Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Post 125. June 27, 2022 continued . . . .
Quantum Weirdness
Embodied Information
The distinction between unknowable ultimate Reality and the Realistic model in the conscious mind, is similar to the meaning-less abstract Information of Claude Shannon (1s & 0s), as compared to the meaningful Information in a human mind (ideas ; concepts). Pure Information is like a virus : without a material mechanism to carry-out its RNA instructions, it’s static & inert. But, when plugged into a complete circuit – a function-ing brain – that information flows & goes & does. Hence information embodied⁴⁴ is like Energy, it causes changes in brain & body, and even in the environment. Similarly, Ball provides a few chapters on implementations of quantum Information in computers that work more like Minds. He even considers the implications of the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, as an alternative to the Copenhagen Interpretation. But these weird worldviews are more like philosophical thought experiments than scientific conclusions from evidence.
So, I won’t get side-tracked onto that path. I’ll only note that Ball asks, “if all the possible outcomes of a quantum measurement have a real existence, where are they, and why do we see (or think we see) only one?” For what it’s worth, I think those parallel world-states are not Real, but Ideal; not Actual, but Potential ; not here & now, but everywhere & everywhen. In other words, they are imaginary, hence perfect fodder for Science Fiction. But Quantum Mechanics has practical real-world applications, even though its workings are not very mechanical. “Increasingly, it looks more logical to frame quantum mechanics as a set of rules about information”. Classical mechanics is based on direct local causation between two physical objects. Yet, as Ball explains, “our intuitive notions of causality – this dictating that – are salvaged, but only by taking a somewhat broader view of what cause and effect may mean”.
So, he introduces the principle of ‘information causality’, which is too technical to go into here⁴⁵. However, the authors of that theory argue that ’information causality might be one of the foundational properties of nature’. Which is why the Enformationism Thesis links mental Information with funda-mental physical Energy in the concept of EnFormAction⁴⁶.Technically, Information – and Energy – exchange is causal because it creates a “debt” relationship. For example, one atom shares an electron with another, hence requiring reciprocity (pay back) at a later time. In physics that give & take interrelationship is called a “covalent bond”⁴⁷. In meta-physics, it’s called “inter-personal bonds” or “fellowship” or “love”. Ball concludes that, “all this fits with the growing conviction that quantum mechanics is at root a theory not of tiny particles and waves but of information and its causal influence”. And that’s also the assumed underlying principle of the Enformationism thesis.
Blog Post 125 continued . . . .
44. Embodied Information : “Embodied intelligent systems are naturally subject to physical constraints, such as forces and torques (due to gravity and friction), energy requirements for propulsion, and eventual damage and degeneration. But embodi-ment implies far more than just a set of limiting physical constraints; it directly supports the selection and processing of information. Here, we focus on an emerg-ing link between information and embodiment, that is, on how embodiment actively supports and promotes intelli-gent information processing by exploiting the dynamics of the interaction between an embodied system and its environment”. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-77296-5_8
45. Information Causality : “Information causality may therefore help to distinguish physical theories from non-physical ones. We suggest that information causality—a generalization of the no-signalling condition—might be one of the foundational properties of nature.” https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08400
Embodied Cognition is Information with a personal Perspective
46. EnFormAction : The creative power to enform; to cause transformations from one form to another. 1. As the generic power of creation (Big Bang, Singu-larity), it turns eternal Potential into temporal Actual, it transforms Platonic Forms into physical Things. 2. As physical energy (Causation), it is the power to cause changes in material structure. 3. As condensed energy (Matter), it is light speed vibrations slowed down to more stable states. 4. Continued at . . . . : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html
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