Information (Theory)

shijing · Oct 30, 2013

Since information (and information theory) has been discussed in recent sessions, I thought it would be good to start a discussion thread on the topic. To begin with, here are some relevant transcript excerpts:

3/4/12 said:
Q: (Ark) Okay, so my question is whether there is a particular part of the virus that has the property that is not just described by normal quantum physics or quantum chemistry and so on, or its the whole organization of virus that has this property?

A: Yes. Information field aggregates matter.

Q: (talk of thought vs. information) (Belibaste) Does information command or direct the aggregation of different proteins or amino acids to form a virus? Materialization?

A: Yes.

Q: (Psyche) It's very interesting because they have found in our "junk" DNA, properties of viruses that are close to those of stem cells, and also cells that end up producing cancer. It is quite interesting. (Perceval) That means our DNA is thought made manifest?

A: More or less!

3/23/13 said:
Q: (Belibaste) Can one individual, or several individuals, attract in a similar manner as this place, some cometary bodies?

A: Yes

Q: (Belibaste) Is it because their electric charge collectively or individually is modified?

A: Not only electric charge. In the realm from which some of these things are manifested or, better, "directed", information is king.

Q: (Belibaste) So if a group of individuals acquires, stores, information that is orthogonal to truth, i.e. lies, will this fact of acquiring information that is orthogonal to truth increase the attraction to meteorites or cometary bodies?

A: Yes

Q: (Belibaste) How does it work?

A: Other realm just mentioned... Gravity waves.

Q: (L) Are you saying that gravity waves are a property of a different realm?

A: Mostly.

5/28/13 said:
Q: (L) Next question on the list: How do consciousness, information, and matter relate to each other?

A: Different concentrations of truth.

Q: (L) So I'm assuming you mean that matter would be one concentration, and consciousness would be another, and information like maybe pure information would be the purest form?

A: Not necessarily, information arranged by a truth becomes consciousness. That is why truth and objectivity are so important. Without it, consciousness and individuality fractures and disintegrates.

Q: (Belibaste) I have a question that might go in the right direction. During the last session, it was established that if a human population believes in information that is orthogonal to truth, that is, lies, then it can modulate cosmic events. To understand better the mechanism, I wanted to know where information is stored?

A: Consciousness.

Q: (Belibaste) So this guy we were talking about then, he got lightning struck seven times. He was really afraid of thunder. And his wife was struck once when he was next to her. What is specific in this guy because nobody gets struck by lightning seven times! What is specific in this guy?

A: His inner connections.

Q: (Belibaste) Inner connections are just... (Perceval) Genetic?

A: Can be.

Q: (Belibaste) Inner connections, it means the inner connections are faulty because it's a kind of disintegration that was mentioned before? What kind of connections are we talking about?

A: Triple cycle veil of consciousness bodies.

Q: (Perceval) You asked! (L) I ain't openin' that can of worms! I’ve got other questions to ask. (Belibaste) There are three bodies? What are they? (Perceval) Triple cycle... (L) Triple cycle of what? (Belibaste) What are the three bodies?

A: Psychic/consciousness, genetic, high soul family.

[…]

Q: (Belibaste) Quick question. Is there a connection between information and electricity?

A: Very close.

Q: (Belibaste) So the more information in the body, the higher the electric charge? Is there a correlation?

A: Close.

Q: (L) And the higher the electric charge, the less likely you are to attract. (Belibaste) Depending on the charge. That's where I was going to go: the correlation between positive charge and truth and negative charge and information that is orthogonal to truth. (Perceval) You can say "lies"! [laughter] (Belibaste) I heard Laura saying it, and I thought oh, that's good!

A: Sphere packing tachyons.

Q: (Perceval) There ya go. [laughter] (Ailen) Can you explain Ark? (Anart) Probably has something to do with order and information. (Ark) First of all what I want to say is that Belibaste was thinking about the electric charge always in purely material terms. Thinking about electric charge, keep always in mind this picture of the wormhole. (Kniall) Information is not material. (Ark) Information is something which gives the form. The form when it does things, you consider it as a matter. But information shapes the form. It's not matter. It's the shaping principle. So, your question about relation between information and electric charge is like asking what is the relation between painting and the picture? Painting is the process, and picture is the result of the process, right? (L) It's something that is "informed" by the information that causes the paint to go wherever it goes. So, I guess that's electricity. It's like the result, and the process is... Um...

A: Go to the rear of the line!

[…]

Q: (L) Okay, next question: When an F5 tornado can form in a matter of minutes, what is the connection with what is going on in 4D? How does it happen? What's the mechanism?

A: Once again you must think in terms of information and electrical charge. The charge on earth is building in several ways and a tornado is an electrical phenomenon similar to ball lightning.

Q: (L) So what they're saying is what we were saying awhile ago. (Belibaste) More conductivity, more discharges. (L) And more people believing lies, and more chaos. The people on the planet are attracting their own destruction.

From the above, it seems that we can postulate the following principles:

(1) (A) truth arranges information into consciousness
(2) Information is stored in consciousness
(3) Information directs the aggregation of matter

Regarding the C's comment about tachyons, as well as the relationship between information and electricity, there are some interesting excerpts about these topics in the Seth material, in which Consciousness Units (CUs) and Electromagnetic Energy Units (EEs) are described. Paul M. Helfrich, in his essay Seth on “The Origins of the Universe and of the Species” – An Integral Conscious Creation Myth, defines these as follows:

Consciousness units (CUs) – the foundational “causal force” or Primal Cause within All-That-Is; Seth’s metaphor for pure source energy in the causal field. CUs are ubiquitous, faster than light, nested “units” of awareized, not humanized, energy imbued with a propensity for creating gestalts of action, energy, and matter. Their unique characteristics include dreaming and inner sensing.

Electromagnetic energy units (EEs) – faster than light particles within the subtle field (Framework 2) earmarked for physical manifestation that “slow down” to form all matter, guided by the conscious mind and the pineal gland in the brain. Millions compose each atom. EEs are made up of the even “smaller,” more fundamental, consciousness units (CUs).

Some quotes from the various Seth books (not exhaustive) are given below:

The Seth Material (p. 318) said:
Now: there are electromagnetic structures, so to speak, that are presently beyond your (scientific) instruments, units that are the basic carriers of perception. They have a very brief “life” in your terms. Their size varies. Several units may combine, for example, many units may combine. To put this as simply as possible, it is not so much that they move through space, as that they use space to move through. There is a difference.

In a manner of speaking, thermal qualities are involved, and also laws of attraction and repulsion. The units charge the air through which they pass, and draw to them other units. The units are not stationary in the way that, say, a cell is stationary within the body. Even a cell only appears stationary. These units have no “home.” They are built up in response to emotional intensity.

They are one form that emotional energy takes. They follow their own rules of attraction and repulsion. As a magnet, you see, will attract with its filaments, so these units attract their own kind and form patterns which then appear to you as perception.

Now: the fetus utilizes these units. So does any consciousness, including that of a plant. Cells are not just responsive to light because this is the order of things, but because an emotional desire to perceive light is present.

The desire appears on this other level in the form of these electromagnetic units, which then cause a light sensitivity. These units are freewheeling. They can be used in normal perception or what you call extra-sensory perception. I will discuss their basic nature at a later session, and I would like to tie this in with the fetus, since the fetus is highly involved with perceptive mechanisms.

It is not that you cannot devise instruments to perceive these units. Your scientists are simply asking the wrong questions, and do not think in terms of such freewheeling structures.

Seth Speaks (p. 303) said:
EE units are formed spontaneously from the electromagnetic reality of feelings emitted from each consciousness, as, for example, breath automatically goes out from the physical body [...] EE units are then emanations from consciousness. The intensity of the thought or emotion determines the characteristics of the units themselves. As certain ranges are reached, they are propelled into physical actualization. Whether or not this occurs in your terms, they will exist as smaller particles – as, say, latent matter or pseudomatter.

Some of these will fall into the faster-than-light groupings, and have a perceivable vitality within that framework. These faster-than-light particles of course exist in their own kind of form then. There are many ranges and great varieties of such units, all existing beyond your perceivable reach. To lump them together in such a way, however, is misleading, for within all of this there is great order [...] The EE units are quite simply incipient forms of reality: seeds automatically given birth, suited for different environments, some appearing within the physical framework, and some not conforming at all to its prerequisites [...] The invisible EE units form your physical matter and represent the essential and basic units from which any physical particle appears. It will not be physically perceived. You see only its results."

The “Unknown” Reality: Vol One (p. 59 said:
Now: These units of consciousness (CU’s) move faster than the speed of light, then – but that statement itself is meaningless in a way, since the units exist outside as well as inside the framework in which light itself has meaning.

As these units approach physical structure, however, they do slow down in your terms. Electrons, for example, are slow dullards in comparison with EE units. It goes without saying that the units of consciousness are “mental,” or if you prefer, disembodied, though from their inner organization all physical forms emerge. Certain intensities are built up of unit organization even before the smallest physical particle, or even invisible “physical” particle, exists. These units form what you think of as the mind, around which the structure of the brain is formulated. The units permeate the brain.”

[...]

When consciousness is being specified, it always sees itself at the center of the world. All specifications of consciousness and all phenomenal appearances occur when the basic units of consciousness, the CU’s, emerge into EE units, and hence into the dimensions of actuality in your terms. Your mainly accepted normal consciousness is within the matter of your body, and through it - the body - you view your world. There is nothing to prevent you from viewing your body from a standpoint outside of it, except that you have been taught that consciousness is imprisoned within the flesh. The body is also a sending and receiving organism; your home station, so to speak, and the focus for your activity. You can, however, quite consciously leap from it - and you do often, when for a while, particularly in the dream state, you view the world from another perspective.

In some adventures you do visit other probable realities in which you have a body structure quite as real as ‘your own.’ Your own psychological makeup, for that matter, achieves its marvelous complexity because it draws from the rich bank of your greater probable existences. Even a small understanding of these ideas can help you glimpse how limiting previous concepts of psychology have been.

The self that you know and recognize carries within it hints and traces of all your probable characteristics that can be actualized within your system of reality. Your body is equipped to bring any of these to fulfillment. Now, because of the selectivity mentioned earlier, certain directions may be easier than others, and some may appear impossible. Yet within the psychological and biological structure of your species, the roads of probabilities have more intersections than you know.

The conscious mind as you normally think of it directs your overall action, and its ideas determine the kind of selectivity you use. It is for this reason that I am trying to expand your conscious ideas, so that you become better equipped to choose your line of physical experience from all those probable ones open to you.

The “Unknown” Reality: Vol 2 (p. 312) said:
The cell as you understand it is but the cell’s three-dimensional face. The idea of tachyons as currently understood is basically legitimate, though highly distorted. Before a cell as such makes its physical appearance there are “disturbances” in the spot in which the cell will later show itself. Those disturbances are the result of a slowing down of prior effects of faster-than-light activity, and represent the emergence into your space-time system of energy that can then be effectively used and formed into the cellular pattern.

The very slowing-down process itself helps “freeze” the activity into a form. At the death of a cell a reverse process occurs – the death is the escape of that energy from the cell form, its release, the release itself triggering certain stages of acceleration. There is what might be called a residue, or debris energy, “coating” the cell, that stays within the system. None of this can be ascertained from within the system – that is, the initial faster-than-light activity or the deceleration afterward. Such faster-than-light behavior, then, helps form the basis for the physical universe. This characteristic is an attribute of the CU’s, which have already slowed down to some extent when they form EE units.”

Dreams Evolution & Value Fulfillment: Vol 1 (p. 176) said:
Each unit of consciousness (or CU) intensifies, magnifies its own intents to be—and, you might say, works up from within itself an explosive spark of primal desire that “explodes” into a process that causes physical materialization. It turns into what I have called [an] EE unit, in which case it is embarked upon its own kind of physical experience.

These EE units also operate as fields, as waves, or as particles, as the units of consciousness do – but in your terms they are closer to physical orientation. Their die is cast, so to speak: They have already begun the special kind of screening process necessary that will bring about physical form. They begin to deal with the kinds of information that will help form your world. There are literally numberless steps taken before EE units combine in their own fashion to form the most microscopic physical particles, and even here the greatest, gentlest sorting-out process takes place as these units disentangle themselves at certain operational levels from their own greater fields of “information,” to specialize in the various elements that will allow for the production of atoms and molecules impeccably suited to your kind of world.

There are also a couple of videos about information and information theory which have been put up by a woman named Dolors on her site crackingthenutshell.com:

http://<iframe width="560" height="...8M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

transcript

http://<iframe width="420" height="...yM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

transcript

So please feel free to discuss -- if you mention a part of the above videos, it will be helpful if you include a time reference to the part of the video that you're talking about.

mkrnhr · Oct 30, 2013

Thanks Shijing for starting the topic!

I'm about to finish "Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics", edited by P. Davies and N. H. Gregersen. I'm still :headbash:

with the different approaches but since the highest level of information, the so called semantic information requires a consciousness to understand it, the notion bridges what we know about the physical world (complexity) and the more intuitive notion of consciousness and awareness.

The vague notion that I gather, which is basically an unsubstantiated intuition regards the Wave a flow of information to which an individual's preparedness will be more or less prepared. The acquisition of knowledge is a transformative process based on a positive feed back loop in which the more knowledge/information one has, the better "the vessel" is prepared to receive a highest quality of information (like upgrading 32bit disks to 64bit disks). If the incoming Information is not understandable because the reading software (mind/emotion/body) is not adapted enough or out of balance, the Information is received as noise/energy and that leads to an overheating of the system (disintegration/hyperkinetic sensation/destruction). The transformative effect of information depends on the receiver and that's possibly one interpretation of the relation of the Work in relation to the Wave. Again, all of this is still a wide guess and can change in a few minutes :D

Laura · Oct 30, 2013

Funny that you post this just now. We were all ready to film a video this afternoon in which I intended to discuss information theory but we ended up talking longer about other things and put it off until tomorrow.

I've watched a bit of the first video above and since I'm not really an auditory person, thought I would check out the website to see if there is text; there is. _http://crackingthenutshell.com/what-is-information-part-1/

The problem is, reading the text is somehow unsatisfying. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's like the writer/speaker unnecessarily complicates things and goes all over the place quoting this person and that person, but there is no "seating" of the information though she is diligently attempting to transmit it! I'd be interested if anybody else has a similar reaction to the text/script.

mkrnhr · Oct 30, 2013

I find the video unsatisfying as well. The main problem among others is the rejection of objective reality, value, and the fact that the interpretation of information is in itself part of the information process that has value (objective and subjective interpretation of information). There are some internal contradictions in the text regarding the definition of different levels of information as they relate to different levels of complexity because she adopts the ideas of the so-called digital physics school, where information is either an emergent process with no purpose, or a phenomenon out there separated from the physical reality (which becomes a result of some simulation/calculation, therefore only apparently real). Maybe I don't understand her explanation but I don't think she implies anywhere that Information is the world and more than the world, only manifested through different qualities/complexities. OSIT

Approaching Infinity · Oct 31, 2013

Laura said:
Funny that you post this just now. We were all ready to film a video this afternoon in which I intended to discuss information theory but we ended up talking longer about other things and put it off until tomorrow.

I've watched a bit of the first video above and since I'm not really an auditory person, thought I would check out the website to see if there is text; there is. _http://crackingthenutshell.com/what-is-information-part-1/

The problem is, reading the text is somehow unsatisfying. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's like the writer/speaker unnecessarily complicates things and goes all over the place quoting this person and that person, but there is no "seating" of the information though she is diligently attempting to transmit it! I'd be interested if anybody else has a similar reaction to the text/script.

I didn't really like it either. On the one hand, what she's saying could be said much more simply. Too many details, not enough gist. On the other hand, I think in order to have a more basic and comprehensive understanding of information theory, several other areas need to be taken into account, like ontology, free will, the nature of physical laws, etc. I think Shannon's definition is too limited on its own. It's a description that becomes flawed when it's reified to a statement about the actual nature of reality. Once we add in the concept of meaning, we need a philosophy that allows for meaning.

Part of the problem, as mkrnhr points out, is that most information theorists seem to presuppose a materialistic worldview, which automatically excludes the possibility of intrinsic meaning AND any meaning whatsoever. Shannon info can describe why a particular physical arrangement has a high or low information-carrying capacity, but that's it. Unless you're a mathematician or computer scientist or something, I don't think it's necessary to get too deep into the kind of information (ha!) in that video/transcript. In more general terms, at this point I think of information as "a mental possibility or idea, intelligently linked to a physical actuality." Unfortunately, to get there requires a whole lot of exposition and examples, from natural laws, to DNA/biological form, decision making and language, as well as an examination of values.

To use one example, DNA has a large information-carrying capacity. The exact sequence of one protein-coding sequence of DNA (or several, since genes/proteins only work in groups) is so improbable that it's practically impossible to generate by chance. There's a 'gap' between what nature allows as possibilities (e.g., 'this amino-acid sequence will produce a functional folded protein'), and what she can achieve using 'mechanical' physical laws (e.g., 'this amino acid will bond with that one in these conditions). The gap is 'probability space'. Nature needs to 'know' what possibilities (i.e., protein sequences in this example) are viable, and which are not, and then actively inform a physical substrate to actualize one of those possibilities. But those possibilities need to exist 'somewhere'. Nature needs foresight, and the freedom to choose between possibilities.

'Meaning' may not be intrinsic to information (e.g., DNA is an arbitrary language), but that doesn't mean it isn't intrinsic to the cosmos. In other words, the 'meaning' of the DNA sequence (i.e., the functional protein it represents) need to exist in some way as real possibilities. But where do they exist if the universe hasn't yet produced a living form? I'd say they must exist in some form of mind, or information field. I think any good information theory needs an information substrate (i.e., a physical 'stuff' that can be arbitrarily and freely arranged in a variety of sequences, e.g., sounds, DNA, ink on a page), ideas or meanings to be represented in terms of that substrate, and a free mind to choose between possibilities and thus actualize the possibilities. In those terms, I think we can see everything as information, from the behavior of subatomic particles, to the choices and actions we make everyday.

John G · Oct 31, 2013

mkrnhr said:
I find the video unsatisfying as well. The main problem among others is the rejection of objective reality, value, and the fact that the interpretation of information is in itself part of the information process that has value (objective and subjective interpretation of information). There are some internal contradictions in the text regarding the definition of different levels of information as they relate to different levels of complexity because she adopts the ideas of the so-called digital physics school, where information is either an emergent process with no purpose, or a phenomenon out there separated from the physical reality (which becomes a result of some simulation/calculation, therefore only apparently real). Maybe I don't understand her explanation but I don't think she implies anywhere that Information is the world and more than the world, only manifested through different qualities/complexities. OSIT

Yeah she's not generating much excitement about information and how fundamental it is or even how useful information/entropy is. Laura's reference to it in a history book via Greek philosophers is much more WOW and information is a WOW thing. I found this forum via a guy Ark and Laura met at a Clifford Algebra conference. Here's the session quotes Ark gave in response to me loosely linking Clifford Algebra, information theory, and 7th density.

ark said:
Bluelamp said:

I tend to think of the math for information theory as Clifford Algebra but that could be wrong for 7th density type information (if 7th density is information) or it might not be the only way or best way.

Click to expand...

February 5, 2000
..........
Q: It's really sad that Santilli is involved with such flakey people! (F) Hasn't he always been? (L) He is certainly influenced by the wrong people! And I don't think we want anything to do with him at all. (A) Now, we we were talking about Kaluza Klein, and you mentioned the Germans "exploring the loop of the cylinder" in relation to time travel. I don't know what this means but I have the idea that it is related to extra dimensions, hyperspace. Now, we asked a question at some point and you said that a cylinder is really a double loop. You then suggested that we meditate on the true meaning of this sentence. Now, I don't know how to meditate, but I do know how to do math. So, I drew three pictures here: one is a real cylinder, two is a which is a kind of cylinder inside a cylinder, and three, like a torus. Laura said that it wasn't any of these, that it should only have one side like a cylinder/mobius strip - no left and no right. So, this could be option 4, something like a Klein bottle or option 5, something called a twisted torus. Is it 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5? Or 6, none of the above? Is it one of these?
A: Selection 3.
Q: 3 is the torus. (L) What is a loop of the cylinder? Yes, there is one loop and then there is another loop. One loop is probably what we call time - cyclical time.
A: Time cycle.
Q: What is the second loop?
A: Included, but not inclusive.
Q: I guess that means that it is included, but is not the whole thing. It covers that, but that isn't the whole thing. What DOES it mean?
A: Yes.
Q: Wait, I asked what is the second loop. The second loop is included but not inclusive?
A: Remember, you do have cycles but that does not necessarily mean cyclical. 3 Dimensional depiction of loop, seek hexagon for more. Geometric theory provides answers for key. Look to stellar windows. Octagon, hexagon, pentagon.
Q: Are those the different levels of density?
A: No, but it relates. Geometry gets you there, algebra sets you "free."
..............

In fairness to anybody who attempts to deeply explore information; it's not easy to put into words in a scientific sense. Even just trying to limit it to Clifford Algebra and the geometry you can get from it gets messy sounding especially if you want to hit things like sphere packing tachyons along the way.

The geometry can be physical spaces or spaces that are more like putting elements on a periodic table (root lattice geometry). As you mention here and Laura has mentioned elsewhere in the forum, the assigning of information to geometry is itself information.

Pierrrr · Oct 31, 2013

Bluelamp said:
February 5, 2000
..........
Q: It's really sad that Santilli is involved with such flakey people! (F) Hasn't he always been? (L) He is certainly influenced by the wrong people! And I don't think we want anything to do with him at all. (A) Now, we we were talking about Kaluza Klein, and you mentioned the Germans "exploring the loop of the cylinder" in relation to time travel. I don't know what this means but I have the idea that it is related to extra dimensions, hyperspace. Now, we asked a question at some point and you said that a cylinder is really a double loop. You then suggested that we meditate on the true meaning of this sentence. Now, I don't know how to meditate, but I do know how to do math. So, I drew three pictures here: one is a real cylinder, two is a which is a kind of cylinder inside a cylinder, and three, like a torus. Laura said that it wasn't any of these, that it should only have one side like a cylinder/mobius strip - no left and no right. So, this could be option 4, something like a Klein bottle or option 5, something called a twisted torus. Is it 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5? Or 6, none of the above? Is it one of these?
A: Selection 3.
Q: 3 is the torus. (L) What is a loop of the cylinder? Yes, there is one loop and then there is another loop. One loop is probably what we call time - cyclical time.
A: Time cycle.
Q: What is the second loop?
A: Included, but not inclusive.
Q: I guess that means that it is included, but is not the whole thing. It covers that, but that isn't the whole thing. What DOES it mean?
A: Yes.
Q: Wait, I asked what is the second loop. The second loop is included but not inclusive?
A: Remember, you do have cycles but that does not necessarily mean cyclical. 3 Dimensional depiction of loop, seek hexagon for more. Geometric theory provides answers for key. Look to stellar windows. Octagon, hexagon, pentagon.
Q: Are those the different levels of density?
A: No, but it relates. Geometry gets you there, algebra sets you "free."
..............

How a 4 dimensional torus look like?
How would you describe it using 3 dimensional depiction?
What is the trail of an 3D explorer traversing a 4D torus?

Mal7 · Oct 31, 2013

Another important thing I would like to point out is that, given that information is not the same as the physical code symbols or signals used to encode the data, that it is not physical matter nor energy, but it is the actual perceived content, the perceived pattern, and its potential subjective meaning, one can conclude that information is, in essence, non-physical. This is another important concept: information is non-physical!

from _http://crackingthenutshell.com/what-is-information-part-1/

She seems to me to be saying that information is the pattern of all the various differing states and relations of all the different things making up the world, and not the world itself. This is perhaps a reasonable idea, but it does remind me of the story about the person who wanted to make a more and more accurate map of a country, so they started making larger and larger scale maps, e.g. first 1:10000, then 1:1000, and then ended up with a map as large as the country itself (or 1:1 scale). At that point, the 1:1 map of the country loses its usefulness and practicality, since one could just as easily walk in the country itself as refer to the map.

The above quote as I have understood it though also seems at odds with her concluding comment:

Well, I think that we have defined information in such a way that it is indistinguishable from reality. There is no such thing as an objective reality out there but only interconnectedness, relationships, subjective perception and subjective interpretation.

Reality IS information

i.e. if information is non-physical, and reality is information, then that would mean that reality is also non-physical. But then both the physical matter, and the physical code symbols used to encode the data, could not be considered part of reality! A reductio ad absurdum? (Unless the point is that there is no such thing as physical existence?)

Mal7 · Oct 31, 2013

Well, as you may know, information is typically measured in bits. Bit is a just short for binary digit. The bit is a basic unit of information, it is a variable which can have only two possible values, which we represent by the digits 0 and 1. This binary digit can represent the basis of differentiation we talked about earlier. And this is precisely what information is at the very core, as per our previous definition. The perceived distinction between two different states or properties which has the potential to create a difference.

As we discussed in the previous section, consider the distinction between these states or concepts: up vs down, on vs off, open vs closed, yes vs no, distorted vs undistorted, etc… This basic difference can be represented by a digit that can take the value 0 or 1. So we see that the bit is a very useful unit which can successfully represent what information is at the most basic level. The binary digit, in the context of Bateson's definition, can therefore represent the quantification of the most basic type of differentiation, although it can't really quantify the potentiality for meaningfulness.

At this point, I would like to clarify something which I think may have created some confusion. So far I have been using the verb "to perceive" or the noun "perception" in a very broad sense. These are just convenient terms so that the concept of information can be used to describe all of reality, to describe the interactions and relationships between all of its constituents. Here "perception" is used in a way that doesn't necessarily imply we are dealing with a conscious or a sentient being. In this way, an electron-microscope, a golf ball, a DNA molecule or a living cell can all be thought as being able to "perceive" a distinction between different states, that is, different properties in their external environment or within themselves, if applicable.

The use of the word perception in the case of non-sentient entities such as a microscope or a golf ball is used as a metaphor, a way of speaking. A golf ball, for instance, can be described as an entity which perceives information related to the physical laws which tell it how to move; for example, it can perceive the information related to a particular gravitational field and move accordingly. A golf ball can't perceive changes in the environment in a conscious way; it simply follows physical laws. Let's be careful not to antropomorphise.

In our definition, we have been careful not to assign intrinsic meaning to information, only the potential for meaningfulness. Non-sentient entities can be thought of as being able to "perceive" changes, although they cannot assign a meaning to these changes; they simply follow physical laws.

- from_http://crackingthenutshell.com/what-is-information-part-1/

I find it hard to separate meaning so completely from information. For example, if you had a string of 1,000,000 bits, either 1 or 0, that had been randomly produced, I would tend to think that that number would be both meaningless and uninformative.

Meaning is assigned in such a way that information can then be used as a learning tool, to grow, to self-modify, to provide feedback, to evolve… An increase in knowledge can take place.

Even if you had a string of 1,000,000,000 random bits, which would be quantitatively very informative if the number of bits of information is seen as somehow significant, I don't think you could learn or evolve much from contemplating that number.

It is like one of Jorge Borges' stories about infinity-approaching libraries, containing every possible combination of letters, which end up running the risk, at least to the librarians or readers, of having an information content of zero.

e.g. from Borges' story "The Library of Babel":

[. . .] its bookshelves contain all possible combinations of the twenty-two orthographic symbols (a number which, though unimaginably vast, is not infinite) - that is, all that is able to be expressed, in every language. All - the detailed history of the future, the autobiographies of the archangels, the faithful catalog of the Library, thousands and thousands of false catalogs, the proof of the falsity of those false catalogs, a proof of the falsity of the true catalog, the gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary upon that gospel, the commentary on the commentary on that gospel, the true story of your death, the translation of every book into every language, the interpolations of every book into all books, the treatise Bede could have written (but did not) on the mythology of the Saxon people, the lost books of Tacitus.

[. . .]

There is no combination of characters one can make - dhcmrlchtdj, for example, - that the divine Library has not foreseen and that in one or more of its secret tongues does not hide a terrible significance. There is no syllable one can speak that is not filled with tenderness and terror, that is not, in one of those languages, the mighty name of a god. [. . .] This pointless, verbose epistle already exists in one of the thirty volumes of the five bookshelves in one of the countless hexagons - as does it refutation. (A number n of the possible languages employ the same vocabulary; in some of them, the symbol "library" possesses the correct definition "everlasting, ubiquitous system of hexagonal galleries," while a library - the thing - is a loaf of bread of a pyramid or something else, and the six words that define it themselves have other definitions. You who read me - are you certain you understand my language?)

Edited to add: I think I misused the word infinity-approaching. Even if inconceivably large, I suppose that any finite number would have to be considered as being as far from infinity as any other.

Approaching Infinity · Oct 31, 2013

Mal7 said:
I find it hard to separate meaning so completely from information. For example, if you had a string of 1,000,000 bits, either 1 or 0, that had been randomly produced, I would tend to think that that number would be both meaningless and uninformative.

Exactly. The random sequence has just as much 'Shannon information' as the meaningful one, since they're equally as improbable. All Shannon information gives is the capacity for a code to act as a symbol for meaning.

It is like one of Jorge Borges' stories about infinity-approaching libraries, containing every possible combination of letters, which end up running the risk, at least to the librarians or readers, of having an information content of zero.

Yeah, as one of the authors in Information and the Nature of Reality put it, for information to work it needs to be balanced between to much chaos and too much order. Imagine if every combination of letters made viable words. The capacity for error skyrockets. Spaces would become VERY important, since one changed space would change the words in front and behind it. If every gene sequence made a gene, we'd run into similar problems.

John G · Oct 31, 2013

Pierrrr said:
How a 4 dimensional torus look like?
How would you describe it using 3 dimensional depiction?
What is the trail of an 3D explorer traversing a 4D torus?

Well doing different slices through a 3-dim torus for a 2-dim explorer would give you a bunch of different double ovals. When the 3-dim explorer takes different slices through a 4-dim torus you kind of get donuts at different angles.

SMM · Oct 31, 2013

Haven't read Information & the Nature of Reality though greatly interested in doing so.

Approaching Infinity said:
'Meaning' may not be intrinsic to information (e.g., DNA is an arbitrary language), but that doesn't mean it isn't intrinsic to the cosmos. In other words, the 'meaning' of the DNA sequence (i.e., the functional protein it represents) need to exist in some way as real possibilities. But where do they exist if the universe hasn't yet produced a living form? I'd say they must exist in some form of mind, or information field. I think any good information theory needs an information substrate (i.e., a physical 'stuff' that can be arbitrarily and freely arranged in a variety of sequences, e.g., sounds, DNA, ink on a page), ideas or meanings to be represented in terms of that substrate, and a free mind to choose between possibilities and thus actualize the possibilities. In those terms, I think we can see everything as information, from the behavior of subatomic particles, to the choices and actions we make everyday.

Meaning being derived or dependant upon relationship/connection between information is one idea that jumps out. I have been having difficultly keeping my attention whilst reading, so it might already have been mentioned, but one question I had was, does more information orthogonal to truth make it harder to organise - in terms of choice between 'real possibilities'?

E.g. algorithms - being able to code & decode information in enough time to actualize a possibility?
Let me know if I should expand or explain on something. Perhaps by then I'd have given this information more time to sink [+ watch those crackingthenutshell.com videos].

Approaching Infinity · Oct 31, 2013

SMM said:
Meaning being derived or dependant upon relationship/connection between information is one idea that jumps out. I have been having difficultly keeping my attention whilst reading, so it might already have been mentioned, but one question I had was, does more information orthogonal to truth make it harder to organise - in terms of choice between 'real possibilities'?

I think that might go without saying. The more lies you believe, the harder it is to recognize the truth. If things need a 'truth' to organize them, then organization is probably more difficult if that truth isn't 'recognized' and allowed to do its thing. However, I think we need to admit the possibility that minds can be convinced that some things are true when they're not, and act as if that thing were true. I think that's the basis of hypnosis. For example, the examples of hypnotic blisters, not seeing the 'third man', etc. I also wonder if hypnosis isn't a universal phenomenon. For example, is levitation of objects in a seance, or the presence of absent properties in homeopathic mixtures analogous? Is the floating trumpet convinced or 'hypnotized' into 'believing' it is free from the pull of gravity? Does the water 'remember' the no-longer-present substance and 'believe' it is still present in some way? Or in the case of humans, does a person who truly believes they've found the 'truth', when they haven't, gain a kind of pseudo-strength from it? But in all these cases, is there a limit? Can it last forever? Is it somehow less stable than 'the real thing'? Might that 'true believer' eventually disintegrate by being out of tune with reality?

E.g. algorithms - being able to code & decode information in enough time to actualize a possibility?

Not sure what you mean here.

Archaea · Nov 1, 2013

I haven't watched the video or read the text, but I had some thoughts about what the C's might mean by truth and information which I thought I'd share.

According to the book Chaos by James Gleick in the late 1970's and early 1980's there was a group which operated in Santa Cruz called the dynamical systems collective. This group published a paper called "Strange attractors, chaotic behaviour and information theory." The idea as I understand it is that information which can be carried as a series of bits, can be periodic, for example 100 100 100 ect, which would contain less information, or it can be chaotic, where the next section of the series can't be predicted from the previous section, not even approximately, and would contain more information.

The idea presented in the book is that when the data is chaotic it contains a lot more information that when the data is periodic. another idea that is presented is that a chaotic stream of data can be produced by following the boundary of something called a strange attractor, which is fractal... If I remember correctly.

So, after reading this thread I got to thinking about the pictures of ice crystals formed after the water has been exposed to different emotions, both good and bad. A Google search informed me that the work had been done by a guy called Dr Masaru Emoto. I think I should point out that Dr Emoto's work is "widely regarded as pseudoscience," however, his work is reproducible as far as I can tell.

here are some pictures from his website (http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/water-crystal.html) the word below is the emotion or word presented to the water:

Truth

You disgust me

I think I once heard of a similar experiment done where the experimenter told the water truth and lies instead of emotionally charged words, but I'm not sure, and I couldn't find anything on the internet. But this could be done I think, and it would be interesting if there were similar results. I think this because if the truth formed a nice fractal picture, and lies produced an ugly picture, then maybe what we'd be looking at would be the information fields of truth and lies

So, I guess my hypotheses would be:

1) Truth is beauty, the information field of truth takes the shape of a fractal.
2) Lies are ugly and messy.

I also remember reading somewhere on this forum (but I could be mistaken) that Gurdjieff said that we need three types of food: physical, mental, and emotional food. So maybe these foods are what gives our information fields a nice, neat, beautiful shape. And maybe the information fields of people who believe in lies are fractured and messy, and I think that could be what the C's mean when they say that lies disintegrate people.

SeekinTruth · Nov 1, 2013

Just for the record, Gurdjieff's teaching says there are three types of food:

1. physical food we eat
2. air we breathe
3. impressions

Impressions are the highest, most subtle food in the teaching.

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