Philosophy Now Forum

Cerveny wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:I'm guessing that you did not actually read what I wrote. Never mind.

I have read it carefully of course, but i know such opinion.... the question is whether any physical parameter is changed after mixing or whether such mixing could change the entropy of mentioned system?

The point I was making is simple enough. You are suggesting that the information exists out there; that the "system" is a thing we read from the universe. I am saying the "system" and the information exist only in the conception and perception of the world, not in the world as it is. This means your question becomes useless. A system - a thing we decide then impose on the universe, predicts the type of information we choose to read into it. No entropy is changed, only our perception of it. Your coloured balls in the bottle don't give a rat's arse where they are; if they are together with others of their colour, inside the bottle or outside of it. The "information" is not contained in them, but in our conception.

chaz wyman wrote: Information is not a natural category. It makes no sense to talk of information in this context. it seems to becoming a more common feature of "science". But it is nothing but a metaphysical concept being attached to a physical phenomenon. No good will come of it.

Information is not a physical quantity, sorry. I'll have to rephrase that.

chaz wyman wrote:I am saying the "system" and the information exist only in the conception and perception of the world, not in the world as it is.

Perhaps I should have learned not to debate with Chaz by now but this sentence perfectly pinpoints my disagreement with him.

I say that we know nothing, and could not possibly know anything, about the world as it is. All we know about is the world as it appears.

Notvacka wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:I am saying the "system" and the information exist only in the conception and perception of the world, not in the world as it is.

...
I say that we know nothing, and could not possibly know anything, about the world as it is. All we know about is the world as it appears.

Sorry if I'm a bit slow but where's the difference? As to me it sounds like you're saying roughly the same thing?

Arising_uk wrote:

Notvacka wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:I am saying the "system" and the information exist only in the conception and perception of the world, not in the world as it is.

...
I say that we know nothing, and could not possibly know anything, about the world as it is. All we know about is the world as it appears.

Sorry if I'm a bit slow but where's the difference? As to me it sounds like you're saying roughly the same thing?

The difference is that my comments were not directed at Novatcha but at Cerveny.

Novatcha is perfectly able to agree.

i blame blame wrote:

chaz wyman wrote: Information is not a natural category. It makes no sense to talk of information in this context. it seems to becoming a more common feature of "science". But it is nothing but a metaphysical concept being attached to a physical phenomenon. No good will come of it.

Information is not a physical quantity, sorry. I'll have to rephrase that.

Yes indeed. I think the tendency to impose abstract qualities upon the object as if the object possessed them is generally problematic; its almost as if Hobbes had never existed; or Hume; or Kant; or ...

Arising_uk wrote:

Notvacka wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:I am saying the "system" and the information exist only in the conception and perception of the world, not in the world as it is.

...
I say that we know nothing, and could not possibly know anything, about the world as it is. All we know about is the world as it appears.

Sorry if I'm a bit slow but where's the difference? As to me it sounds like you're saying roughly the same thing?

Sorry, Arising. I was reading Chaz' statement in the light of our previous debates. Perhaps Chaz and I are in agreement as far as this particualar thread is concerned.

I must confess that I don't really understand where Cerveny is going with this, though I suspect that he doesn't like the concept of a four-dimensional space-time continuum and that he is looking for some way to disprove Einstein's theory of relativity. People have been at it for about a century now.

Notvacka wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:I am saying the "system" and the information exist only in the conception and perception of the world, not in the world as it is.

Perhaps I should have learned not to debate with Chaz by now but this sentence perfectly pinpoints my disagreement with him.

I say that we know nothing, and could not possibly know anything, about the world as it is. All we know about is the world as it appears.

And your response is EXACTLY a demonstration of your complete misunderstanding of what I am saying.
This is particularly odd as we are in agreement.
The 'system' and the 'information' as exactly as it appears TO US. That is the whole point.
Information is a thing we impose on the world as we CONCEIVE IT.