Updating Model of Self In The World – what the CANONIZER says

The Canonizer has a Consciousness topic.

My response to the latest update of the Representational Qualia camp statement on the Canonizer Consciousness topic

(NB: I have published this, as is so far, but intend to add some explanatory detail when I have clarified the simplest way of explaining what I believe is missing from the current Representational Qualia camp statement.

As I see it the subjective experience of redness, indeed any shade of any hue, any timbre of sound, any taste, any aroma, etc, is what it is like to be a particular current behaviour of a certain population of neurons within the brain. It is a particular pattern of activity which I call a dynamic logical structure (DLS).

In relation to the most recent update of the camp statement my point here is to emphasise that all such DLS are learned behaviours. As such I take it for granted that, because the learning has taken place within the one particular brain of an individual whose personal history is, ultimately, unique, there is no way that a DLS in that person’s brain is going to be identical to a DLS in the brain of another person in the same situation at the same time and place. I fully agree that there will be – or at least ought to be –  very significant similarities because we are all members of the one species. There may also be quite significant differences for the same reason that we humans all have finger prints which are unique in their exact details but generally seem to manifest in namable patterns. 

The reason for the similarities and differences is basically the same for brain structures as it is for fingerprints: there must be structures which effectively accomplish certain functions but the precise ‘final’ layout in each case is achieved through epigenetic adaptation to the particulars of the location and activities of the cells building the structures. In the case of fingerprints the need is to have skin on the fingertips which is robust and resistant to wear yet has good grip, and is prolifically endowed with contact sensory neurons. The evolved solution of our species has been to grow fingertip skin with lots of corrugations which maximise the surface area, underlaid with good quality connective tissue which holds the corrugations in place while allowing flexible adaptation to the shapes of things being touched. The genetic coding which produces this has not been selected to ensure the precise location of each wrinkle just as the the genes which causes some skin cells to differentiate early on so as to produce body hair do not “need” to specify the precise location of each hair.

In analogous manner our brains have evolved topologies which reflect the need to systematically map the patterns of sensory inputs and to dynamically match up the inputs of different sensory channels so as to create sufficiently comprehensive and exact representations of objects and entities in the current environment. As well as this we have equally comprehensive output maps which create the patterns of muscle movements we need to respond to threats and/or resources currently important in our surroundings. 

Insofar as the purpose of brains is to make animals’ muscles move in the right way at the right time we can reasonably assume that the subjectively experienced, non linguistic, description of the world of the members of any particular species is likely to be very similar because their neural architecture is the outcome of their species’ history of natural selection. Us humans, by and large, should also have such basic similarities in our pre linguistic experience of the world. However, given that we have also evolved to live within, through, and by means of a linguistic description of ourselves and our world it is open to speculate that the individual variability now embodied in the brains of all of us may include a much wider range than was present before our ancestors came to rely absolutely on tool using culture and language with versatile grammar. 

Evidence for existence of DLS in the brain

My F/b response to Bill Trowbridge about evidence for existence of dynamic logical strucutes (DLS) in the brain

Bill’s question:

• Mark A Peaty   “Do you have a good reference with neurological evidence for these DLS ? I’d prefer something general, maybe summarizing all we know about them (if such a thing exists), rather than a deep dive for a specific case. But whatever … use your discretion.
  • Only in cortical columns?
  • Connecting nearby columns?
  • In other areas of the brain?
  • Distributed everywhere?
  • Only in certain area?
  • Are there specializations from place to place?”

My Answer:    Bill, I learned of cortical columns from reading Vernon B Mountcastle’s contribution to the book The Mindful Brain which he and Gerald Edelman wrote. From Gerald Edelman’s contribution I learned of the concept of neuronal group selection (AKA neural Darwinism). G.Edelman used the term repertoires for the informational-causal effectiveness of such coalitions. He also pointed out that neuronal groups as such are by far most likely to be the underlying parts/bearers of mental information because having a large membership gives:

• robustness through redundancy and the capacity for “graceful degredation”,
• allows widespread interconnectivity across different cortical areas (and elsewhere) which allows exactitude and nuances of meanings, and
• allows associations to occur because individual neurons can be members of many different coalitions. There are other useful attributes also but I can’t think of them right now 😉

Jean Pierre Changeaux in his book Neuronal Man called them singularities and explained that their ‘figurative meaning’ is embodied in the locations of their component parts.

Cortical columns are the fundamental sub components of neural cell assemblies and they are spread all across the cortex, a bit like the pixels of a digital screen. Each local area of cortex therefore has a two dimensional array of columns which can each embody different features of two different environmental (or conceptual) variables.

I first read of the fine detail and processing potential of these arrangements in a Scientific American article in the early ’90s. Some researchers had experimented with bats suspended in little swings which set them moving back and forth. Electrodes set into the bats’ cortices showed various two dimensional representations of things like ‘target’ angular direction versus delay time of echo, ‘target’ direction versus fequency of echo, and so forth. Interlinking of these cortical arrays with other arrays receiving signals from primary processing arrays allows for cross referencing of the analyses performed by primary sensory sheets and synthesis of an analogue representation within the bat’s brain of a moving target insect’s location, velocity, size, and probably other significant features. These ‘other features’ would enable the bat to learn to identify target types and how best to catch them.

This U/T video, from 22:2o onwards for a fair while deals specifically with Vernon B Mountcaste’s discovery. The earlier parts of the video discusses the cortex and its layers (which are visible under a microscope), ie similarity of neuron types prominent at specific distances in from the cortical surface.

NB, I am still processing his (Jeff Hawkins’) assertion that each column has a model of the environment embodied/processed within it. I’m thinking this is akin to the idea that each part of a hologram has the whole of the subject image within it.

His statement may be true but I think that in order to make sense of it one needs to consider the effect upon each and every neuron of its participation in each of the (potentially vast number) of such activations it participates in.

As I understand it the hippocampus is coordinating and sustaining several sets of potential global gestltaten, and the pre frontal cortex is ‘deciding’ which is the most important to be fully activated as the most up to date snapshot of self-in-the-world. The basis of this decision rests upon the emotional charge that has been connected to the component memory/sensory data of each representational ensmble. That emotional charge is the ‘feeling’ related to the item and is the cortical representation of the initial emotion reaction to the raw perceptual information.

I read recently that researchers have discovered that the hippocampus outputs its signals in two waves 90° out of phase with each other. I’m guessing that the first output provokes/sustains/updates the currently active global model of self in the world, whereas the second wave sustains all the other items in short term memory and the parts of other items that were part of the model of self in the world earlier in the day. I imagine there is a kind of fading queue of such ‘new’ memories which are sustained until sleepy time by occasional bouts of reactivation due to enhanced spontaneous bursts of signalling by the member neurons. During sleep of course new memories are consolidated, which may well involve the updating of older forms of the representations involved.

I’m hoping you can see why I use the term dynamic logical structures (DLS) for each of the neuronal ensembles which becomes a self sustaining coalition due to the mutual reciprocal “re-entrant’ cortical signalling they engage in. A point I feel is important is that, for the time such DLS are active, they fulfil the basic requirements of a real thing which exists. Each one is a process which acts as a pathway for degrading the energy of their particular environment, which is a characteristic or all self-sustaining processes, and they also have effects upon their immediate environment which result, in either short term or long term, in increasing the probability of their reactivation in the future.

What makes us move?

Response to F/b question about: what makes us move?

My response was to this question by Scott F: Mark A Peaty – not sure your bottom line conclusion follows from your interesting observations, but thank you for this dialog. Since you focused on movement a lot in your reply precisely how do you believe movement is initiated and via what agency?

The ultimate motivating ‘force’ is homeostasis that drives us to stay alive!

I’m sure you are as familiar as I am with the basic idea here. There are many biochemical and physical requirements in the form of food stuffs, water, maintenance of body temperature, breathing in fresh air, etc. The parameters relating to these and their monitoring is the business of the brain stem some regions of which have ultimate control over our being awake versus being asleep, etc. Our interactions with the environment are monitored and assessed by the thalamus and basal ganglia, limbic system, etc, which are all close to the brain stem and have first access to sensory registration of changes in the world around us.

To put this explicitly, our emotions are our animal responses to the apparent changes and potential changes around us in terms of danger of harm or threat of danger versus resource value and life enhancing utility. These are “prompt” responses which apply relevant emotional charges to percepts. Our feelings are the registration of these emotional charges in the cortex while the higher level, and slower, detailed processing of sensory information takes place in the posterior regions of the cortex.

So the direct answer to your question is that basic stimulation/motivation to activity comes from the brainstem, and the general impetus to action or reaction is mediated by thalamus/basal ganglia/limbic system.

The detailed and hopefully appropriate specific activity which deals with the current situation is generated in the anterior parts of the cortex with executive control of these being mediated in the pre frontal area.

The point I keep stressing is that the regional responsibility description I have just given needs to be understood in terms of the brain being host to many thousands of patterns of temporarily self-sustaining, neuronal assemblages – DLS – which embody the particular affective or effective information content and intention/aboutness of all the perceptions, thoughts, and behaviours which constitute our minds. As you know, the brain is always active, using at least 20% of our metabolic energy even when asleep.

As to whether or not this constant activity is generating patterns of muscular movements or is systematically cycling through the different global wave motions doing the job of consolidating useful memories and fuzzing out random junk patterns depends on the particulars of time, place, and circumstances.

The danger of utilitarianism

Intrinsic worth  versus pure self interest –
 the shortcomings of utilitariansim

It seems to me that maybe the assertion of intrinsic worth is the cornerstone for any comprehensive ethical system. Religious value systems posit a single supreme being or community of divine beings as the source of value but in the modern era this is not really open to reasonably sceptical people.

I have my doubts that any purely utilitarian way of thinking will really satisfy all reasonable requirements:

• the apologists for the rich and powerful (eg so called ‘rational economists’) are too strongly tempted to rationalise the greed and excesses of their heroes leading them to support ‘utility monsters’, for example the corporate executive cowboys and bandits who vote themselves millions of dollars in ‘bonuses’ bearing no relation to the value of any services performed; and
• purely utilitarian thinking ultimately makes people into objects because there is nothing to counter balance the alienating efficacy of the rational instrumental approach to relationships entailed in a purely utilitarian worldview.

I agree with the writer Terry Pratchett (of Discworld fame) that ultimately there is only one sin: treating another person as a thing! *** (f1.0) I believe that the assertion of intrinsic worth is very reasonable in the light of evolutionary theory about genes and memes and by observations of human behaviour in situations where people can be held responsible for their actions. The assertion of intrinsic worth is none the less exactly that: an assertion, which must be made as the result of conscious decision making. It involves a personal risk, ie that in being consistent with one’s principles one increases the opportunities for others to cheat on you, but the payoff is in experiencing an affirmation of life and an ever deeper insight into how other people ‘tick’ and how the world works.

***************

*** This means that the bureaucratic ordering and functioning of work organisations is ethical only if sufficient attention is paid to the intrinsic worth and needs of people doing their jobs. That is, the ‘thing’ is the position not the person! It is the role, with its entailed authority and responsibilities. This is true in all cases, ie government and non government.

Arguments against the existence of Consciousness at the physically quantum level of existence

IMO there are potentially several quite coherent arguments against the existence of consciousness (“C”) at the level of existence (= orders of magnitude) described by Quantum Mechanics. Any such coherent arguments are arguments against the conjecture of panpsychism. I think it is important to uncover and set out such arguments in plain English so that other ordinary people like me can concentrate our minds on explanations,  theories, and conjectures, which are in line with modern scientific findings concerning psychology and neuroscience (ie, what Granny Weatherwax called _headology_, what I like to think of as good quality headology anyway).

NB, this is a work in progress so will be edited as I go along. Any constructive comments and criticisms will be gratefully received.

Three approaches I can think of are:

1. through looking at what quantum mechanics is actually about
   • in general terms of course rather than the hideously complex mathematics it requires as a scientific tool,
2. through looking at what information is in reality, and
3. through what might be called mereology which is a technical name for the study of parts and wholes.

1. What quantum mechanics is actually about – in general terms

Quantum mechanics (QM) is the mathematical system which describes the behaviours of the smallest measurable items and amounts of the ultimate constituents of our world. QM uses mathematical structures called fields to describe the fundamental forces of nature and treats what otherwise we call particles as being localised vibrations, rotations, and point-like concentrations of these various fields. We don’t need to go into details here and I am not competent to make pronouncements about that kind of mathematics anyway. There are some important points to consider though:

a/ QM is extremely successful at describing how (electrically) charged particles will move within certain carefully presecibed situations and this has allowed the creation of all the portable digital electronic devices which are now used everywhere in the modern world,

b/ QM successfully describes attributes and behaviours of the ultimately smallest constituents of our universe (that it is possible to detect and measure so far anyway) and these are different from the things of the world that exist at the scale of size that we normally deal with and that we have evolved to sense, to use and to think about.

• For example it is never possible to know both exactly where a fundamental particle is and  its speed and direction of motion (its momentum.)
  • The more exact our knowledge of either its location or its momentum is, then the less exact is our knowledge of the other attribute.

• Another example is that a pair of quantum particles can become “entangled” which means they have interacted such that certain of their quantum attributes are interconnected, even though the two particles may  become separated to quite enormous distances.  It has been demonstrated conclusively that testing of one of the quantum attributes, called ‘spin’, of one of the pair of particles affects the other particle such that if the one tested is found to be “spin up” then the other one will be “spin down”, or vice versa.
  • The “weird” aspect of this is that, until a test is done the state (of that attribute) cannot  be known for either particle  and no signal passes between them. In fact the correlated fixing of their respective states  is to all intents and purposes, instantaneous.
  • Technically speaking ‘instantaneous’ in this context means that a signal would have to travel between them faster than the speed of light, “c”,  but c has been shown to be the fastest possible speed for a causal effect in our universe.  Albert Einstein, whose theories of Special Relativity and General Relativity have been experimentally verified and which depend on c being the fastest possible speed in the universe, referred to this inexplicable synchrony as “Spooky action at a distance”.
  • NB: something to note is that the two particles of each pair involved in such an entanglement experiment must not interact with any other particles in the period between their initial entanglement and the test event. 

The facts of these QM attributes and behaviours have provoked a variety of interpretations concerning what are, or are not, necessary implications of these facts, ie there is a question about the extent to which human consciousness is necessary for QM experimental results to actually occur. (Most of us consider that the existence of our universe for 13.8 billion years before humans came on the scene is a reason to be sceptical about that.) QM however is a statistical prediction system. As mentioned earlier, it is impossible to say exactly both where a particle is and what it is doing, so exactly predicting what individual particles will do is, by definition, impossible.  Thus the success of QM, which has allowed the creation of some of the world’s biggest experimental devices, the particle accelerators, lies in its ability to specify the probabilities  of quantum events occurring.

IMO there are some interesting implications of this statistical determinacy. For one thing it makes it extremely unlikely that the biochemical processes which make up living entities rely on anything approaching the exactitude needed for controlling the paths of particles moving at speeds close to c. The atoms and molecules in the cells of our bodies are vibrating and bouncing together due to ambient thermal energy of 37 degrees centigrade, so their relative motions approximate to some proportion of the speed of sound in water. Is it not reasonable to assume that this jiggling around, which is the basis of what is called Brownian motion, ensures that any kind of quantum entanglement which occurs lasts only as long as it takes for a atom, ion, or molecule to bounce from one neighbour to another? 

There is much uninformed speculation and conjecturing that gets written down and posted on social media and in books also which conflates human consciousness with features of the world described by QM. In fact though, the only real similarity they have is that they are both considered “mysterious”.

2. Information

There are many ways of defining information, some simple, some complex; here I want to keep things simple and to the point. So let us say that information in its most general sense is something or other which, as well as being just itself, is about something else, ie something other than itself. Another way to say this is that something can be informative when its appearance indicates something about something else which we would not have known otherwise. 

The simplest way that has been expressed is “information is that which reduces uncertainty”. That is a mighty fine, minimulist, definition but what needs to be added is that it is always within a context.  So the uncertainty of someone or some creature – or some information processing device – about something which may concern them/it is reduced by the appearance of something or the change of something in their surroundings.  Another important point is that whatever the informative thing or event is, it has to be somewhere and made out of something or has to be a change occurring in something which really exists. I hold the belief that anything which really exists must be somewhere now. Some people find that idea hard to accept but I called it reality. I choose to summarise this viewpoint as: information is that part or aspect of the structure of something which can be about something other than itself.

There are of course a whole bunch of subtleties which can arise to confuse us but IMO the main one is that some ‘things’ can seem to exist, but then seem to disappear but then may seem to come back into existence. I believe something like this definitely happens inside human, and other, brains. This is easily accounted for though if we take the brain in question to be part of the context and realise that, due to neuronal plasticity and epigenetic changes, the brain has been changed in such a way as to be able to recreate the particular distinctive activity whenever a relevant stimulus/signal is received from the environment or through other activity within the particular brain itself (AKA memory!).   

So the crux of the argument from the point of view of information per se, is that quantum particles, be they electrons, photons, protons, or whole atoms or molecules, are simply what they are. Generally speaking they are not about anything other than themselves. It is true that many molecules within living cells are very complex and can have very distinct ways of interacting with other molecules within the cell or outside the cell’s membrane but these activities are to do with the the building and maintenance of the cell and its biochemical interactions with others. Furthermore these interactions are powered, as much as anything, by the random thermal jostling of water and other small molecules which are moving at the speed of sound characteristic of such liquids. For salty water at 37 deg Celsius the speed is somewhere near 1,500 m/s or between four and five times the speed of sound in air. 

The reason for mentioning the high velocity of water molecules inside the cells of our bodies is because there are those who surmise (I don’t think the word theorise is appropriate) that quantum mechanical effects inside what are called microtubules within our brain’s neurons may be the basis of long distance connections between cells. Microtubules actually form the internal  ‘skeleton’ of the cell, holding the various organelles within the cell in place and allowing the cell to maintain its shape and/or move. They also form a scaffolding which allow motor molecules to drag large proteins and vesicles along the surface of the microtubule from place to place within the cell. Whilst microtubules are helical structures which do form a tube shape with interior lumen, there is no reason to suppose that this internal space is sufficiently isolated from the rest of the cytosol to maintain some sort of quantum isolation unit that is spookily entangled with similar units in other cells! I think it is much more reasonable to accept that the local equivalent of constant Brownian motion restricts quantum entanglement of the particles involved to their nearest neighbours. 

3. Mereology – the study of parts and wholes

The “panpsychism” concept, suffers from a mereological mistake. If mereological is not the right work my apologies; it is still a mistake. 

Reason: if atoms and molecules or whatever all have their own wee bit of  “C”, what is that C about?

Answer: the teeny weeny bit of C – is about being that atom or molecule. This strongly provokes the question of: Why should a whole bunch of separate little C’s become a C which is about something which is not those separate particles but is about, not just the amalgamated assemblage of particles, but about the world that the assemblage of particles is within? 

IMO that question stands until someone can provide a coherent explanation and reasonable description of the main mechanism/process purported to underlie panpsyche. This is never provided however. Panpsychism is always put forward by persons asserting their own disbelief that scientific method has any chance of explaining subjectivity, ie: why it can be like something to be an embodiment of self-awareness.

Mereology is a term used by academic philosophers who use it for academic purposes. Sometimes this involves an attack on the idea of emergent properties, ie the apparent fact that in many situations a collection of smaller things when associated together act collectively in a way that could not be reliably predicted from the properties of the individual constituents. Indeed I have seen the term ‘mereological mistake’ applied to descriptions of the way neurons act together to create representations of things external to the brain. I hope my argument above shows how that cuts much more strongly against vitalistic concepts like panpsychism.

IMO for lay people it is more helpful to speak in terms of the nature of information, as above already, which enables us to describe things in terms of dynamic logical structures and their functional potential.

My responses to: _Qualia and ‘What it is like’ arguments_ – a paper by Kent Olson

https://www.academia.edu/67866045/Qualia_and_What_it_is_Like_Arguments

I agree that qualia are indeed private. How could it be otherwise? 

One thing I disagree with is the insistence on asserting that explanations of events and phenomena must be purely of one sort or another. IMO the world we inhabit is not like that! Just as information is always relative to a particular context so also explanations are given relative to a context and very often for a particular purpose. 

It seems to me that the project of asserting that one particular form of explanation must be given paramount status over all others is a type of power play that manifests real dysfunction in the context of understanding subjectivity.  For one thing it stifles real communication.

Subjectivity

Subjectivity is what it is like to be the view from somewhere. IMO potent subjectivity of the type we are concerned with here is what it is like to be me while awake enough to think about and reflect upon this very fact of being awake. It has at least two aspects to it but IMO this does not imply some form of dualism. The fact that I experience myself being aware now and being able to realise that for me to say “I do not exist” is self-contradictory, makes the fact of my existence a synthetic a priori, for me in relation to me anyway. The existence of a universe which is not me, but contains me, is also a synthetic a priori. I happen to believe that the fact of multiplicity is also entailed in being able to verbally state the first two synthetic a priori propositions, so include it as s-a number 3. 

My knowledge of my own existence is epistemic and ontological. Another fact about it is that it is always associated, indeed correlated, with activities within my brain and never not so. For this reason I find it most reasonable to accept that it is an aspect of at least some of the processes occurring within my brain at the time. Furthermore insofar as this experience is informational in nature it must be constructed out of those parts or aspects of structures, of some sort, which can be about something other than those structures themselves. Given that qualia, thoughts, and habits of behaviour are usually transient but consistently repeatable is is reasonable to seek their instantiation in repeatable patterns of activity of large associations of neurons which has been the best conjecture on offer for many decades now. 

IMO the concept of dynamic logical structuctures (DLS) makes the most sense because it is not contradicted by anything I have read about to do with neuroscience and psychology, psychiatry, etc.    

What it is like to be….x,y,z

Thomas Nagels’ discussion of _What it is like to be a bat_  never touched on the concept of there being a bat’s model of self in the world which could be the particular embodiment of subjectivity for the bat. I was fortunate to have come across Susan Blackmore’s discussion of this beforehand, indeed it was in Dr Blackmore’s article in a  New Scientist magazine edition of April 1989 which led me to Nagel’s essay in his book Mortal Questions. 

IMO the distinction between the entity overall and the entity’s subjectivity is important but not because “dual” or whatever but because one’s own subjectivity is never what it is like to be all of oneself at the time; it is only ever partial. The meditation warriors deny this of course and purport that by stilling one’s mind the “true reality” of (one’s) being becomes apparent. I think they are wrong. I recognise that the calming of one’s own mind is, usually, highly therapeutic, but that does not entail a fact of the silenced mind being a revelation of true reality. It is just one of many views of the real world which, like all other instances of subjectivity, is created within the brain of the person concerned. The often encountered meditation inspired idea that consciousness is everything and/or that everything is consciousness is a belief, only, that can be neither proved nor disproved.

Meanwhile the fact that our subjective experience does not encompass everything of self nor everything of the world is something that honest people can demonstrate to themselves. The reason for this is analogous to the reason why we cannot usually see the backs of our own heads, never mind the backs of our own eyeballs nor can we, as George Gurdjieff put it: jump over our own knees.

My best guess of what is involved in one’s model of self in the world is coming later. 

Response to Stanislav T. clarifying why I do not equate C with (all of) mind

Mind

I take the word _mind_ to be, by and large, “what the brain does” although I am happy to exclude various biochemical/hormonal processes related to homeostasis from the term mind. I take the view that one’s mind is, effectively, one’s model of the universe and it is made up of dynamic logical structures (DLS) which, when active, represent features of the world, be they things, relationships, perceptual qualities, muscle movement instructions, or whatever else. I take is also as given that DLS can be active without being a direct part of conscious awareness at that particular moment.

Consciousness (C)

In fact it seems that several strands of mental processing can be going on simulaneously in the brain such that, at a particular moment, only a subset of mental activity is part of C. I am satisfied that my memories of my own experiences in a whole lot of situations confirm this, which is why I define C as rememberable awareness. The emphasis on “rememberable” is because, in my understanding at least, the mental process of attending to things, involves allocating hippocampal processing space, amongst other things, so that what is significant at the time can be remembered in future. In brief (grin) I understand the basis of what I am calling C or rememberable awareness to be as follows. It is the _updating_ of one’s model of self in the world (hence: UMSITW) and the model (MSITW) is composed of DLS which represent: 1/ currently significant features of the world, 2/ currently significant features of self, and 3/ currently significant relationships between 1 & 2. Because active DLS are self sustaining processes (albeit potentially quite transient) which affect the world around them, they are *things which exist*. This is why there is indeed something which exists within the brain which it is like something to be it. QED

Can information be destroyed?

Information can be destroyed

I think it is not true to say that information cannot be destroyed. 

I mean, it may well be true that quantum numbers, or rather the fundamental quantum structural features denoted by the various quantum numbers, may continue to exist forever but they do not necessarily remain in the same structural conformation. The reason this is relevant IMO is that information per se is an aspect of the structure of something or other. In particular we can say that information is embodied in the part or aspect of some structure which can represent something other than itself.

Another way to state this key fact is: information is always about something and always exists within a particular context. It is the context of the situation which allows the particular feature to correspond to the (or the state of the) other thing which it informs about.

One of the assumptions of modern physics is that the total amount of energy of the universe does not change. This cannot be proved but as a working hypothesis it apparently holds true in all the carefully controlled experimental situations investigated so far that: the detected and measured amounts of energy and mass/energy equivalence going into the experiment equal the energy and mass/energy equivalence coming out of it. It also seems to be the case that, to the extent measurable, the quantum numbers – mentioned above – are conserved. It is my understanding that many people take the conservation of quantum numbers “in the universe” to be an indication that information, like energy, is neither created nor destroyed. I think this latter idea is wrong; I think it is based on a conflation of structure with information, which are not the same thing.

I believe this is so because what is not always conserved is the way the quantum numbers are combined. IE, in processes of nuclear fusion and decay for example, quanta related to the weak nuclear force and lepton number either arrive or depart at, or close to, the speed of light and from or to directions that either cannot be known or could only ever be known very imprecisely. In other words there is no mechanism – in principle – by which they can be tracked. Thus the “history” of neutrinos newly arriving to precipitate a decay is simply not known, and the subsequent adventures of neutrinos produced by a fusion can never be written. This means that what might otherwise be taken to be a potential fact or statement of relationship concerning the event is effectively a random arrival, or a randomising disappearance. 

Entropy is a universal fact about our universe. It is essentially a consequence of the seemingly endless expansion of our universe which guarantees that there is always going to be more space available for slow things to be rearranged in and for super fast things to just disappear into, or occasionally, appear out of. At our human, “classical”, scale of things it is clear that information is being lost all the time. The things we make and use, the places and people we know, all change over time; and things and people eventually disappear.

As human beings who live within, through, and by means of a description of the world, we can nonetheless strive to understand and nurture those people, things, and principles we consider most important. That is what philosophy is about and what our daily toil is for. As far as I can see there is no quantum ‘magic’ which can reverse the endless changing and aging of our universe. 

I think the most precious things which have the greatest potential for enduring are good ideas and useful behaviours, in other words beneficial memes. This is what lay philosophy is about!