Re: [Fis] Entropy, Information and Quantum Coherence

Replying to Guy (and Loet) --

First, I suspect that Koichiro's use of "measurement or experiencing" is
not meant to distinguish between them, but is just a relabelling because he
is identifying experiencing with measurement in simple, generalized systems.

That said, Guy's distinctions still hold in general. One could state them
as {from among what might be {we find this {which we interpret as...}}}.
The innermost level here refers to semiotics (study of the construction and
interpretation of meaning), a discourse not referred to much on fis, and
not explicitly in natural science at all. This despite the fact that some
semioticans have begun to think about science as a realm which deploys
meanings because of the obvious fact that Loet points out -- interpretation
requires various models used by the system of interpretance (the scientific
discourse in Loet's example). And, of course, constructivists like to
point out that my "from among what might be" is itself constructed by a
system of interpretance, as it focuses its attention according to its
previous experience.

STAN

>Dear Koichiro and colleagues,
>
>On Jun 4, 2004, at 5:10 AM, Koichiro Matsuno wrote:
>
>>
>> Information basically assumes the contrast between before and after
>> the act of measurement or experiencing.
>
>I have snipped this first line from a longer and interesting post for
>comment. A sometimes explicit, but often ambiguously implicit,
>difficulty in discussing the physics of information has to do with the
>definition of information itself. I would like to suggest a hierarchy
>of information concepts, and labels for my categories (I don't really
>want to claim these categories as MINE, but I also don't want to impose
>them on others without their approval), that might improve the clarity
>of our future comments.
>
>As I see it, Shannon's familiar equation, H = - Sum p log(p), is a
>measure of POTENTIAL INFORMATION content. The actual information
>encoded by the observed data depends on the configuration of the parts,
>which is not represented in Shannon's formula.
>
>The ACTUAL INFORMATION encoded by the observed data exists in the form
>of patterns in the data. The extent of structure in the data is always
><= H.
>
>The PERCEIVED INFORMATION, which is the form of information described
>above by Koichiro, results from an interaction between the state of the
>observer and the observed data. I think that this is an interesting
>and important kind of information, but its inherent contingency on the
>state of the observer makes it a particularly difficult (if not
>entirely intractable) platform for the development of a general theory
>of information physics. Note that neither POTENTIAL INFORMATION nor
>ACTUAL INFORMATION embody such a contingency, which is the reason I
>turn to them in the context of discussions about the relationship
>between information and entropy.
>
>I am not claiming that PERCEIVED INFORMATION is unreal; rather I see it
>as pattern imposed on the observer by the act of observation. In the
>context of human communication, as with this post, the goal of clear
>communication might be to recreate the geometry of a neural path in the
>brain of the sender, which encodes an idea, in the brain of the
>receiver. There is a great deal of information re-encoding along the
>way (e.g., my writing these words, which become digitally encoded by my
>computer, which are decoded by your computer, and re-encoded into your
>neural paths), which makes communication error-prone; but I think that
>by far the most sensitive junction in human communication is the
>process of re-encoding by the receiver due to the strong dependence of
>the outcome of this process on the state of the receiver (e.g., as a
>result of past experience). In principle, I see no reason why we can't
>develop objective measures of PERCEIVED INFORMATION, even for abiotic
>objects. A rock rolling down hill can be marked by the event (e.g.,
>it can be re-shaped), and these induced patterns would be the
>information perceived by the rock. A good geologist may be able to
>infer this information by studying the rock, but he/she would never be
>able to learn everything about the hill or the rolling event because
>the PERCEIVED INFORMATION is extremely unlikely to faithfully record
>all of the ACTUAL INFORMATION encountered by the rock as it moved over
>the surface of the hill during its roll.
>
>I am very interested in criticisms of this framework, and if it is
>palatable to most, then I hope use of the terms POTENTIAL, ACTUAL, and
>PERCEIVED INFORMATION will help to clarify our future posts.
>
>Regards,
>
>Guy Hoelzer
>
>Department of Biology
>University of Nevada Reno
>Reno, NV 89557
>
>Phone: 775-784-4860
>Fax: 775-784-1302
>
>
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Received on Sun Jun 6 17:03:59 2004