Pedro, your list of disciplines that information theory needs to ponder is brilliant--active matter, coupled oscillators, pharmacology, physiology, and developmental biology. to go back to the abiotic universe for a moment: here's one implication of the theory of a communicative cosmos i've been outlining to you. The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates is now out in paperback. The God Problem says that we live in a social cosmos, a communicative cosmos, a cosmos in which societies of atoms gossip and whisper to each other. there's a critical implication of this theory of a conversational cosmos for physics. current quantum physics is dedicated to the notion that a particle can exist in multiple states as long as it's in isolation, as long as it's not being observed, as long is it’s not being measured. but because this universe is profoundly communicative and because communicative forces like gravity exist in every distant nook and cranny of the cosmos, no particle is ever completely alone. other particles or, more important, other societies of particles, including mega societies like stars and galaxies, are taking a particle's measure and the particle is taking theirs. everywhere. so the basic assumption of the Copenhagen school of quantum physics is wrong. which means no quantum physics will be real until it takes the social, communicative, gossipy nature of the cosmos into account, the massively networked aspect of the cosmos. what does that mean for information theory? among other things, it means we have to delve into the mystery of what Luis Villareal calls group identity, the mystery of how masses of collaborating particles put out messages bigger than their individual powers would predict. we, like quantum physicists, need to delve into the mystery of emergent properties. which is where my book The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates comes in. with warmth and oomph--howard In a message dated 2/5/2016 8:33:01 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es writes:
Dear FISers, Just a couple of brief comments to Howard and Jerry. To Howards: thanks for the exciting New Year Lecture closure! However, your text below to Otto makes irresistible for me indulging in a final criticism. It is clear in the text that the boundaries of force are the very determinants of information/communication. Forces everywhere. From quark forces to the forces of history. It is exactly the 20th century dominant physicalism with an info/comm. aggiornamento. I cannot blame it all, of course, as your historical analysis is very original, but all the other physicalist conglomerate is not so useful/interesting. When life romps in this tiny corner of the universe, a new set of info-dynamics are set into motion, completely different, and capable of overcoming the boundary conditions of force. hb: well put, Pedro. The life cycle dominates and commands the environment: selfproducing, communicating, engaging with other life cycles, transforming everything, etc. hb: another good point. This constructive power goes beyond anything seen in the cosmos. It is an informational constructivism that does not follow smoothly from the atomistic narrative--there is a big divide... hb: yes, true. Historically it is a similar trend of informational constructivism what leads to overcome the Luciferine solvent power. See France and Germany: after 300 years of wars, treaties, armistices, hostilities, etc. finally are efficiently united in a common European purpose (or look at the endless wars between Spain and the United Kingdom). Thanks to collective intelligence in action (wisdom, justice, kindness) a group of enlightened politicians after WWII achieved a great design, like Founding Fathers in US 18th Century. These grand designs are the key to overcome so many contemporary Luciferine catastrophes around... But we would continue arguing for too long, so I stop and thank you again for the Lecture! hb: the book of mine that shows the creative forces in human history and their ability to radically upgrade humanity is The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism. To Jerry: you are quite right in the demand for some "scientific meat" around the notion of communicating, interconnected life cycles. I will try to provide a few portions: 1. "Active Matter", it is a new scientific field that is getting more and more fashionable. Basically it consists on computer simulations and real experimental molecular settings where active molecules (usually enzyme/proteins) interact with some motive power (ATP, electrical/magnetic fields, metal beads) and get interconnected in their "work cycles", with the emergence of amazing collective patterns apparently only restricted to the biological. This interconnection of "working cycles" is the genuine precursor to what I was meaning above. 2. Coupled oscillators. A lot of theoretical and experimental work done around very elementary oscillators (eg, famous Kuramoto model) applied to chemical, neuronal and theoretical physics fields. It is also known as "synchronization networks", very well worked by Winfree, Strogatz, Duncan Watts, etc., about biological clocks, fireflies, crickets, heart cells, and neurons. Very complex theoretical oscillators built (not far from the cell-cycle style, though realms of complexity below). 3. Pharmacology: it has been claimed that 80% of the current drugs produce their effects through the signaling system, by binding to the receptors, channels, etc. So, they interfere in the communication system of the cell to modify the life cycle events at a vast scale of whole tissues and organs. Now we have direct external action on interconnected cell-cycles, with myriads of models, drug designs, silicon and wet experimental works, etc. 4. Physiology. There is little doubt that the whole physiology relates finally to interconnected cellular life cycles. Unfortunately (or fortunately, who knows) most of physiology was conceived before there was even a dream or a hunch about cell-to-cell communication via especial signaling systems... We should ad neuroscience too, but it would be to much scientific meat for the lunch. To recap, once life is "on", there is a certain discourse about informational constructivity (to emphasize: which is based on the intertwining of self-production and communication via interconnected life cycles) that can reach quite high in order to better understand the info dynamics of those rare entities based in the informational way of existence... I think Howard's lecture has put us in front of very intriguing possibilities of social information science explanation. Best regards --Pedro the force cosmovision El 03/02/2016 a las 7:10, _HowlBloom@aol.com_ (mailto:howlbl...@aol.com) escribió: Otto, an interesting call, for a theory that brings together the brute force of an abiotic universe and information. Here's a short timeline that pulls the brute force elements together as informational exchange: The evolution of information, sociality, social structure, and the emergent properties of societies (all dates ABB, After the Big Bang) 10(-31) ABB primitive communication between quarks via the strong force. The first informational language: attraction and repulsion. 10(-31) ABB the first social groups, threesomes of quarks, produce two shocking emergent properties—protons and neutrons 10,000 ABB massive social dances, pressure waves, ring the cosmos like a gong. With, yes, music. What communicative force organizes trillions of trillions of particles into pressure waves—into rhythmically coming together in aggregations that span the universe? Do information exchange and communication choreograph pressure waves in which masses of particles rhythmically separate just a tiny bit, then come together again? 380,000 ABB emerging from a plasma, slowing down, and giving each other a bit of breathing room, elementary particles use the electromagnetic force to communicate. And they discover something odd. Tiny particles have an inanimate longing. And their inanimate longing precisely fits the inanimate longing of particles 1,800 times their size. The tiny particles join with the hulking monsters. The result? Another emergent property, another supersized surprise: atoms. Hydrogen, helium, and lithium, properties wildly unpredictable from just the properties of an electron and a proton. Properties that emerge from a communicative exchange. An informational exchange between protons and electrons. 380,000 ABB the atom reveals a basic of cosmic structure—hierarchy. Protons dominate. They determine where the team goes. Electrons subjugate themselves. They meekly go along. They subordinate. They humbly circle the proton nucleus. 380,000 ABB atoms communicate via gravity. 400,000 ABB more communication via gravity, but mass communication. The result? Competition. The era of the great gravity crusades. Wisps, plumes, and clots of atoms have showdowns, faceoffs in which the bigger swallows the smaller whole. Then the winner goes off to another showdown, another competitive confrontation. In which it either eats or is eaten. The result of these showdowns between gravity balls? Galaxies, stars, planets, and moons. A galaxy is, guess what, a social swirl organized in a hierarchy —black holes at the center, stars circling the black holes, planets circling the stars, and moons circling the planets. All via communication and information. All via receivers interpreting the messages of senders and acting on them. one bottom line: communication, information, music, competition, and hierarchy are not the products of post-agricultural, post industrial, or post capitalist societies. they are at work even in dead stuff. even pre-living nature. hope that helps. thanks again for letting me parade such strange ideas in such august company. Dear all, Just a quick reply to Howard's fascinating account of cosmic history. It seems what is crucially needed is a theory that brings together "brute force" on the one hand - laws of nature "blindly" colliding and colluding, from quarks to planets - and "information" on the other - from pre-human codes (perhaps including quantum computation) and communication to advanced human and cybernetic networks. The former seems to be able to do away with everything except a few simple rules of operation (gravity, natural selection, will-to-power), everything more complex being the unfolding of the interaction between these few simple rules (eternal or emergent is beside the point here). The latter seems to depend upon subjective interpretation, the retention of systems memory, symbolic coding-decoding, and other processes that compose only a subset of the (creatures and processes) of the universe. Never the twain shall meet. Or perhaps brute force can be analyzed as equivalent to information? Or vice versa? Or as two sides of the same coin? Best, Otto Lehto, Tampere, Finland -- ------------------------------------------------- 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.iacs@aragon.es_ (mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es) http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ ------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis ____________ Howard Bloom Author of: The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"-The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("A tremendously enjoyable book." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich), How I Accidentally Started the Sixties ("Wow! Whew! Wild! Wonderful!" Timothy Leary), and The Mohammed Code ("A terrifying book…the best book I've read on Islam." David Swindle, PJ Media). www.howardbloom.net Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University. Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; Founder, Space Development Steering Committee; Founder: The Group Selection Squad; Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project; Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board Member, Lifeboat Foundation; Editorial Board Member, Journal of Space Philosophy; Board member and member of Board of Governors, National Space Society.
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