Re: [Fis] On the Concept of "Order" in Relation to Scientific Information

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear FIS Colleagues, These days I am involved in a Congress and will not be able to do the maintenance work of the list (until next Monday). Remember please the instructions I gave weeks ago on how to react to spam filters rejection ---and think that, above all, we are a list for quiet reflections on FIS and not on FAST (posting), any discussed theme may be retaken some days or weeks later... Well, in any case, sorry for the spam problems, I really will welcome any "helping hand" bringing better solutions and improvement. Very briefly, then, I respond to Walter and Jerry: On Walter reference to info "flows" and structure in networks, it looks a very  cogent term, but may be not in all cases (more in general I think info refers to engagement in episodic events; they may appear in an almost continuous flows such in vision or the auditory sense,  or just as single isolated events, as is very common in cellular signaling). In any case, the connotation of flows has gained quite a lot of social currency, and deserve a dedicated discussion in itself... Jerry has written a long, inspired message --but motivated by a misconstruction on my previous one. Pedro's post on "streams of order" conveys to me an abandonment of scientific thinking.  The success of scientific thinking arises from the rigorous classification / categorization of objects in the world, potential of our mental and physiological capabilities to create order.   To cite Borges "The Celestial Emporium of Knowledge" and assert that   "it is clear that there is no classification of the Universe not being arbitrary and full of conjectures." and then assert:  I mean, most approaches to the order of the sciences have been guided by criteria of hierarchy, reduction, systemism, unification, integration, etc. " With all due respect, Pedro, do you really believe that the modern capacities of technology were created by arbitrary conjectures? What is your notion of the concept of "order" or "streams of order" that generate your conclusions? In the context of the message, and the two previous ones taken together, it is clear what was my reference: the interdisciplinary problem. Thus, it is the "order of disciplines" in their interactions and overlappings, always looking from the outside, and not the internal order, which I did not approach at all. That the "guiding criteria have been reduction, hierarchy, etc.", is quite tenable, at least for any interested observer of the multidisciplinarity phenomenon. If needed, the Intro to FIS 1994 Proceedings in BioSystems (1996) may reflect in extenso what I mean. Well, in the rest of the message I can get along with Jerry in many respects, though not in this crucial one: Is it possible that by *not* separating human experiences - impressions from the world - into discrete categories that one conflates separate and distinct concepts such that order is not apparent? Human experiences are not "impressions", at least if we take seriously the neuroscientific description of our own cognition. Seemingly, we confront the world in ACTION/PERCEPTION cycles. And there is very a strong current on developing a motor-centered epistemology, which I consider a very refreshing and promising stance. Helas, categorizing actions in conjunction with perceptions may be a little more complex to achieve a final logical construct, as similarly occurs in science in the formalization of the theoretical versus formalization of the experimental. The crux of many chemical data bases (and even more in biomolecular realm) is how to enter the practical, implicit, but very efficient info buried in the "material & methods" part --really uncategorizable.  If one of these simple categories is taken by itself, then order, as revealed by deductive syllogisms, is readily apparent.  Would you agree that a calendar serves as a marker for the order of the streams of time? Would you agree that carbon (atomic number 6) is different from nitrogen (atomic number 7) which is in turn is different from oxygen (atomic number 8) and that the atomic numbers serve to order all streams of matter?  Would you agree that in our mental streams of thought that arithmetic operations provide for reproducible streams of order of thought?  Nothing has come out from the sky, by logical thinking armchair style. Every scientific realm is caught into a formidable historical track that almost universally has started out from social practices, technics, arts, etc. (e.g., Cartesian coordinates were used earlier in art that in geometry/algebra; almost the same in symmetry; Arabic numeral themselves were often dealt with into poems by Andalousian Moorish math-poet-philosophers. Historically, we scientists must not be despondent on arts and humanities as they are providers and pioneers of perceptions/actions and practices conceptualized later on... Well, Jerry, those naked orders you mention are already products of disciplinary thought which I have not discussed yet (as every discipIinary realm as a whole, may deserve a further elaboration as an instance of intrinsically collective-cognition-system; science disciplines may also be contemplated as forms of "swarm intelligence", not pejoratively at all... as parts of the logical structure of science, concurring with late Robert Rosen (his "essays on life itself") are conditions for the collective decomposition of scientific problems among communities of problem solvers, limited ones, I add, and maths themselves can be approached from this angle, as the new discipline of neuromathematics partially does. Perhaps the premier notion of order comes from the concept of a list... Science and written human communication both depend of lists of symbols, intentional expressions of our sentience. An interesting point, why the "written symbols" are so important in science? What are the limits of oral cultures? Why the oral and the written have kept such a curious interplay of "info flows" within science, in all epochs, ours included? Just analyzing the very different ways of mixing the oral and written communication of todays science is really intriguing. What are we doing  in this exchange right now --is it oral or written? See some of Bob Logan's stuff (and the great McLuhan)... Shannon information is grounded on ordered lists of number symbols, encodings of our sentience.  Chemical sciences are grounded in the order of the list of elements. Living systems are grounded in the order of genetic elements, DNA base sequences grounded in the organization of atoms. Nope. Life's grounding order looks to me a little more than DNA symbols-order (order of water? membrane closure? active proteins?). Is there a radical creation of new "order" in the web of cellular signaling? And the global "order" of the life cycle? The point I have re-stated in the list quite often is that cell signals are meaningless without the reference to a networking-selfproduction-set of activities, the cell cycle, where meaning seems to emerge in correlation with factual net changes. And a parallel with human messages and our life cycle needs to be worked out too.  It is in this context of net analysis where I have concurred with Bob and Loet (including the problem of human & scientific knowledge), and well, I stand to that. I hope is well within the pale of science. Pedro, I hope that I have presented to you some reasons for embracing the concept of order as a fundamental basis for categorization of nature.  It is, also, I believe the very foundation of information theory as a description of messages designed for communication. Of course, you have very right to invoke images of Borges, fiction, and theatre as the basis information theory, but you will still need to find pathways from our impulses (sentiences) to patterns of nature, with or without the logical contributions of the concept of "order".   Jerry, I am not far from your basic tenets ---being aware that I take a lot of care on not trespassing into the territory of inner disciplinary order and of logics, as one needs a previous rigourous definition of information, theme in which I am slowly working under the banner of info as "distinction on the adjacent". (Distinction is taken from Karl's multidisciplinary partitions, and adjacency is... well, Michael Leyton's and Kenneth Collins' province; it is a real pity that Michael terrific scheme is not discussed more often in the list).  Well, Jerry, about the rest of your own scheme, which I have deleted and not commented, it is partially acceptable for me, and cogent, but let me add that the whole looks rather closed for my taste. It is not just a new "info theory" what FIS is about, but something bigger, at least in my view... It is curious that Borges was reacting in his charming Celestial Emporium to John Wilkins' ill fated scheme of "Universall Language", a new way to catalog the whole of human knowledge, including a universal philosophy, a new universal grammar, etc., and of course, everything was attempted perfectly classified and hierarchical (Wright, 2007).  Quite often it is the humanist, the artist, who deserves the upper hand; and for the good, as science itself benefits from the other part's intuitive vision.  best wishes Pedro -- (sorry, the other accompanying message of mine was an attempt to re-enter from Joe Brenner to Walter--maybe it was already in the list, but I have found it lost in my spam filter folder, ugh!) ----------------------------------------------

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