Warp wrote:
> scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
>> We all still are just chemical reactions!
> 
>   That's like saying that literature is just paper and ink.

Pretty much.

That's the thing most people don't get, tho.  The information content is 
in the *arrangement*, not the *components*. People say things like 
"there is no soul, because a dead person and a live person have all the 
same chemicals."  Even tho there's nothing *physical* there more than 
the chemicals, their arrangement is what's important.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> >> We all still are just chemical reactions!
> > 
> >   That's like saying that literature is just paper and ink.

> Pretty much.

> That's the thing most people don't get, tho.  The information content is 
> in the *arrangement*, not the *components*. People say things like 
> "there is no soul, because a dead person and a live person have all the 
> same chemicals."  Even tho there's nothing *physical* there more than 
> the chemicals, their arrangement is what's important.

  Information (most prominently written information) is still something
which puzzles me at a conceptual, philosophical or whatever level I can't
really determine.

  Paper and ink is just that, paper and ink. There's nothing else there
than paper and ink. Yet there can be: If there is, for example, some
written text, there is *something* else than just paper and ink there.
It's what is commonly called "information". I simply can't get a mental
grasp of what exactly that is, at the lowest conceptual level possible.
It's something that is and is not there, at the same time. It transfers
something from person to person, something which isn't physical. If it
isn't physical, how can it "exist" at all?

  When I think about written information like that, it starts sounding
really, really whacky.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Paper and ink is just that, paper and ink. There's nothing else there
> than paper and ink. Yet there can be: If there is, for example, some
> written text, there is *something* else than just paper and ink there.
> It's what is commonly called "information". I simply can't get a mental
> grasp of what exactly that is, at the lowest conceptual level possible.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/09/what-is-evidenc.html

> It's something that is and is not there, at the same time. It transfers
> something from person to person, something which isn't physical. If it
> isn't physical, how can it "exist" at all?

It's patterns that make the result of interacting parts of the physical 
system behave differently.  That's the trick, tho. There isn't 
"something" there other than paper and ink. It's the arrangement of 
paper and ink that makes the difference, not the "thing". Once you 
accept that the front of a rifle causes fear and the back of the rifle 
causes confidence, even tho it's both "the rifle", then it's easier to 
think about and figure out. It's not "the rifle" that causes it; it's 
the relationship of the rifle to you. It's the patterns on the paper, 
and their relationship with the patterns in your brain (and in 
particular their relationships with the patterns representing your 
memory of how to read and what you've read) that is the "something" there.

A computer program is nothing more than a collection of bits in memory 
as it runs. There are an exponential number of states the computer can 
be in after you turn it on, and the external stimuli can guide its 
choices through the state space. Loading a program pushes the computer 
into one subset of the state space in which consecutive memory locations 
hold the bytes of the program. Moving into the state space where the 
program counter includes a memory address inside that program's memory 
causes the very fact that it's in a particular part of the state space 
to route things around.  In other words, the program being loaded is a 
small part of the possible state space of the whole machine. But that 
state space has many more links to other states including the program 
being loaded than it does to state spaces in which the program is no 
longer loaded.

"Transferring" literature involves changing the state space of the 
person you're transferring it to into a part of the state space where 
the literature exists, and self-references.

Think about it the next time someone asks "do you believe in life after 
death?"   My answer: "Sure. Know who Abraham Lincoln is?"  How much of 
Lincoln's state space still exists in other people nowadays? How much of 
your parents' state spaces did they manage to guide you into? If you're 
in a state space where you think X is good or Y is bad because that's 
what your parents told you, aren't they living on in you in some sense, 
even after they're gone?

I highly recommend a few Greg Egan novels for you. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Warp wrote:
>   Information (most prominently written information) is still something
> which puzzles me at a conceptual, philosophical or whatever level I can't
> really determine.
> 
>   Paper and ink is just that, paper and ink. There's nothing else there
> than paper and ink. Yet there can be: If there is, for example, some
> written text, there is *something* else than just paper and ink there.
> It's what is commonly called "information". I simply can't get a mental
> grasp of what exactly that is, at the lowest conceptual level possible.
> It's something that is and is not there, at the same time. It transfers
> something from person to person, something which isn't physical. If it
> isn't physical, how can it "exist" at all?
> 
>   When I think about written information like that, it starts sounding
> really, really whacky.
> 

Here's an oversimplification. Entropy is an advanced state of matter and 
energy within a closed system (the universe). Literature is the result 
of human action, which is the result of entropy. Advanced states of 
matter and energy can relate to other advanced states of energy and 
matter. I believe conscious thought (human or not) to be *the* most 
advanced state of energy and matter present in the universe.

Sam

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>> scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
>>>> We all still are just chemical reactions!
>>>   That's like saying that literature is just paper and ink.
> 
>> Pretty much.
> 
>> That's the thing most people don't get, tho.  The information content is 
>> in the *arrangement*, not the *components*. People say things like 
>> "there is no soul, because a dead person and a live person have all the 
>> same chemicals."  Even tho there's nothing *physical* there more than 
>> the chemicals, their arrangement is what's important.
> 
>   Information (most prominently written information) is still something
> which puzzles me at a conceptual, philosophical or whatever level I can't
> really determine.
> 
>   Paper and ink is just that, paper and ink. There's nothing else there
> than paper and ink. Yet there can be: If there is, for example, some
> written text, there is *something* else than just paper and ink there.
> It's what is commonly called "information". I simply can't get a mental
> grasp of what exactly that is, at the lowest conceptual level possible.
> It's something that is and is not there, at the same time. It transfers
> something from person to person, something which isn't physical. If it
> isn't physical, how can it "exist" at all?

It is physical, in a sense. In every person that information has made a 
physical change in the person, often to the effect that that person can 
reproduce the information. In exceptional cases it may even influence 
future behaviour. (Okay, that begs the question whether behaviour is 
physical). It differs from a 'normal' physical object in that it does 
not have a specific position in space and that it will differ from 
person to person.

> 
>   When I think about written information like that, it starts sounding
> really, really whacky.
> 

I don't think so. When you see a text in korean or thai, there is no way 
for you to decode the information. It could have a very high information 
content by being totally random or it could be a great work of 
literature. That is different if the information is in a familiar 
alphabet and a familiar language. Take the statement 'We all still are 
just chemical reactions!'. As soon as you saw that, you recognized it as 
english so your mind flips from the finnish into the english state. That 
it a non localized (and ununderstood) physical change. Then your brain 
starts processing the 'We'. First the retina sees a set of lines and 
curves by adjusting the voltages over several cells. Then the brain 
decodes the 'W' and the 'e' and various voltages of cells in the cortex 
are adjusted. That goes to the next level where they are combined and 
you become aware that a group is meant that includes at least the writer 
and possibly yourself. Only after decoding the whole sentence you know 
that with 'We' mankind is meant, possibly even the entire fauna (plus 
flora). This is followed by a response of disapproval, resulting in the 
release of stress hormones. That in turn is then followed by the 
realisation that it is also partly true, that you know the writer and 
that actually you like him, and the levels of various hormones are 
readjusted. Then there is some time for reflection resulting again in 
the adjustment of several voltages. After that some cells are physically 
changed to record that you have seen this message, where and what it did 
to you. So a lot of physical things going on. The only whacky thing is 
that you can not point your finger to it. Then again that is not much 
different from information in computers. Take that statement again. You 
see it on your screen, but do you know exactly which bits in main memory 
are involved? can you without opening your computer tell where these 
are? and after opening?

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>> We all still are just chemical reactions!
> 
>  That's like saying that literature is just paper and ink.

Which was only invented because of chemical reactions in our eyes :)

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And lo on Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:45:07 +0100, Mike the Elder <nomail@nomail>  
did spake, saying:

> Mike Raiford <mra### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> It's funny, when you think about it at the very basic level of things,
>> we all started as a chemical reaction ...
>
> Funny? - or Profound?
>
> In either case...
> THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY CATALYST
> stands ready to sanctify your Reactants
> by accepting YOUR donation!

Heed not these unbelievers and follow the Great Porcelain God Hruggh; from  
waste did we arise and to waste will we return.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:52:25 +0100, "Phil Cook"
<phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:

>
>Heed not these unbelievers and follow the Great Porcelain God Hruggh; from  
>waste did we arise and to waste will we return.
>
He is called Hughie where I am from and we sacrifice to Him regularly
at the weekends ;)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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And lo on Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:39:42 +0100, Stephen <mcavoysAT@aolDOTcom>  
did spake, saying:

> On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:52:25 +0100, "Phil Cook"
> <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
>>
>> Heed not these unbelievers and follow the Great Porcelain God Hruggh;  
>> from waste did we arise and to waste will we return.
>>
> He is called Hughie where I am from and we sacrifice to Him regularly
> at the weekends ;)

Blessed art they for He goes by many names yet we kneel before him as one.  
:-)

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Phil Cook wrote:

> Blessed art they for He goes by many names yet we kneel before him as 
> one. :-)

...da HELL?!!?! O_o

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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