Information: The material physical Cause of causation

[TheJackel]

Much confusion of map with terrain here. Physical representations of concepts are not the concepts themselves, and nor are the substrates upon which they rest, i.e. the mind. Words are not material, although their representations might be. The same is true of pretty much everything else you've said here. Likewise, information is entirely conceptual, and has no physical existence, although our representations of it can certainly be, as can the strata on which they reside.

A concept of a banana is not physical, but the processes and material that generate the concept can be.

Like I said, the map is not the terrain. Learning the distinction between the two is the key to understanding why you're wrong.

I think I may see a possible area where you may be confused here.. I believe you may think that your consciousness or state of (as an example) would be non-material perceptually. However, we can not perceive or be consciously aware of the processes in our brains that formulate our state of consciousness since we are technically the end continuous product, or the emerged property that is continuously being created from a physical system of Chaos. All the physical representation of concepts include the very idea or thought itself along with any emotion to which may be attached to it. The very idea or concept you may have in your head is still entirely a physical thing that we can physically process and apply further physical meaning to, or physical action to. There is no way such things can exist while being argued as being made of nothing in the literal context.

Yes the physical concept outside the mind differs physically than from the physical concept in the form of the idea or thought. They are however both physical patterns of energy in different states and complexities. Here one is just a physical thought, image, idea, and emotion,  and the other would be the physical external representation of that thought, concept, or idea. Such as body language or the car you built.

So I think we need to define "Nothing" here and then apply it to the argument you are making.  

noth·ing  (nthng)
pron.
1. No thing; not anything: The box contained nothing. I've heard nothing about it.
2. No part; no portion: Nothing remains of the old house but the cellar hole.
3. One of no consequence, significance, or interest: The new nonsmoking policy is nothing to me.
n.
1. Something that has no existence.
2. Something that has no quantitative value; zero: a score of two to nothing.
3. One that has no substance or importance

Even under the definition of "non-material" it's classified not as solid matter, but as energy. Which of course fits into my position entirely. However, the literal context is =/= nothing. Nothing can only be used in two ways, the scientific way, and they way in which nothing is used to describe the absents of what we expect to be there while knowing literally there will never be nothing literally there.

Hence, is your coffee cup empty with nothing in it? Or is it filled with empty space to which fills the cup? Even we humans are 99.7-99.9% empty space.

This is where I see your argument coming from:

Immaterialism:

Immaterialism is the theory propounded by Bishop Berkeley in the 18th century which holds that there are no material objects, only minds and ideas in those minds.

Hence the argument of the nothing mind However, if you can show me by example that words are made of nothing.. I will gladly accept your position.

[hackenslash]

No, I'm not confused at all, you're just struggling to read basic English. I am not arguing for the existence of nothing, I am stating, without ambiguity or equivocation, that the things you are resting on to support your argument are not the things you are arguing for, but the strata on which they reside. In short, that ideas, words, etc, have a purely conceptual existence. Stating that thoughts have a physical basis does not aupport your argument, it only deepens your confusion.

Seriously, I'd go away and give this some thought, because not a single one of your responses has remotely represented what I have said. Again, let me know how making other people's arguments up for them works out. I'm out until you can actually demonstrate that you can understand what is being said, because until you can actually understand the words that are put in front of you, you haven't the faintest hope of understanding the difficult concepts you're trying to grasp.

Thoughts are material in nature, the subjects of those thoughts are not. Do you begin to see the distinction?

[TheJackel]

Thoughts are material in nature, the subjects of those thoughts are not. Do you begin to see the distinction?

Yes I do understand the distinction.

Thoughts are material in nature

Are entirely material

the subjects of those thoughts are not.

Unless they really exist.. Such as a Horse.  However thoughts are considered derivatives of what does exist, but can be abstractly used to form new thoughts an ideas that are not representative of reality. As in we can use descriptive words to formulate new concepts and ideas to which have an origin in relation to all the things we have experienced and learned since birth.

Example:

One
Green
Eyed
Monster

These words could generate many conceptualized mental images of scary one green eyed monsters. These things still exist as thoughts to which are material in nature. Of course the relevance doesn't exceed the limits of just being mental thoughts. Hence the object doesn't really exist beyond being just a thought.  I agree that these concepts would have no material value beyond just being a mental thoughts. Words thus don't exist outside the mind unless we type them out, or speak them.

Anyways, I will be doing some more thinking on this subject. I will put what you have said here into more thought,  And thanks for your input  

[Stevil]

Which precisely demonstrates why your definition of existence as information is fatally flawed. Information is merely the observational data with regard to a system. No observation, no information. That doesn't equate to no observation, no existence.

It's not. And you are going by one philosophy that is inherently flawed because it doesn't address what all information is made of. It's like arguing that patterns aren't patterns if no mind is present to perceive it as if that would magically make a pattern or sequence be non-existent. That is technically incorrect. It's well stated under Wiki and by others in information theory as to why that position is technically a false position/argument. It's at best an irrelevant argument of semantics because in either case, it really doesn't change the premise of my article.

Just thought I would offer my 2 cents.
I would have to side with Hack here. I don't even think you can classify data as information. It only becomes information if you can make some sence of it. Everything in existence offers data which are observable attributes. It takes an observer to turn this into information. This observer does not need to be intelligent e.g. DNA is information on how to build something biological.

I actually don't think patterns are patterns unless they are observed. To us what sounds like a 4/4 time signature of a song to a cat may seem like random noise.

[TheJackel]

Which precisely demonstrates why your definition of existence as information is fatally flawed. Information is merely the observational data with regard to a system. No observation, no information. That doesn't equate to no observation, no existence.

It's not. And you are going by one philosophy that is inherently flawed because it doesn't address what all information is made of. It's like arguing that patterns aren't patterns if no mind is present to perceive it as if that would magically make a pattern or sequence be non-existent. That is technically incorrect. It's well stated under Wiki and by others in information theory as to why that position is technically a false position/argument. It's at best an irrelevant argument of semantics because in either case, it really doesn't change the premise of my article.

Just thought I would offer my 2 cents.
I would have to side with Hack here. I don't even think you can classify data as information. It only becomes information if you can make some sence of it. Everything in existence offers data which are observable attributes. It takes an observer to turn this into information. This observer does not need to be intelligent e.g. DNA is information on how to build something biological.

I actually don't think patterns are patterns unless they are observed. To us what sounds like a 4/4 time signature of a song to a cat may seem like random noise.

Ahh, that makes more sense to me too .. I am going to have to re-write that article after I full sit back and think about these points and how they fit into it to where the appropriate changes can be made. I think most of my skewing came from my interpretation of Physical Information theory linked in the article. If you guys could read that and perhaps give me your view on that subject it would be great :eek:

[Stevil]

I do have one Question though. Would this mean that Knowledge is a base if inquiry comprised of information to which is a more structured form of data? As in it takes a lot of data of give information value or further meaning? .. It does seem confusing to me though  

My take is that knowledge is a derived understanding of information. We know (knowledge) that the Earth revolves around the Sun given the information that we have gathered.

[hackenslash]

Unless they really exist.. Such as a Horse.

Still confusing the map with the terrain. In this case, it's the same map, but different terrain. Of course horses are physical, but the concept of the horse is not. The same is true of all the examples you have cited. The thought is not the horse. The horse is the horse. That is its essence. The thought is a thought. That is its essence. The horse that is the subject of the thought is a concept. That is its essence.

Citing more examples of exactly the same kind of thing does not address the issue, which is that the subjects of thoughts are not physical.

Incidentally, this thread is definitely in the wrong place. It isn't a science topic, but a metaphysics one.

[Stevil]

I think most of my skewing came from my interpretation of Physical Information theory linked in the article.

Are you talking about this link http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Physical_information?
With regards to "It is a complete description of the thing"
A description of the thing doesn't mean that it is the thing. You need the thing to produce the data used to render the description, knowledge would then go beyond this, to a level of understanding about the thing.

I have a couple of issues with this description of "Information" though. I think a partial description of a thing could be considered information.
With regards to "that which can distinguish one thing from another" this means that you could ignore the data that is the same as the other thing that you are distinguishing from, with this ignored data you would then not have "a complete description of the thing".

BTW - I was wrong about patterns, just because we don't recognise these patterns it doesn't mean that they are not there.