Re Loet's comment that it is "communication" that is evolving, I have major difficulties of paradigmatic incommensurability with Luhmann's version of autopoiesis. This appears to place communications on a plane orthogonal to entities actually engaged in communication, akin to the imaginary plane of a complex number, and I assume that it is this kind of communication Loet refers to. At least this is what I understand Luhmann to be saying in his 1991 "System as difference". Organization 13(1), 37-57 (2006); and in his 1995. The paradox of observing systems. (in) Rasch, W. (ed.) Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity. Stanford University Press, Stanford (2002), pp. 79-93 [Reprinted from Cultural Critique 31 (1995): 37-53]). In my own understanding of reflexivity and recursion in autopoietic systems from an evolutionary point of view and in communications between them, I don't see the same paradoxes that concerned Maturana and Varela and that Luhmann took to extremes. I think that Popper's general theory of evolution that he proposed as a resolution to the matter/mind problem (e.g., in his 1972 chapter on Clouds and Clocks) also eliminates the supposed paradoxes of self-reference. Maturana and Varela mostly missed the significance of history and evolution along the time dimension. The recursive processes of autopoiesis are never instantaneous - the autopoietic system progresses from one instant to the next via historically constrained "adjacent possible" states in the phase space of all possibilities (Kauffman 2000. Investigations. Oxford Univ. Press). Selection favors the evolution of recursive processes that preserve autopoiesis, but the self-reference of semantic closure is always open along the time axis. In other words, the living entity never refers to its own existence in the present instance. Animated slides 11-12, and 14-15 in my presentation "Time value of knowledge - time based frameworks for valuing knowledge" (http://tinyurl.com/3y6n4y) - illustrates my understanding of cognitive processes along the time dimension. Hopefully this will clarify some of the words. >From my world view as an evolutionary biologist whose thinking derives from >Popper's evolutionary epistemology, communication is a disturbance caused by a >"sender" that has the capacity to make a difference to a recipient affected by >the disturbance. The communication may be directly physical (Popper's W2) or >it may be codified (where the encoded content exists in Popper's W3). As a result of selection or self-criticism the generating or receiving apparatus or the meaning of the intended or received messages may change through successive cycles of recursion. However, I cannot see any way that a communication as a uninterpreted (and thus meaningless) disturbance propagating through space (as photons, as molecular vibrations, etc.) can evolve in response to selection. Thus, to me the constitutions of the agents are what evolves, not the communication (or the meaning of its content) as interpreted by the agents. However, I accept that as a consequence of misinterpretations within my paradigmatic world view, I may be misconstruing Loet's comments. Bill William P. (Bill) Hall, PhD Documentation and Knowledge Management Systems Analyst Evolutionary Biology of Species and Organizations PO Box 94 Riddells Creek, Vic. 3431 Phone: +61 3 5428 6246 Email: [email protected] http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net/ National Fellow, Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society University of Melbourne Office: (Mon, Wed, Fri only) Room 106 Old Engineering, Melbourne School of Engineering Melbourne 3010 Phone: +61 3 8344 4000 x 58033 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.acsis.unimelb.edu.au/ ---- Loet Leydesdorff <[email protected]> wrote: > Although information is often defined > in a communications theory context (i.e., Shannon-Weaver) > information of significance to people and other living things is better defined as ?a > difference that makes a difference? (Bateson) that has little > connection to the Shannon-Weaver kind. The relationship between knowledge > and information > also needs to be examined in an evolutionary context ? where the DIKW > pyramid makes more sense than when looked at in isolation. Dear colleagues, It seems to me that one has to specify the unit of evolution. In this case, the unit of evolution is communication: that is, communication --and not agency-- is evolving. First, this can be expressed as simply the communication of differences (true/false). Shannon-type communication of information is contained in probability distributions which can be considered as aggregates of differences and therefore measured in bits. A difference can make a difference for a receiving system. The first-order differences --Shannon-type information-- can then be provided with meaning. Some information can be considered as meaningful and other information then is considered as noise. Knowledge can be considered as a meaning which makes a difference. The communication is then not only positioned (by a receiving --observing-- system), but additionally coded over the time axis. Knowledge codifies both information and meaning. Whether the observing system is an observer or a networked system does not yet make a difference at this abstract level of specifying the recursion of selections. However, the reflection and therefore codification operates differently in human agents from interhuman communications. The latter cannot "embody" the communications. Tacit knowledge can only be developed by agents; discursive knowledge in networks on which agents can reflect. Best wishes, Loet ________________________________ Loet Leydesdorff Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam. Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681 [email protected] ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
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