Replying to Guy --
You are right. My favorite examples of signals moving across scales
(e.g.,direct interactions) are (a) lightning, where a signal from the planet
scale system directly contacts an organism at a lower scale, and (b) cancer,
where a single cell can destroy a multicellular organism at a higher scale.
But it can't do this without first growing a population, increasing its
scale. So, such instances of cross scale signal transitions tend to be
disruptive. As Simon proposed, the stability of the world depends to some
extent on its being layered into different-scale domains.
Replying to Pedro --
What you are asking for -- a "physics-neutral" theory of information is, I
think not possible in our culture. Science is our dominant conceptual
institution, and physics is its basis (with logic as ITS foundation). The
sciences can be displayed thus, in a subsumptive hierarchy: {logic {physics
{chemistry {biology {psychology {sociology}}}}}}, with the last two possibly
reversed. There can be no statement in any science that would be
incompatible with physics. Having said that, we can see that physics has
been trying to broaden itself via quantum mechanics. But note the tern
'mechanics' here. Our culture is predisposed to mechanistic models. But
every day we experience 'qualia', and these do not seem to be involved with
anything in that hierarchy. Hence we have radical dualisms -- the epistemic
cut, mind / matter, map / territory, OR, internalism / externalism.
STAN
On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 4:18 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
> wrote:
>
>
> -------- Mensaje original -------- Asunto: physics and information Fecha:
> Tue, 05 Oct 2010 19:23:34 -0700 (PDT) De: Jacob I Lee
> <jacob...@csufresno.edu> <jacob...@csufresno.edu> Para: Pedro C. Marijuan
> <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> CC:
> fis@listas.unizar.es
>
>
> Hello,
>
> The recent discussion of the fluctuon model has made me curious about how
> closely a theory of information must be wedded to physics. I want to think
> of a theory of information that is independent of any particular model of
> physics, but this seems perilous when, for example, such things as the
> simultaneity of events across frames of reference may have at one time been
> taken as axiomatic. At some level of abstraction is there a
> physics-neutral theory of information universally applicable to any possible
> physics?
>
> My questions are assuredly naive, but naivety is the source of all
> questions.
>
> Best,
>
> Jacob
> www.jacoblee.net
>
>
>
> --
>
>
>
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>
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