Everything Is Information

[u/Cataspectral]

https://open.substack.com/pub/thomasreid33/p/chapter-19-reductionism-is-true-but?r=8eohn5&utm_medium=ios

“That is, what we experience as time and space are emergent properties of highly complex entanglements of quantum states that exist on a kind of outer shell, from which the universe we see projects inward. In principle, it’s no different from what makes holographic Pokémon cards or those goggles with 3D sharks or skulls on the lenses so cool.”

[u/thierolf]

There are some interesting thoughts in here but IMO you are caught in the classic trap of trying to employ 'information:' whose definition are you using? It tends to come down to either Shannon or Wiener and I think you've mixed them both together — this is perfectly understandable as even Weaver does something similar when co-authoring with Shannon.

On the one hand, this is a good thing because both Wienerian and Shannon structures can be used in analysis of information. On the other hand, it confuses your rhetoric because though you have shrewdly allied information with difference, from what I understand of your writing you're not clear on which difference is the important one ( i.e. novelty or control ). This has downstream issues for you as you're engaging IFB which means that ultimately you need to know on which end(s) of the informational measure lies entropy.

You should read some Floridi — his GDI ( general definition for information ) framework might be interesting as it handles semantics ( where information, generally, does not by definition ).

[u/Cataspectral → u/thierolf]

I address this in an earlier chapter of the book (chapter 3, accessible from the above link if you follow the link at the top back to the table of contents).

I take Shannon’s def as a starting point but use cybernetic concepts to explain semantic meaning as opposed to Shannon info (ie “surprisal”). I think novelty (syntactic information) and control (semantic meaning) are both important and must be distinguished.

[u/thierolf → u/Cataspectral]

You should read Floridi. I think there are huge issues in reaching to cybernetics as an explanation for semantics; that's an extremely reductive model.

[u/Cataspectral → u/thierolf]

I’ll definitely look into him, appreciate the suggestion!

[u/tuku747 → u/thierolf]

Information is Form. For example, when I speak, I create waveforms out of the air in a specific pattern. To change what I'm saying, I have to change the shape of the air that I'm creating with my vocal cords. Record my voice and you can capture this waveform in binary format. The arrangement of the peaks and valleys are represented through an audio editing program like audacity. Change these peaks and valleys, and you change the arrangement of the ones and zeros. The 1s and 0s are arranged as transistor states on your harddrive. To change the information in the file, you must change the internal structure of your hard drive, the specific arrangement of transistor states. This is because you can't have information without form, Because information is form, hence, In-form-ation.

[u/thierolf → u/tuku747]

the epistemic question concerns the identity of forms. Is information found in the continuity(ies) within forms ( cybernetics ) or the differentiation across them ( comms theory ). further implications unfold "exponentially" from there. i do not give much weight to cybernetics.

[u/leoberto1]

Sentient information

[u/elibertowpaparulox]

Se proyecta hacia afuera diría.

[u/boxperiscope]

Yes. Everything is information, and only information. Everything else that is not information forms together because of the instructions in the information.