Dear Pedro, I do not quite recognize myself in the statement: Basically, their informational subject looks like the abstract, disembodied, non-situated, classical observer, equipped in a Cartesian austerity --and outside, just the Order or maybe the Disorder. I thought my implicit observer was very much real, embodied and non-classical, fully participating (and in part constituting) the "order and disorder". However, I rather tend to agree with you that Loet's, Rosen's and Dubois' models of communication, anticipation, etc. are somewhat too abstract. The models, as I think Loet may agree, are created for analysis, and do not define the physical, dynamic relation between the models, the creation of models and what is being modeled as processes. I have never understood why Maturana had to say that observers are operationally generated when it seems obvious that they exist, albeit at different levels of complexity and (and here we agree) capability of recursiveness. As I have said previously, autopoiesis, like spontaneity and self-organization are concepts that are very useful, but cannot be taken to describe, as fully as I anyway would like, the dynamics of the cognitive processes necessary for an understanding of information and meaning. The above notwithstanding, I then have a problem with your, Pedro, formulation of the capabilities of "non-human" observers. Here, I agree with the principle expressed by Loet that the examples of the entities you mentioned lack the necessary cognitive abilities, although I focus on aspects of them other than model-related. A theory in which NOTHING previous is taken as entirely satisfactory seems more and more necessary . . . Best wishes, Joseph ----Ursprüngliche Nachricht---- Von: l...@leydesdorff.net Datum: 01.04.2011 12:14 An: "'Pedro C. Marijuan'"<pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>, <fis@listas.unizar.es> Betreff: Re: [Fis] Discussion colophon--James Hannam. Orders and Ordering Principles Dear Pedro, I understand that you have some problems with my epistemic stance. Let me try to clarify. Let me go back to Maturana (1978) "The Biology of Language ..." On p. 49, he formulated: " ... so that the relations of neuronal activity generated under consensual behavior become perturbations and components to further consensual behavior, an observer is operationally generated." And furthermore (at this same page): " ... the second-order consensual domain that it establishes with other organisms becomes indistinguishable from a semantic domain." This observer (at the biological level) is able to provide meaning to the information. However, as Maturana argues later in this paper this semantics is different from that of "human super-observers" introduced from p. 56 onwards. My interest is in human super-observers. I consider the latter as psychological systems which are able not only to provide meaning to the observations, but also to communicate meaning. The communication of meaning generates a supra-individual "super-semantic" domain, in which meaning cannot only be provided, but also changed; not in the sense of updated but because of the reflexivity involved. Robert Rosen's notion of anticipatory systems is here important. Dubois (1998) distinguished between incursive and hyper-incursive systems and between weak and strong anticipation. Both psychological observers and interhuman discourses can be considered as strongly anticipatory, that is, they use future states -- discursively and reflexively envisaged -- for the update. Non-human systems do not have this capacity: they learn by adaptation, but not in terms of entertaining and potentially discussing models. Models provide predictions of future states that can be used for updating the persent state of the systems which can entertain these models. Thus, new options are generated. This increases the redundancy; that is, against the arrow of time. Meaning providing already does so, but communication and codification of meaning enhances this process further. Non-human observers (e.g., monkeys) are able to provide meaning and perhaps sometimes to entertain a model, but they are not able to communicate these models. That makes the difference. If models cannot be communicated, they cannot be improved consciously and reflexively. Thus, a non-human may be an observer, but it cannot be a cogito. This makes the psychological system different from the biological. Cogitantes can entertain and discuss models (as cogitata). One of the models, for example, is the one of autopoiesis. Best wishes, Loet Loet Leydesdorff Professor, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam. Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-842239111 l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/ -----Original Message----- From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan Sent: Friday, April 01, 2011 11:29 AM To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Discussion colophon--James Hannam. Orders and Ordering Principles Dear FIS colleagues, I have some differences about the epistemic stance recently discussed by Karl, Loet (and in part, Joseph, but he looks more as trying to step on "the reality", whatever it is). Basically, their informational subject looks like the abstract, disembodied, non-situated, classical observer, equipped in a Cartesian austerity --and outside, just the Order or maybe the Disorder. My contention is that the epistemology of information science has to give room for non-human "observers", I mean, there is cognition and informational processes (forms of knowledge and intelligence included) in bacteria, living cells in general, non human nervous systems, and in a number of social constructions and institutions ("accounting" processes, specifically the sciences), even at the level of global human society we are living now in an epoch of planetary observation and actuation (eg, climate change) --not to speak only on politics and economics. The micro-macro info flows and knowledge circulation are fascinating epistemic problems of our time, when collectively considered. I have argued in previous messages that a new info "rhetorics" looks necessary, so to prepare the room for a new info epistemology. The problem of the "agent(s)" and the "world(s)", the abstract observer(s) and the real one(s), the necessary disciplinary involvement (particularly of the neurosciences, the "action" strike...) all of this looks very difficult to be handled directly. New way of thinking needed. best wishes ---Pedro PS. NEXT WEEK THE NEW DISCUSSION SESSION BY MARK BURGING ON INFO THEORY WILL BE ANNOUNCED. _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
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