Re: [asa] Landauer, Information and Knowledge

On 4/17/07, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This continues the thread on "information and knowledge." Landauer came
> up in that thread. I happened to have been reading some of Landauer's work
> before we started this discussion for a law paper I'm working on right now
> relating to the legal regulation of information through intellectual
> property law (thrilling, I know).
>
> Rich suggested that Landauer's use of the term "information" is limited to
> "syntactic" information and doesn't imply anything about metaphysics. I
> don't think his use is that limited. Here is his opening salvo in
> Landauer's "The Physical Nature of Information," Physics Letters, July 15,
> 1996:
>
> *"Information is not a disembodied abstract entity; it is always tied to a
> physical representation."*
>

How it's tied is through the process of measurement. There is your nexus
between the information and the physical.

> He continues:
>
> *"our assertion that information is pysical amounts to an asertion that
> mathematics and computer science are a part of physics."*
>

As long as your iic variables are measurements. So, my re-write is some
physics and some computer science are a part of physics. That's why some
consider string theory not (yet) physics because we haven't (to date) had
the traceability between the admittedly elegant math and the "real world".

> Later, explicitly contrasting his view to (what he perceives to be)
> Christian theology and earlier scientific views derived from theology, he
> says:
>
> *"Our scientific culture normally views the law of physics as predating
> the actual physical universe. The law are considered to be like a control
> program in a modern chemical plant; the plant is turned on after the program
> is installed. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and
> the Word was God (John I, 1), attests to this belief. Word is a translation
> from the Greek Logos "thought of as constituting the controlling principle
> of the universe." *
>
> He concludes:
>
> *"The view I have expounded here makes the laws of physics dependent upon
> the apparatus and kinetics available in our universe, and that kinetics in
> turn depends on the laws of physics. Thus, this is a want ad for a
> self-consistent theory." *
>

To be honest, I cannot make heads or tails of this. This is just gibberish.

> Given the argument here in "The Physical Nature of Information," which
> follows up on his "Information is Physical" (Physics Today May 1991), I
> can't see how you can limit his views to "syntactic" information. He
> clearly is proposing a metaphysical view that would encompass what Floridi
> calls "semantic" information; and, it seems to me, his view is clearly a
> materialist one, which he expressly distinguishes against the belief that,
> as we in the ASA have put it, "in creating and preserving the universe God
> has endowed it with contingent order and intelligibility, the basis of
> scientific investigation."
>

The "interpretation" of the measurements above is very much semantic. But
you cannot determine this meaning a priori. Going back to Hodge
science:data::theology:Scripture. In order to have meaning in either General
or Special Revelation you have to go through an interpretation process. In
order to be "intelligible" you need an intelligent agent rather than
"intelligence" in which you don't. In my opinion, the mistake made by
ontological information is that it tries to be PURELY objective in solving
the historical, philosophical, subject/object problem.

> I can see how you might say, "well, in the quantum computing lab we apply
> these ideas in a limited, pragamtic way" -- which may be quite productive
> and may not implicate metaphysics at all. But, I don't think you can
> justifiably conflate that discipline's *use* of Landauer's ideas with the
> intent of the broader ideas themselves. It seems to me that Landauer wears
> his metaphysics on his sleeve, and I think other discplines, including
> philosophy and law, recognize that.
>

We use Landauer's ideas to the extent that the theory deals with
uninterpreted data which is devoid of semantic meeting. When interpreted,
the data then gets meaning. Getting theological for a second, it is God
which is the Logos and not the Creation or part of the Creation. Giving
"information" ontological status in my opinion creates an idol.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Tue Apr 17 14:41:43 2007