Dear John and FIS colleages,
I much agree (below) with the return to the biological; also Gordana and
Raquel had already argued along these guidelines. It does not mean that
things become very much clearer initially in the connection between
information and intelligence, but there is room for advancement. Thus,
in Yixin's question, "What is the precise relation between intelligence
and information?", one of the basic aspects to explore becomes
"populational thinking" --not much considered in AI schools (perhaps
very secondarily in the neural networks school.
In fact, in all realms of intelligence in Nature (cellular, nervous
systems, societies), we find "populations of processing agents". In
cells, it is the population of many millions of enzymes and proteins
performing catalytic tasks and molecular recognition activities --any
emphasis in molecular recognition will get short of the enormous
importance this phenomenon has in biological organization, it is the
"alpha and omega" (Shu-Kun-Lin has produced one of the best approaches
to the generality of this phenomenon). How populations of enzymes
achieve an emergent capability of intelligence? Unfortunately, we can
barely answer... (some googling about the term "cellular intelligence"
will show). The discussion on neuronal intelligence carries a similar
problem, as the neurodynamic underpinnings of animal behavior and
animal intelligence still lack a "central theory" (most of the debate on
consciousness is but an uninteresting quagmire)... Finally, a much
debated contemporary topic related with social intelligence deals with
the problem solving capacity of markets. A very extended conception
about social organization hinges in the faith that the creativity of
individuals coupled with the "invisible hand" of markets can solve all
problems, climate change included... given the magnitude of civilization
survival problems of today, the topic of social intelligence deserves
some second thoughts.
Anyhow, the above were just tidbits. Taken seriously, "populational
thinking" can produce a new discourse in the relationship between
information and intelligence. I keep saying what I argued during the
Beijing conference, we need a new way of thinking.
best regards
---Pedro
This is a common situation in
biology. In fact I have been told that some
proteins pass through membranes through
successive conformational changes that remove
energy barriers to the transfer, much like the
simple experiment reported in the article. This
has been known for at least 15 years, I think.
Inasmuch as there is functionality here, semiotic
considerations may be relevant in this case. But
not in the case in the article. Intelligence is a
special case of the biological (so far).
Conformational change is even more important and
less dependent on the energetic substrate, and
more on other conformations and their changes (e.g., in inference).
The intelligent systems mainly do the same.
Everything does the same. It is how it is done that is important.
My best,
John
--
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Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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