On “Information is independent of its representation”:

Translation 1 — “Information is independent of how it is represented”:

I feel you’d have the right to say that if you weren’t Siri Watson, and all your soft robots were working with to define your Johnny 5 self is a sophisticated combination of RDPT (rocks, dirt, plants, and trees) to represent data for yourself. You do not know what consciousness or meaning is, and RDPT is allll Shannon bits as the day is long, or the man wouldn’t have made it the basic element of information that the whole virtual world is built on.

So until you are able to get majorly specific on why 28,000 pieces of high and low RDPT Shannon bits is a “dog” to you in bank 7 vs. 43,000 of high and low Shannon bits that is a wine bottle representing an “ontolo-space” we have not defined, and without telling me how nature knows the difference in programming you with sophisticated referent flags that are dog.imaginate vs. dog.real, and you can ignore Von Neumann in his can’t-get-more-qualified-synapses-fire-or-don’t inference, we are stymied with this phrase. Because to a soft robot such as yourself, you don’t know the difference between information and representation thereof.

Translation 2 — “Information is independent of what it represents in physical space.”

I was more on board with this. But again, you as RDPT and the Shannonic Band have much explaining to do with all sorts of bizarre self-vs-nature partiality, referrents, interrogatives, meaning, feeling, order/disorder parsers, continuous vs. discrete awareness, etc.

 

I wouldn’t call that just a “formal system.” I’d call that “the default formality of ontology and its baseline sensibility.” We are assuming default absolutes in words and propositional logic to even have a starting place of determination whatsoever. The same real life truth framework that says, “You have skin, X colored eyes, and work as a Haitian bellydancer while fixing Timex Sinclairs... or not.” There are inherent truth assumptions just to scientifically reason or discuss anything.

The problem is that when we zoom in and inspect these "default absolutes", we find that they are neither default nor absolute. There is no "ur-Dog" archetype reference from which we all share our notions of "dog". There is no "ur-Red" color.

Our starting place of shared experience is fuzzy and ill-defined. I can't know what royal blue looks like to you, nor can I know how a freshly opened can of sardines smells to you. And if these base experiences are beyond each other's reach, what makes you think that we have a shared sense of "truth" about more complicated notions, such as dogs, art, or love?

There is no hard, absolute baseline reference. We muddle our way through communication acting as if there were, but vagueness is the default. Incidentally, this explains why precise languages are so damn difficult. "Regular people" get frustrated trying to read legalese, or mathematical texts, or programming code because lawyers, mathematicians, and programmers need as much precision as they can squeeze out of a language. And the more precise a language is, the less expressive it becomes. This is the uncertainty principle of language: \[ \Delta P \Delta E \le C \] We can optimize a language for precision (high delta-P), or we can optimize it for expressiveness (high delta-E), but we can't have both.

A language like C is extremely (though not perfectly) precise, but that precision makes it horribly unsuitable for doing much more than telling a computer what to do. The language of mathematics is far less precise than C, but also far more expressive. Still, we can't adequately describe a sunset in the language of math. Legalese is far less precise than math, but also far more expressive (though a lawyer's brief on a sunset would be painful to read).

Perhaps as part of the model we delineate a default ontological formal system based on the universal obviousness and applicability of a certain minimal n of existing word tokens as the basis of an ontological truth to the best we can surmise?

There is no "universal obviousness".

 

I’m not sure a magnitude is always “just a number,” rasa-level. I think it is often considered a number paired with “some thing”:

5 vs. 5 inches vs. 5 brooms.

What I was getting at is that we can't always express magnitudes with counting numbers. As Pythagoras discovered to his dismay, the length of the diagonal of a unit square is \( \sqrt{2} \). If we measure the ratios of circumference to diameter of many circles, we'll find that the value converges to what we call \( \pi \). If we start doing statistics and probability, we're assuredly going to run into an irrational value that we call \( e \approx 2.718 \).

Are these numbers? They seem to be, and they seem to be different than counting numbers.

 

Sure—that’s why I folded in the “sine wave” example. Same thing. I was treating “God” in that “Euclidian line” way.

Two countable points have uncountable points in between them to create the line with “infinite points.”

If we call point A one end, and point B the other end, can we label an arbitrary segment of the line using 2 additional points, M and N?

What have we done here? Left line 1 intact and created line 2 from it. Have we not counted “M and N” to do so and somewhat discretized infinity?

No, by Euclid, there is a single line through any two points. Call the points A and B. Take two coincident points M and N, and we have defined a line segment coincident with the single line through A and B.

In any case, my intent was to show that changing the zoom level -- what we're focusing on -- changes the domain of discourse. The line through A and B, taken as a discrete object, is countable. Zooming in, the points on the line are uncountable. There is no way to map a countable set to an uncountable set, so we're actually talking about two different things when we talk about the line vs the set of coincident points.

 

922 above is soooo... new font, bold, size:

Tabula Sordidum

Your software is too complex for your own good. We are hopeless until this changes.

What’s obvious AF is we are using words to communicate. What’s obvious AF is you won’t deal with any base shared reference point like that. “Welcome to relativistic hell, where we can’t even trust our ability to use words.”

We are trying to understand and model O Space. You know what that is? Of course you do. It’s the one you and every single human being employs when you say “Get me a godd*mn quarter pounder with cheese on Johnson St. and buy me a book on Hilbert’s closet polygamist sex life from the book shop on your way back.” At most complicated, a 5th grade map or GPS will get you there.

We have PLENTY of shared obviousness to model O Space. Question is, can you do it in Safe Mode, or must I hire quantum experts to uninstall the actual firmware and re-install clean.

 

What I was getting at is that we can't always express magnitudes with counting numbers. As Pythagoras discovered to his dismay, the length of the diagonal of a unit square is \( \sqrt{2} \). If we measure the ratios of circumference to diameter of many circles, we'll find that the value converges to what we call \( \pi \). If we start doing statistics and probability, we're assuredly going to run into an irrational value that we call \( e \approx 2.718 \).

Are these numbers? They seem to be, and they seem to be different than counting numbers.

But we haven’t gotten there yet. It’s possible those are all concatenated grunts. Does the grunt thesis work thus far as written?

 

Why, yes — yes, you do, in fact:

So, which is it? Do I believe Goldbach's conjecture is true or false?

You have the believe the CONJECTURE EXISTS TO YOUR MIND before you even entertain its truth value!

I have to believe the conjecture "exists to my mind". What is that supposed to mean?

Let me ask you a true/false question. I am about to flip a fair 6-sided die. True or false: the die will land showing 3?

 

I find it so funny that you insist there is even something such as EXISTENCE that you can know or not know! Obviously there is evidence to you that there is the possibility of something that does in fact exist that your states can reflect. So tell me, what is the mechanism within you that a sh*t gives about such things outside the states, or what is informing the states of this? More states?

YOU'RE the one who keeps talking about "existence" as if that has any significance. As for the mechanism that makes me give a sh!t, I suppose it's connected to the survival mechanism that most biological information processors seem to have.

But since you ask, what is the mechanism that makes you give a sh!t? How does a "5D infinity" actually confer giving a sh!t to you?

 

So, which is it? Do I believe Goldbach's conjecture is true or false?

The question of the existence of the conjecture is more relevant here per the “binary” point. For every “thing” in the mind, there must be first a hardware representation of its existence before further processing is done, otherwise how do you know what you’re even processing bits about?? You don’t know 9182929 switches are reflecting the query to begin with!

I have to believe the conjecture "exists to my mind". What is that supposed to mean?

Let’s build a computer that’s going to model the Goldbach question’s potential.

Does the question have to exist as physical states before you employ its inquiry? The question is a thing that must exist or not exist before it has operational significance!

Let me ask you a true/false question. I am about to flip a fair 6-sided die. True or false: the die will land showing 3?

This is not assuming low level enough. What dice? What question about the dice? In what space? Those are the true-false questions that even afford further questions of probablistic nature like that!

 

And there it is, in the text-flesh... your insistence that there is just unary-hood.

I insisted no such thing. I've always maintained that, whatever arbitrary representations we use, they're not fundamental. Unary, binary, ternary, continuous. Just human abstractions.

"Where does your red parrot exist?' A better question is, what the hail is the interrogative "where()" that is even caring about such a question, or making such a distinction between the existence of Charlemagne and the states that reflect him?

You didn't answer the question. As for your question, you use "caring" as if it's clear what that means. Is a compulsion a "caring"? If I am programmed to ask such questions, am I "caring"? Distinctions we've already discussed -- information processors can distinguish between two states that are the same, two that are similar, and two that are entirely different.

Pan to my desire to plumb this mystery interrogative. It is NOT the same thing as "Hey Siri, what's the weather? Match me the 0's and 1's that reflect this fact." Especially since "feel and meaning" are integral to you as a being, which involves the very distinction between Charlemagne, you, and the states.

"Feel and meaning" are not integral to the distinction between states. "Feel and meaning" are an emergent phenomenon, a byproduct of our particular state complexity. The tree and the grass around it are distinct information processors with distinct states, and they don't seem to need "feel and meaning" to do what they do.

Can you not see how incredibly anthropocentric "feel and meaning" is? Just because we experience "feel and meaning" doesn't make it some integral part of the universe. That'd be like a fish assuming that the universe is wet.

There is always a point, however localized or small. Your point is that "this dialogue is worth your time experientially, as is mine." You'd readily say "it has no point," if it didn't.

There is an enormous difference between a universal point to everything -- why is there something rather than nothing? -- and my personal goals in the endeavors I choose. That we have personal goals is not very interesting -- I once made an autonomous little car whose personal goal was to avoid walls. The "point" of his being was to drive around, collect data, and not hit any walls.

 

#1, "I confuse the representation with the thing." And you insist they're all just state-arrhea, and I don't get the partiality "wand" you employ to do that, like states in nature are different than your own (you need to seriously grok this discrete-to-continuous you-vs-nature wand that you employ). As if Siri cares about what states are flicked high or low at any moment! You insist consciousness may play a role (which is the discrete-to-continuous converter), but anyway.....

I have no idea what you mean by "partiality wand"; can you be more specific?

From my perspective (as an information processor), there are internal and external states. I associate internal states with "me" and external states with everything else, "nature". It is very likely that this internal/external distinction is an abstraction. I am almost certainly a part of "nature", though it is expedient for me to conceptualize a difference. My guess is that when an information processor makes this abstraction, we call it consciousness. The degree to which this "self" abstraction is conceptually fleshed out explains the difference between the consciousness that we seem to recognize in humans vs, say, dogs. Again, it boils down to complexity.

None of this has anything to do with discrete or continuous, which are an entirely different type of abstraction.

At THE VERY MOST BASIC ONTOLOGICAL LEVEL OF OBSERVATION, would you agree that to IMPLEMENT EIGENFACES ALGORITHMS of space of n-dimensional matrices over ℂ, we are.......... wait for it...

USING BINARY COMPUTERS TO DO SO?

I don't get your excitement over this. We implement information processes using binary computers because that's a convenient way to do it. And?

If so, would you agree that space of n-dimensional matrices over ℂ are MORE COMPLEX than the discrete TRUE/FALSE SHANNON bits that can be arranged to "do all of it"?

Weird category error. The space of n-matrices over ℂ has quite a bit of mathematical structure; it has high informational complexity. Bits don't have any mathematical structure; we use bits to measure information. The comparison isn't logical.

Would you agree that Hydrogen and Oxygen are more fundamental ontologically upon which H20 is built?

No, of course not. What's fundamental are the laws of physics and the initial conditions of the universe; everything else is a consequence of that. Given those specific laws and those initial conditions, we get atomic H and O and molecular combinations of them. It's important, however, to recognize that the concepts of atoms and molecules are human abstractions. Thinking this way helps us organize information, but it's not an "ontological truth".

 

If the unary needs time in between codes, the time is the distinguishing element, like a stop bit.

Ugh. Try to send a binary message -- say Morse code -- without a notion of time. You can't. A measure of time is necessary for any communications channel, just as a measure of space is necessary for any visual encoding. In Morse code, the elements themselves are defined with respect to time: a dash is three times as long as a dot or whatever.

Information is independent of how it is represented, but you don’t distinguish yourself from information, essentially.

???

Information is independent of what it represents, too?

Information may or may not be a representation of something more fundamental (e.g., the unknowable thing in itself). We assume it is, because different things convey different information. And under that assumption, clearly information is dependent on the thing it represents.

So where is Charlemagne vs. Fido in physical space, and how do you distinguish between them?

The states I associate with my parrot Charlemagne and with my neighbor's dog are all internal states. The dog states, unlike the parrot states, reference information acquired via my senses (i.e., external states). That's the "physical" difference.

What about you? Where is Charlemagne and where is Fido?

 

I don't get your excitement over this. We implement information processes using binary computers because that's a convenient way to do it. And?

Convenient?? Essential! The voltage is high or low. Unary is impractical for storage purposes.
Our brains associate the most elementary information unit as a shannon bit, otherwise even quantum computers wouldn’t pump out a 0 or 1 after their qubits oscillate!

I’m trying to extend that proof and create a bijective for {0, 1} logic states and {0, 1} numbers as the basis for the universe and human reason within it in “O Space.”

Also, I believe every living thing feels “meaning” on some level, whether flea or even plant. It is not anthrocentric.

 

Question:

Your iPhone (pretend you have one) you named Herbert is put an incinerator and the ashes are splayed over the Atlantic with 10 miles in between each discrete piece of ash.

Does “Siri” in that phone, or does that phone itself exist as a phone? And if so, why do you define it as such without wires connecting all the parts to create function and identification in space?

This is the question we have to work on in my estimation, because I have to get at your abstraction routines to figure out a path of reason here.

 

The data on the in is Shannon binary, and the data on the out is Shannon binary.

No, we have no basis to say that the data coming is fundamentally binary.

The qubit is “Shannon Bit AF,” just super efficient, processing way more at once (perhaps tapping into a fundamental unary-meet-infinity foundational element, but then to make it relevant to “knowability” gets processed into discrete 2-state Shannon bits).

A qubit is not a classical bit. You need to get over this. Furthermore, you seem to think that the binary output of a quantum computer is some kind of fundamental law. But that's just how we design them. We choose to physically implement quantum computers such that we can measure classical 1s and 0s at the output. We choose so because it's convenient for us -- it's much easier to implement and accurately measure a physical system that has two degrees of freedom than one that has forty billion or whatever. Plus, we have tons of experience with binary computing.

A quantum computation -- like any other mechanical form of computation -- uses the laws of physics to perform its calculations. We arrange such devices to have an output that is convenient for us to use. Full stop.

Paper here:

What is the point of quoting from a paper, bolding a few sentences that you obviously don't understand?

We can take the same approach in quantum communications and use two orthogonal quantum states to represent 0 and 1. We label these, naturally enough, as |0⟩ and |1⟩.

Yes, we can take such an approach. And?

The additional element brought in by using a two-state quantum system is that we can also prepare any superposition state of the form

|ψ⟩ = α|0⟩ + β|1⟩ , (2.1)​

where α and β are complex probability amplitudes. A quantum bit, or qubit, is such a two-state quantum system.

You clearly don't get what that equation means. The state \( |\psi\rangle \) has only one constraint: \[ |\alpha|^2 + |\beta|^2 = 1 \] With \( \alpha, \beta \in \mathbb{C} \), there are an uncountably infinite number of valid states. As any sequence of binary digits (even infinite) is guaranteed to be countable, it is impossible to express \( |\psi\rangle\) with any number of classical bits. Qubits are not densely-packed bits.

Please re-read the previous paragraph until you completely understand it.

 

No, we have no basis to say that the data coming is fundamentally binary.


A qubit is not a classical bit. You need to get over this. Furthermore, you seem to think that the binary output of a quantum computer is some kind of fundamental law. But that's just how we design them. We choose to physically implement quantum computers such that we can measure classical 1s and 0s at the output. We choose so because it's convenient for us -- it's much easier to implement and accurately measure a physical system that has two degrees of freedom than one that has forty billion or whatever. Plus, we have tons of experience with binary computing.

A quantum computation -- like any other mechanical form of computation -- uses the laws of physics to perform its calculations. We arrange such devices to have an output that is convenient for us to use. Full stop.


What is the point of quoting from a paper, bolding a few sentences that you obviously don't understand?


Yes, we can take such an approach. And?


You clearly don't get what that equation means. The state \( |\psi\rangle \) has only one constraint: \[ |\alpha|^2 + |\beta|^2 = 1 \] With \( \alpha, \beta \in \mathbb{C} \), there are an uncountably infinite number of valid states. As any sequence of binary digits (even infinite) is guaranteed to be countable, it is impossible to express \( |\psi\rangle\) with any number of classical bits. Qubits are not densely-packed bits.

Please re-read the previous paragraph until you completely understand it.

Au contraire, I do understand perfectly. The continuous bits of a mathematical sine-wave are essentially identical to a qubit’s Hilbert-space continuum, and is literally proving my point since page <10 of this discourse. There is, in "O space," (reality/physical space) "discrete (binary)" and "infinite-bit continuous!" Everything else is a higher level abstraction based on these observable things ("TDS" and "TAS").

Sigh. You’re clearly not groking the holism of my argument from the beginning. I'm not "highlighting random text" in isolation or ignorance — I do it with great intention based on my underlying postulation I've made very clear. A mathematical sine wave is “packed” with "densely packed infinite bits." Perhaps densely packed "u-its” (“elementarily identifiable ‘values’ of some kind”). Classical machines are working with discrete bits, and quantum qubits are a "continuum of bits/u-its/values" yielding a final classical bit after discretization. Again, this is 100% proving my theory, that the computation mechanism is drawing upon a “continuum” phenonema in order to yield a final discrete resultant, where we can do further computation. Qubit processing is borderline poltergeist.

The purpose of the continuum, like the infinitum of ℝ or ℂ is to specifically yield a sensical result for its designers, the human being, which means to constrain the output that’s optimally workable, most likely itself a quantum system that likes shannon bits for its discrete portion of input and output!

Does that make sense?

 

Ugh. Try to send a binary message -- say Morse code -- without a notion of time. You can't. A measure of time is necessary for any communications channel, just as a measure of space is necessary for any visual encoding. In Morse code, the elements themselves are defined with respect to time: a dash is three times as long as a dot or whatever.

No matter how you cut the cake, you need 2 discrete components at bare minimum to make sense. Whether time is being used or a stop bit or whatever. If everything is monolithic and unilateral, there’s no meaning. You need a divider to create bytes. You must somehow onboard this or I feel we’re entirely hopeless. There is an elemental notion things are built on. The shannon bit is that notion. The “continuous” bit is the qubit, it’s very purpose is to discretize continuum so we can conclude a truth from it.

Information may or may not be a representation of something more fundamental (e.g., the unknowable thing in itself). We assume it is, because different things convey different information. And under that assumption, clearly information is dependent on the thing it represents.

Clearly and obviously. To not think so is to deny the obviousness of ”stuff” around us that is the very basis of reason. That’s my point. I want to triangulate a model for reason based on this default “O space.“

The states I associate with my parrot Charlemagne and with my neighbor's dog are all internal states. The dog states, unlike the parrot states, reference information acquired via my senses (i.e., external states). That's the "physical" difference.

What about you? Where is Charlemagne and where is Fido?

Your answer in a prior post concerning the dog‘s 1D data is that the dog is 2D and not a real 3D object in physical space, correct? My little follow-up story was to illustrate my feeling that this is humorous. We have a clear BIOS that has geometric 3D definitions as it relates to physical (O space) vs. conceptual, and we can walk around 3D elements in physical space to prove it, and then do this same "phenomenon" in our minds.

I believe there is a substance of actual geometric 3D nature in between our ears. When you close your eyes, you can envision a 3D dog and walk around that dog in the space in your mind, and relate that scene to the same real-time one in O space. It is the “substance of continuum.”

I believe the dog and bird are uncalculated, continuous 3D objects in the mind space and O space, and there is also a physical matter component that is countably discrete. The substance is an uncalculated phenomena, like fur vs. steel, or strawberries vs. hair.

 

No, we have no basis to say that the data coming is fundamentally binary.

"An important difference is that we can never extract more than a binary piece of information from a qubit. The laws of physics themselves prevent us from finding out what exactly they are doing. We can’t ask a qubit for the exact details of its superposition state. We can only ever force it to choose between two opposite points on the sphere (like 0 and 1). If it is anything other than these two states, it will just have to randomly decide one or the other."

https://medium.com/qiskit/how-to-program-a-quantum-computer-982a9329ed02

 

There is no "universal obviousness".

Seriously, tabula rasa, where does this statement come from? If there wasn’t literally thousands of obvious elements to every human, how could we even shop for groceries?

 

What’s obvious AF is we are using words to communicate. What’s obvious AF is you won’t deal with any base shared reference point like that. “Welcome to relativistic hell, where we can’t even trust our ability to use words.”

Exactly right: we can't trust our ability to use words. This is why models are made using languages more precise than conversational English.

We are trying to understand and model O Space. You know what that is? Of course you do. It’s the one you and every single human being employs when you say “Get me a godd*mn quarter pounder with cheese on Johnson St. and buy me a book on Hilbert’s closet polygamist sex life from the book shop on your way back.” At most complicated, a 5th grade map or GPS will get you there.

No, I don't know what O Space is. I know what a vector space is because vector spaces have been thoroughly and precisely defined. O Space has not been thoroughly and precisely defined, so I don't know exactly what you mean by it.

You want "common sense" to be an assumed share reference, but we have 10,000 years of human history showing us that "common sense" is a woefully inadequate metric. It might as well be a synonym for "unexamined". The entire point of science is to investigate beyond what "common sense" tells us.