Dear Kevin, Joe, FIS What worried me in the recent exchanges was (possibly based on my misunderstanding) an implicit suggestion that information somehow can be unphysical when it becomes semantic. Exactly as Joe says (and Deacon as well in his book), absentials are defined in relation to (regularities of) that which is present. Indeed there is the figure-background connection; there are no absentials without “presentials” which are physical.
I will also now wait for FIS debate. Best wishes, Gordana ------------------------------------------------ http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/<http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/%7Egdc/> https://sites.google.com/site/naturalcomputingaisbiacap2012 From: joe.bren...@bluewin.ch [mailto:joe.bren...@bluewin.ch] Sent: den 17 mars 2012 05:54 To: Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic; fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: AW: Re: [Fis] Physics of Computing Dear Gordana, There are for me many question marks in ascriptions of quantum properties to complex cognitive phenomena. The inversion of perspective I propose. using Deacon's term, is to see processes of superposition as common both to quantum phenomena as simplified projections of mental processes and to the mental processes themselves. This does not require, as many people seem rather desperately to want, that any given figure -ground event involve quanta at that higher level. In this case, your useful term "likened with a quantum mechanical superposition" can be replaced, usefully I suggest, by a weighting of the degrees of actuality and potentiality of the components of a evolving complex process. This is both where information is and what it is. In this connection, I call all FIS'ers attention to the very pertinent concept of another Andrei, Andrei Igamberdiev, described in his book, of Internal Quantum States. The difference is, if I understand both sets of ideas correctly, is that Igamberdiev is talking about the foundations of theoretical biology. He does not require that Nature at higher levels actually instantiate quantum structures in any sense other than that, as Gordana says, there is nothing non-physical and quanta are involved a priori. Cheers, Joseph ----Ursprüngliche Nachricht---- Von: gordana.dodig-crnko...@mdh.se Datum: 16.03.2012 23:11 An: "Kevin Clark"<kbclark...@yahoo.com>, "fis@listas.unizar.es"<fis@listas.unizar.es> Kopie: "andrei.khrenni...@msi.vxu.se"<andrei.khrenni...@msi.vxu.se> Betreff: Re: [Fis] Physics of Computing @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;} @font-face {font-family:Tahoma; panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;} @font-face {font-family:Consolas; panose-1:2 11 6 9 2 2 4 3 2 4;} p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-priority:99; color:blue; text-decoration:underline;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {mso-style-priority:99; color:purple; text-decoration:underline;} span.mark {mso-style-name:mark;} span.EmailStyle19 {mso-style-type:personal-reply; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; color:#1F497D;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; font-size:10.0pt;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} -> [if gte mso 9]>[if gte mso 9]> Dear Kevin and FIS, Searching for Andrei’s articles, I found http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0906/0906.4952.pdf and in the abstract there is a claim: “Therefore, mental states, during perception cognition of ambiguous figures, follow quantum mechanics.” I am not an expert by any means but I find this claim very plausible from my personal experience as a cognitive agent in case of ambiguous figures. When I cannot decide what an ambiguous figure actually is I keep number of plausible hypotheses actual in mind waiting for contextual clues to help me make disambiguation. The state of mind about an ambiguous figure can be written as a superposition of possible states with corresponding weights and that superposition can be likened with a quantum mechanical superposition of states. It seems to me that there could be very natural mechanisms for this phenomenon, and really nothing non-physical. Maybe Andrei can help elucidate the exact meaning of similar statistical forms found in several different fields, as the title of his book says: “Ubiquitous quantum structure: from psychology to finance”. Best, Gordana PS Back to Pedro’s original reference to physical levels of information, Deacon made a useful distinction between three different levels of information. Deacon’s three types of information parallel his three levels of emergent dynamics which in Salthe’s notation looks like: [1. thermo- [2. morpho- [3. teleo-dynamics]]] with corresponding mechanisms [1. mass-energetic [2. self-organization [3. self-preservation (semiotic)]]] and corresponding Aristotle’s causes [1. efficient cause [ 2. formal cause [ 3. final cause]]] In the above, thermodynamics and semiotic layers of organization are linked via intermediary layer of morphodynamics (spontaneous form-generating processes), and thus do not communicate directly (so it looks like mind communicating with matter via form). Of course there is physics at the bottom. ------------------------------------------------ http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/<http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/%7Egdc/> https://sites.google.com/site/naturalcomputingaisbiacap2012 From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Kevin Clark Sent: den 16 mars 2012 21:56 To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: [Fis] Physics of Computing Dear FISers: Pedro and Plamen raise good and welcomed points regarding the nature of physics, information, and biology. Although I believe in a strong relationship between information and physics in biology, there are striking examples where direct correspondences between information, physics, and biology seem to depart. Scientists are only beginning to tease out these discrepancies which will undoubtedly give us a better understand of information. For example, in the study of cognition by A. Khrennikov and colleagues and J. Busemyer and colleagues, decisional processes may conform to quantum statistics and computation without necessarily being mediated by quantum mechanical phenomena at a biological level of description. I found this to be true in ciliates as well, where social strategy search speeds and decision rates may produce quantum computational phases that obey quantum statistics. In such cases, a changing classical diffusion term of response regulator reaction-diffusion parsimoniously accounts for the transition from classical to quantum information processing. Thus, there is no direct correspondence between quantum physicochemistry and quantum computation. Because the particular reaction-diffusion biochemistry is not unique to ciliates (i.e., the same phenomena is observed in plants, animals, and possibly bacteria), this incongruity may be widespread across life. Best regards, Kevin Clark
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