Dear Jerry,
Thank you as usual for your thought-provoking note, which nevertheless requires
the following clarification of your position. You ask, because I assume that
your answers to your four questions is "no", that there is no tension in the
group between the empirical and abstract, given the success of Shannon, etc.
Do you not believe in the validity of Boolean algebra?
JEB: I do not, for complex informational and other non-Markovian processes.
Do you not believe in the validity of encoding processes?
JEB: Only in a very limited computational domain.
Do you not believe in the validity of transmission processes/error correction
codes?
JEB: Same as above. This picture excludes most of what is important in
information transmission in interpersonal interactions.
Do you believe that the genesis of mind is Turing computable?
JEB: I do not
This is, for me at least, a solid basis for 'tension'.
If all this is what the 'overwhelming majority' of people in this group
believe, then I accept my minority status. But then, I also find your more
general position that
The current foundation of information sciences does not meet the needs of
chemistry, biology or medicine. A second foundation must be built to express
the role of information in communications within living systems.
as an overly pessimistic statement of the situation. The FoundationS (plural)
of Information Science are developing due to the work of Pedro in
Bioinformatics and Bob L. and Bob U. in related areas; Gordana in natural
computational aspects of information; Loet and Deacon (by proxy) in dynamics;
myself in the logical grounding and patterns of evolution of all this in
physics; John Collier, José Maria, Sören in cybersemiotics, Krassimir and
others, all hopefully with the major foundational document of Mark Burgin in
mind.
My vision is that what is really needed is a new relational synthesis of this
foundational work that takes into account the most relevant aspects of all of
it. I look forward to seeing new contributions along these lines, emerging,
exactly from the tension between the abstract and non-abstract characteristics
of information.
Best wishes,
Joseph
----- Original Message -----
From: Jerry LR Chandler
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 8:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] fis Digest, Vol 577, Issue 10
Pedro, List:
You write:
...a reference to the tension between the empirical and the abstract in
FIS. I quite agree, it is one of the essential tensions in any healthy
scientific development (whenever it is possible to maintain it).
Tensions?
Tensions between the empirical and the abstract?
From my reading of the posts of various contributors over the past 3-5 years,
I heartily disagree with this view of the current situation on this FIS list
serve.
Shannon's information theory was published about 65 years ago.
It has become the logical foundation of a huge industry employing millions of
workers, globally.
The principle abstraction of information theory can be roughly stated. If
one encoded information (numbers, letters, images, mathematics, physics,
chemistry, biology, medicine, art, music, literature, feeling, emotions, etc.)
into a binary code, then the encoded information can be electronically encoded
and transmitted (transferred) to other electronic devices and decoded by other
machines or individuals. This dependency, in turn, relies upon Boolean Algebra
and associated mathematics. It now appears that the overwhelming majority of
contributors to list serve find this externalist's view of information to be in
complete harmony with the empirical and the abstract.
Where is the tension?
Do you not believe in the validity of Boolean algebra?
Do you not believe in the validity of encoding processes?
Do you not believe in the validity of transmission processes/error correction
codes?
The overwhelming majority of contributors find this externalist's view of
information to be acceptable, and seek to make it more acceptable by tweaking
the "word-smithing" a bit in order to become congruent with their personal
philosophy. At least that is my view of the current status.
Why do I write this message, perhaps a bit on the side of harshness?
Quite simple.
The current foundation of information sciences does not meet the needs of
chemistry, biology or medicine. A second foundation must be built to express
the role of information in communications within living systems. For example,
central to the tree of life are the informative feed-forwards processes that
transmit genetic information into individual anatomies and logical processes,
life itself. Of particular theoretical interest, from the perspective of FIS,
are the feed-forward processes that start with the messages encoded in a
fertilized egg and generate, through a sequence of biochemical process, the
mind.
Perhaps one or more of the externalists can determine whether the genesis of
mind, a process common to almost all human descendants, is Turing Computable or
not?
Cheers
Jerry
Research Professor
Krasnow Institute for Advanced Studies
GMU
On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:00 AM, fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: FIS News (Pedro C. Marijuan)
From: "Pedro C. Marijuan" <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] FIS News
Date: November 7, 2013 7:11:48 AM CST
To: <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Dear Karl and FIS colleagues,
Many thanks for the comprehensive response. You have made a reference to
the tension between the empirical and the abstract in FIS. I quite agree, it is
one of the essential tensions in any healthy scientific development (whenever
it is possible to maintain it). My tongue-in-cheek complain was precisely
addressed to the usual abscence of such tension in our discussions, or say, the
insufficient presence of the empirical. For instance, in the current exchange I
was mentioning the ecological-sociological views of Jared Diamond, as one of
the most vocal authors on the "collapse" of historical societies, even pretty
complex ones. His views on the structural traits involving the
complexification of the daily interactions could be quite interesting to
discuss along the present theme.
Nowadays there also a number of network science studies on person-to-person
interactions, often along cell-phone technologies. Other more general
approaches look for the influence of new technologies in human relationships
(in Xian an excellent presentation on "friendship" from an Aristotelian
background in the i-society was made by Michael Patrick). Another interesting
angle concerns the studies on "smart cities" , how individual life stories are
carried out among energy-material flows coupled with information flows of a
new nature. The contemporary acceleration of "artificial information flows"
impinging on the individual and the parallel decrease in the standards of
mental health may be a matter of concern --are there any correlations?
Finally, I remake "informationally" some of the points raised by Karl below
on forestry --what about making sense on the info flows between heterogeneous
species that couple the life cycles, eg, pheromones between cattle and grass?
About the cell, what about the signaling and communication infostructure that
guides the life cycle of each cell? And about social groups, that's the theme
now in question, on how conversation becomes the essential info flow knitting
them. In short, there are plenty of informational applied themes that can be
put in general language of information science and can help to maintain more
lively and fertile exchanges. Yes, in the mutual creative tension.
best wishes
---Pedro
Karl Javorszky wrote:
Dear FIS,
welcome new colleagues. Pedro has over the years built a scientific
community that is a pleasant and awakening environment for the participants.
There has always been a tension between the empirical and the abstract in
FIS. The name of the setup is "Foundations of Information Science". It is not
easy to speak about foundations in a concrete, specific way. The fundament is
the integral of all that are constructed based on these fundamental insights
and rules. One has to abstract from each of the applications and find that what
is common to all of them to speak about fundamental truths that are valid in
each of the particular ancounters with reality, the applied research.
Basic science is necessarily abstract. There is a strong
mathematical-logical current also in FIS. The rules of speaking clearly in a
rational dialogue were set up and codified by Wittgenstein in his "Tractatus
logico-philosophicus". To transmit an idea with clarity, one should use such
words that have a meaning commonly agreed on, and while speaking obey the
grammatical rules of the logical language. (By using this technique for
contrasting, we can recognise empty blah-blah, manipulative advertisement, PR
sermons etc., as these are grammatically correct but lack the common agreement
on the content. Then again, we can enjoy opera, drama and maintain social
empathy, if the common understanding is there, even when formal correctness of
a logical language is missing, like in exclamations or laughter.)
By using natural numbers as tokens for words, and performing tricks on
them, we can discuss possible logical sentences. The grammar of the sentences
will be by all means correct, because we use simple rules like {=,+,<,>}, but
the common understanding is not present yet in the necessary extent.
Understanding how societies, economies, the ecosystem, human thinking,
strategies of collaboration work: these are noble goals. On these fields, we
can conduct experiments, observe facts, enjoy empirics. Sadly, we cannot
communicate our findings among each other in the necessary clarity, because we
do not share a common language to discuss the phenomena in. Previously, we had
the concept of God (or gods or nature, etc.) as an active instance that creates
and manages order, the discovery of which is what we call "information". This
generation is too much multicultural to agree on a central cause that is the
principle (G. Bruno: Of Cause, Principle and Unity).
There is order in nature, societies, in human thinking, climate changes
and genetics. We can talk about the central order concept and find explanations
(other that "God's work") for its realisations, but this talk will have to be
conducted in a fashion that merits the goals expressed in the name of this
group. It is too much complicated listening first to a sociologist explaining
that subgroups marginalise and/or radicalise and can or can not integrate after
x generations, and then, say, to a forestry professional that fires have also a
self-clearing function, and then a biologist talking about prophase, metaphase
and anaphase. They all talk about continuity, form and order as expressed by
diversity within the whole.
Let me maintain the hope that FIS is a place where translations into each
other's languages are welcome and encouraged.
Karl
2013/11/4 Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
<mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>>
Dear FIS colleages,
Some new people from the Xian conference have joined our list
--welcome to all of them. Before coming back to the ongoing
discussion, let me briefly refer to ongoing changes in FIS
organization. The _scientific committee_ will be enlarged to
incorporate new trends, a _steering committee_ will be established
to provide stable management, the _Secretariat_ will be finally in
working order, and the _fis web pages_ reformed. The compromise is
to implement these changes during coming months. Information
Science is definitely entering a new time, and at FIS we need a
little bit more of organization if we want to keep playing our
role of scientific mentorship, also including matters of research,
publishing, conferences, summer school, etc. Another related news,
quite recent one, refers to the creation of the _Chinese Chapter
of ISIS_ organization (& FIS). It will be integrated by the
parties in Beijing, Wuhan, Xi'an, and other regions. At the time
being it will be coordinated by Xueshan Yan and Liu Chang. It will
be more amply disclosed during coming weeks.
About the ongoing discussion, why an essentially empirical work is
reinterpreted exclusively towards the most theoretical-abstract?
It is not quite useful. There are very cool aspects of Raquel's
work that would benefit of comments more "having the feet on the
ground". Then, from those further applied aspects we could connect
with the abstract-theoretical, but with more fertility than now. I
am thinking particularly on Jared Diamond's work on the
environmental and cultural conditions for the development of
social complexity. Do these conditions dovetail with some of the
mental/numerical thresholds of the type argued by Raquel and Jorge
(and myself)? I think so.
best wishes
--Pedro
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 <tel:%2B34%20976%2071%203526> (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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