Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryInformation Theory

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Concept of
Type
post
Author
News
Date
October 20, 2020
Categorized
Information Theory, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind, Science
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Do We Really Have Free Will? Four Things to Know

Free will makes more sense of our world than determinism and science certainly allows for it
News
October 20, 2020
7
Information Theory, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind, Science

Free will is a contentious topic in science these days. Theoretical physicists weigh in sharply on one side or the other. Just this month, based on quantum mechanics, mathematician Tim Andersen says maybe and theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder says no. Based on cosmology, the study of our universe, physicist George Ellis said yes last June. With free will, as with consciousness, we don’t fully understand what’s involved. All insights from science are partial so we can’t look to science for a definitive answer. But maybe science can offer some hints. Here are four that might be helpful: 1.Has psychology shown that free will does not really exist? Psychological research on free will has supported the concept of free will but Read More ›

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Frog with Turtle and Snail
Type
post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
October 14, 2020
Categorized
Information Theory, Science
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To What Extent Does Life Simply Invent Itself As It Goes Along?

The evidence may surprise us
Eric Holloway
October 14, 2020
6
Information Theory, Science

According to a popular anti-creationist website Talk Origins, one of the strongest pieces of evidence for evolution and common descent is the phylogenetic signal. In their view, when we look at specific properties across multiple species — number of legs, presence or absence of wings, the presence of a gene, a configuration of nucleotides in the genome, etc. — such properties will form a strongly nested hierarchy. We should expect to see such a strongly nested hierarchy if organisms evolved from one another and therefore a “family tree” links all the organisms together. However, if a property that appears only on a branch, it will be shared only by that branch’s leaves. Leaves on a different branch will not have Read More ›

Analysis of a sample of water.jpg
Analysis of a sample of water from a river or sea, ocean. The scientist in the glove took water in a test tube.
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post
Author
James C. Patterson II
Date
October 14, 2020
Categorized
Ethics, Information Theory, Medicine and Health, Social Media
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Information Today Is Like Water in the Ocean. How Do We Test It?

Often, we must sort through many layers of bias in information to get at the facts that matter
James C. Patterson II
October 14, 2020
9
Ethics, Information Theory, Medicine and Health, Social Media
Examining specific types of bias in our thinking will help us evaluate the information on key issues that inundates us today. Read More ›
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Cells under a microscope. Cell division. Cellular Therapy. 3d illustration on a dark background
Type
post
Author
News
Date
October 1, 2020
Categorized
Information Theory, Science
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New Book: Our Bodies’ Cells Are a “Third Infinity” of Information

If the first cell somehow morphed into existence without the ability to reproduce, it would also have been the last cell.
News
October 1, 2020
3
Information Theory, Science

Recently, computer engineer and philosopher Jonathan Bartlett pointed out that Elon Musk has inadvertently highlighted the biggest problem with origin of life studies: How life originated is not as difficult a question as how it originated with the ability to reproduce. If the first cell somehow morphed into existence without the ability to reproduce, it would also have been the last cell. The only cell, in fact. Musk, as it happens, was talking about the production of cars when he tweeted, “The machine that makes the machine is vastly harder than the machine itself.” He estimated “1000% to 10,000% harder.” Indeed, and that’s also true of the cells that comprise just about every living being. Our cells not only live Read More ›

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toothpick
Type
post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
October 1, 2020
Categorized
Information Theory
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They Say This Is An Information Economy. So What Is Information?

How, exactly, is an article in the news different from a random string of letters and punctuation marks?
Eric Holloway
October 1, 2020
4
Information Theory

We know information when we see it. An article contains information. A photograph contains information. The thoughts in our mind contain information. So does a computer program and so do our genomes. Yet other things we see around us clearly do not contain information. A handful of toothpicks dropped on the ground does not. Nor do the swirling tea leaves in a cup. Neither does a pair of tossed dice nor a sequence of 100 coin flips. But mere disorder is not the clue. An intricate snowflake does not contain information either. Can we state the difference between the article and the scattered toothpicks precisely? That’s tricky. Both Claude Shannon and Andrey Kolmogorov came up with information metrics. But the Read More ›

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robotic arms in a car plant
Type
post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
September 26, 2020
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory
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Elon Musk Tweet Shows Why Many Doubt Origin of Life Studies

Musk was talking about the origin of machines, not life, but the principle is, perhaps surprisingly, the same
Jonathan Bartlett
September 26, 2020
4
Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory
Creating a machine that manufactures or a cell that reproduces is much harder than creating a prototype of either. It’s a search for a search. Read More ›
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A fish with wide open mouth and big eyes, Surprised, shocked or amazed face front view
Type
post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
August 17, 2020
Categorized
Information Theory
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Is Dembski’s Explanatory Filter the Most Widely Used Theory Ever?

It turns out that legions of critics of the Filter use it all the time, without noticing
Eric Holloway
August 17, 2020
5
Information Theory

William Dembski created quite a stir in the world of information theory with his book The Design Inference. For the first time, he outlined a rigorous method for identifying design, which he called the explanatory filter. Since then many critics have claimed that Dembski’s proposed filter is without merit due to the lack of application in the couple of decades since its invention. But, are the critics right, or are they wrong—wrong in the way that a fish doesn’t recognize water because water is the very atmosphere of the fish’s existence? Let us first remind ourselves of Dembski’s explanatory filter. His filter proceeds in three main steps. Eliminate events of large probability (necessity) Eliminate events of medium probability (chance) Specify Read More ›

particles blurred.jpg
3D rendering of technology background
Type
post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
June 29, 2020
Categorized
Information Theory, Mathematics
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Why is Bell’s Theorem Important for Conservation of Information?

Proving a negative is difficult. Demonstrating that there are no leafy green crows is hard to do without examining every crow. But there's another way.
Eric Holloway
June 29, 2020
4
Information Theory, Mathematics

Proving a negative is difficult. Think about it. For example, demonstrating that there are no leafy green crows is hard to do without exhaustively examining every crow in existence. On the other hand, proving there are no crows naturally emblazoned with the text of the King James Bible is a bit easier to do. Proving a negative is possible if the extremes are large enough. Such as result is known as a no-go theorem. One of the most profound no-go theorems can be found in quantum physics. Physicist John Bell (1928–1990) proved — entirely from first principles — that there is a fundamental difference between how particles interact classically compared with how they interact within quantum physics. In classical physics, Read More ›

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Composite image of digital illustration of pixelated 3d woman
Type
post
Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
June 16, 2020
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory
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At the Movies: Can AI Restore Blurred Images?

Working with pixels, we can do remarkable things—as long as we are not asking for magic
Robert J. Marks
June 16, 2020
5
Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory

It’s an exciting scene in crime investigation movies. A critical image, like the one on the left below, is blurred by pixelization. The detective commands the technician, “Sharpen it!” and the technician pushes a key on a computer keyboard. The key activates an algorithm and, magically, the deblurred image on the right appears. That can’t be done in real life. An image cannot be sharpened using only the information in the image itself. This is proven by a mathy theorem called the data processing inequality. 1 The mutual information between an image and a corrupted blurred image cannot be increased by further processing. Period. That’s why the title of a recent news article from Duke University is misleading: “Artificial intelligence Read More ›

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Group of urban runners running on the street in New york city, conceptual series about sport and fitness
Type
post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
June 15, 2020
Categorized
Information Theory
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Why Information Theory Is Like a Good Run

Information theory can help us understand a wide range of fields besides computers
Eric Holloway
June 15, 2020
7
Information Theory

Information theory is a deep field that is responsible for our modern internet and satellite TV. The field was pioneered by Claude Shannon to measure our ability to communicate meaning. But besides powering the information revolution, information theory is also very widely applicable elsewhere. Once you understand the basic intuition, you can see applications popping up all over the place. To prove the point, I’ll show how we can apply information theory to gain insight in the very low tech world of running. I’ve been running off and on for many years and I’ve noticed that information theory describes a good run. First of all, what is a good run? A good run is when your body feels as if Read More ›

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Coronavirus market crash and financial crisis
Type
post
Author
News
Date
April 26, 2020
Categorized
Business and Finance, Information Theory, Medicine and Health, Military
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COVID-19: When 900 Bytes Shut Down the World

A great physicist warned us, information precedes matter and energy: Bit before it
News
April 26, 2020
9
Business and Finance, Information Theory, Medicine and Health, Military

The COVID-19 virus contains about as much information as a sticker in WhatsApp. Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks and Dr. Daniel Andrés Díaz-Pachón  explore a dreadful truth:  “Human biology is so finely tuned that less than a kilobyte of information can stop the world.”

Read More ›