Re: [Fis] Is information physical? A logical analysis

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dai,
I start down a road toward attempting to understand information by first 
understanding number and form.
|
||
|||

|
…

Is a number a thing?
Is 2 a thing?
Cannot say that this 2, this || “is” two. Rather it partakes in being a couple.
2 is relational. We say that there are 2 signs in the word “is" because a 
standard couple can be matched to the i and the s.
There is a potential process behind the concept 2.
2 is a concept, but you cannot point to any existent “thing” and say “that is 
2”.
You can only say there are 2 of them here, indicating relationship.
So process can also be subordinate to the existence of a something if that 
something is a concept.
Numbers exist.
Numbers are concepts.
Numbers are related to processes of matching and comparing.
But numbers are not these processes only.
No thing is so real as the number 2.
Numbers are at the base of what we mean by information.
Do you want the actual couples to somehow allow 2 to emerge in the 
proliferation of many many couples?
Russel said: “2 is the collection of all couples.”
Are you convinced that the collection of all possible couples captures the 
concept of 2?
I doubt it unless you take collection to be a verb.
There is no escape from sooner or later realizing that 2 exists only in the 
mind or in the Mind.
Mind as eigenform never happens except at the limit where self-reference occurs.
I am the observed link between myself and observing myself (HVF).
Lou


> On May 17, 2018, at 6:44 AM, Dai Griffiths  wrote:
> 
> What is a 'thing'? 
> Perhaps it is more reasonable to think that  only processes exist, and that 
> for human convenience in living in the world we put conceptual membranes 
> around some parts of those processes and call them 'things'. From this point 
> of view we do not have two aspects (things and predictions about those 
> things), but simply the monitoring of processes, and theorising about what we 
> find. This does not preclude a taxonomy of processes (e.g. mechanisms might 
> be a special kind of process).
> Perhaps our "Is information physical" problem could be usefully reformulated 
> as "Is information a thing?".
> Dai
> 
> 
> On 17/05/18 11:47, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero wrote:
>> Dear FISers,
>> 
>> I recently came across an old interview to W. van Orman Quine and I got an 
>> idea -maybe  not very original per se. Quine distinguishes two kind of 
>> philosophical problems: ontological (those referred to the existence of 
>> things) and predicative (what can we say and know about things). Against 
>> Quine materialism I came across the idea that ontological problems are 
>> undecidable -I think of Turing's Halting problem. The fact is that we cannot 
>> leave the predicative realm. All we have as scientists is scientifical 
>> statements (therefore I think of Science as a communicative social system 
>> differentiated from its environment by means of a code -I think Loet would 
>> agree with me in this point). As a system (I mean not the social system, but 
>> the set of statements taken as a unity) they all are incomplete. There are 
>> many ways to deal with it, as logicians have shown (in this point I confess 
>> I would need to examine carefully B. Marchal's ideas. I think I have many 
>> points of agreement with him but also of disagreement -but honestly I 
>> currently lack the knowledge to undertake a thorough discussion). 
>> Self-reference, I think, is one of the most coherent ways to deal with it. 
>> But this means we have to learn to deal with paradoxes. 
>> Accordingly, as information theorist we would need to identify the 
>> constitutive paradox of information and next unfold that paradox in a set of 
>> statements that represent what we know about information. The problem is 
>> that although we can have the intuition that information is real, physical 
>> as has been said, it cannot be proved. An external reference like "reality 
>> ", if we look carefully, acts as regulatory function within the system. I 
>> remember that in the "Science of the Society", Luhmann devised the concept 
>> of consistency proofs (Konsistenzprüfung).But reality as such, the Ding an 
>> sich, is inaccessible. In conclusion, Quine would say that we should not be 
>> asking us a question that cannot be answered.
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>> JJ
>> 
>> El may 16, 2018 11:24 PM, "Burgin, Mark" > > escribió:
>>Dear FISers,
>>It was an interesting discussion, in which many highly intelligent and 
>> creative individuals participated expressing different points of view. Many 
>> interesting ideas were suggested. As a conclusion to this discussion, I 
>> would like to suggest a logical analysis of the problem based on our 
>> intrinsic and often tacit assumptions.
>> 
>>To great extent, our possibility to answer the question “Is information 
>> physical? “ depends on our model of the world. Note that here physical means 
>> the nature of 

Re: [Fis] Is information physical? OR Does the information exist without the carrier?

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Folks,
I suspect I am past quota for the week. Apologies for that.
1. Work in logic and mathematics is scientific even if mathematicians and 
logicians sometimes deny being scientists.
2. Exact work is logical work coupled with precise and repeatable methods of 
measurement.
3. The point about mathematics and logic is that it is independent of the 
substrate on which it is apparently performed. 
This is what I mean by statements such as “all computations exist independently 
of the existence of anything physical”.
You may say, yes, but computations or reasonings cannot occur without some 
substrate!
I almost agree, but point out to you that since you use reasoning, concept and 
observation to conjecture and verify the properties of substrates 
(physical or even conceptual) there is a circularity here.
4. We come to know substrates such as physicality through reason and 
measurement.
We come to know reason and measurement through the support of our physical and 
biological substrates.
We come to investigate both reason and physicality through each other and our 
ability to sense and feel.
Sensing and feeling and measurement are our terms for those places where 
concept and the physical arise together in our perception.
5. Beyond those places where significant related pairs of opposites that cannot 
be separated (complementarities) occur there is our (in at least my tradition)
personal reality of unity — whereof nothing can be said. 
6. We cannot sever philosophy and logic and reason from science, AND for 
science we must open to the largest possible access to precision and 
understanding.
Best,
Lou

> On Apr 27, 2018, at 4:38 AM, tozziart...@libero.it wrote:
> 
> Dear Bruno, 
> You claim: "all computations exists independently of the existence of 
> anything physical".
> I never heard, apart probably from Berkeley and Tegmark, a more untestable, 
> metaphyisical, a-scientific, unquantifiable claim.  
> 
> Dear FISers, we NEED to deal with something testable and quantifiable, 
> otherwise we are doing philosophy and logic, not science!  Even if 
> information is (as many FISers suggest) at least in part not physical, we 
> NEED to focus just on the testable part, i.e., the physical one.  And, even 
> if physics does not exist, as Bruno states, at least it gives me something 
> quantifiable and useful for my pragmatic purposes.
> Even if information is something subjective in my mind (totally untestable, 
> but very popular claim) who cares, by a scientific standpoint?
> If I say that Julius Caesar was killed by an alien, the theory is 
> fashinating, but useless, unless I provide proofs or testable clues.  
> 
> --
> Inviato da Libero Mail per Android
> 
> venerdì, 27 aprile 2018, 10:10AM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be 
> <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>:
> 
> Hi Lou, Colleagues,
> 
> 
>> On 25 Apr 2018, at 16:55, Louis H Kauffman <kauff...@uic.edu 
>> <mailto:kauff...@uic.edu>> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Krassimir and Mark,
>> Let us not forget the intermediate question:
>> How is information independent of the choice of carrier?
>> This is the fruitful question in my opinion, and it avoids the problem of 
>> assigning existence to that which is relational.
>> 
>> The same problem exists for numbers and other mathematical entities. Does 
>> the number 2 exist without any couples?
>> The mathematical answer is to construct a standard couple (e.g. { { }, {{}} 
>> } in set theory or two marks || in formalism) and say that 
>> a collection has cardinality two if it can be placed in 1-1 correspondence 
>> with the standard couple. In this way of speaking we do not have to 
>> assign an existence to two as a noun. The Russelian alternative  — to take 
>> two to be the collection of all couples — is a fascinating intellectual 
>> move, but
>> I prefer to avoid it by not having to speak of the existence of two in such 
>> a way. Two is a concept and it is outside of formal systems and outside of 
>> the physical
>> except in that we who have that concept are linked with formalism and linked 
>> with the apparent physical.
>> 
>> And let us not forget the other question.
>> What is "the physical”?
>> What we take to be physical arises as a relation between our sensing (and 
>> generalized sensing) and our ability to form concepts.
>> To imagine that the “physical” exists independent of that relation is an 
>> extra assumption that is not necessary for scientific work, however
>> attractive or repelling it may seem.
> 
> 
> Indeed, the existence of a physical ontology is an hypothesis in metaphysics, 
> and not in physics. It was brought mainly by Aristotle and even more by its 
> followers. 
> 

Re: [Fis] Is information physical? OR Does the information exist without the carrier?

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Krassimir and Mark,
Let us not forget the intermediate question:
How is information independent of the choice of carrier?
This is the fruitful question in my opinion, and it avoids the problem of 
assigning existence to that which is relational.

The same problem exists for numbers and other mathematical entities. Does the 
number 2 exist without any couples?
The mathematical answer is to construct a standard couple (e.g. { { }, {{}} } 
in set theory or two marks || in formalism) and say that 
a collection has cardinality two if it can be placed in 1-1 correspondence with 
the standard couple. In this way of speaking we do not have to 
assign an existence to two as a noun. The Russelian alternative  — to take two 
to be the collection of all couples — is a fascinating intellectual move, but
I prefer to avoid it by not having to speak of the existence of two in such a 
way. Two is a concept and it is outside of formal systems and outside of the 
physical
except in that we who have that concept are linked with formalism and linked 
with the apparent physical.

And let us not forget the other question.
What is "the physical”?
What we take to be physical arises as a relation between our sensing (and 
generalized sensing) and our ability to form concepts.
To imagine that the “physical” exists independent of that relation is an extra 
assumption that is not necessary for scientific work, however
attractive or repelling it may seem.
Best,
Lou Kauffman
P.S. With this letter, I reach my quota for the week and will remain silent 
until next Monday.
If anyone wants a private email conversation, I shall be happy to carry on in 
that fashion.


> On Apr 25, 2018, at 2:20 AM, Krassimir Markov  wrote:
> 
> Dear Mark and Colleagues,
> 
>  
> Very nice “simple question”:  “Is information physical?”
> 
> I agree that “letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all physical 
> objects are only carriers of information”.
> 
> The brain is carrier of information, too. 
> 
>  
> Now, I think, what we need to clear is another “simple question” closely 
> interrelated to yours:
> 
>  
> Does the information exist without the carrier?
> 
>  
> In other words, can the color, speed, weigh, temperature, time, etc., exist 
> without objects which these characteristics belong to and may be measured by 
> other objects. 
> 
> To understand more clearly, let see the case of “time”.
> 
> Does the time really exist?
> 
> Does the time exist without real regular processes which we may reflect and 
> compare?
> 
> The time is falling drops of water, the movement of the pendulum, etc.
> 
> One may say, the time is information about all these processes.
> 
> OK! But, if these processes do not exist, will we have “time”?
> 
>  
> I think, we have a question in two interrelated explanations: 
> 
> - Is information physical?
> 
> - Does the information exist without the carrier?
> 
>  
> Friendly greetings
> 
> Krassimir
> 
>
> From: Burgin, Mark 
> the movement of the pendulum
> 
> falling drops of water
> 
> Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2018 4:47 AM
> To: fis@listas.unizar.es 
> Subject: Re: [Fis] Is information physical?
>  
> Dear Colleagues,
> I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion
>   Is information physical?
> My opinion is presented below:
> 
>Why some people erroneously think that information is physical
>
>The main reason to think that information is physical is the strong belief 
> of many people, especially, scientists that there is only physical reality, 
> which is studied by science. At the same time, people encounter something 
> that they call information.
>When people receive a letter, they comprehend that it is information 
> because with the letter they receive information. The letter is physical, 
> i.e., a physical object. As a result, people start thinking that information 
> is physical. When people receive an e-mail, they comprehend that it is 
> information because with the e-mail they receive information. The e-mail 
> comes to the computer in the form of electromagnetic waves, which are 
> physical. As a result, people start thinking even more that information is 
> physical.
>However, letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all physical objects 
> are only carriers or containers of information.
>To understand this better, let us consider a textbook. Is possible to say 
> that this book is knowledge? Any reasonable person will tell that the 
> textbook contains knowledge but is not knowledge itself. In the same way, the 
> textbook contains information but is not information itself. The same is true 
> for letters, e-mails, electromagnetic waves and other physical objects 
> because all of them only contain information but are not information. For 
> instance, as we know, different letters can contain the same information. 
> Even if we make an identical copy 

Re: [Fis] Is information physical?

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Mark,
Thank you for suggesting this topic.
I concur wholeheartedly with your stand on this matter.
Information in the sense that you indicate 
is pattern that is independent of the particular substrate on which it is 
‘carried’.

There is a persistent myth in popular scientific culture that mathematics and 
the physical are identical.
Just as information is not physical, neither is mathematics.
Each mathematical structure is recognizable as mathematics in that it is 
strictly relational and quite independent of the medium in which it is 
expressed.

The example of mathematics as information independent of substrate 
is an opening for exploring more deeply the nature of information. For we are 
all aware
of the remarkable interplay of mathematics and the quantitative and structural 
understanding of the physical.

I suspect that the end result of that exploration will be for us to admit that 
we do not know know what is physical, 
that we can deny that information is not physical.

The crux of the matter (sic)
lies in the distinction made between the physical and the non-physical.
There is such a distinction. 
The boundary of that distinction is unknown territory.
Very best,
Lou Kauffman


> On Apr 24, 2018, at 8:47 PM, Burgin, Mark  wrote:
> 
> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion
> 
>   Is information physical?
> 
> My opinion is presented below:
> 
> 
> 
>Why some people erroneously think that information is physical
>
>The main reason to think that information is physical is the strong belief 
> of many people, especially, scientists that there is only physical reality, 
> which is studied by science. At the same time, people encounter something 
> that they call information.
>When people receive a letter, they comprehend that it is information 
> because with the letter they receive information. The letter is physical, 
> i.e., a physical object. As a result, people start thinking that information 
> is physical. When people receive an e-mail, they comprehend that it is 
> information because with the e-mail they receive information. The e-mail 
> comes to the computer in the form of electromagnetic waves, which are 
> physical. As a result, people start thinking even more that information is 
> physical.
>However, letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all physical objects 
> are only carriers or containers of information.
>To understand this better, let us consider a textbook. Is possible to say 
> that this book is knowledge? Any reasonable person will tell that the 
> textbook contains knowledge but is not knowledge itself. In the same way, the 
> textbook contains information but is not information itself. The same is true 
> for letters, e-mails, electromagnetic waves and other physical objects 
> because all of them only contain information but are not information. For 
> instance, as we know, different letters can contain the same information. 
> Even if we make an identical copy of a letter or any other text, then the 
> letter and its copy will be different physical objects (physical things) but 
> they will contain the same information.
>Information belongs to a different (non-physical) world of knowledge, data 
> and similar essences. In spite of this, information can act on physical 
> objects (physical bodies) and this action also misleads people who think that 
> information is physical.
>One more misleading property of information is that people can measure it. 
> This brings an erroneous assumption that it is possible to measure only 
> physical essences. Naturally, this brings people to the erroneous conclusion 
> that information is physical. However, measuring information is essentially 
> different than measuring physical quantities, i.e., weight. There are no 
> “scales” that measure information. Only human intellect can do this.
>It is possible to find more explanations that information is not physical 
> in the general theory of information. 
> 
> Sincerely,
> Mark Burgin
> 
> 
> On 4/24/2018 10:46 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>> 
>> A very interesting discussion theme has been proposed by Mark Burgin --he 
>> will post at his early convenience. 
>> Thanks are due to Alberto for his "dataism" piece. Quite probably we will 
>> need to revisit that theme, as it is gaining increasing momentum in present 
>> "information societies", in science as well as in everyday life...
>> Thanks also to Sung for his interesting viewpoint and references.
>> 
>> Best wishes to all,
>> --Pedro 
>> 
>>  
>> -
>> Pedro C. Marijuán
>> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>> pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es 
>> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ 
>> 
>> 

Re: [Fis] Season Greetings / Merry Christmas

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Pedro,
Thank you. This brings back happy memories of a ten week mathematical visit to 
Zaragoza in 1982.
I toured in Southern Spain (saw the Alhambra and more) and lectured to Jose 
Montesinos and his colleagues and students on knot theory for most of the ten 
weeks, daily.
Jose took me north to the mountains and to castles and showed me how to search 
for crystals in the earth.
The course notes became a book “On Knots” and the experience lives with me all 
the time.
Seasons Greetings and 
Very best regards,
Lou Kauffman

> On Dec 22, 2017, at 5:58 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan  
> wrote:
> 
> Dear FIS Colleagues,
> 
> Herewith the customary Christmas scene at El Pilar Basilica of Zaragoza.
> It is a really beautiful place that you should visit... I promise not to be a 
> bad amphitryon ;)
> 
> As for the next sessions, we will have the traditional New Year Lecture, and 
> then another two sessions on data-driven science and on combinatorial logics 
> in biological information. 
> 
> Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
> 
> All the best--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 (& 6818)
> 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 
> 

___
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Re: [Fis] The two very important operations of Infos

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Terrence,
Condsider the Russell paradox. 
Russell set is R = { x a set | x is not a member of itself}.

If instead we define

R = { x a set | x is not a member of itself, and x is defined PRIOR TO THE 
APPLICATION OF THIS  DEFINITION}

then R is not a member of itself since it occurs AFTER the definition. 

The definition itself provides a definition of before and after like the mirror 
in the Barber resolution.

Of course for this temporal interpretation, a new NOW comes into play every 
time the definition is activated. 
Activation can be done by any cognizer of the definition.
Or it can be formalized by R_{t+1} = {x| x is a set that has been defined by 
time t}.
Then we could have
R_{0} = { }
R_{1} = { R_{0} } = { { } }
R_{3} = {R_{0}}, R_{1}} = {{}, {{}} }
…
For mathematical purposes the … can continue transfinitely to as high an 
ordinal as one wants.

The analogy with the mirror is the cut between BEFORE and AFTER.
Note that the definition 
 R = { x a set | x is not a member of itself, and x is defined PRIOR TO THE 
APPLICATION OF THIS  DEFINITION}
is still self-referential. 
It is the temporal unfolding of this self-reference that leads to the 
temporality in the sense of successive times.

Best,
Lou Kauffman
P.S. I think this uses up my quota of responses for this week.

> On Oct 25, 2017, at 2:13 PM, Terrence W. DEACON  > wrote:
> 
> Adding a temporal dimension has often been offered as a way out of paradox in 
> quasi-physical terms. This is because interpreting paradoxical logical 
> relations or calculating their values generally produces interminably 
> iterating self-contradicting or self-undermining results. Writers from G. S. 
> Brown to Gregory Bateson (among others) have pointed out that one can resolve 
> this in *process* terms (rather than assuming undecidable values) by focusing 
> on this incessant oscillation itself (i.e. a meta-analysis that recognizes 
> that the process of operating on these relations cannot be neglected).Using 
> this meta-analysis one can take advantage of the dynamic that calculation or 
> intepretation entails. It is also, of course, the way we make use of 
> so-called imaginary values in mathematics, whose iteratively calculated 
> results incessantly reverse sign from negative to positive. By simply 
> accepting this fact as given and marking it with a distinctive token (e.g. 
> "i" ) effectively generates an additional dimension that is useful in a wide 
> range of applications from fourier to quantum analyses. So my question is 
> whether using this mirror metaphor can be seen as a variant on this general 
> approach. It also resonates with efforts to understand the interpretation of 
> information in related terms (e.g. using complex numbers).
> 
> — Terry
> 
> PS A bit of reflection (no pun intended) also suggests that it is also 
> relevant to our discussions about agency (which like the concept of 
> "information" must be understood at different levels that need to be 
> distinguished because they can easily be confused). My earlier point about 
> the normative aspect of agency (and consistent with the previously posted URL 
> to the paper by Barandiaran et al.) is that this implies the need for 
> incessant contrary work to negate perturbation away from some "preferred" 
> value or state. Although there can be many levels of displaced agency in both 
> natural and artificial agents (like cybernetic systems such as thermostats 
> and many biological regulative subsystems), there cannot be interminable 
> regress of this displacement to establish these norms. At some point 
> normativity requires ontological grounding where the grounded normative 
> relation is the preservation of the systemic physical properties that produce 
> the norm-preserving dynamic. This is paradoxically circular—a "strang loop" 
> in Hofstadter's lingo. This avoids vicious regress as well avoiding assuming 
> a cryptic "observer perspective." But it therefore requires that we treat 
> different levels and degrees of "normative displacement" differently from one 
> another. This both echoes Loet's point that we should not expect a single 
> concept of agency, but it alternatively suggest that we may be able to 
> construct a nested hierarchy of agency concepts (as Stan might suggest). So I 
> glimpse that a set of parallel and converging views may underlie these 
> superficially different domains of debate.
> 
> On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 2:45 AM, Krassimir Markov  > wrote:
> Dear Lou, Bruno, and FIS Colleagues,
> 
> Thank you for nice and polite comments to my post about “Barber paradox”.
> 
> First of all, the main idea of the post was not to solve any paradox but
> to point two very important operations of Infos:
> - Direct reflection;
> - Transitive (indirect) reflection.
> There are no other ways for Infos to collect data from environment.
> 
> Second, the example with 

Re: [Fis] Simple question: What we really see in the mirror?

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Krassimir,
Thank you!!
Yours is the most creative resolution of the Barber Paradox that I have 
encountered.
Perhaps we can apply it also to the Russell Paradox.
I do not know. Let us think about it.
Another paradox that is resolved in the human realm is the card that reads


“No one holding this card can verify the truth of this statement inscribed upon 
it.”


For a human holding the card can say “Suppose I were not holding the card. Then 
indeed the statement can be seen to be true
since if my friend Max were holding the card, then the statement would lead Max 
into a contradiction if he were to attempt to verify it.
Thus I have verified the statement on the card by imagining that I do not hold 
the card."

I submit that this solution (modal logical as it is) is a close relative of 
your mirror solution to the Barber.
For in your mirror solution the Barber must understand that he does not shave 
himself, but that he shaves his mirror image.
Similarly the card holder must imagine that he does not hold the card but that 
another holds the card.
Very best regards,
Lou Kauffman


> On Oct 21, 2017, at 12:35 PM, Krassimir Markov  wrote:
> 
> Dear FIS Colleagues,
> 
> It is time for my second post this week.
> 
> First of all I am glad to participate in such very interesting discussion!
> 
> Thank you for the nice posts.
> 
> More than 25 years ago, working on the new theory, I had to solve the
> problem with concept of entity which has information activity. There were
> many candidates for such concept: “robot”, “agent”, “intelligent agent”,
> “interpreter”, “subject”, “information subject”, “intelligent subject”,
> etc. Every such concept had its own history and many domains of meanings
> which caused many misunderstandings.
> In the same time, if one had a single meaning then it couldn’t be applied
> to all entities with information activity. For instance, concept “robot”
> is not good to be used for a human.
> 
> Because of this, we had proposed a new word: “INFOS”, which had no meaning
> in advance and may be defined freely without misunderstandings. I shall
> use it in my further posts.
> 
> I do not want to define it now. Step by step its meaning will arise from
> what I shall write. In many discussions till now, I had seen that this
> approach is the best way to introduce a new concept.
> 
> ***
> 
> I want specially to thank Bruno for his post from 18.10.2017 about
> “Self-reference”!
> 
> For me, it is very important it to be analyzed. I shall do this on the
> basis of an example.
> 
> Not all kinds of self-reference concern information activity and Infos.
> But, if at least one case exists, then we have to analyze it.
> 
> Such case, for instance, is the Barber paradox: A barber (who is a man)
> shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves. Does he shave
> himself?
> 
> This paradox exists only in “3D” mathematical world based on triad
> (x, y, f)
> or, in other writings: (x, f, y), y=f(x), etc.
> (there are several nice publications of Mark Burgin about triads !).
> 
> I.e. paradox exists only if we ignore the fact that the Barber is a human.
> 
> The paradox could not exist in the “4D” world of informatics where we have
> quadruple (x, y, f, I) or, in other words, for Infos “I”, “y” is
> information about “x” because of evidence “f”.
> 
> What is happen when the Barber shaves someone?
> 
> At the first place, it is a direct collecting, by eyes, the data about the
> place where the razor has to be put to shave.
> 
> Have you ever seen a Blind barber?
> 
> NO! OK, this is a fundamental condition.
> 
> Not only Barber, but every human COULD NOT DIRECTLY COLLECT DATA about
> his/her face, head, or back.
> 
> In another case, for instance, we have to have eye on the end of the nose
> which has to be as long as the elephant trunk!
> 
> This means: the barber cannot shave himself because he could not see where
> to put the razor!
> 
> But every man can shave his beard! How he can do it?
> Of course, everyone will say, by using a mirror!
> 
> But this is NOT DIRECT REFLECTION (data collecting).
> It is TRANSITIVE SELF-REFLECTION via mirror!
> 
> Who does the barber shave: himself or the man in the mirror?
> 
> Of course, the second!!! Barber puts the razor on his own beard and this
> way he shaves the man in the mirror.
> 
> The Barber paradox does not exist if we take in account that the barber is
> a human (a kind of Infos) and needs data.
> 
> So, the answer of the question “Does he shave himself?“ is NO!, he
> doesn’t, he shaves the man in the mirror who do not shave himself because
> the razor is in the hand of barber and no paradox exists.
> 
> Simple question: What we really see in the mirror?
> 
> Friendly greetings
> Krassimir
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Fis] A Curious Story

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Pedro,
Ok. Can we have the text of Professor Rossler’s proof that these mini-black 
holes
> cannot Hawking evaporate 
> grow exponentially inside matter?
It would be very interesting to debate the details.

I find on the web:
http://www.wissensnavigator.com/documents/ottoroesslerminiblackhole.pdf 


http://www.science20.com/big_science_gambles/blog/interview_professor_otto_rössler_takes_lhc-31449
 


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2650665/Legal-bid-to-stop-CERN-atom-smasher-from-destroying-the-world.html
 


http://environmental-impact.web.cern.ch/environmental-impact/Objects/LHCSafety/NicolaiComment-en.pdf
 


Best,
Lou Kauffman


> On Jan 5, 2017, at 5:06 AM, PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ 
>  wrote:
> 
> Dear FISers,
> 
> Herewith the Lecture inaugurating our 2017 sessions.
> I really hope that this Curious Story is just that, a curiosity.
> But in science we should not look for hopes but for arguments and 
> counter-arguments...
> 
> Best wishes to All and exciting times for the New Year!
> --Pedro
> 
> 
> 
> De: Otto E. Rossler [oeros...@yahoo.com ]
> Enviado el: miércoles, 04 de enero de 2017 17:51
> Para: PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ
> Asunto: NY session
> --
> 
> A Curious Story
>  
> Otto E. Rossler, University of Tübingen, Germany
> 
> Maybe I am the only one who finds it curious. Which fact would then make it 
> even more curious for me. It goes like this: Someone says “I can save your 
> house from a time bomb planted into the basement” and you respond by saying 
> “I don’t care.” This curious story is taken from the Buddhist bible. 
>  
> It of course depends on who is offering to help. It could be a lunatic person 
> claiming that he alone can save the planet from a time-bomb about to be 
> planted into it. In that case, there would be no reason to worry. On the 
> other hand, it could also be that you, the manager, are a bit high at the 
> moment so that you don't fully appreciate the offer made to you. How serious 
> is my offer herewith made to you today?
>  
> I only say that for eight years' time already, there exists no counter-proof 
> in the literature to my at first highly publicized proof of danger. I was 
> able to demonstrate that the miniature black holes officially attempted to be 
> produced at CERN do possess two radically new properties: 
> 
> they cannot Hawking evaporate 
> they grow exponentially inside matter
>  
> If these two findings hold water, the current attempt at producing ultra-slow 
> miniature black holes on earth near the town of Geneva means that the 
> slower-most specimen will get stuck inside earth and grow there exponentially 
> to turn the planet into a 2-cm black hole after several of undetectable 
> growth. Therefore the current attempt of CERN's to produce them near Geneva 
> is a bit curious. 
>  
> What is so curious about CERN's attempt? It is the fact that no one finds it 
> curious. I am reminded of an old joke: The professor informs the candidate 
> about the outcome of the oral exam with the following words “You are bound to 
> laugh but you have flunked the test.” I never understood the punchline. I 
> likewise cannot understand why a never refuted proof of the biggest danger of 
> history leaves everyone unconcerned. Why NOT check an unattended piece of 
> luggage on the airport called Earth?  
>  
> To my mind, this is the most curious story ever -- for the very reason that 
> everyone finds it boring. A successful counter-proof would thus alleviate but 
> a single person’s fears – mine. You, my dear reader, are thus my last hope 
> that you might be able to explain the punch line to me: “Why is it that it 
> does not matter downstairs that the first floor is ablaze?” I am genuinely 
> curious to learn why attempting planetocide is fun.  Are you not?
> 
> For J.O.R.
> ---
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 33, Issue 41: On the relation between information and meaning

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Steve,
You write
"But in later years he eventually recognized that the possibility of relating 
propositions in language to facts concerning the world could not in itself be 
proved. Without proof, the house of cards collapses. Once the validity of using 
language to describe the world ini a rigorous and unambiguous way is 
questioned, not much is left.”

I do not think that the issue of proof was foremost for Wittgenstein. Rather, 
he later understood that a pure mirroring of language and world was untenable 
and worked directly with language and its use to show how complex was the 
actuality. The result is that one can still read the Tractatus meaningfully, 
knowing that it states and discusses an ideal of (formal) language and a view 
of the world so created that is necessarily limited. Indeed the later 
Wittgenstein and the Tractatus come together at the point of the Tractatus 
showing how meagre is that ‘that can be said’ from its mirrored and logical 
point of view.
The Tractatus indicates its own incompleteness, and in do doing invalidates its 
use by the logical positivists as a model for the performance of science. It 
was in this background that (through Goedel) the Incompleteness Theorem arose 
in the midst of the Vienna Circle. And here we are in a world generated by 
formal computer languages, facing the uncertainties of models that are 
sensitive enough (as in economics and social science) to cross the boundary and 
affect what is to be modeled.
Best,
Lou Kauffman

> On Dec 23, 2016, at 11:27 AM, steven bindeman  wrote:
> 
> I would like to contribute to the current ongoing discussion regarding the 
> relation between information and meaning. I agree with Dai Griffiths and 
> others that the term information is a problematic construction. Since it is 
> often used as an example of fitting the details of a specific worldly 
> situation into a linguistic  form that can be processed by a computer, this 
> fact in itself introduces various distortions from the reality that is being 
> represented.  The degree of distortion might even be an example of the degree 
> of uncertainty.
> 
> I believe that reference to the early work of Wittgenstein might be of use in 
> this context, especially since his work in his Tractatus text on problems 
> related to logical atomism influenced the design of the von Neumann computer, 
> led to the creation of the Vienna Circle group and later inspired the 
> philosophical movement of logical positivism. Alan Turing was also one of his 
> students.
> 
> In this early work Wittgenstein had believed that a formal theory of language 
> could be developed, capable of showing how propositions can succeed in 
> representing real states of affairs and in serving the purposes of real life. 
> He believed that language is like a picture which is laid against reality 
> like a measuring rod and reaches right out to it. But in later years he 
> eventually recognized that the possibility of relating propositions in 
> language to facts concerning the world could not in itself be proved. Without 
> proof, the house of cards collapses. Once the validity of using language to 
> describe the world ini a rigorous and unambiguous way is questioned, not much 
> is left. Although propositions are indeed capable of modeling and describing 
> the world with a rigor not unlike that of mathematical representations of 
> physical phenomena, they cannot themselves describe how they represent this 
> world without becoming self-referential. Propositions are consequently 
> essentially meaningless, since their meaning consists precisely in their 
> ability to connect with the world outside of language. A perfect language 
> mirrors a  perfect world, but  since the latter is nothing more than a 
> chimera so is the former.
> 
> Here are some quotes (taken out of their original contexts) from 
> Wittgenstein’s Tractatus that I believe are relevant to the discussion on 
> information and meaning:
> 
> The facts in logical space are the world. What is the case — a fact— is the 
> existence of states of affairs.  A state of affairs (a state of things) is a 
> combination of objects (things). It is essential to things that they should 
> be possible constituents of states of affairs. If I know an object I also 
> know all its possible occurrences in states of affairs.  Objects contain the 
> possibility of all situations. The configuration of objects produces states 
> of affairs. The totality of existing states of affairs is the world. The 
> existence and non-existence of states of affairs is reality. States of 
> affairs are independent of one another.  A picture is a model of reality. A 
> picture is a fact.  Logical pictures can depict the world. A picture depicts 
> reality by representing a possibility of existence and non-existence of 
> states of affairs. Situations can be described but not given names. (Names 
> are like points; propositions like arrows — they 

Re: [Fis] Scientific communication (from Mark)

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Dai,
Consider the pattern 
.142857142857142857142857142857142857142857…
In our world of observers and technology, this pattern is constructed so that 
it can be transmitted verbatim by this computer system to you.
No meaning is transmitted, just the list of numbers. Even the fact that the 
pattern repeats is not evident just from the finite list of symbols.
You, as an observer, “know” that the “three dots: …” indicates indefinite 
repetition. And you know about infinite decimals, so the dot at the beginning 
of the string
indicates to you that this is an infinite decimal number. 
With that in mind, you can operate on the pattern and deduce that it is 
representing 1/7. You know that we are communicating about 
a delicate choice of actions and that  I have signaled to you that the 7-th 
action is to be preferred. Unfortunately, any eavesdropper (another observer) 
would probably come to the same conclusions, so this is not a very good cipher! 
The point is, that no matter how radical is our constructivism, we have to 
admit that we are capable of sending , not meaning, but literal
patterns that can be reproduced quite faithfully over various modes of 
transmission. Meaning is not transmitted, but physical relationships and orders 
of symbols are recorded and exchanged. The information in the pattern is 
dependent upon the observer. The kids in my math class will only get up to the 
1/7. They will not know anything about the delicate and life-changing decision 
that the 7 represents. The key information in the cipher is not in the cipher. 
It is a potential that can emerge from an appropriate observer in the presence 
of the cipher.
Note that the observer needs extra information. He needs to know that agent LK 
sent it and that it is not just an exercise in an elementary mathematics book.
Best,
Lou Kauffman

> On Oct 14, 2016, at 9:16 AM, Dai Griffiths  wrote:
> 
> To trying to answer this question, I find myself asking "Do patterns exist 
> without an observer?".
> 
> A number of familiar problems then re-emerge, which blur my ability to 
> distinguish between foreground and background.
> 
> Dai
> 
> On 13/10/16 11:32, Karl Javorszky wrote:
>> Do patterns contain information?
> 
> -- 
> -
> 
> Professor David (Dai) Griffiths
> Professor of Education
> School of Education and Psychology
> The University of Bolton
> Deane Road
> Bolton, BL3 5AB
> 
> Office: T3 02
> http://www.bolton.ac.uk/IEC
> 
> SKYPE: daigriffiths
> UK Mobile +44 (0)749151559
> Spanish Mobile: + 34 687955912
> Work: + 44 (0)7826917705
> (Please don't leave voicemail)
> email:
>   d.e.griffi...@bolton.ac.uk
>   dai.griffith...@gmail.com
> 
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Re: [Fis] Gödel Discussion

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Alex,
Thank you for this very balanced viewpoint about this part of the debate.

You write "Although formal systems are designed to apply to concepts within the 
world of thought i.e. the world of (abstract) phenomenal experience, they are 
not intended to have semantic application, but only syntactical consistency. To 
judge their validity or invalidity from a semantic (or even semiotic) 
perspective of Husserlian phenomena - experience, therefore seems to me to be 
inappropriate. “

From the point of view of a practicing mathematician the matter is a bit more 
complex. For we certainly are interested in the semantics of our formalities.
We do not regard what we do as purely syntactical. There are meanings involved. 
For example one interprets algebra (quite formal) in terms of geometry
(often quite intuitive) and one may think philosophically about the meanings of 
the Goedelian limitations on formal systems. Furthermore the most basic 
mathematical concepts such as the number three are highly conceptual and are 
understood that way (through the appearance of triples in both the mental and 
physical realms).
The point of having good formalisms is sthat the formalism should have the 
least possible necessary interpretation and this leads to the multiplicity of 
interpretations that makes mathematics so fruitful. Think of the number of ways 
to interpret a second order linear differential equation, from fluid flow, to 
electricity to the oscillations of a pendulum. The point of nearly 
uninterpreted formalisms is that they are PATTERNS that can occur in many 
situations and lead us into the unknown including the internal unknown of their 
self-application.

Thank you again,
Lou Kauffman

> On May 11, 2016, at 1:44 PM, Alex Hankey  wrote:
> 
> Dear Colleagues, 
> 
> This discussion is continuing to be very enlightening, I feel, 
> for those aware of, but not intimately familiar with, details of 
> both Husserl's approach and Gödel’s statements / theorems. 
> 
> I suspect that part of the problem lies in the fact that we are dealing with 
> a highly contrasting pair of intellectual discussions, about two entirely 
> different universes of analysis (if that is the right term). I suspect that 
> they may not be compatible, and that that is the real cause for the conflict 
> of perspectives. 
> 
> Husserl was concerned with formulating a philosophically rigorous discussion 
> of the world of experience, from within the world of experience, and set up 
> his criteria on that basis. 
> 
> Gödel on the other hand was operating within the world of formal systems, and 
> showed that if a set of axioms containing arithmetic was consistent, it had 
> to be incomplete - valid statements could be made that are not derivable 
> within the formal system. 
> 
> Although formal systems are designed to apply to concepts within the world of 
> thought i.e. the world of (abstract) phenomenal experience, they are not 
> intended to have semantic application, but only syntactical consistency. To 
> judge their validity or invalidity from a semantic (or even semiotic) 
> perspective of Husserlian phenomena - experience, therefore seems to me to be 
> inappropriate. 
> 
> They are categorically different (linguistic?) structures.
> Or have I snafued?
> 
> Alex
>  
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Alex Hankey M.A. (Cantab.) PhD (M.I.T.)
> Distinguished Professor of Yoga and Physical Science,
> SVYASA, Eknath Bhavan, 19 Gavipuram Circle
> Bangalore 560019, Karnataka, India  
> Mobile (Intn'l): +44 7710 534195 
> Mobile (India) +91 900 800 8789
> 
> 
> 2015 JPBMB Special Issue on Integral Biomathics: Life Sciences, Mathematics 
> and Phenomenological Philosophy 
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Re: [Fis] Gödel discussion

[Louis H Kauffman]

gaging thought
> experiment ends up muddying the water more than clarifying Gödel's
> theorem.
> 
> The Godel sentence says that a certain sentence is not derivable in a
> particular system. Since the system is a formalization of arithmetic,
> on the intended interpretation of the system the sentence expresses an
> arithmetic statement. However, the sentence is ambiguous in that it
> may be used to make two different statements, one a statement about
> itself, the other a statement about the statement that makes a
> statement about itself. The first is semantically self-referential,
> hence vacuous, hence neither true nor false; the other is true in that
> it says the first statement is not derivable. Since the two have
> different truth values, they have to be different statements. When
> examined phenomenologically or experientially, they are indeed quite
> different.
> 
> This may seem absurd, but consider the following example:
> If someone says, 'The statement I am now making is true,' that
> statement says nothing. It is vacuous, a pseudo-statement, and so is
> neither true nor false. If a second person says that the statement is
> true, then what the second person says is false. They are both
> referring to the same statement and saying that it is true, but what
> one says has a different truth value from that of what the other says.
> This is because the first utterance is self-referential, while the
> second is not.. If they gave name 's' to the first utterance, they
> could both be using the same sentence, 's is true'.
> 
> The Gödel sentence likewise makes two different statements. It is a
> possible string of symbols that makes a well-formed sentence according
> to the formation rules. Since it is a sentence in a formalized system
> of arithmetic, on its intended interpretation it makes an arithmetic
> statement. It could be used to make either of the two statements. It
> could make either a semantically self referential statement that says
> of itself that it is not provable, or it could be a
> non-self-referential statement saying that the self-referential
> statement is not provable. If it is the first, it is vacuous, hence
> neither true nor false, and cannot say anything; it only appears to
> say that it is not provable. If it is the second, it says something in
> fact true in that it says that the self-referential statement is not
> provable.
> 
> What you say about consistency is true, but to my mind where Gödel
> goes wrong is both in assuming that the interpreted Gödel sentence has
> a single meaning, and in allowing his system of formalized arithmetic
> to contain sentences that make semantically self-referential
> pseudo-statements.
> 
> Best regards,  Bert
> 
> On 5/7/16, Louis H Kauffman <lou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dear Albert,
>> I cannot comment into FIS until the beginning of the week, but I want to
>> make some comments on your comments right now.
>> So will do so privately.
>> 
>> You write "On reflection, however, I suspect that the sentence ‘~PR~PR’ has
>> been incorrectly interpreted. The second expression ‘~PR’ at the end of
>> Smullyan’s sentence is a well-formed formula in Smullyan’s system, but when
>> translated into English, it has no grammatical subject, and so cannot be a
>> sentence; it is merely a predicate, and so does not make a statement. Hence
>> Smullyan’s sentence must be saying that the string of symbols, ‘~PR’,
>> translatable as the predicate ‘is not printable’, is not printable.”
>> 
>> The empty string is a valid predicate.
>> ~PR by the rules is meaningful, and it says that the repetition of the empty
>> string (which is just the empty string) is not printable.
>> That is it says that when you push the button on the machine the machine
>> must print some characters.
>> Of course if the machine does not print ~PR, then this statement is not
>> known to be true or false. But if on pressing the machine’s button you
>> receive the string ~PR, then you can be assured that the machine will never
>> print an empty string.
>> 
>> Now consider ~PRX for some string X. This string is meaningful and it
>> asserts that the machine can never print XX. The meaning of X (if it has
>> one) is irrelevant. The only meaning of
>> ~PRX is in reference to printing XX.
>> Thus if you found the machine had printed ~PRPPP,
>> then this would mean that the machine would never print PP.
>> 
>> By the same token, if the machine prints ~PR~PR then it cannot print the
>> repetition of ~PR but this repetition is ~PR~PR and so the machine cannot
>> print ~PR~PR.
>> If printed, the string ~PR~PR asserts 

[Fis] _ Re: _ Re: re Gödel discussion

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Folks
I realize in replying to this I surely reach the end of possible comments that 
I can make for a week. But nevertheless …
I want to comment on Terrence Deacon’s remarks below and also on Professor 
Johnstone’s remark from another email:

"This may look like a silly peculiarity of spoken language, one best ignored in 
formal logic, but it is ultimately what is wrong with the Gödel sentence that 
plays a key role in Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem. That sentence is a string 
of symbols deemed well-formed according to the formation rules of the system 
used by Gödel, but which, on the intended interpretation of the system, is 
ambiguous: the sentence has two different interpretations, a self-referential 
truth-evaluation that is neither true nor false or a true statement about that 
self-referential statement. In such a system, Gödel’s conclusion holds. 
However, it is a mistake to conclude that no possible formalization of 
Arithmetic can be complete. In a formal system that distinguishes between the 
two possible readings of the Gödel sentence (an operation that would 
considerably complicate the system), such would no longer be the case.
”
I will begin with the paragraph above.
Many mathematicians felt on first seeing Goedel’s argument that it was a trick, 
a sentence like the Liar Sentence that had no real mathematical relevance.
This however is not true, but would require a lot more work than I would take 
in this email to be convincing. Actually the crux of the Goedel Theorem is in 
the fact that a formal system that 
can handle basic number theory and is based on a finite alphabet, has only a 
countable number of facts about the integers that it can produce. One can 
convince oneself on general grounds that there are indeed an uncountable number 
of true facts about the integers. A given formal system can only produce a 
countable number of such facts and so is incomplete. This is the short version 
of Goedel’s Theorem. Goedel worked hard to produce a specific statement that 
could not be proved by the given formal system, but the incompleteness actually 
follows from the deep richness of the integers as opposed to the more 
superficial reach of any given formal system.

Mathematicians should not be perturbed by this incompleteness. Mathematics is 
paved with many formal systems.

In my previous email I point to the Goldstein sequence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodstein%27s_theorem 

This is an easily understood recursive sequence of numbers that no matter how 
you start it, always ends at zero after some number of iterations. 
This Theorem about the Goodstein recursion is not provable in Peano Arithmetic, 
the usual formalization of integer arithmetic, using standard mathematical 
induction.
This is a good example of a theorem that is not just a “Liar Paradox” and shows 
that Peano Arithmetic is incomplete.

And by the way, the Goodstein sequence CAN be proved to terminate by using 
‘imaginary values’ as Professor Deacon describes (with a tip of the hat to 
Spencer-Brown).
In this case the imaginary values are a segment of Cantor’s transfinite 
ordinals. Once these transfinite numbers are admitted into the discussion there 
is an elegant proof available for the termination of the Goodstein sequence. 
Spencer-Brown liked to talk about the possibility of proofs by using “imaginary 
Boolean values”. Well, the Goodstein proof is an excellent example of this 
philosophy. 

A further comment, thinking about i (i^2 = -1) as an oscillation is very very 
fruitful from my point of view and I could bend your ear on that for a long 
time. Here is a recent paper of mine on that subject. Start in Section 2 if you 
want to start with the mathematics of the matter.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1406.1929.pdf 
And here is an older venture on the same theme.
http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/SignAndSpace.pdf 


More generally, the idea is that one significant way to move out of paradox is 
to move into a state of time.
I feel that this is philosophically a deep remark on the nature of time and 
that i as an oscillation is the right underlying mathematical metaphor for time.
It is, in this regard, not an accident that the Minkowski metric is X^2 + Y^2 + 
Z^2 + (iT)^2. 
TIME = iT
This is an equation with double meaning.
Time is measured oscillation.
Time is rotated ninety degrees from Space.

And one can wonder: How does i come to multiply itself and return -1?
Try finding your own answers before you try mine or all the previous stories!
Best,
Lou
(See you next week.)



> On May 2, 2016, at 9:31 PM, Terrence W. DEACON  wrote:
> 
>  A number of commentators, including the philosopher-logician G. Spencer 
> Brown and the anthropologist-systems theorist Gregory Bateson, reframed 
> variants of the Liar’s paradox as it might apply to 

[Fis] _ Fwd: _ FIS discusion

[Louis H Kauffman]

> Dear Professor Sheets-Johnstone,
> It would be best if we keep our discussion to the contents of our letters 
> rather than assume that we each have read all of the other’s work.
> In my case I was banned from this forum for two weeks for too many mailings. 
> Right now I am at a conference and I have not counted if I am over the limit 
> for this week.
> I will comment in text below on your letter.
> Best,
> Lou Kauffman
> 
>> On Apr 30, 2016, at 1:37 PM, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> To FIS colleagues,
>> 
>> First, an open-to-all response to Lou Kaufmann:
>> 
>> Thank you for your lengthy tutorial—some time back--but I wonder and am
>> genuinely puzzled given the “phenomenology-life sciences theme” why none
>> of the articles that I referenced were read and a response generated at least
>> in part on the basis of that reading in conjunction with your own work.
>> 
>> Is there some reason why they were not taken up, especially perhaps the 
>> article
>> identified as being a critique of Godels’s incompleteness theorem from a
>> phenomenological perspective? I would think that you and perhaps FIS persons
>> generally would feel particularly inquisitive about that article. I would 
>> think
>> too that people in FIS would be particularly inquisitive about the reference 
>> to
>> Biological Cybernetics. Viewpoints that differ from one’s own are by some 
>> thought
>> a waste of time, but for my part, I think they rightly broaden a discussion, 
>> which
>> is not to say that entrenched or deeply held views are not solidly based, 
>> much less
>> wrong, but that they have the possibility of being amplified through a 
>> consideration
>> of the same topic from a different perspective.
> 
> I for one, would appreciate your concise summary of your critique of Goedel.
>> 
>> For example: Language did not arise deus ex machina, and it certainly did 
>> not arise
>> in the form of graphs or writing, but in the form of sounding.  
> 
> Yes! And Goedelian work depends crucially on formalized written language. 
> Even mathematicians who formalize much less realize that Goedel does not 
> apply to their work as they create new language. (I for one am in this camp.)
> 
>> Awareness of oneself
>> as a sound-maker is basic to what we identify as a ‘verbal language’. 
>> Moreover this
>> awareness and the verbal language itself are both foundationally a matter of 
>> both
>> movment and hearing. A recognition of this fact of life would seem to me to 
>> be of
>> interest, even primordial interest, to anyone concerned with 
>> ‘SELF-REFERENCE', its
>> essential nature and substantive origins.
> 
> Thus self-reference is essential in the stability of our voice.
>> 
>> With respect to ‘substantive origins’, does it not behoove us to inquire as 
>> to the genesis
>> of a particular capacity rather than take for granted that ‘this is the way 
>> things are and
>> have always been’?.
> 
> Indeed! And it is essential to anyone would engages in design or invention.
> 
>> For example, and as pointed out elsewhere, the traditional conception
>> of language being composed of arbitrary elements—-hence “symbols”--cannot be 
>> assumed with
>> either epistemological or scientific impunity. Until the origin of verbal 
>> language is accounted
>> for by reconstructing a particular lifeworld, there is no way of 
>> understanding how arbitrary
>> sounds could come to be made  . . . let alone serve as carriers of assigned 
>> meaning.
>> What is essential is first that arbitrary sounds be distinguished from 
>> non-arbitrary sounds,
>> and second, that a paradigm of signification exist. Further, no creature can 
>> speak a language
>> for which its body is unprepared. In other words, a certain sensory-kinetic 
>> body is essential
>> to the advent of verbal language. In short, in the beginning, thinking moved 
>> along analogical
>> lines rather than symbolic ones, hence along the lines of iconicity rather 
>> than along arbitrary
>> lines.
> 
> Yes! And this is utterly the case for anyone who hopes to do creative 
> mathematics. It is not a body of symbols fixed in stone.
> For many of us, geometry and topology is a key to getting back to the senses. 
> And then again, we have other issues. For example the behaviour of polarizing 
> material moves toward 
> quantum experience and the logic of that experience is not Boolean but 
> quantum. We live in domains of extended bodily experience.
> 
> I should also say that if we look at our actual experiences in using and 
> learning to use “symbols” such as learning again and again about writing and 
> the underlying creativity of that, we find that this ‘form drawing’ is as 
> rich a domain for phenomenology as is auditory speech and indeed linked with 
> deeply. One of the reasons I speak of Laws of Form is because in continually 
> learning that, one is thrown again and again into examining the act of 
> drawing and thereby creating a symbol system where each 

[Fis] _ Fwd: _ Re: _ Discussion

[Louis H Kauffman]

that i do not disagree with Peirce, not at all]
>> I do not think you disagree very much with Peirce here Lou, but I think the 
>> cybernetic background you are coming from has skipped important parts of the 
>> philosophical work to put up an adequate metaphysical framework.

[Naw. I am not speaking from cybernetics. What the heck is cybernetics?
I am speaking from contemplating a distinction. You could take me as an 
afficianado of the Peirce Calculus written in Spencer-Brown form and influenced 
by both early and late Wittgenstein. I am skeptical of cosmology. I think we 
make a lot out of very little and indeed our worlds are built from our signing 
and the limits of our signing are the limits of our world.]

>> This is what lead me on to Luhmann and from him to Peirce. I have a short 
>> column in CHK on that 
>> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FLPGS9TfROIJ:www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/brier/integration.doc+=13=da=clnk=dk
>>  
>> <http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FLPGS9TfROIJ:www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/brier/integration.doc+=13=da=clnk=dk>
>> I have discussed this with Maturana now and  then  over the last 20 
>> years and with Heinz von Foerster for whom I wrote a paper analyzing his 
>> theory development to his 70 years festschrift: “The construction of 
>> information and communication: A cybersemiotic reentry into Heinz von 
>> Foerster's metaphysical construction of second-order cybernetics”  it can be 
>> downloaded here 
>> https://www.academia.edu/3140705/The_construction_of_information_and_communication_A_cybersemiotic_reentry_into_Heinz_von_Foersters_metaphysical_construction_of_second-order_cybernetics
>>  
>> <https://www.academia.edu/3140705/The_construction_of_information_and_communication_A_cybersemiotic_reentry_into_Heinz_von_Foersters_metaphysical_construction_of_second-order_cybernetics>
>>  
>> There is much more  Peirce stuff on cosmogenesis where he is very close to 
>> Spencer Brow’s conceptions. But this mail is already too long.
>>  
>> Best
>>  Søren
>> Fra: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es 
>> <mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es>] På vegne af Louis H Kauffman
>> Sendt: 16. april 2016 06:58
>> Til: FIS Webinar
>> Cc: Maxine Sheets-Johnstone
>> Emne: [Fis] _ Re: _ Discussion
>>  
>> Dear Maxine Sheets-Johnstone,
>> I would like to make a remark on your comment below.
>> 
>> "(4). References made to Gödel’s theorem to uphold certain theses can be 
>> definitively
>> questioned. The claim that Gödel makes on behalf of his theorem is 
>> inaccurate.
>> Three articles that demonstrate the inaccuracy, one from a phenomenological
>> perspective, two others from a logical-analytical perspective, warrant 
>> clear-headed
>> study. In brief, self-referential statements are vacuous, hence neither true 
>> nor false.
>> Moreover the sentences expressing the statements may be used to make two 
>> quite
>> different statements, a fact ignored by Gödel.(See Note #4:  “Self-Reference 
>> and
>> Gödel’s Theorem,” “The Liar Syndrome,” and “Doctor’s Diagnosis Sustained”)”
>>  
>> My remark takes the form of a partially linguistic analysis of reference and 
>> it will be a bit technical/symbolic.
>> My point is to show that reference naturally leads to self-reference in 
>> domains where there is a sufficiently rich structure of reference.
>> I also have a question for you in that you say that "The claim that Gödel 
>> makes on behalf of his theorem is inaccurate.”. Can you please articulate 
>> your view of 
>> Goedel’s claim. There are many claims about Goedel that are inaccurate, but 
>> I would not say that the inaccuracies are his!
>>  
>> Now to get to my analysis. First let A——> B denote a reference from A to B. 
>> You can think of A as the name of B. But it can be just an ordered 
>> relationship from A to B and in that case 
>> A and B can be physical entities or symbolic entities. Usually in naming we 
>> think of A as symbolic and B as physical, but we mix them in our language. 
>> For example, if I am introduced to you
>> then I acquire a pointer Maxine ——> SJ where I use SJ to denote the person 
>> you are. This might be the person sensed visually upon being met. Before we 
>> were introduced, there was SJ in my sight, but now I know her name.
>>  
>>  This situation shifts almost immediately. I learn to associate the name 
>> Maxine with SJ the person, and so when I see you next I see you as “SJ - 
>> Maxine” and it s

[Fis] _ Re: _ Discussion

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Maxine Sheets-Johnstone,
I would like to make a remark on your comment below.

"(4). References made to Gödel’s theorem to uphold certain theses can be 
definitively
questioned. The claim that Gödel makes on behalf of his theorem is inaccurate.
Three articles that demonstrate the inaccuracy, one from a phenomenological
perspective, two others from a logical-analytical perspective, warrant 
clear-headed
study. In brief, self-referential statements are vacuous, hence neither true 
nor false.
Moreover the sentences expressing the statements may be used to make two quite
different statements, a fact ignored by Gödel.(See Note #4:  “Self-Reference and
Gödel’s Theorem,” “The Liar Syndrome,” and “Doctor’s Diagnosis Sustained”)”

My remark takes the form of a partially linguistic analysis of reference and it 
will be a bit technical/symbolic.
My point is to show that reference naturally leads to self-reference in domains 
where there is a sufficiently rich structure of reference.
I also have a question for you in that you say that "The claim that Gödel makes 
on behalf of his theorem is inaccurate.”. Can you please articulate your view 
of 
Goedel’s claim. There are many claims about Goedel that are inaccurate, but I 
would not say that the inaccuracies are his!

Now to get to my analysis. First let A——> B denote a reference from A to B. You 
can think of A as the name of B. But it can be just an ordered relationship 
from A to B and in that case 
A and B can be physical entities or symbolic entities. Usually in naming we 
think of A as symbolic and B as physical, but we mix them in our language. For 
example, if I am introduced to you
then I acquire a pointer Maxine ——> SJ where I use SJ to denote the person you 
are. This might be the person sensed visually upon being met. Before we were 
introduced, there was SJ in my sight, but now I know her name.

 This situation shifts almost immediately. I learn to associate the name Maxine 
with SJ the person, and so when I see you next I see you as “SJ - Maxine” and 
it seems that your name comes along with you. I call this shift the Indicative 
Shift and denote it as follows.
A ——> B shifts to
#A ——> BA.
#Maxine is my internally indexed name for that entity SJ-Maxine who is seen 
with a name associated with her.
You could call #Maxine the ‘meta-name’ of SJ-Maxine. Of course in our actual 
language #Maxine is still pronounced and wrote as Maxine.
The indicative shift occurs in all levels of our language and thought. The 
objects of our thought and perception are so laden with the names and symbols 
that have been shifted to them, that their ‘original nature’ is nearly 
invisible. I will not involve this to a discussion of the ding-an-sich or with 
meditation practice, but these are important avenues to pursue.

I am imagining a human being (or another organism) as a very big entity with 
the perceptual and naming capabilities who is endowed with this ability to make 
indicative shifts.

Such a being would notice its own shifting operation.

The being may then engage in a naming process such as M ——> #. 
M would be the being’s name for its own operation (so observed) of shifting 
reference. 
It does require a certain age for this to occur. 
But then this naming would be shifted and we would go from 
M ——> #
to 
#M ——> #M.
At this point the being has attained linguistic self-reference. The being can 
say “I am the meta-name of my own naming process.”
This nexus or fixed point of self-reference can occur naturally in a being that 
has sufficient ability to distinguish, name and create.

In this way, I convince myself that there is nothing special about 
self-reference. It arises naturally in observing systems. And I convince myself 
that self-reference is central to an organized and reflective cognition. Even 
though it is empty to say that “I am the one who says I.” this emptiness 
becomes though language an organizing center for our explorations of our own 
world and the worlds of others. The beauty of “I am the one who says I.” is 
that it is indeed a vacuous reference. Anyone can take it on. The “I” can refer 
to any observing system sophisticated enough to give it meaning.

My example should be expanded into a discussion of the role and creation of 
meaning in observing systems, but I shall stop here.

I am interested in how Soren Brier will react to these, perhaps seen as 
indirect, remarks on mind and meaning.
I take thought and the realm of discrimination as the start of epistemology and 
I do not regard the immediate apparent objects of our worlds as anything but 
incredibly decorated entities
appearing after a long history of indicative shift. What is their original 
nature? It is empty. Emptiness is form and form is emptiness. The form we take 
to exist arises from framing nothing.

Now, I caution you in replying to please read carefully what I have written 
here.
I will not reply directly to the discussion for another week or so.

Best,
Lou Kauffman
P.S. 

[Fis] _ Re: _ Re: _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Mark,
1. The way we think is part of how Nature works.
2. Thought is not separate from our contact with Nature.
3. Concept arises in the integration of thought and percept.
4. Thought is singular in that thought can be the object of thought and this 
becomes a place where subject and object are coalesced.
5. The fusion of thought with itself is the place from which we can understand 
the fusion of ourselves with Nature in a unity that precedes 
the apparent distinctions that we take for granted.
Best,
Lou K.

> On Apr 3, 2016, at 3:49 AM, Mark Johnson  wrote:
> 
> Dear Soren, Lou and Loet,
> 
> I can appreciate that Bateson might have had it in for hypnotists and
> missionaries, but therapists can be really useful! Had Othello had a
> good one, Desdemona would have lived – they might have even done some
> family therapy!
> 
> More deeply, Bateson’s highlighting of the difference between the way
> we think and the way nature works is important. How can a concept of
> information help us to think in tune with nature, rather than against
> it?
> 
> Loet’s description of social systems as encoded systems of
> expectations within which selections are made is helpful. A concept of
> information is such a selection. But we live in a world of finite
> resources and our expectations form within what appear to be real
> limits: Othello saw only one Desdemona. Similarly, there appears to be
> scarcity of food, money, shelter, safety, education, opportunity for
> ourselves and for our children upon whose flourishing we stake our own
> happiness. These limits may be imagined or constructed, but their
> effects are real to the point that people will risk their lives
> crossing oceans, fight and kill for them. This is a result of how we
> think: it leads to hierarchy, exclusion and the production of more
> scarcity. Nature appears not to work like this.
> 
> If we accept that the way we think is fundamentally different from the
> way nature works, how might a concept of information avoid
> exacerbating the pathologies of human existence? Wouldn’t it just turn
> us into information bible-bashers hawking our ideas in online forums
> (because universities are no longer interested in them!)? Would new
> metrics help? Or would that simply create new scarcity in the form of
> a technocratic elite? Or maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree. Maybe
> it’s not “information” at all (whatever that is) – or maybe it’s “not
> information”.
> 
> I like “not information” as the study of the constraints within which
> our crazy thinking takes place because it continually draws us back to
> what isn't thought. Without wanting to bash any bibles, Bateson got
> this - see for example the chapter in Steps on "A Re-examination of
> Bateson's Rule". Good therapists get it too. I don't know Peirce well
> enough... Which leads me to a question: “What are the criteria for a
> good theory of information?”
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Mark
> 
> On 3 April 2016 at 07:50, Loet Leydesdorff  wrote:
>> Dear Soren,
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> In my opinion, there are two issues here (again J ):
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 1. the issue of non-verbal (e.g., bodily) communication;
>> 
>> 2. the meta-biological or transdisciplinary integration vs. the
>> differentiation among the disciplines.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Ad 1. Although I don’t agree with Luhmann on many things, his insistence
>> that everything communicated among humans is culturally coded, is fully
>> acceptable to me. “Love” is not a counter-example. Unlike animals, our
>> behavior is regulated by codes of communication. Preparing "Love” as a
>> passion, Luhmann spent months in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris reading
>> the emergence of romantic love in the literature of the early 18th century.
>> A similar intuition can be found in Giddens’ book “The Transformation of
>> Intimacy”. Of course, one sometimes needs bodily presence; Luhmann uses here
>> the concept of “symbiotic mechanisms”; but this is only relevant for the
>> variation. The selection mechanisms – which impulses are to be followed –
>> are cultural. Among human beings, this means: in terms of mutual and/or
>> shared expectations. The realm of expecting the other to entertain
>> expectations, shapes a “second contingency” which is otherwise absent in the
>> animal kingdom. (If you wish, you can consider it as a function of the
>> cortex as a symbiotic mechanism.)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> This special status of human society should make us resilient against using
>> biological metaphors. Socio-biology has a terrible history since it links
>> social processes with evolutionary ones. The rule of law, however, protects
>> us against “survival of the fittest” as a structure of expectations. One
>> cannot define “the fittest” without using one (coded!) vocabulary or
>> another, and these vocabularies (discourses; Foucault) can be different; but
>> always disciplining. The codes function as selection mechanisms different
>> from an 

[Fis] _ _ Re: _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

[Louis H Kauffman]

hough 
> Bateson developed his theory far in this direction, he never revisited the 
> first-order cybernetic foundation it was built upon. In Mind and Nature 
> (1980:103) Bateson further develops his criteria for a cybernetic definition 
> of mind:
>  
> 1. A mind is an aggregate of inter­acting parts or components.
> 2. The interaction between parts of mind is triggered by difference, and 
> differ­ence is a non-substantial phenom­enon not located in space or time; 
> differ­ence is related to neg-entropy and entropy rather than to energy.
> 3. Mental processes require collateral energy.
> 4. Mental processes require circular (or more complex) chains of 
> deter­mina­tion.
> 5. In mental processes, the effects of differ­ence are to be regarded as 
> trans­forms (i.e., coded versions) of events preced­ing them. The rules of 
> such trans­formation must be com­paratively stable (i.e., more stable than 
> the con­tent) but are them­selves subject to trans­formation.
> 6.   The description and classification of these processes of transfor­mation 
> dis­close a hier­archy of logical types imma­nent in the phe­no­mena.
> (Bateson 1980: 102 and Bateson and Bateson 2005 p.18-19))
>  
> Today these criteria are famous and basic within the cybernetic understanding 
> of mind. My critique concentrates on the foundation of the second criteria: 
> “differ­ence is related to neg-entropy and entropy... .” I find it 
> problematic that Bateson follows Norbert Wie­ner's idea that the concept 
> “infor­mation” and the concept “negative entropy,” are synonymous. He is not 
> only thinking of the statistical concept of entropy that Shannon uses in his 
> theory, since this is not connected to energy. Further, he thinks that this 
> insight unites the natural and the social sciences and finally resolves the 
> problems of teleol­ogy and the body-mind dichotomy (Ruesch and Bateson 1967: 
> 177). Regarding how the mystery of mind is resolved through the relation 
> between the concept “information” and the concept “negative entropy” Ruesch 
> and Bateson typically write:
> Wiener argued that these two concepts are synonymous; and this statement, in 
> the opinion of the writers, marks the greatest single shift in human thinking 
> since the days of Plato and Aristotle, because it unites the natural and the 
> social sciences and finally resolves the problems of teleology and the 
> body-mind dichotomy which Occidental thought has inherited from classical 
> Athens.
> (Ruesch and Bateson 1987/1951: 177)
> 
> This statement characterizes the views of many researchers using this 
> framework within systems, cybernetics, and informatics. To Bateson 
> cybernetics provides a radical new foundation for a theory of mind and 
> communication, as well as cognitive science, with a modern expression that 
> unites the natural and social sciences. Psychology as such is not mentioned.
>  
> Here is Bateson’s poem he wrote after completion of Mind and Nature (Bateson 
> and Bateson 2005/1987:6), which I think makes my point very clear:
>  
> The manuscript
> So there it is in words
> Precise
> And if you read between the lines
> You will find nothing there
> For that is the discipline I ask
> Not more, not less
>  
> Not the world as it is
> Not ought to be –
> Only the precision
> The skeleton of truth
> I do not dabble in emotions
> Hint at implications
> Evoke the ghosts of old forgotten creeds.
>  
> All that is for the preacher
> The hypnotist, therapist and missionary
> They will come after me
> And use the little that I said
> To bait more traps
> For those who cannot bear
> The lonely
> Skeleton
>of Truth
>  
>  
> Best
>  
>  Søren
>  
> Fra: Louis H Kauffman [mailto:kauff...@uic.edu <mailto:kauff...@uic.edu>] 
> Sendt: 3. april 2016 01:09
> Til: fis
> Cc: Søren Brier
> Emne: Re: [Fis] _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS
>  
> Dear Soren,
> If you were to read the dialogues with Mary Catherine Bateson (as a child) 
> and Gregory Bateson in “Steps to an Ecology of Mind”, you might change your 
> notion of
> what sort of view of the observer is being studied in cybernetics. It is all, 
> through and through about a feeling for and an awarenss of context.
> This deep awareness of context is what brought so many of us to study the 
> cybernetics of Bateson, von Foerster, Pask, Matrurana and others!
>  
> I feel sorry that you have acquired such a mechanistic view of cybernetics.
>  I have no idea what you could possibly mean by a ‘cybernetic mind built out 
> of circular logical reasoning’! 
> Do you mean what comes from 
>  
> “I am the observed link between myself and obse

[Fis] _ Re: _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

[Louis H Kauffman]

guide to the laws of the Universe, which is 
> connected to his prejudice that “the entire physical world is depicted as 
> being governed according to mathematical laws” (p.18). Like Popper he 
> operates with a mental world, but never gives a phenomenological or otherwise 
> definition of the experiential world of experience, feelings and meaning, 
> which is a place Popper also avoids and therefore never goers into a 
> discussion of the qualitative “sciences”. In his development of his basic 
> three world model in Fig.1.3 Penrose in figure 1.4 does believe that  “there 
> might be mentality that is not rooted in physical structure”(p.20) and there 
> is “the possibility of physical action beyond the scope of mathematical 
> control” (p.20). On p. 21 he write about the mystery of “how it is that 
> mentality – most particularly conscious awareness –can come about in 
> association with appropriate physical structures...” and like in his work 
> with Hameroff he believes that this understanding has to come from “..  major 
> revolutions in our physical understanding”. They want to go deeper in quantum 
> theory to transgress the type of physical worldview science is working from 
> now. I am puzzled by how his views here are consistent with his view in the 
> Emperor’s new mind and Shadows of mind where he argues against AI having the 
> same qualities as the human mind.
>  
> Thanks
>  
> Søren
>  
>  
>  
> Fra: Louis H Kauffman [mailto:kauff...@uic.edu <mailto:kauff...@uic.edu>] 
> Sendt: 2. april 2016 05:46
> Til: fis@listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>
> Cc: Pedro C. Marijuan; Søren Brier
> Emne: Re: [Fis] _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS
>  
> Dear Soren and Folks,
> I have included some comments inside Soren’s introduction.
> Best,
> Lou K.
>  
>  
> Infobiosemiotics
> 
> 
> Søren Brier, CBS
> This discussion aims at contributing to the definition of a universal concept 
> of information covering objective as well as subjective experiential and 
> intersubjective meaningful cognition and communication argued in more length 
> in Brier (2015a). My take on the problem is that information is not primarily 
> a technological term but a phenomenon that emerges from intersubjective 
> meaningful sign based cognition and communication in living systems. The 
> purpose of this discussion is to discuss a possible philosophical framework 
> for an integral and more adequate concept of information uniting all isolated 
> disciplines (Brier, 2010, 2011, 2013a+b+c). 
> The attempts to create objective concepts of information were good for 
> technology (Brilliouin 1962) and the development of AI, but not able to 
> develop theories that could include the experiential (subjective) aspect of 
> informing that leads to meaning in the social setting (Brier 2015b). The 
> statistical concept of Shannon (Shannon and Weaver 1963/1948) is the most 
> famous objective concept but it was only a technical invention based on a 
> mathematical concept of entropy, but never intended to encompass meaning.  
> Norbert Wiener (1963) combined the mathematics statistical with Boltzmann’s 
> thermodynamically entropy concept and defined information as neg-entropy. 
> Wiener then saw the statistical information’s entropy as a representation for 
> mind and the thermodynamically entropy as representing matter. So he thought 
> he had solved the mind matter problem through his and Schrödinger’s 
> (1944/2012) definition of information as neg-entropy. 
> 
> 
> The idea was developed further into an evolutionary and ecological framework 
> by Gregory Bateson (1972, 1979, 19827) resulting in an ecological cybernetic 
> concept of mind as self-organized differences that made a difference for a 
> cybernetically conceptualized mind (Brier 2008b). But this concepts that 
> could not encompass meaning and experience of embodied living and social 
> systems (Brier 2008a, 2010, 2011). 
> [It seems to me that Bateson is well aware of the neccesity of being 
> meaningful and thoughtful in relation to information and that his ‘difference 
> that makes a difference’ is often the difference that is understood by an 
> aware observer. Thus for him it is often the case that information arises 
> within awareness and is not just 
> a matter of channel capacities as in the Shannon approach. The whole reason 
> one is take by Bateson and can find much to think about there is that he has 
> a sensitive and thoughtful approach to this area of problems. It is too harsh 
> to just say that “the idea was developed further …”. 
> 
> My main point is that from the present material, energetic or informational 
> ontologies worldview we do not have any idea of how l

[Fis] _ Re: _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Soren and Folks,
I have included some comments inside Soren’s introduction.
Best,
Lou K.

>  
> Infobiosemiotics
> 
> Søren Brier, CBS
> This discussion aims at contributing to the definition of a universal concept 
> of information covering objective as well as subjective experiential and 
> intersubjective meaningful cognition and communication argued in more length 
> in Brier (2015a). My take on the problem is that information is not primarily 
> a technological term but a phenomenon that emerges from intersubjective 
> meaningful sign based cognition and communication in living systems. The 
> purpose of this discussion is to discuss a possible philosophical framework 
> for an integral and more adequate concept of information uniting all isolated 
> disciplines (Brier, 2010, 2011, 2013a+b+c). 
> 
> The attempts to create objective concepts of information were good for 
> technology (Brilliouin 1962) and the development of AI, but not able to 
> develop theories that could include the experiential (subjective) aspect of 
> informing that leads to meaning in the social setting (Brier 2015b). The 
> statistical concept of Shannon (Shannon and Weaver 1963/1948) is the most 
> famous objective concept but it was only a technical invention based on a 
> mathematical concept of entropy, but never intended to encompass meaning.  
> Norbert Wiener (1963) combined the mathematics statistical with Boltzmann’s 
> thermodynamically entropy concept and defined information as neg-entropy. 
> Wiener then saw the statistical information’s entropy as a representation for 
> mind and the thermodynamically entropy as representing matter. So he thought 
> he had solved the mind matter problem through his and Schrödinger’s 
> (1944/2012) definition of information as neg-entropy.
> 

> The idea was developed further into an evolutionary and ecological framework 
> by Gregory Bateson (1972, 1979, 19827) resulting in an ecological cybernetic 
> concept of mind as self-organized differences that made a difference for a 
> cybernetically conceptualized mind (Brier 2008b). But this concepts that 
> could not encompass meaning and experience of embodied living and social 
> systems (Brier 2008a, 2010, 2011). 
> 
[It seems to me that Bateson is well aware of the neccesity of being meaningful 
and thoughtful in relation to information and that his ‘difference that makes a 
difference’ is often the difference that is understood by an aware observer. 
Thus for him it is often the case that information arises within awareness and 
is not just 
a matter of channel capacities as in the Shannon approach. The whole reason one 
is take by Bateson and can find much to think about there is that he has a 
sensitive and thoughtful approach to this area of problems. It is too harsh to 
just say that “the idea was developed further …”. 
> My main point is that from the present material, energetic or informational 
> ontologies worldview we do not have any idea of how life, feeling, awareness 
> and qualia could emerge from that foundation. 
[Yes.]
> Ever since Russell and Whitehead’s attempt in Principia Mathematica to make a 
> unified mathematical language for all sciences and logical positivism failed 
> (Carnap, 1967 & Cartwright et.al. 1996), 
> 
[Personally, I do not regard the incompleteness results of Godel as an 
indication of failure! They show for the first time the true role of formalism 
in mathematics and in intellectual endeavor in general. We cannot rely on 
formalism only for our search, but it is through examining the limits of given 
formalisms that the search can be carried further. I do not say this is the 
only way forward, but we are no longer stuck with idea of a perfect mechanism 
that can in principle generate all mathematical 
truths. This has failed and we are happy at that.]
> the strongest paradigm attempting in a new unification is now the 
> info-computational formalism based on the mathematic calculus developed by 
> Gregory Chaitin (2006 and 2007) ).
> 
[The ‘mathematical calculus’ of Chaitin iis very stimulating and it is based on 
the same incompleteness arguments as Goedel. Chaitin defines ‘random’ relative 
to a given formal system L. A sequence is random if there is no algorithm in L 
simpler than THE SEQUENCE ITSELF that can generate the sequence. Complexity of 
algorithms can be examined from this point of view. What we do not see in 
Chaitin is that same thing we do not see in Shannon. We do not see a role for 
judgement or phenomenolgy. I am interested in your notion that Chaitin has done 
more than this. Please say more.]


> The paradigm is only in its early beginning and is looking for a concept of 
> natural computing (Dodig-Crnkovic, 2012) going beyond the Turing concept of 
> computing. But even that still does not encompass the experiential feeling 
> mind and the meaning orienting aspect of intersubjective communication wither 
> be only sign or also language based.
> 
[Here I think you 

[Fis] _ Re: Fis Digest, Vol 24, Issue 46

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Rukhsan,
You raise the most important issue. Quantum theory is embedded in all the 
matthematics that we have developed since the Greeks.
All this mathematics contributes to our understanding of physics. It is 
possible that certain aspects of that mathematics will develop naturally into 
new insights into
the nature of the physical world. The Grassmann and Clifford algebras are good 
examples of this sort of development.
Best,
Lou K.

> On Mar 31, 2016, at 2:04 PM, Rukhsanulhaq  wrote:
> 
> Dear All
> As Prof Kauffman has pointed out that there are many mysteries in quantum 
> theory which need to be decoded. The measurement problem being the central 
> one. And I agree with Prof Kauffman that taking the eigenvalue aspect of 
> quantum theory seriously and relating to Lambda calculus can help us to 
> understand its deeper aspects.
> However I would like to point to yet another related aspect. Spin is called 
> essentially quantum mechanical property which has no classical analogue. Yet 
> when one does construct the formalism to treat spin we just use SU(2) group 
> which provides the double cover for SO((3) group and all of it was known 
> before quantum theory as well. Similarly fermions are also very quantum 
> objects but their algebra was once again developed by Grassmann in an 
> entirely different context. It begs the question how does the Grassmann 
> algebra which was developed to understand geometry is exactly the same for 
> building blocks of matter. Is somehow quantum
> properties of matter coming from geometry. You will be surprised that in 
> recent developments in quantum theory(Berry phases) it has been found that 
> important physical properties of matter are related to geometry and topology 
> of space of quantum states.
> So all of it suggests that we have a long way to go before we resolve the 
> paradoxes of quantum theory. Geometry and topology are going to be beacon 
> lights in this endeavor. I am not forgetting algebra and logic which are 
> already there in the quantum theory itself,Heisenberg commutation relations 
> are algebraic and logical expressions of underlying quantum world.
> 
> Rukhsan
> 
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 6:28 PM,  > wrote:
> Send Fis mailing list submissions to
> fis@listas.unizar.es 
> 
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> 
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Fis digest..."
> 
> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>1. _ Re: Fis Digest, Vol 24, Issue 45 (Rukhsanulhaq)
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2016 18:28:28 +0530
> From: Rukhsanulhaq >
> To: fis@listas.unizar.es 
> Subject: [Fis] _ Re: Fis Digest, Vol 24, Issue 45
> Message-ID:
> 

[Fis] _ Re: _ Re: _ Re: _ Re: On mathematical theories and models in biology

[Louis H Kauffman]

Josephson and Deutsh are not ‘deeper than QM’. Deutsch for example is a very 
literal interpretation of QM that says that all the trajectories in the Feynman 
path sum are real, and they occur in parallel universes. This is a nice 
mathematical way to think, but it is not deeper than present QM!
Energy is conserved, but ‘particles’ and indeed universes can be created from 
vacuum. If we want to go to discussion of ‘holy spirit’ then one should look at 
the structure of thought itself. For it is at the level of thought that every 
concept has a life behind it. Every idea is real and alive. Platonism asserts 
this directly in the belief in the existence of form and this form is a living 
form that we interact with and we are. How these notions are related to QM 
probably does await the emergence of a deeper QM.

> On Mar 29, 2016, at 4:43 PM, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov 
> <plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you for your responses, Lou and Stan. I am aware about the details of 
> the autopoietic model. What I was actually addressing by the transition from 
> abiotic to biotic structures and the later emergence of RNA and DNA was  this 
> elusive aspect of “mass action” which Stan mentioned, that in my opinion must 
> have emerged out of the field of “triggered  (by resonance) potentialities  
> which deeper theories than QM are trying to develop (cf.  Josephson and 
> Deutsch mentioned earlier). This enigmatic emergence of action out of nothing 
> (vacuum or pure potentiality) naturally allows  the (co-)existence of such  
> heretic ideas as the immaterial “Holy Spirit” or Hans Driesch”s vitalism, 
> Jean Sharon’s eternal electron, or “The Matrix of Matter and Life”at the 
> sub-Planckian scale. How about this possible link to Platonism, theology, 
> logic and algebra? 
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Plamen
> 
> PS. I do not know why my notes appear twice on this list.
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 10:55 PM, Louis H Kauffman <kauff...@uic.edu 
> <mailto:kauff...@uic.edu>> wrote:
> This is a reply to Plamen’s comment about autopoeisis. In their paper 
> Maturana,Uribe and Varela give a working model (computer model) for 
> autopoeisis.
> It is very simple, consisting of a subtrate of nodal elements that tend to 
> bond when in proximity, and a collection of catalytic nodal elements that 
> promote bonding in their vicinity. The result of this dynamics is that 
> carapaces of linked nodal elements form around the catalytic elements and 
> these photo-cells tend to keep surviving the perturbations built into the 
> system. This model shows that cells can arise from a very simple dynmamic 
> geometric/topological substrate long before anything as sophisticated as DNA 
> has happened. 
> 
>> On Mar 29, 2016, at 2:54 PM, Stanley N Salthe <ssal...@binghamton.edu 
>> <mailto:ssal...@binghamton.edu>> wrote:
>> 
>> Plamen wrote:
>> 
>>  I begin to believe that the transition from abiotic to biotic structures, 
>> incl. Maturana-Varela.-Uribe’s autopoiesis may, really have some underlying 
>> matrix/”skeleton”/”programme” which has nothing in common with the nature of 
>> DNA, and that DNA and RNA as we know them today may have emerged as 
>> secondary or even tertiary “memory” of something underlying deeper below the 
>> microbiological surface. It is at least worth thinking in this direction. I 
>> do not mean necessarily the role of the number concept and Platonic origin 
>> of the universe, but something probably much more “physical”
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> S: An interesting recently published effort along these lines is: 
>> 
>> Alvaro Moreno and Matteo Mossio: Biological Autonomy: A Philosophical and 
>> Theoretical Enquiry (History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences 12) 
>> Springer
>> 
>> They seek a materialist understanding of biology as a system, attempting to 
>> refer to the genetic system as little as possible.
>> 
>> I have until very recently attempted to evade/avoid mechanistic thinking in 
>> regard to biology, but, on considering the origin of life generally while 
>> keeping Howard Pattee's thinking in mind, I have been struck by the notion 
>> that the origin of life (that is: WITH the genetic system) was the origin of 
>> mechanism in the universe.  Before that coding system, everything was mass 
>> action.  I think we still do not understand how this mechanism evolved.
>> 
>> STAN
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 7:40 AM, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov 
>> <plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com <mailto:plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Lou, Pedro and All,
>> 
>

[Fis] _ Re: _ Re: On mathematical theories and models in biology

[Louis H Kauffman]

This is a reply to Plamen’s comment about autopoeisis. In their paper 
Maturana,Uribe and Varela give a working model (computer model) for autopoeisis.
It is very simple, consisting of a subtrate of nodal elements that tend to bond 
when in proximity, and a collection of catalytic nodal elements that promote 
bonding in their vicinity. The result of this dynamics is that carapaces of 
linked nodal elements form around the catalytic elements and these photo-cells 
tend to keep surviving the perturbations built into the system. This model 
shows that cells can arise from a very simple dynmamic geometric/topological 
substrate long before anything as sophisticated as DNA has happened. 

> On Mar 29, 2016, at 2:54 PM, Stanley N Salthe  wrote:
> 
> Plamen wrote:
> 
>  I begin to believe that the transition from abiotic to biotic structures, 
> incl. Maturana-Varela.-Uribe’s autopoiesis may, really have some underlying 
> matrix/”skeleton”/”programme” which has nothing in common with the nature of 
> DNA, and that DNA and RNA as we know them today may have emerged as secondary 
> or even tertiary “memory” of something underlying deeper below the 
> microbiological surface. It is at least worth thinking in this direction. I 
> do not mean necessarily the role of the number concept and Platonic origin of 
> the universe, but something probably much more “physical”
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> S: An interesting recently published effort along these lines is: 
> 
> Alvaro Moreno and Matteo Mossio: Biological Autonomy: A Philosophical and 
> Theoretical Enquiry (History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences 12) 
> Springer
> 
> They seek a materialist understanding of biology as a system, attempting to 
> refer to the genetic system as little as possible.
> 
> I have until very recently attempted to evade/avoid mechanistic thinking in 
> regard to biology, but, on considering the origin of life generally while 
> keeping Howard Pattee's thinking in mind, I have been struck by the notion 
> that the origin of life (that is: WITH the genetic system) was the origin of 
> mechanism in the universe.  Before that coding system, everything was mass 
> action.  I think we still do not understand how this mechanism evolved.
> 
> STAN
> 
> 
> On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 7:40 AM, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov 
> > wrote:
> 
> Dear Lou, Pedro and All,
> 
>  
> I am going to present a few opportunistic ideas related to what was said 
> before in this session. Coming back to Pivar’s speculative 
> mechano-topological model of life excluding genetics I wish to turn your 
> attention to another author with a similar idea but on a sound mathematical 
> base, Davide Ambrosi with his resume at 
> https://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/cim/events/cim-mathmod-workshop-2015_abstracts.pdf
>  
> :
> 
> “Davide Ambrosi:
> 
> A role for mechanics in the growth, remodelling and morphogenesis of living 
> systems  In the XX Century the interactions between mechanics in biology were 
> much  biased by a bioengineering attitude: people were mainly interested in  
> evaluating the state of stress that bones and tissues undergo in order to  
> properly design prosthesis and devices. However in the last decades a new 
> vision is emerging. "Mechano-biology" is changing the point of view, with 
> respect to "Bio-mechanics", emphasizing the biological feedback. Cells, 
> tissues and organs do not only deform when loaded: they reorganize, they 
> duplicate, they actively produce dynamic patterns that apparently have 
> multiple biological aims.
> In this talk I will concentrate on two paradigmatic systems where the 
> interplay between mechanics and biology is, in my opinion, particularly 
> challenging: the homeostatic stress as a driver for remodeling of soft tissue 
> and the tension as a mechanism to transmit information about the size of 
> organs during morphogenesis. In both cases it seems that mechanics plays a 
> role which at least accompanies and enforces the biochemical signaling.”
>  
>  
> Some more details about this approach can be found here:
> http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1902/3335 
> 
> http://biomechanics.stanford.edu/paper/MFOreport.pdf 
> 
> In other words, for the core information theorists in FIS, the question is: 
> is there really only (epi)genetic evolution communication in living 
> organisms. Stan Salthe and Lou Kauffman already provided some answers. I 
> begin to believe that the transition from abiotic to biotic structures, incl. 
> Maturana-Varela.-Uribe’s autopoiesis may, really have some underlying 
> matrix/”skeleton”/”programme” which has nothing in common with the nature of 
> DNA, and that DNA and RNA 

Re: [Fis] SYMMETRY & _ On BioLogic

[Louis H Kauffman]

in has said one should better leave alone, but we split 
> the background to that what we talk about, that what is the case, into one 
> part that is definitely false and one part, that which is simply unknown. 
> That what Wittgenstein has delineated as the background to rational speech is 
> now – thanks to computers – accessible. We propose to use the name 
> “information” for a logical statement which details facts that are not the 
> case, belong to the background in Wittgenstein’s sense. Information is a 
> description of the background to that what is the case.
> 
> d) Unit of what
> 
> Now we arrive at what an accountant would term the minimal accounting unit. 
> The concept may well be called a quantum by people outside the accounting 
> world. In the tables, one may point to an increased degree of exactitude 
> which one arrives at having picked the i-th element. What this minimal degree 
> of increased exactitude refers to exactly, appears not that easy to put in 
> spoken words of a rational language. We do not restrict its meaning to what 
> is the case, but also may refer to something that is now more not the case 
> than before, and specifically we cannot say whether this increased exactitude 
> refers to a linear, spatial or material or temporal (mis-) match. The general 
> idea of a match (or its mirror experience, the mis-match) or a Zero (in case 
> we refer to the contents of the Gray Table) may well be what is targeted by 
> speakers who use the word quantum. That the concept is not easy to catch 
> appears to root in its referring to a mixture of observations that refer to 
> consistent, but also to non-consistent appearances.
> 
> e) Vectors, agglomerations and directions  
> 
> By using the standard reorders, one can build two Euclid spaces. These can be 
> merged into one Newton space with the axes (a+b), (a-2b), (b-2a) for z, y, x. 
> The cycles create a web which is very much directed and oriented.
> 
> Within this web, spatial geometry and topology is of paramount importance. 
> The picture is, however, overlaid by two additional planes, created by 
> standard reorders, that transcend the spaces created by the rectangular axes 
> of standard reorders. It may be a wild guess to suggest the words 
> “electro-magnetic” to be used while describing the effects these two planes 
> cause.
> 
> Influenced or not by the two extra planes, the general tendency of cycles in 
> space is to attribute density unevenly along their paths. There appear 
> agglomeration points in space, where the probability that on this spot 
> material exists continuously contemporaneously is higher than elsewhere.
> 
> These assemblies can be visualised as traffic jams that appear out of the 
> general density of material on paths and of the non-uniform speeds of the 
> vehicles that are in convoys. There appear a few hundred of such 
> agglomeration types, which we call logical archetypes. They are referred to 
> usually as chemical elements and their isotopes. Some of them cannot exist 
> contemporaneously, but some do.
> 
> The coexistence of some logical archetypes imposes constraints on which other 
> entities may be in existence and how these share the space. This is a 
> Lego/Tetris type arrangement, very much in molecular geometry.
> 
>  
> I sincerely believe that the tautomat, the model of which has been presented 
> to FIS during the last few years, here reintroduced as a skeleton on which 
> one may demonstrate concepts, is a powerful and versatile tool to discuss 
> questions relating to order in Nature, and offers a deictic definition for a 
> concept of a minimal unit. The minimal unit can also have the form of a 
> negation of a logical state of affairs. This usage of the concept of the 
> minimal unit, namely to refer to something that is not the case, is what was 
> meant under “quantum information”.
> 
> Karl
> 
>  
>  
> 
> 2016-03-24 20:37 GMT+01:00 Louis H Kauffman <kauff...@uic.edu 
> <mailto:kauff...@uic.edu>>:
> 
> From: Louis H Kauffman <lou...@gmail.com <mailto:lou...@gmail.com>>
> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 17:56:06 -0500
> To: fis<fis@listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>>
> Cc: Pedro C. Marijuan<pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es 
> <mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>>
> Subject: Re: [Fis] SYMMETRY & _ On BioLogic
> 
> Dear Plamen,
> It is possible. We are looking here at Pivar and his colleagues working with 
> the possibilities of materials. It is similar to how people in origami have 
> explored the possibilities of producing forms by folding paper.
> If we can make hypotheses on how topological geometric forms should develop 
> in a way that is resonant with biology, then w

Re: [Fis] SYMMETRY & _ On BioLogic

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Folks,

I am sending this again, just the quantum part, with typos removed.

Best,
Lou

Quantum Theory in a Nutshell

1. A state of a quantum system is a vector |psi> of unit length in a complex 
vector space H. 
H is a Hilbert space, but it can be finite dimensional. 
Dual vectors are denoted by  is a complex number and 
 is a positive real number.

2. A quantum process is a unitary transformation U: H ——> H. 
Unitary means that the U* = U^{-1} where U* denotes the conjugate transpose of 
U.
Unitarity preserves the length of vectors.

3. An observation projects the state to a subspace. The simplest and most 
useful form of this is to 
assume that H has an orthonormal basis { |e_1> ,|e_2>,…} that consists in all 
possible results of observations.

Then observing |psi> results in |e_n> for some n with probability ||^2.
Note that the Sum_{n} ||^2 = 1 since |psi> is a vector of unit 
length.

This description shows that quantum theory is a dynamic sort of probability 
theory.
The state vector |psi> is a superposition of all the possibilities for 
observation, with complex number coefficients.
Via the absolute squares of these coefficients, |psi> can be regarded as a 
probability distribution for the outcomes that correspond to each basis 
element. 
Since the coefficients are complex numbers and the quantum processes preserve 
the total probability, 
one has room for complexity of interaction, phase, superposition, cancellation 
and so on.











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Re: [Fis] (Sending again)

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Pedro,
I think that we should assess the role of formal tools that are already in 
place.

1. We use the accepted (graph-theoretical + geometry) models of molecules. 
These models are very powerful and fundamentally simple, but the complexities 
of their application in molecular biology is very great, requiring 
computational handling of the data and geometry. Some molecular biologists add 
features related to physics such as electromagnetic fields and quantum 
mechanics to these models, and it should be expected that the quantum level 
will eventually be very important to the structure of molecular biology. 

1(a).  This is a further comment on 1. In protein-folding we use the basics of 
model 1, plus elementary modeling of energy and probability of bonding. These 
models are insufficient to do what Nature does naturally.
The models are combinatorial and graph theoretic in nature but they do not 
address the right issues (what are they?) to impinge on the actualities of 
protein folding as it happens. The same is probably true about the topological 
side of protein folding — one can easily construct topological invariants at 
the combinatorial level (I have written about this) but their use by biologists 
has not happened yet. At least one researcher (Anti Niemi) suggests a different 
and more field theoretic approach to protein folding. See 
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Antti_Niemi/publications 


1(b). There has been a nice success in applying topology via the embedded-graph 
paradigm for molecules. See
DNA Topology 

DNA Topology Kauffman and Lambropoulou] 

It is in this domain, that I became interested in looking at the 
self-reproduction of DNA as an instance of an abstract self-replication schema. 
There is much more to be done here in linking this abstraction back
to the topology and to the actualities of the biology. The investigation led to 
a number of analogies with structure of quantum mechanics and this will in turn 
related to quantum topology. This is in development.

2. Further topological/geometric work is very possible. The sort of thing seen 
in Pivar could be examined for mathematical problems to be articulated. We are 
aware that biological forms must arise via self-assembly  and this is in itself 
a possibly new field of geometry! The simplest example of self-assembly as a 
model is the model of autopoesis of Maturana, Uribe and Varela from long ago. 
Their model shows how a two dimensional cell boundary can arise naturally from 
an abstract ‘chemical soup’.

3. While I do not agree with Max Tegmark that Mathematics is identical to 
Reality, I do believe that the key to actuality is in the essence of 
relationships. The essence of relationships is often accompanied by a 
mathematical essence or simple fundamental pattern. This is so striking in the 
case of DNA reproduction (e.g.) that I cannot help but feel that some real 
progress can occur in looking at that whole story from the abstract and 
recursive self-replication to how it is instantiated in the biology. The 
question in general is: What can we see about the way mathematical models are 
instantiated in actuality?!

I will stop here in the interest of bevity.
Best,
Lou


> On Mar 20, 2016, at 2:04 PM, PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ 
> > wrote:
> 
> May I suggest that Louis make some further comment on the formal tools for 
> develop., answering Stan? Then, I think we should derive towards generalizing 
> on the bio problem and arguing about the existing philosophical gap(s) that a 
> tentative new phenom of life could fill in... it may be a good opportunity to 
> focus the entire discussion sessions. Plamen and me could attempt that, of 
> course Louis in his response to Stan too, irrespective that other parties may 
> finally plunge into the discussion or not. At least we will have done our 
> part.
> best --Pedro

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Re: [Fis] SYMMETRY & _ On BioLogic

[Louis H Kauffman]

From: Louis H Kauffman <lou...@gmail.com <mailto:lou...@gmail.com>>
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 17:56:06 -0500
To: fis<fis@listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>>
Cc: Pedro C. Marijuan<pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es 
<mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>>
Subject: Re: [Fis] SYMMETRY & _ On BioLogic

Dear Plamen,
It is possible. We are looking here at Pivar and his colleagues working with 
the possibilities of materials. It is similar to how people in origami have 
explored the possibilities of producing forms by folding paper.
If we can make hypotheses on how topological geometric forms should develop in 
a way that is resonant with biology, then we can explore these in a systematic 
way. An example is indeed the use of knot theory to study DNA recombination. We 
have a partial model of the topological aspect of recombination, and we can 
explore this by using rope models and the abstract apparatus of corresponding 
topological models. Something similar might be possible for developmental 
biology. 
> On Mar 17, 2016, at 2:45 AM, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov 
> <plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com <mailto:plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> Dear Lou and Colleagues,
> 
> yes, I agree: an artistic approach can be very fruitful. This is like what 
> Stuart Kauffman says about speaking with metaphors. At some point our 
> mathematical descriptive tools do not have sufficient expressional power to 
> grasp more global general insights and we reach out to the domains of 
> narration, music and visualisation for help. And this is the point where this 
> effort of reflection upon a subject begins to generate and develop new 
> expressional forms of mathematics (logics, algebras, geometries). I think 
> that you and Ralph Abraham noted this in your contributions about the mystic 
> of mathematics in the 2015 JPBMB special issue. Therefore I ask here, if we 
> all feel that there is some grain of imaginative truth in the works of Pivar 
> and team, what piece of mathematics does it needs to become a serious theory. 
> Spencer-Brown did also have similar flashy insights in the beginning, but he 
> needed 20+ years to abstract them into a substantial book and theory. This is 
> what also other mathematicians do. They are providing complete works. Modern 
> artists and futurists are shooting fast and then moving to the next 
> “inspiration”, often without “marketing” the earlier idea. And then they are 
> often disappointed that they were not understood by their contemporaries. The 
> lack of They are often arrogant and do not care about the opinion of others 
> like we do in our FIS forum. But they often have some “oracle” messages. So, 
> my question to you and the others here is: Is there a way that we, 
> scientists, can build a solid theory on the base of others' artistic 
> insights? Do you think you can help here as an expert in topology and logic 
> to fill the formalisation gaps in Pivar’s approach and develop something 
> foundational. All this would take time and I am not sure if such artists like 
> Pivar would be ready to participate a scientific-humanitarian discourse, 
> because we know that most of these talents as extremely egocentric and 
> ignorant and we cannot change this. What do you think?
> 
> Best,
> 
> Plamen
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 8:09 AM, Louis H Kauffman <lou...@gmail.com 
> <mailto:lou...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> Dear Plamen,
> I do not know why Gel-Mann supported this. It is interesting to me anyway. It 
> is primarily an artistic endeavor but is based on some ideas of visual 
> development of complex forms from simpler forms.
> Some of these stories may have a grain of truth. The sort of thing I do and 
> others do is much more conservative (even what D’Arcy Thompson did is much 
> more conservative). We look for simple patterns that definitely seem to occur 
> in complex situations and we abstract them and work with them on their own 
> grounds, and with regard to how these patterns work in a complex system. An 
> artistic approach can be very fruitful.
> Best,
> Lou
> 
>> On Mar 16, 2016, at 9:43 AM, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov 
>> <plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com <mailto:plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Lou, Pedro and Colleagues,
>> 
>> I have another somewhat provoking question about the "constructive" role of 
>> topology in morphogenesis. What do you think about the somewhat artistic, 
>> but scientifically VERY controversial theory about the origin and 
>> development of life forms based on physical forces from classical mechanics 
>> and topology only, thus ignoring all of genetics, Darwinism and Creationism:
>> 
>> http://www.ila

Re: [Fis] SYMMETRY & _ On BioLogic

[Louis H Kauffman]

Sorry Louis, but try again, please, for your address was wrong in the list 
--Pedro
(I have just discovered, in a trip pause)
BlackBerry de movistar, allí donde estés está tu oficin@
From: Louis H Kauffman <lou...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 17:56:06 -0500
To: fis<fis@listas.unizar.es>
Cc: Pedro C. Marijuan<pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] SYMMETRY & _ On BioLogic

Dear Plamen,
It is possible. We are looking here at Pivar and his colleagues working with 
the possibilities of materials. It is similar to how people in origami have 
explored the possibilities of producing forms by folding paper.
If we can make hypotheses on how topological geometric forms should develop in 
a way that is resonant with biology, then we can explore these in a systematic 
way. An example is indeed the use of knot theory to study DNA recombination. We 
have a partial model of the topological aspect of recombination, and we can 
explore this by using rope models and the abstract apparatus of corresponding 
topological models. Something similar might be possible for developmental 
biology. 
> On Mar 17, 2016, at 2:45 AM, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov 
> <plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com <mailto:plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> Dear Lou and Colleagues,
> 
> yes, I agree: an artistic approach can be very fruitful. This is like what 
> Stuart Kauffman says about speaking with metaphors. At some point our 
> mathematical descriptive tools do not have sufficient expressional power to 
> grasp more global general insights and we reach out to the domains of 
> narration, music and visualisation for help. And this is the point where this 
> effort of reflection upon a subject begins to generate and develop new 
> expressional forms of mathematics (logics, algebras, geometries). I think 
> that you and Ralph Abraham noted this in your contributions about the mystic 
> of mathematics in the 2015 JPBMB special issue. Therefore I ask here, if we 
> all feel that there is some grain of imaginative truth in the works of Pivar 
> and team, what piece of mathematics does it needs to become a serious theory. 
> Spencer-Brown did also have similar flashy insights in the beginning, but he 
> needed 20+ years to abstract them into a substantial book and theory. This is 
> what also other mathematicians do. They are providing complete works. Modern 
> artists and futurists are shooting fast and then moving to the next 
> “inspiration”, often without “marketing” the earlier idea. And then they are 
> often disappointed that they were not understood by their contemporaries. The 
> lack of They are often arrogant and do not care about the opinion of others 
> like we do in our FIS forum. But they often have some “oracle” messages. So, 
> my question to you and the others here is: Is there a way that we, 
> scientists, can build a solid theory on the base of others' artistic 
> insights? Do you think you can help here as an expert in topology and logic 
> to fill the formalisation gaps in Pivar’s approach and develop something 
> foundational. All this would take time and I am not sure if such artists like 
> Pivar would be ready to participate a scientific-humanitarian discourse, 
> because we know that most of these talents as extremely egocentric and 
> ignorant and we cannot change this. What do you think?
> 
> Best,
> 
> Plamen
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 8:09 AM, Louis H Kauffman <lou...@gmail.com 
> <mailto:lou...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> Dear Plamen,
> I do not know why Gel-Mann supported this. It is interesting to me anyway. It 
> is primarily an artistic endeavor but is based on some ideas of visual 
> development of complex forms from simpler forms.
> Some of these stories may have a grain of truth. The sort of thing I do and 
> others do is much more conservative (even what D’Arcy Thompson did is much 
> more conservative). We look for simple patterns that definitely seem to occur 
> in complex situations and we abstract them and work with them on their own 
> grounds, and with regard to how these patterns work in a complex system. An 
> artistic approach can be very fruitful.
> Best,
> Lou
> 
>> On Mar 16, 2016, at 9:43 AM, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov 
>> <plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com <mailto:plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Lou, Pedro and Colleagues,
>> 
>> I have another somewhat provoking question about the "constructive" role of 
>> topology in morphogenesis. What do you think about the somewhat artistic, 
>> but scientifically VERY controversial theory about the origin and 
>> development of life forms based on physical forces from classical mechanics 
>> and topology only, thus ignoring all of genetics, Darwinism