[Fis] Stanford seminar "On The Origin Of Experience"

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Please forgive my cross-posting.

The video of my Nov. 13th lecture is now available on YouTube,

http://youtu.be/zF5Bp_YsZ3M

it includes the first chapter of my forthcoming book. The full
transcript is now also available as a book preview here.

https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1137409

In a follow up lecture on January 15th I will speak about the life and
work of Charles Sanders Peirce. In this lecture I will place Charles
in the broader context of intellectual developments in and around the
formation of Harvard University.

Best regards,
Steven
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[Fis] The Interaction Man

[Krassimir Markov]

Dear Pedro and FIS Colleagues,
This discussion is full with interesting ideas.
What I want to add is that I distinguish the concepts "communication" and 
"information interaction" which reflect similar phenomena but at different 
levels of live hierarchy.
Communication is a process of exchanging of "signals, messages" with 
different degree of complexity (Shannon).
Information interaction is exchanging of information models. It is specific 
only for intelligent agents but not for low levels of live mater (bio 
molecules, cells, organs).
Main feature of intelligent agents is decision making based on information 
models.
Information interaction is impossible without communication.
Friendly regards
Krassimir

PS: Dear Pedro, Please resend this letter to FIS list if it is stopped by 
spam filter.


-Original Message- 
From: Pedro C. Marijuan
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 3:30 PM
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] The Communication Man

Dear Loet, Bob, Joseph, and FIS colleagues,

There is a classical problem in the dialog between natural science and
the humanities, also occurring in the present exchanges (maybe in a
different way). I may agree or disagree respect the constructs presented
by Bob, or my own points, but most of that stuff is closer to
well-accepted conceptualizations of different disciplines and the
discursive element is framed within the bounds of self-discipline. In my
case, when I presented the 11 points, most of them could have a concrete
label: "signaling science", "motor-centered approach", "ecological
psychology", "social brain hypothesis", etc. I think the result was not
a potpourri, but a conceptual body from which a careful reading might
obtain a cogent meaning, hopefully. However, most of Loet's text is
discursive, with ample freedom of construction, and the parts associated
to scientific conceptualizations do not become very relevant --in my
opinion they provide a loan of apparent rigor. Besides the topic of
discussion in his message is slightly twisted: the initial
"communication" and "life" becomes "scientific communication" and
"biology"... I do not want to be negative, rather pointing that there is
a different communication strategy at work. Well, finally the respective
rigor is in the eye of the beholder.

Also, there was an idea by Joseph that I want to continue, when he says:
"...the purport of metabolism is change, not only burning
carbon-hydrogen bonds. But perhaps we might all prefer "communicating is
life; life is communicating"..."
The "semantic metabolism" theme was in the background (just in case I
reproduce his message below).

Then, my suggestion: if most of our daily exchanges in social life occur
for their own sake, just to continue with or to maintain our social
bonds ahead (see Raquel's opening text), the parallelism takes an
interesting turn. Most of semantic metabolism becomes the processing of
our social bonds: degrading them, ascending them, interlinking them,
slightly or deeply changing our inner mental structure of bonds. Dealing
with chemical bonds is the playground for energetic metabolism; dealing
with social bonds is the playground for semantic metabolism. In one case
we use free energy when changing (filling in, depleting) the chemical
bonds; in the other case we use communicative social information when
similarly changing the social bonds. Every chemical reaction refers to
the making and braking of bonds: could we similarly state (tongue in
cheek) that every meaningful social interaction finally refers to the
making and breaking of social bonds?

This is my second, and final, message of the week.

best

---Pedro

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 5:25 PM, Joseph Brenner mailto:joe.bren...@bluewin.ch>> wrote:

Dear FISers,

There is here an important idea which I think is worth a note. The two
elements (I say) are in a dynamic relation and a logical relation, as the
mind moves between them. Alternately one or the other is predominant (more
actualized)

Lupasco said: "experience is logic; logic is experience". Closer to home we
have: "information is constraints and constraints are information" (Kauffman
et al, 2008).

The purport of metabolism is change, not only burning carbon-hydrogen bonds.
But perhaps we might all prefer "communicating is life; life is
communicating".

Best,

Joseph
Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
>
> Dear Bob,
>
> Thank you so much for this paper (that I had seen before). I agree
> with many of the things written here, but my intellectual orientation
> is another one, namely one that does not consider biology, philosophy
> of biology, or the definition of life as a fruitful starting point for
> the analysis of cultural phenomena such as scientific communication.
>
> Discursive knowledge does not emerge as autonomous agency in molecular
> processes, but at a next level in terms of exchanges among human
> (reflexive!) agents. The interactions exhibit a non-linear dynamics of
> expectations and meanings. Shannon-type information-theo

Re: [Fis] The Communication Man

[Loet Leydesdorff]

> However, most of Loet's text is discursive, with ample freedom of
construction, and the parts associated to scientific conceptualizations do
not become very relevant --in my opinion they provide a loan of apparent
rigor. Besides the topic of discussion in his message is slightly twisted:
the initial "communication" and "life" becomes "scientific communication"
and "biology"... I do not want to be negative, rather pointing that there is
a different communication strategy at work. Well, finally the respective
rigor is in the eye of the beholder.

 

Dear Pedro, 

 

I take the liberty to react shortly to your message: I agree that we use
different paradigms, but for those of you who are interested in the rigorous
math I gave a reference to The Communication of Expectations and Individual
Understanding: Redundancy as Reduction of Uncertainty, and the Processing of
Meaning   where the derivation is both in
terms of the entropy statistics and in terms of the computation of
anticipatory systems. 

 

(I consider email exchanges as less codified, but more explanatory.)

 

Best,

Loet

 

  _  

Loet Leydesdorff 

Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)

  l...@leydesdorff.net ;
 http://www.leydesdorff.net/ 
Honorary Professor,   SPRU, University of
Sussex; Visiting Professor,  
ISTIC, Beijing;

Visiting Professor,   Birkbeck, University of London.
 
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJ&hl=en  



 

 

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Re: [Fis] The Communication Man

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear Loet, Bob, Joseph, and FIS colleagues,

There is a classical problem in the dialog between natural science and 
the humanities, also occurring in the present exchanges (maybe in a 
different way). I may agree or disagree respect the constructs presented 
by Bob, or my own points, but most of that stuff is closer to 
well-accepted conceptualizations of different disciplines and the 
discursive element is framed within the bounds of self-discipline. In my 
case, when I presented the 11 points, most of them could have a concrete 
label: "signaling science", "motor-centered approach", "ecological 
psychology", "social brain hypothesis", etc. I think the result was not 
a potpourri, but a conceptual body from which a careful reading might 
obtain a cogent meaning, hopefully. However, most of Loet's text is 
discursive, with ample freedom of construction, and the parts associated 
to scientific conceptualizations do not become very relevant --in my 
opinion they provide a loan of apparent rigor. Besides the topic of 
discussion in his message is slightly twisted: the initial 
"communication" and "life" becomes "scientific communication" and 
"biology"... I do not want to be negative, rather pointing that there is 
a different communication strategy at work. Well, finally the respective 
rigor is in the eye of the beholder.

Also, there was an idea by Joseph that I want to continue, when he says: 
"...the purport of metabolism is change, not only burning 
carbon-hydrogen bonds. But perhaps we might all prefer "communicating is 
life; life is communicating"..."
The "semantic metabolism" theme was in the background (just in case I 
reproduce his message below).

Then, my suggestion: if most of our daily exchanges in social life occur 
for their own sake, just to continue with or to maintain our social 
bonds ahead (see Raquel's opening text), the parallelism takes an 
interesting turn. Most of semantic metabolism becomes the processing of 
our social bonds: degrading them, ascending them, interlinking them, 
slightly or deeply changing our inner mental structure of bonds. Dealing 
with chemical bonds is the playground for energetic metabolism; dealing 
with social bonds is the playground for semantic metabolism. In one case 
we use free energy when changing (filling in, depleting) the chemical 
bonds; in the other case we use communicative social information when 
similarly changing the social bonds. Every chemical reaction refers to 
the making and braking of bonds: could we similarly state (tongue in 
cheek) that every meaningful social interaction finally refers to the 
making and breaking of social bonds?

This is my second, and final, message of the week.

best

---Pedro

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 5:25 PM, Joseph Brenner mailto:joe.bren...@bluewin.ch>> wrote:

Dear FISers,

There is here an important idea which I think is worth a note. The two
elements (I say) are in a dynamic relation and a logical relation, as the
mind moves between them. Alternately one or the other is predominant (more
actualized)

Lupasco said: "experience is logic; logic is experience". Closer to home we
have: "information is constraints and constraints are information" (Kauffman
et al, 2008).

The purport of metabolism is change, not only burning carbon-hydrogen bonds.
But perhaps we might all prefer "communicating is life; life is
communicating".

Best,

Joseph
Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
>
> Dear Bob,
>
> Thank you so much for this paper (that I had seen before). I agree 
> with many of the things written here, but my intellectual orientation 
> is another one, namely one that does not consider biology, philosophy 
> of biology, or the definition of life as a fruitful starting point for 
> the analysis of cultural phenomena such as scientific communication.
>
> Discursive knowledge does not emerge as autonomous agency in molecular 
> processes, but at a next level in terms of exchanges among human 
> (reflexive!) agents. The interactions exhibit a non-linear dynamics of 
> expectations and meanings. Shannon-type information-theory excludes 
> this dynamics right from the beginning, but more recently we have 
> begun to understand more about the possible measurement of the options 
> generated in terms of redundancies. See for a recent summary and 
> introduction: Loet Leydesdorff, Inga Ivanova, and Mark Johnson, The 
> Communication of Expectations and Individual Understanding: Redundancy 
> as Reduction of Uncertainty, and the Processing of Meaning 
> . I take the liberty to attach this 
> draft.
>
> As you don’t wish to reduce the biological domain to the physical, we 
> don’t wish to reduce the cultural to the biological. The biological 
> offers organization and constraints, whereas the cultural offers 
> self-organization of the communication and new opportunities. This is 
> particularly important since in a knowledge-based economy, science and 
> technology-based innovations have become endogenou