Quoting Michael Devereux <dbar_x@cybermesa.com>:
Thanks Michael for your cogent reply.
> I understand Landauer's insight not as an analysis of the logical
> structure of information, nor of its ubiquitous utility throughout
> human endeavors, but rather as a more precise description of the
> mechanisms for storage and transmission of information.
I agree that 'storage and transmission of information' (if info is
predefined as
physical data carrying marks) is a useful description of the mechanism. But if
the data carry numbers and letters the information exchange process involves
qualia as well as quanta, implies structure shape and pattern (like anyons in
quantum knot theory imply two dimensional worlds). Human communication is
notoriously more complex than barcoding brains but we don't need to
resort to a
metaphysical account involving 'disembodied abstract entities' to explain the
rules (Descartes can crawl back into his oven - some axiom like Miller's 'plus
or minus 7' might suffice).
> I suppose neuroscientists today may even be able to locate those
> specific >areas of the brain that process mathematical thoughts.
Yes, if info transmission is basically a physical process we should be able to
map its movement within the cerebellum (like Pinker maps verb tense usage in
the brain with MRI scans). The corollary of the physical view is that
'information' is (unlike concepts such as language, mind, consciousness or
number) not a distinct phenomenon but merely a feature of matter.
If info transmission is an 'event' (as Stanley and Rafael) suggest,
then what is
its essential structure? 'Any surprising such representing a range of suches'
perhaps? If so then any mere transmission of physical data (signals)
would only
qualify as information under certain conditions. It may be that information
'takes place' in the no-man's land of possibility between the ones and the
zeroes, between the lines of text, between noise and news and occurs deep
within the interstitial spaces of microtubular networks or in the sense-data
filtering mechanisms of the thalamus.
The anyon phenomenon may even have counterparts across the 'ubiquitous
utilities' of human endeavours - e.g.
rhetoric - homonyms, puns, metaphors
logic - paradoxical statements, nonsense
grammar - syntactic ambiguity, ambipositions
computing - wildcarding/regular expressions
card games - the joker (representing all the possible cards playable)
punctuation - asterisks (representing any of a range of swear words)
I suppose I am arguing that information transfer is not a transmission
of X from point A to point B but the act of in-form-ation becomes a
trans-form-ation to Y in the process (just as reading material print
can inform and transform the consciousness of a reader).
This 'mysterious transformation of raw information into cognitive content'
(Collier) remains the philosopher's stone of cognitive science.
The stone itself, of course, may be composed of neither bosons nor fermions.
Cheers,
John H
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I understand Landauer's insight not as an analysis of the logical
> structure of information, nor of its ubiquitous utility throughout
> human endeavors, but rather as a more precise description of the
> mechanisms for storage and transmission of information. According to
> Landauer, and I think he was right about this, information is
> exclusively stored in the configuration of physical objects,.and
> transmitted only by material entities. So, for example, the energy
> configuration of a simple bi-level atom would contain a single bit of
> information, represented by zero, say, in its ground configuration,
> and by one in its excited level. Of course the physical configuration
> of the atom's nucleus, made up of protons and neutrons, must also
> contain additional information, ignored in this instance. And we know
> that protons and neutrons are themselves composed of quarks, whose
> physical configuration must also contain more information. And, as
> far as we know, those quarks may be constituted by some structure of
> strings, with even more information, and so on.
> I also understand Landauer to tell us that information is transmitted
> from one thing to another only by physical objects, all of which are
> composed of energetic quanta. As, for instance, sending information
> on a telegraph line by a series of electrical impulses, each of which
> contains many electrons. I know of no reason to suppose that the
> information any person holds and exploits, even about mathematics, is
> not stored and transmitted physically, as Landauer has said.
> Jerry wrote that "mathematics is often deemed as abstraction, (so)
> mathematical information is often deemed as abstract." But, it is
the
> brain cells and synaptic connections, their chemical and electrical
> configuration and signal processing, which alone permits us to employ
> mathematics. Clearly, traumatic injury to the brain (or death, even)
> can destroy a person's mathematical facility. I suppose
> neuroscientists today may even be able to locate those specific areas
> of the brain that process mathematical thoughts.
> I would say that those who might claim that physics is merely applied
> mathematics, that it lacks any self standing domain, are certainly
> mistaken. Those of us who are physical scientists recognize that our
> models of the physical world must always be validated by tangible
> observations in controlled experiments. That, I believe,
> distinguishes the physical sciences from pure mathematics. I have yet
> to meet the chemist, biologist, geologist, paleontologist,
> astronomer, or physicist who seeks to treat matter itself as a
> disembodied abstract entity. Landauer certainly didn't do that, and
> the rest of us, also, I believe, clearly see the difference between a
> mathematical model of the physical world, and the world itself.
> Because we carefully observe that world in our experiments.
> Cordially,
>
> Michael Devereux
>
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Received on Tue Jul 25 11:49:08 2006
