Re: [Fis] Mind, matter, meaning and information

Subject: Re: [Fis] Mind, matter, meaning and information

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Thursday, March 15, 2007, 7:46:47 PM, Stanley wrote:

> Commenting on Robin's text, he said:

>>In this paper I combine and extend some ideas of Daniel Dennett with
>>one from Wittgenstein and another from physics. Dennett introduced the
>>concepts of the physical, design and intentional stances (1987), and
>>has suggested (with John Haugeland) that �*?some concept of INFORMATION
>>could serve eventually to unify mind, matter, and meaning in a single
>>theory.�* (Dennett and Haugeland, 1987, emphasis in the original)
> S: I'm not sure I see a distinction between meaning and mind as they
> relate to matter. I suppose matter + meaning might be one perspective on
> mind.

I think the quoted statement is perfectly reasonable, because the
common concepts of mind and meaning are distinct, while unification
is, in fact, what is being proposed.

>>The concept of physical information is now very well established. The
famous
>>bet between physicists Stephen Hawking and John Preskill that Hawking
conceded
>>he�*?d lost in July 2004 concerned whether physical information is
>>conserved in
>>black holes. (Preskill, 2004) Physical information is basically material
>>form.
>>The concept derives from C.E. Shannon�*?s information theory (1948) and
has no
>>semantic component. When this concept is taken to its logical
conclusion, an
>>energy flow becomes an information flow and an object becomes its own
>>description. The crucial distinction is between form and
>>substance. Dennett�*?s physical stance could be renamed the
>>�*?substantial stance,�* while I
>>introduce an additional stance to account for information, called the
>>�*?formal
>>stance,�* in which we attend to form rather than substance.
> S: So, here we have reflected the Aristotelian causal anlaysis:
> material cause (physical stance), formal cause (design stance). For
> completion we still want final cause -- directionality, which relates to
> intentionality, and efficient cause, which determines 'when', or initiates
> the moment to be consdered.

I do not believe that my formal stance is related to Aristotle's
formal cause except in the sense that both relate to the concept of
form. My account is not primarily about causation, though that comes
into it. You've perhaps been mislead by the terminology, and I'm
afraid you'll have to forget Aristotle altogether if you want to take
my ideas onboard. All I'm saying there (besides the fact that the
concept of physical information is well established in physics) is
that sometimes we focus on form rather than substance, that this
accounts for the concept (in fact all the concepts) of information,
and that we can call that focus "the formal stance". I hope I don't
have to change my terminology.

> -snip-
>> (The intentional stance actually implies the formal stance, as
>>only information can be intentional.)
> S: This is to say that whatever happens does so in a context.

I don't think so. This is not about "whatever happens", because most
of what happens has no intentional aspect. Only when sentience comes
into the picture does that arise.

> Contexts embody information, and select what among many possibilities will
> occur.

Yes, but everything embodies information, and the "selection" can be
considered either a physical process (from the physical stance) or an
information process (from the formal stance).

> So, you are saying that intentionality cannot exist outside of some
> context of possible choices.

That might be true but it's not what I intended to say. It would
certainly be useful to tie free will in with intentionality.

>>To adopt Dennett�*?s intentional stance toward an object is to suppose
>>that the
>>object encodes intentional information.
> S: That is to say, some directional take upon the formal setup,
> pushing a final causality.

No. Or at least I don't think so. We have a clash of paradigms here. I
can view these sguiggles on my screen as mere squiggles, or I can read
them. To do the latter I have to take the intentional stance towards
them, that is to suppose that they encode intentional information,
i.e. information that is about something, the usual kind. As mere
squiggles, they're physical information.

>>To adopt his design stance is to view
>>something as the product of an intentional information process.
> S: That would be to say that an existing situation has resulted from
> past 'descisions' or initiations that, given past designs, resulted in the
> present setup.

Yes. Except that I'm not sure of the significance of "given past
designs". Past designs will very often be relevant but I doubt whether
they're necessarily so. And I'm not sure why you mention "situations".
The design stance, in the simplest cases, merely distinguishes
manufactured objects from natural ones, though it can be applied to
natural objects by creationists and those seeking explanations in
terms of evolutionary adaptiveness, and also to much more subtle and
complex scenarios, such as aspects of interpersonal relationships. Is
this what you have in mind?

>>Though the physical stance is very natural and practical in many
contexts, the
>>formal stance is superior in a certain sense: information is all that our
>>senses convey, we do not experience matter directly, it can be considered a
>>theoretical entity (or set of entities).
> S: The word "experience" here is critical. Our experience (and
> meanings) is engendered by our formal organization. Matter is what is
> organized, and so could not itself be the content of experience (or
> meaning) even though it is the carrier (channel).

Here at last we seem to have unambiguous agreement.

>>A mind is a user or processor of intentional information.
> S: That is to say, it initiates finality.

Perhaps, I don't think in these terms.

>>Matter is a theoretical entity extrapolated from physical information.
> S: Presumably "physical information", then, relates to an array of
> possibilities generated by a situation, from which the formal setup
> (context) will select some given a nudge informed by an intentional
> tendency.

Physical information is simply material form. Any physical process
involves contextual selection, but a perfectly static arrangement of
entities embodies physical information too, by virtue of the fact that
it has some form.

Having looked at your home page, I see we have very different concepts
of form. You suggest {energy -> {matter -> {form -> {organization}}}}
but I see form as occurring simultaneously with energy, in fact as
more-or-less synonymous with quality. Whatever has qualities, has
form. Perhaps you limit form to instances of stability?

I'm fairly confident that matter can reasonably be considered a
theoretical entity, but I'm now having some doubts about saying that
it's extrapolated from physical information, because it can be argued
that we don't have direct access to that either, all we experience
being intentional information, so physical information is theoretical
too. This needs more thought.

>>Meaning is intentional information (though multiple levels of en/decoding
>>might
>>be involved), and consciousness is the use or processing of
>>intentional information.
> S: Again, then: mind = matter + meaning.

Perhaps, but I think I'm saying rather more than that.

-- 
Robin Faichney
<http://www.robinfaichney.org/>
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