Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Tourist attractions - Explain how self-organization occurs from the perspective of thermodynamics or statistical mechanics.
Explain how self-organization occurs from the perspective of thermodynamics or statistical mechanics.
When discussing the concept of information, we need to summarize the wide range of phenomena that people refer to when they use the word "information" in life and scientific research, so that in the end we will find that there are two basic objects, among which One belongs to the nature of the objective world itself, and the other arises from the interaction between the living subject and the objective world. Wiener, the founder of cybernetics, elaborated on information in these two senses. On the one hand, he said: "Information is the measure of the degree of organization" and is "negative entropy"⑴; on the other hand, he said: "Information is the process in which we adapt to the external world and make this adaptation felt by the external world. The name of the content exchanged in the external world." (2) The latter kind of information cannot exist without the interpretation structure of the recipient. Wiener gave an example: Music will produce this kind of "semantics" for people who understand music. Meaningful message”, not to someone who doesn’t understand music. The 1980 Russian version of the Soviet "Philosophical Dictionary" also wrote under the entry "information": "Two aspects should be distinguished in the concept of information. In the first aspect, information is systematic and organized. Degree. The mathematical expression of information and the mathematical expression of entropy are the same except that the signs are opposite. Just as the entropy of a system represents the degree of disorder of the system, information understood in this way constitutes the system and process. The internal property of itself can be called structural information. In the second aspect, information closely related to reflection should be distinguished from structural information. If a change occurs in one thing that reflects the effect of another thing, it can be said. This thing becomes the carrier of information about another thing. For the cybernetic system, the change of B caused by the action of A is not just some identification of A by B, but the function of the cybernetic system B. "Activity factors." Here we see that Soviet scholars inherited and elaborated on Wiener's ideas. They clearly distinguished between the stipulated structural information (also known as absolute information) that represents the thing itself and the reflection of the surrounding things by the control system. functional information (also called relative information). In the terms of information theory, the existence of the former kind of information only needs to take into account the source of the information, while the existence of the latter kind of information must also take into account the source of the information. The above ideas can be used for reference when we make a comprehensive philosophical summary of information, so that the concept of information does not have to have a single level of connotation.
I think information can be defined as follows: Information is the orderly form of existence and change of matter and energy in the objective world, and the dynamic reflection and reorganization of this form by self-organizing systems. The former expression expresses the first-level connotation of the information concept, or the broad connotation, and the latter expression expresses the second-level connotation of the information concept, or the narrow connotation.
Let’s first talk about the first-level connotation of the information concept. Wiener once said: "Information is information, not matter or energy"⑷. So what exactly is information? I think of it as an orderly form of movement of matter and energy.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle first proposed the category of "form" relative to the category of "matter". Matter is the material matrix of things, and form is the way in which the material matrix exists. Form must be attached to the material to exist, but it also has relative independence. This is reflected in the fact that a piece of material such as marble can be carved into a statue to have the form of a "person", or it can be carved into a horse statue. And has the form of "horse". Within this scope only, this pair of categories is connected with the pair of categories "entity" and "property". In the above definition, I regard matter and energy as substantial things, and information as their manifested attributes. We can make this relative distinction between certain matter and energy and the properties they exhibit. We know that matter and energy in the objective world maintain a certain amount and can neither be created nor destroyed, but the specific forms of matter and energy can change. The various specific forms of matter and energy existence are determined by their special combinations and modes of movement, and unfold at different levels. The first-level connotation of the concept of information is the specific forms manifested by the existence and movement of matter and energy. Here we need to have a broad understanding of the meaning of "form". It is the general term for all distinguishable attributes of entities, including all certainties such as the structural form, motion state, and interaction methods of things.
This essential definition of information is consistent with the following definition put forward by scientists - information is the uneven distribution of matter and energy in time and space, is negative entropy, and is the nature of the system of things. Degree of organization. Because the various specific forms of existence and movement of matter and energy can only be caused by various uneven distributions of matter and energy in time and space. The second law of thermodynamics points out that the state of maximum entropy that an isolated system tends to reach inside is a state in which matter and energy are evenly distributed in space and time. This is a chaotic and monotonous state without any distinguishable form, that is, No information. We thus see that information is a form of orderliness. Related to this arises the problem of information measurement. The greater the uneven distribution of matter and energy in space and time within a system, the greater the amount of information it contains, that is, the more organized and orderly it is. It is high, which means that the form of its material and energy movement is more complex and organic.
The amount of information contained in a system is equivalent to the amount of information that should be input into the system to make the system transition from an initial disordered state to an organized state. The amount of information required by the human body to form an organic whole from a single molecule is a huge number of 3 x 1026 bits. The amount of information contained in an inorganic ore is incomparable. From here we can see that information looks at the physical world from a new unified perspective. In the past, we used "mass" to uniformly measure different substances, and "energy" to uniformly measure different movements. Now we can use "information quantity" to unify the stipulations and properties of different things. The amount of information represents the difference in the degree of organization and orderliness of things.
Because information is not the matter and energy of things themselves, but the form of their motion, it can be transmitted through isomorphic relationships. The so-called isomorphism, simply put, is the certain correspondence between the material and energy processes of one system and the material and energy processes of another system in terms of organizational structure and movement order. For example, different heights of the mercury column on the thermometer correspond to different temperatures, and certain changes in the height of the mercury column correspond to certain changes in temperature. Therefore, we say that the thermometer conveys temperature information. When we humans absorb information about the external environment in our lives, we do not absorb the material matrix and energy of things in the environment into our brains. Instead, we absorb information in the form of different combinations of the sequence and intensity of nerve impulses in the brain. Characteristics of different states of things in the environment. In this way, we can explain why information represents the nature of things as information sources, but can exist relatively independently from the information source, and we can also understand why the magnitude of information is not conserved like matter and energy but can increase. (By duplicating the same message in different sinks).
Let’s talk about the second-level connotation of the concept of information: Information is the active reflection and reorganization of self-organizing systems on the orderly forms of material and energy movement in the objective world. This definition of information is consistent with the following definition of information made by scientists - information is the content exchanged between living subjects and the objective environment, and is what the control system uses to control the controlled object. The information we talk about in our daily life always refers to some kind of information that is received and understood by us and is meaningful and useful to us. In addition, there is also instruction information generated by people to manipulate and control objects. They all belong to information. This connotation of the concept.
Here we need to explain what a "self-organizing system" is. Simply put, inorganic substances in nature generally follow the second law of thermodynamics from order to disorder. A self-organizing system is a system that can resist the entropy increase trend in the environment and automatically develop from disorder to order. Self-organizing systems are highly organized substances, and their representatives in nature are life. Humans imitate the mechanisms of life to create automatic control systems, which are artificial self-organizing systems. Self-organizing systems in nature do not change spontaneously under the influence of environmental factors like inorganic substances. Instead, they move matter and energy in the direction specified by the internal mechanism, which is to preserve and develop themselves. Since the self-organizing system has the tendency to preserve and develop itself, and it lives in a changing environment with both favorable and unfavorable factors, it needs information about the environment during its survival and development to adjust itself. actions to adapt to changes in the environment. A self-organizing system relies on the guidance of information to move from disorder to order, and from low order to high order, in its interaction with the environment.
In fact, only in the reflection of the self-organizing system on the surrounding environment can the form of existence of objective things be truly separated from the objective things themselves, and have independent meaning and value. In this way, the transformation of the information of the first level of connotation into the information of the second level of connotation is realized. Because the information at the second level of connotation is not produced by mechanical reflection like looking in a mirror, but by active reflection. This is reflected in what Wiener said: "Information from the outside is not simply obtained, but can be obtained through transformation and processing within the device. There, the information is transformed into a new form suitable for future activities. Whether it is an animal or a machine, this All operations must have an effect on the outside world”⑸. In this regard, the following focuses on two points.
First, this kind of information only serves as the reflection subject of the information source (human beings are the most advanced self-organizing system and the most advanced subject. We can regard other self-organizing systems as different hierarchical forms. Realized in the existing subject), it depends on the subject's interpretation structure, which is inseparable from the subject's processing of information. The same event is transmitted as a signal to different subjects. Whether it has information and the amount of information vary depending on the interpretation structure of the subject. So, how is the explanatory structure of the subject formed? This is due to the subject's storage, organization and processing of large amounts of information received in past life. Animals can simply organize and process information. This is the ability to rely on conditioned reflexes on the basis of unconditioned reflexes and establish certain connections between different external information based on repeated life experiences. Human beings not only summarize empirical phenomena perceptually to draw superficial connections, but also use the ability of rational thinking to discover the deep and stable essential connections between various facts.
Therefore, the information that constitutes knowledge within the human brain exists in the form of concepts and judgments that are abstract generalizations of real things to varying degrees. Rational subjects can use the rules of logical reasoning to transform existing information to generate deeper new information. Each individual also draws on the results of social collective practice to help complete his or her own work of organizing information. In this way, the originally scattered information forms an organic network of knowledge within each subject, which is his explanatory structure. Newly experienced individual events have meaning and are understood because of their certain relationships with various elements of this web of knowledge. From this we can see why the second-level connotation of information cannot be separated from the receiving subject. At the same time, we have also seen that the information obtained in the past, processed and organized, and the subject has mastered the connections between them, becomes a means to understand new information. This kind of information is called binding information. The kind of information that is obtained individually in new life encounters, reflects the specific objective environment, and serves as the object of recognition is called non-binding information. From the perspective of informatics, the development of cognitive ability is also the process of continuous transformation of non-binding information into binding information. Of course, whether the understanding of the regularity of the objective world established by binding information is correct must be fed back into practical activities (purposeful quality-energy activities) for verification.
Second, the most important content of the information at this level is to combine the information about the objective environment with the subject's purpose (both the long-term purpose formed in the genesis of the race and the specific purpose in life). The short-term goals arising from the situation) are combined and processed to obtain something that regulates the form of material and energy activities carried out by the subject itself in a certain objective environment, that is, information about the subject's behavior. The self-organizing system processes information in specific control activities like this: it first obtains certain signals, that is, grammatical information, and then interprets the meaning of the grammatical information in conjunction with past life experiences to obtain semantic information, and then based on its ongoing activities The purpose is to evaluate the effectiveness of semantic information to obtain pragmatic information, and finally to obtain information about one's own current behavior based on the understanding of the regularity of the objective environment accumulated in one's own binding information. This information about the subject's behavior is what we call "instruction information" in automatic control machines, which is put into execution by the control center (or effector) for execution. In this way we see that information as a reflection of the orderliness of the real world, while existing independently in the subject's world, can be reorganized in conjunction with the needs to achieve the subject's purpose (fragments of information are reorganized according to the variety of their existence in the real world). possible way to reconnect). In summary, self-organizing systems thus interact with their environment in ways that benefit them. Here we find an interesting contrast. For the object, the form of its material and energy movement is completely dependent on its material and energy movement, but for the subject, the material and energy can be designed first. The form of motion is used to carry out the movement of matter and energy. This shows that inorganic nature is carrying out blind movement of matter and energy, while self-organizing systems are carrying out conscious movement of material and energy. Using information to control the movement of matter and energy results in certain matter and energy being used as economically and effectively as possible in the direction of realizing the subject's purpose. So we say that in the information age, in a sense, information is a more important resource and wealth than matter and energy.
The concept of information has two levels of connotation. It is not only the imprint left by human understanding of information through a historical process, but also the result of human beings grasping information from different angles based on the needs of practice and understanding. Information in the broad sense can also be called objective information, and information in the narrow sense can also be called subjective information. I think the first thing people use in practical life is the concept of subjective information, which means that information is a phenomenon that is inseparable from the human subject. But when Shannon formulated the formula for calculating the amount of information, people found that there was only one symbol difference between this formula and the formula for calculating entropy in the second law of thermodynamics, so information was related to the process from disorder to order in the material world. Movement linked. The understanding of the nature of information thus expanded, and objective information emerged. Objective information explains the source and objective basis of subjective information, which is the form and orderliness of material movement in the objective world. Those orderliness of objective materials that have not yet been recognized by humans may eventually be recognized by humans and transformed into subjective information. Subjective information also has special significance. We mentioned above that information is transformed into a purposeful and conscious movement of matter and energy by controlling the subject. Therefore, it is only due to the role of this subjective information that it is produced in nature. A "humanized nature." Subjective information is the product of the combination and unity of information source and information sink, objective and subjective. Therefore, it is human beings' understanding of the objective world and the basis for human beings to transform the objective world. Marx has long pointed out that knowledge depends on both the object being known and the subject's ability to know the object. He said: "Only music can arouse people's sense of music. For ears without a sense of music, the most beautiful music has nothing to do with it." Meaning, not object, because my object can only be the confirmation of one of my essential powers"⑹; "How the object becomes his object for him depends on the nature of the object and the corresponding essential power. Nature”⑺.
Now let’s briefly examine the historical evolution of the main functions of information with the development of nature and human society.
The information we know is fundamentally related to the control activities of bioactive systems. Since they were single-celled organisms, protozoa have rationally organized their own behavior based on the use of external chemical information, such as putting food into the solution where the amoeba is. As soon as the amoeba gets the chemical information about the food, it will develop its own behavior and move towards the food. direction of movement. It can be said that the distinction between the original material-energy process (here represented as the metabolic process of organisms) and the information-control process appeared in nature at this time. However, in primary animals, information activity is an auxiliary link to help complete spontaneous and purposeful mass-energy activities, because the ability of primitive organisms to process information is completely encoded in heredity as an instinct during the process of genogenesis that has undergone natural selection. in genes. With the evolution of species, the brain, a specialized organ for processing information, appeared in higher-level animals. On the basis of instinctive unconditioned reflexes, conditioned reflexes related to receiving signals were produced, indicating that animals can be relatively autonomous in the acquired living environment. Process information autonomously (i.e. independently of instinct) and have a certain ability to learn. At this time in information activities, there is not only feedback, but also the operation of simulating the progress of the external environment in advance based on the memory of regular experiences, that is, foreseeing the coming of future events and making choices about possible response methods. In mammals, there is also an information world called dreams. Since information activities at this stage have relative independence and autonomy, we can say that quality and energy activities and information activities are in a situation of mutual help and complementation. As for humans, advanced animals with highly developed information-processing organs—the cerebral cortex—appeared, the status of information activities in nature has taken another leap forward. Because human conditioned reflexes can be based on the second signal system composed of abstract symbols such as words, which is different from that of ordinary animals and is only based on the first signal system of perceptual intuition related to various practical things. This enables people to engage in rational thinking—an advanced ability to process information about the world using rules of logic and even mathematics. For the first time, people have realized the informatization of the world in language, that is, symbolization. Subsequently, highly developed information activities appear to be increasingly far away from direct control activities and have independent and autonomous forms. For example, two people talking or someone writing a book are all engaged in information activities (exchanging information and encoding information), and this seems to be Self-purposed. But the ultimate essence of information activities is still to guide quality and energy activities to achieve the subject's practical purpose more economically and effectively. As the activities of control practices become more ambitious, the subjective information that guides them becomes more complex and goes beyond the pattern of "command information" that guides simple control activities. In an automaton, a complete set of information that directs and controls behavioral patterns forms "programs" and "software". In human society, people build buildings according to design drawings, govern the country according to the constitution, etc. All of these reflect people's use of information control to regulate the management of materials and energy in their conscious practical activities. The above seems to indicate the dialectical development process of the role of information in nature: from quality-energy activities utilizing information activities to quality-energy activities and information activities interacting with each other, and then to information activities dominating quality-energy activities. The importance of information activities increases with the control agent's agency.
The dynamic nature of information has developed to this day, making it from a reflection of reality to the ability to virtualize reality. Therefore, with the support of high-tech conditions such as electronic computers and network technology, "virtual reality" and "virtual reality" Virtual practices" and "virtual objects" are developing greatly in today's world. This "virtualization" trend heralds the deeper informatization that human consciousness will be able to advance after linguisticizing the world. This "virtualization" also takes many forms, meanings, and purposes. It can be a lifestyle, such as people taking "virtual tours" or living in "virtual homes." This is the use of advanced multimedia technology in electronic networks to create a simulated ideal living environment for people, allowing people to live perceptually in it to achieve the purpose of entertaining the spirit and even realizing wishes that cannot be satisfied in real life. It can also be a practical method, such as realizing "virtual management" to rationally allocate resources according to actual conditions in an ideal model, because many conclusions that originally require a lot of practical activities can be easily obtained in virtual practice, and avoid production A large amount of manpower and material resources are consumed in the activities, so the efficiency of management and operations can be achieved. It is also a way of understanding and research. In the virtualization research of many specific objects (such as the study of "artificial life"), people only solve problems by constructing mathematical models of objects on computers and performing numerical calculations. At this time, researchers regard the essential elements that make up the world as information (the world of bits) rather than matter, and represent different physical processes with information-processing algorithms that represent different composition methods and processes. In this way, the understanding of the entire universe can be attributed to the process of mathematical operations on information units, just as people may understand everything in the universe through logical thinking in the human brain. From all these forms of virtualization, we see that the information world is closely related to the possible world. Information form is a means to construct and express a possible world, and virtual worlds are often rationally organized possible worlds. The virtual world is "virtual" only because it has no physical form, and sometimes they are not purely virtual in the sense that they represent the possibility that they conform to the laws of objective things and are therefore achievable.
This is just like in technological practice, people realize in reality many artificial creations (such as steel, plastics, cars, etc.) that do not originally exist in nature but only exist in possible worlds. The real world and the virtual world can form a broad world in which communication between the two occurs, and the virtual world, which represents reasonable possibilities, can lead the development of the real world. So we see that information was originally mainly used to let the control subject know which possibility has become realistic among the multiple development possibilities of real objects, but now it is mainly used to help the subject explore in the possibility space. reasonable possibilities and transform them into reality. Therefore, the dominant role of reality in determining information has increasingly shifted to the dominant role in the opposite role of information in determining reality.
American technology philosopher Albert Borgman also described similarly in his book "Grasping Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Century" 8 Regarding the changes in the role of information, he said that information has gone through three stages in the development of human society: 1. Natural information: information about reality, 2. Cultural information: information for reality. , 3. Technical information: information as reality. We can also paraphrase these three stages as: information that reflects reality, information that reorganizes reality, and information that creates reality. This also reminds us of the theory of "three worlds" proposed by Karl Popper: the physical world (World 1), the spiritual world (World 2) and the world of ideological content as a product of the human spirit (World 3). World 3, which is the product of the interaction between spiritual entities and material entities, is essentially an information world. In the past, we felt that the independence and autonomy of World 3 was difficult to understand. Now we can understand this from the reaction of the virtual world on the real world and its interaction with spiritual entities. All this reflects that the essential reason why human beings are the "spirit of all things" is that they are an "information animal".
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