Dear Christophe and FIS Colleagues,
In my second cent of the week, let me thank for the positive comments on
the presentation. You raise a very interesting point that can be
analyzed from quite different angles. Strategically, my opinion is that
information science (or information studies) should not abandon its
tight interrelationship with humanities, because we are too weak to
loose an important allied at the time being, and because most of the
humanities' contents are excellent manifestations of
combinatory-informational-symmetrical games. The series of meetings
regularly organized by our Symmetry Institute colleagues are showing
that interweaving very elegantly. How to tell a story, the nucleus of
drama, poetry, novels, movie making, and all sort of "narratives", is
one of the bulwarks to be won "informationally". Intelligence as the
efficient organization of information flows around adaptive purposes in
the advancement of a life cycle should not be so far from attempting
some explanation of what a story is: a condensate of human communication
(quite interesting the recent book by Randy Olson: Houston we have a
narrative. Why science needs story. 2015). Maybe in the next session on
brain dynamics and topology we could find some further connection with
this topic.
Another different reason to strengthen the link with humanities would be
to consider that they are in themselves closer to the "social" domain,
and that Great Domains should not be multiplied, so that they not loose
their integrative appeal. And also, if we let things speak by
themselves, what would be the most cogent interpretation of the contents
the disciplinary-citation maps are showing? Initially Rosenbloom
proposed the three leaves "clover" (demanding extra room for the
computational), I have advocated the four leaves (substituting for the
informational), and you were arguing the five leaves... That's fine. In
part, the interpretation depends on the further goals, and we both are
sharing the societal concern. I think discussion on this vision of the
Great Domains may be important for the future cohesion of information
studies in front of the enormous power of the technological world and
the tunnel vision their new means of communication are imprinting on our
societies (Brexit, USxit, and so on)...
All the best
--Pedro
El 17/11/2016 a las 16:31, Christophe escribió:
Dear Pedro,
Thanks for the copy of your ICIS 2016 presentation which covers a lot
of evolutionary aspects regarding intelligence and the information flow.
Perhaps one aspect of that subject may deserve a bit more. It is
“human mind”.
For instance, your chart (N°39) on the four domains of science
(physical, biological, social, informational) could contain a 5^th
component: “humanities” in order to explicitly take into account human
mind. This because it is a key step in the evolution of our universe
(energy, matter, life, human mind) that cannot be today deduced from
the other domains. And also because an understanding of human mind
could introduce possible evolutions of human motivations for the
better of mindkind (you remember the evolutionary scenario where the
proposed interactions of anxiety management with self-consciousness
introduce possibilities for new understandings on human nature in
terms of motivations and actions. I think (and hope) that human
evolution is not over and this is in the direction of sheding some
light on a possible maturing of human self-consciousness for the
better of mankind). (http://philpapers.org/rec/MENPFA-3).
<http://philpapers.org/rec/MENPFA-3>
Christophe Menant, Proposal for an evolutionary approach ...
<http://philpapers.org/rec/MENPFA-3>
philpapers.org
Christophe Menant (2010). Evolutionary Advantages of
Inter-Subjectivity and Self-Consciousness Through Improvements of
Action Programs (2010). Dissertation, Tucson ...
Best
Christophe
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*De :* Fis <fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es> de la part de Pedro C.
Marijuan <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>
*Envoyé :* jeudi 17 novembre 2016 14:09
*À :* 'fis'
*Objet :* [Fis] Intelligence & Meaning & The Brain
Dear FIS Colleagues,
Herewith the dropbox link to the Chengdu's presentation on Intelligence
and the Information Flow (as kindly requested by Christophe and Gordana).
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wslnk41c3lquc55/AADpm_U6xuhm6jHK0esyN-29a?dl=0
About the ongoing exchanges on language and meaning, there could be some
additional arguments to consider:
1. Evolutionary origins of language (Terry can say quite a bit about
that). It is difficult to establish a clear stage into which well formed
oral language would have emerged. That the basis was both gestural
(Susan Goldin Meadow) and emotional utterances seems to be more and more
accepted. Alarm calls for instance in some monkeys contain distinct
sound codes that clearly imply an associated meaning on what is the
specific predator to take care of (aerial, felines, snakes) with
differentiated behavioral escape responses in each case. Pretty more
complex in human protolanguages.
2. Nervous Systems functioning. The action-perception cycle in advanced
mammals would be the engine of information processing and meaning
generation. The advancement of the life cycle would be the source and
sink of the communicative exchanges and the ultimate reference for
meaning. (This connects with the info flows and intelligence of my
presentation).
3. Human "sociotype" maintenance. As the natural social groups of humans
grew out of proportion regarding other Anthropoidea (see Dunbar's
number), a new form of "grooming" and group consensus was established
around language and other emotional utterances (importance of laughter).
Paradoxically, language's meaning becomes downsized to the level of
small talk, just chattering to keep social bonds afloat. The "social
brain hypothesis" on the origins of language developed by Robin Dunbar
and other scholars points in this direction.
In my opinion, points 1 and 3 have already appeared in this list. But
point 2 has been very rarely discussed among us (how the brain
fabricates meaning). So, tentatively, the next discussion session will
deal with some of this neurodynamic stuff (in preparation yet: "The
Topological Brain"). In the meantime, Maybe Mark would like to make some
concluding comments in order to close the present session... Thanks are
due to him both for his preparation-work and for his patience regarding
all the tangents in this session!
Best wishes
--Pedro
El 16/11/2016 a las 15:51, Dai Griffiths escribió:
> Many (most?) linguistic interactions are not propositional in the
> sense that you imply.
>
> There is no verifiable equivalent to opening the fridge door for
> utterances like "Cool", "Give us a hand won't you", "You're welcome",
> "Justin Bieber is wonderful", "You go and sneak in round the back
> while I distract them at the front door", and so on.
>
> So I doubt your 'usually', and the application to natural language.
>
> Dai
>
>
> On 15/11/16 15:05, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> A model is a mathematical structure making a sentence (proposition)
>> true or false, and this, in my opinion applies to meaning in the
>> natural language, where usually some notion of reality is involved:
>> the proposition "there is two beers in the fridge" is judged
>> meaningful because we believe in a reality with fridge containing, or
>> not, beers.
>
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