Dear Joseph and FIS collegues,
The only item I can remember formally addressing the topic is "La
logique du vivant", by Francois Jacob in very early 70's. But it was
perhaps more a philosophy of life than a rigorous approach or overall
theoretical description of life processes. In any case it was original
("bricolage") and inspiring. Nowadays my main criticism to visions
inspired in physics would run as follows: imagine we are dealing with
computers; any general approach to their performances, should it be
based on "solid state physics"? Nope. You would need a theoretical,
brand new vision, eg Turing machine on universal computation, or
something similar attending to structures of computing processes and
computing machinery. It would extend completely beyond physics, as the
informatics realm is situated... pure technological creativity due to
software and hardware engineers (of course, always mastering and slaving
natural processes at the bottom, but in "artful" ways and multilevel
purposes).
Regarding bio, the new theoretical integrated or unified approach
("logic" or whatever) would be similar to the above creativity. Grounded
on some central bio characteristic, in my opinion self construction, as
von Neumann started with his unfinished theory of self-constructing
machines. Cells (and organisms) are the only entities rigorously
selfconstructing themselves. Actually biology would be the science of
selfconstruction... where a new notion of info related to the impact of
communication on selfconstructing processes ("meaning") would be
central. It may look challenging, but without protein synthesis there is
no meaning!
My criticism to current bio-doctrines extends to systems biology and
other fashions (synthetic biology, bioinspired computing, artificial
life...). Some ideas thrown in Inbiosa meetings could enter into the
discussion too, I think.
best wishes
---Pedro
joe.bren...@bluewin.ch escribió:
Dear Pedro,
Thank you, Pedro, for bringing up the question of logics. My
suggestion of a Logic in Reality is to open the debate, rather than to
claim it is the only "over-arching logic" possible. Nevertheless, it
would be useful for me and perhaps others if you could make your
critique more specific by pointing to at least one logic that is used
biologically that addresses the dynamics of complex processes. So far,
I have not identified any such logical system that is more than a
metaphorical use of the term "logic" or refers to some more or less
reproducible characteristics of such processes. Otherwise, logics seem
to me to refer only to abstracted linguistic aspects of processes that
of course follow classical propositional logic but equate to tautologies.
Because Logic in Reality is grounded in physics, it is able to express
somewhat more about change, evolution, etc. than any logic of which I
am aware. I would be glad to learn of other candidates for this role.
Thank you and best wishes,
Joseph
----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----
Von: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
Datum: 11.04.2012 10:44
An: <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Betreff: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
Dear John and colleagues,
Nice to hear that you are OK after that dangerous intoxication
--our best wishes for your complete recovery!
About physical information I think that Landauer clarified the
panorama, at least concerning the relationship between information
theory and thermodynamics. According to his principle, any
logically irreversible transformation of classical information is
necessarily accompanied by the dissipation of at least k T ln(2)
of heat per lost bit (about 3 x 10 exp -21 Joules at 300 K
temperature), where obviously k is the Boltzmann constant and T
the temperature. Recently this principle has been verified
experimentally (Nature, 8 March 2012, p. 187). By the way, in his
past message Loet enters "Watts" in a similar expression (?). To
insist, Entropy and Information are dimensionless and do not
explicitly incorporate any units... About the quantum management
of info theory, it is another matter, quite more tricky.
Beyond that immediate physicality, things get quite obscure as our
contradictory "meaning" messages witness. The point made by Joseph
on an overarching logic, is rather difficult to be maintained --at
least in my small province of the biological signaling pathways.
Too many logics are used biologically in too many different
contexts or niches, either molecularly or neuronally... I bet that
they are not susceptible of integration in any logical system.
Maybe Inbiosa parties would also disagree with me in this regard.
best wishes to all,
---Pedro
John Collier escribió:
Folks,
I have been in the hospital for almost three weeks due to
bleeding from warfarin. I had to have three blood transfusions
and an operation. I am only now getting my strength back. Some of
my comments, therefore, may be dated.
"Physical" has a variety of overlapping meanings (a
Wittgensteinian family resemblence). For example Quine takes the
physical to be anything accessible to the senses or inferences
therefrom. Ladyman, Ross, Collier an Spurrett take the physical
to be the most fundamental laws of our (part of) the universe. I
did not agree with this, among some other crucial points, so I
was not a primary author. Information is at least physical in
both of these senses. Quine's approach might make it entirely
physical. I prefer to relate it to the causal, which always has
physical parametres, as far as we know. But there are many ways
of approaching this issue, and disentangling them will be a major
advance in foundations of information theory.
My Best,
John
Professor John Collier
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292
F: +27 (31) 260 3031
email: colli...@ukzn.ac.za <mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>>>> On
2012/03/16 at 01:19 PM, in message <4f6321c3.5000...@aragon.es>,
"Pedro C. Marijuan" <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> wrote:
Dear discussants,
I tend to disagree with the motto "information is physical" if
taken too strictly. Obviously if we look "downwards" it is OK,
but in the "upward" direction it is different. Info is not only
physical then, and the dimension of self-construction along the
realization of life cycle has to be entered. Then the signal, the
info, has "content" and "meaning". Otherwise if we insist only in
the physical downward dimension we have just conventional
computing/ info processing. My opinion is that the notion of
absence is crucial for advancing in the upward, but useless in
the downward.
By the way, I already wrote about info and the absence theme in a
1994 or 1995 paper in BioSystems...
best
---Pedro
walter.riof...@terra.com.pe escribió:
Thanks John and Kevin to update issues in information,
computation, energy and reality.
I would like point out to other articles more focused in how
coherence and entanglement are used by living systems (far from
thermal equilibrium):
Engel G.S., Calhoun T.R., Read E.L., Ahn T.K., Mancal T., Cheng
Y.C., Blankenship R.E., Fleming G.R. (2007) Evidence for
wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in
photosynthetic systems. Nature, 446(7137): 782-786.
Collini E., Scholes G. (2009) Coherent intrachain energy in
migration in a conjugated polymer at room temperature. Science,
vol. 323 No. 5912 pp. 369-373.
Gauger E.M., Rieper E., Morton J.J.L., Benjamin S.C., Vedral V.
(2011) Sustained Quantum Coherence and Entanglement in the Avian
Compass. Phys. Rev. Lett., 106: 040503.
Cia, J. et al, (2009) Dynamic entanglement in oscillating
molecules. arXiv:0809.4906v1 [quant-ph]
Sincerely,
Walter
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Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª
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pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
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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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