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>The patterns we coax out of the machine are only meaningful to us, as humans, after we have interpreted the data and turned it into information. I disagree. T

>The patterns we coax out of the machine are only meaningful to us, as humans, after we have interpreted the data and turned it into information. I disagree. The number of processes that do something computation-like out of the space of all processes is vanishingly small. That we can input some informative sequence of bits into a computer, and the computer transforms that sequence into output which is then a different informative sequence of bits, tells us that computers are intrinsically information processors, and that information is not in general subjective.

ganzuul 7y ago
I would argue this is currently a carefully maintained illusion which is shattered by malformed input. Perhaps a universal function exists, whereof all known programs are a special case of. Perhaps humans operate like this or perhaps we are Boltzmann brain apparitions. If not the latter then the subject turns into a discussion of communication through lossy channels and convergence, and the data are again just tokens. (Sorry if I ramble. It is late at night here.)
goatlover 7y ago
But what makes the sequence of bits for the input and output informative? The transformation doesn't do that.
- hackinthebochs 7y ago
  The input bits are presumed informative (i.e. have some mutual information with an external structure). The transformative process is one such that information inherent in the input is preserved and transformed into some amount of new information. That this process preserves and transforms information, when almost all physical processes would destroy such information, demonstrates the coherence between the structure of the transformation (i.e. computation) and the information in the input. If it were the case that the computer plays no informative role in the semantics of the input and output, we would be able to make a computer out of any physical process. But we can't. I can't coax my wall into telling me how to invert a matrix, for example. That certain vanishingly rare physical processes can invert a matrix for me implies the coherence between the semantics of the operations and the semantics of the information its operating on.

ganzuul 7y ago

I would argue this is currently a carefully maintained illusion which is shattered by malformed input. Perhaps a universal function exists, whereof all known programs are a special case of. Perhaps humans operate like this or perhaps we are Boltzmann brain apparitions. If not the latter then the subject turns into a discussion of communication through lossy channels and convergence, and the data are again just tokens. (Sorry if I ramble. It is late at night here.)

goatlover 7y ago

But what makes the sequence of bits for the input and output informative? The transformation doesn't do that.

hackinthebochs 7y ago
The input bits are presumed informative (i.e. have some mutual information with an external structure). The transformative process is one such that information inherent in the input is preserved and transformed into some amount of new information. That this process preserves and transforms information, when almost all physical processes would destroy such information, demonstrates the coherence between the structure of the transformation (i.e. computation) and the information in the input. If it were the case that the computer plays no informative role in the semantics of the input and output, we would be able to make a computer out of any physical process. But we can't. I can't coax my wall into telling me how to invert a matrix, for example. That certain vanishingly rare physical processes can invert a matrix for me implies the coherence between the semantics of the operations and the semantics of the information its operating on.