Dear FISers, Thanks to the different parties for the very authoritative responses. My two main contentions after reading imply "concision" or "parsimony" (it is not possible to attempt a succinct treatment of the term?), and a relative lack of emphasis on "adaptability" (though it was clearly present in Bill's text through Popper).
About the former, my position is that an advancement in the whole cluster of information-related terms would naturalize and would provide more elegant understanding of the term in a variety of contexts ---cellular, nervous systems, individuals & cultures, institutions, etc.). "Distinction upon the adjacent" is my bet for info itself (Karl's treatment of distinctions is quite suggestive); but I have no clear ideas on how go on, and connect with knowledge in a similar generalized way ... Then, adaptability has been historically championed, as is well known, by Michael Conrad in his very advanced approach to the vertical flow of info processes (also kindly acknowledging the work of Bob Ulanowicz of this list). Trade offs are an important part of Michael's view (in between evolvability, efficiency, structural programmability). Roughly expressed, my contention is that the adaptability side of knowledge can be meaningfully rediscussed in a Conradian way. Advances in the formalization potentially brought by the confluence of the two previous lines would free knowledge itself of the "conceptual load" inherent in most of the responses. Probably, the most decisive evolutionary adaptive knowledges ever gathered by the human species were never put in conceptual / linguistic form: taming of fire (cooking & exodigestion), artificial ecosystems (agriculture, husbandry). For knowledge itself, as in other realms, it is the "cognit" (action-perception constellation, see Fuster) that counts, not the concept. best Pedro -- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza. España / Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es ------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
