Re: [Fis] Simple amswer: NOT!
On 8 March 2018 at 8:10 AM, Plamen L. Simeonov wrote: What do you think about the other more interesting phenomenon recently: the blockchain technology・・・? Folks, Yes, that looks lucrative protocols making our current Internet more secured. But it has some side effects. The likely introduction of that technology under the guise of crypto-currencies into the interlinked network of financial institutions regulated by the central banks such as FRB and ECB may induce an unexpected fragility in the system. One symptom could be the runaway explosion of outstanding accounts because of the P2P (peer-to-peer) nature set free from the control of the regulatory agencies by postponing the clearing of unpaid debts indefinitely. This fragility could easily flare up in any dialogic transactions or discourses unless each participant is sufficiently self-restrained. Of course, there should be no such fragility in the single-authored discourse by definition, while bilateral transactions are inevitable in our everyday life in any case. Koichiro Matsuno Yes, that looks a lucrative technology making our current Internet more secured. But it also has some unwelcome side effect. The likely introduction of that technology under the guise of crypto-currencies into the interlinked network of the central banks such as FRB and ECB may induce an unexpected fragility to the system. One symptom could be the runaway explosion of outstanding accounts because of the P2P (peer-to-peer) nature set free from the control of the regulatory agencies by postponing the clearing of unpaid deficits indefinitely. This fragility could flare up quite easily in any dialogic transactions or discourses unless each participant is sufficiently self-restrained. Of course, there should be no such fragility in the single-authored discourse by definition. Koichiro Matsuno From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov Sent: Thursday, March 8, 2018 8:10 AM To: Krassimir Markov Cc: FIS ; Alberto J. Schuhmacher Subject: Re: [Fis] Simple amswer: NOT! Dea FISes, with respect to this big data and machine learning cults today, which I consider as somewhat useful fragments of a much bigger paradigm but not the non-plus-ultra tendency in science, let me ask you a bit different question: What do you think about the other more interesting phenomenon recently: the blockchain technology and the chances for a forum like FIS to use it for perpetuating knowledge to change the paradigm of conventional thinking towards a global intellectual standard currency? Perhaps this is what deserves your attention. All the best. Plamen On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 9:09 PM, Krassimir Markov mailto:mar...@foibg.com> > wrote: Dear Alberto, Let imagine that we are at the naturist beach, i.e. naked. OK! You will see all what I am and I will se the same for you. Well, will you know what I think or shall I know the same for you? Simple answer: NOT! No Data base may contain any data about my current thoughts and feelings. Yes, the stupid part of humanity may be controlled by big data centers. But all times it had been controlled. Nothing new. The pseudo scientists may analyze data and may create tons of papers. For such “production” there was and will exist corresponded more and more big cemeteries. I had edited more than one thousand papers. Only several was really very important and with great scientific value !!! Collection of data is important problem and it will be such for ever. But the greater problem for humanity is collection of money And the last cause the former! And the last is many times more dangerous than former! Do not worry of Data-ism! Be worried of the Money-ism! I will continue next week because this is my second post ( Thanks to wisdom of Pedro who had limited Writing-letter-ism in our list! ). Friendly greetings Krassimir From: <mailto:ajime...@iisaragon.es> Alberto J. Schuhmacher Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2018 10:23 PM To: <mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es> fis Subject: [Fis] Is Dataism the end of classical hypothesis-driven research and the beginning of data-correlation-driven research? Dear FIS Colleagues, I very much appreciate this opportunity to discuss with all of you. My mentors and science teachers taught me that Science had a method, rules and procedures that should be followed and pursued rigorously and with perseverance. The scientific research needed to be preceded by one or several hypotheses that should be subjected to validation or refutation through experiments designed and carried out in a laboratory. The Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the scientific method as "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th
Re: [Fis] Meta-observer?
On 28 Feb 2018 at 10:34 PM, PedroClemente Marijuan Fernadez wrote: A sort of "attention" capable of fast and furious displacements of the focus... helas, this means a meta-observer or an observer-in-command. Pedro, it is of course one thing to conceive of a hierarchy of observers for our own sake, but quite another to figure out what the concrete participants such as molecules are doing out there. They are doing what would seem appropriate for them to do without minding what we are observing. At issue must be how something looking like a chain of command could happen to emerge without presuming such a chain in the beginning. Prerequisite to its emergence would be the well-being of each participant taken care of locally, as a replenishable inevitable. That is an issue of the origins of life. The impending agenda is on something general universal as an object, and yet concrete particular enough in process. The richness resides within the concreteness down to the bottom. Apropos, the communications among the local participants differ from computation despite the seemingly concrete outlook of the latter. Computation upon the notion of time as the linear sequence of the now points is not available to the local participants because of the lack of the physical means for guaranteeing the sharing of the same now-point among themselves. Koichiro Matsuno ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on the cateogry theory
On 8 Feb 2018 at 4:05 PM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote: >From a biological perspective, not language itself, but “languaging” behavior >is considered the system of reference. On 13 Feb 2018 at 7:01 PM, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic wrote: As in biology thre are different kinds of organisms there are also different kinds of “languages”. Folks, Focusing upon languaging comes to shed light on the communication in time between whatever parties. The issue of time then reminds me of the oft-quoted Aristotelian aphorism on the vulgar nature of time. As calling attention to the nonexistence of both past and future at the present moment of now, Aristotle observed “the present now is not part of time at all, for a part measures the whole, and the whole must be made up of the parts, but we cannot say that time is made up of ‘nows’ (Physics Book 4, 218a)”. Thus, “there is a something pertaining to time which is indivisible, and this something is what we mean by the ‘present’ or ‘now’ (234a)”. One outcome from these observations is simply a metaphysical aporia as pointing to that time both does and does not exist. One common-sense strategy getting out of the metaphysical impasse, which Aristotle would also seem to ‘reluctantly’ share, might be to view time as a linear succession of the now-points thanks to the additional idea of the levelling-off of the now points. This limiting procedure may help us to forget about the underlying aporia for the time being. But the contrast between languaging and language may revive our concern on whether we could dismiss the vulgar nature of time in a sweeping manner in a positive sense. So far, language has seemed to be quite at home with time as the linear succession of the now points. That is so even in physics as we know it today. However, once the aspect of languaging is called up, the temporality of languaging may be found to differ from that of language. Languaging is not continuous, but distinctively discontinuous in distinguishing between the utterer and its potential respondent. Alternation of the role between utterer and respondent proceeds discretely temporally. (Bio)semiotician may seem to be sensitive to this issue of time. Koichiro Matsuno ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Math, math, math!
On 19 Nov 2017 at 10:50 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Time might be an indexical, like with Mechanism in cognitive science, or like in General Relativity. Dear Bruno, It would be nice to share with you some agreement, no matter how minute it may be. That said, with regard to the issue of time, I could follow your point of the indexical nature of time so long as the standard tradition of doing sciences is respected. At the same time, one can also raise the question of "What time is it or what time do you have?" quite easily in everyday life. This everyday-life time (that is common time, demeaned by Isaac Newton) is more than simply being indexical. It could also be retro-causative in that if the reading of your wrist watch happens to differ from mine, I may ask myself to correct the preceding setting of timekeeping of mine or decide to negotiate with you what to do so as to remove the discrepancy. That is a new action towards modifying and updating the causes to the clock movements set previously. Its empirical demonstration is seen in various biological clocks. GPS time, that is vital to us these days, has nothing to do with biology. Of course, unless the retrocausal adjustments fail, time to be read out of the finished record by us could safely be indexical. In this case, indexical time is an abstraction from retro-causative time rather than the other way around. Once the retro-causative aspect of time receives due attention, the implication of what is called communication in time may significantly be differentiated depending upon the extent to which time would differ from being merely indexical. All the best, Koichiro Koichiro Matsuno -Original Message- From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2017 10:50 PM To: Foundation of Information Science Subject: Re: [Fis] Math, math, math! Dear Koichiro, On 15 Nov 2017, at 01:02, Koichiro Matsuno wrote: > On 14 Nov 2017 at 6:21 AM, tozziart...@libero.it wrote: > > I provide what is required by truly scientific reviewers, i.e., > testable mathematical predictions. > > [KM] Any mathematical proposition, once confirmed, can stand alone. > There is > no doubt about mathematical reality in the eternal present accessible > in the present tense. I am glad to hear that. Not all mathematicians would agree, but all would agree that this statement is true for what Brouwer called once "the separable part of mathematics", which is very first order elementary arithmetic without induction. With induction, we have problem with the "ultra-intuitionist", who tend to disbelieve in the everywhere definiteness of the exponential function. Those are very rare, but some are very good mathematiciian and are followed rather closely (like when Nelson claimed to have a proof of the inconsistency of Peano Arithmetic, this has been thoroughly investigated until an error was shown, as Nelson admitted: but he seems to still believe that PA is inconsistent). > Also, our folks interested in historical sciences including biology > and communication at large often refer to something not in the present > via the present tense. In any case, we are historical beings. I am not sure of this. "we" the humans are certainly "historical beings", but as de Chardin put it, we might be spiritual being living the human experiences, among others. Time might be an indexical, like with Mechanism in cognitive science, or like in General Relativity. > That > must look quite uneasy to mathematicians. Most mathematicians just don't do neither physics, nor psychology, still less theology or metaphysics. They hide their motivation, and they often forget the motivations of those who brought the tools and results they like to develop. Very few logicians seem to be aware that the rise of mathematical logic started from a dispute between unitarian and trinitarian, and the will to make (non-confessional) theology more rigorously (Benjamin Peirce (the father of Charles.S. Peirce), de Morgan, Boole, even Lewis Carroll ...). > One loophole for making it > tolerable to the mathematicians might be to admit that the > mathematical notion of a trajectory of observable parameters does > survive in the finished record but the future trajectories may remain > unfathomable at the present. > Despite that, historical sciences can raise the question of what could > be persistent and durable that may be accessible in the present tense, > though somewhat in a more abstract manner compared to the record of > concrete particulars. Some people argue that a truth like 2+2=4 is eternal, and true everywhere. But this does not make sense, as the temporal and locality attribute pertain on physical object. At best we might say that 2+2=4 is out of time and place. Such truth is out of the category of t
Re: [Fis] Math, math, math!
On 14 Nov 2017 at 6:21 AM, tozziart...@libero.it wrote: I provide what is required by truly scientific reviewers, i.e., testable mathematical predictions. [KM] Any mathematical proposition, once confirmed, can stand alone. There is no doubt about mathematical reality in the eternal present accessible in the present tense. Also, our folks interested in historical sciences including biology and communication at large often refer to something not in the present via the present tense. In any case, we are historical beings. That must look quite uneasy to mathematicians. One loophole for making it tolerable to the mathematicians might be to admit that the mathematical notion of a trajectory of observable parameters does survive in the finished record but the future trajectories may remain unfathomable at the present. Despite that, historical sciences can raise the question of what could be persistent and durable that may be accessible in the present tense, though somewhat in a more abstract manner compared to the record of concrete particulars. Koichiro Matsuno -Original Message- From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of tozziart...@libero.it Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2017 6:21 AM To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: [Fis] Math, math, math! Dear FISers, My so called pseudoscience has been published in not dispisable journals, for a simple reason: I provide what is required by truly scientific reviewers, i.e., testable mathematical predictions. Sent from Libero Mobile ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Idealism and Materialism
On 6 Nov 2017 at 5:30AM, John Collier wrote: In fact I would argue that the notion of information as used in physics is empirically based just as it is in the cognitive sciences. Our problem is to find what underlies both. Yes, there have already been serious attempts in this direction, though which may not yet have received due attention from the folks interested in the issue of information. One example is the entropy production fluctuation theorem by Gavin Crooks (1999). The agenda is on the distinction between states and events in thermodynamics. An essence is seen in the uniqueness of thermodynamics allowing for even the non-state or history-dependent variable such as heat. This perspective is powerful enough to precipitate a dependable synthesis out of integrating both the state and the process descriptions. When a microscopic system of interest contacts a heat bath, its development along an arbitrary trajectory of the state attributes of the system necessarily accompanies the associated event of heat flow either to or from the bath. If the trajectory is accompanied by the heat flow to the bath over any finite time interval, it would be far more likely compared with the reversed trajectory absorbing the same amount of heat flow from the bath. This has been a main message from Crooks’ fluctuation theorem. One practical implication of the theorem is that if the trajectory happens to constitute a loop, the likely loop must be the one having the net positive heat flow to the bath. For the reversed loop trajectory would have to come to accompany the same amount of heat flow from the bath back into the inside of the system, and that would be far less likely. Any robust loop trajectory appearing in biochemistry and biology must be either clockwise or anti-clockwise, and by no means an undisciplined mix of the two. A lesson we could learn from this pedagogical example is that thermodynamics is a naturalized tool for making macroscopic events out of the state attributes on the microscopic level irrespectively of whether or not it may have already been called informational. It is quite different from what statistical mechanics has accomplished so far. Something called quantum thermodynamics is gaining its momentum somewhere these days. Koichiro Matsuno From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of John Collier Sent: Monday, November 6, 2017 5:30 AM To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Idealism and Materialism Loet, I have no disagreement with this. at least in the detailed summary you give. In fact I would argue that the notion of information as used in physics is empirically based just as it is in the cognitive sciences. Our problem is to find what underlies both. My mention of the Scholastics was to Pierce's version, not the common interpretation due to a dep misunderstanding about what they were up to. I recommend a serous study of Peirce on te issues of meaning and metaphysics. He wa deeply indebted to their work iin logic. Of course there may be no common ground, but the our project is hopeless. Other things you have said on this group lead me to think it is not a dead end of confused notions. In that case we are wasting our time. John ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] The two very important operations of Infos
On 27 Oct 2017 at 3:09 AM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
the cogitatum which transcends us is intersubjectivity. It is not physical. The
physical is res extensa, whereas this remains res cogitans.
Loet, let me hope this will not merely be a quibble about the terms. We may
say that the physical is for res extensa in classical physics. However, we are
not sure whether the same would apply to quantum physics supporting the
infrastructure of our material world. Some philosophers sympathetic to quantum
physics are in favor of contrasting res potentia a la Werner Heisenberg with
res extensa. Once we are determined to face res potentia, that is for those
individuals as the concrete vehicles carrying uncountable counter-factual
conditionals. Thus, the inter-individual relationship mediated by emitting and
absorbing the quantum particles, whether big or small, is in charge of
revealing the factual conditionals through the measurement internal to the
participating individuals. One advantage of focusing on internal measurement
may be the likelihood for approaching persistence or duration as the quality
directly retrievable from the underlying individual events. The additional
ontological commitment required here is kept to a bare minimum such as allowing
for res potentia for the individuals.
Koichiro Matsuno
From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Loet Leydesdorff
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2017 3:09 AM
To: Terrence W. DEACON ; Foundation of Information Science
Subject: Re: [Fis] The two very important operations of Infos
Dear Terry and colleagues,
(...) , there cannot be interminable regress of this displacement to establish
these norms. At some point normativity requires ontological grounding where the
grounded normative relation is the preservation of the systemic physical
properties that produce the norm-preserving dynamic.
I have problems with the words "ontological" and "physical" here, whereas I
agree with the need of grounding the normative. Among human beings, this
grounding of subjective normativity can be found in intersubjectivity. Whereas
the subjective remains cogitans (in doubt), the intersubjective can be
considered as cogitatum (the thing about which one remains in doubt).
For Descartes this cogitatum is the Other of the Cogito. The Cogito knows
itself to be incomplete, and to be distinguished from what transcends it, the
Transcendental or, in Descartes' terminology, God. (This is the ontological
proof of God's presence. Kant showed that this proof does not hold: God cannot
be proven to exist.) Husserl (1929) steps in on this point in the Cartesian
Meditations: the cogitatum which transcends us is intersubjectivity. It is not
physical. The physical is res extensa, whereas this remains res cogitans. It
cannot be retrieved, but one has reflexive access to it.
Interestingly, this philosophy provides Luhmann's point of departure. The
intersubjective can be operationalized as (interhuman) communication. The codes
in the communication can relatively be stabilized. One can use the metaphor of
eigenvectors of a communication matrix. They remain our constructs, but they
guide the communication. (Luhmann uses "eigenvalues", but that is a
misunderstanding.) Using Parsons' idea of symbolic generalization of the codes
of communication, one can continue this metaphor and consider other than the
first eigenvector as "functional differentiations" which enable the
communication to process more complexity. The model is derived from the Trias
Politica: problems can be solved in one of the branches or the other. The
normativity of the judiciary is different from the normativity of the
legislative branch, but they both ground the normativity that guides us.
The sciences are then a way of communication; namely, scholarly communication
about rationalized expectations. Scholarly communication is different from, for
example, political communication. An agent ("consciousness" in Luhmann's
terminology) recombines reflexively and has to integrate because of one's
contingency. The transcendental grounding is in the communication; it remains
uncertain. Fortunately, because this implies that it can be reconstructed (by
us albeit not as individuals).
A non-human does not know oneself to be contingent. Lots of things follow from
this; for example, that the non-human does not have access to our
intersubjectivity as systems of expectations.
Best,
Loet
_
Loet Leydesdorff
Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
<mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net> l...@leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/
Associate Faculty, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/> SPRU, University of Sussex;
Guest Professor <http://www.zju.edu.c
Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?
On 20 Oct 2017 at 4:47 AM, Stanley N. Salthe wrote: Here is an interesting recent treatment of autonomy. Autonomy is an authentic notion, albeit a bit intriguing. While no authority to talk down to the rest is allowed in there, an organized whole is in place. Every member element of an autonomy is then going to participate in forming the collective decisions made by the supporting autonomous unit. One prototypic example demonstrating the coordinated decision-making is a quantum measurement. The consequence of the measurement is simply an outcome of the decision-making transaction between an object to be measured and its measurement apparatus. Neither of the two dominates the other. Both of them are malleable to each other. This malleability may meet a requirement for approaching a robust autonomy with use of a lot of measurement apparatuses of natural origin whose armory is extremely rich. Measurement in quantum physics could be open to experiencing if the sequence of measurement of a measurement happens to constitute a loop without ending up with a mere accumulation of random events. Any autonomous unit like an embodied loop in spacetime may become durable if it can succeed in furnishing itself with the affinity towards detecting and implementing the conditions for its further durability through, for instance, the exchange of material components. Apropos, figuring out the affinity towards the conditions for duration, rather than those for conservation, is already sufficiently informational in referring to what the autonomy is all about on the physical basis. Koichiro Matsuno From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Stanley N Salthe Sent: Friday, October 20, 2017 4:47 AM To: Terrence W. DEACON ; fis Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”? Here is an interesting recent treatment of autonomy. Alvaro Moreno and Matteo Mossio: Biological Autonomy: A Philosophical and Theoretical Enquiry (History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences 12); Springer, Dordrecht, 2015, xxxiv + 221 pp., $129 hbk, ISBN 978-94-017-9836-5 STAN ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?
On 19 Oct 2017 at 6:42 AM, Alex Hankey wrote: the actual subject has to be non-reducible and fundamental to our universe. This view is also supported by Conway-Kochen’s free will theorem (2006). If (a big IF, surely) we admit that our fellows can freely exercise their free will, it must be impossible to imagine that the atoms and molecules lack their share of the similar capacity. For our bodies eventually consist of those atoms and molecules. Moreover, the exercise of free will on the part of the constituent atoms and molecules could come to implement the centripetality of Bob Ulanowicz at long last under the guise of chemical affinity unless the case would have to forcibly be dismissed. This has been my second post this week. Koichiro Matsuno From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Alex Hankey Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2017 6:42 AM To: Arthur Wist ; FIS Webinar Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”? David Chalmers's analysis made it clear that if agents exist, then they are as fundamental to the universe as electrons or gravitational mass. Certain kinds of physiological structure support 'agents' - those emphasized by complexity biology. But the actual subject has to be non-reducible and fundamental to our universe. Alex ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?
On 16 Oct 2017 at 8:35 AM, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero wrote: Most of information processing devices consist of a design of some sort of feedback loop. I don`t know if we could translate this idea to all the kinds of systems we all deal with. Right. We know a lot of cycles or loops in our profession including autocatalytic cycles of various types, semiotic closure (Howard Pattee), circular causality (Gregory Bateson) and closure to efficient cause (Robert Rosen) just to name only a few. What concerns us at this point is that when we call something a loop without referring directly to the material object supporting the loop, the chance of being accused of assuming an anthropocentrism would be pretty high. How could we avoid this? One lesson we have learned from physics is that if one can associate the name tag of anything with the state attribute of a given system at any moment, the name-calling of anthropocentrism could be waived. For instance, something called entropy could survive insofar as it is associated with the state attribute of the system of interest. Despite that, no state assignment of a loop could be likely because the state has been static by itself unless it is acted upon by something else. Most of us must be familiar with how clumsy it would be to describe the operation of a loop in terms of ad hoc state transitions. One likelihood of approaching a loop descriptively might be to admit any elements of interest on the table at any moment without stipulating the congruent state assignment globally. That is to say, the environment to any element could differ from that to any other. One advantage of this picture might be that the environments of each element could be agential in their internal coordination if we can luckily escape from the entrapment by “anything goes”. Whether such an internal coordination could be likely must be totally an empirical matter. This issue may be most crucial for the origins of life anywhere. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Koichiro Matsuno From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Jose Javier Blanco Rivero Sent: Monday, October 16, 2017 8:35 AM To: Krassimir Markov ; Fis, Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”? Dear Krassimir, dear all, I have noticed that some descriptions of information make use of anthropocentric metaphors and that might be misguiding (for instance, subjective and objective information (Sung)). Agent is a concept that retains some sort of action-theoretic background but at the same time assumes the existence of nonhuman agents. Agency would be then a causal relation wherein the agent "causes" some sort of effects. I don`t feel confortable with this concept. I prefer the the concept of observer. But this one is problematic too, for the same reason: it is supposed that a human is there watching, feeling, measuring, etc. I think we have to get rid of these humanistic assumptions in order to gain insight into the issues we want to explore. Definitely I don`t think I have the answer, but following D. Hofstadter, H. von Foerster, N. Luhmann and others we could think of a agent/observer as a self-referential loop. Most of information processing devices consist of a design of some sort of feedback loop. I don`t know if we could translate this idea to all the kinds of systems we all deal with. But it would be worth finding out. An operative loop enables the differentiation of system and environment. The system acquires the capacity to control its own behavior. At some point its internal states are so many that it biffucartes and grow complex. Subsystems can differentiate by the same mechanism. So, that`s my point: one have to look for self-referential loops in order to find the observer/agent. An intelligent agent would be some kind of loop (strange loop, maybe). It`s just a hypothesis anyway... Best regards, ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Heretic
On 4 Oct 2017 at 6:01 AM, tozziart...@libero.it <mailto:tozziart...@libero.it> wrote: my proposal is to forget about information, and to use your otherwise very valuable skills and efforts in other fields. This penetrating statement reminds me of another similar one made by John Bell in Against Measurement (1990) as saying “On this list of bad words from good books, the worst of all is ‘measurement’. … In fact the word has had such a damaging effect on the discussion that I think it should now be banned altogether in quantum mechanics.” Then, an intriguing sequel to this declamation is that most practical physicists have seemed to be immune to such a charge while being committed themselves to the measurement business as usual. One sympathetic understanding towards those practical physicists comes from the recent development of QM distinguishing between quantum coherence and quantum correlation. While quantum coherence is about the superposition of the states in a given single system on a definite Hilbert space, quantum correlation is about the correlation between different systems. Measurement is exclusively for the correlation between the two different systems, in which one is called a system to be measured and another one is called a measurement apparatus. The deed of measurement is practiced by the apparatus absorbing the quantum particles such as photons, electrons, atoms and molecules emitted from the system in focus. On the other hand, any theoretical enterprise may be inclined to take the stance making whatever closed system contrast with a theoretician external to the system. One exaggerated example is the dichotomy of TOE (theory of everything) and a committed theoretician sitting outside of the universe (then, where?). The externalist stance is the rule of conduct adopted for setting only one system, no matter how big or small it may be, against the concerned theoretician. No measurement is in need there. There is no difference between quantum correlation and coherence to the strict externalist because only one system is allowed there. In contrast, the difference between the two would become a serious matter to the practicing physicists paying due attention to the act of measurement. Which stance to take out of the two of the externalist’s and the internalist’s would be our choice. Information may also follow suit. Koichiro Matsuno From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of tozziart...@libero.it Sent: Wednesday, October 4, 2017 6:01 AM To: fis Subject: [Fis] Heretic Dear FISers, After the provided long list of completely different definitions of the term "information", one conclusion is clear: there is not a scientific, unique definition of information. Nobody of us is able to provide an operative framework and a single (just one!) empirical testable prevision able to assess "information". For example, what does "semantics" and "meaning" mean, in empirical terms? Therefore, to talk about information is meaningless, in the carnapian sense. Judging from your answers, the most of you are foremost scientists. Therefore, my proposal is to forget about information, and to use your otherwise very valuable skills and efforts in other fields. It is a waste of your precious time to focus yourself in something that is so vague. It is, retrospectively, a mistake to state that the world is information, if nobody knows what does it mean. -- Inviato da Libero Mail per Android ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] INFORMATION: JUST A MATTER OF MATH
On 19 Sept 2017 at 1:26 AM Terrence W. DEACON wrote: the science of information is still at an early stage and could be potentially held back by the hubris of certainty. Although I do not want to muddy the waters further, the distinction between information (to whom; or only to the statistician?) and physical sciences as we know them today may be in need of clarifying the nature of space and time underlying both the issues. So, suppose a fair coin toss game. If the tossing is repeated, the probability of heads or tails up would be just fifty-fifty. However, the outcome of each individual tossing-up would be either head or tail, and by no means in between like the fifty-fifty. What is more, the coin in focus assumes participation of a durable agent for repeating its toss-up. The statistician takes for granted the participation of the ordinary space and time or the static spacetime exclusive to the block-universe when the fifty-fifty probability is addressed. On the other hand, the agent involved in tossing the coin up is uncertain about the outcome of the next toss-up while the results of the preceding attempts already done remain definite. The future toward the capricious agent of tossing it up is open, while the content of the past has already been definitively fixed. The spacetime to such a playful agent is dynamically variable in distinguishing between the definite past and the indefinite future. The nature of the content of time differs between the past and the future. Information as an identifier of the distinction between the definite past and the indefinite future goes beyond the scope exclusive to the standard physics limited to the static block-universe, in the latter of which both the past and the future are definitively determinate at the present in a static manner. Nonetheless, there seems to be some hope in quantum mechanics in circumventing the present stalemate inflicting a heavy body blow on the stymied block-universe physics. If both the occurrence of a pure quantum state and its measurement could happen to be likely in a natural or experimental setting, such a pure state may obtain its duration with probability unity under the conditions that the frequency of repeated measurements can be enhanced without facing any limit, thanks to the quantum Zeno effect. The quantum player underlying such a quantum toss-up game could turn out to be quite steady and durable rather than merely being capricious. Biology upholding a durable organization of a concrete particular nature seems to take full advantage of durable individual events of QM origin. Although information seems to be quite a newbie in the philosopher-dominating time-honored discipline addressing the hard issue of what both space and time may look like, it might be able to enjoy some chance of bringing in something new empirically there. Koichiro Matsuno From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Terrence W. DEACON Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 1:26 AM To: Foundations of Information Science Information Science Subject: Re: [Fis] INFORMATION: JUST A MATTER OF MATH All of these claims and counter-claims are null hypotheses - hypothetical axioms yet to be tested, both for logical coherence and empirical usefulness. Place your bets. Mine are on contrary assumptions: i.e. non-Turing computability, fundamental incompleteness, and a deep entanglement between information (including reference and functional value) and its necessary physical substrates. Of course for this to be science all need to eventually yield testable hypotheses. This level of controversy over basic issues indicates to me that the science of information is still at an early stage and could be potentially held back by the hubris of certainty. — Terry ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] _ RE: _ Towards a 3φ integrative medicine
At 4:50PM 05/14/2016, Plamen L. Simeonov wrote: The key question in such a “deep holistic” physically-phenomenological physiology (3φ) is how to define or comprehend (self-organized) criticality operationally within the unifying framework of biomathematics and biocomputation. Let me start with paraphrasing this statement in a pedestrian manner. Consider, for instance, the serious physiological issue of metastatic melanoma. The microenvironment of the melanoma cells seems to affect the gene expression programs with use of a lot of transcription factors. What is unique to the genotypic conditions of melanoma tumors is that the malignant cells within the same tumor displays transcriptional heterogeneity associated with the cell cycle, spatial context and a drug-resistance program, etc. That is to say, a subset of genes expressed by one cell type may influence the propagation of other cell types as riding on the vehicle of intercellular communication for tumor phenotype <http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6282/189> (science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6282/189 ). One strenuous problem surrounding metastatic melanoma is in the difficulty in conceiving of its global state description because of its metastatic nature. The situation would seem almost similar to the unattainability of the macro-state description at the critical point of a phase transition in statistical mechanics as Alex Hankey called our attention to. In contrast, the unattainability of a state description is everywhere in biology. Exchange of matter that is ubiquitous in biology makes its state description unlikely right in the middle of the exchange process, while the state description might recover either before or after the exchange event. In any case, one decisive event making criticality durable must have been the origins of life on our Earth, as taking advantage of a lot of counterfactual conditionals on the ground of first come, first served. Koichiro Matsuno ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] _ RE: _ RE: _ Re: Cho 2016 The social life of quarks
At 11:26 AM 01/22/2016, Bob U wrote: >From our perspective all quarks are completely indistinguishable and homogeneous, so the practical answer to Howard's question is "No, quarks cannot communicate --period!" [KM] This remark is rich in its implication. Quantum particles belonging to the same species are indistinguishable once an abstraction is adopted. The wave function of a pair of quarks, that is an abstraction par excellence, remains unchanged after the interchange of the two particles twice, i.e., the replacement of #1 by #2 and #2 by #1, and then, followed by the return back to the original. The quality of indistinguishability depends upon the nature of an abstraction adopted by the participating internal observer. This has been my second for this week. Koichiro -Original Message- From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Robert E. Ulanowicz Sent: Friday, January 22, 2016 11:26 AM To: Pedro C. Marijuan Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] _ RE: _ Re: Cho 2016 The social life of quarks Just a few words to follow on Pedro's concerning Howard's question: >From our perspective all quarks are completely indistinguishable and homogeneous, so the practical answer to Howard's question is "No, quarks cannot communicate --period!" It is possible, however, to imagine that quarks, being in large measure wave packets, would at any instant be different from one another. One can imagine multiple wave forms, dynamically changing with time. The particular phasing between two quarks in the quantum vacuum could take on any number of possibilities, and which possibility pertains at the time of encounter would inform what kind of boson might result. Then it becomes possible to speak of communication between them. It's just that we are unable to access that level of interaction. Cheers to all, Bob U. > Dear FIS Colleagues, > > Thanks to Jerry and Koichiro for their insightful and deep comments. > Nevertheless the question from Howard was very clear and direct and I > wonder whether we have responded that way --as usual, the simplest > becomes the most difficult. I will try here. > > There is no "real" communication between quarks as they merely follow > physical law--the state of the system is altered by some input > according to boundary conditions and to the state own variables and > parameters that dictate the way Law(s) have to intervene. The outcome > may be probabilistic, but it is inexorably determined. > > There is real communication between cells, people, organizations... as > the input is sensed (or disregarded) and judged according to boundary > conditions and to the accumulated experiential information content of > the entity. The outcome is adaptive: aiming at the > self-production/self-propagation of the entity. > > In sum, the former is blind, while the second is oriented and made > meaning-ful by the life cycle of the entity. > > Well, if we separate communication from the phenomenon of life, from > its intertwining with the life cycle of the entity, then everything goes... > and yes, quarks communicate, as well as billiard balls, stones, cells, > etc. Directly we provide further anchor to the mechanistic way of > thinking. > > best regards--Pedro > > > > Koichiro Matsuno escribió: >> >> At 2:43 AM 01/19/2016, Jerry wrote: >> >> In order for symbolic chemical communication to occur, the language >> must go far beyond such simplistic notions of a primary interaction >> among forces, such as centripetal orbits or even the four basic forces. >> >> The quark physicist is quirky in confining a set of quarks, >> including possibly tetra- or even penta-, within a closed bag with >> use of a virtual exchange of matter called gluons. This bag is >> methodologically tightly-cohesive because of the virtuality of the >> things to be exchanged exclusively in a closed manner. In contrast, >> the real exchange of matter underlying the actual instantiation of >> cohesion, which concerns the information phenomenologist facing >> chemistry and biology in a serious manner, is about something >> referring to something else in the actual and is thus open-ended. >> Jerry, you seem calling our attention to the actual cohesion acting >> in the empirical world which the physicist has failed in coping with, >> so far. >> >>Koichiro >> >> *From:*Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Jerry >> LR Chandler >> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 19, 2016 2:43 AM >> *To:* fis >> *Subject:* [Fis] _ Re: Cho 2016 The social life of quarks >> >> Koichiro, Bob U., Pedro: >> >> Recent posts here illustra
[Fis] _ RE: _ Re: Cho 2016 The social life of quarks
At 2:43 AM 01/19/2016, Jerry wrote: In order for symbolic chemical communication to occur, the language must go far beyond such simplistic notions of a primary interaction among forces, such as centripetal orbits or even the four basic forces. The quark physicist is quirky in confining a set of quarks, including possibly tetra- or even penta-, within a closed bag with use of a virtual exchange of matter called gluons. This bag is methodologically tightly-cohesive because of the virtuality of the things to be exchanged exclusively in a closed manner. In contrast, the real exchange of matter underlying the actual instantiation of cohesion, which concerns the information phenomenologist facing chemistry and biology in a serious manner, is about something referring to something else in the actual and is thus open-ended. Jerry, you seem calling our attention to the actual cohesion acting in the empirical world which the physicist has failed in coping with, so far. Koichiro From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Jerry LR Chandler Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2016 2:43 AM To: fis Subject: [Fis] _ Re: Cho 2016 The social life of quarks Koichiro, Bob U., Pedro: Recent posts here illustrate the fundamental discord between modes of human communication. Pedro's last post neatly addresses the immediate issue. But, the basic issue goes far, far deeper. The challenge of communicating our meanings is not restricted to just scientific meaning vs. historical meaning. Nor, communication between the general community and, say, the music (operatic and ballad) communities. Nor, is it merely a matter of definition of terms and re-defining terms as "metaphor" in another discipline. Pedro's post aims toward the deeper issues, issues that are fairly known and understood in the symbolic logic and chemical communities. In the chemical community, the understanding is at the level of intuition because ordinary usage within the discipline requires an intuitive understanding of the way symbolic usage manifests itself in different disciplines. (For a detailed description of these issues, see, The Primary Logic, Instruments for a dialogue between the two Cultures. M. Malatesta, Gracewings, Fowler Wright Books, 1997.) The Polish Logician, A. Tarski, recognized the separation of meanings and definitions requires the usage of METALANGUAGES. For example, ordinary public language is necessary for expression of meaning of mathematical symbolic logic. But, from the basic mathematical language, once it grounded in ordinary grammar, develops new set of symbols and new meanings for relations among mathematical symbols. Consequently, mathematicians re-define a long index of terms that are have different meanings in its technical language. The meaning of mathematical terms is developed from an associative logic that is foreign to ordinary language. From these antecedents, the consequences are abundantly clear. The communication between the meta-languages fail. The mathematicians have added vast symbolic logical structures to their symbolic communication with symbols. In other words, the ordinary historian and scientist are not able to grasp the distinctive meanings of mathematical information. Physical information is restricted to physical units of measure and hence constrained to borrowing mathematical symbols and relating to the ordinary language as its meta-language. The perplexity of chemical information theory is such that it is not understandable in any one meta-language or any pair of meta-languages. In order for symbolic chemical communication to occur, the language must go far beyond such simplistic notions of a primary interaction among forces, such as centripetal orbits or even the four basic forces. The early metalanguage of chemistry was merely terms within ordinary language, such as the names of elements. Or, the common names for oils from various sources. Around the turn of the 19 th Century, the metalanguage of chemistry started it century-long journey to become a meta-language of mathematics with the development of the concepts of atomic weights for each singular elements and molecular weight, and molecular formula for each different molecule. The critical distinction that separates the meta-language of chemistry from other metalanguages is the absolute requirement for specification of the name of any object on the basis of it's distinction from other signs or collections of signs. Thus, chemical information theory, in terms of metalanguages, requires the exact usage of the meta-languages of both physics and mathematics in order to define the origin of its symbolic logic, as well as the natural metalanguage of ordinary human communication. Biological information theory is grounded on chemical information theory, using a particular encoding of meaning within dynamical systems, to communicate among the 5 e
Re: [Fis] Toyabe 2010 [ Information converted to energy ] / Van den Broeck 2010 Thermodynamics of Information / Cartlidge 2010 Information converted to energy
At 4:09PM 01/15/2016 John C wrote: It [The relevant material] concerns the use of changed boundary conditions to move things rather than energy differences, Perhaps, this must be one of the neatest expressions of what information could be all about in the empirical world. Even thermodynamics is informational in its endogenous capacity of accommodating to itself the boundary conditions, say, as in allocating each of adiabatic and isothermal process to itself on its own. Quantum mechanics also follows suit. Once two photons happened to come to entangle with each other in a supernova explosion, one party is to constitute the boundary condition to the other even if they are pulled apart over tens of thousands of light years. Koichiro From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of John Collier Sent: Friday, January 15, 2016 4:09 PM To: fis Subject: [Fis] Toyabe 2010 [ Information converted to energy ] / Van den Broeck 2010 Thermodynamics of Information / Cartlidge 2010 Information converted to energy Stan Salthe sent the item below to Pedro and myself, but not to the list, as he had used up his posting allotment. With the permission of both of them, who think that this is an important issue, I am posting some brief comments I made back to Stan, as well as Stan’s email content, in the hope that the issue will get more discussion this time.(I posted a link to the 2010 article when it came out.) The relevant material starts below the line, and Stan’s email forwarded from Malcolm Dean is below that. It concerns the use of changed boundary conditions to move things rather than energy differences, suggesting that information can be used instead of energy to cause changes in a system (another way of looking at this is that information can be a force in itself, not merely a constraint on other actions). In particular, the final state has greater free energy than the initial state (it is in end state potential energy of the manipulated particles in an electric field), the energy arising from the manipulation of the boundary conditions based on the particle location. The original authors described this as information-to-energy conversion. _ I posted a different pointer to this to fis some time ago, but the reaction from the list was almost nothing, or skeptical, though the main objection was that we could understand what was going on without using the information concept. My response to that was that not using the word does not mean that the concept is not being used. Of course, if you think that information is always meaningful to some interpreter (alternatively, always a coding of something that has had meaning to some mind, or the like) then the argument in the paper is a nonstarter. I would argue that this puts unnecessary obstacles in the way of a unified approach to information, and that the issue of the interpretation of information gets obscured by presupposing information is carried only by meaningful communication. John Collier Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Associate University of KwaZulu-Natal http://web.ncf.ca/collier From: Stanley N Salthe [mailto:ssal...@binghamton.edu] Sent: Thursday, 14 January 2016 4:56 PM To: Pedro Marijuan; John Collier Subject: Fwd: Toyabe 2010 [ Information converted to energy ] / Van den Broeck 2010 Thermodynamics of Information / Cartlidge 2010 Information converted to energy -- Forwarded message -- From: Malcolm Dean mailto:malcolmd...@gmail.com> > Date: Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 6:13 AM Subject: Toyabe 2010 [ Information converted to energy ] / Van den Broeck 2010 Thermodynamics of Information / Cartlidge 2010 Information converted to energy To: http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v6/n12/full/nphys1821.html Nature Physics 6, 988–992 (2010) doi:10.1038/nphys1821 Experimental demonstration of information-to-energy conversion and validation of the generalized Jarzynski equality Shoichi Toyabe, Takahiro Sagawa, Masahito Ueda, Eiro Muneyuki & Masaki Sano In 1929, Leó Szilárd invented a feedback protocol1 in which a hypothetical intelligence—dubbed Maxwell’s demon—pumps heat from an isothermal environment and transforms it into work. After a long-lasting and intense controversy it was finally clarified that the demon’s role does not contradict the second law of thermodynamics, implying that we can, in principle, convert information to free energy2, 3, 4, 5, 6. An experimental demonstration of this information-to-energy conversion, however, has been elusive. Here we demonstrate that a non-equilibrium feedback manipulation of a Brownian particle on the basis of information about its location achieves a Szilárd-type information-to-energy conversion. Using real-time feedback control, the particle is made to climb up a spiral-staircase-like potential exerted by an electric field and gains free energy lar
Re: [Fis] The Measurement Problem from the Perspective of an Information-Theoretic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
At 4:28 AM 11/27/2015, John C. wrote: A paper by my former graduate advisor, Jeff Bub, who was a student of David Bohm's. http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/17/11/7374 The Measurement Problem from the Perspective of an Information-Theoretic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics Yes, Bub's insistence on the absolute randomness would remain invincible as far as third-person probabilities are taken for granted from the outset in comprehending what messages would QM convey to us. On the other hand, once one may happen to feel at ease with the first-person probabilities (see, for instance, James Hartle's "Living in a superposition" http://arXiv.org/abs/1511.01550 ), the first-person probability of the occurrence of such an agent assuming the first-person status would come to approach unity even within the framework of the decoherent-histories interpretation of QM. Koichiro ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] life cycles
At 4:38 AM 10/6/2015, Stan wrote: Then we need to consider which life cycle we are going to investigate. One conversation? The duration of conference?, etc. Cycles are really enigmatic. Listening to the same old story repeating itself may sound tedious. However, there is one exception. If each turn of repetition is affinitive in recruiting something new from the outside while replacing some of the predecessor already there, the cycle can constantly be updated. The whole enterprise is empirically structural. In addition, repeating oneself can be guaranteed even on the thermodynamic ground alone. If adiabatic processes are allowed to intervene, they can assume two roles at the same time. One is to feed upon the available resources as fast as possible. One more is to install a highly complicated pathway of energy flow full of cycles to dissipate the intake at the similar fast rate so as to make both ends of the inlet and outlet to meet. While the intake of the resources proceeds through the surface of the organized whole of those cycles, the dissipation takes place in the entire volume of the organization. Thus, enhancing the volume of the organized web of those cycles may be a natural consequence for meeting the greater rate of resource intake. Of course, chemistry can provide a lot of material hardware to implement such a prescient web of cycles. Koichiro ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Information Foundation of the Act--F.Flores & L.deMarcos
At 4:13 AM 07/27/2015, Luis de Marcos Ortega wrote: a) cycles can imply infinite loops that in our opinion are not appropriate to model human actions b) even considering cycles a set of actions can still be modeled a as a tree, so we consider that loops add unnecessary complexity to the model Loops are clumsy, to be sure. Nonetheless, loops look indispensable in implementing the cohesion for making an organization. An organization maintaining itself through the exchange of component elements has recourse to the cohesion acting between the individual elements incumbent in the organized body and the de novo individuals to be recruited from nearby for replacemt. In fact, a loop can be the cohesive factor of a structural nature emerging from the participating individuals. Koichiro ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] It-from-Bit and information interpretation of QM
At 6:19 PM 06/27/2015, Loet Leydersdorff wrote: Remains the need to specify: 1. The first difference [cf. Shannon's information bits]; 2. The second difference [cf. Brillouin's negentropy]; [KM] Loet, if you stick to first-order logic, there would be no need for recruiting an observer for the decidable theoretical edifice. Both Shannon's information and Brillouin's information-cum-thermodynamics belong to first-order logic as implying that the distinction between the existential quantifier and the universal one applies only to the subject. The role of measurement in first-order logic is at most secondary and no more than confirming the theoretical predictions. However, if you consider the difference making a difference making a further difference ad infinitum, the resulting proposition would be of the type following at the least second-order logic in the sense that quantification would also apply to the predicate. If one further wants to see a proposition of second-order logic decidable, some qualifier would have to be implemented of course naturally. That natural aspect would make biology quite unique in the material world. This has been my second for this week. Koichiro ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] It-from-Bit and information interpretation of QM
At 4:00 AM 06/27/2015, John Collier wrote: I also see no reason that Bateson’s difference that makes a difference needs to involve meaning at either end. [KM] Right. The phrase saying “a difference that makes a difference” must be a prototypical example of second-order logic in that the difference appearing both in the subject and predicate can accept quantification. Most statements framed in second-order logic are not decidable. In order to make them decidable or meaningful, some qualifier must definitely be needed. A popular example of such a qualifier is a subjective observer. However, the point is that the subjective observer is not limited to Alice or Bob in the QBist parlance. Koichiro ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Krassimir's Notes . . .
At 9:36 PM 06/17/2015, Pedro wrote: ... What if information belongs to action, [KM] This is a good remark suggesting that information may go beyond the standard stipulation of first-order logic. A great advantage of mathematics grounded upon first-order logic is to enjoy the provability or computability of an inductive judgement with use of the few axiomatic primitives. This scheme, however, does not work for information at large, though notably except for Shannon's information bits. If one faces a statement like "information is probabilistic", it would go beyond first-order logic when the predicate "to be probabilistic" admits its quantification as revealed in the context-dependent probabilities in QM. Once we enter the higher stage of second-order logic, it could be possible to form an opinion of course while its provability may be out of reach in most cases. Nonetheless, if one wants to save something good with saying "information is probabilistic", a likely makeshift might be to relate information to action, for instance, as appealing to conditiona! l probabilities which are quite at home with the action of setting and detecting such conditions. Koichiro ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 10, Issue 22
At 5:37 PM 01/20/2015, Malcom Dean wrote: Entropy is a mathematical variable which balances equations, but cannot possibly describe the conditions and actual processes which lead to work, enable its completion, or detail its purpose. May I add some qualifications? Entropy must be a nice item to talk about if the issue is on the whole bookkeeping on a long time scale. Instead, if one is interested in the nitty-gritty of concrete events and processes in thermodynamics, what may be observed there must be the principle of first come, first served. That is the participation of the rate-dependent processes. Thermodynamics allows at least two distinct classes of rate process. One is quasi static as riding on the slowly moving equilibrium, and one more is adiabatic as responding very rapidly to the changes occurring in the neighborhood. If we are interested in the concrete processes on a short time scale, the dominance of the adiabatic processes may explicitly be visible there. There would be no hurricanes nor typhoons in the tropical ocean if the adiabatic processes are dismissed. Of course, the entropy business could eventually enter in the long run if we do not care much about the difference making a difference in between. Koichiro ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Informational Bookkeeping
At 9:14 PM 09/05/2014, Pedro wrote: Who knows, focusing on varieties of bookkeeping might be quite productive! [KM] Pedro, your kick was loud enough to waken me up from my long hibernation. Suppose there are many things popping up here and there concurrently with no synchronization among them on the spot. Then, we would be totally at a loss what to do when asked to tell what is going on there. One plan as a last resort would be to make an appeal to a scheme of synchronization even if conceivable out of the blue. One candidate would be Bob U's energy, in reference to which we can safely say which are synchronized and which are sequential. One more candidate of this sort might be a reaction cycle of a natural origin, since any component reaction going round the cycle is ipso facto made synchronous with the occurrence of the cycle itself. Koichiro ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] The Information Flow
Folks, Bob U said "The foundations, they are trembling!" I have taken it to imply that propositional calculus itself is also in a bad shape. This observation reminds me of the hanging paradox first invented by an American logician Arthur Prior more than 60 years ago. It goes like this: "On a certain Saturday a judge sentenced a man to be hanged on Sunday or Monday at noon, stipulating at the same time that the man would not know the day of his hanging until the morning of the day itself. The condemned man argued that if he were hanged on Monday, he would be aware of the fact by noon on Sunday, and this would contravene the judge's stipulation. So the date of his hanging would have to be Sunday. Since, however, he had worked this out on Saturday, and so knew the date of his hanging the day before, the judge's stipulation was again contravened. The date, therefore, could not be Sunday either. The prisoner concluded that he would not be hanged at all. However, the official gazette issued on Tuesday reported that the man was hanged on last Sunday." The logician-prisoner (the externalist) was right in his deduction upon the trusted propositional calculus, while the judge (the internalist) was also right in faithfully executing the sentence. But both cannot be right at the same time. Despite that, the internalist could finally come to preside over this empirical world. I had a hard time to convince myself of it. Strange? Cheers, Koichiro Matsuno ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] FW: [Fwd: Re: Physics of computing]--Plamen S.
Folks, A nice thing about the dichotomies such as the actual-potential (Peirce), einselection-superposition (Schroedinger), figure-background (Merleau-Ponty), filling-up - void (Marijuan), presence-absence (Deacon) and the like is the appraisal of the individual-class dichotomy even if an exhaustive list of the individuals constituting the class is not available. The price we have to pay for this, however, is that first person descriptions would have to be employed for appreciating the presence of some individuals that are currently absent on the spot for whatever reasons. In contrast, the individual-class dichotomy accessible to third person descriptions such as the dichotomy of each probabilistic event and its distribution would have to be explicit and definite with regard to both the individuals and the class from the outset. Cheers, Koichiro Matsuno ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] replies to several. The Key to Time
Dear Loet, Joseph and All, Let me just clarify the difference making a difference between both of you and me. First, to Loet; > In other words: time is a construct of language? The answer will be yes if the physicist accepts time when preparing an authentic user’s manual on how to set up and read each clock. But, the answer will be no if somebody claims that time exists prior to the existence of our languages. These two attitudes are necessarily mixed up in our practice of doing empirical sciences as revealed in the contrast between evolutionary and developmental biology. That is the strength of empirical sciences. > The “various conservation laws” are not a construct of language but > constraints on constructions in language? Any empirical law, once established and framed in human languages, is very peculiar compared to the case of nomological laws in general in claiming its validity whenever or wherever in the empirical world unless our faith on the empirical regularity perceivable in the record is lost. Needless to say, some empirical laws mingled with something going beyond our experiences such as a wishful thinking might turn out to be wrong as in the case of Einstein’s big blunder. > The original cyclic motions predate the reading. They are given? By whom and > in which language? Some of our remote ancestors full of curiosity may have happened to notice the look-alike cyclic stellar movement as looking up into the sky every night and to report the astonishing observations to the folks in the neighborhood. This must have been the beginning of the whole story. > Is the dative of a message different from the third case in the declension? The dative as the indirect object of a verb corresponds to the third case in the declension of a noun in German. Suppose the sentence like “He gives her a ring.” Of course, the “her” is the dative of the direct object “a ring”. Nonetheless, a proper interpretation of the sentence framed in the present tense is pretty difficult. “He” might want to make “a ring” to be a message of something else, while “she” might refuse to accept it. The dative is reactively active or passively synthetic and is by no means reactively passive. The dative can metamorphose into a subject in the next round. Moreover, the actual exchange of giving and refusing can be revealed as referring to the update of the perfect tense in the progressive tense. > If “information” can be defined in terms of a probability distribution, would > “time” be definable as a frequency distribution? This is really a Big “If”. If both the distributions are available, I could follow the argument. If such distributions are not available in advance for whatever reasons, the second best would be to rely upon conditional probabilities as the distributions further qualified by the explicit participation of measurement. In the latter, the relationship between information and time is more convoluted and interwoven. Bob Ulanowicz knows it better. Then, to Joseph; >In my extension of logic to complex systems, reality and appearance are >related contradictorially: Your distinction between reality and appearance reminds me of the notorious distinction between things-in-themselves and their phenomenology. I wish I could grasp the distinction. What I cannot speak about I have to pass over in silence. >Perception is a real energetic process that is driven by our underlying >dynamics,… not by verbs and their objects. Perhaps, this must be the take-home message you gave me. At issue is how to verbally respond to the question of what does “a real energetic process” look like. We are then required to employ some verbs to meet the assignment. (I do know the situation would be far more eased in the wet lab., less confrontational.) In fact, you have already provided us with a sound response to this question as saying “ … is driven by our underlying dynamics”. In short, perception of a perception of the flow of time ad infinitum eventually precipitates the construction of the flow of time. >I think behind Loet’s reference to time as possibly a frequency distribution >is a similar desire to move away from linguistic structures to real structures. Referring to and relying upon linguistic vehicles is unavoidable. Otherwise, we have to shut our mouths. The next big hurdle to jump over must be how to secure a passable correspondence between the linguistic vehicles and the object in the target as Jerry Chandler repeatedly emphasized on this list. Third, to Ted; >We bridge that today with the two paradigms on which we build science: >measurement and theories of cause. The notion of tense touches on both, one >from one world, the other from the second. I ask your opinions on this "third >flow." The third flow is for the binding agency of a novel type. The cohesion
Re: [Fis] replies to several. The Key to Time
Dear Joseph, > I feel that in point 3. of your note you describe a key to time but you do > not use it! Right. The last time, I skipped over something. The issue is how to descriptively approach phenomenological time via the interplay between real, physical systems without prior reference to the flow of time on the global scale. My intended entry for this endeavor has been to pay attention to some physical body remaining invariant while being constantly involved in exchanging its constituent subunits. That is to say, once a molecular aggregate happens to appear whose class identity is kept intact while the constituent subunits constantly come and go, the through-flow maintaining the class identity of the aggregate can superficially be associated with the flow of time as we know of it in the contradictory sense that while passing away constantly, time remains as time as keeping its identity. The flow of time here is only taken as “a representation”, or an anthropocentric metaphor at best, of the material through-flow as a decisive factor for keeping the class identity of a physical body at the cost of the vicissitude of the individual identities of the constituent subunits. The cyanobacterial circadian clocks are just an empirical example of keeping the class identity of a KaiC hexamer while constantly exchanging or shuffling the monomeric KaiC subunits. >The objective, as you have written well earlier, is to better understand the >interplay of what we call the tenses in language. The underlying issue is how can we construct the flow of time from the tenses. When the constant update of the present perfect tense in the present progressive tense is referred to in the finished record, we can perceive the flow of time as driven by the transitive verb “update” in the present tense, though only in retrospect. This updated version of the flow of time in retrospect exhibits a marked contrast to the flow of time riding on the intransitive verb “flow” in the present tense unconditionally, the latter of which is common to the standard practice of physical sciences even including relativity. The occurrence of the perfect tense is due to the act of measurement of material origin distinguishing between the before and after its own act, while its frequent update in the progressive tense will be necessitated so as to meet various conservation laws such as material or energy flow continuity to be registered in the record, e. g., not to leave the failure in meeting the flow continuity behind. The KaiC hexamers of cyanobacteria are involved in the constant update of the prefect tense in the progressive tense. >How is that for using time as a synthetic construction rather than as an >analytical tool?! The flow of time read by the externalist, say, by Ptolemy-Newton, into an invariant cyclic motion of the stellar configuration displayed over the sky is enigmatic in relating a cyclic movement of physical bodies to a linear movement of something else called time. A less ambitious approach could be to relate a linear movement of physical bodies to the linear movement of time even if the latter is an anthropocentric artifact, unless the artifact interferes with the physical bodies. The flow of time read-into by the physicist implies no linear flow of time in the absence of the physicist as leaving only the original cyclic motions behind. That must be quite stifling. In contrast, appreciating the material through-flow keeping the class identity of the supporting material aggregate as being represented as the flow of time comes to imply that the through-flow is informational in that it presumes both the message (e.g., the subunits to be exchanged) and its dative (e.g., the aggregate processing their exchanges). Both information and time, once set free from the read-into flow of time, are common in sharing the similar materialistic and energetic context in incorporating the transitive verbs into themselves as holding the contrast between the direct and the indirect object of a verb, that is to say, between a message and its dative. Despite that, I am not quite sure at this moment whether this synthetic view would merely be one step backward for the sake of the likely two steps forward to come. Best, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] replies to several
Folks, Joseph wrote: Two aspects of the exchange between Koichiro and Loet merit attention: 1) Loet said that his point of replacing “why” with “what” did not seem necessary to him. In my mind, however, when Koichiro refers to “what is communicated by what”, he is insisting on not losing the qualitative components of the information involved. Let me make my points a little bit clearer. 1. Being empirical is not necessarily rational (e.g., Galilei’s empirical inertia v.s. Aristotle’s rational telos). 2. Linear progression of time, say time (t+1) following time t, is already a consequence of synchronization among the clocks available to us. A point of clarification is that synchronization in the making as a necessary condition for a meaningful integration into whatever context is not sure about whether it could also proceed upon a linear progression of time. Suppose everybody asks the nearest neighbor “what time do you have?”. The outcome might be somewhere in between the two extremes of a successful synchronization in the end among all of them on one hand and a total mess on the other. 3. Linguistic or theoretical access to synchronization in the making would be hard to imagine when it is prohibited to refer to time as a comprehensible analytical tool in advance. This does not however mean the end of the whole issue. Empirical access to synchronization in the making is totally different. Cyanobacteria as the first photosynthetic bacteria appeared on Earth could have been quite successful in synchronizing their circadian clocks among them without asking the help of our languages. 4. Addressing the theoretical question of what kinds of material means are employed for the job of synchronization and why, goes far beyond our present rational comprehension. Although the cyanobacterial circadian clocks employ three different kinds of protein called KaiA, B and C for the job, we cannot say for sure at this moment why these particular proteins would come to be focused upon. This has been an irrevocable empirical fact. 5. Neuronal dynamics is full of synchronization in the making by means of exchanging an extremely wide variety of chemical messengers, including for instance acetylcholine, available empirically. 6. Even if we take a pause for a while for addressing the grandiose why-questions, there may still remain some room for tailoring time for a comprehensible analytical tool. Time is further qualified in terms of its tense. There remains a likelihood of addressing how the actual dynamics would proceed through the interplay between the different tenses, especially between the present progressive and the present perfect tense. 7. Put it bluntly, information synthesizes the flow of time from scratch. Cheers, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] The world of singularities, beyond language. Necessity and Sufficiency
Dear Loet and All, Your remark “what is communicated and why?” sounds suggestive in many respects. If the question is paraphrased into “what is communicated by what?”, the perennially perplexing issue of what is time would come up to the surface once again since the temporality of communication is already there. The time involved in this question is certainly different from another time pertinent to one more question of “what is moved by what?” as entertained in physics in general and in mechanics in particular. At issue is the nature of time unique to the exchange of a message, whether it may be an atom, molecule or whatever else for that matter. Cheers, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Our condolences to Japan colleagues for the earth quake tragedy in Japan --K.Markov
Dear Kassimir, Pedro and FIS Colleagues, Many thanks for your concerns to the natural disaster hitting the northern part of Japan during the past few days. Please let us have some time to survive this hard fact of life. Regards, Koichiro Matsuno (now near Tokyo) From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Pedro Clemente Marijuan Fernandez Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2011 5:57 AM To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Our condolences to Japan colleagues for the earth quake tragedy in Japan --K.Markov We all join Krassimir's message of solidarity and condolences with our FIS colleagues of Japan. Such a tragic event... ---Pedro - Mensaje original - Krassimir Markov Please receive our condolences for the earth quake tragedy in Japan! > It is really great loss for all of us! > Please do not hesitate to ask us for support and help in this sorrow > moment. > Krassimir > ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Recapping the discussion? Joseph's Recap
Folks, Joseph wrote: >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. Evidence is very old. In a nutshell, mechanics is about the equality of quantities of the same quality, e.g., three laws of motion in Newtonian mechanics. The quality of motion remains invariable in mechanics. In contrast, thermodynamics is about the equality of quantities of the different qualities, as revealed in the first law of thermodynamics presiding over the conservation of energy while allowing for the transformation of its quality. What is unique to thermodynamics is the participation of an internal agency being capable of identifying and processing the difference of qualities. The apparatus James Prescott Joule reported in 1843 demonstrated that the gravitational potential energy lost by the weight attached to a string causing a paddle immersed in water to rotate was equal to the heat energy gained by the water by friction with the paddle. It was not the physicist (or former brewer) Joule himself, but was the internal agency of material origin that was responsible for keeping the relationship between heat, the current, which generates it, and the conductor through which it passes. Somewhere right in the middle of the energy transformation changing its quality from the potential to the heat energy, some ambivalent situation would inevitably arise such that a residual amount of energy is not clear whether it may belong to the potential or to the heat energy, or to neither. Nonetheless, the conservation of energy must be observed in the finished record. Thermodynamics leaves conservation laws as being consequential upon the more fundamental motion of material origin, though such a feat is totally inconceivable in mechanics. It was regrettable to see that the subsequent takeover of thermodynamics by atomic physics which duly and triumphantly dismissed any chances for an agency of material origin other than the physicists themselves. However, a mere dismissal by a decree is not all that powerful. A touchstone is to see any likelihood of the motion of material origin for the sake of the conservation of energy, rather than on the conservation already guaranteed. The Fluctuon model of Michael Conrad is one attempt for appreciating the motion for the sake of meeting the conservation laws from within like thermodynamics does. Best, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Revisiting the Fluctuon Model
Folks, Kevin Kirby's opening remark on the Fluctuon model of Michael Conrad shed light on the role of information in physics and beyond. Here is some peripheral remark of my own, though a bit lengthy. 1) Practicing physics may look informational in exercising its own specification without saying so explicitly. A case in point is the renormalization scheme as demonstrated in quantum electrodynamics (QED). QED is quite self-consistent in specifying and determining the values of both the electric charge of an electron and its mass. Tomonaga-Schwinger have successfully set up a descriptive scheme of synchronizing the multiple times presiding over the virtual processes which might violate conservation laws in between in the light of the uncertainty principle in energy and time. The synchronization that is faithful to observing all the relevant conservation laws is an act of making both determinations of the mass under the influence of the electric charge and of its reversal coincidental, that is, the act of making both ends meet. A neat expression of the synchronization is seen in Dyson's equation in terms of Feynman's diagram. In short, the physical parameter called a mass or an electric charge is internally specified, determined and measured as such in the renormalization scheme of QED. So far, so good. 2) Michael felt some uneasiness with the renormalization scheme since the notion of information remains redundant and secondary at best there. Although the definitive values of the mass and the electric charge might seem informational to the experimentalist who intends to measure them externally, an electron in QED can already be seen to measure and fix them internally on its own. In the physical world describable in one form of renormalized scheme or another, that is to say, in the standard model of physics, information is merely a derivative from something more fundamental. The standard physicist has a good excuse for marginalizing information. If information has anything significant in its own right and can stand alone irrespective of whether or how it may become analytically accessible, on the other hand, one must go beyond the stipulation of the standard model. A notorious case that has strenuously kept defying the renormalization project of whatever kind attempted so far is quantum gravity, which was Michael's primary concern. Self-consistent scheme of justifying quantum gravity is required to reach continuity (gravity) as starting from discontinuity (quantum) and at the same time to reach discontinuity as starting from continuity even on an experimental basis. 3) The analytical tool Michael employed was conservation laws paraphrased in terms of elementary perturbation theory as Kevin noted. While the standard model is grounded upon the likelihood that all the relevant conservation laws could eventually be met insofar as one is lucky enough to encounter a specific form of synchronization, the Fluctuon model squarely faces up to the situation that there is no chance of expecting such a fortunate synchronous coincidence. Substantiating each conservation law on energy or momentum is a must in any case, while asking simultaneous fulfillment of all the relevant conservation laws is too much. What is unique to the Fluctuon model is its emphasis on the participation of persistent and itinerant disequilibrium or a Fluctuon in implementing conservation laws internally, though there is no room for it in the mind of the standard physicist. This perpetual disequilibrium is all pervasive and reverberating up and down and from left to right and back. 4) Once I asked Michael that while graviton is nice in its ambition of going beyond the standard model of physics, why not take up carbon chemistry as one more concrete example going beyond the hurdle? So far as we know, there has been no attempt for determining both carbon compounds as the building pieces of biology and chemical affinity latent in them in a mutually consistent manner. His reply was this. "Right, but I want to cover more even though it may look crazy to many. That is an issue of quantum gravity and life. Anyway, life is short." Granted. Best, Koichiro Matsuno ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] about fis discussions (2)
Ted Goranson made the remark > I propose that we take Pedro's challenge seriously and have a discussion > not about information, but about why we are gathering to talk about > information here. This reminds me of something quite illustrative. That is a chemistry on the verge of the origin of what we call life on this Earth. Small molecules, say amino acid molecules, on the scene have the capacity of joining with others or gathering together in forming something interesting. However, if only the activity of joining-in were focused upon, the end products would have been no more than a sort of tars. In reality, the counterpart activity of parting-with could also have been implemented there, such as in protease activities. Both anabolism and catabolism must have been prerequisite to the proper functioning of metabolism, that is, a fundamental activity of life. This observation could survive even if we are not sufficiently acquainted with what life is all about. Likewise, if our activity surrounding the issue of information is interesting enough too even if we are not sure about what information is all about, one lesson learned from the chemistry may be to decipher the nature of the cohesive character latent in talking about information. A necessary price for this would have to be to admit the counterpart activity of abrogating or breaking off, with the hopeful reservation that the over-all balance may be shifted slightly toward gathering together like the origin and evolution of life; an ordinary noun coined by somebody years ago. Cheers, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Re: fis Digest, Vol 501, Issue 5
From: "Koichiro Matsuno" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Folks, John Collier's distinction between "restrict and enable" in the form of constraints reminds me once again of the remarks on boundary conditions made by Michael Polanyi back in the sixties. This time, it came through Goedel's incompleteness theorem stating that both the decidability (either true or false, and not in between) and the consistency of the statements made in an arbitrary axiomatic system cannot coexist. There should be a statement or a theorem which could be right but not proved right within the given system. A negative aspect of the incompleteness theorem is restrictive as literally respecting the axiomatic manipulation or algorithm, while its positive aspect is found in enabling as admitting a possibility that such an algorithmic computation cannot stop. An explicitly positive form of the enabling aspect can be found in the occurrence of an inductive judgment. Suppose we ask a kid of the second or third grade in elementary school to find out an odd number made out of the sum of three even numbers only through an arithmetic computation. The kid may quite possibly find that such a computation cannot easily stop though he cannot prove it. However, once the kid learns algebraic computation, he can quite probably prove that such an arithmetic computation does not stop, by writing a few lines of algebraic operations. What makes the transition from arithmetic to algebraic computation possible is the experience the kid has accumulated so far, and by no means latent in arithmetic computation alone. Of course, mathematicians appreciate the role of inductive judgment explicitly like every school kid practices it implicitly. What is more, even atoms and molecules directly participate in inductive processes. When two hydrogen atoms form a hydrogen molecule in an empirical arena, no computation for getting a hydrogen molecule can stop insofar as one sticks to the axiomatic formalism preserving the hydrogen atom as an nonnegotiable element. This has been my entry to approaching Jerry Chandler's chemical logic. The term information is too loaded. It would be hard to distinguish its restrictive usage from the enabling counterpart, every time. Information may not be a useful analytical tool, though quite powerful in the bookkeeping. Haste may make waste. Cheers, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Limited info/gradients
Stan, The relationship between QM and dissipation, of prime importance to biology, is quite intriguing because of the unbridgeable gap between the two. One is discontinuous when measurement intervenes, while the other is continuous. A nice thing about the probabilistic scheme is that it makes the whole edifice continuous with respect to the probability measure. Once the discontinuous aspects under the continuous outerwear are focused upon instead, the theoretical enterprises upon continuous spaces would not help us much. The issue would become most acute when one pays attention to the formation and transformation of each quantum as a discrete and discontinuous unit, though the boundary conditions of our choice may reflect the underlying discontinuous nature if we are lucky enough. At this point enters thermodynamics. The first law is on the likelihood of energy transformation, while the second law is about the possibility of a heat engine processing energy transformation. Heat engine is a discrete, organized unit processing dissipation in a continuous manner. If one takes a quantum as a basic unit of material dynamics, the 1st and 2nd laws, when put together, may suggest occurrence of a quantum as a heat engine. (Jamie seems to have a more encompassing scheme on this.) One checkpoint of this scenario is to see whether what looks like a heat engine as a discrete unit, most relevant on the verge of the origins of life, could emerge in the presence of some form of gradients. If a heat engine of emergent character happens to be faster in harnessing the gradients compared to other contenders, it will win the race. The winner takes all. The distinction between the winner and the loser remains discrete and robust while the race takes place on the continuous track. A perspective from a little bit closer to the lab bench? Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Limited info
Folks, Stan's "Nature abhors gradients" is a thermodynamic imperative, which QM has to live with. QM is instrumental for fabricating gradients and consumers harnessing them. What is intriguing here is that some gradients have already been frozen to some other consumers, like the nuclear binding energy stored in an iron atom toward biological organisms on our earth. The fate of gradients experienced by any consumer is at least two-fold. One is to simply dissipate them, and the other is to transform some of them into a form already frozen to the experiencing consumer. The rule is, first come, first served. There remains nothing left for the latecomers. Underlying the present excuse is that we abandon the homogeneous space. Of course, if the homogeneous space is acceptable, the principle of least action as Pedro refers to would survive Cheers, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Bell\\\'s inequality: Can we find its classical analogue? Classical and Quantum waves
Folks, Just for the sake of balance, let me refer to one school of thought which has been quite under-represented so far. That is the probabilistic interpretation and formulation of QM grounded upon chance events instead of ignorance on the part of the observer. An example is a photographic emulsion consisting of grains of silver halide suspended in gelatin. When a photon hits a grain in the emulsion, an electron-hole pair is generated in gelatin. This is equivalent to an enormous localization of the incident photon. When the incident photon is thought to be a plane wave as is most often the case, the wave front can be extended even towards an infinity in the configuration space as carrying a fixed momentum. The photon hitting the emulsion comes to break momentum conservation. This process, although certainly sound and physical, does not follow the Schroedinger equation of motion because in the latter, momentum conservation is strictly observed. Such spontaneous localization is both objective and stochastic. Of course, the probability upon ignorance is quite useful from the engineering perspective since the extent of being ignorant can easily be manupilated at will externally. From the internalist perspective as Aleks refers to, on the other hand, the origin of chances resides in the objective transition from the progressive to the perfect tense as Loet may have concerned himself with. Cheers, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Bell\'s inequality: Can we find its classical analogue? Classical and Quantum waves
Folks, Pedro's question >The "physical" existentiality of physical laws >themselves looks intriguing ---where do they "seat"? is neither naive nor trivial, though sounds quite disturbing to many. My story is this. Most people seems to accept the Greek tradition of Euclidean geometry to some extent. It's crux is in the 5th postulate on parallel lines asking the deed of extending two lines indefinitely. The implication is a synchronization between the act of indefinite extension and the presence of straight lines of an infinite extension. What is focused upon is the acceptance of an infinite space guaranteeing the total synchronization between the action and the events acted upon. Newtonian mechanics has followed the same spirit and has literally accepted absolute space. Likewise, even if one shifts the focus onto the invariance of light velocity and the equivalence between inertial mass and gravitational mass as parting with the parallel postulate, the synchronization between the action and the events acted upon remains unaltered and guaranteed all through the relativized spaces. Quantum mechanics is different. QM on the spot where the action is going on does not require the space, either absolute or relativized. Instead, it focuses on the acted product that has succeeded in synchronizing with the action. That is a quantum. If one resides inside a quantum, nonlocality in the form of synchronization or correlation looks to prevail throughout there. If one steps outside, on the other side, the inside may look weird and entangled. One decisive difficulty with the quantum world is with its limited linguistic accessibility. If one dares to say something definite about the Q world in third person description in the present tense, this would come to imply something definite, whenever and wherever. This form of linguistic practice would inadvertently have to accept a space of an infinite extension, whether flat or curved. Eventually, the practice asking for a descriptive invariant would reluctantly have to surrender itself to denial of the Q world. Of course, the situation is not so pessimistic as it may look. Unicellular organisms constituting more than 90% of the biomass on the Earth may not be familiar with what Euclid, Newton and Einstein accomplished, but are superb dwellers in the Q world that have kept a long record of surviving the hardships. Cheers, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Addition of probabilities
Folks, As responding to Michel's question: > when A and B are events of void intersection, the equality > P (A U B) = P(A) + P(B) > could be violated ? Or what else ? Andrei answered: >Yes. My entry is yes and no. A key is in how to prepare an ensemble of events through the act of identification or measurement, whatever it may be. In one scheme, one can make the two events A and B mutually exclusive (e.g., the head or tail of tossing a coin), with void intersection. In another scheme, on the other hand, one can make the two of them mutually interfering (e.g., the heads or tails of tossing two identical coins at the same time). The act of measurement is crucial in preparing the ensemble of events with void intersection, and the notion of probability remains innocent in this regard. Nonetheless, Born's interpretation of the wavefunction as a probability amplitude happened to open a can of worms despite its supreme usefulness proved in countless examples in physics. It invited many people to take the space defining the wavefunction (i.e., a Hilbert space) to be the probability space, also. Experiments are usually done in ordinary space. However, quantum mechanics interprets the experiments in a Hilbert space. If a physicist picks up a strange Hilbert space, a biological organism may have a curious intersection between being alive and dead there. Cheers, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Re: Encoding and Decoding as Essential to Quantum InformationTheory?
Folks, Jerry Chandler's concern on encoding and decoding quantum information is a serious matter although I am not well versed in what quantum information is all about. Quantum information to theoretical physicists must be something manipulative to them. In contrast, signal processing in the biological realm is extremely daunting while all of the molecular constituents are quantum mechanical in their origin. For instance, photons entering our eye cornea would lose more than 50% of their energy as passing through the aqueous humor until hitting rhodopsin molecules on the retina. Superposition of the wavefunctions initially present in the incident photons is lost and collapses into the individual members of the basis set unique to the receptor molecules. Collapse of the linearly superposed wavefunctions is an instance of measurement, whether or not you like the Copenhagen doctrine. What the aqueous fluid present between the cornea and the retina is doing is to encode the incident photons in terms of the basis set unique to rhodopsin molecules. Selection of the basis set is about what physicists call the superselection rule. What is really surprising is that even bacteria are quite at home with how to practice the superselection rule while circumventing the occurrence of negative probabilities or preventing interference of probabilities from occurring by all means. The whole evolutionary biology sit behind how the material process of encoding and decoding (e.g., motor control) could have been practiced in the light of the superselection rule and the collapse of the wavefunctions. Cheers, Koichiro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
