Information density - densities of information?

[Approaching Infinity]

It is not that simple, I think. Information, probabilities, are always context-dependent. To specify the exact blue color among myriads of shades of the full color spectrum requires an infinite information. So the devil is in the details, and the "context" is one of these details. The more knowldge we have, the larger can be the context in which we do our information processing. For some people contexts are simple, for other extremely complex.

Several years ago when I was reading on information theory, the only way it made sense to me was that information basically comes down to "whatever makes something this thing and not some other thing." So that blue book actually has a lot of information in many senses. It is this blue book, not all those other blue books. It is located here in space and time, not all those other places in space and time. And, using psychegram's thoughts, it has this history, and not all those other possible histories. It's only when we bracket off those levels of information that we can then compare it to another book with a different form of information in it: markings on the page which represent thoughts. And those thoughts represent these thoughts and not all those other thoughts. Am I off base here, or is that a decent way of thinking about it?

 

[Ðekel]

It seems that being able to access more information about an object also has to do with "creating" more information about said object.

But what good is more information if it remains only a passive probability field.
Perhaps acting on / with the information (or chosing not to) is also an important part of "denser" locales.

One gives / reads information to an object, but chooses also how to apply it.
And perhaps more importantly: Why to apply it
as in STO, STS etc'

Math teaches us that reality can be thought of in quite a symbolic way
and that symbols are more part and parcel of reality than a lot of people realize

 

[luc]

I think of Shannon information more as informational potential. Take that random-pixel book. On its own, it contains no actual information (from a certain perspective), but a LOT of informational potential. Imagine using its sequence (with some kind of translation) as your gmail password. In that context it becomes extremely informationally dense. As you write, in order to be information in the way we think of it, it needs meaning. And meaning cannot exist without consciousness. That random pixel book has the potential to represent some very dense information, but only when it is tied cognitively to meaning.

I think this is a good way of looking at it. However, there is still something strangely unintuitive about it. Why should complete randomness have more information potential? If you have a highly structured image of pixels, you could still "shake them up" and re-generate randomness, i.e. entropy (in the original sense, not the Shannon sense). Or say you have a bunch of marbles with different colors that are ordered by their colors: is there less information potential in that as opposed to them just being laid out at random? Isn't it rather higher, because now I can use those ordered marbles to easily pick colors and create something beautiful with it?

Also, in many ways order and structure are a precondition for information: the constraint of a code, for example, makes communication and information sharing possible in the first place. If there is complete randomness (no code or pattern), you can't communicate. So it seems that "less information potential" actually means more information potential in a sense!

The same idea applies to what we call "channel bandwidth": the more constrained the channel (the less bandwidth), the better the signal-to-noise ratio. You can see this principle (derived from information theory) in action with 5G networks: they have a higher bandwidth as opposed to 3G or even older protocols, but also a lower S/N ratio, i.e. reach (you need more cell towers in closer proximity). Again, constraints make transmission (meaning) possible.

In other words, the "collapse of potential" seems to be a precondition for information.

And yes, we have no choice but say that meaning and consciousness is where it's at, but this also is a bit dissatisfying, because we seem to lose any grip on the concept of information. And yet, we talk about information all the time, and even make it the key to cosmology here! What do we actually mean by it though? All I can think of is that it is something intelligible, something designed by a mind, a consciousness, and that can be understood by another consciousness, based on some shared underlying hyperstructure. But this too seems dissatisfying.

It's really a bit of a conundrum.

 

[luc]

It is not that simple

It is not that simple, I think. Information, probabilities, are always context-dependent. To specify the exact blue color among myriads of shades of the full color spectrum requires an infinite information. So the devil is in the details, and the "context" is one of these details. The more knowldge we have, the larger can be the context in which we do our information processing. For some people contexts are simple, for other extremely complex.

Yes, the compression algorithm example (a typical application of Shannon) is artificial in that sense: it's cut off from reality for the sake of a technical application. But you can't take that "cut off" theory and just plug it back into reality to make sweeping claims. It would be mistaking the map for reality. In reality, everything is connected to the All-and-everything.

The context you mention seems to be related to meaning. Like if you observe a phenomenon, it might seem like just another random event and have no information at all (for you). But if you ask a specific question in your mind, and look at reality for answers, and the phenomenon answers your question, then there can be an infinite amount of information in that event (perhaps it changes your entire understanding of everything).

 

[ark]

Yes, the compression algorithm example (a typical application of Shannon) is artificial in that sense: it's cut off from reality for the sake of a technical application. But you can't take that "cut off" theory and just plug it back into reality to make sweeping claims. It would be mistaking the map for reality. In reality, everything is connected to the All-and-everything.

The context you mention seems to be related to meaning. Like if you observe a phenomenon, it might seem like just another random event and have no information at all (for you). But if you ask a specific question in your mind, and look at reality for answers, and the phenomenon answers your question, then there can be an infinite amount of information in that event (perhaps it changes your entire understanding of everything).

Indeed. Meaning, significance. Here is something related, especially p. 42 for illustration:

Carlos Castaneda and the Phenomenology of Sorcery
Author(s): Donald D. Palmer
Source:
Humboldt Journal of Social Relations
, Vol. 4, No. 2 (SPRING/SUMMER 1977), pp.
36-45

 

[Ðekel]

Yes, the compression algorithm example (a typical application of Shannon) is artificial in that sense: it's cut off from reality for the sake of a technical application. But you can't take that "cut off" theory and just plug it back into reality to make sweeping claims. It would be mistaking the map for reality. In reality, everything is connected to the All-and-everything.

The context you mention seems to be related to meaning. Like if you observe a phenomenon, it might seem like just another random event and have no information at all (for you). But if you ask a specific question in your mind, and look at reality for answers, and the phenomenon answers your question, then there can be an infinite amount of information in that event (perhaps it changes your entire understanding of everything).

Exactly.
also evidence in the meaning of the word "inform":
(used with object) to give or impart knowledge of a fact or circumstance to

Also 'In-Formation' !

This word implies a two way street

 

[Honzap]

Amazing timing with the topic.

Somehow the idea of an information being just part of one density seems absurd to me. Take water, which is something in density 1, something else in density 2, to become what we see in density 3 and who the heck knows what it looks in higher densities. So each density allows for accessing bigger part of information stored (or carried) by the subject/object.

The way my thinking goes so far is that within a specific density accessing available part of the information may be dependent on achieved level of development or it could also be said consciousness. That could explain why different people while looking at the same object (painting for example) would see something slightly different and their understanding of that particular information would be different too. I really like the example of different shades of blue. And also random information can be just that - a garbage or fluff.

Polarity (STS or STO) would not necessarily limit the volume of information accessible, but in the quality. So both polarities are reaching different parts of the circle. There may be a part common to both, but where they differ the most is the information quality. Going back to water, we know how to "charge" our drinking water. It is not that we are adding new information that wasn`t there before. More likely we are making specific information that has been stored there ready to be used available to us.

 

[Wandering Star]

So density and its relationship with information.

The C's talked about massive outlay and it's all there.

All information is available, what is limited is access. The closer it is to the seventh density, the greater the access and vice versa, the further it is from the seventh or closer to the first density, the less access.

The universe rotating together in an ascending and a descending current and the consciousnesses located in their vehicles in the different densities.

And there's this comment on Carla's Law of One:

QUESTIONER: This brings us to the point of the purpose of physical incarnation, in my opinion. Is it to reach a conviction, through our own thought processes, of a solution to problems and understandings, in a situation of total freedom, without proof of any kind, without anything that can be considered as proof (being the word "evidence" itself ill-advised)? Can you comment on my concept?
RA: I am Ra. Your opinion is eloquent, although somewhat confused in its connections between the freedom expressed by subjective knowledge and the freedom expressed by subjective acceptance. There is a clear distinction between the two.
This is not a dimension of knowledge, not even subjective, due to the lack of perception of cosmic and other influences that affect every situation that produces a catalyst. The subjective acceptance of what exists in the moment and the finding of love in that moment is the greatest freedom.
What is known as subjective knowledge without proof is, to some extent, a poor ally, as anomalies will always exist, no matter how much information is collected, due to third-density distortions.

,..............

So for the third density experience the knowledge is limited for a good reason.

Those of you who are gaining knowledge now are transcending third density, hence the term candidate 4D.

Perhaps it is something basic or known by all what I have commented, however I hope it helps.

 

[psychegram]

Why should complete randomness have more information potential?

There's a very old mythical/philosophical tradition which holds that the primordial cosmos started with chaos. Perhaps there's a clue there. Infinite potential corresponds to pure randomness.

 

[JGeropoulas]

The Internet has vastly increased our ability to store and transmit information. Our thoughts can now be moved around the world at the speed of light, as near instantaneous as can be so far as human perception is concerned. It enables social networking at an unprecedented scale.

Moreover, it has also had a profound impact on our perception of time. In particular, it has effectively collapsed it. Compare our cultural development before the Internet, to the patterns after, and the largest change I think is that it feels like in a sense we are in stasis. Music is perhaps the best example here: before the Internet, popular music moved through definite eras, with certain songs being almost universally known at any given time, and certain defining genres marking this or that period in time. Almost as soon as the Internet came online this stopped. Musical culture fragmented into a bewildering array of niches, while the instant accessibility of the full repository of recorded music means that anyone can listen to whatever they want whenever they want, as a result of which songs from generations ago remain very popular. On the one hand, you have a bewildering array of strange little subcultures all moving along on their own developmental pathways, but on the other since it's all happening simultaneously it feels very chaotic, as though nothing is really happening at all.

This reminds me of the idea of systems building momentum until they reach the point of singularity (an idea first articulated by mathematician, Vernor Vinge, and most notably, by Ray Kurzweil in his book The Singularity Is Near). Applied to communication systems (i.e. obtaining and transferring of information), the following example is often used. For millennia, smoke signals were the fastest means of communication. Then in the 1840s, the telegraph became the fastest, progressively followed by the telephone, radio and television. Then came computers and the internet, with progressively increasing speed, which is now nearly instantaneous. So the next leap will take us to the point of "singularity" where the requesting and receiving of information will occur simultaneously

 

[Joe]

I think of Shannon information more as informational potential. Take that random-pixel book. On its own, it contains no actual information (from a certain perspective), but a LOT of informational potential. Imagine using its sequence (with some kind of translation) as your gmail password. In that context it becomes extremely informationally dense. As you write, in order to be information in the way we think of it, it needs meaning. And meaning cannot exist without consciousness. That random pixel book has the potential to represent some very dense information, but only when it is tied cognitively to meaning.

That was my take too. ANY type/quantity/quality of information in whatever form, physical or otherwise, has no intrinsic meaning, only potential meaning. The potential is actualized or 'given' to it by an observer. A text can technically have a lot of information but no meaning (and in that sense zero actualized information) to every single person in the universe, except the person for whom that text caused a life-changing experience. Can there be such a thing as information that is meaningful without interaction with consciousness? Probably not. What would be the point? So maybe consciousness brings 'inert' information to life by 'reading' and organizing it. Maybe information is like a blob of silly putty, and consciousness is the hand that shapes it. So consciousness seems to be a 'creative force' that acts on information.

So getting back to your original question, AI can act on/arrange information on a scale humans cannot, but can it do it in a way where AI derives meaning from what it produces? Only if it has consciousness that can give a specific meaning to the information.

Also, is there really such a thing as "randomness"? That concept always struck me as similar to, if not synonymous with, non-existence. Is everything not, in one way or another, acted upon by something else, and therefore never completely random?

I feel like we've been here before on discussions on the forum, and we always get to the point where we are basically asking the question of 'where, and with what, did it all begin', and yet that's the paradox to beat them all, and we've already had the answer from the Cs (and others) that there never was a beginning and there is no end. That's a tough one to deal with while stuck in apparently finite physical reality. Maybe that's a question for the Cs sometime, i.e., how do they understand the idea of no beginning and no end.

And while I'm on it, another question for them is: they talk of us having future selves. Are these future selves doing stuff somewhere? If so, what? I know, I know, "3D thinking".

 

[Mark7]

ideology and mathematics aside though, there is also this experiential aspect that you discuss, the direct knowledge of the full information structure that can only be known holistically, perhaps by our "4D right hemispheres"?

It seems that we have no tried and tested idea or concept of what we will be experiencing in the future. So we will just have to experience 4D more to get any closer to a working or 'objective' concept it seems. So the actual process of experiencing 4D, or some aspects thereof, would somehow mold our '4D perceptive organs'. Perhaps something like when a blind person who's never seen anything is given an operation to see. The patient usually struggles to interpret what he is seeing, until he 'learns' how to see.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

That was my take too. ANY type/quantity/quality of information in whatever form, physical or otherwise, has no intrinsic meaning, only potential meaning. The potential is actualized or 'given' to it by an observer.

I agree, but I'd clarify what we mean by an observer. I think this only works if anything can be an observer. For example, an atom is an observer. The information about another atom becomes actualized when that information is transferred, for example, in the form of energy and position in space. That information is then processed by the receiving atom, which produces a response, e.g., changing its own trajectory. Or bonding with that other atom, or any other physical interaction. These are the "meanings" for atoms. This is just another way of saying that all information processing is cognitive in nature (and all cognition is information processing). Atoms just process very limited consciousness/information compared to, say, a human mind.

So getting back to your original question, AI can act on/arrange information on a scale humans cannot, but can it do it in a way where AI derives meaning from what it produces? Only if it has consciousness that can give a specific meaning to the information.

I think this is exactly correct. I think it was Joe Allen on MindMatters who likened AI's level of consciousness to that of the physical materials on which it operates. It "knows" only that it receives an input, and spits out a probabilistic output. It has no conception of the meaning, and as such has the level of consciousness of the basic matter making up its components, and no more.

 

[Glenn]

So getting back to your original question, AI can act on/arrange information on a scale humans cannot, but can it do it in a way where AI derives meaning from what it produces? Only if it has consciousness that can give a specific meaning to the information.

If Information can be, or is arranged by consciousness, (or by an observer), will it not be affected by the bias of the observer? (Assuming that the observer is sentient). AI also will have bias within the information it has access to, will it not?

Maybe pure information exists, and pure consciousness does as well, but in our real world (3D), I would think it would be a rare animal, if it exists in that form here at all.

Just some thoughts that came to me, but maybe I am off base...

Also...

In the real world, you can observe some of the most intelligent, and most highly educated people that can spout nonsense. (Turn on the TV). And the reason for that seems to be believing in ideologies, falsities, not connected to reality, in spite of their intelligence and education. This, what I will call bias, seems to be one of the fundamental things differentiating the two paths, STS, and STO.

So it does seem to be, that how information is utilized, determines it's polarity, or it's structure. Information is there, or accessible, but it can be utilized in many, if not infinite ways. Much like the Silly Putty that Joe mentioned.

Just some, "random" thoughts

 

[luc]

Getting a bit more practical and just going off my intuition here - we talked about "higher density information": what does that mean in practical terms?

My hunch is that this kind of information is "geometrical" in nature, for lack of a better term. Like when you have a strong intuition, you feel (and sometimes vaguely see in your mind) various puzzle pieces clicking into place. Sometimes this produces a sense of "steady euphoria" or "rational euphoria" (again for lack of better words). Sometimes you get this sense of "geometry aligning itself" and you know exactly what the cosmos wants you to do in a certain situation. Sometimes this geometrical language seems to directly shape your thoughts and words. And that geometrical language seems to be of a different order, transcending time: it can give information from the perspective of future "attractors" ("cosmic purposes" as the Cs put it), but it also can give you access to thoughts in the past, and therefore history. So "information density" isn't just about quantity, but also feels qualitatively different. It's information that isn't in a book page or the here-and-now, but a geometric form spanning time and history, carrying information.

Now the interesting thing is that this sort of "reading of geometric forms" seems to always go hand in hand with rationality, thought and study. It's not something that just falls from the sky, so to speak. It sort of runs in parallel with our own efforts, with our own discernment and knowledge, which acts like a springboard to those perceptions of a higher order. Sort of like a rational feeling that orders thought, but thought must be there in the first place!

As an analogy, think of a monkey observing humans in a forest. If it is really smart, it might discern some of the humans' language. Like maybe one human says "attention, tree down" before cutting a tree, and then a tree falls down. Or he says "Let's go home now", and the humans go away. The monkey might eventually be able to hear the difference between those two "sounds", but to the monkey, it's like "grunt A" vs. "grunt B". It doesn't understand the language, it just figured out that these 2 sentences sound kind of different. This is sort of where we're at when we study history and the present reality - we discern certain patterns, come to certain conclusions, and so on. We hear "grunt A" and "grunt B" of the cosmic language. But eventually, we might be able to learn the language, and understand it directly. This then would be the quantum leap of evolution, just as it would be for the monkey to actually understand the language, its words and grammar, as opposed to a few different grunts.

Ok, I grunted enough here