Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
Hi Bruno, This is very interesting for me, my approach to information is via the mind-body and hard problems, and I'm sympathetic to computationalism. On the other hand, I have difficulties understanding much of what you say here. Let me focus on one point for now though. Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 8:48:48 AM, Bruno wrote: Let me sketch the reasoning shortly. If I can survive with a digitalizable brain, then I am duplicable. For example I could, in principle, be read and cut in Helsinki (say) and pasted in two different places, like Moscow and Washington (to fix the thing). The subject to such a duplication experiment, knowing the protocol in advance, is unable to predict in advance where he will *feel to be* after the duplication. We can iterate such process and prove that at such iteration the candidate, seeing if he feels to be in W or in M, receive a bit of information, and that his best way to predict his experience, will be, in this case, to predict a random experience (even algorithmic random experience): like WWMWWWMMMWM , for example. That is the first person indeterminacy. It seems to me that, if I believe I am duplicable, and understand the protocol, I must predict that I will experience being in both Moscow and Washington. The process bifurcates one person, who becomes two people with absolutely identical physique and memories immediately afterwards, which will then begin to diverge. Both, looking back to pre-bifurcation times, will say that was me, and both will be correct. There is no essence to be randomly (or non-randomly) assigned to one location and not the other. The individual is now two people and therefore can be and is in both cities. -- Robin Faichney http://www.robinfaichney.org/ ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
On 17 Apr 2012, at 11:44, Loet Leydesdorff wrote: It seems to me that, if I believe I am duplicable, and understand the protocol, I must predict that I will experience being in both Moscow and Washington. The process bifurcates one person, who becomes two people with absolutely identical physique and memories immediately afterwards, which will then begin to diverge. OK. Then the uncertainty is bearing on the outcome of that divergence You can predict this, in Helsinki: (I will feel to be in W) and (I will feel to be in M) But here you adopt a 3-view on your future 1-views. But we assume comp, so we know that both copies will *feel* to be entire and complete in only one city. So from the first person point of view, it is (I will feel to be in W) or (I will feel to be in M). Assuming comp and the correct substitution level, you will never feel to be simultaneously in W and in M. This would entail a telepathic element which, given that we have chosen the right substitution level, would have a non computable element, and contradict comp. We can verify this by asking the copy in W, and he will assesses to feel to be in W, and not in M, and having only an intellectual (3- view) belief of the existence of its copy in M. He cannot even know for sure that the copy has already been reconstituted there or not. Both, looking back to pre-bifurcation times, will say that was me, and both will be correct. Absolutely so. That is why we have to listen to both of them, and both of them agree to feel to be in only one city. One sees english speakers around him, the other sees russian speakers, and none of them can realy *know* if their doppelganger has been reconstituted. Nor could they know in advance that they would hear russians or americans. The advantage of proceeding with such thought experience is that it avoids the need to agree on personal identity. The indeterminacy bears only on experience which can be noted in a diary. Of course, the experience suggest that personal identity is an illusion. If you keep your identity on both copies, then we can argue that we are all the same amoeba, who duplicates itself a lot since a long time. But this remark needs not to be agreed upon to understand that computationalism reverses physics and the information/computer/ number science. If you really believe that the you-in W and the you-in M are really still exactly the same person, having different experience, then I can argue that you and me are already exactly the same person. Why not? Perhaps God, playing hide-and-seek with itself :) But here we try to predict direct accessible results of self- localization after a self-duplication, and without a non computable telepathic link, the answer of the copies are different. There is no essence to be randomly (or non-randomly) assigned to one location and not the other. But there are human beings, knowing in which city they feel to be. None will write I feel to be in both M and W at once. Each will write I feel to be in just the city X, with X being M or W respectively. They can only bet, intellectually, about the existence of the other. Indeed, the guy in W would not been able to see I have cheated on him, and that I did not reconstitute him in M. OK? The individual is now two people and therefore can be and is in both cities. Only from a third person point of view. From the point of view of each copies, despite both being the same person as the one in Helsinki, they both feel right now to be in only one city. And the first person indeterminacy bears on such feeling, not on the bodies to which we can attriibute consciousness, but on the content of the consciousness, which in this case corresponds to the result of the self-localization (W, M?) which they will write in their diaries. None will write in the diary I feel to be in W and M. Just replace humans by robots having some amount of inference inductive power. And imagine the iteration of the experience. So after finding themselves in some city, they buy a ticket to come back by plane to Helsinki, and they do the experience again and again. After iterating that experience 64 times, there will be 2^64 copies, and each of them will have, written in their respective personal diaries a specific sequence of W and M. Such robots can have already well defined elementary inference inductive power to guess that their sequences are non algorithmically compressible. Each of them cannot predict the next outcome of the self-duplication. Of course, some of them will develop theories. For example the one having the story W...W, will be tempted to predict W, but we know she will have many descendants contradicting that theory, and in this setting, they are deluded. Of course real life will not be a sequence of self-duplication, but it will be a sequence of self-multiplication or differentiation
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
Hi again Bruno, Heeding Pedro's kind reminder, this is my second and therefore last message to the list this week. However, I'll be happy to continue the discussion off-list (and to copy in any others who signal their interest). Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 10:57:41 AM, Bruno wrote: The guy know all this in advance. He knows that if comp is true, he will survive the duplication, and that, in all possible future personal situation, he will feel to be in only one city, with an inferred doppelganger in the other city. No, in my view he will experience being in each city (both cities) with an inferred doppelganger in the other city, because he is one before the procedure and two after. This is very counter-intuitive regarding personal identity but it is the logical consequence of your assumptions. So, if he is asked in Helsinki where he will feel to be, he can only answer that he will feel to be in W or in M, but without being able to be sure if he will feel to be in W or that he will feel to be in M. Looking forward, pre-bifurcation, the rational expectation is that his identity will split, so that both post-bifurcation versions are genuinely him, and there is no reason for the pre-bifurcation version to choose either city as his destination, he genuinely has two simultaneous destinations, in this scenario one person (pre-bifurcation) can be in two places at once (post-bifurcation). -- Robin Faichney http://www.robinfaichney.org/ ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
Dear Joseph and FIS collegues, The only item I can remember formally addressing the topic is La logique du vivant, by Francois Jacob in very early 70's. But it was perhaps more a philosophy of life than a rigorous approach or overall theoretical description of life processes. In any case it was original (bricolage) and inspiring. Nowadays my main criticism to visions inspired in physics would run as follows: imagine we are dealing with computers; any general approach to their performances, should it be based on solid state physics? Nope. You would need a theoretical, brand new vision, eg Turing machine on universal computation, or something similar attending to structures of computing processes and computing machinery. It would extend completely beyond physics, as the informatics realm is situated... pure technological creativity due to software and hardware engineers (of course, always mastering and slaving natural processes at the bottom, but in artful ways and multilevel purposes). Regarding bio, the new theoretical integrated or unified approach (logic or whatever) would be similar to the above creativity. Grounded on some central bio characteristic, in my opinion self construction, as von Neumann started with his unfinished theory of self-constructing machines. Cells (and organisms) are the only entities rigorously selfconstructing themselves. Actually biology would be the science of selfconstruction... where a new notion of info related to the impact of communication on selfconstructing processes (meaning) would be central. It may look challenging, but without protein synthesis there is no meaning! My criticism to current bio-doctrines extends to systems biology and other fashions (synthetic biology, bioinspired computing, artificial life...). Some ideas thrown in Inbiosa meetings could enter into the discussion too, I think. best wishes ---Pedro joe.bren...@bluewin.ch escribió: Dear Pedro, Thank you, Pedro, for bringing up the question of logics. My suggestion of a Logic in Reality is to open the debate, rather than to claim it is the only over-arching logic possible. Nevertheless, it would be useful for me and perhaps others if you could make your critique more specific by pointing to at least one logic that is used biologically that addresses the dynamics of complex processes. So far, I have not identified any such logical system that is more than a metaphorical use of the term logic or refers to some more or less reproducible characteristics of such processes. Otherwise, logics seem to me to refer only to abstracted linguistic aspects of processes that of course follow classical propositional logic but equate to tautologies. Because Logic in Reality is grounded in physics, it is able to express somewhat more about change, evolution, etc. than any logic of which I am aware. I would be glad to learn of other candidates for this role. Thank you and best wishes, Joseph Ursprüngliche Nachricht Von: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es Datum: 11.04.2012 10:44 An: fis@listas.unizar.es Betreff: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing Dear John and colleagues, Nice to hear that you are OK after that dangerous intoxication --our best wishes for your complete recovery! About physical information I think that Landauer clarified the panorama, at least concerning the relationship between information theory and thermodynamics. According to his principle, any logically irreversible transformation of classical information is necessarily accompanied by the dissipation of at least k T ln(2) of heat per lost bit (about 3 x 10 exp -21 Joules at 300 K temperature), where obviously k is the Boltzmann constant and T the temperature. Recently this principle has been verified experimentally (Nature, 8 March 2012, p. 187). By the way, in his past message Loet enters Watts in a similar expression (?). To insist, Entropy and Information are dimensionless and do not explicitly incorporate any units... About the quantum management of info theory, it is another matter, quite more tricky. Beyond that immediate physicality, things get quite obscure as our contradictory meaning messages witness. The point made by Joseph on an overarching logic, is rather difficult to be maintained --at least in my small province of the biological signaling pathways. Too many logics are used biologically in too many different contexts or niches, either molecularly or neuronally... I bet that they are not susceptible of integration in any logical system. Maybe Inbiosa parties would also disagree with me in this regard. best wishes to all, ---Pedro John Collier escribió: Folks, I have been in the hospital for almost three weeks due to bleeding from warfarin. I had to have three blood transfusions and an operation. I am only now getting my strength back
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
Dear Pedro and FIS colleagues, When connecting information to physics, I believe you may like the following view, from the abstract of an invited article for a special issue of the journal Information on Information and Energy/Matter (currently in review): INFORMATION PHYSICS—TOWARDS A NEW CONCEPTION OF PHYSICAL REALITY Philip Goyal Department of Physics, University at Albany (SUNY), 1400 Washington Av., Albany, NY 1, USA Version April 10, 2012 submitted to Information. Abstract: The concept of information plays a fundamental role in our everyday experience, but is conspicuously absent in framework of classical physics. Over the last century, quantum theory and a series of other developments in physics and related subjects have brought the concept of information and the interface between an agent and the physical world into increasing prominence. As a result, over the last few decades, there has arisen a growing belief amongst many physicists that the concept of information may have a critical role to play in our understanding of the workings of the physical world, both in more deeply understanding existing physical theories and in the formulation of new theories. In this paper, I explicate the origin of the informational view of physics, illustrate some of the work inspired by this view, and give some indication of its implications for the development of a new conception of physical reality. Goyal talks about all of physics, reformulated in terms of information, not only one part of it like quantum mechanics. If you combine this approach with Mark Burgin’s view that computation in general is information processing, then Philip Goyal’s article can be understood in terms of computation. I am looking forward to see the complete special issue which is taking shape these days, several articles are in review, and there are several already published interesting contributions on to the relationship between information and physics: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/matter/ With best regards, Gordana http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/ https://sites.google.com/site/naturalcomputingaisbiacap2012 From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan Sent: den 16 april 2012 17:54 To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing Dear Joseph and FIS collegues, The only item I can remember formally addressing the topic is La logique du vivant, by Francois Jacob in very early 70's. But it was perhaps more a philosophy of life than a rigorous approach or overall theoretical description of life processes. In any case it was original (bricolage) and inspiring. Nowadays my main criticism to visions inspired in physics would run as follows: imagine we are dealing with computers; any general approach to their performances, should it be based on solid state physics? Nope. You would need a theoretical, brand new vision, eg Turing machine on universal computation, or something similar attending to structures of computing processes and computing machinery. It would extend completely beyond physics, as the informatics realm is situated... pure technological creativity due to software and hardware engineers (of course, always mastering and slaving natural processes at the bottom, but in artful ways and multilevel purposes). Regarding bio, the new theoretical integrated or unified approach (logic or whatever) would be similar to the above creativity. Grounded on some central bio characteristic, in my opinion self construction, as von Neumann started with his unfinished theory of self-constructing machines. Cells (and organisms) are the only entities rigorously selfconstructing themselves. Actually biology would be the science of selfconstruction... where a new notion of info related to the impact of communication on selfconstructing processes (meaning) would be central. It may look challenging, but without protein synthesis there is no meaning! My criticism to current bio-doctrines extends to systems biology and other fashions (synthetic biology, bioinspired computing, artificial life...). Some ideas thrown in Inbiosa meetings could enter into the discussion too, I think. best wishes ---Pedro joe.bren...@bluewin.chmailto:joe.bren...@bluewin.ch escribió: Dear Pedro, Thank you, Pedro, for bringing up the question of logics. My suggestion of a Logic in Reality is to open the debate, rather than to claim it is the only over-arching logic possible. Nevertheless, it would be useful for me and perhaps others if you could make your critique more specific by pointing to at least one logic that is used biologically that addresses the dynamics of complex processes. So far, I have not identified any such logical system that is more than a metaphorical use of the term logic or refers to some more or less reproducible characteristics of such processes. Otherwise, logics seem to me to refer only
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
Dear Gordana, thank you for the interesting reference and comments which actually confirms what Bruno Marchal has been talking here all the time. Bruno, it is your turn now. Best wishes, Plamen On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 7:00 PM, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic gordana.dodig-crnko...@mdh.se wrote: Dear Pedro and FIS colleagues, ** ** When connecting information to physics, I believe you may like the following view, from the abstract of an invited article for a special issue of the journal Information on Information and Energy/Matter (currently in review): ** ** INFORMATION PHYSICS—TOWARDS A NEW CONCEPTION OF PHYSICAL REALITY Philip Goyal Department of Physics, University at Albany (SUNY), 1400 Washington Av., Albany, NY 1, USA Version April 10, 2012 submitted to Information. ** ** Abstract: The concept of information plays a fundamental role in our everyday experience, but is conspicuously absent in framework of classical physics. Over the last century, quantum theory and a series of other developments in physics and related subjects have brought the concept of information and the interface between an agent and the physical world into increasing prominence. As a result, over the last few decades, there has arisen a growing belief amongst many physicists that the concept of information may have a critical role to play in our understanding of the workings of the physical world, both in more deeply understanding existing physical theories and in the formulation of new theories. In this paper, I explicate the origin of the informational view of physics, illustrate some of the work inspired by this view, and give some indication of its implications for the development of a new conception of physical reality.* *** ** ** Goyal talks about all of physics, reformulated in terms of information, not only one part of it like quantum mechanics. If you combine this approach with Mark Burgin’s view that computation in general is information processing, then Philip Goyal’s article can be understood in terms of computation. ** ** I am looking forward to see the complete special issue which is taking shape these days, several articles are in review, and there are several already published interesting contributions on to the relationship between information and physics: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/matter/ ** ** With best regards, Gordana ** ** ** ** http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/ https://sites.google.com/site/naturalcomputingaisbiacap2012 ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** *From:* fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Pedro C. Marijuan *Sent:* den 16 april 2012 17:54 *To:* fis@listas.unizar.es *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Physics of computing ** ** Dear Joseph and FIS collegues, The only item I can remember formally addressing the topic is La logique du vivant, by Francois Jacob in very early 70's. But it was perhaps more a philosophy of life than a rigorous approach or overall theoretical description of life processes. In any case it was original (bricolage) and inspiring. Nowadays my main criticism to visions inspired in physics would run as follows: imagine we are dealing with computers; any general approach to their performances, should it be based on solid state physics? Nope. You would need a theoretical, brand new vision, eg Turing machine on universal computation, or something similar attending to structures of computing processes and computing machinery. It would extend completely beyond physics, as the informatics realm is situated... pure technological creativity due to software and hardware engineers (of course, always mastering and slaving natural processes at the bottom, but in artful ways and multilevel purposes). Regarding bio, the new theoretical integrated or unified approach (logic or whatever) would be similar to the above creativity. Grounded on some central bio characteristic, in my opinion self construction, as von Neumann started with his unfinished theory of self-constructing machines. Cells (and organisms) are the only entities rigorously selfconstructing themselves. Actually biology would be the science of selfconstruction... where a new notion of info related to the impact of communication on selfconstructing processes (meaning) would be central. It may look challenging, but without protein synthesis there is no meaning! My criticism to current bio-doctrines extends to systems biology and other fashions (synthetic biology, bioinspired computing, artificial life...). Some ideas thrown in Inbiosa meetings could enter into the discussion too, I think. best wishes ---Pedro joe.bren...@bluewin.ch escribió: Dear Pedro, Thank you, Pedro, for bringing up the question of logics. My suggestion of a Logic in Reality is to open the debate, rather than to claim
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
I recently came across the work of Gotthard Gunther while at the archives of the Biological Computer Lab. at University of Illionois, formerly run by von Foerster. Two papers of interest in english... http://www.vordenker.de/ggphilosophy/gg_new_approach.pdf http://www.thinkartlab.com/pkl/archive/Cyberphilosophy.pdf Most of his texts are in German but I am still researching: Precursors – Biological Computing Lab “M-valued Logic” – Gotthard Gunther Proposal For a Basic Study of the Semantic and Syntactic Properties of Many-Valued and Morphogrammatic Systems of Logic. 1962 Morphogrammatic Logic “Logic which uses morphograms instead of values as basic operational units might be able to cope with the specific properties of self coding systems of mind-like or mental character.” “The ultimate aim of the cybernetical systems-approach is to design computers as fully self-reflective systems. The theory of resolvable functions suggests that logical relations between individual values do not properly represent the complex characteristics of reflection…This indicates that in order to represent reflection we have to look for a different (and more complex) logical unit. This seems to be the morphogram.” See also http://vordenker.de/contribs.htm - under Gotthard Gunther rudolf kaehr - special non two value logic: http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015context=thinkartlabsei-redir=1referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Drudolf%2520kaehr%2520-%2520special%2520non%2520two%2520value%2520logic%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CCIQFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fworks.bepress.com%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1015%2526context%253Dthinkartlab%26ei%3D-TqHT4feOK2I8gH51NW-CA%26usg%3DAFQjCNGu_-JW00NR_5TIw8X8Qa9GlG3ZRA#search=%22rudolf%20kaehr%20-%20special%20non%20two%20value%20logic%22 Best Bill Bill Seaman Professor, Department of Art, Art History Visual Studies DUKE UNIVERSITY 114 b East Duke Building Box 90764 Durham, NC 27708, USA +1-919-684-2499 http://billseaman.com/ http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/AAH/faculty/william.seaman http://www.dibs.duke.edu/research/profiles/98-william-seaman RadioSeaman Paste into itunes (Advanced/open audio streams) for internet radio: http://smw-aux.trinity.duke.edu:8000/radioseaman On Apr 12, 2012, at 8:25 PM, joe.bren...@bluewin.ch wrote: Dear Pedro, Thank you, Pedro, for bringing up the question of logics. My suggestion of a Logic in Reality is to open the debate, rather than to claim it is the only over-arching logic possible. Nevertheless, it would be useful for me and perhaps others if you could make your critique more specific by pointing to at least one logic that is used biologically that addresses the dynamics of complex processes. So far, I have not identified any such logical system that is more than a metaphorical use of the term logic or refers to some more or less reproducible characteristics of such processes. Otherwise, logics seem to me to refer only to abstracted linguistic aspects of processes that of course follow classical propositional logic but equate to tautologies. Because Logic in Reality is grounded in physics, it is able to express somewhat more about change, evolution, etc. than any logic of which I am aware. I would be glad to learn of other candidates for this role. Thank you and best wishes, Joseph Ursprüngliche Nachricht Von: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es Datum: 11.04.2012 10:44 An: fis@listas.unizar.es Betreff: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing Dear John and colleagues, Nice to hear that you are OK after that dangerous intoxication --our best wishes for your complete recovery! About physical information I think that Landauer clarified the panorama, at least concerning the relationship between information theory and thermodynamics. According to his principle, any logically irreversible transformation of classical information is necessarily accompanied by the dissipation of at least k T ln(2) of heat per lost bit (about 3 x 10 exp -21 Joules at 300 K temperature), where obviously k is the Boltzmann constant and T the temperature. Recently this principle has been verified experimentally (Nature, 8 March 2012, p. 187). By the way, in his past message Loet enters Watts in a similar expression (?). To insist, Entropy and Information are dimensionless and do not explicitly incorporate any units... About the quantum management of info theory, it is another matter, quite more tricky. Beyond that immediate physicality, things get quite obscure as our contradictory meaning messages witness. The point made by Joseph on an overarching logic, is rather difficult to be maintained --at least in my small province
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
Dear John and colleagues, Nice to hear that you are OK after that dangerous intoxication --our best wishes for your complete recovery! About physical information I think that Landauer clarified the panorama, at least concerning the relationship between information theory and thermodynamics. According to his principle, any logically irreversible transformation of classical information is necessarily accompanied by the dissipation of at least k T ln(2) of heat per lost bit (about 3 x 10 exp -21 Joules at 300 K temperature), where obviously k is the Boltzmann constant and T the temperature. Recently this principle has been verified experimentally (Nature, 8 March 2012, p. 187). By the way, in his past message Loet enters Watts in a similar expression (?). To insist, Entropy and Information are dimensionless and do not explicitly incorporate any units... About the quantum management of info theory, it is another matter, quite more tricky. Beyond that immediate physicality, things get quite obscure as our contradictory meaning messages witness. The point made by Joseph on an overarching logic, is rather difficult to be maintained --at least in my small province of the biological signaling pathways. Too many logics are used biologically in too many different contexts or niches, either molecularly or neuronally... I bet that they are not susceptible of integration in any logical system. Maybe Inbiosa parties would also disagree with me in this regard. best wishes to all, ---Pedro John Collier escribió: Folks, I have been in the hospital for almost three weeks due to bleeding from warfarin. I had to have three blood transfusions and an operation. I am only now getting my strength back. Some of my comments, therefore, may be dated. Physical has a variety of overlapping meanings (a Wittgensteinian family resemblence). For example Quine takes the physical to be anything accessible to the senses or inferences therefrom. Ladyman, Ross, Collier an Spurrett take the physical to be the most fundamental laws of our (part of) the universe. I did not agree with this, among some other crucial points, so I was not a primary author. Information is at least physical in both of these senses. Quine's approach might make it entirely physical. I prefer to relate it to the causal, which always has physical parametres, as far as we know. But there are many ways of approaching this issue, and disentangling them will be a major advance in foundations of information theory. My Best, John Professor John Collier Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban 4041 South Africa T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031 email: colli...@ukzn.ac.za mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za On 2012/03/16 at 01:19 PM, in message 4f6321c3.5000...@aragon.es, Pedro C. Marijuan pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es wrote: Dear discussants, I tend to disagree with the motto information is physical if taken too strictly. Obviously if we look downwards it is OK, but in the upward direction it is different. Info is not only physical then, and the dimension of self-construction along the realization of life cycle has to be entered. Then the signal, the info, has content and meaning. Otherwise if we insist only in the physical downward dimension we have just conventional computing/ info processing. My opinion is that the notion of absence is crucial for advancing in the upward, but useless in the downward. By the way, I already wrote about info and the absence theme in a 1994 or 1995 paper in BioSystems... best ---Pedro walter.riof...@terra.com.pe escribió: Thanks John and Kevin to update issues in information, computation, energy and reality. I would like point out to other articles more focused in how coherence and entanglement are used by living systems (far from thermal equilibrium): Engel G.S., Calhoun T.R., Read E.L., Ahn T.K., Mancal T., Cheng Y.C., Blankenship R.E., Fleming G.R. (2007) Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Nature, 446(7137): 782-786. Collini E., Scholes G. (2009) Coherent intrachain energy in migration in a conjugated polymer at room temperature. Science, vol. 323 No. 5912 pp. 369-373. Gauger E.M., Rieper E., Morton J.J.L., Benjamin S.C., Vedral V. (2011) Sustained Quantum Coherence and Entanglement in the Avian Compass. Phys. Rev. Lett., 106: 040503. Cia, J. et al, (2009) Dynamic entanglement in oscillating molecules. arXiv:0809.4906v1 [quant-ph] Sincerely, Walter ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- - Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna,
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
Dear Pedro, You are right: the dimensionality of thermodynamic entropy is Joule/Kelvin. Probabilistic entropy/uncertainty/information is dimensionless and measured in bits. Configurational information (a point of access to measuring meaning) is also measured in bits, but it is not a Shannon entropy (Krippendorff, 2009). It can be considered as a redundancy = reduction of uncertainty = a difference which makes a difference. Best, Loet _ Loet Leydesdorff Professor, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam. Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-842239111 l...@leydesdorff.net mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/ ; http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJ http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJhl=en hl=en From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 10:44 AM To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing Dear John and colleagues, Nice to hear that you are OK after that dangerous intoxication --our best wishes for your complete recovery! About physical information I think that Landauer clarified the panorama, at least concerning the relationship between information theory and thermodynamics. According to his principle, any logically irreversible transformation of classical information is necessarily accompanied by the dissipation of at least k T ln(2) of heat per lost bit (about 3 x 10 exp -21 Joules at 300 K temperature), where obviously k is the Boltzmann constant and T the temperature. Recently this principle has been verified experimentally (Nature, 8 March 2012, p. 187). By the way, in his past message Loet enters Watts in a similar expression (?). To insist, Entropy and Information are dimensionless and do not explicitly incorporate any units... About the quantum management of info theory, it is another matter, quite more tricky. Beyond that immediate physicality, things get quite obscure as our contradictory meaning messages witness. The point made by Joseph on an overarching logic, is rather difficult to be maintained --at least in my small province of the biological signaling pathways. Too many logics are used biologically in too many different contexts or niches, either molecularly or neuronally... I bet that they are not susceptible of integration in any logical system. Maybe Inbiosa parties would also disagree with me in this regard. best wishes to all, ---Pedro John Collier escribió: Folks, I have been in the hospital for almost three weeks due to bleeding from warfarin. I had to have three blood transfusions and an operation. I am only now getting my strength back. Some of my comments, therefore, may be dated. Physical has a variety of overlapping meanings (a Wittgensteinian family resemblence). For example Quine takes the physical to be anything accessible to the senses or inferences therefrom. Ladyman, Ross, Collier an Spurrett take the physical to be the most fundamental laws of our (part of) the universe. I did not agree with this, among some other crucial points, so I was not a primary author. Information is at least physical in both of these senses. Quine's approach might make it entirely physical. I prefer to relate it to the causal, which always has physical parametres, as far as we know. But there are many ways of approaching this issue, and disentangling them will be a major advance in foundations of information theory. My Best, John Professor John Collier Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban 4041 South Africa T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031 email: colli...@ukzn.ac.za On 2012/03/16 at 01:19 PM, in message mailto:4f6321c3.5000...@aragon.es 4f6321c3.5000...@aragon.es, Pedro C. Marijuan mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es wrote: Dear discussants, I tend to disagree with the motto information is physical if taken too strictly. Obviously if we look downwards it is OK, but in the upward direction it is different. Info is not only physical then, and the dimension of self-construction along the realization of life cycle has to be entered. Then the signal, the info, has content and meaning. Otherwise if we insist only in the physical downward dimension we have just conventional computing/ info processing. My opinion is that the notion of absence is crucial for advancing in the upward, but useless in the downward. By the way, I already wrote about info and the absence theme in a 1994 or 1995 paper in BioSystems... best ---Pedro walter.riof...@terra.com.pe escribió: Thanks John and Kevin to update issues in information, computation, energy and reality. I would like point out to other articles more focused in how coherence and entanglement are used by living systems (far from thermal equilibrium): Engel G.S., Calhoun T.R., Read E.L
Re: [Fis] Physics of Computing
Hi Gavin and others. Try Information in biological systems ( http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/Information%20in%20Biological%20Systems.pdf ) (Handbook of Philosophy of Science, vol 8, Philosophy of Information ( http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/716648/description#description ), 2008, Chapter 5f). It isn't complete (you need some of my other papers to get the quantity of information innate, transmitted (causally) and received, as well as its effects. http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/Information%20in%20Biological%20Systems.pdf Information, causation and computation ( http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/CollierJohn%20formatted.pdf ) (Information and Computation: ( http://astore.amazon.co.uk/books-books-21/detail/9814295477 ) Essays on Scientific and Philosophical Understanding of Foundations of Information and Computation, Ed by Gordana Dodig Crnkovic and Mark Burgin, World Scientific) http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/CollierJohn%20formatted.pdf Causation is the Transfer of Information ( http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/causinf.pdf ) (1999) http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/causinf.pdf Complexly Organised Dynamical Systems ( http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/Cods.pdf ) with C.A. Hooker (1999) http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/Cods.pdf Hierarchical dynamical information systems with a focus on biology ( http://www.mdpi.org/entropy/papers/e5020100.pdf ) (Entropy 2003) http://www.mdpi.org/entropy/papers/e5020100.pdf There are others that might be relevant on my web page http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers.html John Professor John Collier Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban 4041 South Africa T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031 email: colli...@ukzn.ac.za On 2012/03/16 at 11:14 PM, in message 1331932479.81758.yahoomail...@web96106.mail.aue.yahoo.com, Gavin Ritz garr...@xtra.co.nz wrote: Hi FISers Can anyone show me a calculus for Information relating to biological systems? And if so show me the relationship with conceptual mathematics? Regards Gavin Dear FISers: Pedro and Plamen raise good and welcomed points regarding the nature of physics, information, and biology. Although I believe in a strong relationship between information and physics in biology, there are striking examples where direct correspondences between information, physics, and biology seem to depart. Scientists are only beginning to tease out these discrepancies which will undoubtedly give us a better understand of information. For example, in the study of cognition by A. Khrennikov and colleagues and J. Busemyer and colleagues, decisional processes may conform to quantum statistics and computation without necessarily being mediated by quantum mechanical phenomena at a biological level of description. I found this to be true in ciliates as well, where social strategy search speeds and decision rates may produce quantum computational phases that obey quantum statistics. In such cases, a changing classical diffusion term of response regulator reaction-diffusion parsimoniously accounts for the transition from classical to quantum information processing. Thus, there is no direct correspondence between quantum physicochemistry and quantum computation. Because the particular reaction-diffusion biochemistry is not unique to ciliates (i.e., the same phenomena is observed in plants, animals, and possibly bacteria), this incongruity may be widespread across life. Best regards, Kevin Clark ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis Please find our Email Disclaimer here: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer/ ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
did not 'perceive' the information. If the information merely causes a transient fluctuation of the internal dynamics, then the perceived information was not meaningful to the system. At least this is a sketch of my view that I hope illustrates why the notions of 'content' and 'meaning' does not depart the physical realm for me. I can prove that if we are machine at some description level, then the physical is both ontologically and epistemologically emerging from numbers relation. The hypothesis of mechanism can be shown logically incompatible with very weak form of materialism. Physics can not be fundamental, it emerges from mathematics, indeed from what has been called the sharable part of mathematics (sharable between classical logicians and intuitionist logicians, it is basically arithmetic or something recursively equivalent). We can already derive propositional quantum logic from classical number self-reference. Arithmetic is full of life at the start, and matter appears to be arithmetical truth as seen from inside. Poetically, to be short, numbers dreams, and physical realities are dream sharing. The quantum emerges, if mechanism is correct, from a statistics on all computations. This makes both matter and consciousness NON Turing emulable. In particular digital physics can be shown self-contradictory. Those (actually old) results are not well known but have been verified by many people. I don't think there is a flaw, but we never can be sure, of course. Bruno Marchal PS see below for a concise version of the proof: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html Regards, Guy From: Pedro Clemente Marijuan Fernandez pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.esmailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:19:31 -0700 To: Foundations of Information Science Information Science fis@listas.unizar.es mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing Dear discussants, I tend to disagree with the motto information is physical if taken too strictly. Obviously if we look downwards it is OK, but in the upward direction it is different. Info is not only physical then, and the dimension of self-construction along the realization of life cycle has to be entered. Then the signal, the info, has content and meaning. Otherwise if we insist only in the physical downward dimension we have just conventional computing/ info processing. My opinion is that the notion of absence is crucial for advancing in the upward, but useless in the downward. By the way, I already wrote about info and the absence theme in a 1994 or 1995 paper in BioSystems... best ---Pedro walter.riof...@terra.com.pemailto:walter.riof...@terra.com.pe escribió: Thanks John and Kevin to update issues in information, computation, energy and reality. I would like point out to other articles morefocused in how coherence and entanglement are used by living systems (far from thermal equilibrium): Engel G.S., Calhoun T.R., Read E.L., Ahn T.K., Mancal T., Cheng Y.C., Blankenship R.E., Fleming G.R. (2007) Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Nature, 446(7137): 782-786. Collini E., Scholes G. (2009) Coherent intrachain energy in migration in a conjugated polymer at room temperature. Science, vol. 323 No. 5912 pp. 369-373. Gauger E.M., Rieper E., Morton J.J.L., Benjamin S.C., Vedral V. (2011) Sustained Quantum Coherence and Entanglement in the Avian Compass. Phys. Rev. Lett., 106: 040503. Cia, J. et al, (2009) Dynamic entanglement in oscillating molecules. arXiv:0809.4906v1 [quant-ph] Sincerely, Walter ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.esmailto:fis@listas.unizar.eshttps://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- - Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 ( 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.esmailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.eshttp://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ - ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin
Re: [Fis] Physics of Computing
Dear Gavin et.FIS, Information processing is omnipresent in biology. Alan Turing's reaction-diffusion model of morphogenesis is certainly well-known. Here are a few more examples implying information processing within biological systems: 1. Vrancisco Varela's self-reference calculus: http://www.slideshare.net/PriMate_PaTagOn/francisco-varela-a-calculus-for-selfreference-1707403 http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/VarelaCSR.pdf and its implications: http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/NetworkSynthesis.pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sres.1105/abstract;jsessionid=8CC55298874EE9F1A9A0D886491099EA.d04t04?systemMessage You could find more about it on Google 2. Robert Rosen's Anticipatory Systems and category theoretical studies on Life Itself (cf.. Amazon) and Aloisius Louie's continuation of that path with More than Life Itself. 3. Andree Ehresmann's dynamic CT based Memory Evolutive Systems (MES) (cf. Amazon) There are still many aspects of living systems that were not captured at the roots of the phenomena by mathematics and computation to this moment, despite several attempts for over 60 years. This is a huge field to be explored yet. But the complexity of the biological phenomena does not imply the automatic application of standard physicalistic approaches.I am not the first who claims that an H2O molecule in an the cat Tom is different form the one in the mouse Jerry, and then from the one in the pool in the garden. This is e.g. one of the issues where physics as it is cannot help further (individuality). Using and refining the tools we have in one field, does not imply a dogmatic denial of the necessity to invent new tools for another field that could be more effective there. Mathematics and physics as such cannot explain biology to the extent we need to know. They need to be developed to include the peculiarities of the phenomena at hand. I will stop here for now. Best, Plamen On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 10:14 PM, Gavin Ritz garr...@xtra.co.nz wrote: Hi FISers Can anyone show me a calculus for Information relating to biological systems? And if so show me the relationship with conceptual mathematics? Regards Gavin Dear FISers: Pedro and Plamen raise good and welcomed points regarding the nature of physics, information, and biology. Although I believe in a strong relationship between information and physics in biology, there are striking examples where direct correspondences between information, physics, and biology seem to depart. Scientists are only beginning to tease out these discrepancies which will undoubtedly give us a better understand of information. For example, in the study of cognition by A. Khrennikov and colleagues and J. Busemyer and colleagues, decisional processes may conform to quantum statistics and computation without necessarily being mediated by quantum mechanical phenomena at a biological level of description. I found this to be true in ciliates as well, where social strategy search speeds and decision rates may produce quantum computational phases that obey quantum statistics. In such cases, a changing classical diffusion term of response regulator reaction-diffusion parsimoniously accounts for the transition from classical to quantum information processing. Thus, there is no direct correspondence between quantum physicochemistry and quantum computation. Because the particular reaction-diffusion biochemistry is not unique to ciliates (i.e., the same phenomena is observed in plants, animals, and possibly bacteria), this incongruity may be widespread across life. Best regards, Kevin Clark ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- ___ ___ ___ Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov landline: +49.30.38.10.11.25 fax/ums: +49.30.48.49.88.26.4 mobile: +44.12.23.96.85.69 email: pla...@simeio.org URL: www.simeio.org ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
On 16 Mar 2012, at 18:43, Guy A Hoelzer wrote: Greetings All, While I like to think that I am not limited to reductionistic thinking, I find it difficult to understand any perspective on information that is not limited to physical manifestation. I would appreciate further justification for a non-physicalist perspective on information. How can something exist in the absence of physical manifestation? If you are realist about elementary arithmetic, that is if you agree that elementary arithmetical proposition like 17 is prime are true independently of you, then, by arithmetic's Turing universality, you can show that the numbers exchange information relatively to universal numbers, which are playing the role of relative interpreters. I am not interested in a metaphysical perspective here, which might have heuristic value even if it is not 'real'. The issue of 'content' and 'meaning' strikes me as entirely physical, so mentioning those issues doesn't help me understand what non-physical information might be. I would say that if information is physically manifested by contrasts (gradients, negentropy, …), then content or meaning refers to the internal dynamics of complex systems induced by interaction between the system and the physically manifested information. If there is no affect on internal dynamics, then the system did not 'perceive' the information. If the information merely causes a transient fluctuation of the internal dynamics, then the perceived information was not meaningful to the system. At least this is a sketch of my view that I hope illustrates why the notions of 'content' and 'meaning' does not depart the physical realm for me. I can prove that if we are machine at some description level, then the physical is both ontologically and epistemologically emerging from numbers relation. The hypothesis of mechanism can be shown logically incompatible with very weak form of materialism. Physics can not be fundamental, it emerges from mathematics, indeed from what has been called the sharable part of mathematics (sharable between classical logicians and intuitionist logicians, it is basically arithmetic or something recursively equivalent). We can already derive propositional quantum logic from classical number self-reference. Arithmetic is full of life at the start, and matter appears to be arithmetical truth as seen from inside. Poetically, to be short, numbers dreams, and physical realities are dream sharing. The quantum emerges, if mechanism is correct, from a statistics on all computations. This makes both matter and consciousness NON Turing emulable. In particular digital physics can be shown self-contradictory. Those (actually old) results are not well known but have been verified by many people. I don't think there is a flaw, but we never can be sure, of course. Bruno Marchal PS see below for a concise version of the proof: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html Regards, Guy From: Pedro Clemente Marijuan Fernandez pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.esmailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:19:31 -0700 To: Foundations of Information Science Information Science fis@listas.unizar.es mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing Dear discussants, I tend to disagree with the motto information is physical if taken too strictly. Obviously if we look downwards it is OK, but in the upward direction it is different. Info is not only physical then, and the dimension of self-construction along the realization of life cycle has to be entered. Then the signal, the info, has content and meaning. Otherwise if we insist only in the physical downward dimension we have just conventional computing/ info processing. My opinion is that the notion of absence is crucial for advancing in the upward, but useless in the downward. By the way, I already wrote about info and the absence theme in a 1994 or 1995 paper in BioSystems... best ---Pedro walter.riof...@terra.com.pemailto:walter.riof...@terra.com.pe escribió: Thanks John and Kevin to update issues in information, computation, energy and reality. I would like point out to other articles morefocused in how coherence and entanglement are used by living systems (far from thermal equilibrium): Engel G.S., Calhoun T.R., Read E.L., Ahn T.K., Mancal T., Cheng Y.C., Blankenship R.E., Fleming G.R. (2007) Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Nature, 446(7137): 782-786. Collini E., Scholes G. (2009) Coherent intrachain energy in migration in a conjugated polymer at room temperature. Science, vol. 323 No. 5912 pp. 369-373. Gauger E.M., Rieper E., Morton J.J.L., Benjamin S.C., Vedral V. (2011) Sustained Quantum Coherence and Entanglement in the Avian Compass. Phys. Rev. Lett., 106
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
Dear discussants, I tend to disagree with the motto information is physical if taken too strictly. Obviously if we look downwards it is OK, but in the upward direction it is different. Info is not only physical then, and the dimension of self-construction along the realization of life cycle has to be entered. Then the signal, the info, has content and meaning. Otherwise if we insist only in the physical downward dimension we have just conventional computing/ info processing. My opinion is that the notion of absence is crucial for advancing in the upward, but useless in the downward. By the way, I already wrote about info and the absence theme in a 1994 or 1995 paper in BioSystems... best ---Pedro walter.riof...@terra.com.pe escribió: Thanks John and Kevin to update issues in information, computation, energy and reality. I would like point out to other articles more focused in how coherence and entanglement are used by living systems (far from thermal equilibrium): Engel G.S., Calhoun T.R., Read E.L., Ahn T.K., Mancal T., Cheng Y.C., Blankenship R.E., Fleming G.R. (2007) Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Nature, 446(7137): 782-786. Collini E., Scholes G. (2009) Coherent intrachain energy in migration in a conjugated polymer at room temperature. Science, vol. 323 No. 5912 pp. 369-373. Gauger E.M., Rieper E., Morton J.J.L., Benjamin S.C., Vedral V. (2011) Sustained Quantum Coherence and Entanglement in the Avian Compass. Phys. Rev. Lett., 106: 040503. Cia, J. et al, (2009) Dynamic entanglement in oscillating molecules. arXiv:0809.4906v1 [quant-ph] Sincerely, Walter ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- - Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 ( 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ - ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Physics of computing
Greetings All, While I like to think that I am not limited to reductionistic thinking, I find it difficult to understand any perspective on information that is not limited to physical manifestation. I would appreciate further justification for a non-physicalist perspective on information. How can something exist in the absence of physical manifestation? I am not interested in a metaphysical perspective here, which might have heuristic value even if it is not 'real'. The issue of 'content' and 'meaning' strikes me as entirely physical, so mentioning those issues doesn't help me understand what non-physical information might be. I would say that if information is physically manifested by contrasts (gradients, negentropy, …), then content or meaning refers to the internal dynamics of complex systems induced by interaction between the system and the physically manifested information. If there is no affect on internal dynamics, then the system did not 'perceive' the information. If the information merely causes a transient fluctuation of the internal dynamics, then the perceived information was not meaningful to the system. At least this is a sketch of my view that I hope illustrates why the notions of 'content' and 'meaning' does not depart the physical realm for me. Regards, Guy From: Pedro Clemente Marijuan Fernandez pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.esmailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:19:31 -0700 To: Foundations of Information Science Information Science fis@listas.unizar.esmailto:fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing Dear discussants, I tend to disagree with the motto information is physical if taken too strictly. Obviously if we look downwards it is OK, but in the upward direction it is different. Info is not only physical then, and the dimension of self-construction along the realization of life cycle has to be entered. Then the signal, the info, has content and meaning. Otherwise if we insist only in the physical downward dimension we have just conventional computing/ info processing. My opinion is that the notion of absence is crucial for advancing in the upward, but useless in the downward. By the way, I already wrote about info and the absence theme in a 1994 or 1995 paper in BioSystems... best ---Pedro walter.riof...@terra.com.pemailto:walter.riof...@terra.com.pe escribió: Thanks John and Kevin to update issues in information, computation, energy and reality. I would like point out to other articles morefocused in how coherence and entanglement are used by living systems (far from thermal equilibrium): Engel G.S., Calhoun T.R., Read E.L., Ahn T.K., Mancal T., Cheng Y.C., Blankenship R.E., Fleming G.R. (2007) Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Nature, 446(7137): 782-786. Collini E., Scholes G. (2009) Coherent intrachain energy in migration in a conjugated polymer at room temperature. Science, vol. 323 No. 5912 pp. 369-373. Gauger E.M., Rieper E., Morton J.J.L., Benjamin S.C., Vedral V. (2011) Sustained Quantum Coherence and Entanglement in the Avian Compass. Phys. Rev. Lett., 106: 040503. Cia, J. et al, (2009) Dynamic entanglement in oscillating molecules. arXiv:0809.4906v1 [quant-ph] Sincerely, Walter ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.esmailto:fis@listas.unizar.eshttps://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis -- - Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 ( 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.esmailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.eshttp://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ - ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] Physics of Computing
Dear FISers: Pedro and Plamen raise good and welcomed points regarding the nature of physics, information, and biology. Although I believe in a strong relationship between information and physics in biology, there are striking examples where direct correspondences between information, physics, and biology seem to depart. Scientists are only beginning to tease out these discrepancies which will undoubtedly give us a better understand of information. For example, in the study of cognition by A. Khrennikov and colleagues and J. Busemyer and colleagues, decisional processes may conform to quantum statistics and computation without necessarily being mediated by quantum mechanical phenomena at a biological level of description. I found this to be true in ciliates as well, where social strategy search speeds and decision rates may produce quantum computational phases that obey quantum statistics. In such cases, a changing classical diffusion term of response regulator reaction-diffusion parsimoniously accounts for the transition from classical to quantum information processing. Thus, there is no direct correspondence between quantum physicochemistry and quantum computation. Because the particular reaction-diffusion biochemistry is not unique to ciliates (i.e., the same phenomena is observed in plants, animals, and possibly bacteria), this incongruity may be widespread across life. Best regards, Kevin Clark___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Physics of Computing
Hi FISers Can anyone show me a calculus for Information relating to biological systems? And if so show me the relationship with conceptual mathematics? Regards Gavin Dear FISers: Pedro and Plamen raise good and welcomed points regarding the nature of physics, information, and biology. Although I believe in a strong relationship between information and physics in biology, there are striking examples where direct correspondences between information, physics, and biology seem to depart. Scientists are only beginning to tease out these discrepancies which will undoubtedly give us a better understand of information. For example, in the study of cognition by A. Khrennikov and colleagues and J. Busemyer and colleagues, decisional processes may conform to quantum statistics and computation without necessarily being mediated by quantum mechanical phenomena at a biological level of description. I found this to be true in ciliates as well, where social strategy search speeds and decision rates may produce quantum computational phases that obey quantum statistics. In such cases, a changing classical diffusion term of response regulator reaction-diffusion parsimoniously accounts for the transition from classical to quantum information processing. Thus, there is no direct correspondence between quantum physicochemistry and quantum computation. Because the particular reaction-diffusion biochemistry is not unique to ciliates (i.e., the same phenomena is observed in plants, animals, and possibly bacteria), this incongruity may be widespread across life. Best regards, Kevin Clark ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Physics of Computing
Dear Kevin and FIS, Searching for Andrei's articles, I found http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0906/0906.4952.pdf and in the abstract there is a claim: Therefore, mental states, during perception cognition of ambiguous figures, follow quantum mechanics. I am not an expert by any means but I find this claim very plausible from my personal experience as a cognitive agent in case of ambiguous figures. When I cannot decide what an ambiguous figure actually is I keep number of plausible hypotheses actual in mind waiting for contextual clues to help me make disambiguation. The state of mind about an ambiguous figure can be written as a superposition of possible states with corresponding weights and that superposition can be likened with a quantum mechanical superposition of states. It seems to me that there could be very natural mechanisms for this phenomenon, and really nothing non-physical. Maybe Andrei can help elucidate the exact meaning of similar statistical forms found in several different fields, as the title of his book says: Ubiquitous quantum structure: from psychology to finance. Best, Gordana PS Back to Pedro's original reference to physical levels of information, Deacon made a useful distinction between three different levels of information. Deacon's three types of information parallel his three levels of emergent dynamics which in Salthe's notation looks like: [1. thermo- [2. morpho- [3. teleo-dynamics]]] with corresponding mechanisms [1. mass-energetic [2. self-organization [3. self-preservation (semiotic)]]] and corresponding Aristotle's causes [1. efficient cause [ 2. formal cause [ 3. final cause]]] In the above, thermodynamics and semiotic layers of organization are linked via intermediary layer of morphodynamics (spontaneous form-generating processes), and thus do not communicate directly (so it looks like mind communicating with matter via form). Of course there is physics at the bottom. http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/ https://sites.google.com/site/naturalcomputingaisbiacap2012 From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Kevin Clark Sent: den 16 mars 2012 21:56 To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: [Fis] Physics of Computing Dear FISers: Pedro and Plamen raise good and welcomed points regarding the nature of physics, information, and biology. Although I believe in a strong relationship between information and physics in biology, there are striking examples where direct correspondences between information, physics, and biology seem to depart. Scientists are only beginning to tease out these discrepancies which will undoubtedly give us a better understand of information. For example, in the study of cognition by A. Khrennikov and colleagues and J. Busemyer and colleagues, decisional processes may conform to quantum statistics and computation without necessarily being mediated by quantum mechanical phenomena at a biological level of description. I found this to be true in ciliates as well, where social strategy search speeds and decision rates may produce quantum computational phases that obey quantum statistics. In such cases, a changing classical diffusion term of response regulator reaction-diffusion parsimoniously accounts for the transition from classical to quantum information processing. Thus, there is no direct correspondence between quantum physicochemistry and quantum computation. Because the particular reaction-diffusion biochemistry is not unique to ciliates (i.e., the same phenomena is observed in plants, animals, and possibly bacteria), this incongruity may be widespread across life. Best regards, Kevin Clark ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] Physics of Computing
Thank you Gordana for your reply. But I'm not sure whether not you misunderstood my comments about a direct correspondence between information and physics in biology. So, I thought I should stress my point from a slightly different approach. Khrennikov and colleagues, for instance, often refer to their observations as quantum-like. The reasons for doing so are because the quantum computational observations are inherently supported by biological phenomena and concepts in quantum statistical mechanics, but not necessarily a quantum mechanical physical manifestation. I have used the term quantum-like with with several of my own findings. Clearly ciliate decision making is a biological process and, therefore, a natural one. But quantum computation by ciliates, or any other life form, might not always be caused by a quantum physical manifestation. Indeed, quantum-level social strategy searches by ciliates are likely mediated by classical and not quantum diffusion in the reaction-diffusion of Ca2+ ions. Most people would present an a priori argument that for quantum computation to be realized by a biological system, such as ciliates, a physical manifestation of quantum mechanics, such as quantum diffusion, must also occur. This necessity just doesn't seem always to be the case. These sorts of incongruities have started some debate in the quantum biology community. Some people simply believe that conceptual and statistically supported quantum computations by biological systems should not be considered quantum mechanical unless they are mediated by physical manifestations of quantum mechanics. I will not respond for a few days to allow further debate from other FISers. Best regards, Kevin Clark___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Physics of Computing
Dear Gordana, There are for me many question marks in ascriptions of quantum properties to complex cognitive phenomena. The inversion of perspective I propose. using Deacon's term, is to see processes of superposition as common both to quantum phenomena as simplified projections of mental processes and to the mental processes themselves. This does not require, as many people seem rather desperately to want, that any given figure -ground event involve quanta at that higher level. In this case, your useful term likened with a quantum mechanical superposition can be replaced, usefully I suggest, by a weighting of the degrees of actuality and potentiality of the components of a evolving complex process. This is both where information is and what it is. In this connection, I call all FIS'ers attention to the very pertinent concept of another Andrei, Andrei Igamberdiev, described in his book, of Internal Quantum States. The difference is, if I understand both sets of ideas correctly, is that Igamberdiev is talking about the foundations of theoretical biology. He does not require that Nature at higher levels actually instantiate quantum structures in any sense other than that, as Gordana says, there is nothing non-physical and quanta are involved a priori. Cheers, Joseph Ursprüngliche Nachricht Von: gordana.dodig-crnko...@mdh.se Datum: 16.03.2012 23:11 An: Kevin Clarkkbclark...@yahoo.com, fis@listas.unizar.esfis@listas.unizar.es Kopie: andrei.khrenni...@msi.vxu.seandrei.khrenni...@msi.vxu.se Betreff: Re: [Fis] Physics of Computing @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;} @font-face {font-family:Tahoma; panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;} @font-face {font-family:Consolas; panose-1:2 11 6 9 2 2 4 3 2 4;} p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Times New Roman,serif;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-priority:99; color:blue; text-decoration:underline;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {mso-style-priority:99; color:purple; text-decoration:underline;} span.mark {mso-style-name:mark;} span.EmailStyle19 {mso-style-type:personal-reply; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; color:#1F497D;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; font-size:10.0pt;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} - [if gte mso 9] [if gte mso 9] Dear Kevin and FIS, Searching for Andrei’s articles, I found http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0906/0906.4952.pdf and in the abstract there is a claim: “Therefore, mental states, during perception cognition of ambiguous figures, follow quantum mechanics.” I am not an expert by any means but I find this claim very plausible from my personal experience as a cognitive agent in case of ambiguous figures. When I cannot decide what an ambiguous figure actually is I keep number of plausible hypotheses actual in mind waiting for contextual clues to help me make disambiguation. The state of mind about an ambiguous figure can be written as a superposition of possible states with corresponding weights and that superposition can be likened with a quantum mechanical superposition of states. It seems to me that there could be very natural mechanisms for this phenomenon, and really nothing non-physical. Maybe Andrei can help elucidate the exact meaning of similar statistical forms found in several different fields, as the title of his book says: “Ubiquitous quantum structure: from psychology to finance”. Best, Gordana PS Back to Pedro’s original reference to physical levels of information, Deacon made a useful distinction between three different levels of information. Deacon’s three types of information parallel his three levels of emergent dynamics which in Salthe’s notation looks like: [1. thermo- [2. morpho- [3. teleo-dynamics]]] with corresponding mechanisms [1. mass-energetic [2. self-organization [3. self-preservation (semiotic)]]] and corresponding Aristotle’s causes [1. efficient cause [ 2. formal cause [ 3. final cause]]] In the above, thermodynamics and semiotic layers of organization are linked via intermediary layer of morphodynamics (spontaneous form-generating processes), and thus do not communicate directly (so it looks like mind communicating with matter via form). Of course there is physics at the bottom. http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/ https://sites.google.com/site/naturalcomputingaisbiacap2012 From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Kevin Clark Sent: den 16 mars 2012 21:56 To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: [Fis] Physics of Computing Dear FISers: Pedro and Plamen raise good and welcomed points regarding the nature of physics, information, and biology. Although I believe in a strong relationship between information and physics in biology
[Fis] Physics of computing
Thanks John and Kevin to update issues in information, computation, energy and reality. I would like point out to other articles more focused in how coherence and entanglement are used by living systems (far from thermal equilibrium): Engel G.S., Calhoun T.R., Read E.L., Ahn T.K., Mancal T., Cheng Y.C., Blankenship R.E., Fleming G.R. (2007) Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Nature, 446(7137): 782-786. Collini E., Scholes G. (2009) Coherent intrachain energy in migration in a conjugated polymer at room temperature. Science, vol. 323 No. 5912 pp. 369-373. Gauger E.M., Rieper E., Morton J.J.L., Benjamin S.C., Vedral V. (2011) Sustained Quantum Coherence and Entanglement in the Avian Compass. Phys. Rev. Lett., 106: 040503. Cia, J. et al, (2009) Dynamic entanglement in oscillating molecules. arXiv:0809.4906v1 [quant-ph] Sincerely, Walter___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] Physics of computing
Dear folks, This is a further article demonstrating that information is physical. It is nice to be getting some empirical results. http://www.nature.com/news/the-unavoidable-cost-of-computation-revealed-1.10186?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20120313 The previous article, which I mentioned on this list, is Toyabe, S., Sagawa, T., Ueda, M., Muneyuki, E. Sano, M. Nature Phys. 6, 988992 (2010). It demonstrated that information could be converted to energy, which I consider a no brainer on first principles, but many people have been sceptical. The new article is Bérut, A. et al. Nature 483, 187189 (2012). John Professor John Collier colli...@ukzn.ac.za Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031 ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] Physics of Computing
Thank you John for your update (FIS Digest 559, Issue 4) on the cost of computation. It's good to see experimental verification of Landauer's Principle. For those FISers interested in related topics on Landauer's Principle, you might also read: 1) Clark, K.B. (2010). Bose-Einstein condensates form in heuristics learned by ciliates deciding to signal 'social' commitments. BioSystems, 99(3), 167-178. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883726 2) Clark, K.B. (2010). Arrhenius-kinetics evidence for quantum tunneling in microbial social decision rates. Communicative Integtrative Biology, 3(6), 540-544. http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/cib/article/12842 Best regards, Kevin Clark ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis