13th Dec, 2016
Research Impulses, Home https://www.plbg.at
Question
Asked 10th Jun, 2015
Is 'information' definable as a scientifically valid and unified term?
In our Age of Information the physical Theory of Information by SHANNON is to narrow - he excluded "psychological considerations". But today the importance of this term is too great - we need a unified definition for a l l sciences !
My results see at http://www.plbg.at, but they are only my ideas. They try to find a valid and acceptable abstraction over all sciences.
Most recent answer
A.K. Konopka,
The term "Information" was my research object in last 10 years. May I recomend the linked File!
1 Recommendation
All Answers (19)
"Is 'information' definable as a scientifically valid and unified term? "
- see http://viXra.org/abs/1402.0173 , or attached link.
Cheers
Article the Information as Absolute
Many definitions of information as a construct include the notion that information is the result of data analysis or visualization that is useful (actionable) or valuable (can be bought or sold). So the question of useful or valuable 'how' and 'to whom' naturally arises.
If you use the above factors in a definition, information is subjective and "psychological [or cultural] considerations" could not be excluded. Measurement of the construct defined this way is not easy but is a matter of perspective (as in judicial courts knowing obscenity when they see it).
David Kroenke is a well-recognized database and data modeling expert, and he has worked on differentiating data from information in practical ways for years (see his various articles and textbooks). He contends that information resides in the mind of the user. As an example, he points out that some people can make good use of a graph or map or other visualization of the results of data analysis while other people can't or won't. Further, an animal looking at that graph/visualization can't make use of it. Therefore, the information resides in the mind of the user, making it subjective.
in this context, perhaps the successful/unsuccessful use of data analysis/visualizations would be a good surrogate measure for information. If you can use it, it's there. If you make good use of it (successful outcome), the quality of the information was good.
A counter argument is that use of the results of data analysis/visualization is really applying strategies and knowledge and therefore falls into the category of expertise. I see this idea in discussions of expert systems and artificial intelligence.
Just my two cents worth on the topic.
2 Recommendations
"David Kroenke... contends that information resides in the mind of the user"
- the information is utmost fundamental essence, there is [in our Universe and outside] nothing besides the information.
So it is first of all an objective essence – though, of course, it can “reside in the mind of [some] user” sometimes – since any user [a human] is nothing else then some informational system/ structure, as well as a computer, an electron, a star, etc.
And that is indeed basic “scientifically valid and unified” definition of the information. All/any other definitions are some special cases that relate to some special cases only.
Again – see the link in the SS post above above.
Cheers
'
Sergey:
'
Thanks for sharing a draft of the paper entitled
"Information as Absolute". (The definite article
["The"] is not needed in English). I would like
to offer my services for improving the English
version of this text, as an experienced author
of numerous technical and scientific papers.
A colleague who speaks Russian could help.
'
On the topic under discussion It seems to me
that part of the problem, even before trying to
find a good unifying concept, is that, just like
words that have necessarily embraced a very
wide range of usages, as scientific knowledge
moves inexorably forward, more "meanings"
are increasingly attached to the many words.
(Of course, the slow drift in word usage and
meaning isn't limited to such fields as science
and it's bed-fellow, philosophy).
.
I believe your question is basically this one:
Can information exist in the absence of
a physical and identifiable substrate?
Would you agree? An entity which we claim
to be "Absolute" cannot be bounded by any
dependencies. But information, it seems to
me, must always be dependent on the
provision of some sort of support medium.
.
If we encode a certain unique sequence on
to a radio carrier and perhaps use a narrow
aperture antenna, the support medium here
is the "space-time continuum", the carrier of'
the information being an electromagnetic
wave function. This is probably as tenuous
a medium as we can think of, until we creep
cautiously into the quantum underworld.
.
What "happens to the information" as the
wave moves deeper into space? Can it be
destroyed? It seems to me that the simple,
practical answer is: "Of course it can!" In a
very short time its power will fall below the
"noise floor", ultimately defined in thermal
terms as about 3 Kelvin.
.
I didn't mean to start blogging... just a few
passing thoughts, out of many about this
fascinating matter .... I mean... topic!
.
Dr. Barrie Gilbert
Life Fellow, IEEE
Fellow, ADI
Emeritus, US National Academy, etc
.
1 Recommendation
Barrie,
- thanks for your offer to improve my Russian English! Though the paper in question was rejected by a ten mainstream philosophical journals without peer-review, so I don’t know – to what extent this point is important till now. When viXra seems is now a unique resourse, where some indeed new things can be published, if authors don’t belonge to some scientific community; and viXra don’t require too much from authors’ languages. I’m sick for a next mainstream submissions now, but it isn’t impossible that this mood will change sometimes and I address to you with corresponding ask -?.
But it seems the language is so bad that you did’t understand some basic points in the paper -?
First of all – “Can information exist in the absence of a physical and identifiable substrate?”
- just this point is considered in the paper and it is rigorously shown that for the information there is no principal necessity to have some other “information carrier” – the information simply isn’t capable to be non-existent; from what follows that in depth always an information is a carrier of an information.
How such a thing is realised? – [Though, again, there isn’t principal necessity to answer on this question,] - an example: in a popular device “flash card” an information from, say a PC, is written on 99% on the information that was developed by systems engineers and realised in the card by technologists and corresponding equipment. If somebody makes something else from the totally same atoms of the card, nobody will write on this something, even the USB jack remains be the same.
And – again – this point, just because of the utmost fundamenatilty of the information, is unique conclusion that can be rigorously proven, in contrast to any other postulate that relate to any other things, which are external to human’s consciousness, for example – to any postulate of any theory in nature sciences.
In the mathematics such a situation is possible – but because of the mathematics is purly abstract science, i.e. is a pure information that is expressed on some specific language…
Cheers
May I recommend my own research results since a bout 10 years: http://www.plbg.at.
My interest is genuine scientific and involved in uniformed terms worldwide (CAPURRO, HOFKIRCHNER)
.
Sergey:
'
I do not understand this assertion:
.
> the utmost fundamenatilty of the information is
> unique conclusion that can be rigorously proven
.
In what way are you using the word "Fundamental"?
This is a word that deserves very precise definition
before the paper's topic can be addressed.
'
In what way is your conclusion "unique"?
.
What is the test for rigour?
.
Barrie
1 Recommendation
Barrie,
It seems that you didn’t read the “The information as Absolute” paper attentively enough - the paper contains answers on all your questions in the post above; when the paper’s English isn’t, of course the Oxford one, but it is sufficiently understandable.
So:
- for the “fundamentality” definition – it is standard here - see, for example http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fundamental and references in the URL text;
- for “in what way is your conclusion "unique” – see the paper, page 5, Property I2; may be useful the SS post in https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_relative_simultaneity_a_misinterpretation_of_Special_Relativity/21
(SS answer on James Arnold question);
for “What is the test for rigour?” – in logic and mathematics there exist standard criteria for rigorous proof – the proof must be based on consistent initial conditions/postulates, it must not contain [logical and/or mathematical] errors, the result must be self-consistent; from all of these points follows the existence of the result. If a proof relates to something outside purely abstract mathematics, for the existence is necessary to have evidence that at least initial conditions/postulates relate to the reality [outside human’s consciousness].
At that (see the paper) any evidence about the reality outside a consciousness the consciousness can obtain in some experiments only since it hasn’t a priory date about the External.
For a result it is rather desirable to be maximally complete. In the paper it is easily shown that the “the Information as Absolute” conception is totally complete.
If existence, self-consistence and [if necessary - partial] completeness are proven, then nothing else is necessary to conclude that the result (theory, conception, model, etc) is rigorously proven; and all these points are grounded in the paper.
For a result it is sometimes interesting/ desirable the proof of the uniqueness. For the conception (and for the “Information” Set correspondingly) such proof is principally impossible, so we cannot exclude an existence of some “Creator of the Information”, which appeared “earlier the always” or “earlier then absolutely long time ago”. But this point, at least on first sight, seems as not too essential – in the Set all/everything has/have happened and, simultaneously, is happening always in total correspondence with always existent scenario for every element/ process in the Set.
Cheers
Besides – your posts are rather oddly formatted. You can use the option “Edit”, which is in every post, and make them more compact and readable; besides the thread as a whole will be more readable also.
'
Sergey:
'
The OED definition of 'fundamental' itself lacks rigour.
It is a nice, simple, motherhood-and-apple-pin sort of
summary of what is universally accepted by the man
in the street. In my own studies and writings I need to
drive more deeply into a scientific topic, until I reach
the absolute rock-bottom: a result, maybe in the form
an equation, in which every variable is 'fundamental',
meaning directly traceable to the set of physical
constants , and dimensionally consistent. Where
a particular variable cannot be given that honour, it is
noted as an empirical variable or constant.
.
Something that is fundamental is something that we
cannot in any human way or by any means, influence
or alter. It must be treated as simply one of the things
that came in the Creation package and we must take
it or leave it.
.
Putting OED aside (it never was a philosophical work)
would you tend toward this as working definition?
.
Incidentally, I've not been able to download your full
paper, and would like to have a copy. Could you add
such, using the one of the links below?
.
Barrie
1 Recommendation
.
Sergey:
'
Further to the last post, I recall now than I had
downloaded your paper, but it got buried in an
obscure directory called "READ IF TIME". And
I haven't had much of that to spare.
.
Barrie
Barrie,
In my first post in this thread there are two links - one viXra and other – in my profile in the RG. Both work in my PC; with the situation "READ IF TIME" I never met till now (in what case you obtain this acknowledgement?).
Cheers
Good question indeed! The concept of information clearly exists and most of us have the same (or almost the same) intuitions about its meaning(s). Yet, most of us would agree that Shannon's statistical theory of signal transmission has little or nothing to do with this CLEAR concept of information. [The name "information theory" is a confusing mistake in otherwise beautiful Shannon's work.]
Having said the foregoing, I am not sure if we can define the TERM "information" in a single, unified, definition. Thus far we can only list diverse examples of objects or processes that can be called "information" in a specified situation. It would be good to know if such listings could be generated for all possible situations. The task appears impossible to me but I would be glad to be wrong. Maybe our conversations here will help focusing our thinking in a productive directions. (Just a thought.)
1 Recommendation
I just read again Sergey's assertion:
,
"Any [human] is nothing else than an informational system/structure"
,
Are we truly nothing else? I can understand (I think) that the human
can be regarded, in a certain way, as being a "bundle of beliefs" but
its seems to me that the reduction to "nothing else" is a extreme and
desperate position, and not a useful construct in any practical sense.
.'
With respect.
Barrie,
– it seems that you read the SS posts here not attentively enough. Though I have glanced through the thread and see that practically all SS posts here are downvoted; when the posts don’t contain some content that can be downvated by some real reasons. It seems that for people, who attend the thread, some downvoter by some reson placed signs that these posts can be read not attentively. Though that isn’t an unoque case in the RG.
But for you I pointed, besides the posts, the links, where the “The Information as Absolute” conception is presented more in detail. Did you read the links?
“...Any [human] is nothing else than an informational system/structure...”. the post in question means nothing more, then a human consciousness is – as everything other in our Universe and outside – some informational structure. Just because of that all/ everything is/are some informational patterns that in depth are based on the same [informational] Logos rules/possibilities, the consciousness is capable adequately understand – what happens in the external world.
So – don’t worry, here is no any “desperate position”, that is only rigorously proven fact…
Cheers
Sergey:
,
I am "attentive enough" to realize that yours is indeed an extreme position
one which, by seeking to define information in a very limited way, will gain
no momentum nor a significant following.
.
Still with respect
1 Recommendation
“...yours is indeed an extreme position one which, by seeking to define information in a very limited way, will gain no momentum nor a significant following..."
- Barrie,
did you read “The Information as Absolute” paper?
Cheers
Sergey:
.
Do you mean to say that "If ONLY you had read my paper
suddenly the heavens will open up, and all will be clear?"
You seem to have a very high opinion of your odd opus -
but why has it been met with so many rejections? Could it
be that it makes such dense reading that the 'simple idea'
is lost. Might it not be said - as is usually true of an elegant
theory - that if "Information is Absolute" it shouldn't be very
hard to demonstrate the notion. By the same reasoning, I
could say "All Information is nothing but wave functions",
but that is not a useful construct.
.
And the answer is that, yes, I read it until I got completely
lost in your very special maze. And now I don't remember
how I managed to escaped.
.
Good luck!
1 Recommendation
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