Re: [Fis] Is information physical?

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Mark,

 

Thank you for expressing your opinion of "Information Is Not Physical" in
concise language. It represents the general view from information science
researchers.

As far as I know, the view of "Information Is Physical?" only appeared in
(natural) science especially in physics. It was first put forward by IBM
physicist Rolf Londouer in 1991. In John Wheeler's writings, though he did
not say so clearly, my feeling is that he generally holds this view.

Thank Louis for using the concept of ‘substrate’ in his post, it is indeed
more academic than ‘carrier’ or ‘container’.

 

Best wishes,

Xueshan

 

P.S.:

1. Rolf Londouer, Information is Physical, in PHYSICS TODAY, May 1991, pp.
23～29.

2. Rolf Londouer, Information is Physical, in Physics and Computation, 1992.
PhysComp '92, pp. 1～4.

3. Rolf Londouer, Information is Physical, in IEEE Computer Society Pr.,
1993. pp. 333～337.

 

From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es  On Behalf
Of Louis H Kauffman
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2018 12:52 PM
To: Burgin, Mark 
Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] Is information physical?

 

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 

Re: [Fis] A Paradox

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Dai, Søren, Karl, Sung, Syed, Stan, Terry, and Loet,

I am sorry to reply you late, but I have thoroughly read every post about the 
paradox and they have brought me many inspirations, thank you. Now I offer my 
responses as follows:

Dai, metaphor research is an ancient topic in linguistics, which reveals the 
relationship between tenor and vehicle, ground and figure, target and source 
based on rhetoric. But where is our information? It looks like Syed given the 
answer: "Information is the container of meaning." If I understand it right, we 
may have this conclusion from it: Information is the carrier of meaning. Since 
we all acknowledge that sign is the carrier of information, the task of our 
Information Science will immediately become something like an intermediator 
between Semiotics (study of sign) and Semantics (study of meaning), this is 
what we absolutely want not to see. For a long time, we have been hoping that 
the goal of Information Science is so basic that it can explain all information 
phenomenon in the information age, it just like what Sung expects, which was 
consisted of axioms, or theorems or principles, so it can end all the debates 
on information, meaning, data, etc., but according to this view, it is very 
difficult to complete the missions. Syed, my statement is "A grammatically 
correct sentence CONTAINS information rather than the sentence itself IS 
information." 

Søren believes that the solution to this paradox is to establish a new 
discipline which level is more higher than the level of Information Science as 
well as Linguistics, such as his Cybersemiotics. I have no right to review your 
opinion, because I haven't seen your book Cybersemiotics, I don't know its 
content, same as I don't know what the content of Biosemiotics is, but my view 
is that Peirce's Semiotics can't dissolve this paradox.

Karl thought: "Information and meaning appear to be like key and lock." which 
are two different things. Without one, the existence of another will lose its 
value, this is a bit like the paradox about hen and egg. I don't know how to 
answer this point. However, for your "The text may be an information for B, 
while it has no information value for A. The difference between the 
subjective." "‘Information’ is synonymous with ‘new’." these claims are the 
classic debates in Information Science, a typical example is given by Mark 
Burgin in his book: "A good mathematics textbook contains a lot of information 
for a mathematics student but no information for a professional mathematician." 
For this view, Terry given his good answer: One should firstly label what 
context and paradigm they are using to define their use of the term 
"information." I think this is effective and first step toward to construct a 
general theory about information, if possible.

For Stan's "Information is the interpretation of meaning, so transmitted 
information has no meaning without interpretation." I can only disagree with it 
kindly. The most simple example from genetics is: an egg cell accepts a sperm 
cell, a fertilized egg contains a set of effective genetic information from 
paternal and maternal cell, here information transmission has taken place, but 
is there any "meaning" and "explanation"? We should be aware that meaning only 
is a human or animal phenomena and it does not be used in any other context 
like plant or molecule or cell etc., this is the key we dissolve the paradox. 

In general, I have not seen any effective explanation of this paradox so far.

 

Best wishes,

Xueshan

 

From: Syed Ali [mailto:doctorsyedal...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2018 8:10 PM
To: Sungchul Ji <s...@pharmacy.rutgers.edu>
Cc: Terrence W. DEACON <dea...@berkeley.edu>; Xueshan Yan <y...@pku.edu.cn>; 
FIS Group <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] A Paradox

 

Dear All:

If a non English speaking individual saw the  newspaper headline “Earthquake 
Occurred in Armenia Last Night”: would that be "information?"

My belief is - Yes. But he or she would have no idea what it was about- the 
meaning would be : Possibly "something " as opposed to the meaning an English 
speaking individual would draw.

In both situations there would be still be meaning - A for the non English 
speaking and B for the English speaking. 

 

Conclusion: Information is the container of meaning.

 

Please critique.

 

Syed




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[Fis] A Paradox

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear colleagues,

In my teaching career of Information Science, I was often puzzled by the
following inference, I call it Paradox of Meaning and Information or Armenia
Paradox. In order not to produce unnecessary ambiguity, I state it below and
strictly limit our discussion within the human context.

 

Suppose an earthquake occurred in Armenia last night and all of the main
media of the world have given the report about it. On the second day, two
students A and B are putting forward a dialogue facing the newspaper
headline "Earthquake Occurred in Armenia Last Night":

Q: What is the MEANING contained in this sentence?

A: An earthquake occurred in Armenia last night.

Q: What is the INFORMATION contained in this sentence?

A: An earthquake occurred in Armenia last night.

Thus we come to the conclusion that MEANING is equal to INFORMATION, or
strictly speaking, human meaning is equal to human information. In
Linguistics, the study of human meaning is called Human Semantics; In
Information Science, the study of human information is called Human
Informatics.

Historically, Human Linguistics has two definitions: 1, It is the study of
human language; 2, It, also called Anthropological Linguistics or Linguistic
Anthropology, is the historical and cultural study of a human language.
Without loss of generality, we only adopt the first definitions here, so we
regard Human Linguistics and Linguistics as the same.

Due to Human Semantics is one of the disciplines of Linguistics and its main
task is to deal with the human meaning, and Human Informatics is one of the
disciplines of Information Science and its main task is to deal with the
human information; Due to human meaning is equal to human information, thus
we have the following corollary:

A: Human Informatics is a subfield of Human Linguistics.

According to the definition of general linguists, language is a vehicle for
transmitting information, therefore, Linguistics is a branch of Human
Informatics, so we have another corollary:

B: Human Linguistics is a subfield of Human Informatics.

Apparently, A and B are contradictory or logically unacceptable. It is a
paradox in Information Science and Linguistics. In most cases, a settlement
about the related paradox could lead to some important discoveries in a
subject, but how should we understand this paradox?

 

Best wishes,

Xueshan

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Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on the cateogry theory

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear colleagues,

 

In the first half of this month, we have a heated discussion about the 
relationship among Information, Language, and Communication started by Sung. I 
am simply summing up part of the different opinions as follows:

 

Sung: Without a language, no communication would be possible. Encoding, 
decoding, information (flow) are essential for communication.

Part of the related different opinions:

Terry: (In this way), one must use the term "language" in a highly metaphoric 
sense. Communications take place in the following situations, are there 
languages? Such as scent, music, sexual display of some animals, smile, frown, 
pattern of colors of a flower that attracts bees, dog's bark, walk of a 
depressed person, hiccup after eating. There is a serious problem with using 
language as the model for analyzing other species’ communication in 
hindsight.…… It is an understandable anthropocentric bias.

Javier: Not every communication process involves coding/decoding and meaning. 
so they could not be simply paralleled to language. For instance, there is no 
coding/decoding process when I communicate to my dog. It does not understand my 
speaking, and I do not understand its barking. Yet still both of us interact. I 
would not define communication as information transfer. There is no information 
"traveling" from one place to another, from sender to receiver. The system 
itself becomes the medium of information production and processing.

Xueshan and Stan: The hierarchy idea is not only suitable for different species 
which communication take places between them, from elementary particle(?), 
molecule(?) to cell, brain(human, other animals), plant(?), even other 
different planets(?). It is also suitable for different information carrier. 
Stan think the carriers can be layered as {language {signal {information}}}, 
Xueshan think they can be layered as {substrate {signal {information}}}, here 
we simply consider sign, signal, symbol, token, marker and so forth as the same.

Gordana: It might be possible to develop a general theory of language …… with 
different levels of cognition which communicate and process information in 
order to survive. As in biology there are different kinds of organisms there 
are also different kinds of “languages”. There are small languages communicated 
in relatively simple ways between simple agents (like cells) and big languages 
used by complex agents like humans.

 

(In all the above discussions, we all omitted the Sung’s deep layer analysis of 
cell language and category theory).

 

Others:

Arturo: I suggest to fully REMOVE from the TRUE scientific adventures the 
terms: "symbol", "signal", "marker", "information".

Howard: Information is anything a receiver can interpret. Information is in the 
eye of the beholder.

Javier: Information and meaning are not the same.

Christophe: I take communications as related to meaning generation.

Mayank: Can we not make conceptual leap from networks, information, 
communication, and language to sound?

Koichiro: Focusing upon languaging comes to shed light on the communication in 
time between whatever parties.

 

Best wishes,

Xueshan

 

From: Stanley N Salthe [mailto:ssal...@binghamton.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2018 11:44 PM
To: y...@pku.edu.cn
Subject: Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on the 
cateogry theory

Xueshan -- My {language {signal {information}}} is meant apply only to a system 
that has language. That is, my assertion would be that no information can be 
gained in such a system that has not passed through a linguistic filter. The 
idea is that in such a system language dominates everything. Perhaps this has 
not been definitively demonstrated as yet. I suppose it would depend upon, for 
example, whether or not we consider our bodily reaction to, for example, having 
just burned our finger to have been ‘informationally mediated. If not (which 
seems possible to me) then my supposition might be OK. But if we think that 
neuron communications mediate information, then I am wrong. 

 

STAN

 

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:31 AM, Xueshan Yan <y...@pku.edu.cn 
<mailto:y...@pku.edu.cn> > wrote:

Dear Javier and Dear Stan,

 

Javier:

1. I very much agree with you as follows:

“I think that only signals can be transmitted, not information. Information can 
only be gained by an observer (a self-referential system) that draws a 
distinction.”

A Chinese scholar Dongsheng Miao’s argument is: There is no information can 
exists without carrier, i.e. No naked can exists.

I think both of you two are expressing a principle of information science.

 

2. According to Linguistics, the relationship between language and 
communication is:

Language is a tool of communication about information.

Of course, this is only limited to the human atmosphere. So I think that all 
(Human) Semiotics ((Human) Linguist

Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on the cateogry theory

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Javier and Dear Stan,

 

Javier:

1. I very much agree with you as follows:

“I think that only signals can be transmitted, not information. Information can 
only be gained by an observer (a self-referential system) that draws a 
distinction.”

A Chinese scholar Dongsheng Miao’s argument is: There is no information can 
exists without carrier, i.e. No naked can exists.

I think both of you two are expressing a principle of information science.

 

2. According to Linguistics, the relationship between language and 
communication is:

Language is a tool of communication about information.

Of course, this is only limited to the human atmosphere. So I think that all 
(Human) Semiotics ((Human) Linguistics), (Human) Communication Study should be 
the subdisciplines of Human Informatics.

 

==

Dear Xueshan,

Thanks for sharing your interesting remarks and references. I think no one 
really wants to deny the crucial role the language metaphor has played in the 
thinking of communication and information models. But I believe the crucial 
point is to distinguish between language and communication. Language is for us 
humans the main communication medium, though not the only one. We tend to 
describe other communication media in society and nature by mapping the 
language-like characteristics they have. This has been useful and sucessful so 
far. But pushing the language metaphor too far is showing its analytical 
limits. I think we need to think of a transdisciplinary theory of communication 
media. On the other hand, I agree with you that we need to check the uses of 
the concepts of signal and information. I think that only signals can be 
transmitted, not information. Information can only be gained by an observer (a 
self-referential system) that draws a distinction.  

Best,

Javier

==

Stan:

According to Peirce, language is only one of the systematic signs. Here we 
consider sign, signal, symbol as the same thing. So, more precisely in my 
opinion:

{signal {information}},   or   {substrate {signal {information}}}

But not

{language {signal {information}}}

If you remember, in our previous discussions, I much appreciate the 

The hierarchy idea is very important to our study which is initially introduced 
by Pedro, Nikhil and you.

===

Xueshan -- I think one can condense some of your insights hierarchically, as:

In a system having language, information seemingly may be obtained in other 
ways as well. It would be a conceptually broader category. Thus (using the 
compositional hierarchy):

[information [language [signal]]]

Meaning that, when a system has language, all information will be understood or 
construed by way of linguistic constructs. 

(Here I am using ‘signal’ as being more specific than Peirce’s ‘sign’, where:

[sign [information [...]]] ) 

Then, more dynamically (using the subsumptive hierarchy):

{language {signal {information}}}

Information in a languaged system is derived by way linguistic formations, so 
that, even though it is an extremely broad category, information (informing) 
only emerges by way of linguistically informed transformations.

STAN

 

Best wishes to all,

Xueshan

===

El feb 10, 2018 5:23 AM, "Xueshan Yan" <y...@pku.edu.cn 
<mailto:y...@pku.edu.cn> > escribió:

Dear Colleagues,

I have read the article "The languages of bacteria" which Gordana recommended, 
and has gained a lot of inspiration from it. In combination with Sung's 
comparative linguistics exploration on cell language and human language, I have 
the following learning feelings to share with everyone:

In this article, the author recognized that bacteria have evolved multiple 
languages for communicating within and between species. Intra- and interspecies 
cell-cell communication allows bacteria to coordinate various biological 
activities in order to behave like multicellular organisms. Such as AI-2, it is 
a general language that bacteria use for intergenera signaling.

I found an interesting phenomenon in this paper: the author use the concept 
information 3 times but the concept signal (signal or signaling) 55 times, so 
we have to review the history and application of “information” and “signal” in 
biology and biochemistry, it is helpful for us to understand the relationship 
between language, signal, and information.

The origin of the concept of signal (main the signal transduction) can be 
traced back to the end of the 1970s. But until 1980, biochemist and 
endocrinologist Martin Rodbell published an article titled: “The Role of 
Hormone Receptors and GTP-Regulatory Proteins in Membrane Transduction" in 
Nature, in this paper he used the "signal transduction" first time. Since then, 
the resear

Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on the cateogry theory

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Colleagues,

I have read the article "The languages of bacteria" which Gordana
recommended, and has gained a lot of inspiration from it. In combination
with Sung's comparative linguistics exploration on cell language and human
language, I have the following learning feelings to share with everyone:

In this article, the author recognized that bacteria have evolved multiple
languages for communicating within and between species. Intra- and
interspecies cell-cell communication allows bacteria to coordinate various
biological activities in order to behave like multicellular organisms. Such
as AI-2, it is a general language that bacteria use for intergenera
signaling.

I found an interesting phenomenon in this paper: the author use the concept
information 3 times but the concept signal (signal or signaling) 55 times,
so we have to review the history and application of “information” and
“signal” in biology and biochemistry, it is helpful for us to understand
the relationship between language, signal, and information.

The origin of the concept of signal (main the signal transduction) can be
traced back to the end of the 1970s. But until 1980, biochemist and
endocrinologist Martin Rodbell published an article titled: “The Role of
Hormone Receptors and GTP-Regulatory Proteins in Membrane Transduction" in
Nature, in this paper he used the "signal transduction" first time. Since
then, the research on signal transduction is popular in biology and
biochemistry.

As for any information transmission system, if we pay more attention to its
transmission carrier instead of its transmission content, we are used to
employing "signal transmission" instead of "signal transduction". From the
tradition of the early use of information concept, the signal transduction
study of cells is only equivalent to the level of telecommunications before
1948. Outwardly, before the advent of Shannon's information theory, the
central issue of telecommunications is "signal" rather than "information".
After that, the central issue of telecommunications is "information" rather
than "signal".

According to the application history of information concept, nearly all the
essential problems behind the concepts of communication, messenger, signal
and so on may be information problems. Just as the language problem what we
are discussing here, our ultimate goal is to analyze the information.

 

For the same reason, I recommend another two papers:

1. Do Plants Think?  (June 5, 2012, Scientific American)

(http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-plants-think-daniel-chamovitz/
#rd?sukey=fc78a68049a14bb24ce82efd8ef931e64057ce6142b1f2f7b919612d2b3f42c07f
559f5be33be0881613ccfbf5b43c4b）

2. Plants Can Think, Feel and Learn  (December 3, 2014, New Scientist)

(http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429980-400-root-intelligence-plants
-can-think-feel-and-learn)

>From which we can judge whether or not a plants informatics can exists.

 

Best wishes,

Xueshan

 

From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On
Behalf Of Sungchul Ji
Sent: Thursday, February 8, 2018 9:10 PM
To: Francesco Rizzo <13francesco.ri...@gmail.com>; Terrence W. DEACON

Cc: Fis, 
Subject: Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on
the cateogry theory

 

Hi Terry,  and FISers,

 

Can it be that "language metaphor" is akin to a (theoretical) knife that, in
the hands of a surgeon, can save lives but, in a wrong hand, can kill?

 

All the best.

 

Sung

  _  

From: Francesco Rizzo < 
13francesco.ri...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 8, 2018 2:56:11 AM
To: Terrence W. DEACON
Cc: Fis,; Sungchul Ji
Subject: Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on
the cateogry theory 

 

Caro Terry estensibile a tutti, 

è sempre un piacere leggerTi e capirTi. La  general theory of information
è preceduta da un sistema (o semiotica) di significazione e seguita da un
sistema (o semiotica ) di comunicazione. Tranne che quando si ha un processo
comunicativo come il passaggio di un Segnale (che non significa
necessariamente 'un segno') da una Fonte, attraverso un  Trasmettitore,
lungo un Canale, a un Destinatario. In un processo tra macchina e macchina
il segnale non ha alcun potere 'significante'. In tal caso non si ha
significazione anche se si può dire che si ha passaggio di informazione.
Quando il destinatario è un essere umano (e non è necessario che la fonte
sia anch'essa un essere umano) si è in presenza di un processo di
significazione. Un sistema di significazione è una costruzione semiotica
autonoma, indipendente da ogni possibile atto di comunicazione che
l'attualizzi. Invece ogni processo di comunicazione tra esseri umani -- o
tra ogni tipo di apparato o struttura 'intelligente, sia meccanico che
biologico, -- presuppone un sistema di significazione come propria o
specifica condizione. In conclusione, è possibile avere una 

[Fis] Is there a boundary between genetic informatics and genetics?

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear FIS Colleagues:

Last week, Sung and I discussed the problem of information in cell language
and human language. Pedro gave his opinion too. I think the Sung’s work is
very important to our information science study.

Biology is an informational science, this is the view of Leroy E. Hood of
the Nobel prize winner of 2002. As to this argument, he didn't give a
complete biological argument ― only a genomics one. Review the history of
those disciplines that claimed to be the member of information science in
the past years, although we cannot wholly agree with them, for example,
Bradley Efron ― the former president of the American Statistical
Association ― thought: "Statistics is an information science, the first and
most fully developed information science." But I believe, imitating the
Efron's statement: "Genetics is an information science, the first and most
fully developed information science." It seems to be more real.

In Sung’s statement, imitating human linguistics of letters, words,
sentences, texts, he divided the substrate or the media that carry genetic
information into the following categories: A. C, G, T or U →
genes/mRNA/proteins → metabolic pathways → functional networks of
metabolic pathways, as long as we remember those biological experts ― the
Nobel prize winner in physiology or medicine in 2013 ― whose works are only
about the chemical signal (information?) in neurotransmitters, they found
that signals from one nerve cell to another must be in the form of small
packages of vesicles. In some degree, we are immediately aware of its great
significance of the study about hierarchical structure of the substrate or
the media which carry genetic information here. But, the final verdict may
be made by the biologists rather than our information scientists, that is to
say, the right of speech may not be in us. Our bewilderment is: Is there a
boundary between genetic informatics and genetics? If so, where is it?

For us, if we want to make information science a success, the understanding
of information transmission theory in genetics is indispensable. There is no
fugitive and cloistered road to the freedom of information science,
depression and desolation absolutely is not a positive information to FIS.

 

Best wishes,

Xueshan

Peking University

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Re: [Fis] some notes

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Terry and Loet，

I think both of your posts put forward a very important concept to information 
studies, i.e., HIERARCHY.

Terry stated: "Communication needs to be more carefully distinguished from mere 
transfer of physical differences, …… Any transfer of physical, physical 
differences in this respect can be utilized to communicate, and all 
communication requires this physical foundation."

I hope to raise a similar question: what is the mode of the existence of 
information? My answer is: No information can exist in a bare way. That is to 
say, any existence of information is premised on the existence of substrate, 
and the substrate can be hierarchical. In the same way, no information can be 
communicated or processed in a bare way if and only if it has been embedded in 
the substrate. In human information, substrate can be divided into sign, paper, 
etc., or other electronic devices. In genetic information, substrate can be 
divided into base, DNA or RNA, chromosome, cell, and organism. The study about 
the mode of existence of information is an important aspect of ontological 
research of information science.

In Terry’s statement: "Simply collapsing our concept (compression, collapse) of 
'communication' to its physical substrate ……", or in Loet’s words: "One should 
not confuse communication with the substance of communication." Again, this is 
a hierarchy problem. Because no information can be communicated in a bare way, 
so the communication of information is premised on the communication of 
substrate, the same is true in the processing of information. Then, any 
communication of information is twofold: communication of information and 
communication of substrate. The study about the mode of communication and 
processing of information is the important aspect of dynamical research of 
information science.

 

Best wishes,

Xueshan

 

From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On 
Behalf Of Loet Leydesdorff
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2017 4:19 PM
To: Terrence W. DEACON ; fis 
Subject: Re: [Fis] some notes

 

Dear Terry and colleagues, 

 

I agree that one should not confuse communication with the substance of 
communication (e.g., life in bio-semiotics). It seems useful to me to 
distinguish between several concepts of "communication".

 

1. Shannon's (1948) definitions in "The Mathematical Theory of Communication". 
Information is communicated, but is yet meaning free. These notions of 
information and communication are counter-intuitive (Weaver, 1949). However, 
they provide us with means for the measurement, such as bits of information. 
The meaning of the communication is provided by the system of reference (Theil, 
1972); in other words, by the specification of "what is comunicated?" For 
example, if money is communicated (redistributed), the system of reference is a 
transaction system. If molecules are communicated, life can be generated 
(Maturana).

 

2. Information as "a difference which makes a difference" (Bateson, 1973; 
McKay, 1969). A difference can only make a difference for a receiving system 
that provides meaning to the system. In my opinion, one should in this case 
talk about "meaningful information" and "meaningful communication" as different 
from the Shannon-type information (based on probability distributions). In this 
case, we don't have a clear instrument for the measurement. For this reason, I 
have a preference for the definitions under 1.

 

3. Interhuman communication is of a different order because it involves 
intentionality and language. The discourses under 1. and 2. are interhuman 
communication systems. (One has to distinguish levels and should not impose our 
intuitive notion of communication on the processes under study.) In my opinion, 
interhuman communication involves both communication of information and 
possibilities of sharing meaning.

 

The Shannon-type information shares with physics the notion of entropy. 
However, physical entropy is dimensioned (Joule/Kelvin; S = k(B) H), whereas 
probabilistic entropy is dimensionless (H). Classical physics, for example, is 
based on the communication of momenta and energy because these two quantities 
have to be conserved. In the 17th century, it was common to use the word 
"communication" in this context (Leibniz).

 

Best,

Loet

 

-- Original Message --

From: "Terrence W. DEACON" <  dea...@berkeley.edu>

To: "fis" <  fis@listas.unizar.es>

Cc: "Pedro C. Marijuan" <  
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>; "Loet Leydesdorff" <  
l...@leydesdorff.net>

Sent: 11/17/2017 6:34:18 PM

Subject: Re: [Fis] some notes

 

On communication:

 

"Communication" needs to be more carefully distinguished from mere

transfer of physical differences from location to location and time to

time. Indeed, any physical 

[Fis] Verification of the Principle of Information Science and the Definition of Information

[Xueshan Yan]

oncept of information requires for its foundations an appropriate rich 
philosophical tradition with its developed conceptual framework. "(Sep.2, 
2005)." And in last month, Emanuel commented ironically, "All FISers pretend to 
be Einstein" (Oct. 9).

My view is that it is not the best time to discuss the definition of 
information now. It contains 3 factors: 1). When we do not understand the 
meaning of information in some major applications, we will have not a thorough 
understanding of information, so it is very difficult to grasp the essence of 
the concept of all kinds of information for us; 2). The connotation of 
information has been shrinking, but the denotation has been expanding; 3). 
Physicists to study "It from Bit" or "It from Qubit" is on the rise now, and 
its final interpretation of the concept may be completely subvert our old 
information view. Looking at the grand conference for "It from Qubit" which was 
hold in Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics of Canada in July 2016, and 
the similar study plus the relationship between information and Dao in 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology by so many excellent physicists, it still 
is profound for our FIS peers.

Many new information definitions that perennially have been given by FIS 
colleagues, in fact, most of them have been presented many times before by 
different researchers in detail in their works, such as Mark Burgin, 2010; 
Robert Logan, 2014; Xueshan Yan, 2016 etc. If possible, I hope we don't spend 
so much time doing these repetitive work without knowing enough about the 
existing works. For example, a few days ago, Arturo said in his post: "To talk 
about information is meaningless", "I will never use anymore in my papers the 
useless term information." (Oct. 4). In fact, in 1973, Fairthorn once proposed 
that: “We should completely exclude the term information from the scientific 
lexicon and to abandon the term from the dictionary.” (Mark, 2010).

3. Next Step’s Discussion

In the FIS forum, no matter how many the comments about the principle are 
given, how controversial about the definition is, they lack a scientific base: 
verification analysis. Verification is the sole criterion for testing truth. 
Where we play the verification analysis? in different professional fields which 
they apply the information concept. Once the principles and concept been put 
into the specific fields of application of information concept, the conclusion 
will be very convincing. In the hottest years of the FIS forum in 1997~2002 
years, we have analyzed almost all of the applications of information concept. 
If we want our FIS to continue to attract more researchers to pay attention, we 
should continue to carry forward the previous tradition, but should go deeper 
than it in the past.

Today, the general public and the scientific community have put forward 
numerous types of information, such as physical information, chemical 
information, biological information, social information, economic information, 
ecological information, etc. And many information research 
disciplines have been produced at last. According to my statistics, these 
disciplines have reached more than 210. Such as Chemical Informatics, Decision 
Informatics, Financial Informatics, Algebraic Informatics, etc... 
However, if we verify the principles of information science or definition of 
information according to these vast fields, the task obviously is too onerous. 
But an effective way is: we classify these disciplines first, only sum up them 
into several basic disciplines to complete the relevant work. I think it is 
appropriate to classify them according to the species hierarchy of nature. In 
this respect, Stanley proposed a good suggestion, e.g. {physics {chemistry 
{biology {sociology (Sept. 20). According to this idea, all the more than 
210 informational disciplines can be divided into 4 ~ 5 basic information 
subjects, they are: Physical Informatics, Chemical Informatics, Biological 
Informatics, Human Informatics (Social Informatics), as for the Technological 
Informatics, is it a fundamental informatics? I think that the Humberto 
Maturana and Francisco Varela’s autopoiesis theory can give a good answer. The 
technical information system does not produce information itself, what is 
processed or transmitted only is human information (or other types of 
information). 

Undoubtedly, it is much harder to do this kind of research than it did before. 
For example, if someone wants to put forward some universal statements about 
information, he needs to have a comprehensive observation at least 4~5 basic 
information disciplines. In the past, even if one person know little 
application field about information, he/she can shut the door to his room in 
patted his head and then give a definition of information, or start pointing 
fingers toward other’s definition of informati

[Fis] A Book: Information Science：Concept，System and Perspective

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Rafael and Moisés,

 

I write here some compressed words due to the limit of two posts one week.

 

Beat regards,

Xueshan

==

From: Rafael Capurro [mailto:raf...@capurro.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2016 11:16 PM
To: y...@pku.edu.cn
Subject: Re: [Fis] Information Science: Concept, System and Perspective 
(Contents Only) - Invitation to view


Dear Xeushan,

   Thank you, this helps me to understand what your book is about.

I think that this is a very comprehensive view of the subject.

I would very much like to read what you say about Information Science in China 
before and after 1948.

Is there any root of information science in Ancient Chinese?

【According to present understanding about “Information Science”, we can’t find 
any root of it in Ancient Chinese.】

Is there a connection between information and DAO?

【If we can divide Information Science as Materialist Information Science and 
Informatist Information Science, then it is inevitable that INFORMATION has a 
relationship with DAO in the Informatist Information Science.】

Is the word information in Ancient Chinese the same you use after 1948?

【Basically, same.】

 

Best

Rafael

==

From: Moisés André Nisenbaum [mailto:moises.nisenb...@ifrj.edu.br] 
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2016 1:51 AM
To: y...@pku.edu.cn
Subject: I will accept your help :-)


Dear Xueshan.

I understand what you said about the book. But there must be many people like 
me waiting for the opportunity of reading it. 

【Thank you Moisés, I hope so.】

Thank you very much for kindly offer me help. And I, obviously, will accept :-)

【You are wellcome!】

I really would like very much if you have 30 minutes to an interview via Skype 
or WebEx. I would like to ask you some specific questions about your book and 
also about the "crucial" relationship between Physics and IS that you 
commented. 

【Good suggestion, I hope you can postpone this step. Um abraço.】

If you don't have time, I will understand, no problem. Anyway, I will soon send 
a survey to FIS list.

Thank very much for your kind attention.

In Portuguese we use to say "um abraço" at the end of messages that 
approximately means "a hug". Something cultural that I cannot translate.

 

So, um abraço!

Moisés.

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[Fis] A Book: Information Science：Concept，System and Perspective

[Xueshan Yan]

 

 <mailto:yanxues...@gmail.com> Xueshan Yan has shared the following PDF:
  <https://ssl.gstatic.com/docs/documents/share/images/services/pdf-3.png> 
Information
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByPvcyabhSoMaWRCTFplU0tuV2c/view?usp=shari
ng_eid=574d7a74> Science：Concept，System and Perspective (Contents
Only).pdf 
 Sender's profile photo
<https://drive.google.com/c/u/0/photos/public/AIbEiAIAAABECIX6lO2W08j2hwEiC3
ZjYXJkX3Bob3RvKigyYjM5YzA2ZmJmY2FlODYyMzg0ZGQxYzczNWE3ZjFkOGJjODZiMmQ1MAGepM
sq00n3IalfpFLP7ER6ESVOLw> Dear colleagues,

Recently, I published a book of "Information Science: Concept, System
and Perspective" which was composed of 18 chapters of 724 pages in Science
Press of China. Because it was written in Chinese so I can only share the
English contents with you here. In this book, I discussed the most current
main information issues.

My opinion is: There is a faint hope that a Unified Information Science
can be established in the recent years, so we have to learn how to deal with
the Aggregate Information Science which was composed of several colony
professional informatics. In the near future, the core of information
science will turn its step from mechanism information science that was
composed of Computer Science and Telecommunication Science to organicism
information science that was composed of Cellular Informatics and Human
Informatics. In addition, Molecular Informatics can only succeed in its
organic part; Physical Informatics is still in its blurred image except in
informatist information science.

Kind regards,

Xueshan Yan
Peking University

P.S.: Sorry, due to docs format can’t be accessed in Google drive, so I had
to transform it into pdf format.
Open
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByPvcyabhSoMaWRCTFplU0tuV2c/view?usp=shari
ng_eid=574d7a74> 







Google Drive: Have all your files within reach from any device. 
<https://drive.google.com> Logo for Google Drive
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[Fis] Information Science: Concept, System and Perspective (Contents Only) - Invitation to view

[Xueshan Yan]

 
Xueshan Yan <mailto:yanxues...@gmail.com>  has invited you to view the
following document:
 
<https://ssl.gstatic.com/docs/documents/share/images/services/document-4.png
> 
Information
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/109viaEymwD1fm2IZ-nY1NsY7TmwqmoSbH0Bawyk
IXXE/edit?usp=sharing_eid=574c586e> Science: Concept, System and
Perspective (Contents Only) 
 Sender's profile photo
<https://drive.google.com/c/u/0/photos/public/AIbEiAIAAABECIX6lO2W08j2hwEiC3
ZjYXJkX3Bob3RvKigyYjM5YzA2ZmJmY2FlODYyMzg0ZGQxYzczNWE3ZjFkOGJjODZiMmQ1MAGepM
sq00n3IalfpFLP7ER6ESVOLw> Dear colleagues,

Recently,  I published a book of "Information Science: Concept,
System and Perspective" which was composed of 18 chapters of 724 pages in
Science Press of China. It was written in Chinese, so I would like and only
can provide an English contents here. In this book, I discussed the most
current main information issues.

  My opinion is: There is a faint hope that a Unified Information
Science can be established in the recent years, so we have to learn how to
deal with the Aggregate Information Science which was composed of several
colony professional informatics. In the near future, the core of information
science will turn its step from mechanism information science that composed
of Computer Science and Telecommunication Science to organicism information
science that composed of Cellular Informatics and Human Informatics. In
addition, Molecular Informatics can only succeed in its organic part;
Physical Informatics is still in its blurred image except in informatist
information science.

Kind regards,

Xueshan Yan
Peking University
Open in Docs
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/109viaEymwD1fm2IZ-nY1NsY7TmwqmoSbH0Bawyk
IXXE/edit?usp=sharing_eid=574c586e> 







Google Docs: Create and edit documents online.<https://drive.google.com>
Logo for Google Docs
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[Fis] _ RE: Cho 2016 The social life of quarks

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear colleagues,

The issue “Quark Communication” raised by Bob and Howard etc. is interesting
and radical; it can help us to clarify that if there is a universal physical
information problem besides black hole information that only is studying by
a few astrophysicists such as Stephen Hawking etc. Here I provide some
reference about “messenger particles” extracted from Wikipedia under the
term: “Force carrier” to this question:

The concept of messenger particles dates back to the 18th century when the
French physicist Charles Coulomb showed that the electrostatic force between
electrically charged objects follows a law similar to Newton's Law of
Gravitation. In time, this relationship became known as Coulomb's law. By
1862, Hermann von Helmholtz had described a ray of light as the "quickest of
all the messengers". In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed the existence of a
light-particle in answer to the question: "what are light quanta?"

In 1923, at the Washington University in St. Louis, Arthur Holly Compton
demonstrated an effect now known as Compton scattering. This effect is only
explainable if light can behave as a stream of particles and it convinced
the physics community of the existence of Einstein's light-particle. Lastly,
in 1926, one year before the theory of quantum mechanics was published,
Gilbert N. Lewis introduced the term "photon", which soon became the name
for Einstein’s light particle. From there, the concept of messenger
particles developed further.


Best wishes,

Xueshan

-Original Message-
From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [ 
mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2016 7:51 PM
To: 'fis'
Subject: Re: [Fis] Cho 2016 The social life of quarks

Dear Howard and colleagues,

OK, you can say that quarks communicate, but immediately we need to
create another term for "real" communication. I mean, there are quarks
(fermions) and bosons (particle forces) everywhere: planets, stars,
galaxies, etc. Their multiple interactions constitute most of the
contents of physics. If you want to term "communication" to some basic
categories of physical interactions based on force exchange --of some of
the 4 fundamental forces, whatever-- we run into difficulties to
characterize the communication that entails signals, agents and
meanings, and responses. That's the "real" communication we find after
the origins of that singular organization we call life --essential then
for the later emergence of superorganisms, peaking order, memes, etc.
You have oceans of interacting fermions and bosons around, but the new
communicating phenomenology is only found in our minuscule planet.

As an explanatory metaphor, it is not a good idea, almost wrong I dare
say. But as a free-wheeling, literary metaphor it belongs to the
author's choice. The problem is that both realms of information, so to
speak, have relatively overlapping components, depending on the
explanatory framework used (see the ongoing exchanges by Stan, John,
Terry,  etc.) And that kind of apparent homogenization blurs the effort
to establish the distinctions and advance in a unifying perspective (I
think!!). In any case, it deserves more discussion. In your Jan. 14th
message you ad more elements--I will think twice!.

All the best--Pedro

PS. Clarifying the two messages per week rule (responding to offline
quests): the two messages should be counted along the "international
business week": starting on Monday until the end of Sunday, Greenwich
Time. Thanks to all for respecting this "boundary condition"!

howlbl...@aol.com wrote:
> re: quarks
> 
> the big question for FIS is this: do quarks communicate?  and can
> their communications be called informational?
> 
> are quarks more than just the first bits of matter in the cosmos?  are
> they also the first socializers? the first team-makers?
> 
> with oomph--howard
> 
> Howard Bloom
> Author of: /The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the
> Forces of History/ ("mesmerizing"-/The Washington Post/),
> /Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the
> 21st Century/ ("reassuring and sobering"-/The New Yorker)/,
> /The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism/ ("A
> tremendously enjoyable book." James Fallows, National Correspondent,
> /The Atlantic/),
> /The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates/ ("Bloom's argument
> will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
> /How I Accidentally Started the Sixties/ ("Wow! Whew! Wild!
> Wonderful!" Timothy Leary), and
> /The Mohammed Code/ ("A terrifying book…the best book I've read on
> Islam." David Swindle,/ PJ Media/).
> www.howardbloom.net
> Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting
> Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University.
> Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; Founder, Space
> Development Steering Committee; Founder: The Group Selection Squad;
> 

Re: [Fis] Sustainability through multilevel research: The Lifel, Deep Society Build-A-Thon - 1

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Joshi,
 
No matter what topic/title you used, no matter what goal you want to reach,
your post has raised a very important theory which can decide the future of
information science: Three Level Theory: Molecular (level1), Cellular
(level2), Social (level3). (Please excuse my minor modification).
 
The FIS colleagues can easily recollect the theory of Cell, Brain, Firm
which was advocated by Pedro about 10 years ago, but I think this hierarchy
is could be much better spent taking some positive action.
 
Social (level3): It can indicate the all human/social information studies.
Cellular (level2): It can indicate the all cellular/biological information
studies.
Molecular (level1): It can indicate the all molecular/chemical information
studies.
XXX (level0): Particlate/physical information studies??
 
As we know, due to the Technological Information Science (It includes
computer science and telecommunications) is not self-organizational, or
antipoetic, so we generally don't consider it as a real information science.
 
With my best regards!
 
Xueshan
Peking University
 
  _  

From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On
Behalf Of Nikhil Joshi
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2015 7:35 PM
To: fis@listas.unizar.es >> fis@listas.unizar.es
Cc: Nikhil Joshi
Subject: Re: [Fis] Sustainability through multilevel research: The Lifel,
Deep Society Build-A-Thon - 1


Dear Joseph and Stan,
 
Both of you mention about earlier work on isomorphisms, and you also mention
hetero-organization. If it is not inconvenient, may I request more
information on this? You also mention that the use of self-organisation
could be a distracting, could you recommend an alternate formulation?
 
At this time, I must clarify that I am not suggesting a hierarchical
relationship between the three levels. I am referring to hierarchical
organisation within the species at each level - molecules (level1), cellular
species (level2) and social groups (level3). 
 
Coming to your question- how does the concept of hierarchy affect the
analysis?
The common multilevel organisational pattern presented here suggests that a
core element in human social organisation involves exchange networks based
on flow of human resources between kinship based social groups (like
families) and non-kinship based social groups (like businesses).  This
implies that evolution of social organisation is based on the emergence of
two species classes with greater complexity and greater compositional
hierarchy- kinship based social groups and non-kinship.
 
The question then are- why and how do living species give rise to exchange
networks between species with increasing complexity (and compositional
hierarchy) ? Will this pattern continue at the next higher level? 
 
Bob Logan and others point to the role of human language and the generation
of conceptual knowedge in the emergence of non-kinship based social groups.
It is interesting that Timo Honkela and Kohonen generalise these ideas and
describe processes that gives rise to conceptual knowledge in systems of
interacting agents. Do Alphabetic catalysts like DNA and Proteins play a
similar role as human language in the emergence of exchange networks at two
different levels? (see section 4.4., paper II in this kick off email).
 
While many theoretical perspectives have been presented on the evolution of
such systems (Stanley Salthe- Evolving Hierarchial Systems, Ch 8, John
Holland- aggregate agents, Eric Chaission- growing energy rate density, and
others) what is most interesting here is that the CMOP provides opportunity
to examine processes that give rise to such organisation in much greater
details. This could provide more insights into the emergence and evolution
of such organisations. 

Given the diverse research interests and great depth in this group, I would
love to get your views on these questions. Your views are greatly
appreciated. 
 
Thanking you,
Regards, 
Nikhil Joshi
 
 
 
 
Given the wide 



-
Dear Nikhil,

I think it is a very interesting exercise to see how a consensus might be
reached on your work by both adding to and subtracting from the different
perspectives. Thus, I agree with Stan that we are looking at instances of
isomorphism at different levels, and this for me is entirely logical (;-).
Levels of reality exist and the rules that apply in them are not identical,
and this constitutes a discontinuity between them. Also, within a given
level involving three elements, even if they all influence one another, it
should be possible to decompose the interactions into those between A and B,
the resultant of which interacts with C. This is Pedro's comment in somewhat
different terms.

On the other hand, as I have argued elsewhere, the use of 

[Fis] FW: It-from-Bit and the TAO

[Xueshan Yan]

 by Chinese thinkers to discuss
these matters has (at least) one major advantage over others: it forces one
to think beyond static conceptions of reality towards relational
non-separable, non-regional ontologies that have in fact the needed affinity
to both modern physics and digital ontologies. My Logic in Reality is
consistent with such ontologies and indicates aspects of their dynamics. As
I have been discussing with Loet Leydesdorff, people differ in their
capacity to perceive such reality, or reality-as-such, as much as they
differ in their general intelligence. I personally have no difficulty in
accepting that some people have a much greater ability than I do to see
complex relationships at high levels of reality. Such phenomena must be
considered as part of science.  

 

Hoping not to have lost your attention and for comments in due course,

 

All the best,

 

Joseph

- Original Message - 
From: Rafael Capurro mailto:raf...@capurro.de  
To: Joseph Brenner mailto:joe.bren...@bluewin.ch  ; y...@pku.edu.cn 
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2015 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: Wheeler's 'Enlightenment'?

Joseph

I understand 'it from bit' indeed as today's pervasive interpretion of Being
from a computational perspective. This does not mean that I believe that
being is computation or that 'it' _is_ 'bit' but that this is the
perspective or the spirit of time (Zeitgeist).  It is an expistemological
perspective, and less, I think, an metaphysical one in the sense that
someone can believe (in a new form of Pythagoreism) that the universe (a
large 'object' isn't it?) is 'made of bits' or even as in the case of the
Platonist Floridi: of 'forms' (in Modernity: of 'laws'). But... yes, there
might be computational oriented scientist that believe that this is the true
'perspective' in order to understand reality: to see it only (!) from a
computational perspective. Biologists in the FIS group, feel that this does
not meet the phenomenon biology deals with (life) and so also some physicist
that feels that matter or energy are not to be reduced to 'bits' etc. There
is then, in my view, a misunderstanding when 'it from bit' is not understood
as an ontological (epistemological in fact if we do not take the
Heideggerian terminology for 'ontology' in the sense of an understanding (!)
of Being) perspetive. But in order to understand this possibility (or to
understand it from bit as today's pervaiding Zeitgeist), it is necessary to
state the question of Being (as Heidegger and others did...) and to to leave
the answer(s) to this question (there are several of them in history... )
open instead of fixing it like metaphysics tries again and again with
different 'terms' (idea, matter, energy, etc.). It is in this sense, i.e.
relativizing the metaphysical aspirations of 'it from bit' that I see that
the Chinese view of information _as_ a new term for DAO could be promising.
But then, we are leaving the realm of science which is always related to a
particular being (regional ontologies as Husserl called them) and we take a
leap towards a previous _horizon_ possibilitating such 'regional
ontologies'. This leap is, I think, what DAO means.

best
Rafael



Dear Xueshan and Rafael,
 
If you, by the term 'Bit', imply something that is open, active, and fertile
like Nothing, then It-from-Bit is not incorrect buts adds nothing to the
original insight.
 
The difficulty is that people like Lloyd, Tegmark and others who use the
term bit see it in its meaning as 'binary digit', and they wish to ground
the universe (I think) on this rather weak computational base. There is no
life or basis of life in the inert abstractions of 0 and 1, only the basis
for calculation. 
 
My conclusion (tentative, of course): It-from-Bit theory in its standard
form is a reduced version of ancient understandings that need to be brought
into modern form. However, this must be done without, literally and
figuratively, denaturing them.  
 
Comments welcome,
 
Best,
 
Joseph

- Original Message - 
From: Xueshan Yan mailto:y...@pku.edu.cn  
To: 'Joseph  mailto:joe.bren...@bluewin.ch Brenner' 
Cc: 'Rafael  mailto:raf...@capurro.de Capurro' 
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2015 11:42 AM
Subject: RE: [Fis] It from Bit redux . . . Loss of Information. OFF-LINE

Dear Joseph,
 
I have two notes already this week too.
 
Yes, to my knowledge, those Chinese physicists who have close relationship
with Wheeler are very familiar with Yi Jing and Tao Te Ching. According to
our opinion, Chinese word Nothing is very close to the Bit. As you know,
as the supervisor of Wheeler, Bohr is very enthusiastic to Yi Jing and Tao
Te Ching, especially Yin-Yang Fish and Taiji Diagram.
 
It is a pity, the mentioned two books of Shen's “Informatilism and Wang's
“Unified Information Theory are all in Chinese.
 
I think both of you and Rafael may have the deep thinking about ancient
Chinese thoughts, thank you!
 
 
Xueshan

17:41, June 17, 2015

Peking University

 
  _  

From: Joseph Brenner

Re: [Fis] [Fwd: RE: It from Bit redux . . . MODERATION] From Xueshan

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Francesco，
 
That is all his private, there can't be many people who agree with that
saying, please just skip it! 
 
Xueshan
 
  _  

From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On
Behalf Of Francesco Rizzo
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 10:38 PM
To: Pedro C. Marijuan
Cc: fis
Subject: Re: [Fis] [Fwd: RE: It from Bit redux . . . MODERATION] From
Xueshan


Cari Tutti, 
la neg-entropia (energia libera o INFORMAZIONE in condizione di
dis-equilibrio improbabile) di Che cos'è la vita? La cellula vivente dal
punto di vista fisico di Erving Schrodinger e la evaporazione di
INFORMAZIONE di Stephan  Hawking che compensa l'asimmetria tra entropia
interna (minore) e l'entropia esterna (maggiore) dei buchi neri dove le
mettiamo?
Scusate la  domanda.
Francesco Rizzo



==

Dear Pedro, Joseph, John, Krassimir, Rafael, and All,

Here I tell you some interesting stories about “It from Bit” in China.

Around the year of 2000, The Seminar of Interdisciplinary Information
Science of Peking University came into contact for the first time with
Wheeler’s “It from Bit”, in fact, earlier this theory, we had just
discussed Stonier’s “Information Physics” and had consulted with the Dean
of Physics School, his opinion was: The concept ENTROPY is enough to
physics, it is unnecessary to blunder in the fashion of information for
physicists. Of course, that was over fifteen years ago.

We afterwards had been tracking this information problem in Science of China
History; So far, we found there are at least four doctrines related to “It
from Bit”.

1. It from Taiji. Zhou Wenwang (Ji Chang), see his book: “The Book of
Changes” (Yijing or Zhouyi), B.C. 1050;
2. It from Dao. Laozi. see his book: “Tao Te Ching” (Daodejing), B.C. 500;
3. The world is composed of information. Xinxi Shen, see his book:
“Informatilism”, 2005;
4. The world is informational. Jianghuo Wang, see his book: “Unified
Information Theory”, 2012.

To my knowledge, the last two authors had not contacted Wheeler’s “It from
Bit”, that Ji Chang and Laozi had no contacted with it is very obvious.

In all his lifetime, Wheeler once visited China only one time in 1981, when
he stayed in China, he watched a Beijing Opera named “Feng Ming Qi Shan”.
When a general hold a flag on which a large Chinese word appeared, he asked
the accompany that what is the meaning of that word, they told him its
meaning is NOTHING, he said excitedly: The answer what I am looking for
desperately all my life about the physical reality, your ancestors had
originally given thousands years ago. (see his book: “Wheeler’s Lectures
on Physics and Austerity”, 1982).

So far, on the argument of “It from Bit”, we can not prove it is correct,
but can not prove it is wrong too.

Best wishes,

Xueshan
16:18, June 16, 2015
Peking University

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Re: [Fis] [Fwd: RE: It from Bit redux . . . MODERATION] From Xueshan

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Rafael，
 

Many Daoism contain some science thinking not only philosophy one in ancient
China，so my opinion is：“It from Bit” just likes“It from Taiji”or“It
from Dao” in certain degree  There are thousands of people who had been
debating them for hundreds of years，no explicit or consistent answer can be
given even today At present time, if FIS colleagues always are involved
in this endless controversy, our endeavor may end fruitlessly.

 

Xueshan
23:18, June 16, 2015
Peking University
 
  _  

From: Rafael Capurro [mailto:raf...@capurro.de] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 11:31 PM
To: y...@pku.edu.cn
Subject: Re: [Fis] [Fwd: RE: It from Bit redux . . . MODERATION] From
Xueshan


Dear Xueshan Yan,

just for you: your thoughts in information and DAO are very important as I
told you (?) in Vienna.
But this is not an issue for scientists. It is a issue for philosophers,
poets...
best
Rafael



Dear Francesco，
 
That is all his private, there can't be many people who agree with that
saying, please just skip it! 
 
Xueshan
 
  _  

From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On
Behalf Of Francesco Rizzo
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 10:38 PM
To: Pedro C. Marijuan
Cc: fis
Subject: Re: [Fis] [Fwd: RE: It from Bit redux . . . MODERATION] From
Xueshan


Cari Tutti, 
la neg-entropia (energia libera o INFORMAZIONE in condizione di
dis-equilibrio improbabile) di Che cos'è la vita? La cellula vivente dal
punto di vista fisico di Erving Schrodinger e la evaporazione di
INFORMAZIONE di Stephan  Hawking che compensa l'asimmetria tra entropia
interna (minore) e l'entropia esterna (maggiore) dei buchi neri dove le
mettiamo?
Scusate la  domanda.
Francesco Rizzo


==

Dear Pedro, Joseph, John, Krassimir, Rafael, and All,

Here I tell you some interesting stories about “It from Bit” in China.

Around the year of 2000, The Seminar of Interdisciplinary Information
Science of Peking University came into contact for the first time with
Wheeler’s “It from Bit”, in fact, earlier this theory, we had just
discussed Stonier’s “Information Physics” and had consulted with the Dean
of Physics School, his opinion was: The concept ENTROPY is enough to
physics, it is unnecessary to blunder in the fashion of information for
physicists. Of course, that was over fifteen years ago.

We afterwards had been tracking this information problem in Science of China
History; So far, we found there are at least four doctrines related to “It
from Bit”.

1. It from Taiji. Zhou Wenwang (Ji Chang), see his book: “The Book of
Changes” (Yijing or Zhouyi), B.C. 1050;
2. It from Dao. Laozi. see his book: “Tao Te Ching” (Daodejing), B.C. 500;
3. The world is composed of information. Xinxi Shen, see his book:
“Informatilism”, 2005;
4. The world is informational. Jianghuo Wang, see his book: “Unified
Information Theory”, 2012.

To my knowledge, the last two authors had not contacted Wheeler’s “It from
Bit”, that Ji Chang and Laozi had no contacted with it is very obvious.

In all his lifetime, Wheeler once visited China only one time in 1981, when
he stayed in China, he watched a Beijing Opera named “Feng Ming Qi Shan”.
When a general hold a flag on which a large Chinese word appeared, he asked
the accompany that what is the meaning of that word, they told him its
meaning is NOTHING, he said excitedly: The answer what I am looking for
desperately all my life about the physical reality, your ancestors had
originally given thousands years ago. (see his book: “Wheeler’s Lectures
on Physics and Austerity”, 1982).

So far, on the argument of “It from Bit”, we can not prove it is correct,
but can not prove it is wrong too.

Best wishes,

Xueshan
16:18, June 16, 2015
Peking University

-


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-- 

Prof.em. Dr. Rafael Capurro 

Hochschule der Medien (HdM), Stuttgart, Germany

Capurro Fiek Foundation for Information Ethics
(http://www.capurro-fiek-foundation.org)

Distinguished Researcher at the African Centre of Excellence for Information
Ethics (ACEIE), Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria,
South Africa.

Chair, International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE)
(http://icie.zkm.de)

Editor in Chief, International Review of Information Ethics (IRIE)
(http://www.i-r-i-e.net)

Postal Address: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany

E-Mail: raf...@capurro.de

Voice: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)

Homepage: www.capurro.de
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Re: [Fis] fis Digest, Vol 579, Issue 24

[Xueshan Yan]

 Dear Rafael,

Thank you for the careful explanation!!

About 5 years ago, when I got your Angeletics (messaging
theory) first time, I am very excited on your opinion
message should stress the human side of information (not
your original words, only its main idea), I had my student
translate it into Chinese and discussed in my lesson at
once. The effect is not very ideal, main reasons included
two aspects: The Angeletics theory is not well established
yet at that time, and, if we can call human side of
information message, then what we should call the no-human
side of information? According to your message from your
mail, I will try to find «Messages and Messengers» to learn.

As to the origin of concept Information Theory, FIS
colleagues should not get off it forever, it is a
foundmental informatuion for us. Just like we have known
that the origin of concept Information Science was in 1959
(Hans Wellisch “From Information Science to Informatics”,
1972).

As we know, you have accomplished a series of excellent
works on the English origin of concept information, I have
done some same studies on Chinese origin of concept
information (xinxi), but this is another story.

About almost all of you agree with the Bateson's definition
of Information is a difference which makes a difference 
on information, in Chinese, it is too hard to understand. If
I am allowed to call it as difference school, we (perhaps
including many Russian colleagues) relatively appreciate a
reflection school, you can get its detail from Yixin
Zhong's related articles. This is a huge barrier in the
process of constructing a universal information science
between the west and the east.

Rafael, it had past more than a decade that since you put
forward you Capurro's trilemma, I really want to know your
present thinking about this issue, and what is your opinion
toward recent endeavors by Wolfgang (and others) on this
study?


Xueshan
23:15, January 14, 2014
Peking University

P.S.: 
1. If you come to China again, I welcome you to have a short
stay on my campus and not at Renmin University only, OK? 
2. According to Is a Unified Theory of Information
Feasible? A Trialogue, your information trilemma is not
the first place to appear, then, when and where?


 -Original Message-
 From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es 
 [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of 
 fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es
 Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 8:52 PM
 To: fis@listas.unizar.es
 Subject: fis Digest, Vol 579, Issue 24
 
 Send fis mailing list submissions to
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 Today's Topics:
 
1. Re: fis Digest, Vol 579, Issue 18 (Rafael Capurro)
2. Re: fis Digest, Vol 579, Issue 18 (Karl Javorszky)
 
 


--
 
 Message: 1
 Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 10:44:19 +0100
 From: Rafael Capurro raf...@capurro.de
 Subject: Re: [Fis] fis Digest, Vol 579, Issue 18
 To: y...@pku.edu.cn, fis@listas.unizar.es,John Holgate
   john.holg...@ozemail.com.au
 Message-ID: 52d506f3.7080...@capurro.de
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1;
format=flowed
 
 Dear Xueshan,
 
 thanks for your message!
 
 My colleague John Holgate (Sydney) with whom I co-edited
the 
 book Messages and Messengers. Angletics as an Approach to
the 
 Phenomenology of Communication (Munich 2011) suggested to
use 
 the term messaging theory.
 
 I start with your last point. According to Y. Bar-Hillel,
the 
 term information theory started to be used in the USA 
 between 1928 and 1948 although neither Shannon nor Weaver 
 used it, the title of their book being The mathematical 
 theory of communication). (Y. Bar-Hillel: An Examination
of 
 Informtion Theoty, p. 288). I quoted Bar-Hillel in my PhD 
 (published in 1978, p. 204: See: 
 http://www.capurro.de/info5.html The difference between 
 information and message is explained (partly) by Weaver
when 
 he writes: The word _information_, in this theory, is
used 
 in a special sense that must not be confused with its 
 ordinary usage. In particular, information must not be 
 confused with meaning. In fact, two MESSAGES, one of which
is 
 heavily loaded with meaning and the other of which is
purely 
 nonsense, can be exactly equivalent, from the present 
 viewpoint, as regards information. (See this quote on
page 2010 of my
 PhD) Bar-Hillel said that this use of the concept of 
 information was a semantic trap because, he said, it is 
 almost impossible to avoid the connection between
information 
 _as_ a set of signals and information_as_ their meaning 
 (quote 

Re: [Fis] fis Digest, Vol 579, Issue 18

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Rafael,

I am sure you were right in what is communicated between a
sender and a receiver is NOT information but a MESSAGE, I
can provide you more supports from Biology. Between two
nerve cells, between gland cell and target cell, it is
MESSENGERS but not others which carry MESSAGE from sender to
receiver, this is the situation in first messenger theory.

In second messenger theory, not message or information, they
call it SIGNAL. In computer science, DATA some time was
adopted, such as Data Structure, Data Bank, Data Mining. No
matter what happens, all message, signal etc. should
recognize as a special usage of information. This is an
interesting history in past related information
explorations. But in modern science, such in semiochemistry,
when talk about the effects of pheromones, allomones,
kairomones, attractants, repellents, most Chemists like to
use information rather then signal (or message). First and
last, shall we consider  INFORMATION as genus and MESSAGE,
news, knowledge, etc. as its differentia?

By the way, who knows who are the first people who called
Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication as
Information Theory? What time? Where?

Best wishes,

Xueshan
20:45, January 13, 2014
Peking University 

 -Original Message-
 From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es 
 [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of 
 fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es
 Sent: Monday, January 13, 2014 6:45 PM
 To: fis@listas.unizar.es
 Subject: fis Digest, Vol 579, Issue 18
 
 Send fis mailing list submissions to
   fis@listas.unizar.es
 
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 specific than Re: Contents of fis digest...
 
 
 Today's Topics:
 
1. Re: Fw:  Responses (Rafael Capurro)
 
 


--
 
 Message: 1
 Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 11:30:20 +0100
 From: Rafael Capurro raf...@capurro.de
 Subject: Re: [Fis] Fw:  Responses
 To: Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic
gordana.dodig-crnko...@mdh.se,Hans von
   Baeyer henrikrit...@gmail.com,Joseph
Brenner
   joe.bren...@bluewin.ch, fis fis@listas.unizar.es
 Message-ID: 52d11d3c.3040...@capurro.de
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
 
 Dear Gordana,
 
 what is communicated between a sender and a receiver is
NOT 
 information but a MESSAGE
 And: the title of Shannon's paper is NOT theory of 
 information but theory of communication There are too many

 misunderstandings in this discussion best Rafael
 
  Dear Hans, Joseph, Loet, All
 
 
  Loet: It seems to me that there is at least one 
 alternative: Shannon's 
  mathematical theory of information. Information is then
defined as 
  content-free.
 
  Gordana: There is a link between Shannon information and

 information 
  for an agent (meaningful, semantic information).//
 
  What we call context-free is actually fixed context.
In 
 Shannon's 
  case, information is that which is communicated between
a 
 sender and a 
  receiver. That means we can look at the world as a
complex 
 system of 
  agents within agents communicating Shannon information.
This can be 
  useful even in understanding of cognitive agents, if we
define 
  cognition broadly and accept that bacteria and any other
kind of 
  living being cognize -- that is use information that
makes 
 sense for 
  them (has meaning first to survive in a direct
individual 
 contact with 
  the environment, then through social cognition (for 
 bacteria it is a 
  colony which enables an individual organism to know
about much 
  bigger space and much longer time than one individual
would 
 be able to
  -- this is based in molecular language). There are
striking 
  similarities in information management principles of
bacterial 
  colonies and our brains (which of course are much more 
 complex than a 
  bacterial colony) but now we are talking about basic
principles.
 
  //
 
  Thus Shannon information can be used to understand
mechanisms of 
  cognition as a process of life itself (Maturana) and
meaning for an 
  agent.
 
  //
 
  Loet: Thermodynamic entropy (physics) is the special
case that H is 
  multiplied by the Boltzmann constant and thus one
obtains the 
  dimensionality of S. (S = kB * H).
 
  Gordana: (Ben-Naim, 2008)argues for the revision of the
above, in 
  order to get it into better agreement with understanding
of 
 entropy as 
  a lack of information.
 
 
http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/6469
 
  Loet: Information theory, however, can also be used in 
 other contexts 
  such as economics (Theil, 1972). It does not have a
realistic 
  interpretation such as in your argument.
 
  Gordana: Yes, in economics one cannot talk about

Re: [Fis] fis Digest, Vol 570, Issue 2

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Pedro, Dear Joseph,

About the Milton Keynes Conference, i.e., about DTMD
definition, we saw this quote long long ago, but there two
different sayings: One is Information is a distinction that
makes a difference from Donald M. MacKay in his
Information, Mechanism and Meaning (1969), and another is
Information is a difference that makes a difference from
Gregory Bateson in his Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972).

Although I have checked it page by page in Donald M.
MacKay's book but can't found it, whereas it is easy to find
Information is a difference that makes a difference in
Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind at page 230,
361, 339, etc., who can tell the accurate priority about
DTMD?

Best wishes,

Xueshan
16:49, April 14, 2013   Peking University

 -Original Message-
 From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es 
 [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of 
 fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es
 Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2013 12:00 AM
 To: fis@listas.unizar.es
 Subject: fis Digest, Vol 570, Issue 2
 
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 specific than Re: Contents of fis digest...
 
 
 Today's Topics:
 
1. Re: FIS News (Moscow 2013) (joe.bren...@bluewin.ch)
2. Re: FIS News (Moscow 2013) (PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN
FERNANDEZ)
3. Re: FIS News (Moscow 2013) (Gyorgy Darvas)
 
 


--
 
 Message: 1
 Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:11:58 + (GMT+00:00)
 From: joe.bren...@bluewin.ch joe.bren...@bluewin.ch
 Subject: Re: [Fis] FIS News (Moscow 2013)
 To: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es, fis@listas.unizar.es
 Message-ID:
15776686.90091365786718476.javamail.webm...@bluewin.ch
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
 
 
 
 
 
 Dear Pedro,
 
 Glad to hear from you. Your silence was, of course, 
 expressive, containing much information . . .
 
 Now all of us will be waiting impatiently to learn about
the 
 the new, exciting themes that were discussed at the Milton

 Keynes Conference.
 
 Best wishes,
 
 Joseph
 
 Message d'origine
 De: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
 Date: 12.04.2013 11:02
 À: fis@listas.unizar.es
 Objet: [Fis] FIS News (Moscow 2013)
 
 Dear FIS Friends,
 
 Apologies for my long silence. As I have already said
several 
 times, my science management duties are killing not only
my 
 time but also my nerve (well, not completely!). Imagine
what 
 is happening with the financing and organization of
Spanish 
 science these years...
 
 Anyhow, a couple of good news about our common Information

 Science endeavor. First, there has been an excellent 
 conference in Milton Keynes, organized by the Open 
 University, about Information (the difference that makes
a 
 difference). Quite exciting discussions on our most dear 
 themes, and some new ones that we have rarely addressed
here. 
 The organizers, a very active team indeed, are cordially 
 invited to lead a discussion session in our FIS list to 
 continue with the conceptual explorations addressed in
their 
 conference.
 
 And the second news is about an imminent FIS CONFERENCE, 
 MOSCOW 2013, the Sixth FIS, and the 1st of the ISIS 
 organization. It will be held this May, from 21 to 24 in 
 Moscow. This time the Russian organizers have followed a 
 singular procedure, a relatively closed conference
centered 
 in the diffusion of information science in the Russian 
 scientific community.  At the time being, to my knowledge
(I 
 could not follow very well the process), only the members
of 
 the ISIS board have been enlisted as foreign participants.

 But given that there will be several absences, interested
FIS 
 parties might ask about their possible participation.  
 The schedule is too tight for travels, visas etc, and
again I 
 have to apologize for not having posted this info before 
 (info glut!). In any case, am sure that our colleague 
 Konstantin  Kolin ( koli...@mail.ru ), leading organizer,
and 
 member of the Russian Academy of Science, will be happy to

 respond to interested parties and help them to accelerate
the process.
 
 Best wishes to all
 
 ---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 (amp; 6818)
 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
 http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
 -
 
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Re: [Fis] The Information Flow

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Pedro,

Dear FIS Colleagues,

 

Thanks Pedro for his assigning FIS Beijing Group to respond
the current FIS topic about Information Flow, to my
knowledge, there are about 20 books published about this
question, but I only contacted a few of them, the following
three have gave me deep impressions:

 

1. Concepts of Molecular Genetics: Information Flow in
Genetics and Evolution (McGraw-Hill, 1977), by Dow Woodward
 Val Woodward.

2. Knowledge and the flow of information (MIT Press, 1981),
by Fred I. Dretske.

3. Communications flows: a census in the United States and
Japan (North-Holland, 1984), by Ithiel de Sola Pool [et
al.].

 

All these researches employed the term of information flow
in Genetics, Philosophy, and Mass Communication
respectively, but they aren’t the true study about
(information) flow. As we know, flow is a metaphorical term
borrowed from Mechanics, so all the Information Flow
explorations should discuss in statistics or mathematics. If
someone only treat the communication of information as an
abstract flow, sorry, this only is a metaphor. These studies
about information flow especially occurred in Management
Science, Computer Science, and Telecommunication very often.

 

So, my opinion is, maybe the topic information flow is very
promising, but we should at least catch on every FLOW in
different professional fields respectively first, don't
worry！

 

Best wishes,

 

Yan Xueshan

Peking University, FIS Beijing Group


  _  

From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es
[mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of
fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2012 1:00 AM
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: fis Digest, Vol 565, Issue 3



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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: The Information Flow (PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN
FERNANDEZ)



--

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 14:00:03 +0100
From: PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] The Information Flow
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Message-ID: fbcbe4a4624e.509fa...@aragon.es
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Dear colleagues,

Yes, the foundations are trembling... as usual during quite
long a time. Maybe too many aspects have to be put into line
in order to have new, more consistent foundations for human
knowledge. Until now the different crisis of Mechanics, the
dominant scientific culture, have been solved at the small
price of leaving conceptual inconsistencies until the rug of
brand new fields or subdisciplines while at the same time
fictive claims of unity of sceince, reductionism, etc. were
upheld. Good for mechanics, as probably there were few
competing options around --if any. Bad for the whole human
knowledge, as multidisciplinary schizophrenia has been
assumed as the natural state of mental health.

My opinion is that information science should carefully
examine the problematic claims at the core of mechanical
ways of explanation, as some (many?) of them refer to the
information stuff: unlimited communication (even between
physical elements), arbitrary partitions and boundary
conditions, ideal status of the acting laws of nature,
ominiscient observer, idealized nature of human knowledge
(no neurodynamics of knowledge), disciplinary hierarchies
versus heterarchical interrelationships, logical versus
social construction and knowledge recombination, idealized
social information, etc.etc. Probably I have misconceived
and wrongly expressed some of those problems, but in any
case it is unfortunate that there is a dense feedback among
them and a strong entrenchment with many others, so the
revision task becomes Herculean even if partially addressed.

The big problem some of us see, and I tried to argument
about that in the last Beijing FIS meeting, is that without
an entrance of some partial aspect in the professional
science system, none of the those challenges has the
slightest possibility of being developed in the amateur
mode/marginal science our studies are caught into. Therefore
a common challenge for FIS, the new ISIS society, ITHEA,
Symmetrion, INBIOSA, etc. is to take some piece or problem,
with practical implications, and enter it into the
institutional system, it does not matter where and by whom,
and little by little expand the initial stronghold with the
collective support of all of us. There is a terrific
collection of individualities and scholars in the FIS
enterprise and the germane 

Re: [Fis] Chemical information: a field of fuzzy contours ?

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear Michel，

It is very interesting for you telling us so many stories
about the study of chemical information which took place in
France and your university.

As an information researcher, I once was invited to deliver
a speech on Information Science at a meeting about
chmoinformatics here a few years ago; I found their
interests are far different from mine. Their main concerns
are what information technology can be applied to
chemistry――It seems as if you like this one according to
your introductory post.But what we are eager to know is
where the chemical information exists and how it functions
between two molecules or supermolecules. As a matter of
fact, I found there are three kinds of studies about
information in chemistry.

1. Chmoinformatics: A study about how to manage and compute
chemical information, such as management of chemical
abstracts, retrieval of chemical information through
internet, molecules represented by graphs, data mining etc.
there are many books like this in the bookstore. Of course,
this may not be a subject that could arouse real interests
among true information researchers, because there are
thousands of applications of information technology in
different areas, it is difficult for us to call all these
applications of information technology as informatics or
information science.

2. Chmoinformatics: A study about how chemical information
function between two molecules or two supermolecules,
according to the terms in biology and chemistry: between
substrate and receptor, or in coordination chemistry:
between donor and acceptor, or host and guest, we can only
consider this thought as a conjecture which proposed by
Jean-Marie Lehn of University Louis Pasteur――the noble
prize winner of 1987. As a matter of fact, we all know that
in the process of molecule reaction and recognition, an
intelligent is in esse. This has been proved by Fischer’s
lock-and-key model early in 1894.

3. Semiochemistry: A study about chemical information
materials that mediate interactions between members of
different species. This study consider pheromone, quinonyl
compounds etc. as messengers. It is an interdiscipline of
chemistry and biology.

We especially want to know what advance about the second
study about chemical information in chemists has made recent
years. Because Lehn said in many places: “Supramolecular
chemistry (chmoinformatics) has paved the way toward
apprehending chemistry as an information science”.

Best wishes,
Xueshan Yan
Peking University, FIS Beijing Group


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