Re: [Fis] Recapping the discussion? Joseph's Recap
Dear Joseph and FIS colleagues, When we look at a biological system we are looking at the face of the underlying physics of the universe... The picture is not one of of simple upscale percolation. The higher levels act down scale on the lower levels to redefine their fundamental characteristics... the flow of influence is thus circular as well as vertical, with multiple inner loops. The circularity is imperfect; complete self-consistency is never attainable... This appears in Conrad (1996, BioSystems vol. 38 p. 108). I think that more important than the concrete advancements along the fluctuon model guidelines is the validity of the pioneering vision. It was this vertical flow of percolating information what inspired in early 90's the creation of FIS and a new dialog including the social sciences and the humanities, not restricted to the biological and ecosystems domains. Beyond the biomimetic horizon of Complexity theorists and Artificial Life schools (then in their peak), this type of reflection was proposing a new informational perspective to be extended to the inner generativity of multiple realms in the scientific enterprise (not to start a new reductionist game, but to offer a fresh-new player in the whole social recombination of knowledge). Some trends in information physics are undoubtedly running very close to this direction (see for instance Lee Smolin's books; or Decoding Reality on quantum information science by Vlatko Vedral, 2010) rather unfortunately ignoring this pathway. It could be argued that some parties in Systems Biology are also running along this trend. And leaders of advanced Artificial Intelligence are nowadays proposing a reflection on the nature of Intelligence that conduces to reconsider information itself and the foundations of information science in a general sense. Perhaps in this general framework our more detailed discussions (eg, about info signatures) or the extent of Shannon's Theory, or the plausibility of cellular (quantum?) intelligence, or how to articulate social information sciences... or my unanswered question on the materiality of the microphysical laws of nature themselves --as information that acts on information--- appear with more cogency. all the best ---Pedro Joseph Brenner escribió: Dear Friends and Colleagues, The following impressionist recap is intended not as a critique, but simply to perhaps help organize the continuation of this fascinating discussion. For me, almost all the notes have illuminated aspects of the Foundations of Information Science, where participants have re-presented their theories developed over many years. Some of the new interactions, such as those between Robert U., Loet and Koichiro, deserve development in their own right. However, my and Kevin K.'s basic question of whether /new evidence exists of any interaction between the world modeled by fluctuons and the thermodynamic world/ has in my opinion not been answered. If none of us has this knowledge, then we must somehow send a mission to those who might have it that could report back to us. I do not consider myself as competent enough in physics to simply rephrase Conrad's statements from the papers available. In relation to this, it is helpful when participants indicate their basic positions about Conrad's /kind/ of theory. Steven did. There is also the idea of a physics-neutral theory. Perhaps a total picture of information can be built up without /any/ reference to the structure (or lack of it) of the sub-quantum world? I disagree, of course: microphysical laws will, I believe, define the information about information in reality that Pedro refers to. This thread, that includes Karl's approach to physics and logic, needs to be explored further. It is possible, (by now I guess it is reasonable to assume most of you know my view on this), that information cannot be defined completely by reference to a sentential logic such as that proposed by Karl. Further, I am very curious, and would welcome comments on in relation to information, about progress in the theory of dissipative systems that has been made /since/ Prigogine, such as the catastrophe theory of Thom and Petitot (itself rather outdated). Best wishes, Joseph - Original Message - From: Pedro C. Marijuan pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es To: fis@listas.unizar.es Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 1:37 PM Subject: [Fis] Recapping the discussion? Dear FIS colleagues, A usual practice in past chaired discussions is that after the first round of debates, after three weeks or so like in the current session, the chairs recap the discussion by refocusing it on the most salient or relevant aspects, or just by pointing to some unnoticed connections. Could it be OK in this case? In the interim, while Kevin and Joseph try to find their time to follow this tradition, I would point to some of the many threads that
Re: [Fis] Recapping the discussion? Joseph's Recap
Dear Pedro, Thank you for calling my attention and that of the Group to Conrad's vision and this most important quotation. It is certainly congenial to my logical system, in which downward causation, imperfect circularity and self-inconsistency are accepted as a matter of course and assigned their necessary ontological value. I also understand the importance of the derived informational perspective and its consequence for a new understanding of the social recombination of knowledge, as well as the critical questions you refer to in your last paragraph - information acting on information, etc. I not only agree with this perspective, but it was in this spirit that I tried to capture the role of fluctuons in my 9 Points sent to you personally. (Perhaps you may consider it appropriate topublish the 9 Points now or in the near future.) The lack of new evidence from physics for fluctuon interactions with higher levels would not invalidate your/my view of the value of Conrad's vision. However, such scientific evidence would be valuable in its own right as well as possibly suggest new, non-reductionist applications. Stan's statement points in this direction: Then, Conrad can be seen to have been working to try to rescue microscopic physics from those maintaining that there cannot be a view from anywhere; that all views are by someone located in time and space, and so, in effect, cannot be objective. Can we talk objectively, at least in part, about the sub-quantum realm that we will never observe directly? I believe the answer is yes, but it requires a new approach to the meaning of being located in time and space. In my view and I think in that of Koichiro, it is time and space that are located in or associated with us. Evidence of the influence of sub-quantum fluctuations on biological entities may become more accessible from this standpoint, or not. To be continued, I hope. Best, Joseph - Original Message - From: Pedro C. Marijuan pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es To: fis@listas.unizar.es Sent: Friday, October 15, 2010 2:12 PM Subject: Re: [Fis] Recapping the discussion? Joseph's Recap Dear Joseph and FIS colleagues, When we look at a biological system we are looking at the face of the underlying physics of the universe... The picture is not one of of simple upscale percolation. The higher levels act down scale on the lower levels to redefine their fundamental characteristics... the flow of influence is thus circular as well as vertical, with multiple inner loops. The circularity is imperfect; complete self-consistency is never attainable... This appears in Conrad (1996, BioSystems vol. 38 p. 108). I think that more important than the concrete advancements along the fluctuon model guidelines is the validity of the pioneering vision. It was this vertical flow of percolating information what inspired in early 90's the creation of FIS and a new dialog including the social sciences and the humanities, not restricted to the biological and ecosystems domains. Beyond the biomimetic horizon of Complexity theorists and Artificial Life schools (then in their peak), this type of reflection was proposing a new informational perspective to be extended to the inner generativity of multiple realms in the scientific enterprise (not to start a new reductionist game, but to offer a fresh-new player in the whole social recombination of knowledge). Some trends in information physics are undoubtedly running very close to this direction (see for instance Lee Smolin's books; or Decoding Reality on quantum information science by Vlatko Vedral, 2010) rather unfortunately ignoring this pathway. It could be argued that some parties in Systems Biology are also running along this trend. And leaders of advanced Artificial Intelligence are nowadays proposing a reflection on the nature of Intelligence that conduces to reconsider information itself and the foundations of information science in a general sense. Perhaps in this general framework our more detailed discussions (eg, about info signatures) or the extent of Shannon's Theory, or the plausibility of cellular (quantum?) intelligence, or how to articulate social information sciences... or my unanswered question on the materiality of the microphysical laws of nature themselves --as information that acts on information--- appear with more cogency. all the best ---Pedro Joseph Brenner escribió: Dear Friends and Colleagues, The following impressionist recap is intended not as a critique, but simply to perhaps help organize the continuation of this fascinating discussion. For me, almost all the notes have illuminated aspects of the Foundations of Information Science, where participants have re-presented their theories developed over many years. Some of the new interactions, such as those between Robert U., Loet and Koichiro, deserve development in their own right. However, my and Kevin K.'s basic question of whether /new evidence exists of any interaction
Re: [Fis] Recapping the discussion? Joseph's Recap
I would like to comment upon Conrad's statement: When we look at a biological system we are looking at the face of the underlying physics of the universe... The picture is not one of simple upscale percolation. The higher levels act down scale on the lower levels to redefine their fundamental characteristics... the flow of influence is thus circular as well as vertical, with multiple inner loops. The circularity is imperfect; complete self-consistency is never attainable... This appears in Conrad (1996, BioSystems vol. 38 p. 108). This message has been advanced in more detail in my own studies, published in: 1986. Evolving Hierarchical Systems. Columbia University Press (Conrad;'s work up to then informed this book) 1993. Development and Evolution. MIT Press (Chapter 3) 2002. Summary of the principles of hierarchy theory. General Systems Bulletin 31: 13-17. (I am updating this paper, and am willing to send a copy to anyone who requests it.) The 'devil is in the details' as they say. From that point of view, Conrad's the flow of influence is thus circular as well as vertical, with multiple inner loops. requires a lot of work, which I have laid some groundwork for in the above listed texts. STAN - 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 ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Fw: Recapping the discussion? Joseph's Recap
Forwarded message, From Jamie Rose De James Rose integr...@prodigy.net Fecha Fri, 15 Oct 2010 06:42:39 -0700 (PDT) A fis@listas.unizar.es CC ro...@home.ease.lsoft.com Asunto Re: [Fis] Recapping the discussion? Joseph's Recap And not to be overlooked is Robert Rosen's extensivework identifying and detailing the complex pluralism of effective information relationships call "entailments".By at least 2 decades before Conrads "the flowof influence is thus circular as well as vertical, with multiple innerloops." Jamie Rose ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
