[Fis] _ MODERATION NOTE

[pedro marijuan]

Participants are kindly reminded that only two messages per week are allowed. 
BlackBerry de movistar, allí donde estés está tu oficin@

-Original Message-
From: Louis H Kauffman 
Sender: Fis 
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2016 00:18:08 
To: fis
Cc: Søren Brier
Subject: [Fis] _ Re:  _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

Dear Soren,
Excellent!
What it amounts to is that you and I interpret all this a bit differently.
I am happy with Bateson’s unmarked states and his 
"All that is 
for the preacher
> The hypnotist, therapist and missionary
> They will come after me
> And use the little that I said
> To bait more traps
> For those who cannot bear
> The lonely
> Skeleton
>of Truth”
Best,
Lou


> On Apr 2, 2016, at 9:18 PM, Søren Brier  wrote:
> 
> Dear Lou
>  
> I did red these very nice metalogues, but these are not the philosophy of 
> science conceptual network underlying the real theory:
> For Bateson, mind is a cybernetic phe­nomenon, a sort of mental ecology. The 
> mental ecology relates to an ability to register differen­ces and is an 
> intrin­sic system property. The elementary, cyberne­tic system with its 
> messages in circuits is the simplest mental unit, even when the total system 
> does not include living organ­isms. Every living system has the following 
> charac­teristics that we generally call men­tal:
> 1. The system shall operate with and upon differences.
> 2. The system shall consist of closed loops or networks of path­ways a­long 
> which differ­ences and transforms of dif­fer­ences shall be trans­mitted. 
> (What is transmitted on a neuron is not an impulse; it is news of a 
> difference).
> 3. Many events within the system shall be energized by the respon­ding ­part 
> rather than by impact from the trig­gering part.
> 4. The system shall show self‑corrective­ness in the direc­tion of 
> home­ostasis and/or in the direction of runaway. Self-correc­tiveness implies 
> trial and error.
> (Bateson 1973: 458)
> 
> Mind is synonymous with a cybernetic system that is compri­sed of a total, 
> self-correc­ting unit that prepares infor­mation. Mind is imma­nent in this 
> wholeness. When Bateson says that mind is immanent, he means that the mental 
> is immanent in the entire system, in the complete message circuit. One can 
> therefore say that mind is immanent in the circuits that are complete inside 
> the brain. Mind is also immanent in the greater cir­cuits, which complete the 
> system “brain + body.” Finally, mind is imma­nent in the even greater system 
> “man + environ­ment” or - more generally - “orga­nism + environment,” which 
> is identical to the elementary unit of evo­lution, i.e., the thinking, acting 
> and deciding agent:
> The individual mind is immanent, but not only in the body. It is imma­nent 
> also in pathways and messages outsi­de the body; and there is a larger Mind, 
> of which the individual is only a subsystem. This larger Mind is com­parable 
> to God and is perhaps what some people mean by “God,” but it is still 
> immanent in the total inter-con­nec­ted social system and planetary ecology. 
> Freud­ian psychology expanded the concept of mind inward to in­clude the 
> whole communi­cation system within the body - the auto­nomic, the habitual 
> and the vast range of uncons­cious processes. What I am saying expands mind 
> outward. And both of these changes reduce the scope of the cons­cious self. A 
> certain humility becomes appropri­ate, tem­pered by the dignity or joy of 
> being part of something bigger. A part -- if you will -- of God.
> (Bateson 1973: 436-37).
> 
> Bateson’s cybernetics thus leads towards mind as immanent in both animate and 
> inanimate nature as well as in culture, because mind is essentially the 
> informational and logical pattern that connects everything through its 
> virtual recursive dynamics of differences and logical types. The theory is 
> neither idealistic nor materialistic. It is informational and 
> functionalistic[1] .Norbert Wiener (1965/1948) has an 
> objective information concept, which Bateson develops to be more relational 
> and therefore more ecological. He develops a cybernetic concept of mind that 
> includes humans and culture. Bateson’s worldview seems biological. He sees 
> life and mind as coexisting in an ecological and evolutionary dynamic, 
> integrating the whole biosphere. Bateson clearly sympathizes with the 
> etholo­gists (Brier 1993, 1995) when he resists the positivistic split 
> between the rational and the emotional in lan­guage and thinking that is so 
> important for cognitive science. He acknowledges emotions as an important 
> cognitive process:
> It is the attempt to separate intel­lect from emotion that is mons­trous, and 
> I suggest that it is equally monstrous -- and dangerous -- to attempt to 
> 

Re: [Fis] NEW DISCUSSION SESSION: THE BIOLOGIC

[pedro marijuan]

Thanks Bob, in a while Louis himself will send his kickoff text and 
presentation file (not me!) --Pedro


BlackBerry de movistar, allí donde estés está tu oficin@

-Original Message-
From: Bob Logan 
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2016 12:50:25 
To: PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ
Cc: fis
Subject: Re: [Fis] NEW DISCUSSION SESSION: THE BIOLOGIC

Please resend the attachment 


__

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
www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Logan5/publications










> On Mar 6, 2016, at 8:22 AM, PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ 
>  wrote:
> 
> Dear FISers and New Colleagues,
> 
> Louis H. Kauffman (Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer 
> Science, University of Illinois at Chicago) is going to start another short 
> discussion session, this time it will be focussed on the biologic. He will 
> concentrate on the relationships of formal systems and biology, "to consider 
> and reconsider philosophical and phenomenological points of view in relation 
> to natural science and mathematics."
> 
> If there is any trouble in his kickoff message with the attached presentation 
> (ineffable filters of Unizar server!) we would arbitrate some dropbox 
> solution, as we did in the previous session.
> 
> Best regards to all,
> 
> --Pedro
> fis list coordination
>  
> ___
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es 
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis 
> 

___
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] Answer to Mark. Phenomenology and Speculative Realism

[pedro marijuan]

Dear Plamen and colleagues, 

What you propose is an excellent initiative, besides the multidisciplinary 
nature of that compilation may inspire a genuine dialog on today's sciences and 
phenomenology.

As for Marcos' response, he is quite right (my hurried message was not very 
accurate with some wordings).

Best vacations to all,
--Pedro
BlackBerry de movistar, allí donde estés está tu oficin@

-Original Message-
From: Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com
Sender: Fis fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2015 09:54:44 
To: Loet Leydesdorffl...@leydesdorff.net
Cc: fisfis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] Answer to Mark. Phenomenology and Speculative Realism

Dear colleagues,

I think that this discussion about phenomenology, or better said
phenomenological philosophy, is essential, but may go in the wrong
direction. As for the common grounds that Loet addressed in his note, I
assume that some of us are continuing the path of Varela’s naturalisation
of phenomenology. If you are a bit patient, you can see the results of our
effort in this direction by the end of the year:

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/progress-in-biophysics-and-molecular-biology/call-for-papers/special-theme-issue-on-integral-biomathics-life-sciences-mat/

This special volume is a collection of 41 papers discussing the aspects of
phenomenological philosophy in mathematics, physics, biology and
biosemiotics, incl. FIS contributors (Marijuan, Matsuno, Marchal, Goranson)
and other prominent scientists representing their fields.

I suggest to continue this discussion next year on the grounds of this
volume.

Best wishes,

Plamen



On Sun, Aug 2, 2015 at 9:09 AM, Loet Leydesdorff l...@leydesdorff.net
wrote:

 Dear colleagues,



 Without wishing to defend Husserl, let me try to formulate what is
 according to my knowledge core to his contribution. The message is that the
 transcendental intersubjectivity is phenomenologically present in our
 reality. He therefore returns to Descartes' (much rejected) distinction
 between *res extensa* and *res cogitans*. Intersubjectivity is *res
 cogitans*. It is not being like in the Latin *esse*, but it remains
 reflexively available. Thus, we cannot test it. The philosophy of science
 which follows (in *The Crisis*) is anti-positivistic. The
 intersubjectivity is constructed and we live in these constructions.



 Descartes focused on the subjective *Cogito*. According to him, we meet
 in the doubting, the Other as not limited and biologically constrained,
 that is, God or the Transcendency. Husserl shifts the attention to the
 *cogitatum*: that about what we are in doubt. We no longer find a hold in
 Transcendency, but we find the other as other persons. Persons relate to
 one another not only in being, but also in terms of expectations. This
 was elaborated as dual contingency (among others, by Parsons). The
 dynamics of inter-personal expectations, for example, drive scholarly
 discourses, but also stock exchanges.



 Alfred Schutz was a student and admirer of Husserl, but he did not accept
 the Cartesian duality implied. He writes: As long as we are born from
 mothers ... He then developed sociological phenomenology (Luckmann and
 others), which begins with the meta-individual phenomena. This is close to
 Mannheim's position: one cannot analyze the content of the sciences
 sociologically, but only the manifestations. The strong program in the
 sociology of science (SSK: sociology of scientific knowledge) positioned
 that socio-cognitive interests can explain the substantive development of
 the sciences (Bloor, Barnes, and others) in the 1970s. It returns to a kind
 of materialism.



 Luhmann criticized Husserl for not taking the next step and to consider
 meaning (*Sinn*) as constructed in and by communication. In my opinion,
 this is an important step because it opens the realm of a communication
 theory based on interhuman interactions as different from basing theories
 (micro-foundationally) on human agency (e.g., the *homo economicus* or
 agent-based modelling). The communications can be considered as first-order
 attributes to agents; the analysis of communications is in terms of
 second-order attributes; for example, codes of communication. This is very
 much the domain of the information sciences (although Luhmann did not see
 this connection).



 In sum, “phenomenological” is sometimes used as an appeal to return to the
 phenomena without invoking explaining principles *a priori*. The
 question, however, remains whether our intuitions, imaginations, etc. are
 also part of this “reality”. Are they limited (constrained; enabled?) by
 material conditions or epi-phenomenological consequences of them? Husserl’s
 critique of the modern sciences was the reduction of the very concept of
 “reality” to *res extensa* (that what “is”). Derivatives of *esse* such
 as ontology dominate the scene. Shannon-type information, however, is the
 *expected* uncertainty in a 

[Fis] Concluding the Lecture!

[pedro marijuan]

Dear colleagues, this New Year Lecture is over. Our invitee will make his final 
statements and ALL should abide by the courtesy constraint of not replying 
further... Thanks Terry for all your informational work!  
Best--Pedro


BlackBerry de movistar, allí donde estés está tu oficin@

-Original Message-
From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith ste...@iase.us
Sender: Fis fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2015 11:38:17 
To: Foundations of Information Science of Information Science Information 
Information Sciencefis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Concluding the Lecture?

Dear list,

For clarity, below is the message that I sent to Terry offline, to which he
responded. Here are my final remarks.

The work presented by Terry uses a mixture of formal and informal terms
but, from my point of view, the work lacks rigor. This is highlighted in
the demand that constraints have no physical basis and is evident in the
discussion concerning dynamical constraint. The latter serves to
illustrate another complaint concerning word density and comfort.

A comfort in word juxtapositions is all very well if used, as it was by
Charles Peirce, for precise technical purposes, if an equation is not at
hand or is currently beyond statement. But something that Peirce required,
inherited from his loving father, was a demand for necessity. Recall that
for Benjamin and Charles mathematics is the science that draws necessary
conclusions from premises of any kind. If Charles were to put together
dynamic and constraint, for example, you can be sure that he specified
exactly what it is that is dynamic and specified exactly what a
constraint is.

In fairness, Terry has attempted to do this but, in my view, has failed. It
should be clear that constraints are not of themselves dynamic and they may
always be applied where degrees of freedom exist, though not exclusively.
It appears that the dynamic part of dynamical constraint refers not to
the constraint but to its object. Now, it may seem dumb to harp on this,
but I fail to see how the application of a constraint to anything at all,
dynamic or static, can be anything other than a posterior determinant.

A constraint, like natural selection, necessarily has a physical basis,
contrary to what was said, that is the physical basis of the constraint is
the physical system itself. It is one that allows the constraining
selection, the behavior, involved to take place. A posterior determinant
enforces a necessary partial order. And this is something for which we may
reasonably expect an equation.

Now, anyone familiar with Shannon will know that these ideas cannot fit
into Shannon's theory because Shannon deals with probability and
transmissions. Indeed, we would need to move from the abstraction of
communication to the necessity of apprehension where a more certain
language may be brought to task. To abstract constraints away from the
physical in any case, necessarily leads to dualism, and a blunt denial of
this does not help anyone. Although a well reasoned denial is always worth
listening to

In trying to understand the language use, I suggested that, perhaps, simple
notions such as YUK and YUM were thought of as constraints. In the case of
bacteria, YUK and YUM, for me, are not merely normative. They are
manifest behaviors of the physical organism structure. I can say, for
example, that this e-coli or that not only experiences YUM as it purses the
density of a sugar gradient but that the surface shapes that have formed
under its influence (and are refined by the insertion of latent receptors
and motor functions), and that may be described as bound holomorphic
functors (hyper-functors), are manifestations of the physical YUM.

Finally, I find the claims that any of us are taking information theory
beyond Shannon spurious.  Here I almost certainly diverge from many of my
colleagues who hold a nebulas information theory in such high regard and
like to mix it up with all the other things that use the term information
from the variety of European languages. It is fair for me to note, however,
that Shannon was a fine applied mathematician and if you wish to move
beyond Shannon, you must, at least, command that skill.

It seems to me however that a different skill is required to enable us to
extract ourselves from the senseless tangle into which we now all head.
This is the skill of Schlipp, Reichenbach or Carnap, rigorous epistemology,
without it there can be no hope for information theory of any kind of
unified science.

Regards,
Steven


My earlier message:
I am puzzled concerning your use of the phrase dynamical constraint and
your reference here to a dynamical organization for interpretation.  What
is it exactly that is dynamic?

Perhaps you mean to say that  the process of interpretation is dynamic and
that this process applies one or more static constraints. Such a constraint
would be, for example, YUK or YUM. This might be a view consistent with
that of 

[Fis] Informational Bookkeeping

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

A very interesting comment by Bob about energy as a bookkeeping device
in the other discussion track motivates these rough reflections.

Actually, within the culture of mechanics (following Frank Wilczek)
energy appears as the more reliable concept, beyond its cousins force
and mass. Mechanics, like most scientific theories, finally is but a
method to count upon variable aspects of simplified phenomena and
provide inter-subjective objectivity(?). Numbers are due to our mental
counting operations; and concepts, formulas and theories become
bookkeeping devices to obtain more complex counting that dovetail with
more complex phenomena. That our mental counting dovetails with nature's
pretended counting is what the experimental side of science tries to
establish. It becomes of great merit that energy constructs such as
those mentioned by Bob do their bookkeeping accurately, in spite of
their intrinsic limitations.

My concern with the views expressed in the other track is that
informational bookkeeping appears to be rather different from the
mechanical physical bookkeeping or counting. There are new aspects not
covered by the extensive and inflexible mechanical-dynamic counting,
and which are essential to the new informational organizations we are
discovering --and practicing around-- and to the new worldview that
presumably we should search and promote. Is there bookkeeping in life?
Do molecules count? Do bacteria or unicellulars bookkeep--and organisms?
And complex brains? And individuals? And social groups? And companies
and markets? And cities, regions and countries?

Admittedly it is a potpourri; but yes, there are some clear instances
where quite explicit a bookkeeping is maintained. It may be about
signaling flows, about self production stuff flows, or about their
inextricable mixing--involving whatever aspects. But these bookkeepings
are made with attentional flexibility and different closure
procedures that allow for new forms of compositional hierarchy
(informational) not found in the mechanical. They are adaptive, they
recognize, they are productively engaged in life cycles where the
meaning is generated, they co-create new existential realms... In our
own societies, the  exaggerated importance of new informational devices
(historically: numbers, alphabets, books, calculi, computers, etc.)
derives from their facilitation and acceleration of all the enormous
bookkeeping activities that subtend the social complexity around.

Who knows, focusing on varieties of bookkeeping might be quite productive!

best ---Pedro


*Pedro C. Marijuán Fernández*
Dirección de Investigación

Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud (IACS)
Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Aragón (IIS Aragón)
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta 1
50009 Zaragoza
Tfno. +34 976 71 4857
email. dirinvestigacion.i...@aragon.es
mailto:dirinvestigacion.i...@aragon.es
www.iacs.aragon.es

___
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis

[Fis] concluding the session season greetings

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

It is time to put a formal end to the ongoing information and meaning 
session, and return to the freewheeling mode. Let us thank Bob for his 
thoughtful Introduction and responses...


As usual, during these weeks, we will have the Xmas pause, and then will 
wait for 2008 novelties.


Cordial greetings/ Merry Christmas

Pedro

--







  )))
   @(o  o)@
 +oOO---( )---OOo+
 |  FIS  |
 |   SEASON GREETINGS   |
 |  and |
 |A HAPPY  2008 NEW  YEAR|
 |  |
 +-.oooO---Oooo.-+
 \( )  ( )/
  ( )  ( )
   _/
_/ _/
_/ _/ _/ _/
  _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
  _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
  _/ _/ _/
   _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
   _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
   _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
  _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
   _/ _/_/
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
 _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/
 _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
   _/ _/ _/
   _/ _/ _/
   _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
  _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/
   _/ _/ _/ _/
___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] An invitation

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Bob,

Many thanks for the info on your splendid book. Let me pen a couple of 
brief aspects related to the publisher description:


At 03:27 27/11/2007, you wrote:

Building on his previous study, The Sixth Language (2000), and making use 
of emer-gence theory, Logan seeks to explain how language emerged to deal 
with the complexity of hominid existence brought about by toolmaking, 
control of fire, social intelligence, coordinated hunting and gathering, 
and mimetic communication. The resulting emergence of language, he argues, 
signifies a fundamental change in the functioning of the human mind – a 
shift from percept-based thought to concept-based thought.


Agreed, but could it be expressed, tentatively, through Joaquin Fuster's 
(2003) conceptualization of cognits rather than percepts? Given than 
thought may be driven both from the perceptual and the motor sides (one 
needs, wants, imagines to do some action), it looks more cogent to state 
that the pre-sapiens mind just handles the cognits, either perceptual or 
motor ones...


In addition Logan shows how, according to this model, culture itself can 
be treated as an organism that has evolved to be easily attained, 
revealing the universality of human culture as well as providing an 
insight as to how altruism might have originated. Bringing timely insights 
to a fascinating field of inquiry, The Extended Mind will be of interest 
to readers in a wide range of disciplines.


Maybe yes originally --but how does this vision deal with the complexity 
growth? Quite many heterogeneous layers pile up inside cultures, as 
societies get more and more complex... Then the divergences may get 
exacervated and hide that universality which I agree has to be emphasized. 
Most of moder and postmodern cultural discouse is built precisely on the 
absence of a concomitant universality of human nature.


Good luck with the book!

Pedro
=
Pedro C. Marijuán
Cátedra SAMCA
Institute of Engineering Research of Aragon (I3A)
Maria de Luna, 3. CPS, Univ. of Zaragoza
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762761 and 762707, FAX (34) 976 762043
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
= ___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] info meaning

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

What if meaning is equivalent to zero?

I mean, if we backtrack to the origins of zero, we find those obscure 
philosophers related to Buddhism in India, many centuries ago (Brahmagupta, 
600 ad). It was something difficult to grasp, rather bizarre, the fruit of 
quite a long and winding thought, and frankly not of much practicity. Then 
after not many developments during a few centuries, another scholar in 
central Asia (al-Kwarismi) took the idea and was able to algorithmize the 
basic arithmetic operations. Mathematics could fly... and nowadays any 
school children learns and uses arithmetics  algebra so easily.


The idea is that if we strictly identify (we zero on) meaning as a 
biological construct, work it rigorously for the living cell as a tough 
problem of systems biology (and not as a flamboyant autopoiectic or 
autogenic or selftranscence doctrines of Brahmaguptian style), then we work 
for a parallel enactive action/perception approach in neuroscience, and 
besides pen a rigorous view in social-economic setting under similar 
guidelines --and also find the commonalities with quantum computing and 
information physics...  finally information science will fly.


Otherwise, if we remain working towards the other direction, the 
undergrounds of zero downwards, we will get confined into bizarre, 
voluminous, useless discussions  doctrines on information. Cellular 
meaning is our zero concept: we should go for it.


best

Pedro



  


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] Re: info meaning

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

Answering to a couple of Jerry's questions,


Under what circumstances can the speaker's meaning or the writer's meaning 
be _exact_?


Is _meaning_ a momentary impulse with potential for settling into a local 
minimum in the biochemical dynamic?


A previous point could be---what entities are capable of elaborating that 
obscure item we call meaning? Just anything (eg, some parties have stated 
that molecules or atoms may communicate), or only the living beings?


My understanding of what Bob has proposed along the POE guideliness is that 
only the living cell would be capable --and of course, all the further more 
complex organisms.  This point is of some relevance.


After decoding and interpretation of the organic codes, the meaning of my 
message about meaning and information may have meaning to you.


Maybe. But I suffer some information overload (perhaps overload is just 
the incapablity to elaborate meaning under the present channels or means of 
communication).


best

Pedro
=
Pedro C. Marijuán
Cátedra SAMCA
Institute of Engineering Research of Aragon (I3A)
Maria de Luna, 3. CPS, Univ. of Zaragoza
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762761 and 762707, FAX (34) 976 762043
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
= ___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] info meaning

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Bob and colleagues,

Thanks for the scholarly work. It was nice reading the vast landscape, 
historical and otherwise, you have covered around that new biotic 
interpretation of information as Propagating Organization or POE. Perhaps 
in this list we have already arrived to a truce on Shannonian matters 
--notwithstanding a general agreement with your criticisms on that respect, 
the problem may be a lack of interesting alternative generalizations, 
inclusive enough so that the Shannonian theory gets its proper place as a 
great theory of communication and as a great theory of physical structures 
(in the guise of physical information theory) and also as a great theory 
in data analysis.


Thus I am sympathetic with integrative quests such as POE, but given that 
disagreeements are usually the most valuable stuff for discussions, I would 
raise the following points:


 --1. Constraints and boundary conditions are conflated (see below), with 
some more emphasis on the former. Thus, taking into account that most 
chemical constraints are in the form of activation energies and free 
energies which establish the kinetics of the multitude of chemical 
reactions and molecular transformations in the cell, How this heterogeneous 
collection of variables and parameters may receive a form of global 
treatment as POE seems to imply? I have seen no hints in the paper.


 ...we defined a new form of information, which we called instructional 
or biotic information, not with Shannon, but with constraints or boundary 
conditions. The amount of information will be related to the diversity of 
constraints and the diversity of processes that they can partially cause 
to occur.



2. The statement below is ambiguous. E. Coli for instance may contain in 
the order of 1 or 2 million molecules (different from water) of 5,000 or 
10,000 different classes. The amount of Shannon info is far, far higher in 
the living soup than any inorganic soup.


...This contradicts Shannon’s definition of information and the notion 
that a random set or soup of organic chemicals has more Shannon 
information than a structured and organized set of organic chemicals found 
in a living organism.



3. The origins of life (implicit in the text below) must be explained not 
just by means of some formal approach more or less interesting, but by 
means of the highest power or upper hand in science: the experimental. I 
remember during late 80's and early 90's how different approaches in 
artificial life were claiming explaining away the logical part of the 
bio matter (Langton, conspicuously) and being able to put it into the 
computer cavalierly...


 Kauffman (2000) has described how this organization emerges through 
autocatalysis as an emergent phenomenon with properties that cannot be 
derived from, predicted from or reduced to the properties of the 
biomolecules of which the living organism is composed and hence provides 
an explanation of where biotic information comes from.





4. Going back to MacKay (distinction that makes a difference) to 
readdress the Shannonian overextension, looks a very nice note to me. 
Independently I had posted here in this list a few years ago an approach to 
info as distinction on the adjacent. The term distinction was following 
some previous work in the logics of multidimensional partitions as 
discussed by Karl (also in this list).


5. The info analysis of life might demand a few other info categories. 
Three info genera were discussed years ago by myself and other 
patries---structural, generative, communicational. It would be too long a 
discussion, the matter may be that bioinformational approaches are a very 
promising avenue to offer more integrated approaches to the info 
phenomenon. However, another exciting avenue is information physics / 
quantum information. Without discarding breakthroughs in other fields, 
these two branches may provide the basics of a new info perspective, say.


6. In the approach to cultures and societies (in the paper), I think we 
have to recognize a black hole in the territories of the neurosciences. We 
may call it human nature, theory of mind, central theory of the 
neurosciences or whatever. But without filling that void, it is very 
probable that the info synthesis above mentioned could not occur.


Anyhow, we have also the info overload theme of weeks ago. Quite a bit!

best regards

Pedro

=
Pedro C. Marijuán
Cátedra SAMCA
Institute of Engineering Research of Aragon (I3A)
Maria de Luna, 3. CPS, Univ. of Zaragoza
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762761 and 762707, FAX (34) 976 762043
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
= ___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

[Fis] ANNOUNCING THE 12th SESSION

[Pedro Marijuan]

Announcing the 12th FIS Discussion Session:


ON INFORMATION AND MEANING
   The Relativity of Information and Its Relationship to Materiality, 
Meaning and Organization





Chaired by:

Robert K. Logan
Professor Emeritus
Department of Physics
University of Toronto

-


The session will start this very weekend.

greetings to all---Pedro

___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

[Fis] More introductions to the FIS list

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

It was nice seeing these artistic oriented presentations (including Stan's! 
--I sort of remember having read a few years ago an elegant poem of him on 
entropy... am I right?). Hopefully, more people of the list will venture 
into this humanistic arena these vacation weeks. Thanks a lot to Bob for 
his stuff and for his recommendation of that very interesting 
neuroarcheologist (the invitation will be sent next days). I have also 
introduced the exchange that contained Joseph Brenner's self-introduction 
(as it was of general interest, and we usually re-enter these bilateral 
messages into the general list unless people explictly states the 
opposite). Besides, Joe's reference to the Trancoso meeting was important, 
as a mixed community of artists and scientists is taking form around that 
city, propelled by composer and architect Emanuel Pimenta, and some new 
projects launched there may be very relevant (let me mention the low power 
society theme by Giorgio Alberti, architect and consultant from 
Switzerland, newcomer to our list too).


New parties should remind that only two messages per week are allowed, and 
that unfortunately the spam filters may temporarily block their messages to 
the list (always to be addressed to fis@listas.unizar.es). If so, it is 
better not to insist, as these are Bayesian filters and may get tougher 
concerning your address/server. Myself or any other fis member may re-enter 
the rejected message. If the blocking persists, tell me, and an officier of 
the computing center here will grant an special clearance or carte 
blanche but only on a case by case basis. Well,  this is a slow list, 
promoting quiet thinking, and these nuisances my be taken with a little bit 
of patience...


best regards

Pedro

___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] FIS mailing list

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

At 12:08 27/06/2007, you wrote:
 Though I am interested in the logic and evolution of cooperation in 
living systems in general, the special focus of my thesis is directed 
towards human social systems and the role that technology plays in the 
unfolding of cooperative action structures therein...



Commenting on Mattias' above, we take for granted the existence of a wide 
variety of communication structures in human societies, and the permanent 
urge to create new ones. Actually most of, if not all, the social networks 
we discussed in the session on social complexity are realized throughout 
communicational devices. The very intriguing point, in my view, relates to 
what they are exchanging: close to nothing for McLuhan (the medium is the 
message, although originally it was the massage as was pointed by some 
party herein this list, time ago) we merely substitute among media 
contents; or what is at stake relates to the very happenstances of 
individual life cycles in their endless formation of coalitions, 
partitions, games, etc. appropriately coded into symbolic items. Roughly 
speaking, we might elaborate the specific forms of social meaning by 
following different disciplinary rules along both ends of the 
communicational process.


What brings to another problem area interesting for FIS approach: the 
integrative problem of disciplines. Why sientific integration cannot be 
obtained as a mere reverse from scientific analysis, as Rober Rosen pointed 
out?   Why the basic canonic disciplines do form multiple combinations of 
inter-, multi-, pluri-, trans-disciplinary structure? The response could be 
that they do that in order to obtain new sources of meaning beyond the 
reach of the single discipline...  Somehow, the trans-disciplinary problem 
(or whatever we call it) is also associated to the above conundrums of 
information in its social acceptation.


But maybe it is not much related to Mattias' points --or is it?

best regards

Pedro

best regards

Pedro
___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] about fis discussions (2)

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

We have had a couple of self-introductions these two days, Robin and 
Javier. It may be a good idea that other parties recently arrived into the 
list follow this trend, and introduce themselves during these weeks of lull.


Actually I agree, but partially, in what Robin states:

 I believe that the philosophical problem of meaning can and should be 
clearly distinguished from the question what is information? The 
concept of form is, I think, more fundamental than that of distinction: 
both distinctions and similarities are formal features. Information 
concerns similarities as well as differences.


Form is a fascinating concept and other fis-parties have defended it, or in 
a similar vein (eg, see John Holgate). The historical tradition of 
Aristotle and Cicero is a strong support too. My opinion is that Michael 
Leyton process grammar may be the best formal encapsulation of this 
approach nowadays. However, I keep arguing in favor of exploring 
distinction on the adjacent (sorry for the typo in my last message, as I 
wrote from; besides, ugly big fonts entered spuriously into the text). 
Distinction is taken here mostly a la Karl (with those pesky differences!) 
and becomes a praeludium to meaning --no meaning without distinctions-- 
perhaps implying the need of a new approach to logics, quite probably. 
Adjacency, on the other side, is mostly topological, and becomes a 
praeludium to communication. By establishing information channels, new 
adjacencies are open to the subject, so to speak breaking the existing 
structure of time  space around... let us think on the biological drive on 
communication  (sorry if this is too schematic, a serious reflection on 
communication is needed and may be quite intriguing too).


In several previous discussions, mostly on sustainable development,  we 
have superficially approached info in the economy, and now considering 
directly the business world as Javier presents, it may be a topic for 
future exchanges too: the informational company. For instance, structures 
of human communication within a small, medium, big size company; or 
consequences of the interface man/machine.


Ted's challenges on strategy and organization are still there, but I have a 
trip for several days and cannot continue with a long message.


best regards

Pedro

PS. Those parties posting into the list through my own address cannot send 
their messages to me during the rest of this week ---they can send through 
anyone else who has directly posted into the list. 


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] about fis discussions (2)

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

Thanks a lot for the responses. It is nice that we will have a good theme 
to deal with during these months of lull (the planned sessions will start 
around beginings of September)...  Ted has made a very valiant presentation 
on fundamental aspects of our strategy. Time will tell how can we cope with 
the changes and the new possibilities (Marcin's was quite right: we should 
open the teaching front too--a very good suggestion for the planned 
Institute). Koichiro has referred in an elegant Taoist way to the need of 
considering both our glue and our solvent, like in the molecular 
workings of life itself, otherwise we would not play good adaptation games. 
And John's reference to the theoretical compilation of Scott Muller could 
suggest a future discussion session on theoretical approaches to 
information, where several parties may finally produce more formally 
elaborated visions: or could it be better in a small “real” meeting?


Continuing with Ted's, perhaps we are far from a critical mass in several 
areas of importance (e.g., quantum, biomolecular, neuronal, social sci.) 
and although we are getting closer and closer to a theoretical breakthrough 
of importance (with very exciting repercussions in a variety of fields) 
that has not happened yet, at least in my opinion. So, patience, and let us 
continue with the regular toil. In particular, ideas for growth in those 
weak areas are needed. Usually, discussion sessions themselves have been a 
way to attract very interesting parties and even small groups (the case of 
Entropy).


The problem-based approach Ted suggests may be very promising. Problems 
well posed are real treasures in science. But arriving to a collection of 
such well-posed problems and questions may be even more difficult that 
solving them. Anyhow, my own sketch of strategic areas potentially full of 
those treasures could include:


Quantum Information (the bit versus the it)

Molecular Recognition (molecular info  complexity)


Biomolecular Embodiment of Meaning (informational cell-core theory)



The Theory of Mind (sensorimotor cognits, logics)

The Integrative Problem (informational dynamics of sci. disciplines)

And a separate chapter should be open for Information in the Social Realm, 
as perhaps it is the biggest world in itself (social organization, social 
complexity, informational economics, ecological economics, information in 
enterprises and institutions, sustainable development, science and society, 
social education, social use of knowledge, informational role of arts, and 
of values, ethics, morals and religions, not to speak of world order…).


Perhaps we have not achieved a clear demarcation from “mechanics” yet, 
theoretically speaking. And that may be another serious problem in itself. 
In what is different the “informational” from the “mechanical”? Or in my 
own terms: “Distinction from the Adjacent” versus  “Force from the 
Adjacent” ?… The big one, the breakthrough really propelling our whole 
field, may come from any of the above problem-areas or from some obscure 
lateral-theoretical question we are pertinaciously ignoring.


Best regards

Pedro  ___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] about fis discussions

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

About the approaches to the information concept commented by Karl, Loet, 
John, and Stan, let me argue that some of them have a rather narrow 
conceptual domain of applicability. In Karl's approach I have already 
argued that his highly suggestive conflation of the sequential vs. the 
simultaneous in order to define formally information should be accompanied 
by an agreeement (an in depth discussion) of the technical problem on how 
to count multidimensional partitions. Morris, Pastor, and me had found 
years ago some discrepancy regarding the heuristic formula he has developed 
...a few things might be different, and perhaps even more interesting. 
Well, it may seem strange, but Michael Leyton's approach based on group 
theory could be in close vicinity of the formal structures in Karl's. 
Anyhow, the pitty is that discussimg this on the Internet is a pain of the 
neck (we should have had a small ad hoc seminar during the Paris conference!).


My own track is based on the need to accomodate quite many new 
observations, mostly in molecular biology  neuroscience, that cannot be 
situated within the existing conceptualizations, apart from leaving the 
immediate problem of meaning in the dark, concerning its 
biological-material underpinng. So I proposed last year, in this list, 
exploring the scope of an alternative conceptualization of information as 
distinction on the adjacent... given that both terms are too heavily 
loaded, I stop here and leave the matter for future discussions (of course, 
the underlying reflection is that it is far more than a single concept what 
we are trying to clarify during all these years in this list: the quest for 
a consistent new perspective or disciplinary body around information).


best regards

Pedro

___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

[Fis] about fis discussions

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

During last five years we have had quite many discussion sessions in a row 
(for the new parties arrived recently, there are a couple of web sites 
where messages are systematically archived--see below). As suggested by 
some discussants, having some long pause was needed --particularly by 
myself. During this interim, a refurbishing of the web pages has been 
planned, and also some way to organize the discussion topics, including the 
formation of a fis board. Well, we will see how things result but, in any 
case, the list should maintain its peculiar exploratory freedom and 
spontaneity.


Ideas for next sessions will be very welcome. Preferably, proposed topics 
have to be accompanied by an invitee external to the list (we need 
novelty!) acting as a chair of the session and producing the kickoff text, 
with maybe a fis member accompanying as co-chair.


Fifteen years from now FIS started its public activities. Michael Conrad 
and me, with the cooperation of Koichiro Matsuno and Tom Stonier, had 
attempted a conference in Toledo (Spain) for the summer of 1992, and a 
couple of preparatory newsletters on foundations of information science 
were circulated in photocopies (with curious contributions of people like 
Ramon Margalef, Gordon Scarrott, Rick Welch, Fernando Carvalho, etc.). 
Finally, we got our first FIS conference in Madrid in 1993, thanks to the 
involvement of Fivos Panetsos.  And the rest of the story can be followed 
more or less in scholarly literature and the webs. During these years it 
was sad that Gordon, Tom, Michael and Ray passed away...  great scientists, 
and great persons.


Well, we are now close to 170 in the list, and a Science of Information 
Institute promoted by some fis members is almost ready to start public 
activities. Indeed a reflection on FIS itself would be convenient at the 
time being, and probably it will take place amongst the next sessions (but 
freewheeling comments on our enterprise can be posted perfectly during this 
pause).


Overall, with more than 2700 messages exchanged and half dozen real and 
e-conferences convened, we have done a pretty intense collective work 
during all these years. However, it is amazing that the fundamental 
question of What is Information? has kept its freshness and initial appeal 
almost intact!


cordial regards

Pedro

http://webmail.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/
http://fis.icts.sbg.ac.at/mailings/  ___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

[Fis] Social Complexity: concluding comments

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS collegues,

It was not possible for Joe sending his concluding comments to the session 
(at the time being he is involved in several trips and in general has been 
caught in a real avalanche of work these months). So, we have talked during 
this session, as usual, on a number of disconnected themes and have 
obtained not much sustance... apparently. Let me express myself in rather 
literary terms, and epitomize that social complexity appears as the highest 
archetype regarding any conceivable form of complexity. Thus it might well 
be the last informational theme to master --or maybe the first one. The new 
conceptual alignment to promote around informational discussions somehow 
reminds the historical battle of the books. The present social 
integration of science and the development of collective intelligence among 
disciplines was historically caught under the wings of the Enlightment (let 
us remind an obscure discussion we had on E.O. Wilson and his Ionian 
Enchantment years ago). Readdressing the Enlightment's error could be a 
polemic-minded literary label for the socio-cultural aspects of info 
science, for a new understanding of the globalized society and its new/old 
complexity networks.


Joe will send in next months a far more appropriate concluding comment!

best regards

Pedro

___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

[Fis] collective mind

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

An additional aspect of social complexity, not much focused in general, is 
the group capability to transcend individual limitations. Collective 
intelligence, collective mind, is what results from the ability of 
individuals to influence and be influenced by others, allowing them to 
expereince an effective range of perception much larger than their actual 
sensory range. I am following here a recent essay (Couzin, 2007), 
developing the argument that coherent social interactions allow (animal) 
groups to function like an integrated self-organizing array of sensors, 
again increasing effective perceptual range... this way of thinking holds 
clues about the evolution of social complexity and for the development of 
novel technological solutions (e.g., software agents in data environments, 
robotic navigation). In congruence with the notion of information as 
distinction on the adjacent, one can note that this coherent social 
networking (the emergence of collective minds) revolves about changing 
dramatically the adjacency of individuals...


best

Pedro   


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

RE: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Thanks, Stan and others.

Very briefly, I was thinking on the economy (together with most of social 
structure) as the arrows or bonds that connect the nodes of 
individuals. Take away the arrows, the bonds, and you are left with a mere 
swarm of structureless, gregarious individuals. Change the type of 
connectivity, you get markets, planned economies, mixed ones, etc. Thus, 
very roughly, in the evolution of social bonds I see a trend toward more 
complex and info-entropic social structures: far less strong bonds, far 
more weak bonds. Curiously, these complex societies also devour far more 
energy and produce far more physical entropy (both types of entropies seem 
to go hand with hand)... Well, and what are finally those social bonds 
but information?


best regards

Pedro

PS. I would not quite agree with Pattee's view of constraints...

At 23:28 01/03/2007, you wrote:

Guy -- Yes, you are right.  But I was reacting to Pedro's The realm of
economy is almost pure information.  Some aspects of an economy must be
seen to be dynamics, not just all of it pure constraints (here I reference
Pattee's 'dynamics / constraints' dichotomy).  It is during the dynamics
that physical entropy is produced.  Of course, informational entropy will
certainly be magnified in the constraint realm of an economy.  As well, in
order to set up constraints, dynamical activities would have to be
undertaken.

Then Pedro asked:

On the second track, about hierarchies and boundary conditions, shouldn't
we distinguish more clearly between the latter (bound. cond.) and
constraints?
  S: Basing my views on Pattee's general distinction between dynamics
and constraints, the relation between constraint and boundary conditions is
{constraint {boundary condition}}.  That is, boundary conditions are one
kind of constraint.  Constraints are informational inputs to any dynamical
system, and can be of many kinds.

STAN
-

Stan,

Aren't all constraints a form of information?  I see constraints as
informing the bounds of the adjacent possible and adjacent probable.  If
this is correct, then it would seem to render the economy as almost pure
information.  In fact, I think it would render all emergent systems as
pure information.  Wouldn't it?

Regards,

Guy


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

As for the first track (planning vs. markets) I would try to plainly put 
the informational problem in terms of distinction on the adjacent (Guy 
has also argued in a similar vein). Social structures either in markets or 
in central plans become facultative instances of networking within the 
whole social set. Then the market grants the fulfillment of any 
weak-functional bonding potentiality, in terms of say energy, speed, 
materials or organization of process; while the planning instances restrict 
those multiple possibilities of self-organization to just a few rigid 
instances of hierarchical networking. This is very rough, but if we relate 
the nodes (individuals living their lives, with the adjacency-networking 
structure, there appears some overall congruence on info terms... maybe.


On the second track, about hierarchies and boundary conditions, shouldn't 
we distinguish more clearly between the latter (bound. cond.) and 
constraints? If I am not wrong, boundary conditions talk with our 
system and mutually establish which laws have to be called into action, 
which equations.. But somehow constraints reside within the laws, polishing 
their parameter space and fine-tuning which version will talk, dressing 
it more or less. These aspects contribute  to make the general analysis of 
the dynamics of open systems a pain on the neck--don't they? I will really 
appreciate input from theoretical scientist about this rough comment.



best regards

Pedro 


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Igor and Stan,

Just a couple of pills to continue the e-conversation. Rather than an 
outlandish theme, I consider this discussion of social complexity as 
central to FIS agenda and --should be crucial-- to the new science of this 
century. it is so obvious that our personal limitations and the limitations 
of our shared knowledge are not conducing to proper managements of social 
complexity, either in economic, political, ecological (global warming), or 
energy grounds...


As often argued in this list, the mental schemes and modes of thought so 
successful in physics during past centuries, do not provide those overall 
contemplations needed for the social realm. Insisting on surrogates, eg, 
hierarchical schemes, or even most of complexity science, is worse than 
wrong: self-defeating, cul-de-sac.


The realm of economy is almost pure information. Rather than planning, 
markets are very clever ways to handle informational complexity. They 
partake a number of formal properties (eg, power laws) indicating that they 
work as info conveyors on global, regional  sectorial, local scales. 
Paradoxically, rational planning can take a man to the moon, or win a 
war, but cannot bring bread and butter to the breakfast table every day. 
Planning only, lacks the openness, flexibility, resilience, etc. of 
markets. A combination of both, with relative market superiority looks 
better...


with regards,

Pedro

___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Igor and colleagues,

I have the impression that there is an agreement about the existence of 
biological and sociocultural constraints that impact on our ability to 
understand and manage socioeconomic complexity. These constraints are 
organized  hierarchically, as Stan puts it, {biological  {sociocultural }}.


I would agree that this is the way to organize our explanations. But 
dynamically the real world is open at all levels: very simple amplification 
or feed forward processes would produce phenomena capable of escalating 
levels and percolate around (e.g., minuscule oxidation-combustion phenomena 
initiating fires that scorch ecosystems, regions). Socially there is even 
more openness: a very tenuous rumor may destroy an entire company, or 
put  a sector on its knees... Arguing logically about those hierarchical 
schemes may be interesting only for semi-closed, capsule like entities, 
but not really for say (individuals (cities (countries)))...  My contention 
is that we should produce a new way of thinking going beyond that classical 
systemic, non-informational view.


 To some extent, it may be a sign of diminishing returns to complexity in 
problem solving that Joe addressed in his book The collapse of complex 
societies... If we cannot manage the energy sector to serve certain 
social and economic goals, how can we hope to be able to manage more 
complex situations like the climate change, poverty reduction and 
population growth in the South?

Did we reach the limits (cognitive and cultural) to manage our complex world?


After the industrial revolution, on average every passing generation (say 
each 30 years) has doubled both the material and the immaterial basis of 
societies:  social wealth, income, accumulated knowledge, scientific 
fields, technological development, social complexity... provided the 
environment could withstand, maybe the process of generational doubling 
would continue around almost indefinitely, or maybe not! Euristic visions 
like those mentioned by Igor on energy policies by the UE or the US have 
been the usual and only tool during all previous epochs: the case is 
whether after some critical threshold human societies cannot keep their 
complexity any longer... Joe might agree on the necessary collapse of 
complex societies.


best

Pedro   ___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

RE: [Fis] Re: fis Digest, Vol 501, Issue 5

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

Maybe I should postpone these comments and have a careful reading of Bob's 
paper, John's list of bionfo articles, and the many well-crafted arguments 
exchanged these days---but as usual one is overwhelmed...


On the discussion track about complexity info limits (followed by Joe, 
Igor, Bob and a few others), there is an important paper on the ecological 
universals of plants, by I.J. Wright (2004). He has established a 
surprising similarity relating to almost any type of leaf, from blade grass 
to beech leaves or the needles of cedars. Within any habitat, each square 
centimeter of leaf will process a roughly similar amount of carbon per unit 
are over its life span... Taking into account that plants are the primary 
producers upon which all other animal trophic levels have to depend, one 
may speculate that this economic limit behind primary productivity may 
force further limitations in the connectivity networks described by Bob 
(even more taking into account that each trophic level dissipates around 
90% of the biomass energy below).


Thereafter, I bet that in our mental processes there is also an economy 
on the personal limits handling external events; those limits also put a 
constraint on how do we handle the strong/weak barrage of social 
(trophic) bonds around each of us every day. Of course, we can ignore 
this or any other constraint in our human nature... At least, we all have 
the intuition that we have info limits, but in our conceptualizations do 
not recognize them, yet.


Those hierarchical schemes that with a few categories cover realms and 
realms of knowledge have an undeniable allure --but are they useful? When 
discussing about the complexity of human societies, or biological 
complexity, etc., one should not dispatch their amazing boundary 
conditions as mere constraints from the level above. I do not mean that 
one cannot produce interesting philosophical reflections (like on almost 
any theme), but probably the problem we are around on how a matrix of 
informational operations do characterize the origin, maintenance, survival, 
decay, etc. of the complex self-producing entity alive and also of its own 
open self-producing parts, disappears from sight. In the recent 
exchanges, the interest of Jerry's chemical logics is that it contributes 
to illuminate basic problems of form, formation,  conformation , 
recognition, etc. upon which life combinatorics is founded molecularly 
--and that is something. It is not my turf, but I am curious on the 
relationship this approach shows with Michael Leyton's grammar process, 
with Ted's category theory, and also with Karl's multidimensional 
partitions.  No doubt that Stan's principle of maximum entropy production 
is also an important dynamic point within this molecular soup of complexity.


best greetings

Pedro

___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Igor and colleagues,

Your question is fascinating, perhaps at the time being rather puzzling or 
even un-answerable...


What are the complexity limits of societies? Our individual limits are 
obvious ---the size of natural bands depended both on ecosystems and on 
the number of people with which an individual was able to communicate 
meaningfully, keeping a mutual strong bond.  Of course, at the same 
time  the band was always dynamically subdividing in dozens and dozens of 
possible multidimensional partitions and small groups (eg. the type of 
evanescent grouping we may observe in any cocktail party). Pretty complex 
in itself, apparently.


Comparatively, the real growth of complexity in societies is due (in a 
rough simplification) to weak bonds. In this way one can accumulate far 
more identities and superficial relationships that imply the allegiance to 
sectorial codes, with inner combinatory, and easy ways to rearrange rapidly 
under general guidelines. Thus, the cumulative complexity is almost 
unaccountable in relation with the natural band --Joe provided some curious 
figures in his opening. And in the future, those figures may perfectly grow 
further, see for instance the number of scientific specialties and 
subspecialties (more than 5-6.000 today, less than 2-3.000 a generation ago).


Research on social networks has highlighted the paradoxical vulnerability 
of societies to the loss of ... weak bonds. The loss of strong bonds is 
comparatively assumed with more tolerance regarding the maintenance of the 
complex structure (human feelings apart).  Let us also note that 
considering the acception of information as distinction on the adjacent I 
argued weeks ago, networks appear as instances of new adjacencies... by 
individual nodes provided with artificial means of communication (channels).


In sum, an economic view on social complexity may be interesting but 
secondary. What we centrally need, what we lack,  is  a serious info 
perspective on complexity (more discussions like the current one!). By the 
way, considering the ecological perspectives on complexity would be quite 
interesting too.


best regards

Pedro 


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

[Fis] information/complexity limits

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

In Nature 444, 9 Nov. 2006, there is an experimental paper on quantum 
limits to heat flow and also to electronic current. It is quite 
interesting that the editorial comments by the Journal relate to maximum 
information content and foundations of information physics (p. 161). 
Seemingly, the expression of  this informational limit would be quite 
similar for electrons, phonons, photons, gravitons...


Am sure that incorrectly, but it has given me room to further speculate 
that information as distinction on the adjacent should be always caught 
under topological/dimensional limits of adjacency, irrespective that time 
extension (in a non non-Markovian subject) and space extension through 
specialized channels  may increase the distinctional capability. As Karl 
as put very often in this list (irrespective of my procedural 
disagreements), distinctions also run into an inherent logical limit, 
measured by multidimensional partitions. Does the above, empirical 
limitation pay tribute, somehow, to the previous logical one?


Maybe the topic also relates to the current discussion on social 
complexity. Couldn't we argue that the effort to overcome the complexity 
limits of the individual regarding the connection with the whole group is 
also at the roots of most of institutional/technical communicational 
evolution, in any society?  The research on social networks today pays a 
lot of attention to this type of limitation phenomena, e.g., how many bonds 
and of which types can be created, maintained, etc. by the individual --or 
by enterprises.


best greetings,

Pedro

___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

[Fis] Knowledge and social complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

A litle bit late, but best wishes for the New Year!

One of these days Joe will recap the exchanges we have had on social 
complexity. In the interim, I have a couple of abstruse points somehow 
related to the intrinsic / extrinsic theme.


First, that the notion of information as distinction on the adjacent 
seems to hold in the social realm too. Curiously the distinction part 
would refer to the intrinsic domain of the observer, while the adjacent 
part belongs to the extrinsic.  However, what our innate means of 
communication bring into our adjacency consists basically of the lives of 
the other members of (natural) bands / groups. Most of the extrinsic of an 
individual becomes a composite of many other intrinsicities... this would 
make the emergences of social stuff quite different from the ones in 
natural sciences.


And second, that beyond that natural bonding of individuals, the 
introduction of successive layers of complexity in the coupling of life 
cycles could be performed only...  by the use of varieties of knowledge. 
Ways to perform vast combinatorics of actions and perceptions in consistent 
and efficient modes. Under this cognizing umbrella we may lump together 
very different realms of knowledge, eg, related to artificial ecosystems, 
specialization and organization, counting, writing, justice, religion...


Then, more or less I connect with Loet's emphasis on social communication 
(which I agreed) and also emphsize  the knowledge relationship with 
complexity. Does it make sense?


best regards

Pedro



___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

RE: [Fis] Social and Cultural Complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Loet and colleagues,

see interleavings:

At 20:49 19/12/2006, you wrote:

Dear Pedro:

1. You are changing the subject from social and cultural complexity to 
the nature of complexity.

Thus, our previous communications seem to be discardable as irrelevant. ...
I don't expect anybody to plea for imposing a system on human beings a la 
marxism or fascism...


What about China, Cuba, North Corea? What about hundreds of millions in 
Europe until less than a couple of decades ago? I restrain from making any 
further comments about that, as when citizens were given the option, they 
were quite eloquent. Your bland comments on Marx at the end (below), do not 
match with the repeated claims of scientific predictability (and control) 
inherent in dial. mat and hist. mat. doctrines (by himself, Engels, Lenin, 
Stalin, Mao,etc.  --posters with these figures are around the streets of 
China yet; perhaps almost as a historical curio in that great country and 
civilization).


In this sense, Marx was right: one creates society, but what happens is 
beyond control because it is part of another dynamics. (His answers of the 
possibility of a final reconciliation of these different dynamics was 
perhaps a bit naive.)...


It is not obvious that the human factor is the correct unit of analysis if 
one is interested in social and cultural complexity. It is undoubtedly the 
right unit of analysis if one is interested in human complexity. However, 
many phenomena which emerge on the basis of human (non-linear) 
interactions cannot be reduced to the carriers.




Am afraid you have got interpretations alien to my own contents --or maybe 
not-- for, as you know, the reduction theme is far away from my 
approaches.  In this regard, an aspect I particularly dislike is the 
overabundance of a complex of thought we could dub as disciplinary 
sufficiency. Just to add to the quarrel (I will make peace at the end!) I 
quote from James' recent message: Leyton's methodology makes the structure 
and emotional content of an artwork fully definable, rich, systematic and 
complete. We can travel from discipline to discipline and hear similar 
statements... one of the consequences is that similar over-reliances on 
conceptualizations / mathematizations/ mechanizations etc. can be 
found under different guises in fields ranging from Artificial 
Intelligence, Economics, Neuroscience, Molecular Biology, etc. I cannot 
make now properly the point, but it is sort of an anxiety to present a well 
complete, defendable view, the urge for a premature closure ... making 
very difficult the multidisciplinary communication needed in almost any 
realm of life.



For example, a scientific paradigm (a la Kuhn) can be considered as a 
development of the pre-paradigmatic discourse into a more codified one. 
The discourse becomes locked-in and then sets the delineations of the 
relevant contributions to the discourse. Thus, human beings who were 
previously important to this social/cultural system, are now no longer. As 
Planck seems to have said, one has to wait till the old boys have died. 
This is not to deny that human beings are crucial as carriers of a 
socio-cultural system, but as the dynamics of the neural network are not 
determined at the level of the cells, but in terms of the wiring, 
analogously the dynamics of the networks of communications are not 
necessarily determined by the dynamics of the human carriers.


The particular example of the neural networks is not OK. For instance, 
recent comparative studies between vertebrate and invertebrate synapses 
have concluded that slightly altering the proteinaceous content of each 
class of synapses modifies dramatically the dynamics of the overall 
networks (eg, of learning), without implying any change in the 
connectivity. In a few words, if you approach the dynamics of learning in a 
biological nervous system, you cannot forget real neurons, glias, 
neurotrophic factors etc. (not always, of course, and that's the 
problem--paying due attention to the (probably) highly variable boundary 
conditions.


Analytically, the human carriers are structurally coupled as the relevant 
environment of the social system.


Of course, it sounds nice to proclaim a humanistic a priori. However, as a 
system of communications the social can be studied as providing a dynamics 
different and additional to human intentions. It is a different 
(sub)dynamic. For example, when one follows neo-evolutionary economics 
(Schumpeter) in stating that innovations can upset the equilibrium seeking 
tendencies in markets, we are discussing more abstract dynamics than can 
be explained in terms of carriers (e.g., individual entrepreneurs).


I can agree with part of these ideas, and would like to connect with some 
of my own reflections  --in next messages, as today I have no time, and am 
already getting the weekly quota.


Xmas celebration is very close, so... best season greetings to all!

Pedro 

Re: [Fis] Joseph Tainter's Social and Cultural Complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

I disagree with the comments by Steven and Stan on the nature of 
complexity. How can one substantiate and quantify social complexity if the 
previous complexity within the society's individuals has not been solved? 
At the time being, there is no accepted rigorous evaluation of biological 
complexity --neither number of genes, RNA transcripts, proteins, nor genome 
size, chromosome number etc., provide individually any solid estimation; 
together more or less. Perhaps, the only accepted single number as a proxy 
of organismic complexity is the number of differentiated cell types 
---becoming similar to Joe's approach in societies (social roles, or 
professions, plus other issues related to number of artifacts, etc.).


Besides, the problem of simplicity/complexity regarding behaviors of 
individuals in societies, deserves a more careful consideration (I disagree 
here with the views exposed by all parties up to now). Social and 
individual complexity may advance by, precisely, inhibiting the behavior of 
individuals: introducing then combinatoric games. Our language diminishes a 
lot the complexity of each plosive (comparing the sonograms of words with 
wild screams) but by doing so it may create an open-ended combinatoric 
game, with solid  shared rules...


Is wikipedia reliable? A recent study in Nature was comparing it with the 
British Encyclopedia regarding the soundness of the same sci. entries 
(several hundreds of them). Surprising, the appropriateness was pretty much 
similar!, though with a slight advantage by the Brit.  Well the brief 
comments in this case about complexity were quite acceptable as a first 
approximation, I think.


Anyhow, my general opinion on the problem of social complexity is that, 
like its homonymous biological counterpart, it stands beyond formal 
approaches, at the time being. Let us remind the recent exchanges on 
biological computation...  If so, requests to directly algorithmize it, 
are ill posed directions: without new approaches to info it cannot be done 
meaningfully. I do not mean we should renounce, as new ideas are around. 
For instance, though I disagree with several (fundamental) facets of Karl's 
approach, some of his hints on multidimensional partitions are indeed 
intriguing tools as a way to formalize the paradoxical informal loss and 
gains of information regularly played by us, the living creatures. By 
adding extra info you destroy it, and viceversa...


Having spent my two cents for the week,

bye!

Pedro

___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] INTRODUCING SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COMPLEXITY

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Joe, and FIS colleagues

Given that I will be away for several days (trip--and not computer 
availability), let me rush to make a few anticipated comments on ideas I 
would like to rewrite in the future. First of all, it is an exciting, 
scholarly piece you have prepared. Thanks!
Maybe I should stop here, but aren't little disagreements the salt and 
spice of our profession? For instance:


Would you think that cellular (even molecular) complexity could be useful 
to illuminate further (more basic) aspects of complexity? It passes almost 
unnoticed in the text (only under the ecological cover).


And what about information and societies? Info does not appear either in 
your text (while curiously appearing in books  papers of yours).


Does social complexity hinge on the development of fundamental 
informational devices, which somehow amplify social knowledge, 
communication, storage, etc. (e.g., alphabet, printing press, 
telecommunications, computers)? Those info inventions would open and close 
historical eras...


Is emergence (or better complexity) an open-ended phenomenon in human 
societies, where anything can pop out, except for the cost it implies? Or, 
does human nature imply very fundamental constraints (but pretty 
transparent for us)?: the water we live in.


Do you think that the systems-loaded parlance is really helpful, providing 
adequate and fertile distinctions on social complexity? Or does it 
substitute for dubious foundations in crucial aspects of social science?


These are a few first minute comments and questions after a fast 
reading---probably they misdirect the reflection... I will come back next week.


Thanking again your food for thought,

Pedro





 


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] Re: request - Biological Computing

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear John and colleagues,

As usual I am having too short a time (will attempt to answer properly next 
week, also to James and Jerry), but your reflections connecting with 
mechanics and computability have initially reminded me a rather obscure 
paper by Michel Conrad and Efim Liberman, where they discuss in a 
philosophical annex the nature of physical law in connection with the 
Church-Turing principle of computability. I could never make complete sense 
of their speculations (quite deep ones)... it is the same type of reasoning 
you are making: peripherally relevant as you say. I will try to quote from 
Michael and Efim next week


Thanks for the stuff.

Pedro


At 20:10 17/11/2006, you wrote:

Dear colleagues,

Pedro has pointed out a real problem, I think. I have a few words to say
on it that may be of some help in sorting out the issues. They derive
partly from my trying to make sense of Atlan's use of computational
language along with his claim that some biological (biochemical really)
stuctures have inifinite sophistication. A structure with infinite
sophistication cannot be  computed from the properties of its
components. Sophistication, as far as I can tell, is a measure of
computational depth, which depends on the minimal number of
computational steps to produce the surface structure from the maximally
compressed form (Charles Bennett). Atlan has made the connection, but
also noted it is not fully clear as yet, since Bennett's measure is
purely in terms of computational steps, and is relative to maximal
compression, not components. Cliff Hooker and I noted these problems
(before we knew of Atlan's work -- well, I did, but it was presented
poorly by one of his students -- see Complexly Organized Dynamical
Systems, Open Systems and Information Dynamics, 6 (1999): 241-302. You
can find it at
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/centre/casrg/publications/Cods.pdf). The
question relevant to Pedro's post is why is computation relevant if
common biological systems have infinite sophistication, and thus are not
effectively computable, even if they have finite complexity?

Here is my stab at an answer: the notion of mechanical since Goedel and
Turing (I would say since Lowenheim-Skolem, since Turing's and Goedel's
results are implicit in their theorems) breaks up into to notions,
stepwise mechanical and globally mechanical. A globally mechanical
system can be represented by an algorithm that halts on all relevant
inputs (Knuth algorithm); these are computable globally. The stepwise
ones have no global solution that is effectively computable, but are
computable locally (to an arbitrarily high degree of accuracy). The
difference is similar to that between a Turing machine that halts on all
relevant inputs and one that does not. Both are machines, but only the
latter corresponds to Rosen's restricted notion of mechanical. So
computation theory can help us to understand the difference between
things that are stepwise mechanical, and things that are not. Things of
infinite sophistication are not globally mechanical. I will say without
proving that they correspond to Rosen's systems that have analytical
models but no synthetic models. They may still be mechanical in the
weaker sense. In fact I have not been able to see how they cannot be
mechanical in this way.

Consequently, there are Turing machines that are mathematically
equivalent to systems of infinite sophistication, but they do not halt.

So you are probably wondering how processes of this sort can occur in
finite time. The answer is dissipation. I'll not give the solution here,
as my coauthor on another paper just came into the room and asked me how
it was going, and I said I was writing something else that was
peripherally relevant :-) A case in point is given in my commentary on
Ross and Spurrett in Behavioral and Brain Sciences titled Reduction,
Supervenience, and Physical Emergence, BBS, 27:5, pp 629-630. It is
available at
http://www.nu.ac.za/undphil/collier/papers/Commentary%20on%20Don%20Ross.htm
as well as the BBS site.

All spontaneously self-organizing systems (see the Collier and Hooker
CODS piece) are only locally mechanical. I won't prove that here, but
there is a clue in the BBS commentary.

Cheers,

John


Professor John Collier
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292
F: +27 (31) 260 3031
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Http://ukzn.ac.za/undphil/collier


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

[Fis] Re: Concluding reply: social construction of human knowledge

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Andrei and FIS colleagues,

Your expression, days ago,  about information transformers is very 
suggestive in the sense that it highlights far better than other terms 
(e.g., proposed by complexity theoreticians: information gatherers  
information users) what happens, say, to an informational entity coupled 
to its open-ended environment. What happens is not a computation, or any 
information processing event: it is closer to the discussion of abduction 
we had in this list a couple of years ago -- I have also used 
the  processual embedded rather than the disembodied processing, as the 
info transformation is irreducibly tied to the advancement of a life cycle.


Relating this to objectivity of informational laws looks adventurous, but 
maybe OK. We converge on informational capabilities of photons, by 
theoretical tools, by optical instruments, by our photoreceptors ---like 
other opsin pigments of vertebrate eyes, and like bacterium's 
bacteriorhodopsin.


(The little problem in my view is that in the two previous paragraphs there 
are at least three or four different usages of information conflated!)


Anyhow, bacteria has around several million bases of structural information 
to couple to its environment and act as an information transformer. A 
rudimentary social animal (insects) has around the same number of neurons 
to act as a new type of info trans. Let us get ahead to big brained human 
individuals in a society, or to scientists socially coupled amidst the 
practise of a scientific discipline. Each one cuts but a fine slice of its 
open ended environment... And also to the level of the basic quantum grain 
at the Planck scale? Therein, the global informational limitation regarding 
the distinction on the adjacent capabilities has been disciplinarily 
couched under conservation of energy and uncertainty principles. Let me 
wonder whether Koichiro's approach to time out from energy conservation may 
be one of the few ways to advance towards a bit accounting of the quantum 
possibilities in its coupling to the infinite environment...


Sorry for having put together all these top-of-the-head, nonsense comments!

Pedro

At 16:53 14/09/2006, you wrote:


In this way we turn back to the concluding topic of our discussion (that
might be a starting point of a new discussion) -- about reality of
information laws. In my picture of reality information reality is
not less real than material reality. You wrote about
social construction of human knowledge... In my book transformers of
information are not less objective than electrons or photons. Roughly
speaking this imply that  transformers of information with
completely different physical realization would generate the same social
structure of science, just because the objectivity of information laws.
But, as I wrote, this idscussion induces deep philosophic questions...

All the best, Andrei


 Dear Andrei and colleagues,

 Thanks a lot for your re-capping of the session. It is a very
 thoughtful
 perspective on information from the quantum side. My only comments
 would
 relate to your (partial) identification of models, reality, and
 mathematics. It sounds too strong to my hears. We have cut science
 from its
 human origins, and then we resort to very curious reification myths.
 How
 does the practice of science relate to our human nature? The
 tentative new
 branch of \neuromathematics\ (it has already surfaced in past
 discussions)
 could throw interesting new light on the several fascinating topics
 around
 the necessarily \social\ construction of human knowledge...

 I join your concerns when you state:

 I am trying to sell the idea that the whole quantum enterprise is
 about
 simplification of description of extremely complex physical
 phenomena.
 I developed models in that the quantum probabilistic model appears
 as a
 projection of more complex classical statistical model.
 Then I proceed: Wau! In such a case it seems that quantum
 probability
 theory and quantum information could be used everywhere where we
 could
 not provide the complete description of phenomena and we just try
 to
 create a simplified representation in complex Hilbert space.
 So one can apply quantum information theory everywhere, from
 financial
 mathematics to genetics.

 Months ago, when discussing on biomolecular networks, I argued that
 rather
 than a classical \state\ the central info construct of the living
 cell
 should be the \cycle\, then implying the advancement of a \phase\
 (recapitulating and somehow making continuous the classical
 biomolecular
 views of Start, Gap1, Mitosis, Gap2 as discrete phases of the cell
 cycle)
 maintaining at the same time a continuous adaptation of the inner
 molecular
 population to the environmental demands. These biological sentences
 may
 sound very different from quantum statements, but I do not think so.
 My
 opinion is that the the living cell and other genuine \informational\

 entities share a fundamental 

Re: [Fis] QI-session: concluding remarks

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Andrei and colleagues,

Thanks a lot for your re-capping of the session. It is a very thoughtful 
perspective on information from the quantum side. My only comments would 
relate to your (partial) identification of models, reality, and 
mathematics. It sounds too strong to my hears. We have cut science from its 
human origins, and then we resort to very curious reification myths. How 
does the practice of science relate to our human nature? The tentative new 
branch of neuromathematics (it has already surfaced in past discussions) 
could throw interesting new light on the several fascinating topics around 
the necessarily social construction of human knowledge...


I join your concerns when you state:


I am trying to sell the idea that the whole quantum enterprise is about
simplification of description of extremely complex physical phenomena.
I developed models in that the quantum probabilistic model appears as a
projection of more complex classical statistical model.
Then I proceed: Wau! In such a case it seems that quantum probability
theory and quantum information could be used everywhere where we could
not provide the complete description of phenomena and we just try to
create a simplified representation in complex Hilbert space.
So one can apply quantum information theory everywhere, from financial
mathematics to genetics.


Months ago, when discussing on biomolecular networks, I argued that rather 
than a classical state the central info construct of the living cell 
should be the cycle, then implying the advancement of a phase 
(recapitulating and somehow making continuous the classical biomolecular 
views of Start, Gap1, Mitosis, Gap2 as discrete phases of the cell cycle) 
maintaining at the same time a continuous adaptation of the inner molecular 
population to the environmental demands. These biological sentences may 
sound very different from quantum statements, but I do not think so. My 
opinion is that the the living cell and other genuine informational 
entities share a fundamental adaptability problem, having to fit with 
with limited processing resources to an open ended environment, and then 
having to tune their production-degradation engines to cope  with both 
their own phase in the cycle and their external happenstance. Michael 
Conrad produced great stuff on formal quantum-inspired approaches to 
ecological adaptability (see Kevin Kirby in this list too). And it could be 
done for aspects of nervous systems and economic life too... Unfortunately 
a Gordian knot of themes appears: sensibility, robustness, networking, 
fitness-value-meaning, adaptability, evolvability (to mention but a few). 
The future will tell whether we are able to trascend formal analogies 
between realms and achieve a new, more catholic approach to information 
--none of the current approaches has achieved a breakthrough yet, so the 
need for our exchange of views!


I also think that recent developments in string theory are a good help 
--and quite inspiring-- for our problems. See Leonard Suskind, with his 
Landscape approach (The Cosmic Landscape, 2005). Breaking the continuous 
at the Planck scale means also a new hint on where we can situate 
fundamental laws of nature physically --a question not responded yet in 
the discussion, for my taste.


Thanking your inspiring comments,

Pedro

   


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] Limited info

[Pedro Marijuan]

At 18:41 21/06/2006, you wrote:

Pedro -- OK, I think I see your basic point.  If so, then we do agree
because I have concluded (tentatively) that, in the context of Universal
disequibilibrium, the principle of least action can be explained by the
maximum entropy production principle [e.g., the fastest action would
require the hardest work, and the shortest path for entropic energy flows
(heat, light, sound) would be sought in the interest of Universal
equilibration].

STAN


Maybe you are right, Stan, but my impression is that, if we are truly a la 
recherche de l'information perdue, we cannot follow that entropic path 
only . Playing with the Proustian metaphor, there are two paths which have 
to be intertwined: du côté de chez Swann  le côté de Guermantes. The 
dissipation of structures via diminishing supra-atomic distinctions  the 
creation of new structures via atomic bonds implying diminishing 
intra-atomic distinctions... Which path does predominate? It depends 
entirely on the existing boundary conditions. That's the general trick of 
life to navigate easily in both directions: a fantastic multiplication of 
boundaries by way of organs, organelles, compartments, membranes, etc.


Besides, both ways of information counting are very different, the entropic 
and the atomic internal energy (enthalpic), notwithstanding that Gibb's and 
other free energy expressions unite them algebraically. In this sense, the 
problem raised by Hans days ago, on the numbering discrepancy implicit in 
Schrodinger's equation, looks a very intriguing point. As said, my hunch 
concerning the informational quest for unification, is that the principle 
of least action is more general and more easily translatable to a form 
similar to least informational description than any acceptation derived 
exclusively of the second law... and perhaps more amenable to dialog with 
string theories too (which seemingly can deal with gravity and are 
cosmologically and ontologically quite creative).


Information physics is indeed a very fundamental region within the whole 
information science enterprise. If there is any possibility in the future, 
we should devote a complete real conference or seminar to it.


At the time being, Andrei's patience should be overstretched by all this 
continuous handweaving!


best regards

Pedro  



___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

If ethics relates mostly to the quest for the good or for the good 
reasons of our social behavior, apparently it can be treated as another 
discipline --really? An initial complication is about the subject --good... 
to whom? It maybe one's personal interests, or his/her family, business, 
profession, country, species, Gaia... but those goodnesses are usually in 
conflict, even in dramatic contraposition. It is a frequent motif of 
dramas, movies, poetry, etc. (aren't we reminded arts as technologies of 
ethics?).


And then the complications about the circumstances, say the boundary 
conditions. Any simple economic story or commercial transaction (e.g., 
remember that ugly provincial story about the nail found in Zaragoza) may 
involve quite a number of situational changes and ethical variants ---if we 
put scale into a whole social dimension of multivariated networkings... it 
is just mind boggling. So I really would not put much weigh on those 
hierarchical categorizations that only take a minimalist snapshot upon a 
minimalist, almost nihilist scenario. However, some points by Loet months 
ago on how complexity may hide-in  show up along privileged axis might 
deserve discussion at this context.


Could we accept ethics just as an Art of moral problem solving? Quite many 
conceptual tools would enter therein, but the scientificity of the whole 
would not be needed. Even more, such scientificty would look suspicious to 
me. A few decades ago, a scientific guiding of the whole social evolution 
was taking place in a number of countries... apparently paving the way to a 
new, conflict less Era!


best regards

Pedro



At 22:56 06/05/2006, you wrote:

Replying to Pedro's query below, we can have:

{physical / chemical affordances {biological behaviors {cultural norms
{social guidance {personal past learnings {{{...{continuing process of
individuation...}.  Some of us would place ethics somewhere between
social guidance and personal past learnings.  An interesting question in
this scheme is 'where is transcendence?'  The problem is that there is
added, with each integrative level, further constraints.  At present I am
considering that, if we allocate the same energies at each level, then the
remaining degrees of freedom in the higher levels will benefit from having
stronger embodiment than would have been possible in the lower levels. That
is to say that, e.g., behaviors which could only be weakly supported in,
say, the biological level, become more possible to be manifested in, say,
the social level.

STAN



Dear FIS colleagues,

The question recently raised by Luis, but also in a different way by Karl,
Stan and others, is a tough one. How do our formal disciplinary
approaches fare when confronting the global reality of social life? My
point is that most of knowledge impinging on social life matters is of
informal, implicit, practical, experiential nature. How can one gain access
to cognitive stocks of such volatile nature? Only by living, by
socializing, by a direct hands-on participation...  Each new generation has
to find its own way, to co-create its own socialization path. No moral or
ethical progress then!!! (contrarily to the advancement of other areas of
knowledge). Obviously, learning machines or techno environments cannot
substitute for a socialization process --a side note for prophets of the
computational.

By the way, in those nice categorizations by Stan --it isn't logically
awkward that the subject tries to be both subject and observer at the same
time? If it is so, the categorization process goes amok with social
openness of relations and language open-endedness, I would put.  Karl's
logic is very strict, provided one remains strictly within the same set of
reference. Anyhow, it is a very intriguing discussion.

best

Pedro

___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis



___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

Re: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Michael and colleagues,

Am afraid I cannot make such elegant a response to your comments as Stan 
has done. Both the integrity of the individual and his/her 
contemplation of the natural environment appear indeed as crucial factors 
for the ethical standpoint. I do not see very clearly how to connect 
them--but will try. Who would deny that the ethical discourse on the 
environment is so much central, appreciated and concerned nowadays? (Even 
solitary Mr. Robinson would be judged ethically by contemporary ecologists 
on how respectfully he behaved and afforded his living upon the island 
environment.) Cultural, economic, religious factors may be invoked in more 
general terms, but perhaps the personal decorum around the complete 
individual has been the basic engine in the development of social ethics. 
It is part of the ideal of scholarship in science. Visionary individuals 
who have sculpted the subtle system of rewards and punishments --on 
personal reputations basically-- that propel organizational networks and 
maintain cooperation in complex societies. It is not that most people are 
good per se, but that a relatively well-designed social order makes 
cheating behaviors unattractive --taking for free group's benefits and 
running away.


Thus, apart from its inherent aesthetical aspects, integrity would convey 
an untractable informational problem about the individual's behavioral 
evaluation of the total milieu. The discussion on ethics, pushing it at its 
most impossible or Quixotic extremes, takes us to impossible or 
foundational problems of information science. Seemingly, in order to 
grasp them, it is necessary that we break away from quite a few obsolete 
ways of thinking and disciplinary walls.


best

Pedro

At 10:35 25/04/2006, you wrote:

Dear Pedro,

I find your statement, that Robinson Crusoe did not need
any ethics in his solitary island, very intellectually stimulating.

I actually take the opposite view of ethics.  I believe that
the ethical individual is one who has INTEGRITY.
Integrity means completeness.  An individual's completeness
is tested most by their capacity to be alone.
If an individual can be alone, indeed prefers to be alone,
then they are complete.  This will mean that they have
no need to use another person, steal from them, exploit them,
and generally have an existence that is parasitic on
another person.

A complete individual, one with integrity, can enter society
without the need to use others, exploit them, etc.

I argue therefore that, paradoxically, ethics towards others
actually begins with the capacity for aloneness.

The unethical individual is empty - and strives always to
maintain that emptiness, by avoiding internal growth,
inward examination and self-understanding.
This constant flight from self  sends them continually
in search for others upon whom they are entirely dependent.
They have no identity other than what they can steal from others.

It is the relation that an individual has to themselves,
when alone, that determines their relation to others.

By the way, Pedro, thank you so much for creating
such an interesting debate on ethics.

best
Michael

___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis


___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis