Hi Magnus, I share your concerns ...
You missed my "scare quotes"
"life" ... I meant stuff that self-replicates (biological or artificial)
"genetic information" ... I meant stuff communicated by replication -
generation to generation (biological or artificial)
The scare quotes mean ... but that kinda thing / open to further
discussion / interpretation.
The reason I said abstract things in level 3/4 is pretty clear,
because things and encoded things are already communcated at levels 1
& 2, but in these levels there is no "intelligence" to extract "signs"
from these things - to manipulate the symbols rather than the things.
("Intelligence" being something like the ability to manipulate these
abstract things.)
But I think we're pretty close on levels 1 and 3/4. 2 you took too
narrow a view of "life".
As I said "in my world" quality is kinda equivalent to information ...
I wasn't suggesting it was the whole story for everyone .... but there
are some strikng parallels at the bleeding edge of physics.
Regards
Ian
On 2/13/08, Magnus Berg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi Ian
>
> ian glendinning wrote:
> > 1 being "inorganic" - ie reducible to "physics" - relations
> > (subject-quality-object triples) based on communication of physical
> > forces and effects amongst things.
>
> Agreed. One of the most famous formulas (E=mc^2) is more or less a dead
> giveaway. Even if energy and mass seems to be very different, they are
> actually
> the same, inorganic patterns.
>
> > 2 being "biological" - ie reducible to "life" (but not physics) -
> > relations based on communication of "genetically encoded" information
> > amongst things.
>
> Mmm, I try to stay away from words such as "life" because it carries so many
> ramifications. And I'll also like to keep a door open for artificial senses,
> such as artificial noses, seeing cameras etc.
>
> And I'm not sure about the genes, I would especially keep the word
> "information"
> out of level 2. But I guess the gene reading/copying process could be seen as
> a
> kind of biological sense. Or... nah.. I'll just go all-in and confess that I
> consider a cell to be a society of different things performing different
> functions for their mutual benefit.
>
> > 3/4 being "socio-intellectual" - ie reducible to "culture" - relations
> > based-on communication of abstract ideas amongst things - but not
> > reducible merely to life (or, god forbid, physics). [The
> > socio-intellectual spectrum is a matter of degree of authority vs
> > free-thought in a given cultural environment.]
>
> If you take your "relations based-on communication of abstract ideas amongst
> things" and remove the "of abstract ideas", you get "relations based-on
> communication amongst things" which is pretty close to my idea of level 3.
>
> Abstract ideas, information, reference, meaning, represent, those are all
> words
> that belong to my view of level 4.
>
> > (Hence in my world "quality" is pretty well equivalent to communicable
> > information - where information is encoded in ever higher emergent
> > patterns, not reducible to the lower substrate patterns.)
>
> Not sure it's a good idea to use information as quality in lower levels. The
> word implies interpretation and as you say "encoded" and then that information
> is (or at least seems to be) exposed to "cultural differences" even if such
> differences doesn't exist below the 3rd level.
>
> > So 2 is distinguished from 3&4 by the absence of abstract (symbolic)
> > information communication.
> >
> > How's that for starters ?
>
> I didn't change too much, or maybe I did?
>
> Magnus
>
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