notas.itmens
Systems theory, Modern Schellingianism
Words to checkout#
- Niklas Luhmann
- Orthogenesis
- Von Neumann universal constructor
- Gilson's book, From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again
“The great philosopher and historian of philosophy, Etienne Gilson, sets out to show that final causality or purposiveness and formal causality are principles for those who think hard and carefully about the world, including the world of biology. Gilson insists that a completely rational understanding of organisms and biological systems requires the philosophical notion of teleology, the idea that certain kinds of things exist and have ends or purposes the fulfillment of which are linked to their naturesùin other words, formal and final causes. His approach relies on philosophical reflection on the facts of science, not upon theology or an appeal to religious authorities such as the Church or the Bible.”
From chan thread#
So I've seen many philosophers of information think entropy is a "objective" "physical" quantity, but its value totally depends on the microstates that a conscious being is delineating out. It increases in a definite, fixed process, namely when there's an observer throughout and the observation, the operation, the semantics is stable. For informational entropy, also, the probability distribution itself is subjective, or at least needs a conscious being to differentiate the states - to generate multiplicity from the unity, to generate the discrete from the syrup-like continuum.
Gromov was working on this problem: a better representation of entropy as it really is. We need a global characterization of the transformation of entropy under different perspectives.
Entanglement is surely an instance of physical phenomena that can be seen as trans-spatial-temporal. It is an essentially informational phenomenon.
Quotes#
The central problem, for me, in the interface between physics and information theory, is:
Does the physical implementation of a computational operation have a fundamental thermodynamic cost, purely by virtue of its logical properties?
From Information Processing and Thermodynamic Entropy. A possible linkage between the physical/material and the logical/mental can be formed, if this is true. Earman & Norton, however, holds that the information theoretic “exorcism” of Maxwell's demon cannot be done.
Need to read the papers Exorcist XIV: The Wrath of Maxwell’s Demon. Part I. From Maxwell to Szilard.pdf and Exorcist XIV: The Wrath of Maxwell’s Demon. Part II. From Szilard to Landauer and Beyond.pdf.
See also Shenker, Logic and Entropy.pdf.
From Philip Ball's How Life Works:
Can we put back meaning into a theory of information, and start to construct a theory of biological information and how it guides and informs the agency of living things?