{"id":3253,"date":"2013-02-15T21:30:25","date_gmt":"2013-02-16T02:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3253"},"modified":"2013-02-13T20:49:43","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T01:49:43","slug":"info-please-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3253","title":{"rendered":"Info, Please, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

My last blog entry discussed how important information<\/a> clearly is. But as to it’s being the core of reality, the most fundamental thing about our universe . . . I myself don’t think that’s right.<\/p>\n

Think again about my busy day off (discussed in the previous blog entry), and all the ups and downs that I had based on what information I had and did not have. The reality is that plenty of other information came my way in this time, but did not make much of a difference to me. I listened to the news on the radio, saw various cars and trucks on Route 46, saw the cloudy sky and felt the moderately cold air. Some people were speaking Spanish in K-Mart. Lots of information, but not particularly relevant to me. Despite all the science, it still comes down to the fact that some information means something, and other information doesn’t, relative to the user. Some information “informs”, other info does not. At the heart of the information is the word “form”. Information is abstract and intangible; form happens when things becomes real.<\/p>\n

And what does “real” mean? Just what is real? I tried to get in touch with the answer to that question in the morning, sitting in a zendo with fellow Zen students. In silence, in low-information states, we quietly ask, just what is real? What is the ultimate form to reality? And the great Zen-masters reply: what’s real is you. And me. It’s incredibly simple, right under our noses. And yet, very difficult to grasp. What is ultimately relevant is what information is meaningful to you — no, that is too simple, not the whole story. Just as Prof. Giulio Tononi says<\/a> that a mere information flow from one sensor to one responding device is NOT a sign of consciousness, a flow of information from the world to one person is not that relevant, however important to that one person. The thing that gives it “Zen form” is relationship, interconnection. <\/p>\n

Tononi would say that high levels of interconnection between information flows allowing the device on the receiving end to consider the entire picture is a sign of conscious form. (Someone made the point that if Tononi’s equations are correct, then the United States and the world overall certainly are conscious<\/a>). But the truer form, the thing that Zen masters are interested in, is the interconnection of relevant information from one person to other persons. <\/p>\n

What is important to me is important, no doubt; but what is important to the people around me must also become important to me, if I am to reach “Zen consciousness”, if I am to appreciate the truer level of “form” in the universe. Yes, for whom the bell tolls. And I must try to share as much information that is relevant to me with others (which is part of the mission of this blog). The more we all “cross-fertilize” our information flows and appreciate each other’s insights, the more chance we all have of “attaining Buddhahood”. Actually, I get tired of all such “Buddha talk”, as it does get kind of dippy. But dippy or not, we need to see the big picture, the social body, in order to find the best way of living our individual lives. That’s information in it’s truest form, in it’s “realist” nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My last blog entry discussed how important information clearly is. But as to it’s being the core of reality, the most fundamental thing about our universe . . . I myself don’t think that’s right. Think again about my busy day off (discussed in the previous blog entry), and all the ups and downs that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3255,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253\/revisions\/3255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}