http://motherboard.vice.com/read/information-is-not-the-new-soul?trk_source=popular

Around the 50s, because of the notoriously elusive nature of the mind, many scholars endorsed a computational view of the mind recapped in a popular catchphrase: the brain is like a computer, and the mind is the program run by it.

Although so far no proof of this view--that thinking is a kind of computing--has ever found any empirical confirmation, new versions have constantly been proposed (see Tononi’s theory on integrated information for the most updated example). The conclusion of such a still-completely-hypothetical line of reasoning is temptingly obvious. If the mind is information and if information exists over and above brute matter, the mind is immaterial and eternal too. Bingo!


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Given the fact that nobody knows for sure what our minds are, information seems a reasonable candidate. Both minds and information are invisible! Both are related with the goings-on of biological and electronic brains. Thus scientists and philosophers alike are fascinated by the possibility that, if minds and information were the same thing, a pathway toward immortality may unexpectedly open up in the near future. Given the short lifespan of our bodies, if one is a materialist, information may seem to offer a salvific vessel. Yet, once more, like Frankenstein’s bolt, it might simply be too good to be true.

As you might expect, this is the point at which I deliver the bad news. Information is not going to give anyone eternal life. Unfortunately, information is not the kind of stuff that can host our feelings, thoughts, and desires, because, to put it concisely, information is not a stuff at all. Information is just a probabilistic model that mathematicians devised in the 50s to tackle questions about communication. To make my point, I’ll need to make a short but dense digression into information theory’s humble beginnings.


Riccardo Manzotti is a Professor in Psychology at the Institute of Human, Language and Environmental Sciences at the University of Milan, holds a PhD in robotics, is the author of 50 papers on the basis of consciousness, and is the webmaster ofconsciousness.it. He has previously asked if pixels are driving out reality, and with Andrew Smart examined Elon Musk's assertion that we are probably living in simulation.

Cool thread.

If we're not sure what "mind" is, on what grounds do we equate it with other abstract concepts
like "information"? What makes "information" a "reasonable candidate" for what "mind" is? That's
almost like saying "love" is a reasonable candidate for "God" when we have no idea really what "God"
is even though we think we know what "love" is!

I don't see how "information" implies, necessarily, salvation, or why "information" and/or "mind" nec-
essarily could lead to immortality, either. If we're using the word "information" as defined as the
communication of knowledge, then I don't see why the hypothetical situation of a woman obtaining
100% information of all known knowledge means she must strive for immortality.

I liked this. "Information is more akin to a kiss than to a coin."

The endless stream of books and articles arguing that one day we will be resurrected thanks to the reactivation of the information contained in our brains is based on wishful thinking. In fact, information alone is clearly not enough. When we watch a recording of the Twin Towers collapse, no one is killed. The information has been preserved and reacted, the facts been digitally stored. But the things they recorded are lost. The events were made of flesh, blood, concrete and steel. The information is nothing like that. Information does not preserve reality. Yes, we could use that information to rehearse a new disaster, but it would be a different one.