Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryInformation Theory

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Mount Fuji and Lake Shojiko at sunrise in Japan.
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News
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November 9, 2021
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Information Theory
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3. Does Mt Rushmore contain no more information than Mt Fuji?

That is, does intelligent intervention increase information? Is that intervention detectable by science methods?
News
November 9, 2021
10
Information Theory

In Define information before you talk about it, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviewed engineering prof Robert J. Marks on the way information, not matter, shapes our world (October 28, 2021). In the first portion, Egnor and Marks discussed questions like: Why do two identical snowflakes seem more meaningful than one snowflake. Then they turned to the relationship between information and creativity. Is creativity a function of more information? Or is there more to it? Now, they ask, does human intervention make any difference? Does Mount Rushmore have no more information than Mount Fuji? https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/3efb31b8-8406-43fb-a8f9-66a0b635215d-Mind-Matters-Episode-158-Robert-Marks-Egnor-Guest-Host-Information-Bingecast-rev1.mp3 This portion begins at 24:22 min. A partial transcript and notes, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Michael Egnor: Dr. Jeffrey Shallit, a mathematician at the University Read More ›

fragment-of-snow-texture-snowflakes-close-up-crystal-clear-ice-macro-photo-winter-shallow-depth-of-field-christmas-background-for-layout-christmas-theme-stockpack-adobe-stock
fragment of snow texture Snowflakes close-up. crystal clear ice. macro photo. winter. shallow depth of field. Christmas background for layout. christmas theme.
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News
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November 4, 2021
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Information Theory
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How Information Becomes Everything, Including Life

Without the information that holds us together, we would just be dust floating around the room
News
November 4, 2021
12
Information Theory

In Define information before you talk about it, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviewed engineering prof Robert J. Marks on the way information, not matter, shapes our world (October 28, 2021). In the first portion, Egnor and Marks discuss questions like: Why do two identical snowflakes seem more meaningful than one snowflake? https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/3efb31b8-8406-43fb-a8f9-66a0b635215d-Mind-Matters-Episode-158-Robert-Marks-Egnor-Guest-Host-Information-Bingecast-rev1.mp3 This portion begins at 01:02 min. A partial transcript and notes, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Michael Egnor: I know that information is a topic that you have a strong professional interest and a great deal of professional expertise. Probably the best way to start is to ask what is information? Robert J. Marks: It turns out that before talking about information, you really have to define it. Read More ›

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Exoplanets with moon
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News
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October 30, 2021
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Information Theory, Science
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How Exoplanets Have Made the Search for ET Respectable

Recent years have seen a marked change from official skepticism to official curiosity, which includes more generous funding for the search
News
October 30, 2021
5
Information Theory, Science

Exoplanets were first confirmed in 1992. Before that, it was easy to simply mock the search for the flying saucers and the little green men. After that, the obvious question became: If planets, why not habitable planets? If inhabited, why not by intelligent life forms? It was the naysayers who had more to prove. More recently, astrobiologists looking for signals from intelligent extraterrestrials (technosignatures) have started to doubt that the old standby, radio, is the best choice, as science writer Corey S. Powell reports, ‘I was never a big fan of what might be called “beacon SETI”,’ the astrophysicist Adam Frank from the University of Rochester tells me. ‘The idea is that you’re waiting for somebody to send you a Read More ›

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Extrasolar planet with atmosphere and moon
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News
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October 23, 2021
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Information Theory, Philosophy, Science
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Harvard Astronomer: Advanced Aliens Engineered the Big Bang

Avi Loeb writes in Scientific American that when we humans are sufficiently advanced, we will create other universes as well
News
October 23, 2021
7
Information Theory, Philosophy, Science

At Scientific American, Avi Loeb, the longest-serving chair of astronomy at Harvard (2011–2020), tackles the question of what came before the Big Bang. He surveys the conventional explanations for this singularity in time and space (when all points are zero) and comes to a somewhat surprising conclusion: Creation by an alien intelligence is the best way to account for our universe: Now there are a variety of conjectures in the scientific literature for our cosmic origins, including the ideas that our universe emerged from a vacuum fluctuation, or that it is cyclic with repeated periods of contraction and expansion, or that it was selected by the anthropic principle out of the string theory landscape of the multiverse—where, as the MIT Read More ›

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Human brain
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News
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October 15, 2021
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Information Theory, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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GWT: A Leading Consciousness Theory Depends on Information Theory

Not mechanism. If Global Workspace Theory (GWT) is a good approach to consciousness, there is no “consciousness spot” in the brain.
News
October 15, 2021
8
Information Theory, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

Recently, we have looked at the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of human consciousness, as set out by well-known Allen Institute neuroscientist Christof Koch. Another leading contender (and rival) is Global Workspace Theory (GWT) — it pictures the brain as an orchestra with many conductors. IIT is panpsychist in orientation (the universe participates in consciousness; human consciousness is the most highly developed instance) whereas GWT uses information theory to capture an image of consciousness via observations of the brain at work. A recent essay in Psyche by two GWT proponents, Morten L. Kringelbach and Gustav Deco, introduces us to GWT: … given the distributed nature of the brain hierarchy, there is unlikely to be just a single ‘conductor’. Instead, in 1988 Read More ›

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Green sprouts on blurred city background, environmental concept
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News
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August 28, 2021
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Arts & Culture, Environment, Information Theory, Science
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It’s 2075! Our Motto: “Ignorance is Bliss” — Sci-fi Saturday

This animated short asks us to consider a future world in which information is reduced to a sort of haze
News
August 28, 2021
18
Arts & Culture, Environment, Information Theory, Science

“Kernel” at DUST by Olly Skillman-Wilson (August 25, 2021, 5:12 min, animated) The world has become a place where information is tightly filtered and controlled, expelled into the air like a thick smog. Leonard Paisley is an ageing neurobotanist, his life work to preserve the knowledge of the past in his biome. When some equipment malfunctions his commitment is tested. Review: It’s 2075 AD and freedom of the press is not even remembered. Against a background of futuristic skyscrapers, a billboard advises us, “Not Knowing Is a Virtue.” Another that “Ignorance Is Bliss.” And “‘Tis Folly To Be Wise” Well, at least they are not telling us to Love Big Brother Or Else. Except for the fact that the landscape Read More ›

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ビジネスプラン
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News
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July 26, 2021
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Information Theory, Philosophy, Science
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How Informational Realism Subverts Materialism

Within informational realism, what defines things is their capacity for communicating or exchanging information with other things
News
July 26, 2021
3
Information Theory, Philosophy, Science

Here are some brief excerpts from design theorist William Dembski’s chapter in a forthcoming book on informational realism: To see how informational realism dissolves the mind-body problem, we need first to be clear on what informational realism is and why it is credible. Informational realism is not simply the view that information is real. We live in an information age, so who doesn’t think that information is real? Rather, informational realism asserts that the ability to exchange information is the defining feature of reality, of what it means, at the most fundamental level, for any entity to be real. William A. Dembski, “Informational Realism Dissolves the Mind–Body Problem,” a chapter of the forthcoming Mind and Matter: Modern Dualism, Idealism and Read More ›

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Choosing the High Road or Low Road
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News
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June 20, 2021
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Information Theory, Philosophy of Mind, Science
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Freebits: An Interesting Argument From the Big Bang for Free Will

There are two types of uncertainty, we learn, only one of which could create free will
News
June 20, 2021
5
Information Theory, Philosophy of Mind, Science

Caleb Scharf (pictured), author of The Ascent of Information (2021), offers an excerpt at Nautilus that introduces two new terms, the “dataome” and “freebits.” The dataome is all the ways human beings create information, from cave paintings to cloud servers. He asks, “Was all of this really inevitable? Did we ever have a choice in creating a dataome or doing any of the things we do, and does any self-aware entity in the universe have a choice either?” Relying on theoretical computer scientist Scott Aaronson’s 2013 essay, “The Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine,” he asks us to consider that there are two types of uncertainty, only one of which could create choice. Typical “randomness” actually follows statistical laws, a Read More ›

ancient-forest-hoh-rain-forest-in-olympic-national-park-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Ancient Forest, Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
May 6, 2021
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Information Theory, Natural Intelligence
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Plants Help Each Other. Are They Self-Aware? Can They Suffer?

Recent discoveries that plants can do many things that we used to think only animals could do raise some interesting questions
Denyse O'Leary
May 6, 2021
6
Information Theory, Natural Intelligence

In recent decades, we have learned that plants are much more like animals in their use of information than earlier thought. They have nervous systems that use glutamate to speed transmission, as mammals do. And seeking to thrive and grow, they communicate extensively. Recently, environmental journalist Richard Schiffman interviewed forest ecologist Suzanne Simard, author of the just-released Finding the Mother Tree on the intelligence of trees: You also found that birches give sugars to fir trees in the summer through the mycorrhizal networks and that firs return the favor by sending food to birches in the spring and fall, when the birches lack leaves. Isn’t that cool? Some scientists were having trouble with this: Why would a tree send photosynthetic Read More ›

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Kreuzspinne im Netz
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April 17, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory, Natural Intelligence
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Spiders May Not Know It But They Are Making Music

An MIT researcher has developed an algorithm that translates the delicate vibrations of spider webs into music
News
April 17, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory, Natural Intelligence

One of the presentations at the American Chemical Society’s Spring 2021 meeting featured an algorithm that makes music from the analysis of spiders’ webs: “The spider lives in an environment of vibrating strings,” says Markus Buehler, Ph.D., the project’s principal investigator, who is presenting the work. “They don’t see very well, so they sense their world through vibrations, which have different frequencies.” Such vibrations occur, for example, when the spider stretches a silk strand during construction, or when the wind or a trapped fly moves the web. Buehler, who has long been interested in music, wondered if he could extract rhythms and melodies of non-human origin from natural materials, such as spider webs. “Webs could be a new source for Read More ›

Slime molds
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News
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March 6, 2021
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Information Theory, Neuroscience, Science
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Slime Mold: An Earthbound “Alien” That Thinks Without a Brain

Researchers are beginning to learn just how giant molds can remember things without a nervous system. What, exactly, is doing the computations?
News
March 6, 2021
3
Information Theory, Neuroscience, Science

Turns out, it’s all in the tubes. The slime mold Physarum polycephalum is a single cell, often very large. The way Physarum gets to be so large is that when it divides, the many single cells merge into one giant cell — with no nervous system: “Its body is a giant single cell made up of interconnected tubes that form intricate networks. This single amoeba-like cell may stretch several centimeters or even meters, featuring as the largest cell on earth in the Guinness Book of World Records. Technical University of Munich (TUM), “A memory without a brain” at ScienceDaily (February 23, 2021) The paper is closed access. But how does the giant Physarum cell, with no brain, mouth, limbs, or Read More ›

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GMO Farming
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Eric Holloway
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February 4, 2021
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Information Theory
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Is GMO Detection an Application of Dembski’s Explanatory Filter?

If so, it would be an instance of the use of the filter in biology
Eric Holloway
February 4, 2021
7
Information Theory

Have you ever heard people say that intelligent design (ID) theory has never been applied to biology? They are wrong! In fact, it is applied frequently in the very important field of detecting genetically modified organisms (GMOs). “A genetically modified organism contains DNA that has been altered using genetic engineering.” (National Geographic) Detection can trace the use of GMOs, now frequent in our food supply, so that products can be recalled if there is a problem or if people just don’t want to use GMO products. GMOs are intelligently designed biological organisms, and scientists use design theorist William Dembski’s explanatory filter to detect GMOs. My claim is a bit daring, perhaps alarming for some people. Maybe I’m stretching the definition Read More ›

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military troops in action urban environment
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News
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January 29, 2021
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Information Theory
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What If, Condemned, You Had 12 Friends on the Firing Squad?

We try to understand why the universe seems fine-tuned for life
News
January 29, 2021
4
Information Theory

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, a frequent contributor to Mind Matters News, interviewed our Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks on the nature of information. In this second part of the interview (here’s the first part), the question comes up: How do we know if something is an accident or not? https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-118-Robert-Marks.mp3 A partial transcript follows. This portion begins at 11:02. Show notes and links follow. Michael Egnor: Aristotle said that in order to understand any process in nature, you really need to know four causes of that process. Note: The causes, according to Simply Philosophy are material, formal, efficient, and final. The material cause of a thing is what it is made of. A cat, for example, is made of Read More ›

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Brown Bag School Lunch
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News
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January 29, 2021
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Information Theory
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Does Information Just Happen? Or Does the Universe Have Meaning?

The computer revolution did not show that information could be produced from nothing
News
January 29, 2021
6
Information Theory

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, a frequent contributor to Mind Matters News, interviewed our Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks, a computer engineer, on the nature of information. Information makes a huge difference to what happens among human beings. But it is not like matter or energy. It doesn’t weigh anything or generate heat. How can we understand it scientifically? https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-118-Robert-Marks.mp3 A partial transcript follows. This portion begins at 01:10. Show notes and links follow. Robert J. Marks: Well, my background is not in biology, but it is in computer science and computer engineering. And one of the things we do is do artificial intelligence. And I think maybe your question translated to artificial intelligence is, can anything happen in artificial Read More ›

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More candles, more light in the dark night.
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
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December 30, 2020
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Information Theory
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Is Technology Always Progress? Let’s Talk About That

Tradition itself is a type of technology
Jonathan Bartlett
December 30, 2020
7
Information Theory

We often make a sharp distinction between “traditional” and “modern.” We view tradition with distrust, assuming that we are simply latching ourselves onto arbitrary decisions from yesteryear. Technology, on the other hand, is viewed as progressive. Rather than entrenching us in the past, technology is supposed to propel us into the future. Technology is the way that we structure our environment in order to maximize our productivity and happiness. We use technology to automate away the bad and boring parts of work, and emphasize the fun parts more predominate. We use technology to boost our productivity to make sure that everyone has everything that they need. What most people miss is that tradition itself is a type of technology. Tradition Read More ›

man inside man
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Author
News
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December 15, 2020
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Information Theory, Science
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But Do “Hidden Webs of Information” Really Solve Life’s Mystery?

Cosmologist Paul Davies won an award last year for an attempt that left “more questions than clean-cut answers (Physics World)
News
December 15, 2020
4
Information Theory, Science

Last year, State University of Arizona’s cosmologist Paul Davies won a Best Book award from Physics World for Demon in the Machine: The book’s subtitle is “How hidden webs of information are solving the mystery of life.” But are they? The book deals with established physics concepts (such as the second law of thermodynamics), but also delves into Davies’ thoughts on topics such as the emergence of human consciousness (while making sure the reader is aware of what is speculation). Readers, though, are likely to be left with more questions than clean-cut answers about the laws of nature. “Just in the last 10 years or so, I suppose, I’ve begun to see a confluence of different subjects. Partly, this is Read More ›

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Man looking at business plan at whiteboard
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News
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December 12, 2020
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Information Theory, Science
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Complexity Is Not Always a Bad Thing

It allows us to have an intellectual life
News
December 12, 2020
3
Information Theory, Science

In a recent podcast, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and engineering prof Robert J. Marks discussed the difference between a bag of jigsaw puzzle pieces and a text message like “The city will get your car towed if you do not move it within the next 8 minutes”: Got your attention? That’s precisely what information does. It gets your attention. But what is information? How did those characters in a text message become important to you? Weren’t they just a string of letters and numbers? What, exactly, changed? https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-112-Robert-Marks.mp3 A partial transcript follows. The Show Notes and a full transcript are available below. Robert J. Marks: In terms of meaningful information, I think it’s obvious. Michael, they used to say that it Read More ›

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Question Signs
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News
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December 4, 2020
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Information Theory
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Information Is the Currency of Life. But What IS It?

How do we understand information in a universe that resists resolution into one single, simple system?
News
December 4, 2020
7
Information Theory

At first, “What is information?” seems like a question with a simple answer. Stuff we need to know. Then, if we think about it, it dissolves into paradoxes. A storage medium—a backup drive, maybe—that contains vital information weighs exactly the same as one that contains nothing, gibberish, or dangerously outdated information. There is no way we can know without engaging intelligently with the content. That content is measured in bits and bytes, not kilograms and joules—which means that it is hard to relate to other quantities in our universe. In this week’s podcast, “Robert J. Marks on information and AI, Part 1.” neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviews Walter Bradley Center director and computer engineering prof Robert J. Marks on how we Read More ›

cat-looking-to-little-gerbil-mouse-on-the-table-concept-of-prey-food-pest-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Cat looking to little gerbil mouse on the table. Concept of prey, food, pest.
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 20, 2020
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Information Theory, Neuroscience, Science
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Can We Find Purpose in a Universe With No Underlying Purpose?

That’s the ambitious goal of a prominent science writer
Denyse O'Leary
November 20, 2020
8
Information Theory, Neuroscience, Science

British science writer Philip Ball offers us a guide to a very interesting project: an attempt to “naturalize” the idea of agency, that is, make the desire to do things—the mouse’s desire to escape the cat— explainable from a fully materialist perspective. That’s much harder than it seems. Rocks don’t desire anything. So we can’t just start from the bottom. It’s also not enough to say that the mouse wants to avoid getting killed. That’s true but it doesn’t really explain anything. For example, a person looks both ways before crossing the street to avoid getting run over. But, by itself, that doesn’t explain why she tries to avoid getting run over. One must factor in her memory, background knowledge, Read More ›

artificial-intelligence-brain-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
artificial intelligence brain
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Author
News
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November 4, 2020
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Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory, Philosophy of Mind
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A Neuroscientist on Why We Can Build Human-like Brains

Manuel Brenner, a particle physicist as well as a neuroscientist, thinks pattern recognition is the answer
News
November 4, 2020
6
Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory, Philosophy of Mind

Manuel Brenner, a particle physicist who became a theoretical neuroscientist, made the argument last year that human intelligence is less complex than we make it out to be. Thus, building an artificial intelligence might be easier than we suppose. He offers some intriguing arguments and here are some responses: ➤ Is the information we need for building human-like AI in our genes? He doesn’t think so because a tomato has 7000 more genes than a human being. Further, our human genome offers only 25 million bytes of information for our brain’s design but there are 1015 connections in the adult neocortex. His conclusion? “there needs to be a much simpler, more efficient way of defining the blueprint for our brain Read More ›