against Physicalism

[foresthome]

oops that was supposed to say "you CAN"T use information" that way.

[Jim B.]

What counts as "information"? The naive everyday sense of the word always relates to agents, human or non-human, but not,
say, atoms (if atom A hits atom B, it is not informing B of its position). So arguments that relate information to physicalism
must be more subtle... This doesn't mean that information DOESN'T supervene on physical arrangements of atoms, forces,
energy, etc. only that you use "information" in that sense as part of a purely physical explanation. (sorry I would refer back to
a specific message but I have to figure out to see the board while I'm responding: maybe it is as simple as just opening the reply
window in a new tab? sorry).

Hi ForestHome, Can you fill us in on what you were responding to?

[foresthome]

Oops, I think I must have been responding to a post on one of the other forums... or something. I guess I was really tired! I don't see anything about information on this thread... just experience, not the same thing, so I'm not sure what I was thinking.

There is a long tradition in physics etc. starting from Archibald Wheeler to try to find a way to make information more basic than matter, "it from bit" as the slogan is. In a different area, some people in neuroscience have tried to explain consciousness in terms of "integrated information theory", that consciousness is equivalent to coordination of different parts of a very complex organism handling information.

I must have just seen something that triggered thoughts about this ( maybe the p-zombie thing? or experience?) I'm not sure. I'll look over the thread again and try to be more pertinent!

[met]

It's okay, fh, indirection is allowed here!

[Jim B.]

Yeah, it's no problem. It was an interesting point. Too interesting to let it remain a "dangler"!