Massimo Takes On Information Theory

Massimo asks, what about information?:

"Another way to put it is that information is any type of pattern of matter/energy that causes (or contributes to cause) the formation or transformation of other patterns. Again, think of the examples given above: the light coming to the plant (energy) causes the alteration of the pattern of orientation of the leaves (matter); the DNA carried by germ cells (matter) contributes to the formation of a new organism in the next generation (matter); and the photographs (energy/matter, depending on the medium) taken by a satellite influence whether you’ll pick up an umbrella (matter) on your way out the door."

Massimo confuses end-points with meanings. The actual process is not so superficial as IF [light] THEN [turn leaves] which allows Massimo to declare only energy and mass are involved. Here is how it would be implemented logically:

1. Receive light, [L];

2. Implement comparison function, [c] to compare [L] input to expectations, [z] and [!z], where z = presence of sunlight;

3. If L=!z, do nothing.

4. If L=z, then send signal [s] to material function [t] to implement turn of leaf;

5. Continue to send signal [s] to material function, [t] until [L] reaches a maximum value, Lmax, then discontinue signal [s] and implement position lock [q].

6. And a real life seek system would likely implement hysteresis to avoid dithering or oscillation about the Lmax point.

Even after referring to a "pattern" as the primary source of meaning, Massimo continues to declare that information is material, which says that meaning is material. After all, information has meaning, in fact it is meaning. If a pattern has no meaning, then it is useless as instructions for performing subsequent actions. Since meaning itself has no physical aspects, it must be stored and transmitted on physical carriers, either energy or mass.

Massimo continues,

”While Shannon-type information theory tells us that information cannot be destroyed without increasing the entropy of a given system, the analysis above suggests the philosophical point that information is a type of energy/matter. That being the case, there is nothing mystical about information, and the concept cannot therefore be brought up as a way to defeat materialism.”

This is demonstrably incorrect. Information is meaning impressed upon a material carrier; the carrier type can be changed along the pathway, for example from audio sound waves in air, to electrical currents, to electromagnetic waves, back to electrical currents, then back to audio waves in air. The information carried in this example of radio waves can be transformed from air wave compression frequency and amplitude, to electrical current frequency and amplitude, to changes in frequency of an electromagnetic wave (frequency modulation, or FM), and then back to electrical and airborne energies. The meaning is carried on these substrates until it is apprehended by a receiver, in this case, a human mind.

What Shannon theory actually describes is the fact that the meaning impressed on the carrier will remain intact unless and until the ratio of noise in the system to the signal passing through the system increases to a point that the noise swamps out the carrier, and the meaning impressed upon it.

It is egregious for a supposed scientist / philosopher to completely misunderstand, or worse, purposefully misrepresent the physical concept of information carrier vs. organized modulation of meaningful information upon that carrier, be it energy or mass.

Now for the real argument: evolution,

” As for Dembski’s and co.’s claims about evolutionary theory, it is well understood that biological information of the type stored in DNA is created (and destroyed) all the time. The destruction comes, for instance, with the death of a given organism (which, accordingly, corresponds to a sudden increase in that organism’s entropy level), while creation/change occurs every time there is a mutation, i.e. a chemical alteration in the structure of DNA. Again, nothing magical going on, and certainly no need for conscious agents to get involved — be they of the supernatural type or whatever. (It is, of course, perfectly possible for a conscious agent to alter genetic information, it’s called genetic engineering, and we do it all the time.)”

and,

” Like Searle, I think it more reasonable to consider consciousness a biological phenomenon akin to, say, photosynthesis: something that does have a logical structure, but that also requires certain kinds of substrates to actually work”

The idea that meaning is created by mutation is possibly the crux of the materialist argument. It is bolstered by the ancillary idea that information does not really require meaning, or contain it. So it is possible to accidentally change the instruction pattern for fabricating a living thing in a manner that makes the living thing better able to cope with its environment. By doing this accidental change to the instruction pattern enough times, one finally gets sentience, consciousness, and intentionality, as well as uncaused causation. The mystical element is "deep time", so large that ordinary minds can't grasp it. This can't be proven by direct observation because we don't have access to deep time or sequential environments in order to replicate it. Similarly, it also cannot be falsified. And the fact that it is considered to account for all eventualities, without exception, there never could be a falsification even if we had a time machine. Under these conditions it is a metaphysical concept, religiously held without evidence possible to the contrary. And, being a creation story along with all these characteristics, it is a religion.

As for consciousness being material, this is indicative of the confusion that materialists harbor (or at least project) about the material world: ordinary mass does not contain information/meaning concerning its behaviors much less information/meaning regarding the behaviors of an overall construct containing the mass. The behavior of ordinary mass is determined by external forces which are described by scientific laws of nature. Only living things contain instructions that guide their self-development and in some cases, their behavior. However, and here is the big failure to comprehend, not all behavior of living things is coded into the genetic instructions. Specifically, much of human behavior is non-deterministic, and demonstrably so. So Searle’s substrate with a logical structure is an insufficient concept to account for Massimo’s exercise of free choice to accept or deny the fundamental concepts of information.

Finally,

” To recap: information is not a third type of thing outside of matter and energy (which are, of course, just two aspects of the same type of thing), and it therefore poses no problem to materialism. Also, talk of information does not require the presence or involvement of conscious minds, unless one wishes to talk about knowledge — the latter being a fairly uncontroversial and utterly non-mystical concept.”

In fairness to Massimo, this article appears to have been dashed off in response to a discussion with someone, and not a deeply analyzed position. In fact it is a restatement of the materialist requirement for Massimo’s underlying worldview. It is undoubtedly obvious to serious observers that there is no chunk of either energy or mass which corresponds to a specific piece of information or meaning (there are no jars full of meaning), and that the energy – mass involved is merely the carrier of the information. Information is a meaningful organization of details concerning a subject; that organization is a metaphysical attribute of the physical carriers or substrates that are used to store or transmit the meaning, which is impressed upon them.

In fairness to Massimo’s readers, there are serial errors and a lack of serious intellectual investigation in Massimo’s fairly careless, incorrect, and superficial thoughts about information. The injection of Shannon theory into the argument is entirely without purpose or merit. And Massimo's conclusions are entirely predictable based upon his dedication to a presupposed agenda.