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Information in Reality. Logic and Metaphysics
... At the 4th International Conference of Information Science in Beijing, August, 2019, I presented a paper [2] in which I made a critique of semiotic theories of information. The basis of my critique was my recent extension of logic to real process phenomena (Logic in Reality; LIR) [3], including "information" seen as a complex set of generation, transmission and reception processes. ...
... I think this because there is no energy that can be assigned to the triadic relation that would give it a basis in reality (physics). I see the same problem [2] with Peirce's categories as with the Hegelian triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis: there is no deductive basis for the movement from one term to the other or a description of any physical interaction between them. If the argument is made that nothing of the sort is required, my response is that is exactly the problem-the terms are not physically grounded and hence have limited explanatory value other than as a heuristic device for keeping track of the entities involved in biological and informational processes; its use should not make one neglect the real properties of the system. ...
Semiotics is widely applied in theories of information. Following the original triadic characterization of reality by Peirce, the linguistic processes involved in information—production, transmission, reception, and understanding—would all appear to be interpretable in terms of signs and their relations to their objects. Perhaps the most important of these relations is that of the representation-one, entity, standing for or representing some other. For example, an index—one of the three major kinds of signs—is said to represent something by being directly related to its object. My position, however, is that the concept of symbolic representations having such roles in information, as intermediaries, is fraught with the same difficulties as in representational theories of mind. I have proposed an extension of logic to complex real phenomena, including mind and information (Logic in Reality; LIR), most recently at the 4th International Conference on the Foundations of Information Science (Beijing, August, 2010). LIR provides explanations for the evolution of complex processes, including information, that do not require any entities other than the processes themselves. In this paper, I discuss the limitations of the standard relation of representation. I argue that more realistic pictures of informational systems can be provided by reference to information as an energetic process, following the categorial ontology of LIR. This approach enables naïve, anti-realist conceptions of anti-representationalism to be avoided, and enables an approach to both information and meaning in the same novel logical framework.
... To repeat, Logic in Reality does not pretend to offer or to constitute an independent theory of information that would supersede any or all existing approaches. LIR provides a new interpretation of the concept of qualitative information or information-as-process [18] as contrasted with quantitative information. What it does offer, as will be seen in the rest of this paper, is a way of coordinating some otherwise scattered insights, especially, about the duality of information referred to above. ...
This article is an attempt to capture, in a reasonable space, some of the major developments and currents of thought in information theory and the relations between them. I have particularly tried to include changes in the views of key authors in the field. The domains addressed range from mathematical-categorial, philosophical and computational approaches to systems, causal-compositional, biological and religious approaches and messaging theory. I have related key concepts in each domain to my non-standard extension of logic to real processes that I call Logic in Reality (LIR). The result is not another attempt at a General Theory of Information such as that of Burgin, or a Unified Theory of Information like that of Hofkirchner. It is not a compendium of papers presented at a conference, more or less unified around a particular theme. It is rather a highly personal, limited synthesis which nonetheless may facilitate comparison of insights, including contradictory ones, from different lines of inquiry. As such, it may be an example of the concept proposed by Marijuan, still little developed, of the recombination of knowledge. Like the best of the work to which it refers, the finality of this synthesis is the possible contribution that an improved understanding of the nature and dynamics of information may make to the ethical development of the information society.
Fundamental properties like robustness and evolvability are present in many dynamic systems. In biological systems, for instance, it seems that both properties are in continuous tension. However, this tension provokes throughout evolution the persistence of mutations and the existence of future evolutionary potential for changes. The special characteristics of biological systems, tell us that its distinctive properties could have been developed in pre-biotic era. In other words, the basic properties of life would have been better comprehended if we had realized that they arisen much earlier than previously thought. Hence, it is needed to be aware that it would come when we would hardly be able to find a molecule remotely resembling DNA, RNA, or even proteins. Nevertheless, it seems that a grand evolution must have happened between the phases of protocellular and bacterial evolutionary history. The design of this chapter is focus in proposing a working hypothesis, which addresses the problem of the emergence and self-maintenance of protocellular organization; and also the kind of evolutionary mechanism before life arose. Some results concluded from recent researches indicate that the development of interconnected molecular processes from scratch is possible, which would evolve from random initial conditions. At this point, it is shown that the most primary or basic properties of biological systems found in evolution are connected with new observations, and theoretical and practical implications. This happened due to how prebiotic protocells adapted and survived on that remote era. Moreover, the special self-organizing
The philosophy of information (PI) is a new area of research with its own field of investigation and methodology. This article, based on the Herbert A. Simon Lecture of Computing and Philosophy I gave at Carnegie Mellon University in 2001, analyses the eighteen principal open problems in PI. Section 1 introduces the analysis by outlining Herbert Simon's approach to PI. Section 2 discusses some methodological considerations about what counts as a good philosophical problem. The discussion centers on Hilbert's famous analysis of the central problems in mathematics. The rest of the article is devoted to the eighteen problems. These are organized into five sections: problems in the analysis of the concept of information, in semantics, in the study of intelligence, in the relation between information and nature, and in the investigation of values.
Our aim in this article is to attempt to discuss propagating organization of process, a poorly articulated union of matter,
energy, work, constraints and that vexed concept, “information”, which unite in far from equilibrium living physical systems.
Our hope is to stimulate discussions by philosophers of biology and biologists to further clarify the concepts we discuss
here. We place our discussion in the broad context of a “general biology”, properties that might well be found in life anywhere
in the cosmos, freed from the specific examples of terrestrial life after 3.8billion years of evolution. By placing the discussion
in this wider, if still hypothetical, context, we also try to place in context some of the extant discussion of information
as intimately related to DNA, RNA and protein transcription and translation processes. While characteristic of current terrestrial
life, there are no compelling grounds to suppose the same mechanisms would be involved in any life form able to evolve by
heritable variation and natural selection. In turn, this allows us to discuss at least briefly, the focus of much of the philosophy
of biology on population genetics, which, of course, assumes DNA, RNA, proteins, and other features of terrestrial life. Presumably,
evolution by natural selection—and perhaps self-organization—could occur on many worlds via different causal mechanisms. Here
we seek a non-reductionist explanation for the synthesis, accumulation, and propagation of information, work, and constraint,
which we hope will provide some insight into both the biotic and abiotic universe, in terms of both molecular self reproduction
and the basic work energy cycle where work is the constrained release of energy into a few degrees of freedom. The typical
requirement for work itself is to construct those very constraints on the release of energy that then constitute further work.
Information creation, we argue, arises in two ways: first information as natural selection assembling the very constraints
on the release of energy that then constitutes work and the propagation of organization. Second, information in a more extended
sense is “semiotic”, that is about the world or internal state of the organism and requires appropriate response. The idea is to combine ideas from biology,
physics, and computer science, to formulate explanatory hypotheses on how information can be captured and rendered in the
expected physical manifestation, which can then participate in the propagation of the organization of process in the expected
biological work cycles to create the diversity in our observable biosphere. Our conclusions, to date, of this enquiry suggest
a foundation which views information as the construction of constraints, which, in their physical manifestation, partially
underlie the processes of evolution to dynamically determine the fitness of organisms within the context of a biotic universe.
General Process Theory (GPT) is a new (non-Whiteheadian) process ontology. According to GPT the domains of scientific inquiry
and everyday practice consist of configurations of ‘goings-on’ or ‘dynamics’ that can be technically defined as concrete,
dynamic, non-particular individuals called general processes. The paper offers a brief introduction to GPT in order to provide ontological foundations for research programs such as interactivism
that centrally rely on the notions of ‘process,’ ‘interaction,’ and ‘emergence.’ I begin with an analysis of our common sense
concept of activities, which plays a crucial heuristic role in the development of the notion of a general process. General
processes are not individuated in terms of their location but in terms of ‘what they do,’ i.e., in terms of their dynamic
relationships in the basic sense of one process being part of another. The formal framework of GPT is thus an extensional
mereology, albeit a non-classical theory with a non-transitive part-relation. After a brief sketch of basic notions and strategies
of the GPT-framework I show how the latter may be applied to distinguish between causal, mechanistic, functional, self-maintaining,
and recursively self-maintaining interactions, all of which involve ‘emergent phenomena’ in various senses of the term.
Computational and information-theoretic research in philosophy has become increasingly fertile and pervasive, giving rise to a wealth of interesting results. Consequently, a new and vitally important field has emerged, the philosophy of information (PI). This paper introduces PI as the philosophical field concerned with (i) the critical investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics, utilisation and sciences, and with (ii) the elaboration and application of information-theoretic and computational methodologies to philosophical problems. It is argued that PI is a mature discipline for three reasons: it represents an autonomous field of research; it provides an innovative approach to both traditional and new philosophical topics; and it can stand beside other branches of philosophy, offering a systematic treatment of the conceptual foundations of the world of information and the information society.
One of the open problems in the philosophy of information is whether there is an information logic (IL), different from epistemic (EL) and doxastic logic (DL), which formalises the relation a is informed--that p (Iap) satisfactorily. In this paper, the problem is--solved by arguing that the axiom schemata of the normal modal logic (NML) KTB (also known as B or Br or Brouwer's system) are well suited to formalise the relation of being informed. After having shown that IL can be constructed as an informational reading--of KTB, four consequences of a KTB-based IL are explored: information overload; the veridicality thesis (Iap ! p); the relation between IL and EL; and theKp ! Bp principle or entailment property, according to which knowledge implies belief. Although these issues are discussed later in the article, they are the motivations behind the development of IL.
A contradictory and paradoxical situation that currently exists in information studies can be improved by the introduction of a new information approach, which is called the general theory of information. The main achievement of the general theory of information is explication of a relevant and adequate definition of information. This theory is built as a system of two classes of principles (ontological and sociological) and their consequences. Axiological principles, which explain how to measure and evaluate information and information processes, are presented in the second section of this paper. These principles systematize and unify different approaches, existing as well as possible, to construction and utilization of information measures. Examples of such measures are given by Shannon’s quantity of information, algorithmic quantity of information or volume of information. It is demonstrated that all other known directions of information theory may be treated inside general theory of information as its particular cases.
In this paper, the quantum logical `or' is analyzed from a physical perspective.
The rapid development of information and communication technologies and their applications has stimulated many definitions of an Information Society (IS), and the related concept of a Knowledge-Based Economy (KBE) from the technological, political and economic standpoints. The ethics proposed for the emerging IS has concentrated on reducing inequalities in access to technological developments.In a key Report, “ICTs and Society”, Hofkirchner et al. (2007) insist that a new evolutionary, descriptive and normative theory “for, about and by means of” the IS is necessary to support emergence of a moral, ecologically and globally sustainable information society - GSIS.This paper proposes a new kind of logic, a non-propositional, dialectic “Logic in Reality” (LIR), applicable to real systems and phenomena, as the “missing ingredient” required for such a theory. LIR provides new interpretations of morality, self-organization, communication and conflict, grounding them in physical reality and an appropriate information theory.As a “logic of transdisciplinarity” in the Paris school acceptation, also directed toward the unity of knowledge, LIR confirms that the techno-social field of study of ICTs and Society is a transdiscipline, with direct implications for sustainable development. LIR moves debate beyond the limits imposed by naïve pragmatism and conservative ideologies and can be an essential component of a critical theory.
Logic in Reality argues that the fundamental physical structure of the world is logical as well as mathematical. The applicable formal logic of and in reality proposed (LIR) represents a radical departure from the standard notion of logic and its function. The book establishes LIR as a non-propositional logic with a unique calculus, one however that can be used intuitively with minimum symbolism. A new relational ontology is developed that demonstrates the fit of the LIR axioms with modern physics. The axioms and ontology of LIR together constitute a framework for describing and explaining complex real world processes, entities and events. Examples from the literature of on-going issues in philosophy, metaphysics and ontology are analyzed accordingly, including problems of causality, time and space, emergence and evolution. This book is at the interface of logic, philosophy and science. It is intended for readers with interest and/or current involvement in process philosophy, ontology and in the philosophy or metaphysical aspects of science, especially, quantum physics, biology and cosmology. The content requires competence in reasoning, but not detailed knowledge of the fields discussed. The critical extension in LIR of categorial non-separability to macroscopic interactive processes defines dynamic structural principles that underlie both scientific theories and their domains. LIR thus provides logical support for current metaphysical versions of structural realism. The author encourages readers to exercise a "new skepticism", since LIR is a way to interpret and accept dichotomies and contradictory explanations and to manage inconsistency in both philosophy and science.
It is a widely held assumption that computers process information. When finding out that natural systems manifest information processes, it is hypothesised that natural systems too are computers. This can be called the quintessence of the "computational turn", however, it is a non sequitur. This chapter draws upon the ontological distinction of strict determinism and less-than-strict determinism. It contends that artificial devices like computers work on the basis of strict determinism, while natural systems to the extent as they self-organise work on the basis of less-than-strict determinism. Strict determinism is a derivative of less-than-strict determinism. Thus the chapter concludes that concerning computers and natural, self-organising systems the assumption of the computational turn is wrong. It is the other way round: computers play a restricted, though essential and indispensable, part within self-organising (natural and social) contexts.
In this paper I combine the dynamic epistemic logic of
Gerbrandy (1999) with the probabilistic logic of
Fagin and Halpern (1994). The result
is a new probabilistic dynamic epistemic logic, a logic for reasoning about
probability, information, and information ...
Most approaches to information pay attention only to the 'positive' or constructive side ('presence') of this phenomenon: its composition, construction rules, emergence, effective activity, etc. However, the 'negative' or degrading aspects ('absences', disappearance of activity) are equally important within most biologico-informational processes. In fact, protein degradation can be put on a par with protein synthesis concerning its functionality and sophistication. By taking into account recent integrative discoveries in the molecular biology of the cell (signalling system, cell cycle, apoptosis, protein degradation, enzyme function) a wider approach encompassing both the 'presence' and 'absence' aspects seems possible. The overall dynamics which emerges--involving symmetry breaking and symmetry restoration by means of information processing mechanisms--may be extrapolated to neuronal and socio-economic realms too. Interestingly, the phenomenon of 'absence' can also be pinpointed, at least as a metaphor, within the internal structure of natural numbers.
This paper examines several analogies employed in computational data analysis techniques: the analogy to the brain for artificial neural networks, the analogy to statistical mechanics for simulated annealing and the analogy to evolution for genetic algorithms. After exploring these analogies, we compare them to analogies in scientific models and highlight that scientific models address specific empirical phenomena, whereas data analysis models are application-neutral: they can be used whenever a set of data meets certain formal requirements, regardless of what phenomenon these data pertain to.
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