explaining where inquisitive Mind originated is a harder problem (mystery) than imagining where lumpish Matter came from (theory). Deists don't claim to know the answer to the unyielding "Hard Problem", but they typically infer that self-conscious animated Sentience could not emerge naturally from inert Matter or entropic Energy without some defining Information (formula). Hence, the reference to a generic Deus*5 : (1 = X). :smile:
*1. Absurdism is the philosophical theory that the universe is irrational and meaningless. It states that trying to find meaning leads people into a conflict
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism
*2. What did Einstein say about curiosity?
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing".
*3. Deus otiosus : a creator God who has entirely withdrawn from governing the universe after creating it or is no longer involved in its daily operation
*4. Deus absconditus : hidden god
*5. Deism : immanent creative Force
Do notice the time when Laplace lived: the Scientific world view was quite Newtonian and causal determinism was quite mainstream. And notice that he doesn't at all refer to any "demon" to the issue:
When you read that, I don't see any reference to any open ended question rather than perhaps the difficulty of knowing "all forces that set nature in motion" and obviously "all positions of all items of which nature is composed".
Quoting Gnomon
To the point that causal determinism as defined by Laplace has trouble with logic, when the intellect is part of the universe.
Quoting Gnomon
Ok, when similar problems have been stated, for example in economics in the 1930's that there's this problem when the forecaster has an effect on what is forecasted, there might not be any way to give the correct forecast, people (or in this case) economists don't like this. Hence this was just sidelined by saying that "there has to be a correct forecast" and perhaps later we'll understand how to find it. (And btw, the exchange was between two later nobel prize winning economists) People just assume some dynamic model can take into account the effect of the forecaster. Well, the problem with negative self reference is that there's no dynamic modelling way to counter it.
Quoting Gnomon
Just first think about what Laplace's idea holds: if you have total information and understanding the laws of nature, then by Laplace's argumentation, forecasting is really an extrapolation of the present / past to the future. Extrapolation of this is simply computation, you can calculate what the future is.
Ok, so we have notice that it isn't so. If the forecaster / forecast itself has an effect on the future, in some cases it's impossible to give the accurate forecast. The real question is why? Logically and mathematically why it is so?
The logical and mathematical reasoning here is that in mathematics there are entities that are uncomputable/incomplete. Proofs that have been given about this basically use negative self reference. Hence it shouldn't be any wonder that Laplace's Demon falls in with these proofs given about uncomputability and incompleteness.
The next question is that can randomness be defined also with this phenomenon in mathematics? After all, if you have an random string, you cannot extrapolate how it's going to continue from what it has been.
Your quote is exactly the "open-ended question" I referred to. Is it possible to calculate the future position and momentum of multiple particles accurately enough to predestine the end of the world? The "intellect" he postulated is not any known entity in the physical world, so others labeled it a "demon" or "daimon". For the ancient Greeks, a daemon was a lesser deity with limited powers. But for Enlightenment Age philosophers & scientists, the term "demon" was an oblique reference to an omniscient being, which for Christians would be the unlimited deity known as "God".
Laplace's hypothetical metaphor was open on both ends, in the sense that a> it postulated a supernatural entity to serve as a stand-in for Christianity's deterministic creator, and b> in his assumption that future events, to the end of the physical world, could be prophesied by the all-knowing daimon, presumably by mathematical calculations. However, years later mathematicians bumped heads with the "three-body problem" of complexity, and eventually Goedel concluded that human mathematics will never be able to predict world events (e.g. weather) beyond a few days in advance.
Those impediments would doom "natural" computations of far future events. So, only a truly omniscient & omnipotent supernatural deity would be able to create a predestined world, with a certain beginning and end. Hence, Laplace's mere "difficulty" for a far-sighted daemon, would be "impossible" for a natural being, living within the incredibly complex system he's modeling. Ironically, some modern scientists, working with a classical model of reality, ignore the role of Chance, Choice, and Uncertainty. :nerd:
"Laplace's Demon" concerns the idea of determinism, namely the belief that the past completely determines the future. Clearly, one can see why determinism was so attractive to scientists (and philosophers determinism has roots that can be traced back to Socrates). Indeed, this passage had a strong influence on setting the course of science for years to come, and by the early 1800's determinism had become very firmly entrenched among many scientists. In Laplace's world everything would be predetermined no chance, no choice, and no uncertainty.
https://www.stsci.edu/~lbradley/seminar/laplace.html
Quoting ssu
Yes. That's why natural evolution must harmonize Random Mutations with specific Selection Criteria. Working together, these complementary factors combine freedom for exploration of solutions with limitations on the combinations that will survive into the next generation. But who does the selecting? A math Demon? :smile:
But do notice that Laplace isn't using the metaphor demon/daimon!
It's only afterwards others have referred to a demon. Laplace refers only to an intellect. It really doesn't talk about any supernatural entity, it only refers to an intellect having the knowledge of laws and all the information of the greatest bodiest to the tiniest atom. It's you who is adding to this context the assumption that Laplace is talking about a supernatural entity. Laplace isn't. But enough of this, let's move on...
Quoting Gnomon
Has he said that? Please give a reference, I'm genuinely surprised if he said so and I'm interested to know that quote. I didn't know that, as obviously Gödel was extremely careful of what actually his incompleteness theorems mean. He had even difficulties to accept that Turing's Halting Problem was similar to his theorems.
Quoting Gnomon
Is it actually so incredibly complex? It can be a very simple example where the model, that actually has an effect itself what it should model at the first place, can be very simple.
In some cases a "stable model" can be found, but not when negative self reference is applied: you cannot make a model that gives the result that the model does not give. Just as you cannot give a reply that you don't give.
But it's great that we agree on this and I think you understand this quite well. So let's not get stuck on debating just what Laplace thought. You and I understand the basic problem.
Quoting ssu
Quoting Gnomon
Here I think Laplace himself has the best answer to this: He (Laplaca) doesn't need a math Demon or God. Because there is no selection done. Let me explain,
because here we come to a fascinating conclusion about determinism and chance/randomness (at least in my opinion):
If you define the future being that will truly happen in reality, you do have determinism: no chance, no choice, no uncertainty. It's really the block universe, everything is predetermined, like this discussion with you and others. It will go only one way and that's it.
But then there is the real twist: this understanding of the universe is useless for us. We cannot model it, we cannot extrapolate from it because we are part of the universe and thus we have this limitation on modelling. Sure a lot of what we don't know we could forecast if we would have more information and better models, but here is simply this logical limitation here, which cannot be overcome. Hence anything part of the universe has this limitation.
Hence we have to makes models with for example using probabilities. Yet many times that probability might be a 0.5 probability of a coin toss being heads or tails, and there's not much information on the fact that "if you toss a coin, you will get a coin toss". Of course in the deterministic reality there is the exact way the coin will land, heads or tails or sideways. With a probability of 1.
I think this is very important and I think people actually haven't understood it well. I remember one math-guy in NASA, David Wolpert, coming to this conclusion too in 2008 (in fact I think a bit earlier), it's now even mentioned in the Wiki page of the Laplace's demon. He uses Cantor's diagonalization, but if you think a bit, do notice that Cantor's diagonalization is simply a use of negative self reference.
It's really a powerful tool, when you think of it.
I'm afraid you're getting way over my head, since I know nothing about Laplace, except for a couple of famous quotes. I assume you're referring to Laplacian Scores (I Googled "Laplace Selection"), but I won't be able to follow your reasoning on that "score".
However, I do infer that his reference to an "Intellect", capable of knowledge that is beyond human ability, was an oblique reference to a god-like mind, without using that taboo word in a scientific context. Later philosophers made the same inference, but used a different term, "demon"*1, to indirectly imply super-human observation & calculation powers. :nerd:
*1. Laplace's Demon :
This intellect is often referred to as Laplace's demon (and sometimes Laplace's Superman, after Hans Reichenbach). Laplace himself did not use the word "demon", which was a later embellishment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon
Quoting ssu
I doubt that Einstein intended for his as-if Block Universe metaphor to be taken literally. But, as you noted, such a world would be completely predestined, and unlike the probabilistic (partly randomized) reality*2 that us humans have to deal with. Perhaps you are arguing against Causal Determinism*3, as an argument against human Choice & FreeWill. If so, I'd have to agree with you. :smile:
*2. Order within Chaos :
Chaos is where things are so complex that you can't handle it and order is where things are so rigid that it's too restrictive. In between that is a place that's meaningful; where you're partly stabilized and partly curious.
https://zaidkdahhaj.medium.com/how-to-practically-understand-order-chaos-8c4fefb12e30
*3. Determinism :
Determinism is the philosophical view that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable.
https://en.wikipedia.org wiki Determinism
Quoting ssu
I'm not very familiar with Wolpert or Cantor, so "diagonalization" doesn't mean much to me. I suppose our "limitation on modeling" means that, pace Einstein, most of us parts-of-the-whole are not even close to omniscient. What does "negative self-reference" mean to you? In layman's terms, please. :wink:
That's the deterministic model of the universe, which Laplace's demon ought to easily calculate. Just remind yourself what Laplace is talking about: he is talking about extrapolation, the calculation of the value of a function outside the range of known values. That has nothing to do with randomness or probabilities or statistics. And this is quite possible for Laplace's demon when it isn't participating in the universe. The intellect can really perform then as Laplace asserts. Everything is truly predetermined. The future is what it will be. There is simply no room for choice, chance or randomness.
The negative self-reference refutes this possibility.
Perhaps this would be easier to understand in a game theoretic model. Let's assume a game where there's two paths (A and B) for me to take and I have to pick one and you have to make a correct forecast of what path I take. Might be easy for you and especially easy for Laplace's demon, but the thing is that you have to tell the forecast of what I will do prior of me doing it (as it obviously is a forecast, not just an observation). In order for you to make a correct forecast, you have to name the path that I take.
After you have made your forecast, I will react the following way:
If you forecast I take path A - > I take path B
If you forecast I take path B - > I take path A
If you forecast anything else, or stay silent - > I take path B.
First, is there a correct forecast, a correct model of how the game will play out (what path I will take)? Yes, obviously.
Now do notice here the negative self reference: my decisions are simply based on your forecast itself, or the lack of it. And obviously I do the other thing as you forecast. You cannot deal with this by saying that I will say the path that you won't say (for example B), because then I will do exactly that (say B). Or, if you either start a philosophical lecture or simply just explain the above, it isn't a correct forecast as I defined earlier.
The basic thing in Cantor's diagonalization process is quite similar to that of above, it too is a clever way to have negative self reference and thus show that obviously that real number cannot be in the list (at least one way to make reductio ad absurdum proof.
Quoting Gnomon
The "limitation" here is simply that you cannot make the correct model.
It's not about omniscience, you could say it's about control. In the above game you could take your favorite shotgun, point it at me and say very threateningly: "SSU WILL CHOOSE PATH A!!!" and I will likely choose path A as I don't want to find out which kind of bullets you have in your shotgun and will you shoot me or not.
Hence we talk about Laplace's demon: if it genuinely makes the correct forecast, then the demon itself controls the whole universe. That's the only way out of the negative self reference: that there simply can't be a negative self reference for the demon. Which, again, I will say that Laplace didn't have in mind when he talked about the intellect.
Quoting Wayfarer
You seem to agree with that idea because you, like others, think that each existence is self-contained or self-supporting. That each unit of reality is in itself responsible for its being. And we know that's not how the universe works. The Schrodinger's thought experiment of a cat in a box with all the other components is a way to convey this idea -- the cat is not just a cat in itself: there is an idea that we're trying to judge. Is it dead or alive? And we can't answer that question by naively saying it's breathing or not breathing. We have to take into consideration whether there is radioactivity, and if there is does it break the flask containing the poison which then kills the cat.
The big bang was not witnessed in itself -- it was theorized.
The expansion of the universe was observed not by actually seeing the edges expanding. But by observing the increasing distance of the other galaxies.
Quoting Gnomon
That's fair. To me the concept of "random" is similar to the concept of "nothing" if we really want to get to the reality. The nothing was a filler of a gap in our observation. But, as I have said before, there has always been something: when theorists talk about the beginning of the universe, they really don't mean "from nothing".
Some self-reference is necessary to have a self-concept. So I guess you're saying that Laplace's demon is omniscient until it begins to doubt its own abilities : to have a negative bias against itself. However, there may be another interpretation of that negative-self-reflection notion*1.
The Centipede story*2 is an illustration of the psychological effect of too much self-concern, or introspection. Normally, the centipede is able to walk by instinct, without consciously thinking about how to coordinate so many legs. But when her focus is directed from a single goal to the many steps in between, a subconscious process (no need for choice) became a conscious concern (necessity for choosing). I suppose you could say that the complex walking procedure was "predetermined" by instinctive genetics, until it became a rational mechanical design problem.
What would cause the demon's intellect to change her cosmic worldview from A> frozen totally-non-random block-time eternal-isness, to B> dynamic space-time partly-randomized evolution-over-eons? If predestination is switched to free-will, then every step becomes a problem to be solved. Hence, the demon might get distracted from the simple "why?" of the world, to questions of "when & where & how", then confused by so many contradictory options, might fall in the ditch of choice-paralysis*3. :smile:
*1. Negative Self-Reference : "question our assumptions"
https://thenegativepsychologist.com/trap-self-reference/
*2. The Centipede's Dilemma :
The centipede effect occurs when a normally automatic or unconscious activity is disrupted by consciousness of it or reflection on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Centipede%27s_Dilemma
[i]A centipede was happy quite!
Until a toad in fun
Said, "Pray, which leg moves after which?"
This raised her doubts to such a pitch,
She fell exhausted in the ditch
Not knowing how to run.[/i]
*3. the paradox of choice suggests that having too many choices actually limits our freedom.
https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/economics/the-paradox-of-choice
Oh no, that's not it. I'm just saying that it cannot do what it doesn't do. This is the law of non-contradiction: it states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time.
Hence it cannot simply be omniscient when it interacts with the universe. The only way the demon can be omniscient about an universe is when it's not part of it. And when it's not part of it, it cannot give any information to anybody (interact with it, in general).
I'm not sure what the "contradictory propositions" are in this case. Are you talking about A> knowing-Omniscience vs B> acting-Immanence : design & creation of A> perfect self-adjusting evolutionary space-time system vs B> imperfect mechanism requiring occasional adjustments (interactions ; interventions) to physical settings? "A" would leave the creator-demon outside the creation, but "B" would require the demon to stick-around to tweak the dials of Nature to keep it on track.
As I understand Laplace's metaphor of godless purposeless Determinism, it postulates setting Initial Conditions, but not subsequent demonic-intellect "interventions", and would play-out via random physical interactions ; not by divine dial-tweaking. That would be equivalent to the Big Bang Theory, in which the Singularity (the Demon) was a physical state similar to a Black Hole. There was no prior intention or later intervention. That super-dense dot of matter/energy simply exploded. And the happenstance state of the Singularity set the initial conditions for the Bang, which physically determined all future evolutions of matter/energy, which are destined to die in a Big Sigh.
The philosophical problem with the burgeoning*1 Singularity postulation is : C> how did it get into that particular state, and D> what caused the imploded matter to explode? One proposed answer to C & D is that a previous incarnation of a hypothetical Multiverse ended with all matter compacted into a Black Hole, which "bounced" back into a reverse of the implosion motion : an explosion*2.
The Singularity-Demon metaphor could be explained as the intake of knowledge (information) from a previous (precedental) world experiment, which made it effectively omniscient about the new (subsequent) venture in world-making. If the cause & effect are imagined as natural & accidental, then no Creative Intention was necessary to Cause the eruption of an embryonic Cosmos, providentially furnished with DNA/information from a parent world.
Of course, the Mutiverse-Big-Bounce theory is just as unverifiable as a Demonic or Genesis creation story. So, we are arguing about the credibility of a scientific Myth. What's "true" in the metaphor, is not necessarily true in the real world. So, we're back to the OP question of the role of Information and Randomness in our Organic and Entropic world. :nerd:
*1. Burgeoning : beginning to grow or increase rapidly; flourishing.
*2. The Big Bounce hypothesis is a cosmological model for the origin of the known universe. It was originally suggested as a phase of the cyclic model or oscillatory universe interpretation of the Big Bang, where the first cosmological event was the result of the collapse of a previous universe.[1][2][3][4] It receded from serious consideration in the early 1980s after inflation theory emerged as a solution to the horizon problem, which had arisen from advances in observations revealing the large-scale structure of the universe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce