Dear All, Let me please first call attention to a key phrase in Pedro's note:
"a new assortment of analytical items to apply in the social-problems of today --multidisciplinary recombination, sustainability and social use of knowledge..." As some of you may not know, the phrase "A Modest Proposal" is the title of a deadly political satire by Jonathan Swift against the cruelty and indifference of late 18th Century British society. He "proposed" (much earlier than H.G. Wells' adaptation of the idea in /The Time Machine/) that the babies of poor Irish couples be fattened and eaten as meat, to save the costs of bringing them up. Although I respect Loet's esthetic view of formalism, I am concerned that with all the other calls for formalism being made we will wind up with something so abstract it will have little relevance to the real world, and how information is actually used. I for one do not wish to be a target of a Swiftian satire. "Cheers", Joseph ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pedro C. Marijuan" <[email protected]> To: "fis" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 2:40 PM Subject: Re: [Fis] Asymetry and Information: A modest proposal Dear Jerry and John H, As far as I see the problem, rather than a "gold standard" for the term information, an enlargement of context is required. We should speak about "informational entities" ---living cells, organisms, nervous systems, companies and institutions, countries, global civilization) and their peculiar way of handling very different categories of information-related constructs (e.g., knowledge, meaning). A new perspective is needed, just a way of thinking that provides a economic view of this realm. In computer science they study the "Knapsack Problem" of combinatorial optimization. An optimal composition has to be chosen for the multiple contents of the rucksack needed in a trip, given a certain limit weight and keeping the total value as large as possible. We cannot accumulate endless discussions on quantum information, thermodynamics, open systems, origins of life, etc. and finally devote a few lines to say what info is or not is. We should make a light recollection of starting points so that the rucksack can carry a new assortment of analytical items to apply in the social-problems of today --multidisciplinary recombination, sustainability and social use of knowledge... Thus, as a matter of play, we might pen the "10 basic principles of information science": 1. Information goes beyond communication, involving info generation, signaling, reception, meaning elaboration and response by the "informational entities". 2. Information is a way of existence, based on the exchange of signals that are used to guide the inner self-production (and self degradation) processes of informational entities. 3. Informational entities are capable of modifying their own structures adaptively, by means of inner "adaptive codes" (DNA& RNA, neural memories, cultural rules, knowledge compilations). 4. The advancement of a life cycle, or just permanence in time, is the overall result of all the self-modifying processes and signaling operations. 5. Signals are exchanged in multiple ways, often through specialized communicating networks ("media"). 6. The overall reference of signals is the life cycle --in order to establish their meaning & value. 7. 8. 9. and 10. points should refer to knowledge in itself and to information science in relation with the system of sciences... but have no time to continue ---more thought needed on the whole idea. By the way (to John H), a fascinating power law appears in the partitions of all natural numbers. The exponent is close to the 4/3 (or 3/4) so prevalent in biological dynamics ---does that mean anything? best wishes 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 [email protected] http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ ------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ fis mailing list [email protected] https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis _______________________________________________ fis mailing list [email protected] https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
