Is all information encoded?

[Soapy Sam]

I'm aware of the two levels and it does complicate the situation - hence-"The programme is clearly an artifact, as is the TV itself and the visual output from the TV. As with DNA, there clearly is coded information involved at every level. But what if the TV is turned off? There is still a visual image, but one which was never intentionally encoded by anyone except the viewer. I can't help seeing these two cases as very different."


It's really Paul's assumption in the OP I have difficulty with- (that there is information inherent in everything.) If true, extracting it removes information. Either it is replaced indefinitely, or it must run out. Admittedly, crows go away if you stare at them long enough, but it doesn't work with rocks.

Unless you are very patient.


I just feel the concept of "information" adds nothing useful in that sort of description.

As everyone else has gone quiet, I suspect they have given up on me.

 

[JAK]

I'm aware of the two levels and it does complicate the situation - hence-"The programme is clearly an artifact, as is the TV itself and the visual output from the TV. As with DNA, there clearly is coded information involved at every level. But what if the TV is turned off? There is still a visual image, but one which was never intentionally encoded by anyone except the viewer. I can't help seeing these two cases as very different."


It's really Paul's assumption in the OP I have difficulty with- (that there is information inherent in everything.) If true, extracting it removes information. Either it is replaced indefinitely, or it must run out. Admittedly, crows go away if you stare at them long enough, but it doesn't work with rocks.

Unless you are very patient.


I just feel the concept of "information" adds nothing useful in that sort of description.

As everyone else has gone quiet, I suspect they have given up on me.

I'm still around, but I'm trying to grasp the issue you are tackling.

Paul's point that information is inherent in everything makes sense to me in that the potential for extracting information exists in everything we perceive. If we do not perceive it, we extract no information. Without the ability to perceive something, we are oblivious to it. Over the years we have expanded our ability to "perceive" through technology (x-rays, radio waves, etc.).

Even so, "information" implies our perception which is unique not only to each species but very likely to each individual. In that regard, the "information" is not inherent in the material object, per se, but only in our perception of it.

(Am I making any sense?)

We are also flirting with definition of terms. Is "information" different from "data"? Is "information" different from "knowledge"?

 

[Mouthfire]

Even so, "information" implies our perception which is unique not only to each species but very likely to each individual. In that regard, the "information" is not inherent in the material object, per se, but only in our perception of it.

Beautifully stated....

 

[Suggestologist]

Even so, "information" implies our perception which is unique not only to each species but very likely to each individual. In that regard, the "information" is not inherent in the material object, per se, but only in our perception of it.

Information is not "IN" the object, it is "about" (or in meta-relation) to the object, C. Color is not "in" the (physical) object, it is a description "about" the object, about the light that reflects off of it and impinges on one's eye. Stasis vs. Process: stasis is most-of-the-time more illusory than process.

In my frame (of reference): A informs B about C through (medium) D.

 

[jj]

Re: Re: Is all information encoded?

Absent a working definition of what you mean by "code," I'm afraid that your question is meaningless.

Now that I got around to this thread, I agree with Dr.Kitten, it's a semantic argument at its base, I think.

One quickly reduces this to the question of the original, was it coded by atoms, etc? What is a code? Is a stimulus reaching us from something outside our bodies a code, or not? Is the light bouncing off the picture on the wall a coding of the picture? Is the picture a coding of the original (if it existed) scene?

 

[Soapy Sam]

Absolutely. But you know me. I reckon most human arguments are communication failures.

The rest are because meaning has been conveyed perfectly.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Sorry to be noncommunicative; I was away for a few days.

Soapy said:
It's really Paul's assumption in the OP I have difficulty with- (that there is information inherent in everything.) If true, extracting it removes information. Either it is replaced indefinitely, or it must run out. Admittedly, crows go away if you stare at them long enough, but it doesn't work with rocks.

What is this about removing information? Information can be transmitted from point A to point B without removing it from point A.

jj said:
One quickly reduces this to the question of the original, was it coded by atoms, etc? What is a code? Is a stimulus reaching us from something outside our bodies a code, or not? Is the light bouncing off the picture on the wall a coding of the picture? Is the picture a coding of the original (if it existed) scene?

All very good questions. In the Shannon sense, all information is coded.

~~ Paul

 

[Soapy Sam]

What is this about removing information? Information can be transmitted from point A to point B without removing it from point A.-PaulC.A.

So it isn't moved. It's copied?

To clarify definitions- How would you distinguish between;
Information being transmitted from a rock to an observer
and
Properties of the rock being observed.

To me, the first statement implies that something beyond incident photons are (to use your term) "transmitted". I'd like to know what that extra thing is.

Statement two has no such implication. The observer studies such characteristics as colour, lustre, shape which he recognises in the photon stream incident from the rock. He compares that with prior knowledge. That's when the information is created in the brain and encoded in memory.

This does not happen if there is no observer. The photons wander off somewhere and nobody sees the tree fall, as it were. I would also say it doesn't happen if an automatic camera films the event and saves it to disc.
I'll grant you something is saved on the disc, but I don't think it's information about the rock (or tree) . It's a magnetic pattern (or whatever). It only becomes information if someone looks at it.

I stress- this has no philosophical or quantum implications. The rock exists and the light bounces off it. But I don't see where "information" is involved. Who has been informed?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Soapy said:
So it isn't moved. It's copied?

Perhaps more like generated anew each time.

To clarify definitions- How would you distinguish between;
Information being transmitted from a rock to an observer
and
Properties of the rock being observed.

I do not know. The information is an encoding of the properties.

To me, the first statement implies that something beyond incident photons are (to use your term) "transmitted". I'd like to know what that extra thing is.

Nothing, but the photons encode information about the object by virtue of having interacted with it, sort of.

Statement two has no such implication. The observer studies such characteristics as colour, lustre, shape which he recognises in the photon stream incident from the rock. He compares that with prior knowledge. That's when the information is created in the brain and encoded in memory.

How do the characteristics of the rock enter his brain if the rock isn't crammed into his skull?

This does not happen if there is no observer. The photons wander off somewhere and nobody sees the tree fall, as it were. I would also say it doesn't happen if an automatic camera films the event and saves it to disc.

Wow! So the satellite collects information about stars, encodes it, transmits it to earth, where it is received and stored on disk, and none of this involves information? Alert the computer scientists!

I'll grant you something is saved on the disc, but I don't think it's information about the rock (or tree) . It's a magnetic pattern (or whatever). It only becomes information if someone looks at it.

Okay, then what do we call the "potential information" that is around before a human looks at it?

I smell an argument similar to wave function collapse.

I stress- this has no philosophical or quantum implications. The rock exists and the light bounces off it. But I don't see where "information" is involved. Who has been informed?

The same entities that are data-ed when data is transmitted.

~~ Paul

 

[Suggestologist]

Okay, then what do we call the "potential information" that is around before a human looks at it?

It's not information until it gets encoded into a communication system, using a codec - a representation that has the ability to inform the reciever.

Definitions are pliable. Let's stretch the encoding metaphor. Let's take light. When it hits things it encodes .. er.. wavelengths within itself. The wavelengths come from a combination of the light's origin and the composition and structure of the object. Some things are invisible, air is usually invisible to light and doesn't get coded. Another thing that is not exactly coded in the light itself is that an object may absorb the light or redirect it (fiber optics embedded ceramic tiles). So an absence of light where one would expect it, would also "tell you something".

This gets us into more of the problem with the encoding metaphor that I have. Suppositions made because something that is expected is not present, has more to do with past-experienced-frames than the current data stream. It has to do with what is already in the mind/brain/whatever.

The reason we correlate what we see with physical objects is because we have prior experience in seeing and touching and perhaps hearing, smelling, tasting the object. So it's sort of a synesthetic effect, an ideosensory experience: when you see a fluffly bunny, you get a sense of what it feels like to touch something fluffy, right? You may remember touching, smelling a fluffly bunny sometime in your past. And so sensory input gets associated with sensory experiences of other modalities, and something shiny may look slippery, even if touching it proves that it's rough or sticky.

But there is no codec, no predetermined mapping of a unit of code to a unit of meaning. There is sense-perception and analysis against what you already know. Spatial reasoning resulting from analysis, not decoding of light perception.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Nothing, but the photons encode information about the object by virtue of having interacted with it, sort of.

~~ Paul

I'd quibble about this. I don't think they do encode information, but as jj says, we would be haggling over definitions. To me, it is not "information" until someone has been informed.




How do the characteristics of the rock enter his brain if the rock isn't crammed into his skull?

Well, mostly, I learned them in books. The only thing entering his brain is photons.(caveat: The optic nerve is brain tissue. Quibble not, lest ye be quibbled unto.) The photons generate information in his head, which he compares with information already there. If the photons pass through a filter en route, the rock will look different. Are you suggesting that the rock is different?


Wow! So the satellite collects information about stars, encodes it, transmits it to earth, where it is received and stored on disk, and none of this involves information? Alert the computer scientists!
Ah. Now it gets tricksy. I've already admitted the visual signal output by a TV set is a created artifact. It is coded information. But how informative is a satellite squeal unless it finds itself in the right machinery to turn it into something we can understand?
We could argue that if another machine understands it that's enough. Fine. But what does that say about AI?

Okay, then what do we call the "potential information" that is around before a human looks at it?
I call it the universe.
I smell an argument similar to wave function collapse.

I've been doing my darndest to avoid that. I'll say it again. The universe does not stop when all observers close their eyes. But because they miss some of those photons, information which might have been created is not created. The universe itself chugs along quite happily.


The same entities that are data-ed when data is transmitted.
I have also struggled to avoid use of the word "data". In any case , data is not transmitted. Data are transmitted. (Sorry- you didn't expect me to miss that opportunity, now did you?)

 

[hammegk]

The universe does not stop when all observers close their eyes.

Why do you think all "observers" (of photons, gravitons, etc) have eyes? Or that any have them?

Paul made an interesting comment on photon entanglement ... but wouldn't current science be adamant that photons convey only two things 1) Here-I-am, or here I-am-not, and 2) energy content if Here-I-am is the answer?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Suggestologist said:
It's not information until it gets encoded into a communication system, using a codec - a representation that has the ability to inform the reciever

So a digital video stream is information, while an analog video stream is not?

What was "in the signal," before it was converted to digital representation, that allowed information to be extracted from it and encoded? If it's not data or information, what is it?

But there is no codec, no predetermined mapping of a unit of code to a unit of meaning. There is sense-perception and analysis against what you already know. Spatial reasoning resulting from analysis, not decoding of light perception.

Seems to me this is too human-oriented a view of information.

Soapy said:
I'd quibble about this. I don't think they do encode information, but as jj says, we would be haggling over definitions. To me, it is not "information" until someone has been informed.

Then what the heck is it?

Well, mostly, I learned them in books. The only thing entering his brain is photons.(caveat: The optic nerve is brain tissue. Quibble not, lest ye be quibbled unto.) The photons generate information in his head, which he compares with information already there. If the photons pass through a filter en route, the rock will look different. Are you suggesting that the rock is different?

You misunderstood my poorly-worded question. How does knowledge of the characteristics of the rock enter my head, given that the rock itself is not in my head? The characteristics of the rock are encoded in various media and then enter my head, yet you're not willing to say there is information in that media.

We could argue that if another machine understands it that's enough. Fine. But what does that say about AI?

How about another object that is not a human artifact? Is that enough?

I've been doing my darndest to avoid that. I'll say it again. The universe does not stop when all observers close their eyes. But because they miss some of those photons, information which might have been created is not created. The universe itself chugs along quite happily.

So if everyone turns off their radios in Boston, then the radio transmitters are no longer transmitting information? Radio on: information streaming. Radio off: poof! information disfranchised.

I have also struggled to avoid use of the word "data". In any case , data is not transmitted. Data are transmitted. (Sorry- you didn't expect me to miss that opportunity, now did you?)

Uh, no.

hammegk said:
Paul made an interesting comment on photon entanglement ... but wouldn't current science be adamant that photons convey only two things 1) Here-I-am, or here I-am-not, and 2) energy content if Here-I-am is the answer?

Apparently the wavelength of a photon is not information. Nor are the bonding properties of an atom, even though the periodic table looks an awful lot like a code.

Will someone please describe how the non-information in a desk is encoded into information in my brain, without using the words information or data to name whatever it is in the signals from the desk that is transduced into information in my brain. Coining new terms is allowed.

~~ Paul

 

[Soapy Sam]

"Then what the heck is it?- Paul"

What the heck is what?. We know photons get moved. Why postulate anything else?

Consider a morse message sent by whistle blasts.
The message is not in the waveform. It's in the heads of the signallers. Any old noise will do, so long as it's in recognisable longs and shorts. If the length of the whistle blasts doubles, or we use a higher frequency whistle, does the message change? It could be sent by banging a gong with a mallet- wholly different signal en route, same message at either end.

There clearly is a difference between that and looking at a rock. The Morse signal clearly does start with information, coded in pulses,transmitted as energy, received, decoded and understood as information.
(Or it could be transmitted by language or in writing).

In the case of observing the rock there is no conscious transmission. To me this does not matter, because what travels between the signallers, or between the rock and the observer is not information. It's energy. Nothing more. Nothing intrinsic to the rock is being sent anywhere.

What reaches your eyes from the rock is energy. It arrives in a particular "shape" (OK, new term.), because it has bounced off the rock on the way. Some photons didn't bounce off the rock. They don't arrive at your eye, but that tells you something too- if (and only if) you have the equipment and the knowledge to translate that energy pattern into information. If you are blind, the photons still hit you. What happened to the "information"?

Transmit Microsoft's entire Knowledge Base to a cat. We will all agree energy has moved.
Has information moved?
Where to?

That's absolutely all I'm saying. (And Ham, it's irrelevant whether the observer detects photons or gravity waves or listens to ultrasonic echoes) The information is in the observer, not the transmission.
What passes from the rock to the eye is not information, but energy. The energy does not contain information. It's just energy. It creates information when viewed by a mind able to reverse engineer the energy and work out what it has hit.

A blind man can't do that. Machines are starting to. I don't say the only place information can exist is an organic mind. I just don't believe it exists "in potentia".

Energy patterns can indeed be coded for and saved in a recording device, so that the appropriate mechanism will re-create the same energy pattern, which, when viewed by a brain, will recreate the same information. (Unless it's a teen show watched by someone over 40, in which case it will generate very little information, but much bafflement ).

Imagine two friends who decide to save on phone bills. Instead of calling to inquire after one another's health, they agree only to call when unwell.

Assuming one has not suddenly died, each remains happy about his friend's health while receiving no call at all.
Where is the information? In a non existent signal, or in their heads?

Paul, what did you actually mean by "Information abounds in Nature" in your OP ? (Pardon the imprecise quote, I can't roll back to page 1 for some reason. You know the bit I mean .)

 

[Suggestologist]

So a digital video stream is information, while an analog video stream is not?

What was "in the signal," before it was converted to digital representation, that allowed information to be extracted from it and encoded? If it's not data or information, what is it?

Let me streamline my argument. If you determine something based on a channel of information that is off (a TV that is off), then you are not getting information FROM the information channel, you are deciphering things ABOUT the information channel, your thinking is in META-relation to it.

Information transfers FORMS (and representations of forms), causing (possibly distorted) redundancies in the communication system. Analysis deciphers FORMS from raw data, which can later be transferred as information.

When you read a book, you decode information. But you can go further than just storing the information, you can think about it and analyze it, and come up with new FORMS based on the interaction of the book information with your personal stored information; but these new FORMS did not come from the book, they came from analysis -- and so are not information FROM the book.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Soapy said:
That's absolutely all I'm saying. (And Ham, it's irrelevant whether the observer detects photons or gravity waves or listens to ultrasonic echoes) The information is in the observer, not the transmission.
What passes from the rock to the eye is not information, but energy. The energy does not contain information. It's just energy. It creates information when viewed by a mind able to reverse engineer the energy and work out what it has hit.

Now we have reverse engineering and working out, but no information. I just cannot fathom this. What are you reverse engineering and working out if not the information in the photon stream? There is information in the direction and frequency of the photons.

A blind man can't do that. Machines are starting to. I don't say the only place information can exist is an organic mind. I just don't believe it exists "in potentia".

A blind man can't do the reverse engineering and working out. That says nothing about the information content of the photon stream.

Imagine two friends who decide to save on phone bills. Instead of calling to inquire after one another's health, they agree only to call when unwell.

Assuming one has not suddenly died, each remains happy about his friend's health while receiving no call at all.
Where is the information? In a non existent signal, or in their heads?

In this scenario, it's in their heads. Certainly people can derive information by means other than transducing it from sensory input.

Paul, what did you actually mean by "Information abounds in Nature" in your OP ?

I meant just what I said: Every object contains information. Otherwise there would be no way to derive information from them.

Or, possibly, we can define information so that the objects don't contain it, but people can derive information from the objects. Seems like playing with words, but possibly there is a useful reason to make this distinction. People here must think so.

Suggestologist said:
Analysis deciphers FORMS from raw data, which can later be transferred as information.

If you want to distinguish raw data from information, I'm happy with that. I'm not sure others here are willing to make that concession.

How do we distinguish an analog video stream from a digital video stream? Do people agree that the former contains no information, while the latter does? Or how about a conventional photograph from a digital photograph?

~~ Paul

 

[Soapy Sam]

I meant just what I said: Every object contains information. Otherwise there would be no way to derive information from them.

Or, possibly, we can define information so that the objects don't contain it, but people can derive information from the objects. Seems like playing with words, but possibly there is a useful reason to make this distinction. People here must think so.



Right. Does the information, which the object contains , define the object? If we take the information away, does the object become some other object?

Or is the information merely a human description of the characteristic properties of the object - density, chemistry, colour etc.

This distinction seems fundamental. Either the information is in the heads of the observers or in the objects themselves. If the latter, then what form does it take? Is it matter? Is it energy? Is it process? When transmitted, is it diminished, or is it infinitely reproducible? If so, how?

ETA. You're right about reverse engineering being a poor description. All I mean is that we are able to tell a lot about the immediate past history of sound or light reaching us, due both to experience and natural selection. We can estimate the distance of a gunshot for instance if we have some idea how loud a gunshot is to begin with. Not otherwise.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Soapy said:
Right. Does the information, which the object contains , define the object? If we take the information away, does the object become some other object?

I don't know whether the information defines the object. You cannot take it away, because it is there due to the mere existence of the object.

Or is the information merely a human description of the characteristic properties of the object - density, chemistry, colour etc.

The human description is a transduction of the information "in" the object. It is different information derived from the information in the object.

This distinction seems fundamental. Either the information is in the heads of the observers or in the objects themselves. If the latter, then what form does it take? Is it matter? Is it energy? Is it process? When transmitted, is it diminished, or is it infinitely reproducible? If so, how?

The mere existence of an object means that there is information "in" the object that one can obtain.

ETA. You're right about reverse engineering being a poor description. All I mean is that we are able to tell a lot about the immediate past history of sound or light reaching us, due both to experience and natural selection. We can estimate the distance of a gunshot for instance if we have some idea how loud a gunshot is to begin with. Not otherwise.

Yet if we make a digital recording of the gunshot, it is suddenly information. Where did the information come from, if not the sound waves emanating from the gun?

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Perhaps this is the right thing to say:

A physical object has characteristics. Biological organisms and artifacts can derive information from the characteristics of the object when it impinges on the organism or artifact.

~~ Paul

 

[Soapy Sam]

"Yet if we make a digital recording of the gunshot, it is suddenly information. Where did the information come from, if not the sound waves emanating from the gun?
~~ Paul"

Are we not flirting with circular argument here? IS IT suddenly information? It's a bunch of pits on a laser disc. Put it in a record player and it won't turn. If it's a DVD(-) my player won't read it. (Nor will Interesting Ian's). In one way of thinking it's only some holes in metal. Junk.

In another view- with the disc in the appropriate player- it puts a picture on a screen and I look at the picture and say , "That looks like a Kanjii ideogram listing of an oil painting of a sonogram of a gunshot. I wish I wasn't deaf."

I accept that there is an isomorphism between the rock and the Kanjiigram, and the pattern of pits on the disc.

Is this what you mean by information?

I'm curious about how you would compare this to the information you say caused this secondary information to be created. One set is stored in a plastic disc. One set is stored in a rock.(Blast. I forgot the gunshot!) Not only are they clearly different in every way, but set one is information about a rock inherent in that rock, while set two is information about a rock inherent in a plastic disc. There is, presumably a third set of information , about the disc, in the disc?
This third set must have changed when the disc was written. Does set one contain any record of having been recorded? If I stand between two mirrors, is there an infinite number of sets of information? If so, where is it all?

My head's nipping. I need a coffee.

I'm meant to be doing my tax return, which is in pounds, on a salary in dollars, paid out of a Dubai bank , on which tax has been paid in Kazakhstan.

And you want to argue about information?

I may go down to Phil's for a virtual whisky in a minute.