Gavin -- I send this reply to you, but, since we on this list are allowed
only two messages per week, I will reserve sending it to the list until
later in the week.
On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 6:41 AM, Gavin Ritz <garr...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
Hi there Stan
SS: Info theory presumably applies to everything and anything.
GR: It was never intended to apply to anything but communication
instruments. That is sending English language down a pipe.
S: Since it was abstracted from human communication systems, it has taken on
a 'life of its own', as any abstraction has a right to do.
GR: In my opinion it still only does, I cant get my head around how say
information theory actually applies to direct human communication or organic
sensing systems. All our sensing systems are energy transduction systems,
once inside the individual it 's moved via Na/K pumps aided by ADP to ATP
conversions to the brain all electrical, chemical energy. So in the
environment it's just a sound (phonon) or light (photon) or chemical or heat
energy where are the bits (information theory part) or markers. They are
just not there.
Unless this information is what underlies energy and is what makes up the
rest of the universe including dark matter and dark energy. And is also what
underlies the theory of Geometricdynamics.(Relativity theory)..?????? How so
I would not know.
S: As a materialist, I have sympathy with your view here. I think the crux
of the matter is being examined right now -- is information ('bit') primal
or is stuff ('it') primal? In my view there needs to be stuff in order for
there to be a perspective, and there needs to be a perspective before there
is anything to communicate. But, given this, I go further and argue that
semiosis (as physiosemiosis) emerges simultaneously. I define semiosis as
reaction mediated by context. Any perspective will have a context, and IF
that context has an effect on a locale's reaction (i.e., acts as a sign),
then that is ( at least proto) semiosis. So:
Big Bang --> matter --> locales --> contextuality --> semiosis
On this view the Newtonian action <--> reaction is a debased, if not wholly
fictional construction. Concerning 'dark things', in my view they are
mathematical variables.
STAN
Gavin --
On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 7:50 PM, Gavin Ritz <garr...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
Sure it can have a life on its own, but fundamentally human communication is
the integration of (sound) phonons and sight (photons) that is vibration of
matter across a wide frequency spectrum. There's no information there? I see
only energy. Language in my opinion is matter's desire to be be known.
Information is an abstraction related closely to form, which it is supposed
always could be translated to instructions in a computer, creating 'bits'
from inspection of 'its'. Then the supposition is that The World also
reckons with information, leading to" 'its from 'bits' ". This, to me, is
implausible.
STAN
Then, replying to Jerry --
On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 5:05 PM, Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@me.com>
wrote:
List:
My responses to recent posts by Karl, Stan, Joe, Loet, Gavin, John, and Bob
by the number of the digest that I rec’d. I seek to address several basic
issues.
-snip-
Stan (545:10) *Re: [Fis] Ostension and the Chemical / Molecular Biological
Science*, …It is this translation from material observations into logical
form, in particular into fully explicit, crisp logical form that I am
questioning. Yes, it can lead to short term triumphs, via engineering,…
JLRC: Hummmm, I think you miss the point. The abstract symbol systems of
Dalton, Lavoisier, and Coulomb underly the foundations of thermodynamics as
well as the Shannon theory of information as well as our concept of such
abstractions as “energy” and “entropy.” These symbol systems are now firmly
embedded in the logic of scientific communications. Perhaps you wish to
infer that concept of ostension is not useful in the natural sciences? Or,
is it that in your world view, “utility” is a bad word?
Actually, yes, 'utility' IS a bad word in my view. We have virtually
wrecked the world basing our actions almost solely on utility. Peirce's
pragmaticism is a broader and philosophically more sophisticated notion than
pragmatism. Then, The abstractions of physical science, deployed using
maths, have certainly been useful in the unfortunate ascendency of our
culture. Their use in natural settings is limited to (admittedly powerful)
generalities, as opposed to their detailed uses in engineered experiments.
They cannot be used to deal accurately with unforeseen and unforeseeable
contexts, which history continually generates in the world. That said, I
greatly admire thermodynamics when deployed generally in philosophical
inquiry because it does relate to sensible general properties of the world
useful for understanding (as opposed to exploitation).
BTW, Lavoisier / Daltonian logical forms are not fully explicit in the usual
sense of mathematics. They are closer to codes with an exact syntax.
Most interesting. Will you do a paper on this? I should add that I have
been suggesting that science at least undertake to explore using fuzzy logic
rather than two-valued. The world and everything in it is vague, while our
models of it have generally been fully explicit.
Stan (245:12) … Put otherwise, does anyone know of data about natural things
that would not deliver a power law?
JLRC: Power laws are the exception, not the rule in the natural sciences.
For example, catalysis, the source of nearly all of biological catalysis
does not follow a power law. In general, chemical structures are not
representable by power laws. A ‘power law’ is an attempt to deny the role of
individual identity by asserting a family of exponential relations. Power
laws are extremely useful approximations in the social sciences when
exactitude is not required. A power law is merely an inference based on
inductive reasoning about a statistical distribution.
Well, OK. Your point is that descriptions of entities ( DNA, buildings,
tornadoes, frogs, etc.) do not use power laws but are indeed 'data'. Yes. I
meant data about magnitudes of ensembles of kinds of phenomena. Are there
phenomena that could not be ranked thus?
Closing Notes:
-snip-
Could we agree that Human Communication, from body to body or from mind to
mind, is perplexing? ;-)
Why not? But even more perplexing is communication between less fully
developed dissipative structures. I am considering the physiosemiosis of
abiotic systems for example.
STAN
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