[Fis] Wishful Thinking Reflected in the Sumerian Concept of Numbers

[Karl Javorszky]

Wishful Thinking Reflected in the Sumerian Concept of Numbers


1)  Introduction


To be better prepared to understand the roots of our numbering conventions,
we have proposed to re-imagine the intellectual innovations achieved by the
Sumerians, while they introduced the concept of positional notation. This
ground-breaking innovation has made, in a - much simplified - example
“a,b,c” different to “b,a,c” by the rule: “read the last as the number of
single units, the next the number of dozens and the third as the number of
grand dozens”: that is, abc translates into our notation as c + b*12 +
a*144 and bac as c + a* 12 + b * 144. (They did in fact not use a 12-based
system, but the principle they invented remains the same, whether binary,
decimal or hexadecimal.)

We have offered as a method of accessing the thinking capacity of the
ganglions that manage this rule a mental landscape which is easy and
emotionally moving. The ganglions can be seen as railroad switches (railway
turnouts / points), which are brought into a fixed position by learning.
Once one has learnt how to direct the paths of one’s thoughts, one has a
much-simplified life. The disadvantages are that one has preconceptions and
prejudices, and releasing the switch from its fixed position carries the
costs of an experience of frustration.

Yet, the regrettable state of affairs is today that we need to re-learn our
basic concepts of how things interact with each other in Nature, because
the transfer of genetic information, as observed in real life and in vitro,
has, in the eyes of many, not yet been explained rationally,
comprehensively and exhaustively, and in the eyes of few, the explanation
which is in fact rational, comprehensive and exhaustive, cannot be
understood by the many, as the ganglions of the many are fixed in their
positions as learned in elementary school, and the frustration of
re-releasing the switches is just too much for the simple-minded believers
of Teachers, who unfortunately lack the long training a psycho-analyst has
to go through until she or he loses all belief in authorities and teachings
handed down and hopefully learns to think with her or his own head.

If we succeed to drip-feed the true believers with the poison of disbelief,
which is the elixir of alternative explanations, there may arrive a
Darwinian moment, where people say: “it is not nice to un-believe many
beliefs, but it does make just too much sense to assume that we are the
great-great-great-grandchildren of monkeys”. The goal is in the current
case to bring people to the point of saying: “It is not nice to un-believe
many beliefs, but it does make just too much sense to assume that there are
many ways to arrive at the concept of a number, let alone to that of a
sequence”.

So, we return to the Sumerian nobles discussing how to build a consistent
system of notation for something which is differing to all things sensually
perceivable. To un-glue the fixed positions of the switches of the
ganglions in the brain, we use the juicy imagination that the Sumerians
have abstracted for their idea of “one object as such” from sensually
perceivable objects each of them had in a similar fashion, namely ladies of
their respective harems. To make the case simple, we imagine each of the
scientists to be the proud owner of a harem with 60 ladies each in them,
who are normal, healthy women.


2)  What they did



   1. Enumerate consecutively

Astronomers have observed the periodicity of the Earth’s orbit around the
Sun and the phases of the Moon well before using positional arithmetic. The
4*7 is connected to phases of the Moon and to some processes of
physiological nature in the objects to be abstracted from. One may assume
that the 7 days of the week root in these facts.

The resulting number line is periodic, roughly on 4*7 and again on 4*7*12.
One can deal with the in-exactitudes by means of the two solstices and
re-align the calendar if necessary.

The resulting number line can be reasonably thought to consist of identical
units which follow each other. The mother of N has been born.



   1. De-individuate the objects – individuate the places

There was no gender or transgender oriented affirmative action thousands of
years ago, and no ideas of counting in a politically correct fashion were
entertained in those long-gone days.

Being morally far inferior to us, the Sumerians created a concept of the
object which negates any individuality of the object. In fact, they simply
enumerated their women and said that one is just like the next, and the
only difference that can be seen between two women is, when they are being
put to use. The mathematical concept of a unit predates Kant by about 5
thousand years. If you have many objects-as-such, the only difference they
can have among each other is given to them by the place they stand on.

This is all very anti-feministic, so far. In a previous posting, a method
has been shown, by which the Sumerians could have 

Re: [Fis] I do not understand some strange claims

[Jesse David Dinneen]

Dear Arturo (and greetings to everybody),

Just a few more reasons to be wary of dismissing concepts and thinking that
science is free of them:

The position you are promoting constitutes a pop view (sometimes called the
received view or naive view) of science, in which empirical items (e.g.,
measurable things) are taken to be unassailable rather than contingently
defined and conceived of by science, implicitly or otherwise. To call
concepts like the previously discussed triad 'useless' ignores the fact
that they are necessary for meaningful scientific discourse (e.g., you
cannot talk about observables without having a concept of what they are).
Scientific discourse is inescapably value- and concept-laden (and full of
implicit philosophical views), especially so when the terms used are
implicitly defined or dogmatically defended; if you find these claims
dubious, the introductory philosophers of science, like Kuhn and Popper,
might be of interest to you. Further, the theories and observables of past
scientific discourse have been either abandoned or refined beyond
recognition despite relative successes in their time (e.g., phlogiston),
and so it is reasonable to induce that the equivalent items of our time
will someday meet similar fates -- thus it is risky to put too much faith
in their objects being somehow more epistemologically sound or reliable
than the objects of abstract thinking or their study free of concepts,
philosophical thinking, etc.

Your concern that discussion of information theories leads to NO-VAX
surprises me; I am curious to know what harmful social movements you
foresee being caused by, say, the Bar-Hillel-Carnap Paradox.

Finally, it seems to me that by promoting this view of science, you are
doing philosophy more than doing science, at least by your own view of the
latter.

Here I'm not trying to lower science, but defend concepts -- they are
useful and necessary for scientific discourse, and seem to me very
appropriate for this particular venue.

Respectfully,
Jesse David Dinneen
School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington

On Thu, Nov 9, 2017 at 10:11 AM, tozziart...@libero.it <
tozziart...@libero.it> wrote:

> Dear FISers,
>
> science talks about observables, i.e., quantifiable parameters.
>
> Therefore, describing the word "information" in terms of philosophers'
> statements, hypothetical useless triads coming from nowhere, the ridicolous
> Rupert Sheldrake's account, mind communication, qualitative subjective
> issues of the mind, inconclusive phenomelogical accounts with an hint of
> useless husserlian claims, and such kind of amenities is simply: NOT
> scientific.
> It could be interesting, if you are a magician or a follower of Ermetes
> Trismegistus, but, if you are (or you think to be) a  scientist, this is
> simply not science.
> Such claims are dangerous, because they are the kind of claims that lead
> to NO-VAX movements, religious stuff in theoretical physics, Heideggerian
> metapyhsics.  Very interesting, but NOT science.
>
> That's all: 'nuff said.
>
> *Arturo Tozzi*
>
> AA Professor Physics, University North Texas
>
> Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy
>
> Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba
>
> http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/
>
>
> ___
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
>
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[Fis] R: Re: I do not understand some strange claims

[tozziart...@libero.it]

Dear Jesse, do not think that scientists are so dumb in philosophy and 
epistemological issue as you might imagine...  To quote the relativist and 
strumentalis accounts, I  read the theories of Feyerabend, Kuhn, Popper, van 
Frassen, Benacerraf, Laudan, Brigdman, the same Quine, but also of Roscellinus, 
Occam, Boethius, Abelard.  Therefore, we scientist are perfectly and deeplt 
aware of such positions and concerns.  
Howewer, in a Peircian way, I can state as follows: if I  am a scientist, and I 
am a True Believer of the theory-laden science that you call naive or received, 
and if, based on my experimental observations, I produce an  antibiotic and I 
save the life of my son who got an infection, therefore, despite all the 
beautiful worlds of the above mentioned  relativists and strumentalists and 
yours, he's me that is right.
I admit that somebody like Raymond Lullus might have been helpful in the 
following developments of computation, or Nicholas de Cusa in the study of 
mathematical infinitum, but I cannot do more for your philosophers.   Tell me 
one prevision of Feyerabend, Kuhn, Popper, van Frassen, Benacerraf, Laudan, 
Brigdman, the same Quine, but also of Roscellinus, Occam, Boethius, Abelard, 
but also of Heidegger, Husserl, that has been useful in order to discover a 
drug, or to develop an useful, true scientific concept (based on mathematical 
observables, of course, because anything else is worth to be pursued by 
science).   The only philosopher who, for pure luck, of course, guessed a lot 
of scientific future developments was the despised Diderot
The relationships between NO-VAX, homeopaty (and such nice pseudoscience)  and 
the relativistic positions are self-evident: if I think that science is 
mistaken, i can say all the bollocks I want, and to say I'm doing science.  
Respectfully,
Arturo TozziAA Professor Physics, University North TexasPediatrician ASL 
Na2Nord, ItalyComput Intell Lab, University 
Manitobahttp://arturotozzi.webnode.it/ 





Messaggio originale

Da: "Jesse David Dinneen" 

Data: 17/11/2017 1.39

A: 

Ogg: Re: [Fis] I do not understand some strange claims



Dear Arturo (and greetings to everybody), Just a few more reasons to be wary of 
dismissing concepts and thinking that science is free of them:

The position you are promoting constitutes a pop view (sometimes called the 
received view or naive view) of science, in which empirical items (e.g., 
measurable things) are taken to be unassailable rather than contingently 
defined and conceived of by science, implicitly or otherwise. To call concepts 
like the previously discussed triad 'useless' ignores the fact that they are 
necessary for meaningful scientific discourse (e.g., you cannot talk about 
observables without having a concept of what they are). Scientific discourse is 
inescapably value- and concept-laden (and full of implicit philosophical 
views), especially so when the terms used are implicitly defined or 
dogmatically defended; if you find these claims dubious, the introductory 
philosophers of science, like Kuhn and Popper, might be of interest to you. 
Further, the theories and observables of past scientific discourse have been 
either abandoned or refined beyond recognition despite relative successes in 
their time (e.g., phlogiston), and so it is reasonable to induce that the 
equivalent items of our time will someday meet similar fates -- thus it is 
risky to put too much faith in their objects being somehow more 
epistemologically sound or reliable than the objects of abstract thinking or 
their study free of concepts, philosophical thinking, etc.Your concern that 
discussion of information theories leads to NO-VAX surprises me; I am curious 
to know what harmful social movements you foresee being caused by, say, the 
Bar-Hillel-Carnap Paradox.Finally, it seems to me that by promoting this view 
of science, you are doing philosophy more than doing science, at least by your 
own view of the latter.Here I'm not trying to lower science, but defend 
concepts -- they are useful and necessary for scientific discourse, and seem to 
me very appropriate for this particular venue.Respectfully,Jesse David 
DinneenSchool of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington

On Thu, Nov 9, 2017 at 10:11 AM, tozziart...@libero.it  
wrote:
Dear FISers, 
science talks about observables, i.e., quantifiable parameters. 
Therefore, describing the word "information" in terms of philosophers' 
statements, hypothetical useless triads coming from nowhere, the ridicolous 
Rupert Sheldrake's account, mind communication, qualitative subjective issues 
of the mind, inconclusive phenomelogical accounts with an hint of useless 
husserlian claims, and such kind of amenities is simply: NOT scientific.  It 
could be interesting, if you are a magician or a follower of Ermetes 
Trismegistus, but, if you are (or you think to be) a  

Re: [Fis] some notes

[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear Pedro and colleagues,

2. Eigenvectors of communication. Taking the motif from Loet, and 
continuing with the above, could we say that the life cycle itself 
establishes the eigenvectors of communication? It is intriguing that 
maintenance, persistence, self-propagation are the essential motives of 
communication for whatever life entities (from bacteria to ourselves). 
With the complexity increase there appear new, more sophisticated 
directions, but the basic ones probably remain intact. What could be 
these essential directions of communication?
I am not so convinced that there is an a priori relation between life 
and communication. Communication is not alive. Non-living systems (e.g., 
computers, robots) also communicate. Perhaps, it matters for the 
communication whether the communicators are living systems; but this 
needs to be specified.


Communication studies is not biology. Perhaps, there is a specific 
biological communication as Maturana claims: when molecules are 
exchanged, one can expect life. Can one have life without communication? 
It seems to me that one can have communication without life. 
Communication would then be the broader category and life a special 
case.


Best,
Loet




3. About logics in the pre-science, Joseph is quite right demanding 
that discussion to accompany principles or basic problems. Actually 
principles, rules, theories, etc. are interconnected or should be by a 
logic (or several logics?) in order to give validity and coherence to 
the different combinations of elements. For instance, in the 
biomolecular realm there is a fascinating interplay of activation and 
inhibition among the participating molecular partners (enzymes and 
proteins) as active elements.  I am not aware that classical ideas from 
Jacob (La Logique du vivant) have been sufficiently continued; it is 
not about Crick's Central Dogma but about the logic of pathways, 
circuits, modules, etc. Probably both Torday and Ji have their own 
ideas about that-- I would be curious to hear from them.


4. I loved Michel's response to Arturo's challenge. I think that the 
two "zeros" I mentioned days ago (the unsolved themes around the cycle 
and around the observer) imply both multidisciplinary thinking and 
philosophical speculation...


Best wishes--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 0
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-

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Re: [Fis] I do not understand some strange claims

[Stanley N Salthe]

Jesse, Arturo -- Science is necessarily culture-laden in being motivated
and supported by the interests of the culture affording it.  The observer
cannot escape itself nor its position in the world of possibility. The
information sought by scientific means is already implicit in the
initiation of a search, and will be, given luck and craft, narrowed down by
that search so as to serve as the stepping-off point for the next search.
In this way science progresses toward ever more refined explorations of
cultural desiderata. A nice example is quantum mechanics, as the current
furthest reach of our cultural interest in the ever more minute, which has
already 'paid off'' by an understanding of biology (as well as the building
up of massive and profitable superstructures required by science discourse).

STAN

On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 7:39 PM, Jesse David Dinneen <
jesse.dinn...@vuw.ac.nz> wrote:

> Dear Arturo (and greetings to everybody),
>
> Just a few more reasons to be wary of dismissing concepts and thinking
> that science is free of them:
>
> The position you are promoting constitutes a pop view (sometimes called
> the received view or naive view) of science, in which empirical items
> (e.g., measurable things) are taken to be unassailable rather than
> contingently defined and conceived of by science, implicitly or otherwise.
> To call concepts like the previously discussed triad 'useless' ignores the
> fact that they are necessary for meaningful scientific discourse (e.g., you
> cannot talk about observables without having a concept of what they are).
> Scientific discourse is inescapably value- and concept-laden (and full of
> implicit philosophical views), especially so when the terms used are
> implicitly defined or dogmatically defended; if you find these claims
> dubious, the introductory philosophers of science, like Kuhn and Popper,
> might be of interest to you. Further, the theories and observables of past
> scientific discourse have been either abandoned or refined beyond
> recognition despite relative successes in their time (e.g., phlogiston),
> and so it is reasonable to induce that the equivalent items of our time
> will someday meet similar fates -- thus it is risky to put too much faith
> in their objects being somehow more epistemologically sound or reliable
> than the objects of abstract thinking or their study free of concepts,
> philosophical thinking, etc.
>
> Your concern that discussion of information theories leads to NO-VAX
> surprises me; I am curious to know what harmful social movements you
> foresee being caused by, say, the Bar-Hillel-Carnap Paradox.
>
> Finally, it seems to me that by promoting this view of science, you are
> doing philosophy more than doing science, at least by your own view of the
> latter.
>
> Here I'm not trying to lower science, but defend concepts -- they are
> useful and necessary for scientific discourse, and seem to me very
> appropriate for this particular venue.
>
> Respectfully,
> Jesse David Dinneen
> School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington
>
> On Thu, Nov 9, 2017 at 10:11 AM, tozziart...@libero.it <
> tozziart...@libero.it> wrote:
>
>> Dear FISers,
>>
>> science talks about observables, i.e., quantifiable parameters.
>>
>> Therefore, describing the word "information" in terms of philosophers'
>> statements, hypothetical useless triads coming from nowhere, the ridicolous
>> Rupert Sheldrake's account, mind communication, qualitative subjective
>> issues of the mind, inconclusive phenomelogical accounts with an hint of
>> useless husserlian claims, and such kind of amenities is simply: NOT
>> scientific.
>> It could be interesting, if you are a magician or a follower of Ermetes
>> Trismegistus, but, if you are (or you think to be) a  scientist, this is
>> simply not science.
>> Such claims are dangerous, because they are the kind of claims that lead
>> to NO-VAX movements, religious stuff in theoretical physics, Heideggerian
>> metapyhsics.  Very interesting, but NOT science.
>>
>> That's all: 'nuff said.
>>
>> *Arturo Tozzi*
>>
>> AA Professor Physics, University North Texas
>>
>> Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy
>>
>> Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba
>>
>> http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Fis mailing list
>> Fis@listas.unizar.es
>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>>
>>
>
> ___
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
>
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Re: [Fis] some notes

[Sungchul Ji]

Hi FISers,


I find it convenient to define communication as an irreducibly triadic process 
(physical, chemical, biological, physiological, or mental).  I identify such a 
triadic process with the Peircean semiosis (or the sign process) often 
represented as the following diagram which is isomorphic with the commutative 
triangle of the category theory.  Thus, to me, communication is a category:


   fg

A -->  B  ---> C
 |   ^
 |   |
 |__|
  h


Figure 1.  A diagrammatic representation of semiosis, sign process, or 
communication.  The names of the nodes and edges can vary depending on the 
communication system under consideration, which can be chemical reaction 
systems, gene expression mechanisms, human communication using symbols, 
computer systems using electrical signals.  If applied to the Shannon 
communication system, A = source, B = signals, C = receiver, f = encoding, g = 
decoding, and h = information transfer/flow.  When applied to human symbolic 
communicatioin, A = object, B = sign, C = interpretant, f = sign production, g 
= interpretation, and h = information flow.


One usefulness of Figure 1 is its ability to distinguish between "interactions" 
(see Steps f and g) and "communication" (see Steps f, g and h); the former is 
dyadic and the latter triadic.


All the best.


Sung



From: Fis  on behalf of Loet Leydesdorff 

Sent: Friday, November 17, 2017 8:06 AM
To: Pedro C. Marijuan; fis
Subject: Re: [Fis] some notes

Dear Pedro and colleagues,

2. Eigenvectors of communication. Taking the motif from Loet, and continuing 
with the above, could we say that the life cycle itself establishes the 
eigenvectors of communication? It is intriguing that maintenance, persistence, 
self-propagation are the essential motives of communication for whatever life 
entities (from bacteria to ourselves). With the complexity increase there 
appear new, more sophisticated directions, but the basic ones probably remain 
intact. What could be these essential directions of communication?
I am not so convinced that there is an a priori relation between life and 
communication. Communication is not alive. Non-living systems (e.g., computers, 
robots) also communicate. Perhaps, it matters for the communication whether the 
communicators are living systems; but this needs to be specified.

Communication studies is not biology. Perhaps, there is a specific biological 
communication as Maturana claims: when molecules are exchanged, one can expect 
life. Can one have life without communication? It seems to me that one can have 
communication without life. Communication would then be the broader category 
and life a special case.

Best,
Loet



3. About logics in the pre-science, Joseph is quite right demanding that 
discussion to accompany principles or basic problems. Actually principles, 
rules, theories, etc. are interconnected or should be by a logic (or several 
logics?) in order to give validity and coherence to the different combinations 
of elements. For instance, in the biomolecular realm there is a fascinating 
interplay of activation and inhibition among the participating molecular 
partners (enzymes and proteins) as active elements.  I am not aware that 
classical ideas from Jacob (La Logique du vivant) have been sufficiently 
continued; it is not about Crick's Central Dogma but about the logic of 
pathways, circuits, modules, etc. Probably both Torday and Ji have their own 
ideas about that-- I would be curious to hear from them.

4. I loved Michel's response to Arturo's challenge. I think that the two 
"zeros" I mentioned days ago (the unsolved themes around the cycle and around 
the observer) imply both multidisciplinary thinking and philosophical 
speculation...

Best wishes--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 0
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-

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Re: [Fis] some notes

[Terrence W. DEACON]

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 transfer of physical differences in this
respect can be utilized to communicate, and all communication requires
this physical foundation. But there is an important hierarchic
distinction that we need to consider. Simply collapsing our concept of
'communication' to its physical substrate (and ignoring the process of
interpretation) has the consequence of treating nearly all physical
processes as communication and failing to distinguish those that
additionally convey something we might call representational content.

Thus while internet communication and signals transferred between
computers do indeed play an essential role in human communication, we
only have to imagine a science fiction story in which all human
interpreters suddenly disappear but our computers nevertheless
continue to exchange signals, to realize that those signals are not
"communicating" anything. At that point they would only be physically
modifying one another, not communicating, except in a sort of
metaphoric sense. This sort of process would not be fundamentally
different from solar radiation modifying atoms in the upper atmosphere
or any other similar causal process. It would be odd to say that the
sun is thereby communicating anything to the atmosphere.

So, while I recognize that there are many methodological contexts in
which it makes little difference whether or not we ignore this
semiotic aspect, as many others have also hinted, this is merely to
bracket from consideration what really distinguishes physical transfer
of causal influence from communication. Remember that this was a
methodological strategy that even Shannon was quick to acknowledge in
the first lines of his classic paper. We should endeavor to always be
as careful.

— Terry

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[Fis] R: Re: some notes

[tozziart...@libero.it]

Dear Sungchul, I do not have anything against you, therefore sorry for my 
words, but your propositions gave me the opportunity to demonstrate the 
weirdness of such approaches for science.  
YOU find it convenient to define communication as an irreducibly triadic 
process (physical, chemical, biological, physiological, or mental).  YOU 
identify such a triadic process with the Peircean semiosis (or the sign 
process) often represented as the following diagram which is isomorphic with 
the commutative triangle of the category theory.  Thus, to YOU, communication 
is a category.  
I do not agree at all: therefore, could your proposition be kept as science? 
All the scientists agree on the definition (even if operational) of an atom, or 
agree that E=mc^2.  If we are talking of something qualitative, that one agrees 
and another do not, we are not in front of Science.
Sorry, Nothing personal.  

Arturo TozziAA Professor Physics, University North TexasPediatrician ASL 
Na2Nord, ItalyComput Intell Lab, University 
Manitobahttp://arturotozzi.webnode.it/ 





Messaggio originale

Da: "Sungchul Ji" 

Data: 17/11/2017 17.12

A: "Pedro C. Marijuan", "fis", 
"Loet Leydesdorff"

Ogg: Re: [Fis] some notes





-->



Hi FISers,





I find it convenient to define communication as an irreducibly triadic process 
(physical, chemical, biological, physiological, or mental).  I identify such a 
triadic process with the Peircean semiosis (or the sign
 process) often represented as the following diagram which is isomorphic with 
the
commutative triangle of the category theory.  Thus, to me, communication is a
category:





   fg

A -->  B  ---> C

 |   ^

 |   |

 |__|

  h





Figure 1.  A diagrammatic representation of semiosis, sign process, or 
communication.  The names of the nodes and edges can vary depending on the 
communication system under consideration, which can be chemical reaction 
systems, gene expression mechanisms,
 human communication using symbols, computer systems using electrical signals.  
If applied to the Shannon communication system, A = source, B = signals, C = 
receiver, f = encoding, g = decoding, and h = information transfer/flow.  When 
applied to human symbolic communicatioin,
 A = object, B = sign, C = interpretant, f = sign production, g = 
interpretation, and h = information flow. 





One usefulness of Figure 1 is its ability to distinguish between "interactions" 
(see Steps f and g) and "communication" (see Steps f, g and h); the former is
dyadic and the latter 
triadic.





All the best.





Sung






From: Fis  on behalf of Loet Leydesdorff 


Sent: Friday, November 17, 2017 8:06 AM

To: Pedro C. Marijuan; fis

Subject: Re: [Fis] some notes
 

Dear Pedro and colleagues, 





2. Eigenvectors of communication. Taking the motif from Loet, and continuing 
with the above, could we say that the life cycle itself establishes the 
eigenvectors of communication? It is intriguing that maintenance, persistence, 
self-propagation are the
 essential motives of communication for whatever life entities (from bacteria 
to ourselves). With the complexity increase there appear new, more 
sophisticated directions, but the basic ones probably remain intact. What could 
be these essential directions of
 communication?

I am not so convinced that there is an a priori relation between life and 
communication. Communication is not alive. Non-living systems (e.g., computers, 
robots) also communicate. Perhaps, it matters for the communication whether
 the communicators are living systems; but this needs to be specified.



Communication studies is not biology. Perhaps, there is a specific biological 
communication as Maturana claims: when molecules are exchanged, one can expect 
life. Can one have life without communication? It seems to me that one
 can have communication without life. Communication would then be the broader 
category and life a special case.



Best,
Loet






 
3. About logics in the pre-science, Joseph is quite right demanding that 
discussion to accompany principles or basic problems. Actually principles, 
rules, theories, etc. are interconnected or should be by a logic (or several 
logics?) in order to give validity
 and coherence to the different combinations of elements. For instance, in the 
biomolecular realm there is a fascinating interplay of activation and 
inhibition among the participating molecular partners (enzymes and proteins) as 
active elements.  I am not aware
 that classical ideas from Jacob (La Logique du vivant) have been sufficiently 
continued; it is