Re: [Fis] [Fwd: Re: Information is a linguistic description of structures]--T...

[HowlBloom]

re: it is likely to be problematic to use language as the paradigm model  
for all communication--Terrence Deacon
 
Terry  makes interesting points, but I think on this one, he may be  wrong. 
Guenther Witzany is on to something.  our previous  approaches  to 
information have been what Barbara Ehrenreich, in her  introduction to the 
upcoming 
paperback of my book The God Problem: How a Godless  Cosmos Creates, calls 
"a kind of unacknowledged necrophilia."
 
we've been using dead things to understand living things.  aristotle  put 
us on that path when he told us that if we could break things down to their  
"elements" and understand what he called the "laws" of those elements, we'd  
understand everything.  Newton took us farther down that path when he said  
we could understand everything using the metaphor of the "contrivance," the 
 machine--the metaphor of "mechanics" and of "mechanism."  
 
Aristotle and Newton were wrong.  Their ideas have had centuries to  pan 
out, and they've led to astonishing insights, but they've left us blind  to 
the relational aspect of things. utterly blind.
 
the most amazing metaphor of relationality available to us is not math,  
it's not mechanism, and it's not reduction to "elements," it's language.   by 
using the metaphor of a form of language called "code," watson and  crick 
were able to understand what a strand of dna does and  how.   without language 
as metaphor, we'd still be in the dark  about the genome.
 
i'm convinced that by learning the relational secrets of the body of work  
of a Shakespeare or a Goethe we could crack some of the secrets we've been  
utterly unable to comprehend, from what makes the social clots we call a  
galaxy's spiral arms (a phenomenon that astronomer Greg Matloff, a  Fellow of 
the British interplanetary Society,  says defies the laws  of Newtonian and 
Einsteinian physics) to what makes the difference between  life and death.
 
in other words, it's time we confess in science just how little we know  
about language, that we explore language's mysteries, and that we use our  
discoveries as a crowbar to pry open the secrets of this highly contextual,  
deeply relational, profoundly communicational cosmos.
 
with thanks for tolerating my opinions.
 
howard
 

Howard Bloom
Author of: The Lucifer Principle:  A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces 
of History ("mesmerizing"-The  Washington Post),
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The  Big Bang to the 21st 
Century ("reassuring and sobering"-The New  Yorker),
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of  Capitalism ("A 
tremendously enjoyable book." James Fallows, National  Correspondent, The 
Atlantic),
The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos  Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock 
your world." Barbara  Ehrenreich),
How I Accidentally Started the Sixties ("Wow! Whew!  Wild!
Wonderful!" Timothy Leary), and
The Mohammed Code ("A  terrifying book…the best book I've read on Islam." 
David Swindle, PJ  Media).
www.howardbloom.net
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate  Institute; Former Visiting 
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York  University.
Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; Founder, Space  Development 
Steering Committee; Founder: The Group Selection Squad; Founding  Board 
Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding Board Member, The Darwin  Project; 
Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of  
Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American  
Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and  
Evolution 
Society, International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory  Board 
Member, Lifeboat Foundation; Editorial Board Member, Journal of Space  
Philosophy; Board member and member of Board of Governors, National Space  
Society.


In a message dated 9/28/2015 11:47:26 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es writes:

>From  Terry...

 Original Message  Subject:  Re: [Fis] Information is a 
linguistic description of  structures  Date:  Sun, 27 Sep 2015 22:13:14 
-0700  From:  Terrence W. Deacon __ 
(mailto:dea...@berkeley.edu)   To:  Pedro C. Marijuan 
__ 
(mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es)   CC:  Günther Witzany __ 
(mailto:witz...@sbg.at) , __ 
(mailto:fa...@howardbloom.net) ,  fis 
__ (mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es) ,  Emanuel Diamant 
__ (mailto:emanl@gmail.com)   References:  
_<000201d0f68c$77d02b50$677081f0$@gmail.com>_ 
(mailto:000201d0f68c$77d02b50$677081f0$@gmail.com)   
_<0d34f6ef-19e6-4c9c-a9d3-aba4f5f2e...@sbg.at>_ 
(mailto:0d34f6ef-19e6-4c9c-a9d3-aba4f5f2e...@sbg.at)   
_<56053208.2000...@aragon.es>_ 
(mailto:56053208.2000...@aragon.es) 

As exemplified in Guenther's auxin example, and Pedro's worries  about the 
procrustean use of language metaphors in the discussion of 

[Fis] RV: FIS List – Locality? From Marcus

[PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ]

The list is now working well, all should address their messages directly... 
--Pedro

De: Marcus Abundis [55m...@gmail.com]
Enviado el: lunes, 28 de septiembre de 2015 17:57
Para: Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Cc: PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ
Asunto: FIS List – Locality?

Hi Stephen,

I am embarrassed to admit I feel I don't quite grasp the notion of Locality 
you reference. This seems to be a key initial concept in your model, and thus I 
feel I cannot comment specifically on following matters. By locality do you 
mean the “fact“ of specific items being specifically situated in specific 
environments? Please point me to the passage/post where you feel you explain 
this most succinctly (sorry?).

Otherwise, I *think* I agree with the general Gestalt of your model . . . 
but again I am getting stuck early on and cannot comment specifically. Help is 
appreciated . . .



Marcus Abundis
about.me/marcus.abundis







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Re: [Fis] Locality?

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Marcus,

I think this is a wise question. We must always speak up and seek clarification 
when we are concerned about our interpretation of the environment (in which can 
be found my posts to FIS) if we are to achieve effective communication (the 
exchange of knowledge between apprehending entities).  

Thinking about the systems that Shannon worked upon, the ideas as conveyed by 
Brit Cruise, and the computing machines and systems that I have helped design, 
it is easy to see how one may become unclear.

I spent many years studying the movement of data from one processor to another 
by various means, memory subsystems and the hardware problems of “addressing” 
and “alignment,” hidden cache hierarchies and such like to improve performance 
pragmatics, and I designed mathematically founded programming languages to 
enable engineers to speak of semantics and performance semantics that are a 
part of this bit "motion.” 

And within these programming languages I studied the locality of expression, 
scope, aliasing, and so on.

I spent further years informally studying the practices of engineers in 
different parts of the world using these languages. And I informally observed 
the common effects that these languages have upon how these engineers behave 
and define themselves. Going so far, it seemed to me, as to dressing the same 
way, liking the same kinds of music, dating the same types of people, and 
buying the same models of car. There are observable differences, for example, 
between C programmers and those that program in LISP.

Later I dealt with the Turing test and via a conversational interface that 
provided access to content in a world full of people with a wide range of 
educational and economic backgrounds.

All of these experiences present a different sense of “Locality” to the mind.

In the digital world, dominant in current Information Science, the ultimate 
Locality is, necessarily, the Bit - combined with other bits via machine 
operations. Everything else is not local, it is organized Bits. 

And this is the point at the foundation of my discussion. 

Bits may be organized but this organization is arbitrary - and has meaning only 
in the effect that it has upon the behavior of the machine. Whether they are 
aligned in 8bit or 64bit words as, in fact, as some hardware electronic grid 
with high level hardware controller enforcing a strict organization, or they 
are holes in the ground managed by our grandchildren, it is the same and our 
perception of the Locality is an illusion.

I make the point that this organization is taken for granted and not properly 
unaccounted for.

Since processor operations are 64bit wide (and have, experimentally, been 
wider), we can say that this is the extent of locality in the common machine 
(data structures are organization, not localities). But allosteric Locality  
(if I may extend the common notion of this term) in biophysics is very 
different, much more flexible, across the entire structure and sense is 
directly bound to response.

Regards,
Steven


--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith, Los Gatos, California. +1-650-308-8611
http://iase.info








> On Sep 28, 2015, at 8:57 AM, Marcus Abundis <55m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I am embarrassed to admit I feel I don't quite grasp the notion of 
> Locality you reference. This seems to be a key initial concept in your model, 
> and thus I feel I cannot comment specifically on following matters. By 
> locality do you mean the “fact“ of specific items being specifically situated 
> in specific environments? Please point me to the passage/post where you feel 
> you explain this most succinctly (sorry?).
> 
> Otherwise, I *think* I agree with the general Gestalt of your model . . . 
> but again I am getting stuck early on and cannot comment specifically. Help 
> is appreciated . . . 
> 







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[Fis] [Fwd: Re: Information is a linguistic description of structures]--Terry

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

From Terry...

 Original Message 
Subject:Re: [Fis] Information is a linguistic description of structures
Date:   Sun, 27 Sep 2015 22:13:14 -0700
From:   Terrence W. Deacon 
To: Pedro C. Marijuan 
CC: 	Günther Witzany , , fis 
, Emanuel Diamant 
References: 	<000201d0f68c$77d02b50$677081f0$@gmail.com> 
<0d34f6ef-19e6-4c9c-a9d3-aba4f5f2e...@sbg.at> <56053208.2000...@aragon.es>




As exemplified in Guenther's auxin example, and Pedro's worries about 
the procrustean use of language metaphors in the discussion of inter- 
and intra-cellular communication, it is likely to be problematic to use 
language as the paradigm model for all communication, much less as the 
foundation upon which to build a general theory of information. From an 
evolutionary point of view, language is a highly derived human 
idiosyncratic form of communication that evolved only very recently in 
vertebrate phylogeny, in only one species, and is supported by a vast 
semiotic cognitive and social infrastructure. Communication in a more 
general sense is vastly older and far more generic. For this reason, it 
is wise to avoid talking in terms of the semantics of a cough, the 
meaning of a piece of music, or the syntax of a skunk's odor. The use of 
Carnap's approach to language semantics and various other uses of 
linguistic categories in information theoretic analyses needs to be 
understood as a special case, not the generic form. I would recommend 
that presentations and comments to them be framed with appropriate 
caveats, indicating whether they address such special cases of human 
information or are intended to be generic. 

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 4:37 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan 
> wrote:


   Dear FISers and all,

   I include below another response to Immanuel post (from Guenther). I
   think he has penned an excellent response--my only addition is to
   expostulate a doubt. Should our analysis of the human (or cellular!)
   communication with the environment be related to linguistic
   practices? In short, my argument is that biological self-production
   becomes "la raison d'etre" of communication, both concerning its
   evolutionary origins and the continuous opening towards the
   environment along the different stages of the individual's life
   cycle. It is cogent that the same messenger plays quite different
   roles in different specialized cells --we have to disentangle in
   each case how the impinging "info" affects the ongoing life cycle
   (the impact upon the transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, etc.)
   There is no shortcut to the endless work necessary--wet lab & in
   silico. So I think that Encode and other big projects are quite
   useful in the continuous exploration of biological complexity and
   provide us valuable conceptual stuff--but looking for hypothetical
   big formalisms (I quite agree) is out sight. Molecular recognition
   which is the at the  fundamentals of biological organization can
   only provide modest guidelines about the main informational
   architectures of life... beyond that, there is too much complexity,
   endless complexity to contemplate, particularly when we try to study
   multicellular organization. Anyhow, this topic of the essential
   informational openness of the individual's life cycle appears to me
   as the Gordian knot to be cut for the advancement of our field:
   otherwise we will never connect meaningfully with the endless info
   flows that interconnect our societies, generated from the life
   cycles of individuals and addressed to the life cycles of other
   individuals. Info sources, channels for info flows, and info
   receptors are not mere Shannonian overtones, they symbolically refer
   to the very info skeleton of our societies; or looking dynamically
   it is the engine of social history and of social complexity.

   Well, sorry that I could not express myself better.

   all the best--Pedro

   Günther Witzany wrote:

Dear all!

What is the opposite of a linguistic description? a non-linguistic
description? Please tell me one possible explanation of a
non-linguistic description. So Im not convinced of the sense of
the term "information". 


Concerning the "difference" of physical and semantic information:
What would you prefer in the case of plant communication. Does the
chemical Auxin represent a physical or a semantic
information? Auxin is used in hormonal, morphogenic, and
transmitter pathways. As an extracellular signal at the plant
synapse, auxin serves to react to light and gravity. It
also serves as an extracellular messenger substance to send
electrical signals and functions as a synchronization signal for
cell division. At the intercellular, whole plant level, it
supports cell 

[Fis] Information and Locality. Finale.

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear List,

Prior messages can be found:

Introduction:
http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/2015-September/000512.html
On the introduction:
http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/2015-September/000528.html
Information And Locality
http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/2015-September/000529.html
http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/2015-September/000531.html
http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/2015-September/000533.html
Locality?
http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/2015-September/000542.html

This is my last main post on Information and Locality. I summarize and expand 
the scope of the inquiry. 

In the light of my consideration of Locality it should be clear that I have 
proposed a new universal at the level of gravitation. This universal effect 
denies locality in structure, is across structure, and enables biophysics, 
including sense, to be included in the physical sciences. 

Mathematically the effect is characterized as a shaping upon the surface of 
flexible closed structure.  These shapes are manifest as sense receptors or 
motor functors. They are bound by action potentials via the internal genetic 
mechanics. These same mechanics modify the shapes by, for example, inserting 
new receptors or motor functors into the surface.

This lack of locality is called Allosteric Conformance in biophysics. These 
shapes are profoundly sensitive. One or two molecules bound to a ligand may 
cause the entire array to conform as though each receptor had a molecule. The 
response may be a refinement of the structure and/or an action response 
(activation of a motor functor).

Unfortunately, biophysicists have only attempted conventional mathematical 
physics to this problem, trying - for example - to use the Ising model, 
designed originally for ferro-magnetic consideration with only minor success. 
In fact, this problem needs to be viewed by mathematicians (and more widely 
than I) who can formulate new mathematics to address the evidence. I have 
proposed one solution, another mathematician may propose another, but it seems 
clear that the solution is continuous structure (geometric) and not atomic.

Unlike Shannon’s model my proposed effect is the base of experience: the 
locality issues I have outlined go away and sense is formed. The changing shape 
of biophysical structure is the changing feeling of our being.


Logical operations enabled by this structure are very different from those of 
computational convention for it is not, indeed it cannot be, implemented by 
digital or analog electrical engineering. It is rather a mechanics of diffusion 
across flexible closed structure that carries the environmental stimulants 
causing the action potentials to form and eventually for motor functors to 
activate.


In flexible closed structure feelings are shapes upon the surface and vary as 
response potentials change. Sense (s) changes as the shape changes. There is no 
sense without this motion. The same shape will always produce the same sense 
and is the basis of memory, familiarity, and habit. Mathematically, these cells 
and other biophysical membranes are continuous holomorphic functors bound (by 
the genetic mechanism) as sense and response (r) hyperfunctors. Simply, ( s, r 
).

The suggestive evidence for this effect is allosteric conformance in the wide 
range of biophysical observations and, naturally, experience of our own 
anatomy. 


You may rebel and argue that surely all this can be performed by computing 
systems, but no. I demonstrated that power utilization excludes Turing 
machines, of all kinds, from biophysics.


A strict Pragmaticism is the source of all “meaning."  The meaning of a mark is 
simply the physical response, the motions, of the apprehender.

“Communication” is a meta-consideration and relies upon convention. Whether it 
be dance, a religious or political poster, a work of science or art. Convention 
is learned. It comes from those in our immediate environment whom we must trust 
as children, by observation of the deeds and words of our parents and siblings, 
of our friends and mentors. 

Without this guidance we will certainly misinterpret the world. This is why the 
scientific method of discernment is so important. It really must be the first 
thing we all learn or we inevitably fall into confusion.



It is perfectly valid in this model to say that the meaning of a rock impact is 
the consequent behavior, just as the apprehension of a mark is the consequent 
behavior. 

The rock “knows” just as the apprehender “knows.” The difference is that the 
rock has no flexible structure forming sense and is thus not organized to feel, 
respond, or to have a “mind.” While the apprehender is a flexible closed 
structure, apprehending across the entire structure, and potentially 
externalizing a response immediately.


Modern Information Science is not only 

[Fis] [Fwd: Re: Information is a linguistic description of structures]

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

(the list has been down during this weekend--I will re-enter the
successive msgs. --Pedro)

 Original Message 
Subject:Re: [Fis] Information is a linguistic description of structures
Date:   Fri, 25 Sep 2015 17:23:55 +0200
From:   Francesco Rizzo <13francesco.ri...@gmail.com>
To: Pedro C. Marijuan 
CC: Günther Witzany , , fis
, Emanuel Diamant 
References: <000201d0f68c$77d02b50$677081f0$@gmail.com>
<0d34f6ef-19e6-4c9c-a9d3-aba4f5f2e...@sbg.at> <56053208.2000...@aragon.es>



Caro Pedro e Cari Tutti,
l'avere colto, anche per merito dello stesso Pedro, l'aspirazione a
ri-conoscere l'importanza del rapporto tra informazione e significato,
mi fa venire lo scrupolo di essere chiaro e semplice. Intanto ribadisco
che informazione, per me, significa "dare forma" a qualcuno o a
qualcosa, singolo o associato, cioè a tutti e a tutto. Il significato
dell'informazione corrisponde al valore del bene (economico) informato o
neg-entropico. Ciò che riguarda il valore di un bene può riferirsi alla
verità di ogni altra scienza che non può non essere in-centrata sulla
super legge della informazione. Anche un'equazione o funzione è
un'informazione che ha almeno un significato -- perché ne può avere più
di uno come le parole polisemiche -- matematico. Lo stesso dicasi per
una cellula che è un'informazione che ha significato bio-fisiologico.
Parimenti una simile logica semantica vale per un uomo, un gene, un
animale, una pianta, una foglia, una gemma, un cristallo, etc., in
quanto  tutti sono informazione avente un significato particolare in
ragione dei diversi fatti-specie o  singoli riferimenti. Naturalmente e
culturalmente, la complessità e la molteplicità dei problemi o dei
sistemi di cui gli esempi precedenti fanno parte richiedono strumenti di
misurazione e di descrizione più operativi che teorici o epistemologici.
Senza informazione e significato non vi è conoscenza della "conoscenza"
o conoscenza della "realtà" che non può essere solo mortale o entropica
(in senso termodinamico), ma anche vitale o neg-entropica.
Grazie e un abbraccio a Tutti.
Francesco Rizzo.

2015-09-25 13:37 GMT+02:00 Pedro C. Marijuan >:

   Dear FISers and all,

   I include below another response to Immanuel post (from Guenther). I
   think he has penned an excellent response--my only addition is to
   expostulate a doubt. Should our analysis of the human (or cellular!)
   communication with the environment be related to linguistic
   practices? In short, my argument is that biological self-production
   becomes "la raison d'etre" of communication, both concerning its
   evolutionary origins and the continuous opening towards the
   environment along the different stages of the individual's life
   cycle. It is cogent that the same messenger plays quite different
   roles in different specialized cells --we have to disentangle in
   each case how the impinging "info" affects the ongoing life cycle
   (the impact upon the transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, etc.)
   There is no shortcut to the endless work necessary--wet lab & in
   silico. So I think that Encode and other big projects are quite
   useful in the continuous exploration of biological complexity and
   provide us valuable conceptual stuff--but looking for hypothetical
   big formalisms (I quite agree) is out sight. Molecular recognition
   which is the at the  fundamentals of biological organization can
   only provide modest guidelines about the main informational
   architectures of life... beyond that, there is too much complexity,
   endless complexity to contemplate, particularly when we try to study
   multicellular organization. Anyhow, this topic of the essential
   informational openness of the individual's life cycle appears to me
   as the Gordian knot to be cut for the advancement of our field:
   otherwise we will never connect meaningfully with the endless info
   flows that interconnect our societies, generated from the life
   cycles of individuals and addressed to the life cycles of other
   individuals. Info sources, channels for info flows, and info
   receptors are not mere Shannonian overtones, they symbolically refer
   to the very info skeleton of our societies; or looking dynamically
   it is the engine of social history and of social complexity.

   Well, sorry that I could not express myself better.

   all the best--Pedro

   Günther Witzany wrote:

Dear all!

What is the opposite of a linguistic description? a non-linguistic
description? Please tell me one possible explanation of a
non-linguistic description. So Im not convinced of the sense of
the term "information". 


Concerning the "difference" of physical and semantic information:
What would you prefer in the case of plant communication. Does the
chemical Auxin 

[Fis] FW: Information is a linguistic description of structures--Loet

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

*From:* Loet Leydesdorff [mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net]
*Sent:* Saturday, September 26, 2015 12:42 PM
*To:* 'Pedro C. Marijuan'; 'Günther Witzany'; 'fis'
*Cc:* 'fa...@howardbloom.net'; 'Emanuel Diamant'
*Subject:* RE: [Fis] Information is a linguistic description of structures



Dear Pedro,



Info sources, channels for info flows, and info receptors are not mere 
Shannonian overtones, they symbolically refer to the very info skeleton 
of our societies; or looking dynamically it is the engine of social 
history and of social complexity.




It seems to me that you move too fast from the biological level to the 
sociological one. At the biological level, one can observe "languaging" 
as a semantic domain (Maturana), but not understand the language itself. 
Languaging is a necessary, but not sufficient condition; indeed, it 
provides the skeleton of our societies.




Once a cultural dynamics is generated on top of the biological one (by 
exchanging and sharing meaning using languages and symbols), this 
next-order level can be expected to take over control and reshape the 
underlying ones. For example, we can intervene in nature 
technologically; in my country (Holland), for example, nature is 
artificial and controlled by water management.




The cultural dynamics can no longer be reduced to an epi-phenomenon or 
mere consequence of the biological one. The dynamics of variation and 
selection are changed, since we are able to proliferate ideas as 
variation (possible meanings) much faster than we as carrying agents can 
turn into action and behavior (among which "languaging").




Best,

Loet





Loet Leydesdorff

/Professor Emeritus,/ University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)

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


Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ. , 
Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC, 
Beijing;


Visiting Professor, Birkbeck , University of London;

http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJ=en 








--
-
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-

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