[Fis] "no new and doubtful physical concepts need to be introduced"

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear List,

A few days ago Joseph Brenner wrote the following :

> … I conclude that no new and doubtful physical concepts need to be introduced 
> to address the essential aspects of life, mind, and information. That 
> information has dual aspects has been more or less explicit in everything I 
> have tried to write in the last eight years.

This has bothered me from a number of perspectives, it sounds reasonable but is 
in fact deeply flawed. I worry that others may take it seriously and so I step 
from the shadows. The argument seems to be an advocacy of dualism and 
information mysterianism, but I doubt that Joe sees it this way.

For example, consider the biophysical motions necessarily involved in 
sensation, thought, and consideration when going to the store and the selective 
motions when reaching the store. Joe suggests that the dual aspects of 
information in a conventional physics is sufficient to explain these actions or 
motions, I simply cannot accept this. It is rather like saying that gravitation 
and electromagnetism are dual aspects of matter - and even though we have two 
clear and mathematical theories of each no physicist believes that this is the 
case.

I am especially concerned with the introduction here of the dismissive idea of 
“doubtful physical concepts” that seem to me to open the door of judgementalism.

As a reminder, Relativity was once considered a “doubtful physical concept.”

Can anyone defend Joe’s position?

Regards,
Steven

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




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Re: [Fis] Cultural Legacy Redux (Freewheeling Speculation)

[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear Michel and colleagues,

I agree that adaptation is not specifically human and that "humanity's main
adaptive role" is not to be defined as "information". The best candidate
for a spefically human is probably, in my opinion, "double contingency":
Ego expects Alter to entertain expectations as s/he does herself. These
expectations can be exchanged (for example, in language), and also be
codified at the interpersonal level (for example, in legislation or in
scholarly discourse).

How does this relate to information? In my opinion, the dynamics of meaning
are driving cultural evolution. Information is needed at the bottom
providing the variation. The codes of communication -- for example, in
discourse among biologists (Pedro!) -- operate as next-order selection
mechanisms. These selection mechanisms are not "objective" or observable,
but can be expected to operate and be hypotesized; for example, in a
sociology of communication. We have access to these discourses
infra-reflexively.

Best,
Loet



On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 4:42 PM, Michel Godron  wrote:

>
> You wrote :
> "First, humanity’s MAIN ADAPTIVE ROLE is “information,” if someone
> questions that fact *I invite you to post your view *and I will happily
> “reply.
>
> My reply is  (in red) :
> O K but I am not sure that the profound reason why it is true is clear for
> every one : this constatation "humanity’s MAIN ADAPTIVE ROLE is
> information,”  (or "information is the main way to adapt") is true also for 
> *any
> living being*, because the basic functioning of Life is a tranmission of
> information. That information is necessary for any living being to adapt to
> its environment in a cybernetic system (which was not well understood by
> von Bertalanffy cf. Fritjof Capra p. 48).
>
>  I could explain this with more details, if you want, for each of the six
> main scales (molecules in a cell, genetics with DNA, epigenetics, vegetal
> and animal communities, landscapes, humanity).
>
> M. Godron
>
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>
>


-- 
Loet Leydesdorff
Professor Emeritus, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
l...@leydesdorff.net;  http://www.leydesdorff.net/
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