Just a few short comments in response to Mark & John: We definitely must reconsider the logic of biology! To start with, we must abandon the Aristotelian prohibition of circular causality, as Alicia Juarrero suggests. Life is all about recursion! Then there's the inherent dialectical nature of living systems, as espoused by Lupasco and championed by Joseph.
Although more a matter of perspective than logic, we need to focus on life as configurations of processes, rather than objects moving according to universal laws. I have even suggested that this shift entails an entire revision of scientific metaphysics < https://people.clas.ufl.edu/ulan/publications/philosophy/3rdwindow/>. And there's the position of communication in regard to information theory. Historically, of course, IT emerged out of communication theory. It has grown, however, to envelop constraint in general, as Stan points out. One can speak of the information inhering in a structure in abstraction from any consideration of communication. John Collier calls this "enformation" and it is quite amenable to treatment by IT. One can quantify the information in a stable structure, or more importantly as regards life, in a configuration of processes < https://people.clas.ufl.edu/ulan/publications/ecosystems/ecolasc/>. With regard to what is driving the adaptation that John cites among cells and their environment, there is the centripetality that is a consequence of autocatalytic configurations, an attribute that was not yet included in Varela's autopoietic narrative (ibid.) Way back in 1960 Bertrand Russell pointed to it as the "drive behind all of evolution", but few have taken up his lead. For over 20 years I have been advocating the inclusion of this phenomenon among the fundamental characteristics of life -- one that provides directionality to living entities and the origin of selfhood and striving. Terry is now working on a book describing an independent treatment of the phenomenon. Finally, there's the need to move beyond the confines of the positivist thinking that constitutes most of physics and seriously to consider heterogeneity and absence. As Elsasser indicated, heterogeneity pushes us beyond the control of the universal laws and the circumscribed logic of physics <http://www.vordenker.de/elsasser/we_logic-biol.pdf>. The universal laws are not broken, but the combinatorics of heterogeneity implies that they can only constrain, but not determine outcomes in a universe rife with contingency <https://people.clas.ufl.edu/ulan/files/ProcStud.pdf>. As to reckoning absence, IT is the perfect vehicle to quantify entropic absence that is so critical to sustainable life < https://people.clas.ufl.edu/ulan/files/Reckon.pdf>. In all, I would posit that, if we want to accomplish a true understanding of living phenomena, we need to start thinking outside the current box -- WAY OUTSIDE!! My best to all, Bob On Wed, Jan 10, 2018 at 5:08 AM, Mark Johnson <johnsonm...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear John, > > Thank you very much for this - a great way to start the new year! > > I'd like to ask about "communication" - it's a word which is > understood in many different ways, and in the context of cells, is > hard to imagine. > > When you suggest that “the unicellular state delegates its progeny to > interact with the environment as agents, collecting data to inform the > recapitulating unicell of ecological changes that are occurring. > Through the acquisition and filtering of epigenetic marks via meiosis, > fertilization, and embryogenesis, even on into adulthood, where the > endocrine system dictates the length and depth of the stages of the > life cycle, now known to be under epigenetic control, the unicell > remains in effective synchrony with environmental changes.” It seems > that this is not communication of ‘signs’ in the Peircean sense > supported by the biosemioticians (Hoffmeyer). But is it instead a > recursive set of transductions, much in the spirit of Bateson’s > insight that: > > “Formerly we thought of a hierarchy of taxa—individual, family line, > subspecies, species, etc.—as units of survival. We now see a different > hierarchy of units—gene-in-organism, organism-in environment, > ecosystem, etc. Ecology, in the widest sense, turns out to be the > study of the interaction and survival of ideas and programs (i.e., > differences, complexes of differences, etc.) in circuits.” (from his > paper "Pathologies of Epistemology" in Steps to an Ecology of Mind) > > Recursive transduction like this is a common theme in cybernetics – > it's in Ashby's "Design for a Brain", Pask's conversation theory, and > in Beer’s Viable System Model, where “horizon scanning” (an > anticipatory sub-system gathering data from the environment) is an > important part of the metasystem which maintains viability of the > organism (It’s worth noting that Maturana and Varela's autopoietic > theory overlooks this). > > "Communication" would then be much more like “conversation”… > etymologically, "con-versare"… "to turn together”… dancing! Does this > fit? > > A further point is to then ask whether a logic of evolutionary biology > is a logic of recursive transductions over history. The critical point > is what Joseph Brenner argued before Christmas in objecting to Peirce: > we struggle to express the specificity and basis for change in our > logic. Do we need a different kind of logic? > > Best wishes and Happy new year, > > Mark > > _______________________________________________ > Fis mailing list > Fis@listas.unizar.es > http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis >
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