Re: [Fis] Season Greetings / Merry Christmas
may all of us information theory enthusiasts have a merry xmas and a new
year of health, wealth, and insight.
with warmth and oomph--howard
--
Howard Bloom
Howardbloom.net
author of : The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The
Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and
sobering"-The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of
Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable."James
Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God Problem: How A Godless
Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
How I Accidentally Started the Sixties (“a monumental,epic, glorious
literary achievement.” Timothy Leary), and The Muhammad Code: How a Desert
Prophet Gave You ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram--or How Muhammad Invented
Jihad (
“a terrifying book…the best book I’ve read on Islam,” David Swindle, PJ
Media).
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting Scholar
—Graduate Psychology Department, NewYork University
co-founder: and chair, Asian Space Technology Summit; founder
International Paleopsychology Project; founder and chair, Space Development
Steering
Committee; Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding Board
Member, The Darwin Project; Board Of Governors, National Space Society;
Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board
Member, Lifeboat Foundation. Editorial board member, Journal of Space
Philosophy. International Advisory Board Member, Knowledge
Futures:Interdisciplinary
Journal of Futures Studies.
In a message dated 12/23/2017 10:58:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
m...@aiu.ac.jp writes:
Dear Pedro and Colleagues,
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Marcin
Marcin J. Schroeder, Ph.D.
Professor & Dean of Academic Affairs
Akita International University
Akita, Japan
m...@aiu.ac.jp
Editor-in-Chief
Philosophies (MDPI-Basel-Switzerland)
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/philosophies
From: "Pedro C. Marijuan"
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2017 05:58:21
To: "'fis'"
Subject: [Fis] Season Greetings / Merry Christmas
Dear FIS Colleagues,
Herewith the customary Christmas scene at El Pilar Basilica of Zaragoza.
It is a really beautiful place that you should visit... I promise not to
be a bad amphitryon ;)
As for the next sessions, we will have the traditional New Year Lecture,
and then another two sessions on data-driven science and on combinatorial
logics in biological information.
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
All the best--Pedro
_
--
-
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es_ (mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es)
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-
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Re: [Fis] mind-mind
mind to mind experiments have been done in the field of brain-machine
interface since 2014.
see:
http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/11/05/uw-study-shows-direct-brain-interface-between-humans/
--
Howard Bloom
Howardbloom.net
author of : The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The
Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and
sobering"-The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of
Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable."James
Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God Problem: How A Godless
Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
How I Accidentally Started the Sixties (“a monumental,epic, glorious
literary achievement.” Timothy Leary), and The Muhammad Code: How a Desert
Prophet Gave You ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram--or How Muhammad Invented
Jihad (
“a terrifying book…the best book I’ve read on Islam,” David Swindle, PJ
Media).
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting Scholar
—Graduate Psychology Department, NewYork University
co-founder: and chair, Asian Space Technology Summit; founder
International Paleopsychology Project; founder and chair, Space Development
Steering
Committee; Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding Board
Member, The Darwin Project; Board Of Governors, National Space Society;
Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board
Member, Lifeboat Foundation. Editorial board member, Journal of Space
Philosophy. International Advisory Board Member, Knowledge
Futures:Interdisciplinary
Journal of Futures Studies.
In a message dated 11/1/2017 8:13:47 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
mar...@foibg.com writes:
Dear Alex and FIS Colleagues,
Thank you for the nice remark.
I had listen about such hypothesis but till now I had no participate in
any experiment of transferring ideas mind-mind. Maybe you had taken place
in such experiments. Please, give link to publications in scientific
issues about this very interesting phenomenon.
Simple question: If it is possible to transfer ideas mind-mind, why you
use FIS List to send your ideas to us?
Friendly greetings
Krassimir
PS: Unfortunately, this is my second post for this week and I please to
excuse me for answering the next posts after week.
From: Alex Hankey
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2017 12:21 PM
To: Krassimir Markov
Cc: FIS Webinar
Subject: Re: [Fis] About 10 Principles
RE: P1. Information is information, neither matter nor energy.
M1. Information is a class of reflections in material entities. Not every
reflection is information. Only subjectively comprehended reflections are
information.
ME: Ideas can be transmitted directly from Mind to Mind - as in Rupert
Sheldrake's 7th Sense Communication.
Lots of Quantitative Evidence that Materialists Prefer to Ignore.
The Experience Information model of the Cognitive States shows that such
Information States Are Not Material Entities.
They are based round instabilities in Networks of Neurons.
The ability to model Seventh Sense Communication means that this
phenomenon becomes one of
Four Separate Ways to Generate Empirical Evidence in support of them.
Hence Information is Not Matter or Energy.
This is but one example of how Principles 1 to 5 can be supported.
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Re: [Fis] Further Discussion . . .
brilliant summation, Pedro.
we are missing the metaphors with which to explain the difference between
death and life or between smart communities like bacterial colonies and
consciousness.
in The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates, i tell the tale of the
origin of the term "emergent property." But, alas, over 140 years after the
concept's introduction, we still lack the tools that would help us
understand life and consciousness in scientific ways.
i suspect the key will come from adding to the bottom up vocabulary of
reductionism by looking at top down approaches. and i suspect that certain
emergent properties are possibilities of the cosmos waiting for matter to
find them. very a la wagner in his Arrival of the Fittest.
but if emergent properties exist in an implicit future, in possibility
space, how did they get there? a hint: god is not the answer. god is a way
of dodging the question.
i've hit all these issues in The God Problem. and i ache for the new
metaphors.
with warmth and oomph--howard
--
Howard Bloom
Howardbloom.net
author of : The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The
Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and
sobering"-The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of
Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable."James
Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God Problem: How A Godless
Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
How I Accidentally Started the Sixties (“a monumental,epic, glorious
literary achievement.” Timothy Leary), and The Muhammad Code: How a Desert
Prophet Gave You ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram--or How Muhammad Invented
Jihad (
“a terrifying book…the best book I’ve read on Islam,” David Swindle, PJ
Media).
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting Scholar
—Graduate Psychology Department, NewYork University
Founder: International PaleopsychologyProject; founder and chair, Space
Development Steering Committee; Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution
Society; Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project; Board Of Governors,
National Space Society; Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New
York
Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science,
American Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior
and Evolution Society, International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific
Advisory Board Member, Lifeboat Foundation.
In a message dated 2/13/2017 10:32:36 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es writes:
Dear Howard,
In any extent, your beautiful questions are beyond my reach. I think that
the physical characterization of life cannot even provide a whim on your
demands; but something of the informational might provide some limited
inroads: prokaryots could not achieve any significant progress in
morphological
or differentiation capabilities within their "colonies". Conversely,
eukaryotes developed multicellularity due to their far higher information
content
(genome), their far improved signaling resources, their endless energy
supply in support of the general combinatoric problem-solving tools
(mitochondria), and the incorporation of a new locus (cytoskeleton) capable of
feeling
the force field and reacting to it. A chain of amazing inventions is
behind any of the existing branches of complex life... can do they admit a
general explanation, not just based on natural selection, but on the improved
evolvability that has been obtained by being able to explore any
molecular-recognition contraption (within partially collapsed solution
state-spaces, a
la Wagner?). Otherwise we are lead to admit a deep enigma, still uncharted,
or to look for external "intelligence" solutions outside the limits of
current scientific paradigms.
What is your own opinion??
Best wishes--Pedro
El 09/02/2017 a las 22:44, _HowlBloom@aol.com_ (mailto:howlbl...@aol.com)
escribió:
fascinating thinking, pedro.
it triggers this:
The stages of development are far more than real-world problem solvers.
They set artificial challenges, then achieve them. Making a caterpillar
that works is an enormously complex challenge. Making a working butterfly
is also immensely more complex than any simple challenge mounted by the
environment. Changing from caterpillar to butterfly in one lifetime is
unachievable beyond all belief. And these grotesquely artificial goals can’t
be
accounted for by a simple goal of survival. The goal, if anything, seems to
be to accomplish the ornate, the unnecessary, the flamboyant, and the
impossible. How does a drive toward impossible flamboyance get built into
life? How does it get built into the cosmos?
with warmth
Re: [Fis] Further Discussion . . .
fascinating thinking, pedro.
it triggers this:
The stages of development are far more than real-world problem solvers.
They set artificial challenges, then achieve them. Making a caterpillar that
works is an enormously complex challenge. Making a working butterfly
is also immensely more complex than any simple challenge mounted by the
environment. Changing from caterpillar to butterfly in one lifetime is
unachievable beyond all belief. And these grotesquely artificial goals can’t
be
accounted for by a simple goal of survival. The goal, if anything, seems to
be to accomplish the ornate, the unnecessary, the flamboyant, and the
impossible. How does a drive toward impossible flamboyance get built into
life? How does it get built into the cosmos?
with warmth and oomph--howard
--
Howard Bloom
Howardbloom.net
author of : The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The
Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and
sobering"-The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of
Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable."James
Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God Problem: How A Godless
Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
How I Accidentally Started the Sixties (“a monumental,epic, glorious
literary achievement.” Timothy Leary), and The Muhammad Code: How a Desert
Prophet Gave You ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram--or How Muhammad Invented
Jihad (
“a terrifying book…the best book I’ve read on Islam,” David Swindle, PJ
Media).
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting Scholar
—Graduate Psychology Department, NewYork University
Founder: International PaleopsychologyProject; founder and chair, Space
Development Steering Committee; Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution
Society; Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project; Board Of Governors,
National Space Society; Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New
York
Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science,
American Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior
and Evolution Society, International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific
Advisory Board Member, Lifeboat Foundation.
In a message dated 2/9/2017 3:22:55 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es writes:
Dear Marcus and Colleagues,
Thanks for your interest. The Chengdu's Conference represented for me an
occasion to return to my beginnings, in the 80's, when I prepared a PhD
Thesis: "Natural Intelligence: On the evolution of biological information
processing". It was mostly following a top down approach. But in some of the
discussions outdoors of the conference (a suggestion for the next one in
Shanghai: plenary discussion sessions should also be organized) I realized
that
biomolecular things have changed quite a lot. One could go nowadays the
other way around: from the molecular-informational organization of cellular
life, to intelligence of the cell's behavior withing the environment. The
life cycle es essential. It provides the source of "meaning" (as I have often
argued in discussions in the list) but it is also the reference for
"intelligence". Communicating with the environment and self-producing by means
of
the environmental affordances have to be smoothly organized so that the
stages of the life cycle may be advanced, and that the "problems" arising from
the internal or the external may be adequately solved. It means signalling
and self-modifying in front of the open-ended environmental problems,
sensing and acting coherently... It strangely connects with the notion of
human
"story" and the communication cycle in the humanities. Relating
intelligence to goal accomplishment or to an architecture of goals as usually
done in
computational realms implies that the real life course (or the surrogate)
is reduced to a very narrow segment. True intelligence evaporates.
These were some of my brute reflections that I have to keep musing around
(I saw interesting repercussions for cellular signaling "narratives" too).
Maybe this is also a good opportunity for other parties of that conference
to expostulate their own impressions --very exciting presentations both
from Chinese and Western colleagues there.
Thanks again,
--Pedro
El 08/02/2017 a las 14:14, Marcus Abundis escribió:
> In next weeks some further discussion might be started, but at the time
being, the slot is empty (any ideas?)<
Hi Pedro,
For my part I would appreciate a chance to hear more about the thoughts
you have been developing (even if they are very rough) as related to the talk
you gave in China last summer.
Alternatively, further thoughts on Gordana's talk would be nice to hear.
Re: [Fis] FIS Survey for PhD research.
i'm swamped but i will do my best to help.
with warmth and oomph--howard
--
Howard Bloom
Howardbloom.net
author of : The Lucifer Principle: AScientific Expedition Into the Forces
of History ("mesmerizing"-TheWashington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution
of Mass Mind from the Big Bang tothe 21st Century ("reassuring and
sobering"-The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of
Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable."James
Fallows,
National Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos
Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich), How
I Accidentally Started the Sixties (“a monumental,epic, glorious literary
achievement.” Timothy Leary), and The Muhammad Code: How a Desert Prophet
Gave You ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram--or How Muhammad Invented Jihad (“a
terrifyingbook…the best book I’ve read on Islam,” David Swindle, PJ
Media).
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting Scholar
—Graduate Psychology Department, NewYork University
Founder: International PaleopsychologyProject; founder and chair, Space
Development Steering Committee; Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution
Society; Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project;, Board Member and Member
Of
Board Of Governors, National Space Society; Founder: The Big Bang Tango
Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of
PoliticalScience, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International Society
for
Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board Member, Lifeboat Foundation.
In a message dated 7/22/2016 12:07:28 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es writes:
Dear FIS Colleagues,
A member of our list, Moises Andre Nisenbaum, is investigating for his PhD
the interdisciplinary links between Physics and Information Science. One
of the data sources of his empirical research is the FIS mailing list itself.
Because of this, he wants to directly ask list members, as well as filling
in a questionnaire. Would you help him to make this request? He will
publish the directions in the list.
Thanks in advance,
--Pedro
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[Fis] _ Otto--re closing lecture
Otto, an interesting call, for a theory that brings together the brute force of an abiotic universe and information. Here's a short timeline that pulls the brute force elements together as informational exchange: The evolution of information, sociality, social structure, and the emergent properties of societies (all dates ABB, After the Big Bang) 10(-31) ABB primitive communication between quarks via the strong force. The first informational language: attraction and repulsion. 10(-31) ABB the first social groups, threesomes of quarks, produce two shocking emergent properties—protons and neutrons 10,000 ABB massive social dances, pressure waves, ring the cosmos like a gong. With, yes, music. What communicative force organizes trillions of trillions of particles into pressure waves—into rhythmically coming together in aggregations that span the universe? Do information exchange and communication choreograph pressure waves in which masses of particles rhythmically separate just a tiny bit, then come together again? 380,000 ABB emerging from a plasma, slowing down, and giving each other a bit of breathing room, elementary particles use the electromagnetic force to communicate. And they discover something odd. Tiny particles have an inanimate longing. And their inanimate longing precisely fits the inanimate longing of particles 1,800 times their size. The tiny particles join with the hulking monsters. The result? Another emergent property, another supersized surprise: atoms. Hydrogen, helium, and lithium, properties wildly unpredictable from just the properties of an electron and a proton. Properties that emerge from a communicative exchange. An informational exchange between protons and electrons. 380,000 ABB the atom reveals a basic of cosmic structure—hierarchy. Protons dominate. They determine where the team goes. Electrons subjugate themselves. They meekly go along. They subordinate. They humbly circle the proton nucleus. 380,000 ABB atoms communicate via gravity. 400,000 ABB more communication via gravity, but mass communication. The result? Competition. The era of the great gravity crusades. Wisps, plumes, and clots of atoms have showdowns, faceoffs in which the bigger swallows the smaller whole. Then the winner goes off to another showdown, another competitive confrontation. In which it either eats or is eaten. The result of these showdowns between gravity balls? Galaxies, stars, planets, and moons. A galaxy is, guess what, a social swirl organized in a hierarchy— black holes at the center, stars circling the black holes, planets circling the stars, and moons circling the planets. All via communication and information. All via receivers interpreting the messages of senders and acting on them. one bottom line: communication, information, music, competition, and hierarchy are not the products of post-agricultural, post industrial, or post capitalist societies. they are at work even in dead stuff. even pre-living nature. hope that helps. thanks again for letting me parade such strange ideas in such august company. Dear all, Just a quick reply to Howard's fascinating account of cosmic history. It seems what is crucially needed is a theory that brings together "brute force" on the one hand - laws of nature "blindly" colliding and colluding, from quarks to planets - and "information" on the other - from pre-human codes (perhaps including quantum computation) and communication to advanced human and cybernetic networks. The former seems to be able to do away with everything except a few simple rules of operation (gravity, natural selection, will-to-power), everything more complex being the unfolding of the interaction between these few simple rules (eternal or emergent is beside the point here). The latter seems to depend upon subjective interpretation, the retention of systems memory, symbolic coding-decoding, and other processes that compose only a subset of the (creatures and processes) of the universe. Never the twain shall meet. Or perhaps brute force can be analyzed as equivalent to information? Or vice versa? Or as two sides of the same coin? Best, Otto Lehto, Tampere, Finland On 2 Feb 2016 13:46, "Krassimir Markov" <_markov@foibg.com_ (mailto:mar...@foibg.com) > wrote: Dear Howard, Thank you very much for your great effort and nice explanation! I like it! Only what I needed to see is a concrete answer to the question “what it the Information?” You absolutely clearly described it and I totally agree with your considerations. Only what is needed is to conclude with a short definition. I think it may be the next: The Information is a reflection which may be interpreted by its receiver in the context the receiver has in his/her memory. >From this definition many consequences follow. In future we may discuss them.
[Fis] _ Closing lecture
First, a few responses. I agree with Hans von Baeyer. Pedro’s kindness is magic. I agree with Gyorgy Darvas that quarks communicate. I also agree with Jerry Chandler. Brute force is not the major mover of history. Values and virtues count. A lot. In fact, a culture organizes itself by calling one way of doing things evil—brute force—and another way of doing things a value and a virtue. Our way is the value and the virtue. The ways of others are brute force and evil. We see cooperation and warmth among us. But only enmity and destruction among them. The brute force is not within groups, where values, virtues, and compassion prevail. It’s between groups. It’s in the pecking order battles between groups. Which means, in answer to Marcus Abundis, yes, groups struggle for position in inter-group hierarchies like chickens in a barnyard. For example, America and China are vying right now for top position in the barnyard of nations. Russia’s in that battle, too. On a lower level, so are Saudi Arabia and Iran, whose proxy war in Syria for pecking order dominance has cost a quarter of a million lives. That’s brute force. Between groups whose citizens are often lovely and loving to each other. Whose citizens are proud of their values and virtues. Now for a final statement. Information exists in a context. That’s not at all surprising. Information is all about context. As the writings of Guenther Witzany hint. And as Ludwig Wittgenstein also suggested. Information is relational. Information does not exist in a vacuum. It connects participants. And it makes things happen. When it’s not connecting participants, it’s not information FIS gets fired up to a high energy level when discussing the definition of information and its relationship to Shannon’s entropic information equation. Alas, these discussions tend to remove the context. And context is what gives information its indispensable ingredient, meaning. There are two basic approaches in science: ·the abstract mathematical; ·and the observational empirical. Mathematical abstractionists dwell on definitions and equations. Empirical observers gather facts. Darwin was an observational empiricist. I’d like to see more of Darwin’s kind of science in the world of information theory. One of Darwin’s most important contributions was not the concept of natural selection. It was an approach that Darwin got from Kant and from his grandfather Erasmus. That approach? Lay out the history of the cosmos on a timeline and piece together its story. In chronological order. Piece together the saga of how this cosmos has created itself. Including the self-motivated, self-creation of life. Communication plays a vital role in this story. It appears in the first 10(-32) of a second of the cosmos’ existence, when quarks communicated using attraction and repulsion cues. OK, it’s not quite right to call the cues attraction and repulsion cues. When two quarks sized each other up, they interpreted the signals of the strong force differently. If you were a quark, another quark might size you up and promptly speed away. But a quark of a different variety might detect the same signals, find them wildly attractive, and speed in your direction. One quark’s meat was another’s poison, even in that first form of communication in the cosmos. Information is not a stand-alone. Again, it’s contextual. It’s ruled by what Guenther Witzany calls syntax, semantics, and, most important of all, pragmatics. Its meaning comes from where it fits in a bigger picture. Were the signals quarks exchanged information? Not according to many of the definitions in FIS. Some of those definitions say that to be regarded as information, a sender must deliberately signify something symbolically. She must, for example, want to warn you about a poisoned apple. She must put that message in symbols, like the words “poisoned apple,” then convey that signal to a receiver. If she doesn’t want to see you poisoned, she might text you, “watch out for poisoned apples.” I’m not sure whether the definitions extant in FIS demand that you look at her text or not. Much less whether you act on it. In my latest book, The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates, I propose a different definition of information. Information is anything a receiver can decode, anything he can decipher. How do you know a receiver has decoded a message? Through the decoder’s actions. If you are a quark and you detect my strong force, you either scoot away or you rush over and join me. You act. If you are a neurosurgeon looking at an mri, you make internal decisions, mental decisions. You don’t move physically. Not at first. But you move mentally. You imagine your scalpel poised over a different spot than you might have picked
Re: [Fis] Cho 2016 The social life of quarks
re: quarks
the big question for FIS is this: do quarks communicate? and can their
communications be called informational?
are quarks more than just the first bits of matter in the cosmos? are
they also the first socializers? the first team-makers?
with oomph--howard
Howard Bloom
Author of: The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post),
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st
Century ("reassuring and sobering"-The New Yorker),
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("A
tremendously enjoyable book." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The
Atlantic),
The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock
your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
How I Accidentally Started the Sixties ("Wow! Whew! Wild!
Wonderful!" Timothy Leary), and
The Mohammed Code ("A terrifying book…the best book I've read on Islam."
David Swindle, PJ Media).
www.howardbloom.net
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University.
Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; Founder, Space Development
Steering Committee; Founder: The Group Selection Squad; Founding Board
Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project;
Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of
Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American
Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and
Evolution
Society, International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board
Member, Lifeboat Foundation; Editorial Board Member, Journal of Space
Philosophy; Board member and member of Board of Governors, National Space
Society.
In a message dated 1/16/2016 11:48:34 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
lo...@physics.utoronto.ca writes:
Stan et al - you honour me by asking the question. We know that matter
(and here I do not include dark matter or dark energy) is made up of a small
number of quarks and gluons. As we go higher and higher energy we will
continue to create these "freaks of nature" freaks in the sense that we create
the conditions for them to come into existence using our high energy
colliders. I am sure they sometimes occur naturally in stars from time to time
but
they do not have any long term effects - they are a passing fancy, a
novelty, and an amusing one at that. Perhaps they will help us understand the
quark gluon interaction. The analogy I see with the transition from
prokaryotes to eukaryotes that I sent to Malcolm was my indulging in
scientific
based poetry. BTW I teach an undergrad course since 1971 called the Poetry of
Physics (also the title of a book available on Amazon) to teach physics to
humanities students without using math to promote science literacy among
humanists.
Another analogy that came to mind was that of proliferation of nucleic
acids made up of the same 4 elements: C, G, A, and T. They are the quarks of
biology and their chemical bonds the gluons.
Metaphorically your - Bob Logan
__
Robert K. Logan
Prof. Emeritus - Physics - U. of Toronto
Fellow University of St. Michael's College
Chief Scientist - sLab at OCAD
http://utoronto.academia.edu/RobertKLogan
_www.physics.utoronto.ca/Members/logan_
(http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/Members/logan)
_www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Logan5/publications_
(http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Logan5/publications)
On 2016-01-16, at 10:33 AM, Stanley N Salthe wrote:
One way to complicate anything is to smash it into bits. I wonder, Bob,
if you would comment on this point as a former particle physicist!
STAN
On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 11:13 PM, Malcolm Dean <_malcolmdean@gmail.com_
(mailto:malcolmd...@gmail.com) > wrote:
Yes. I don't know enough about Biology, but I noticed the 3+2 business
some time ago. I'm automatically suspicious of theories which are "vexingly
complex" (QCD) and only "beautiful" (String Theory) to a few people with
certain math backgrounds. But the Two and the Three have been important to
humans for thousands of years. I think Nature is actually very simple, but we
get overwhelmed and confused by its enormous scales and by our attempts to
manage observation by (necessarily) creating over-simplified Objects.
M.
Malcolm Dean
Member, _Higher Cognitive Affinity Group, BRI_
(http://www.bri.ucla.edu/research/affinity-groups/higher-cognitive-function-in-neural-integration-affinit
y-group)
Research Affiliate, _Human Complex Systems, UCLA_
(http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Malcolm_Dean)
Member, _BAFTA/LA_ (http://baftala.org/)
On _Google Scholar_
(http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZopY3eQJ=en)
On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at
Re: [Fis] January Lecture--Information and the Forces of History
Pedro,
re: Do we need a new interpretation of history, info based?
hb: we definitely need a few new tools with which to see the patterns of
history. whether those patterns are informational or not, I'm not sure. I
lean toward the tools you cite, the ones emerging from biology.
superorganism, ideas, and the pecking order, for example, come from
evolutionary
biology. so do hormonal interpretations of history, some of which are in my
books.
the real challenge is in the puzzle you pose: how do we make insights
that come from "inspiration and metaphor" more rigorous. one tiny
suggestion. forget mathematics. it has been consistently misleading in the
realm of
the living.
instead look at the example of darwin. darwin used a metaphor--the sort
of selection a pigeon breeder uses to achieve new characteristics. he
imagined nature as the picky, choosy selector, not the pigeon breeder. so he
called his metaphor "natural selection."
yet he used not a single equation. the validity of his metaphor was
judged by the number of facts it explained. and by the extent to which facts
fit into another of his tools, one his grandfather had pioneered, an
evolutionary story, a timeline, that began with a big bang (his grandfather's
starting point) and worked its way up to the present.
if the timeline fit the facts and the facts fit the timeline, the timeline
was worth employing as a tool. in the 157 years since Darwin's
publication of On the Origin of Species, more and more facts have fit. And
more and
more predictions based on the timeline have proven true.
I'd suggest the same approach to concepts like the secular trio of the
forces of history, the unholy trinity of the lucifer principle: superorganism,
ideas, and the pecking order. the pecking order, in fact, can be traced
back to hierarchies within atoms 380,000 years after the big bang and to the
hierarchies within galaxies and solar systems 400 million years after the
big bang.
emergent group identities, the pre-biotic equivalent of superorganisms, can
be traced back to the first quark trios in the initial 10(-32) of a second
of the cosmos existence, and to the first galaxies, solar systems, stars,
and planets.
replicators are totally unique to life. and ideas are totally unique to
minds.
my insistence on finding the basic patterns in the abiotic cosmos that
reappear in the forces of history is my humble attempt to do a darwin--to see
what basic organizing principles emerge from the timeline of the cosmos'
existence, from the big bang to what you and i are doing at this minute in our
exchange.
information may or may not be a primary tool of this understanding. but
surely communication, which has been around from the instant when the first
quarks precipitated from a speeding, expanding space-time manifold 10(-32)
seconds into the cosmos' existence, is crucial.
which puts us back to where we left off in my previous email: does
abiotic communication qualify as information? and if it is disqualified, are
those performing the disqualification weakening the potential explanatory
power of their chosen discipline?
with warmth and oomph--howard
Howard Bloom
Author of: The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post),
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st
Century ("reassuring and sobering"-The New Yorker),
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("A
tremendously enjoyable book." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The
Atlantic),
The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock
your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
How I Accidentally Started the Sixties ("Wow! Whew! Wild!
Wonderful!" Timothy Leary), and
The Mohammed Code ("A terrifying book…the best book I've read on Islam."
David Swindle, PJ Media).
www.howardbloom.net
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University.
Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; Founder, Space Development
Steering Committee; Founder: The Group Selection Squad; Founding Board
Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project;
Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of
Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American
Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and
Evolution
Society, International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board
Member, Lifeboat Foundation; Editorial Board Member, Journal of Space
Philosophy; Board member and member of Board of Governors, National Space
Society.
In a message dated 1/13/2016 3:38:51 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es writes:
Thanks for the positive comment, Marcus. Actually there
Re: [Fis] January Lecture--Information and the Forces of History
good commentary, pedro. where do compassion and love--the archangel principle--fit into the lucifer principle? and why have groups progressed in complexity since the end of the last ice age eleven thousand years ago? to form a superorganism, a cohesive group, you need huge amounts of collaboration and cooperation. love is one cohesive force, one bonding element, one form of social glue. justice is another. justice resolves differences in the group without violence. justice is at work in chimpanzee societies, where new leaders are required to uphold the weak and the downtrodden and to settle disputes. if a new leader doesn't understand this imperative and is a mere bully, the females in the group oust him from power. justice is at work in !Kung San societies, where the days are devoted to hunting and gathering and the nights are devoted to story telling and dispute resolution. but where does the increasing complexity of human societies come from? humans are drawn to the sight of other humans. when architects in the 1960s tried to fashion contemplative spaces around office buildings so the buildings' inhabitants could get a touch of calm during lunch hours, it didn't work. the buildings' workers shunned the contemplative spots and sat on the buildings' outdoor steps. why? to watch the sight of other people going by on the sidewalk. we love the sight of others. and the more others, the better. from that impulse came cities. from that impulse came smartphones and facebook. but guess what? the more communication and the more information exchange, the more collaboration. and the richer and more long-distance that collaboration becomes. the more global. the more we communicate, the more group iq we add to the global brain. (the topic of my second book, Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century) one more thing. nature seems to have an inexorable itch for novelty. and we, nature's children, are novelty hunters too. from our itch for novelty comes, guess what? innovation. put innovation and increasing group size together and you get a long-term march forward, a march in which humans do the cosmos' work--helping her reinvent herself. helping her lift herself up the staircase of shock and creativity. the staircase of complexity. the staircase of the supersized surprise. with warmth and oomph--howard In a message dated 1/5/2016 12:23:57 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es writes: Dear Howard and Colleagues, Many thanks for your contribution! This is the third time we have a New Year Lecture, and the first one devoted to humanities. Well, to the "inhumanities" should I say, as what you have depicted succinctly with the Lucifer Principle describes the main evil that has been torturing human history. There are matters of detail to comment (as previous messages have already pointed out), but also of general perspective. First about the apparent simplicity. The LP scheme looks simple, too simple... but at the same time it may be powerful, really powerful in explanatory capabilities. I really do not particularly like any of the three components involved (super-organism, pecking order, meme/group-identity), and do not trust much about their respective "scientificity", but their combination is chilling. It reminds some of the Marxian strictures about class struggle, partially right but missing and transposing essential ingredients of human life. Presumably some more objectivity in this case --but also missing some counterpart, say the "Archangel Principle", that has confronted and resisted the solvent forces of the Luciferian complex and, in the long trend, supported the complexity growth of societies and improved their structural decency. With only the action of LP, history would not go beyond barbaric empires briefly raising from a mosaic of ever fighting tribes... That's plausible, and some parties may remind Tom Stonier in this list, late 90's I think, on warfare as part of the adaption scenario of human evolution. Then, what could be the AP "bright forces" of history that have counteracted LP? The Pantheon of politheistic cultures could give a hint... I venture to single out three components of AP: knowledge, justice, and the third... what about love/compassion? Anyhow, both the details of your LP scheme and the general canvas of human history need an informational perspective, we completely agree. And it is interesting that the whole trinity of LP have biological/informational origins; but disentangling the info physics from the info bios has not been done yet (and so your final comment is well intended but still confusing in my view). Let me ad, looking both at the achievements of our times and at the open intractable conflicts, that it is amazing the absence of a real
[Fis] January Lecture--Information and the Forces of History
The Force of History--Howard Bloom In 1995, I published my first book, The Lucifer Principle: a Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of history. It sold roughly 140,000 copies worldwide and is still selling. Some people call it their Bible. Others say that it was the book that predicted 9/11. And less than two months ago, on November 13, 2015, some current readers said it was the book that explained ISIS’ attacks on Paris. Why? What are the forces of history? And what do they have to do with information science? The Lucifer Principle uses evolutionary biology, group selection, neurobiology, immunology, microbiology, computer science, animal behavior, and anthropology to probe mass passions, the passions that have powered historical movements from the unification of China in 221 BC and the start of the Roman Empire in 201 BC to the rise of the Empire of Islam in 634 AD and that empire’s modern manifestations, the Islamic Revolutionary Republic of Iran and ISIS, the Islamic State, a group intent on establishing a global caliphate. The Lucifer Principle concludes that the passions that swirl, swizzle, and twirl history’s currents are a secular trinity. What are that trinity’ s three components? The superorganism, the pecking order, and ideas. What’s a superorganism? Your body is an organism. But it’s also a massive social gathering. It’s composed of a hundred trillion cells. Each of those cells is capable of living on its own. Yet your body survives thanks to the existence of a collective identity—a you. In 1911,_[i]_ (file:///C:/cnt/the%20new%20forces%20of%20history%20for%20pedro%20marijuna%20and%20the%20f oundations%20of%20information%20science%2012-24-2015.docx#_edn1) Harvard biologist William Morton Wheeler noticed that ant colonies pull off the same trick. From 20,000 to 36 million ants work together to create an emergent property, a collective identity, the identity of a community, a society, a colony, or a supercolony. Wheeler observed how the colony behaved as if it were a single organism. He called the result a “superorganism.”_[ii]_ (file:///C:/cnt/the%20new%20forces%20of%20history%20for%20pedro%20marijuna%2 0and%20the%20foundations%20of%20information%20science%2012-24-2015.docx#_edn 2) Meanwhile in roughly 1900, when he was still a child, Norway’s Thorleif Schjelderup Ebbe got into a strange habit: counting the number of pecks the chickens in his family’s flock landed on each other and who pecked whom. By the time he was ready to write his PhD dissertation in 1918, Ebbe had close to 20 years of data. And that data demonstrated something strange. Chickens in a barnyard are not egalitarian. They have a strict hierarchy. At the top is a chicken who gets special privileges. All others step aside when she goes to the trough. She is the first to eat. And she can peck any other chicken in the group. Then comes chicken number two. She is the second to eat. And she can peck anyone in the flock with one notable exception. She cannot peck the top chicken. Then comes chicken number three, chicken number four, and so on. Each one cannot peck the chickens above her on the social ladder. But each has free rein to peck the chickens below. Finally, there’s the bottom chicken, a chicken everyone is free to peck but who is free to peck no one. Ebbe called this a “peck order,” a pecking order, a dominance hierarchy. And in 1976, Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined two new terms._[iii]_ (file:///C:/cnt/the%20new%20forces%20of%20history%20for%20pedro%20marijuna%20and%20the%20foundations%20of%20information%20science%2012-24-2 015.docx#_edn3) He observed that biological life, all of it from bacteria to bathing beauties, depends on the evolution of what Dawkins called “ replicators,” molecules that can make copies of themselves. Then Dawkins spotted a newer kind of replicator at work. The first biological replicators— genes--did their thing in primordial puddles. The new replicator worked in a puddle of a radically different kind—the puddle of the human mind. Dawkins observed that we see replicators at work when our mind fixates on a song we hate and plays it over and over again, no matter how vigorously we wish it away. That song is using our mind to make more copies of itself. But the most important replicators in the soup of the human mind are not pop songs, they’re ideas. Dawkins called these mind-based replicators “memes.” Superorganism, the pecking order, and ideas—memes--that’s the holy trinity of The Lucifer Principle. That’s the holy trinity that drives the forces of history. Here’s how it works. Social groups compete. They battle for pecking order position in a hierarchy of groups. They strive to be at the top of that hierarchy and to avoid the fate of the chicken at the bottom. What’s the main thing over which
Re: [Fis] [Fwd: Re: Information is a linguistic description of structures]--T...
bob,
thanks for an extraordinary answer. riddled with extraordinary knowledge.
I've just bought your book from Amazon and it should be in my kindle
momentarily. if you'd like a copy of mine--The God Problem: How a Godless
Cosmos Creates--i can email it to you. and to anyone else on the FIS list who
wants it.
our books intersect. we both attempt to lay out new assumptions for
science.
most important, I agree with you and Terrence Deacon that our analysis of
information should not be limited to the metaphors of language, code, and
genomics. a metaphor is a tool. each metaphor opens a different trove of
insights. so the more metaphors--the more tools--the better.
with warmth and oomph--howard
Howard Bloom
Author of: The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post),
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st
Century ("reassuring and sobering"-The New Yorker),
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("A
tremendously enjoyable book." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The
Atlantic),
The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock
your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
How I Accidentally Started the Sixties ("Wow! Whew! Wild!
Wonderful!" Timothy Leary), and
The Mohammed Code ("A terrifying book…the best book I've read on Islam."
David Swindle, PJ Media).
www.howardbloom.net
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University.
Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; Founder, Space Development
Steering Committee; Founder: The Group Selection Squad; Founding Board
Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project;
Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of
Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American
Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and
Evolution
Society, International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board
Member, Lifeboat Foundation; Editorial Board Member, Journal of Space
Philosophy; Board member and member of Board of Governors, National Space
Society.
In a message dated 9/29/2015 10:44:26 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
u...@umces.edu writes:
Howard:
I applaud your critique of our legacy attempts to render life meaningful
in terms of what you call "necrophilia" and Hans Jonas has called an
"ontology of death".
In my last book, "A Third Window", I attempted to develop the metaphysics
of a process ecology of relationships as an alternative starting point.
I offer
some consequences in my talk at "Seizing an Alternative", which took place
back in June.
Having thus waxed ebullient over your insights, I nonetheless tend to
agree with Terry that discussion on communication or information should
not be confined to language or genomics. In fact, I would contend that
information should not be limited to association with communication. As
Stan Salthe contends, it is more generally tied to any form of constraint.
John Collier, for example, identifies such information as inheres in
structures as "enformation", and this form is readily quantifiable using
the information calculus of Shannon.
Such reckoning permits
us to develop an alternative phenomenology to the "dead objects moving
according to universal laws" attempts to apprehend life.
Re: [Fis] [Fwd: Re: Information is a linguistic description of structures]--T...
re: it is likely to be problematic to use language as the paradigm model
for all communication--Terrence Deacon
Terry makes interesting points, but I think on this one, he may be wrong.
Guenther Witzany is on to something. our previous approaches to
information have been what Barbara Ehrenreich, in her introduction to the
upcoming
paperback of my book The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates, calls
"a kind of unacknowledged necrophilia."
we've been using dead things to understand living things. aristotle put
us on that path when he told us that if we could break things down to their
"elements" and understand what he called the "laws" of those elements, we'd
understand everything. Newton took us farther down that path when he said
we could understand everything using the metaphor of the "contrivance," the
machine--the metaphor of "mechanics" and of "mechanism."
Aristotle and Newton were wrong. Their ideas have had centuries to pan
out, and they've led to astonishing insights, but they've left us blind to
the relational aspect of things. utterly blind.
the most amazing metaphor of relationality available to us is not math,
it's not mechanism, and it's not reduction to "elements," it's language. by
using the metaphor of a form of language called "code," watson and crick
were able to understand what a strand of dna does and how. without language
as metaphor, we'd still be in the dark about the genome.
i'm convinced that by learning the relational secrets of the body of work
of a Shakespeare or a Goethe we could crack some of the secrets we've been
utterly unable to comprehend, from what makes the social clots we call a
galaxy's spiral arms (a phenomenon that astronomer Greg Matloff, a Fellow of
the British interplanetary Society, says defies the laws of Newtonian and
Einsteinian physics) to what makes the difference between life and death.
in other words, it's time we confess in science just how little we know
about language, that we explore language's mysteries, and that we use our
discoveries as a crowbar to pry open the secrets of this highly contextual,
deeply relational, profoundly communicational cosmos.
with thanks for tolerating my opinions.
howard
Howard Bloom
Author of: The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post),
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st
Century ("reassuring and sobering"-The New Yorker),
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("A
tremendously enjoyable book." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The
Atlantic),
The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock
your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
How I Accidentally Started the Sixties ("Wow! Whew! Wild!
Wonderful!" Timothy Leary), and
The Mohammed Code ("A terrifying book…the best book I've read on Islam."
David Swindle, PJ Media).
www.howardbloom.net
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University.
Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; Founder, Space Development
Steering Committee; Founder: The Group Selection Squad; Founding Board
Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project;
Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of
Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American
Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and
Evolution
Society, International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board
Member, Lifeboat Foundation; Editorial Board Member, Journal of Space
Philosophy; Board member and member of Board of Governors, National Space
Society.
In a message dated 9/28/2015 11:47:26 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es writes:
>From Terry...
Original Message Subject: Re: [Fis] Information is a
linguistic description of structures Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2015 22:13:14
-0700 From: Terrence W. Deacon __
(mailto:dea...@berkeley.edu) To: Pedro C. Marijuan
__
(mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es) CC: Günther Witzany __
(mailto:witz...@sbg.at) , __
(mailto:fa...@howardbloom.net) , fis
__ (mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es) , Emanuel Diamant
__ (mailto:emanl@gmail.com) References:
_<000201d0f68c$77d02b50$677081f0$@gmail.com>_
(mailto:000201d0f68c$77d02b50$677081f0$@gmail.com)
_<0d34f6ef-19e6-4c9c-a9d3-aba4f5f2e...@sbg.at>_
(mailto:0d34f6ef-19e6-4c9c-a9d3-aba4f5f2e...@sbg.at)
_<56053208.2000...@aragon.es>_
(mailto:56053208.2000...@aragon.es)
As exemplified in Guenther's auxin example, and Pedro's worries about the
procrustean use of language metaphors in the discussion of
Re: [Fis] Information and Locality Introduction
In a message dated 9/11/2015 8:15:48 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es writes: Dear Steven and FIS colleagues, Many thanks for this opening text. What you are proposing about a pretty structured discussion looks a good idea, although it will have to confront the usually anarchic discussion style of FIS list! Two aspects of your initial text have caught my attention (apart from those videos you recommend that I will watch along the weekend). First about the concerns of a generation earlier (Shannon, Turing...) situating information in the intersection between physical science and engineering. The towering influence of this line of thought, both with positive and negative overtones, cannot be overestimated. Most attempts to enlarge informational thought and to extend it to life, economies, societies, etc. continue to be but a reformulation of the former ideas with little added value. See one of the last creatures: "Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies" (2015), by Cesar Hidalgo (prof. at MIT). In my opinion, the extension of those classic ideas to life are very fertile from the technological point of view, from the "theory of molecular machines" for DNA-RNA-protein matching to genomic-proteomic and other omics' "big data". But all that technobrilliance does not open per se new avenues in order to produce innovative thought about the information stuff of human societies. Alternatively we may think that the accelerated digitalization of our world and the cyborg-symbiosis of human information and computer information do not demand much brain teasing, as it is a matter that social evolution is superseding by itself. The point I have ocasionally raised in this list is whether all the new molecular knowledge about life might teach us about a fundamental difference in the "way of being in the world" between life and inert matter (& mechanism & computation)---or not. In the recent compilation by Plamen and colleagues from the former INBIOSA initiative, I have argued about that fundamental difference in the intertwining of communication/self-production, how signaling is strictly caught in the advancement of a life cycle (see paper "How the living is in the world"). Life is based on an inusitate informational formula unknown in inert matter. And the very organization of life provides an original starting point to think anew about information --of course, not the only one. So, to conclude this "tangent", I find quite exciting the discussion we are starting now, say from the classical info positions onwards, in particularly to be compared in some future with another session (in preparation) with similar ambition but starting from say the phenomenology of the living. Struggling for a convergence/complementarity of outcomes would be a cavalier effort. All the best--Pedro Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: > ...The subject is one that has concerned me ever since I completed my PhD in 1992. I came away from defending my thesis, essentially on large scale parallel computation, with the strong intuition that I had disclosed much more concerning the little that we know, than I had offered either a theoretical or engineering solution. > > For the curious, a digital copy of this thesis can be found among the reports of CRI, MINES ParisTech, formerly ENSMP, http://www.cri.ensmp.fr/classement/doc/A-232.pdf, it is also available as a paper copy on Amazon. > > Like many that have been involved in microprocessor and instruction set/language design, using mathematical methods, we share the physical concerns of a generation earlier, people like John Von Neumann, Alan Turing, and Claude Shannon. In other words, a close intersection between physical science and machine engineering. > > ...I will then discuss some historical issues in particular referencing Benjamin Peirce, Albert Einstein and Alan Turing. And finally discuss the contemporary issues, as I see them, in biophysics, biology, and associated disciplines, reaching into human and other social constructions, perhaps touching on cosmology and the extended role of information theory in mathematical physics... > > > ___ > Fis mailing list > Fis@listas.unizar.es > http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis > -- - Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA) Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ - ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] FIS newcomer
re: cognitive biology vs computational biology. may i suggest that you add yet one more approach to the list: linguistic biology. per the work of Guenther Witzany. also reflected in my book The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates. each approach uses a helpful metaphor. no one approach sees the elephant in its entirety. so please let us use all three. with oomph--howard -- Howard Bloom Howardbloom.net Author of: The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History (mesmerizing-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st Century (reassuring and sobering-The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism (A tremendously enjoyable book. James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates(Bloom's argument will rock your world. Barbara Ehrenreich), How I Accidentally Started the Sixties (“Wow! Whew! Wild! Wonderful!” Timothy Leary), and The Mohammed Code (“A terrifying book…the best book I’ve read on Islam.” David Swindle, PJ Media). Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University Founder: International Paleopsychology Project. Founder: The Group Selection Squad; Founder, Space Development Steering Committee. Board Member and Member Of Board Of Governors, National Space Society. Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution Society. Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project. Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab. Member: New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International Society for Human Ethology. Scientific Advisory Board Member, Lifeboat Foundation. Advisory Board Member, The Buffalo Film Festival. Editorial board member, The Journal of Space Philosophy. In a message dated 6/19/2015 9:22:14 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, emanl@gmail.com writes: Dear Jerry, Thank you for responding to my post. Thank you very much for an attempt to read and to understand my Vienna Symposium related publications. I apologize for a delay in my response – I was trying to read and to understand your papers (“Algebraic Biology” and “_Physical Foundations of Organic Mathematics”). Unfortunately, I did not understand much of what you are talking there (about biological computations)._ (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265238674_Physical_Foundations_of_Organic_Mathematics_(Abstra ct_August_26_2014)) _Never mind, it is my fault, not yours. To my shame, I often also do not understand what other people on the forum are writing too. _ (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265238674_Physical_Foundations_of_Organic_Math ematics_(Abstract_August_26_2014)) As to me, I think (and write) that the era of a computational approach to science and nature studies is over and we are gradually replacing it with a cognitive approach. (Computational biology, Computational ecology, Computational neuroscience, Computational genomics, Computational chemistry, Computational endocrinology, Computational intelligence, Computational linguistics and so on are now being replaced with Cognitive biology, Cognitive ecology, Cognitive neuroscience, Cognitive genomics, Cognitive endocrinology, Cognitive intelligence, Cognitive linguistics, and even Cognitive computing). By definition, computational approaches imply intensive data processing, while Cognitive approaches imply dedicated information processing. What is the difference? Unfortunately, FIS forum does not dwell on this issue. I was pleased to hear from Prof. Kun Wu (at his opening lecture in Vienna) that “By means of the reformation, all scientific and philosophical domains are facing an integrative trend of paradigm reform, which I name as “ informationalization of science”, (The quotation is from one of his presentation slides). As you can see, my assertions are very close to what Prof. Kun Wu claims, but far from what you (and other mainstream FIS contributors) obey and adhere to. I am a newcomer to FIS and I do not intend to preach in the others’ temple. But Prof. Kun Wu is one of the founding fathers of the Philosophy of Information. Therefore, it would be wise for you to be in an agreement with his postulates. Best regards, Emanuel Diamant. From: Jerry LR Chandler [mailto:jerry_lr_chand...@me.com] Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 8:42 PM To: Emanuel Diamant Subject: Re: [Fis] FIS newcomer Dear Emanuel: Thanks for posting your views on Research Gate. Interesting perspective, but... the essence of biology / biological computation are empirical observations that are highly irregular in nature. One must separate the concepts of structures
