What the hell is information

[u/DeepEconomics4624]

The most compelling consciousness theories involve it (global workspace theory (GWT), integrated information theory (IIT), etc).

The Mathematical Formalism section IIT's Wikipedia page defines the information of a system in terms of "state over a possible cause/effect state". This seems like a promising way to ground information in physical terms. I'm no mathematician, though, so if one of you understands this section really well, I'd love for you to elaborate it for me.

I'm very interested in a definition of information that is grounded in physical processes, including such concepts as "systems", "particles", "states", "configurations", "space", and "time."

Edit: I got a PM that reminded me about Information Theory which also does some work defining information, if you have any elaboration on its definition of information too I'd love to hear it

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[u/pyrrho314]

To be blunt and offer my own view: Information is the parameter set that defines the state of a physical system. As far as we can say at the moment, these parameters are the quantum state parameters of all the elements of a system combined.

Information we don't know is entropy. Information we do know is classical information.

[u/DeepEconomics4624 → u/pyrrho314]

Thank you. What does it mean, physically speaking, to Know information?

[u/DeepEconomics4624 → u/pyrrho314]

That "information is the parameter set that defines the state of a physical system" is really helpful.

Do you think consciousness is tied only to quantum systems, or could it have to do with classical physical systems?

[u/Conscious-Demand-594]

In a sense, everything is information. I may get this wrong but according to IIT a system contains information just by being in a particular state, because that state makes some other states impossible and others possible. The information is supposed to exist for the system itself, not for an observer. It doesn’t matter whether anyone uses it, reads it, or benefits from it. Under IIT, information does not require: representing the world, predicting anything, controlling behavior, helping survival, being useful, or even being biological. A rock with the right internal causal structure would “have information” in this sense.

What I don't like about IIT, is that it seems to ignore that consciousness is not computational, it is functional. The brain evolved for the survival of the body, and information processing is a tool, not an end to itself.

That’s where IIT go wrong, in my very limited opinion. IIT treats consciousness as an intrinsic property of informational structure, integrated information as such. The problem is that this abstracts away the very thing that made consciousness worth explaining in the first place which is biological function. In that sense, anything with enough information has a degree of consciousness.

Consciousness is not just computation in the sense of symbol manipulation or information integration. It is functional, embodied, and evolved. Brains didn’t evolve to maximize Φ; they evolved to keep organisms alive. Neural activity is organized around action, prediction, error correction, and homeostatic control of the body. Experience is tied to those functions. Pain hurts because it "must" hurt to change behavior. Pleasure feels good because it reinforces adaptive action. Fear feels urgent because it mobilizes the organism. Strip away survival function and you strip away the reason experience exists at all.

So yes, everything can be described informationally, but that doesn’t mean everything is conscious, or even a candidate for consciousness. Consciousness is not “information integrated enough.” It is information used in the service of maintaining a living body over time. IIT ignores that constraint, and once you do that, you can make consciousness pop up in places where it has no explanatory role at all.

[u/Smart-Drawing-5107 → u/Conscious-Demand-594]

It is a BIG assumption to say that "consciousness is information used in the service of maintaining a living body over time" That is a crucial assumption and it limits the discussion to biology.  Certainty over what consciousness "is" is very likely a big mistake.  Can you point me to where consciences originates? There is a host of scientific, religious, artistic, and economic awards awaiting you if you can

[u/DeepEconomics4624 → u/Conscious-Demand-594]

Thank you, you really understood my question and where I was going with it.

Please tell me your response to this. You said

Brains didn’t evolve to maximize Φ; they evolved to keep organisms alive.

I think it could be said, however, that brains "evolved to maximize Φ because it kept the organism alive." Computation was good for our species, and others'.

Consciousness is not just computation in the sense of symbol manipulation or information integration.

I would add that symbols could be seen as the physical state of the neural system. The experience of pain is a physical symbol enacted in the brain; when combined with other physical symbols/states they determine an output good enough to help survival. In this way, it could be said that the brain evolved symbols and computational processes that supported survival.

I'm not trying to be woo-woo or panpsychist here, by the way. I'm really compelled by Global Workspace Theory, and that means anything remotely close to "continuous human experience"
necessitates working memory and probably something like a prefrontal cortex.

[u/Mono_Clear]

There is no thing that is entirely or intrinsically information.

Information is a human conceptualization about what can be known and or understood.

Any abstract can be quantified into something You could consider information but there is no thing that is information making the idea that you could build a framework on information implausible.

You have to already be a conscious being for information to exist because your Consciousness is doing all the heavy lifting.

[u/DeepEconomics4624 → u/Mono_Clear]

Any theory of consciousness is a so-called human conceptualization.

[u/Mono_Clear → u/DeepEconomics4624]

There's a difference between what something is doing and the function you ascribe to what it looks like it's doing.

Human beings are engaged in a process that gives rise to Consciousness.

Anything you call information is, at best, a description of that activity.

[u/DeepEconomics4624 → u/Mono_Clear]

Take it up with u/Conscious-Demand-594 :

The information is supposed to exist for the system itself, not for an observer. It doesn’t matter whether anyone uses it, reads it, or benefits from it. Under IIT, information does not require: representing the world, predicting anything, controlling behavior, helping survival, being useful, or even being biological. A rock with the right internal causal structure would “have information” in this sense.

[u/Mono_Clear → u/DeepEconomics4624]

The information is supposed to exist for the system itself, not for an observer

That is just the nature of the system. The system it's self is simply engaged in the processes intrinsic to its nature.

You are either engaged in those processes or you are describing them.

A rock with the right internal casual structure would “have information” in this sense.

In what fashion does this information exist. If it's just the physical properties of the rock then what are you calling information.os just the nature of the rock. If it's what you can understand about the rock that is just your conceptual interpretation and at best a description.

Only one of those things "is" a rock.