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

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

This is a response to both Stan and John, but especially Stan since John 
wanders to the non-physical.

Shannon’s perspective is not one of “choice,”  this suggests some proactive and 
there is no physical proactive in Shannon. Mathematical randomness is not 
logical choice. There is no force tending toward one thing or another.Indeed, I 
believe that to suggest information has physical action is contradictory in 
Joseph’s model.

However, I would accept such a proactive if you can define it well enough (as I 
believe I have in Flexible Closed Structure and as Benjamin Peirce hinted at 
when he referred to “will” or covariant “spirit”). But let me be clear that 
such a physical proactive would necessarily be covariant with other physical 
forces, and necessarily lead to life and sensation, and hence not, in fact, be 
a “dual aspect."

Regards,
Steven



> On Jul 18, 2016, at 7:41 AM, Stanley N Salthe <ssal...@binghamton.edu> wrote:
> 
> Steven, Joseph --
> 
> This depends upon what are the “dual aspects” of information.  Very 
> generally, on the basic Shannonian perspective,  information is a selection 
> from among possibilities.  Matter does this physically, and at small scale is 
> never at rest, always choosing. Then there are the consequences of these 
> choices -- interpretation.  Interpretation has a basic physical meaning as 
> the consequences of the choices.
> 
> STAN
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 4:39 PM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith <ste...@iase.us 
> <mailto:ste...@iase.us>> wrote:
> Dear List,
> 
> A few days ago Joseph Brenner wrote the following :
> 
>> … I conclude that no new and doubtful physical concepts need to be 
>> introduced to address the essential aspects of life, mind, and information. 
>> That information has dual aspects has been more or less explicit in 
>> everything I have tried to write in the last eight years.
> 
> This has bothered me from a number of perspectives, it sounds reasonable but 
> is in fact deeply flawed. I worry that others may take it seriously and so I 
> step from the shadows. The argument seems to be an advocacy of dualism and 
> information mysterianism, but I doubt that Joe sees it this way.
> 
> For example, consider the biophysical motions necessarily involved in 
> sensation, thought, and consideration when going to the store and the 
> selective motions when reaching the store. Joe suggests that the dual aspects 
> of information in a conventional physics is sufficient to explain these 
> actions or motions, I simply cannot accept this. It is rather like saying 
> that gravitation and electromagnetism are dual aspects of matter - and even 
> though we have two clear and mathematical theories of each no physicist 
> believes that this is the case.
> 
> I am especially concerned with the introduction here of the dismissive idea 
> of “doubtful physical concepts” that seem to me to open the door of 
> judgementalism.
> 
> As a reminder, Relativity was once considered a “doubtful physical concept.”
> 
> Can anyone defend Joe’s position?
> 
> Regards,
> Steven
> 
> --
> Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith, Los Gatos, California. +1-650-308-8611 
> <tel:%2B1-650-308-8611>
> http://iase.info <http://iase.info/>
> 
> 
> 
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> 



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

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear List,

A few days ago Joseph Brenner wrote the following :

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

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

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

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

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

Can anyone defend Joe’s position?

Regards,
Steven

--
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Re: [Fis] Response to Salthe

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Here is a more direct link. Google drive tricked me :-)

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-c2CVg9ZQsAel9tVktvQmxucUk=sharing

On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 11:46 AM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith <ste...@iase.us>
wrote:

> For reference you can find a copy of Clarence King's "Catastrophe And
> Evolution" in the folder "King" here:
>
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-c2CVg9ZQsAY2NZcU1mNGVrbFU/view?usp=sharing
>
> On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 11:31 AM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith <ste...@iase.us>
> wrote:
>
>> Darwin's observations were challenged by the American geologist Clarence
>> King in his "Catastrophe and Evolution" (King 1877), an argument much
>> admired and supported by Charles Peirce. He argues that it is not natural
>> selection by incremental mutation, while indubitable in some minor cases,
>> but the catastrophic evolutionary pressure that produces the significant
>> diversity of species.
>>
>> Steven
>>
>> ​
>>
>
>
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Re: [Fis] Five Momenta

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Pedro and List,

A note to add that the momenta in Pedro's question of disciplinary scope is 
very much on my mind as I undertake the final structuring of the content of my 
book on this now very broad subject. This final restructuring has taken much of 
my attention over the past week or two, along with my continuing fight with a 
variety of medication effects, and so I must add an apology for the 
high-latency in my contributions.

Obviously there will be details missing and this question of locality and its 
absence across dynamic physical structure, leading to my proposal of a new 
universal aspect of nature such that it may drive a new (bio)mechanics, is 
central.

In addition, the resolution of our instruments are not yet adequate to show the 
mechanics I speak of either in the organisms of interest to the current body of 
research or at the atomic level. I have only a limited ability to direct this 
research. I trust that I will be forgiven if I simply suggest the way ahead as 
these technologies evolve. 

When we do reach a capable resolution (hopefully in the not too distant future) 
I suggest, for example, that we will discover neither a discrete nor a smooth 
continuum but rather a dynamic knotted “disturbances and distortions of the 
continuum" in the world’s fundamental structure. And further, this inclusive 
model allows me to predict that we will place on this continuum, as the origin 
of both gravitation and sense/response, the single label “Light."

Because of this broad field of inquiry it can be considered a very active area 
of research and there are always new results to consider from a variety of 
sources - and this is where I have spent most of my time in the past ten years. 
For example, HHMI is a rich and diverse source and "Clique topology reveals 
intrinsic geometric structure in neural correlations" 
(http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.06172) has my attention today. I tend to steer away 
from detailed analysis of human neural structures, essentially because the 
degree of complexity is too high to manage without a more fundamental 
biophysical understanding first. For this reason I prefer the neural analysis 
of, say, biophysicist Dennis Bray over the attempts at explanation of 
mathematician Vladimir Itskov, although his highlight of the limits of 
conventional models of “neural” [sic] computation is very relevant. 

But the source of research study could have easily been the dynamics of blood 
flow in the human brain, the behavioral study and neural development of blinded 
kittens, a marine study of protists, jellyfish, plants or algae, the study of 
pain anomalies in genetically related families in Europe and Pakistan, the 
neural dysfunction of children in Canada, electroception by Zoologists in 
Australia, the bioengineering of digital counters in DNA strands or 
manipulation of other genetics in the labs at Stanford.  And I find the 
behavior of buffalo around a pond, or the empathetic or hunting social 
behaviors of sea mammals, as fascinating as human behavior manifest on Facebook.

It does seem relevant for me, however, to highlight just how my work on the 
allostery of biophysics and mathematical flexible closed structure, my 
particular view of the universal, informing, mathematics, sense and response, 
may be incorporated generally (appealing to the power of Wigner’s 
simplification) into the physical sciences and thus the general potential scope 
of endeavor that this may allow.  

Certainly, it seems to me, that this “as above, so below,” Eugene Wigner 
inspired, approach and the "general covariance” or “algebraic sum of physical 
laws” of Einstein and Benjamin Peirce, has allowed me to discover, as it did 
Maxwell for electrodynamics, simple mathematics of value able to get traction 
on the structure of the problem without being bogged down by the manifest 
complexities of biochemistry and metabolic thermodynamics.

Recalling always that despite my excursions into biology, social behavior, 
cosmology, and the depths of theoretical physics, that from the start I have 
labeled my work “The Foundations of Logic and Apprehension, informed by 
research in biophysics." And that my original motivating interest, apart from a 
confessed human curiosity, rests squarely in the large scale engineering 
problems and mathematics of process interaction in recognition and complex 
decision making in parallel computation. 

I understand how this endeavor may indeed seem a “crazy story” by conventional 
measures - it has certainly taken me "down the path least traveled" - but I 
trust that it will be taken in the truest spirit of scientific and mathematical 
investigation and inquiry.
 
It seems likely that I will be able to share this restructured (draft) Table Of 
Contents of my book, in which it will be seen that much of this momenta across 
discipline scope is covered, in the coming days, along with the additional 
notes I have promised. 

Steven


> On Oct 20, 2015, at 8:31 AM, 

Re: [Fis] Locality?

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Marcus,

I think this is a wise question. We must always speak up and seek clarification 
when we are concerned about our interpretation of the environment (in which can 
be found my posts to FIS) if we are to achieve effective communication (the 
exchange of knowledge between apprehending entities).  

Thinking about the systems that Shannon worked upon, the ideas as conveyed by 
Brit Cruise, and the computing machines and systems that I have helped design, 
it is easy to see how one may become unclear.

I spent many years studying the movement of data from one processor to another 
by various means, memory subsystems and the hardware problems of “addressing” 
and “alignment,” hidden cache hierarchies and such like to improve performance 
pragmatics, and I designed mathematically founded programming languages to 
enable engineers to speak of semantics and performance semantics that are a 
part of this bit "motion.” 

And within these programming languages I studied the locality of expression, 
scope, aliasing, and so on.

I spent further years informally studying the practices of engineers in 
different parts of the world using these languages. And I informally observed 
the common effects that these languages have upon how these engineers behave 
and define themselves. Going so far, it seemed to me, as to dressing the same 
way, liking the same kinds of music, dating the same types of people, and 
buying the same models of car. There are observable differences, for example, 
between C programmers and those that program in LISP.

Later I dealt with the Turing test and via a conversational interface that 
provided access to content in a world full of people with a wide range of 
educational and economic backgrounds.

All of these experiences present a different sense of “Locality” to the mind.

In the digital world, dominant in current Information Science, the ultimate 
Locality is, necessarily, the Bit - combined with other bits via machine 
operations. Everything else is not local, it is organized Bits. 

And this is the point at the foundation of my discussion. 

Bits may be organized but this organization is arbitrary - and has meaning only 
in the effect that it has upon the behavior of the machine. Whether they are 
aligned in 8bit or 64bit words as, in fact, as some hardware electronic grid 
with high level hardware controller enforcing a strict organization, or they 
are holes in the ground managed by our grandchildren, it is the same and our 
perception of the Locality is an illusion.

I make the point that this organization is taken for granted and not properly 
unaccounted for.

Since processor operations are 64bit wide (and have, experimentally, been 
wider), we can say that this is the extent of locality in the common machine 
(data structures are organization, not localities). But allosteric Locality  
(if I may extend the common notion of this term) in biophysics is very 
different, much more flexible, across the entire structure and sense is 
directly bound to response.

Regards,
Steven


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








> On Sep 28, 2015, at 8:57 AM, Marcus Abundis <55m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I am embarrassed to admit I feel I don't quite grasp the notion of 
> Locality you reference. This seems to be a key initial concept in your model, 
> and thus I feel I cannot comment specifically on following matters. By 
> locality do you mean the “fact“ of specific items being specifically situated 
> in specific environments? Please point me to the passage/post where you feel 
> you explain this most succinctly (sorry?).
> 
> Otherwise, I *think* I agree with the general Gestalt of your model . . . 
> but again I am getting stuck early on and cannot comment specifically. Help 
> is appreciated . . . 
> 







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[Fis] Information and Locality. Finale.

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

 only missing direct consideration of 
Locality, it necessarily implies an extended Locality.  At almost every level, 
a primitive type or simple or complex aggregates of types, the typing system 
deceives us. We consider 8bit or 64bit words to be one. In fact they have no 
locality at all and their Locality is, in fact, in implementation, arbitrary.  

Information is always about something. We speak of the world as in-formation.  
And as a result it is impossible for information to be basic.

We gather these illusions, we organize them and describe them as software, and 
place them into artificially organized machines based upon the mechanisms of 
the industrial revolution (the Jacquard Loom).  These machines are a Chinese 
room except there is no-person inside the machine. There is no Turk. There can 
never be any feeling.


This model consists of a discovery of a physical role for sense or feeling in 
biophysical assimilation and the activity of information in the world.


In our disciplines, with all respect to people here, we speak about ideas and 
hope to maybe change behavior by their acceptance. Yet if none of us change 
behavior by bringing these ideas into the world then our work is quite 
literally without meaning. And this may bring out the existential crisis in 
each of us.


In theoretical physics motion is "in-formation."  Yet we should not become 
confused about its role as a generalization existentially. It can only inform 
motions and identify cause. Information can never speak about basis.  It can 
never be equated with substance or force, it may only speak about these things.


Finally, I feel exactly as you feel. When I look upon the world, I see the same 
things that you see.

We are structurally very similar and the basis of our experience is universal. 

The entire difference between you and I is our environment, the things and the 
people we keep in it.


I should not have to point out that this way of thinking makes the ideas of 
General AI a futile fantasy. We may perhaps enhance or reproduce our 
experiences through technology derived from these ideas but we can never 
transfer senses or mind. These ideas are simply the dualism of the modern age.


The facts are simple motions passing through biology and mediated by structure. 
 There is surely a better or worse way to socially organize. But not via the 
whimsy of opinion, although opinion certainly impacts motions, but by the facts 
of nature. We may expect that as we are better able to discern these facts that 
we will be more effective in living together.


It is worth noting that, as far as we know, we are the only instance of intent 
or WILL, the manifestation of this new universal, in the entire universe. The 
knowledge that we are now acquiring as a result of rapid advances in biophysics 
will provide us the ability to place life where it would not otherwise occur. 

This gives a role to WILL in the grander scheme of things and a “grand 
challenge” for humanity.


Thinking about the nature of Locality opens a range of complex ideas that may 
seem unrelated. But the bottom-line is a simple confrontation. Are we a 
technological whimper, polluting our environment to demise?  Or will we accept 
a role to extend a place for intension and WILL beyond the Darwinian accident?  

It is not that Nature does not need people (as the International Conservation 
groups would have it), people are Nature.

Regards,
Steven

PS. With acknowledgement and respect to the mathematician and astronomer 
Benjamin Peirce of Harvard University (1809-1880).

--
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http://iase.info



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Re: [Fis] Information and Locality.

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

about actions that we deem 
> are the product of intent.
> 
> The bottom-line is that if you live only in language then you live in an 
> impoverished world.
> 
> Of course all theories are the free creation of the mind, it is what comes 
> next that matters.
> 
> This inevitably leads me to the work of Benjamin Peirce, who may have been 
> the first to observe that all the laws of nature are necessarily the 
> algebraic sum of their action together. The idea was developed by Einstein, 
> though Einstein was motivated by Maxwell’s work on covariance, as General 
> Covariance and emphasizing that the natural laws are necessarily independent 
> of any particular coordinate system.
> 
> The challenge that Benjamin Peirce saw was how to unify this purely 
> mathematical view with the physical sciences. I believe he set both of his 
> sons James and Charles upon this task.
> 
> This goal of unifying pure mathematics and the physical sciences has yet to 
> be achieved, although I am hopeful. In particular the movement against truth 
> value systems may be gaining momentum.
> 
> And this leads me to mention locality because Einstein was concerned by 
> concerns that I share. It is certainly the case that in GR we can speak only 
> of the local event but if you want to solve real problems you yourself 
> provide the unification of calculations, for example, to take man out of the 
> solar system. 
> 
> Indeed, to do anything at all requires that we provide the missing locality.
> 
> Regards,
> Steven
> 
> 
> --
> Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith, Los Gatos, California. +1-650-308-8611
> http://iase.info <http://iase.info/>
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Re: [Fis] Information and Locality.

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

stem. 

Indeed, to do anything at all requires that we provide the missing locality.

Regards,
Steven


--
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[Fis] Information and Locality Introduction

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear List,

This is the start of the next FIS discussion. And this is the first of several 
emails kicking the discussion off and divided into logical parts so as not to 
confront the reader with too many ideas and too much text at once.

The subject is one that has concerned me ever since I completed my PhD in 1992. 
I came away from defending my thesis, essentially on large scale parallel 
computation, with the strong intuition that I had disclosed much more 
concerning the little that we know, than I had offered either a theoretical or 
engineering solution. 

For the curious, a digital copy of this thesis can be found among the reports 
of CRI, MINES ParisTech, formerly ENSMP, 
http://www.cri.ensmp.fr/classement/doc/A-232.pdf, it is also available as a 
paper copy on Amazon.

Like many that have been involved in microprocessor and instruction 
set/language design, using mathematical methods, we share the physical concerns 
of a generation earlier, people like John Von Neumann, Alan Turing, and Claude 
Shannon. In other words, a close intersection between physical science and 
machine engineering.

So I wish to proceed as follows, especially since this is a cross disciplinary 
group: 

First identify a statement of the domain, what is it that I, in particular, 
speak of when we use the term “Information.” I will clarify as necessary. I 
will then discuss the issue of locality, what I think that issue is and why it 
is a problem. Here we will get into several topics of classical discussion. I 
will briefly present my own mathematics for the problem in an informal yet 
rigorous style, reaching into the foundations of logic. 

I will then discuss some historical issues in particular referencing Benjamin 
Peirce, Albert Einstein and Alan Turing. And finally discuss the contemporary 
issues, as I see them, in biophysics, biology, and associated disciplines, 
reaching into human and other social constructions, perhaps touching on 
cosmology and the extended role of information theory in mathematical physics.

This will seem very broad but in all cases I will focus upon the issues of 
locality they each present.

Before my preparations for these discussions I surveyed existing pedagogical 
work to see how our science is currently presented and I came across the Khan 
Academy video series on Information Theory, authored by Brit Cruise. 

As flawed as I find this work, it is none-the-less an adequate place for us to 
start and to build upon. It does a good job in briefly presenting the work of 
Claude Shannon and others, in its second part on Modern Information Theory. 

I especially encourage advanced readers to take the few minutes it will take to 
review the Origin of Markov Chains, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, 
Information Entropy, Compression Codes and Error Correction to set the field 
and ensure that we are on the same page. You may also find the final video on 
SETI work interesting, it will be relevant as we proceed. 

You can review these short videos on YouTube and here:

https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/informationtheory

or here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbg3ZX2pWlgKDVFNwn9B63UhYJVIerzHL

I invite you to review these videos as the context for my next posting that 
will be a discussion of what is good about this model, locality, and what is, I 
now argue, fundamentally missing or wrong headed.

Pedro, at the end of this I will aggregate these parts for the FIS wiki.

Regards,
Steven

--
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Re: [Fis] QM and information

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

 On Jun 26, 2015, at 10:02 PM, Andrei Khrennikov andrei.khrenni...@lnu.se 
 wrote:
 Life is hard... I am afraid that it is impossible to put this qualifier in 
 front information used in recent information approaches to quantum 
 mechanics. 
 For Zeilinger and Brukner (this is my private impression from private 
 discussions), information so to say exists in nature so to say by itself, 
 it seems it is meaningless, however, to apply quantum theory an OBSERVER 
 has to appear at the scene, information here is PRIVATE INFORMATION of 
 observer.

I do not know what to call your model here other than Solipsism. It certainly 
has nothing to do with Information Theory or Information Science. Indeed, it is 
unrecognizable I suggest to anyone associated with epistemology or the study of 
Logic in its broadest sense, except to give it that label. Indeed, it further 
affirms an increasing conviction that the discipline of physics has abandoned 
all good reason.


 The same happens in QBism of Fuchs and Mermin (this is again my private 
 impression from private discussions), they start with interpreting the wave 
 function as representing 
 subjective probability about possible results of measurements, but privately 
 they speak about Nature producing chance and hence information.
 
 see also arxiv.org/pdf/1503.02515v1.pdf section 3.2, in particular, one 
 important citation of Fuchs.
 
 All this can be disappointing, but it works; quantum people want to say: we 
 do not know what is information 
 but when we get it we immediately understand that this is it. 

Not just disappointing but entirely fanciful. I cannot imagine that “it works” 
in any material sense or in any purely mathematical sense. 

Regards,
Steven


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Re: [Fis] Krassimir's Notes . . .

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Fantasies about Quantum Mechanics aside, Probability and Information are 
distinct. Both are ways of speaking about the world. You may speak of 
alternatives probabilistically, but you cannot say that “information is 
probabilistic. 

Any truth based system is necessarily flawed (Godel) and dualist. The great 
disadvantage of mathematics grounded upon first-order logic is also exactly 
what you say because it can lead to over-confidence. This is not to say that 
logical proof systems are not useful for checking syntactic and semantic 
reasoning, they are. But they cannot provide the certainty desired. 

Mathematical proofs are not logical proofs.

Reasoning about motion and degrees of freedom in dynamic structure, be it 
falling bodies or social graces, is not greatly helped by first-order logic.  
FOL is only concerned with certain types of thinking. 

Arbitrary axioms are no basis for rigor.   In my view, at least, only the 
general covariance of premises can provide a basis of scientific argument.  
Constructive methods are flawed if they do not consider the action of premises 
together.  Arbitrary axioms only represent the abductions that may lead us to 
this. 

Existence is before essence, remember the prime principle of existentialism.

Regards,
Steven



 On Jun 17, 2015, at 6:04 PM, Koichiro Matsuno cxq02...@nifty.com wrote:
 
 At 9:36 PM 06/17/2015, Pedro wrote:
 
 ... What if information belongs to action,
 
 [KM] This is a good remark suggesting that information may go beyond the 
 standard stipulation of first-order logic. A great advantage of mathematics 
 grounded upon first-order logic is to enjoy the provability or computability 
 of an inductive judgement with use of the few axiomatic primitives. This 
 scheme, however, does not work for information at large, though notably 
 except for Shannon's information bits. If one faces a statement like 
 information is probabilistic, it would go beyond first-order logic when the 
 predicate to be probabilistic admits its quantification as revealed in the 
 context-dependent probabilities in QM. Once we enter the higher stage of 
 second-order logic, it could be possible to form an opinion of course while 
 its provability may be out of reach in most cases. Nonetheless, if one wants 
 to save something good with saying information is probabilistic, a likely 
 makeshift might be to relate information to action, for instance, as 
 appealing to conditiona!
 l probabilities which are quite at home with the action of setting and 
 detecting such conditions. 
 
   Koichiro
 
 
 
 
 
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Re: [Fis] It from Bit redux . . .

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Trust me. You are in good company.

Steven




 On Jun 14, 2015, at 5:22 PM, Marcus Abundis 55m...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 From Loet's post:
 During the recent conference in Vienna, I was amazed how many of our 
 colleagues wish to ground information in physics.
 I would say that I was disappointed . . . 
 
 For me this exchange on It from Bit is problematic as its seems to simply 
 revisit the same problem introduced with Shannon's use of the term 
 “information“ in his Mathematical Theory of Communication – but dressed with 
 a slightly different face. I had this same problem with “lack of precise 
 thinking“ (or terminology?) in the It from Bit video from last month. This 
 endless(?) debate around an old issue of “meaningful information“ versus 
 “meaningless information“ (aka DATA awaiting MEANINGFUL interpretation) I 
 find unhelpful in addressing FOUNDATIONAL issues. If we cannot keep our terms 
 straight I am not sure how progress is made.
 
 Yes, of course physics has a place in the conversation, but the needless 
 blurring of basic terms does not, I think, advance the project. If a basic 
 nomenclature and/or taxonomy cannot be agreed and then abided in these 
 conversations, it leaves me wondering how I might contribute. I am new to 
 this group, but this seems like it should have been dealt with from the start 
 in agreeing the FIS group goals.
  
 
 Marcus Abundis
 about.me/marcus.abundis
 
  http://about.me/marcus.abundis?promo=email_sig 
 
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Re: [Fis] Chuan's reply11 - THE FRONTIERS OF INTELLIGENCE SCIENCE - unless reaches

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

You are not the first person to point this out :-)

I have argued for years that the power profile and dynamics required
excludes Turing's models of computation from biophysics. See:
https://youtu.be/zF5Bp_YsZ3M

Steven


On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 11:32 PM, Joshua Augustus Bacigalupi 
bacigalupiwo...@gmail.com wrote:

 I understand that he equates (or at least compares) it to the paradox of
 simultaneity between distinctive events and their interrelationhips in
 mechanics.


 If I understand Joseph, he is right to point out that the notion of
 'simultaneity' from a non-observer stance is not necessary, because the
 distributed nature of physics is an ontological given in my Monist world
 view.  The confusion now is that humans often over extend the machine
 analogy to explain currently unexplained phenomena, e.g. intelligence.  It
 is exactly the fact that most assume a priori that if the brain and
 universe aren't actually digital, or at least mechanical, they can be
 simulated to the point to duplication via such noiseless state machines.

 Not only do I argue that we have over-extended our industrial analogies
 past the point of utility in the context of intelligence, mind,
 significance, cognition, etc., I also suggest that such heuristics actively
 obfuscate a viable path to discover such understanding.  Why?

 Let's take vision.  It is often assumed that our own retina digitizes EM
 phenomena transducing them into independent states like bits in a square
 wave.  Or, at the very least, such evolved systems can be simulated to the
 point of duplication via state machines.  The problem is that a large
 amount of energy is expended to create such independent discrete states,
 states that are specifically designed not to be related in any way with
 adjacent states.  However, there is a vast amount of relationships, both
 temporal and spatial, among potential observables embedded in the agent's
 surroundings that can co-stimulate two adjacent rods thereby assimilating
 not only two distinct events, but their spatio-temporal relations,
 simultaneously.  This potentially useful information to the agent is
 embedded in the agent's environment for free, so to speak.  Digitizing, on
 the other hand, spends energy to filter out these inter-relations only to
 re-create these relations later with still more energy and increased memory
 consumption.

 In this way, Joseph is right to question the need to insert the notion of
 simultaneity, because, the biology never took it out.  It is our centuries
 of trying to perfect our control over noiseless states that creates the
 paradox; and, therefore, a need to overtly put it back in.





 On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 10:16 PM, Joshua Augustus Bacigalupi 
 bacigalupiwo...@gmail.com wrote:

 Pedro and Joseph, thank you for your thoughtful replies.  I was away this
 weekend, and look forward to responding shortly to your comments.

 But, briefly:
 Pedro - I'm not sure I have access to Koichiro Matsuno's discussion re:
 paradoxes.  Would you mind quoting some of the relevant portions of this
 discussion?

 Joseph - Your comments on simultaneity are very insightful.  They bring
 much to mind; but, I will let these initial thoughts settle over the next
 day or so before I respond.

 Until then, best to all;
 Josh

 On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 6:33 PM, joe.bren...@bluewin.ch 
 joe.bren...@bluewin.ch wrote:

 Dear Josh, Pedro, Chuan and All,

 In Josh's original note and the subsequent comments on it, I see a
 poetic sensibility with which I fully empathize. I return, however, to four
 of Josh's expressions for I think require further discussion would be
 useful to explicate the complex relations involved. In reverse order, they
 are as follows, with my comments interpolated:

  · the self-efficacious relationship between agents and
 surroundings

 JEB: a good expression of the need for looking at content and context
 together;

 · the simultaneous dynamic between so-called parts and wholes

 JEB: ‘so-called parts’ suggests a non-separability or overlap between
 parts and wholes, leading toward a necessary new mereology, but see point
 4;

 · a both/and outcome

 JEB: a necessary processual antidote to an either/or ontology;

 · a paradox of simultaneity

 JEB: here, the concept of simultaneity has been ‘imported’ from
 classical logic and physics and I think there is a better alternative. If
 classical simultaneity does not exist, as in General Relativity and other
 absolutes also do not exist, there is no paradox to be explained. In the
 case of time, the non-separability of time and space has as a consequence
 that neither simultaneity nor succession is ‘pure’ but each is partly the
 other, like parts and wholes. Thus the word ‘simultaneous’ in point 2 is
 not required.



 To repeat, these somewhat more formal statements are not intended to
 denature the original insights but show that they can be related to a  
 non-standard,
 non-binary logic that 

Re: [Fis] THE FRONTIERS OF INTELLIGENCE SCIENCE--Zhao Chuan

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

I agree with Jerry and Joe - and I agree that, in part, this may be a
language or cultural issue/challenge.

I would like to see a few basic statements about the scientific
epistemology involved in the approach. I want to see a separation of
concerns. Right now I see a not entirely exhaustive bunch of topics (how
would I or they know?) simply thrown into a bag labeled Intelligence
Science.  While these topics may have a common basis (although this is not
stated) together their relationships are uncertain.

I am also concerned with the use of adjectives. For example, what, exactly,
is the distinction between AI and Advanced AI? I do not understand this
distinction.

I encourage our Chinese friends to precisely differentiate their various
topics and illustrate how they are related, stating the type of inquiry
they propose and the nature of it (formal or experimental, for example). If
there is a difference between Intelligence and Wisdom, exactly what is it
and how are the two related? If emotion plays a role, is it critical, where
does it fit, what difference does it make and how, exactly, does it occur?

In short I feel that we need to agree on practices, exchange scientific
glossaries and agree on terms.

Regards,
Steven



On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 6:53 PM, 钟义信 z...@bupt.edu.cn wrote:

 Dear Pedro,


 Thank you very much for recommending Ms. ZHAO's good topic, intelligence
 science, for discussion at FIS platform. I think it very much valuable that
 Ms. ZHAO put forward to us the great challenge of methodology shift. The
 attached file expressed some of my understanding on this iuuse that I would
 like to share with FIS friends.


 Best regards,


 Yixin ZHONG



 - 回复邮件 -
 *发信人:*Pedro C. Marijuan pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
 *收信人:*fis fis@listas.unizar.es
 *时间:*2015年03月04日 19时58分15秒
 *主题:*Re: [Fis] THE FRONTIERS OF INTELLIGENCE SCIENCE--Zhao Chuan


 Dear Chuan and FIS colleagues,

 The scientific study of intelligence is quite paradoxical. One is
 reminded about the problems of psychology and ethology to create
 adequate categories and frameworks about animal and human intelligence.
 The approaches started in Artificial Intelligence were quite glamorous
 three or four decades ago, but the limitations were crystal clear at the
 end of the 80's. It marked the beginning of Artificial Life and quite
 many other views at the different frontiers of the theme (complexity
 theory, biocybernetics, biocomputing, etc.) Also an enlarged
 Information Science was vindicated as the best option to clear the air
 (Stonier, Scarrott... and FIS itself too). In that line, Advanced
 Artificial Intelligence, as proposed by Yixin Zhong and others, has
 represented in my view a bridge to connect with our own works in
 information science. That connection between information processing
 and intelligence is essential. But in our occasional discussions on the
 theme we have always been centered in, say, the scientific
 quasi-mechanistic perspectives. It was time to enter the humanistic
 dimensions and the connection with the arts. Then, this discussion
 revolves around the central pillar to fill in the gap between sciences
 and humanities, the two cultures of CP Snow.
 The global human intelligence, when projected to the world, creates
 different disciplinary realms that are more an historical result that
 a true, genuine necessity. We are caught, necessarily given our
 limitations, in a perspectivistic game, but we have the capacity to play
 and mix the perspectives... multidisciplinarity is today the buzzword,
 though perhaps not well addressed and explained yet. So, your
 reflections Chao are quite welcome.

 best--Pedro

 --
 -
 Pedro C. Marijuán
 Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
 Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
 Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
 Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
 Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 ( 6818)
 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
 http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
 -

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Re: [Fis] Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Concluding the Lecture?

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

 use of terms.

Just in case you are unfamiliar with YUK and YUM, these are Stuart
Kauffman's terms to refer to the constraints that direct bacteria to follow
a sugar gradient.



On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 11:20 AM, Terrence W. DEACON dea...@berkeley.edu
wrote:

 Dear All,

 RE: Steven Ericsson-Zenith (I am not sure that your comment was posted to
 FIS)

 The phrase dynamical constraint should not be that unfamiliar or
 difficult to parse.
 Constraint on the degrees of freedom of a dynamical system is the most
 obvious (and the meaning that I have in mind), though I suppose that
 there could also be other meanings that are possible (such as might
 characterize the increase in convectional correlation in the formation
 of Bénard convection cells). I don't see that the notion of constraint
 need be restricted to some extrinsically imposed static boundary
 condition.

 As far as I can tell, this concept is quite unrelated to my friend Stu
 Kauffman's use of Yuk or Yum (a normative—not
 physico-chemical—distinction), which of course can only apply to
 something like a living system that is organized to perpetuate its
 organization by utilizing external resources and avoiding dangerous
 extrinsic conditions. Indeed, I believe that my simple model of an
 autogentic system provides an unambiguous description of the minimal
 dynamical system organization necessary to determine a
 self/environment relation that embodies an intrinsic good-for/bad-for
 valuation.

 In any case, I don't see any reason to think that my use of the
 concept of dynamical constraint, or constraint in general, to explore
 the nature of information and agency should imply that this is a case
 of posterior determination rather than an acquired disposition that
 organizes an autonomous agent's adaptive responses to extrinsic
 conditions. I hope that this clears up any confusion that my use of
 this term evoked.

 RE: Joseph Brenner

 I think that we are largely in agreement.  And I think that you
 accurately locate our differences in how we understand the
 contribution of quantum-atomic-molecular properties to these dynamical
 properties, and to the relationship we call informational. I am
 generally of the opinion that non-classical quantum effects percolate
 up to the molecular scale and higher only if very special conditions
 prevail (such as in photosynthesis), and that otherwise the
 statistical nature of these influences results in canceling effects.
 To me it is a bit analogous to the classical vs relativistic
 distinction in which at mesoscopic spatio-temporal scales (and well
 below c) relativistic effects can be neglected without any significant
 error effects. But I agree that this means that (in principle) both
 extreme scale effects can sometimes be relevant, and are ultimately
 part of the complete picture. I just don't see how these effects
 change the dynamical system requirements that determine how a relation
 of reference or significance is intrinsically established for that
 system (i.e. IN and BY that system independent of this being assessed
 by an external observer - whether explicitly or implicitly).

 As to the various interpretations of the quantum measurement problem,
 I also agree that my view is not the mainstream view, but it is not
 purely idiosyncratic either. There is more work needed here. For me,
 to make the claim that quantum indeterminacy is the ... foundation of
 the dualisms at higher levels of reality abandons the most
 interesting game in town by just positing its irresolvability. To me
 this just ends inquiry into this interesting mystery by invoking
 another mystery that is claimed to be irresolvable. I take the view of
 Richard Feynman who said about quantum physics ... I don't understand
 it. Nobody does — by which he means that nobody has a clear idea of
 why it must be the way it is. I am skeptical of those who claim they
 know, or know that it has no deeper resolution. In this respect, I am
 comfortable in my minority opinion.

 But disagreement at this most basic theoretical level doesn't
 undermine our ability to come to a convergent understanding of many of
 the higher-order phenomena we have discussed, including the
 organization of dynamical systems able to intrinsically determine the
 reference and significance of information. In this and other arenas I
 look forward to interesting critical debates to shed more light on
 these concepts.

 Thanks, Terry



 On 2/2/15, joe.bren...@bluewin.ch joe.bren...@bluewin.ch wrote:
  Dear All,
 
  I would like to thank Terry for his detailed analysis of my comments on
 his
  work.  I should repeat that I consider his theory as a necessary part of
 any
  emerging theory of information and going beyond Shannon. I also commend
 him
  for indicating where it is 'incomplete' (sic), subject to differences of
  opinion as to what may be relevant from other approaches which have not
 been
  explicitly discussed in his paper.
 
  One interesting place to start might

Re: [Fis] Fwd: Re: Concluding the Lecture?

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Terry,

First, allow me to respond to your questions on my own account and then
further challenge your own.

No, information is not for me a stereochemical property, in that I am
less concerned about the particulars of the chemistry involved. However, my
principal concern is a generalized (flexible and closed) structure that may
be formed by different elements in different environments. So it is
structure that is primary and not chemistry, that may simply be seen as a
means to an end.

Your question concerning my definition of knowledge is insightful. Indeed,
knowledge embodied by an organism may be false, but this has no impact at
all upon the responses that the organism produces in its utilization. The
false knowledge may, in fact, benefit the organism. All knowledge, indeed
any knowledge, is that which determines subsequent physical actions, be it
true or false. Fallibilism is simply part of a method of knowledge
refinement. Of course, this model opens up some interesting philosophical
questions in that sustained error can now potentially play an important
role in evolution.

You claim that to understand information requires a theory of dynamical
constraints and further these constraints do not have reducible
components. You are perhaps inspired by Darwin's constraint of natural
selection? These are, for me, posterior determinants. But natural selection
is not itself dynamic and nor does it have an existential status that would
allow me to say that it has level specific properties. This, again,
suggests dualism (sorry).

Regards,
Steven

 PS. Let's just say that I posted this to FIS on Monday, and I'll limit
myself next week. :-)



On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 9:23 PM, Terrence W. DEACON dea...@berkeley.edu
wrote:

 Dear Steven,

 Sadly Taking the time (and wordiness) required to explain my critique
 and redefinition of emergence is beyond the scope this venue and your
 patience, so I can only point to my too lengthy book for that account.
 Needless to say I do not accept either dualism or identity theory. My
 claim is that to understand information requires a theory of dynamical
 constraints, and since constraints don't have reducible components
 they are level specific relational properties, not identified with
 intrinsic properties of specific material objects or energetic
 systems, but not epiphenomenal.

 Do I understand you to be reducing information to a stereochemical
 property? And do you reduce knowledge to anything that determines
 physical actions? Obviously, I must be missing something. I would
 not be alone in arguing that for something to be information about
 something, it must be capable of being in error. How can simple
 physical properties or causal interactions have this property of
 falliblism?

 — Terry

 On 1/30/15, Steven Ericsson-Zenith ste...@iase.us wrote:
  Dear Terry,
 
  This emergence theory, at least on the face of it, is then surely an
  advocacy of dualism, since epiphenomenalism is logically
 indistinguishable
  from identity theory. So I must ask how you propose to distinguish the
 two.
 
  Information theory is a way of speaking about what happens in the
 world.
  As such it is a pragmatic, like many other pragmatics before it, it is a
  step in the right direction but not, of itself, able or required to meet
  the explanatory goal.
 
  My best definition of information does not standalone: Information is
  that which adds to knowledge and identifies cause, where knowledge is
  generalized to include all that determines subsequent action
 (importantly,
  it is the immediate that includes all physical actions).
 
  It is possible, in my theory, to reduce reference to an intrinsic
 physical
  property. Briefly, sense is formed as a shape upon the surface of
 flexible
  closed structures (biophysics, with latent receptors and motor
 functions),
  characterized by a holomorphic functor, covariant with another shape upon
  the closed surface, bound as a hyper-functor. The hyper-functor provides
 a
  sense/response decision point between the two. IOW, a clear reference is
  always associated with a response.
 
  Regards,
  Steven
 
 
 
 
  On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 7:25 PM, Terrence W. DEACON dea...@berkeley.edu
 
  wrote:
 
  Hi Steven,
 
  My apologies for wordiness. We all have our weaknesses. I am curious
  about your claim that a complete theory of information may be
  impossible. I am not even sure what this would mean — except
  irresolvable dualism. But as to the issue of whether I advocate an
  identity theory, I can provide a clear no. Mine is an emergence theory
  in which it is not possible to reduce reference to an intrinsic
  physical property.
 
  Thanks, Terry
 
  On 1/30/15, Steven Ericsson-Zenith ste...@iase.us wrote:
   Dear Terry, list.
  
   I apologize that I have not had the time to keep up with this
  discussion. I
   did try to read Terry's text but found it strangely impenetrable with
  many
   more word than were necessary to make a point

Re: [Fis] Fwd: Re: Concluding the Lecture?

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Terry, list.

I apologize that I have not had the time to keep up with this discussion. I
did try to read Terry's text but found it strangely impenetrable with many
more word than were necessary to make a point. This is, perhaps, merely a
question of style, repeated in the recent books of his that I have
purchased but that sit essentially unread although I have tried.

To clarify, I have spent more than my share of time reading the work of
Charles Peirce, readily acknowledged, although many of you may now
recognize my preference for his father's work and its priority. Both quite
brilliant men, but Charles suffers, both conceptually and in his readership
at the hands of neology. Who among us wants to sit through yet another
argument with followers of Charles on the nature of semeiois or a sign? Not
I.

I have also spent a good deal of my time with the work of Claude Shannon.
My discipline of origin is, after all (in French), Informatique. I do
this not merely to comprehend Shannon's theory of communication but also to
inquirer concerning the role that his mathematization plays in its
unfolding. I find, in the end, that the theory applies well to its original
intent, telephony engineering (a human activity), but it lacks any true
ontology.

That is, from my point of view, communication does not exist because there
is a lack of continuity. What I may speak of instead is apprehension. This
suggests that no complete theory of information is, in fact, conceivable.

I confess that I am stunned by Joe's advocacy of necessary duality. But
then, it is not entirely clear what he is implying. He could, for example,
simply be an advocate of a universal property not widely considered and
advocated by myself as the basis of experience or as Benjamin Peirce's
universal will or Charles' (weaker) matter as effete mind, all being
the universal equal of gravitation and of light and to be found ultimately
in the same equations as a force that have an effect upon the world, in
this case in the flexible closed structures that form biophysics. A theory
based upon such a premise, even though it requires something physically
extra today, is clearly not at all dualist.

I, naturally enough, am sympathetic to Terry's denial of dualism, but I
wonder if Terry merely advocates an identity theory. As I have noted often
such a theory is, in fact, a dualism.

Regards,
Steven

--
   Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
   Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
   http://iase.info










On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 12:43 PM, Terrence W. DEACON dea...@berkeley.edu
wrote:

 Thanks to Joseph for this spirited rejoinder, and to Krassimir for
 reminding us that convergence is perhaps more likely to succeed than
 any single-minded approach.

 With Krassimir, I am in agreement. I have probably overstated the
 priority of my own approach, even if I do believe it to be a best
 middle ground from which to begin formalization. This is a big
 challenge and I should celebrate the diversity of approaches more than
 I have. This is my path, and I have taken this opportunity to make my
 reasons for pursuing it clear. Like most of us, it is sent as a sort
 of mating call, in case others might find interesting insights there
 too.

 In response to Joseph, I would challenge you to specifically identify
 my homuncular assumptions, demonstrate where the autogenic model makes
 them, and deacribe in what ways you think that autogenesis is somehow
 not physically realizable. I admit to being blind to any of these, but
 I don't want to just convince you, I want to get it right. However, I
 am not willing to live with unresolved dualisms. And I don't quite get
 your comment about dualisms that do exist in nature and how you
 connect this with my presence/absence perspective. Perhaps this has to
 do with the fact that I am not satisfied that certain dualisms arising
 from quantum theories are fundamental, rather than the result of
 incomplete theory, and your own view which seems to embrace them. In
 which case we may need to agree to disagree.

 I am slightly perplexed and don't quite follow your implications
 regarding the specific proposal made in this piece. The dualisms I am
 hoping to resolve in this essay orbit around the difference between
 physicalistic and semiotic uses of the information concept, and about
 how this implicitly reifies Descartes' res cogitans / res extensa
 dualism, with reference and significance on the former side of this
 divide and Shannon information (and related uses in physics) on the
 latter. You can read my view as arguing that this dualism cannot
 merely be left as an unanalyzed assumption if we are seeking a
 complete theory of information.

 I anticipate that there is much unmentioned detail that remains to be
 unpacked and debated here. Pursuing some of these details could be
 very informative, even if it doesn't change entrenched positions.

 I think that it is interesting that so many responses have betrayed a
 sort of thinly

Re: [Fis] Fwd: Re: Concluding the Lecture?

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Terry,

This emergence theory, at least on the face of it, is then surely an
advocacy of dualism, since epiphenomenalism is logically indistinguishable
from identity theory. So I must ask how you propose to distinguish the two.

Information theory is a way of speaking about what happens in the world.
As such it is a pragmatic, like many other pragmatics before it, it is a
step in the right direction but not, of itself, able or required to meet
the explanatory goal.

My best definition of information does not standalone: Information is
that which adds to knowledge and identifies cause, where knowledge is
generalized to include all that determines subsequent action (importantly,
it is the immediate that includes all physical actions).

It is possible, in my theory, to reduce reference to an intrinsic physical
property. Briefly, sense is formed as a shape upon the surface of flexible
closed structures (biophysics, with latent receptors and motor functions),
characterized by a holomorphic functor, covariant with another shape upon
the closed surface, bound as a hyper-functor. The hyper-functor provides a
sense/response decision point between the two. IOW, a clear reference is
always associated with a response.

Regards,
Steven




On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 7:25 PM, Terrence W. DEACON dea...@berkeley.edu
wrote:

 Hi Steven,

 My apologies for wordiness. We all have our weaknesses. I am curious
 about your claim that a complete theory of information may be
 impossible. I am not even sure what this would mean — except
 irresolvable dualism. But as to the issue of whether I advocate an
 identity theory, I can provide a clear no. Mine is an emergence theory
 in which it is not possible to reduce reference to an intrinsic
 physical property.

 Thanks, Terry

 On 1/30/15, Steven Ericsson-Zenith ste...@iase.us wrote:
  Dear Terry, list.
 
  I apologize that I have not had the time to keep up with this
 discussion. I
  did try to read Terry's text but found it strangely impenetrable with
 many
  more word than were necessary to make a point. This is, perhaps, merely a
  question of style, repeated in the recent books of his that I have
  purchased but that sit essentially unread although I have tried.
 
  To clarify, I have spent more than my share of time reading the work of
  Charles Peirce, readily acknowledged, although many of you may now
  recognize my preference for his father's work and its priority. Both
 quite
  brilliant men, but Charles suffers, both conceptually and in his
 readership
  at the hands of neology. Who among us wants to sit through yet another
  argument with followers of Charles on the nature of semeiois or a sign?
 Not
  I.
 
  I have also spent a good deal of my time with the work of Claude Shannon.
  My discipline of origin is, after all (in French), Informatique. I do
  this not merely to comprehend Shannon's theory of communication but also
 to
  inquirer concerning the role that his mathematization plays in its
  unfolding. I find, in the end, that the theory applies well to its
 original
  intent, telephony engineering (a human activity), but it lacks any true
  ontology.
 
  That is, from my point of view, communication does not exist because
 there
  is a lack of continuity. What I may speak of instead is apprehension.
 This
  suggests that no complete theory of information is, in fact,
 conceivable.
 
  I confess that I am stunned by Joe's advocacy of necessary duality. But
  then, it is not entirely clear what he is implying. He could, for
 example,
  simply be an advocate of a universal property not widely considered and
  advocated by myself as the basis of experience or as Benjamin Peirce's
  universal will or Charles' (weaker) matter as effete mind, all being
  the universal equal of gravitation and of light and to be found
 ultimately
  in the same equations as a force that have an effect upon the world, in
  this case in the flexible closed structures that form biophysics. A
 theory
  based upon such a premise, even though it requires something physically
  extra today, is clearly not at all dualist.
 
  I, naturally enough, am sympathetic to Terry's denial of dualism, but I
  wonder if Terry merely advocates an identity theory. As I have noted
 often
  such a theory is, in fact, a dualism.
 
  Regards,
  Steven
 
  --
 Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
 Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
 http://iase.info
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 12:43 PM, Terrence W. DEACON 
 dea...@berkeley.edu
  wrote:
 
  Thanks to Joseph for this spirited rejoinder, and to Krassimir for
  reminding us that convergence is perhaps more likely to succeed than
  any single-minded approach.
 
  With Krassimir, I am in agreement. I have probably overstated the
  priority of my own approach, even if I do believe it to be a best
  middle ground from which to begin formalization. This is a big
  challenge and I should celebrate the diversity of approaches more than
  I have

Re: [Fis] Information-as-Process

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

The problem with this approach (and approaches like it) is that it is
descriptive and not explanatory. The distribution of the shape, in my
model, can be described, perhaps, but the process or action decision point
and response covariance is impossible to consider.

It is for this reason that I use holomorphic functors and hyper-functors in
which I can express the explicit role of a base universal (per gravitation).

Nor is it clear to me that this is what Joe referred to as information as
process.

On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 10:20 PM, Loet Leydesdorff l...@leydesdorff.net
wrote:

 Dear colleagues,



 Shannon’s information theory can be considered as a calculus because it
 allows for the dynamic extension. Theil (1972)—Statistical decomposition
 analysis (North Holland)—distinguished between static and dynamic
 information measures. In addition to Shannon’s statical H, one can write:







 in which  can be considered as the a posteriori and  the a priori
 distribution. This dynamic information measure can be decomposed and
 aggregated. One can also develop measures for systemic developments and
 critical transitions. In other words, information as a process can also be
 measured in bits of information. Of course, one can extend the
 dimensionality (*i*) for the multivariate case (*ijk*…), and thus use
 information theory for network analysis (including time).



 Best,

 Loet



 References:

 ·Leydesdorff, L. (1991). The Static and Dynamic Analysis of
 Network Data Using Information Theory. *Social Networks, 13*(4), 301-345.

 ·Theil, H. (1972). *Statistical Decomposition Analysis*.
 Amsterdam/ London: North-Holland.




 --

 Loet Leydesdorff

 *Emeritus* University of Amsterdam
 Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)

 l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
 Honorary Professor, SPRU, http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/University of
 Sussex;

 Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ. http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/,
 Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC,
 http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.htmlBeijing;

 Visiting Professor, Birkbeck http://www.bbk.ac.uk/, University of
 London;

 http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJhl=en



 *From:* Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Steven
 Ericsson-Zenith
 *Sent:* Monday, December 08, 2014 10:22 PM
 *To:* Joseph Brenner
 *Cc:* fis
 *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Information-as-Process



 I am a little mystified by your assertion of information as process.
 What, exactly, is this and how does it differ fro information in general
 (Shannon). Is it related to Whitehead's process notions?



 In terms of neuroscience it is important to move away from connectionism
 and modern computational ideas I believe. It is not clear to me how
 information theory can be applied to the operation of the brain at the
 synaptic level because the actions and the decisions made are made across
 the structure and not at a single location.



 Recognition, for example, is not a point event but occurs rather when a
 particular shape is formed in the structure (of the CNS, for example) and
 is immediately covariant with the appropriate response (another shape)
 which may be characterized as a hyper-functor (which may or may not include
 neurons and astrocytes in the brain).



 Regards,

 Steven







 On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 4:39 AM, Joseph Brenner joe.bren...@bluewin.ch
 wrote:

 Dear Carolina,  Bob L., Bob U., Sören and Krassimir,

 First of all thanks to Carolina for having launched a most interesting
 thread, of which I have changed the title since the issues are broader than
 that of Neuroinformation alone, as Francesco has noted.

 My first point is a response to Sören since I feel his book does not
 address Information-as-Process as 'physically' as I think necessary. His
 reference to the use of this term by Buckland (on p. 77 not 87), (which I
 had missed when first reading /Cybersemiotics/), however, is followed by a
 reference to information processing. (He later states that a new metatheory
 is required to replace the information processing paradigm, and he proposes
 Peircean semiotics, whereas I have proposed Logic in Reality.) I also note
 that Buckland places Information-as-Process in the 'Intangible' column of
 his matrix and one can question the ontological meaning of this.

 In the compendium /Philosophers of Process/. 1998. Browning and Myers
 (eds.). New York: Fordham University Press, Peirce is represented by four
 papers: The Architecture of Theories, The Doctrine of Necessity
 Examined, The Law of Mind  and Man's Glassy Essence. Unfortunately, in
 none of these is the word 'process' used, let alone described as a concept.
 'Process' is not an entry in the COMMENS Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce,
 edited by Bergman and Paavola, so the most one can say is that process was
 not a common concept in Peirce. If Information-as-Process is to be
 developed as a concept, I doubt that Peirce's

Re: [Fis] COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

 Is there such a thing as Collective Intelligence?

I am concerned that the methods of the Harvard paper demonstrate nothing at
all and, however well intended, they appear to be insufficiently rigorous
and one might say unscientific.

If the question were: are there things that a group of individuals may
achieve that an individual may not, build the Pyramids or go to the Moon,
for example, then manifestly this is the case.

However, can we measure the objective efficiency of a group by considering
the problems solved by individuals working together in groups such that we
may identify whether there is an environment independent quantifiable
addition or loss of efficiency in all cases? Perhaps, but one suspects not.

Bottomline: I think you must stop worrying about collective intelligence
and speak to quantifiable efficiencies in all cases.

 How does IT effect the existence or non-existence of Collective
Intelligence?

The internet does not seem to have especially improved general intelligence
- it has made apparent the ignorance what what there all along. On the
other hand, it appears to have misinformed more individuals than it has
benefitted.

Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info

+1-650-308-8611





On Thursday, March 6, 2014, Pedro C. Marijuan
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.esjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es');
wrote:

 Dear John P. and FIS Colleagues,

 Thanks for the kickoff text. It a discussion on new themes that only
 occasionally and very superficially has surfaced in this list.
 Intelligence, the information flow in organizations, distributed
 knowledge, direct crowd enlistment in scientific activities... It sounds
 rather esoteric, but in the historical perspective the phenomenon is far
 from new. Along the biggest social transformations, the new information
 orders have been generated precisely by new ways to circulate
 knowledge/information across social agents--often kept away from the
 previous informational order established. In past years, when the
 initial Internet impact was felt, there appeared several studies on
 those wide historical transformations caused by the arrival of new
 social information flows --O'Donnell, Hobart  Schiffman, Lanham, Poe...

 But there is a difference, in my opinion, in the topic addressed by John
 P., it is the intriguing, more direct involvement of software beyond the
 rather passive, underground role it generally plays.  Organizational
 processes frozen into the artifact--though not fossilized. Information
 Technologies are producing an amazing mix of new practices and new
 networkings that generate growing impacts in economic activities, and in
 the capability to create new solutions and innovations. So, the three
 final questions are quite pertinent. In my view, there exist the
 collective intelligence phenomenon, innovation may indeed benefit from
 this new info-crowd turn,  and other societal changes  are occurring
 (from new forms of social uprising  and revolt, to the detriment of the
 natural info flows --conversation--, an increase of individual
 isolation, diminished happiness indicators, etc.)

 Brave New World? Not yet, but who knows...

 best ---Pedro


  Prpic wrote:
  ON COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: The Future of IT-Mediated Crowds
  John Prpić
  Beedie School of Business
  Simon Fraser University
  pr...@sfu.ca
 
 
  Software (including web pages and mobile applications etc) is the key
 building block of the IT field in terms of human interaction, and can be
 construed as an artifact that codifies organizational process “…in the form
 of software embedded “routines” (Straub and Del Guidice 2012). These
 organizational processes are frozen into the artifact, though not
 fossilized, since the explicit codification that executes an artifact can
 be readily updated when desired (Orlikowski and Iacono 2001, Yoo et al.
 2012).
 
  A software artifact always includes “a setting of interaction” or a user
 interface, for example a GUI or a DOS prompt (Rogers 2004), where human
 beings employ the embedded routines codified within the artifact (including
 data) for various purposes, providing input, and receiving programmed
 output in return. The setting of interaction provides both the limits and
 possibilities of the interaction between a human being and the artifact,
 and in turn this “dual-enablement” facilitates the functionality available
 to the employ of a human being or an organization (Del Giudice 2008). This
 structural view of artifacts (Orlikowski and Iacono 2001) informs us that
 “IT artifacts are, by definition, not natural, neutral, universal, or
 given” (Orlikowski and Iacono 2001), and that “IT artifacts are always
 embedded in some time, place, discourse, and community” (Orlikowski and
 Iacono 2001).
 
  Emerging research and our observation of developments in Industry and in
 the Governance context signals that organizations are increasingly

Re: [Fis] [PEIRCE-L] Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

There appears to be a paperwork delay of it on YouTube. Although you
can find it at

http://ee380.stanford.edu

in its unedited form - and play it on non-windows platforms only if
you have VLC or some other windows based player.

Regards,
Steven


On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Jerry LR Chandler
jerry_lr_chand...@me.com wrote:
 Steven:

 Has your lecture been posted?

 Cheers

 Jerry



 On Jan 7, 2014, at 6:43 PM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote:


 Dear List,

 My lecture on the 15th involves an uncommon subject (for me), God. What role
 does God play in the construction of computing machinery and why is the
 subject of my talk at all relevant today?

 Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)
 His life, contributions to logic, and the American Enlightenment.
 http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/

 The lecture will be recorded, I'll let you know when it is available.

 Regards,
 Steven

 --
 Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
 Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
 http://iase.info




 -
 PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on Reply List or Reply All to REPLY ON
 PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
 peirc...@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but
 to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L in the BODY of
 the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .





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[Fis] Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear List,

My lecture on the 15th involves an uncommon subject (for me), God. What
role does God play in the construction of computing machinery and why is
the subject of my talk at all relevant today?

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)
His life, contributions to logic, and the American Enlightenment.
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/

The lecture will be recorded, I'll let you know when it is available.

Regards,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info
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Re: [Fis] [PEIRCE-L] Stanford seminar On The Origin Of Experience

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Thank you Anny. That is an interesting interpretation of my position.

As will be made clear in the book, for me a religion is simply a set
of ideas such that we cannot look upon the world without consideration
of them. In this sense, science is my religion.

I should make it clear that I am personally indifferent to the notion
of God. But I understand its context, the motivation and origin for
its use. In my next lecture, however, I will speak about the view and
motivations of Benjamin Peirce, his son Charles, and the attempt by
them and other radical Unitarians to re-conceive the notion of God in
scientific terms.

But it should be clear that this attempt, led by Benjamin Peirce, from
influences and peer encouragements that can be traced back to Descarte
through Malebranche and the Unitarian logical challenge to divided
conceptions (i.e. Trinity), and articulated in his book Ideality in
the physical sciences is rightly paralleled with the positivist and
existentialist movement in Europe during the nineteenth century.

In my view it is a direct parallel to the existentialist challenge to
historical conceptions of divinity. I describe Benjamin as a cautious
positivist in that he argued for true positivism (that science may be
universally applied) but did not want science to lose touch with the
deeper cosmological issues and issues of quality. (In this he, and
the others of his ilk in and around Harvard, were thwarted by
conservative social forces and subsequently Unitarianism lost its
way).

These same motivations led in Europe to a concern over the social
implications of the failure of past conceptions (in the rise of
science and rejection of scripture) and in the absence of an
alternative. A concern expressed in terms that God is dead.

The social pragmatism of this Harvard centered group was to place our
concerns over the nature of our existence clearly into the domain of
science and to re-conceive of the notion of God in scientific terms. A
view articulated by Charles in his Neglected Argument.  I've been
saying that it is a sort of atheism without the a, but this is not
quite fair I think since atheism is most generally a form of
materialism. This move acknowledges the common ground in the inquiry
of science and theology on the deeper issues, i.e, the intimate human
inquiry into the nature of the world and our place in it.

Anyhow, this narrative has unfolded before me during the development
of my work and provides the historical context and precedence for it.
It is discussed in one chapter of the forthcoming book and I will
speak of it (working from this chapter) on January 15th when I lecture
at Stanford on the life and work of Charles Sanders Peirce. This
lecture will place Charles in this broader context. As you know, 2014
is the centenary of Charles' death.

For others, if you have not yet caught my lecture last month, you can
see it here: http://youtu.be/zF5Bp_YsZ3M  The transcript of the
lecture is available as a book review here:
https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1137409

Again, my thanks for your kind comments.

Best regards,
Steven


On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 12:21 AM, Anny Ballardini
anny.ballard...@gmail.com wrote:
 Steven Ericsson-Zenith,

 I finally had some time to follow this interesting presentation of your
 book. And if I understand properly, which is also connected with some of
 your previous contributions on this list, the fact that you want to show
 that light is static is an hermetic statement that God exists in an
 ever-present presence. And as far as I can remember, you will be able to
 show mathematically your supposition. This draws back to your previous
 commitment as a religious member of our community. You also say that new
 ideas are not familiar, but as you know, new ideas are the bread of
 artists, and this goes well along with what research is supposed to be. The
 only difference in-between artistic and scientific research is that the
 latter requires an armamentarium of historical information (precise
 quotations, previous theories) that artistic performance does not have. That
 all belongs to the digestion of art criticism.
 I am wondering in this moment about Leonardo. He simply skipped all previous
 history and created on his own in a gut-lived process that put himself in a
 competition with his own self. Those who play an instrument or paint,
 perfectly know what I am talking about.
 After this book, which I can see as a major contribution to the scientific
 community, maybe you will finally be able to get to pure research, your own.

 What might be difficult here for people like me who do not have extended
 studies in mathematics or physics, are the extended drawbacks to these
 specialized sciences.

 Anyhow, congratulations, and let us know when the next lecture comes up.

 [I have been absent from this list because of several commitments. The major
 one probably being the relapse of my 9 year old niece into leukemia. I am
 shocked by the way she is being

Re: [Fis] [PEIRCE-L] Stanford seminar On The Origin Of Experience

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

I make one thing I say here clear. When I say rejection of
scripture, I really must say rejection of the literal interpretation
of scripture. Many of these radical Unitarian's - if not all of them
at the time - still considered themselves Christian.

Steven


On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 2:10 AM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith ste...@iase.us wrote:
 Thank you Anny. That is an interesting interpretation of my position.

 As will be made clear in the book, for me a religion is simply a set
 of ideas such that we cannot look upon the world without consideration
 of them. In this sense, science is my religion.

 I should make it clear that I am personally indifferent to the notion
 of God. But I understand its context, the motivation and origin for
 its use. In my next lecture, however, I will speak about the view and
 motivations of Benjamin Peirce, his son Charles, and the attempt by
 them and other radical Unitarians to re-conceive the notion of God in
 scientific terms.

 But it should be clear that this attempt, led by Benjamin Peirce, from
 influences and peer encouragements that can be traced back to Descarte
 through Malebranche and the Unitarian logical challenge to divided
 conceptions (i.e. Trinity), and articulated in his book Ideality in
 the physical sciences is rightly paralleled with the positivist and
 existentialist movement in Europe during the nineteenth century.

 In my view it is a direct parallel to the existentialist challenge to
 historical conceptions of divinity. I describe Benjamin as a cautious
 positivist in that he argued for true positivism (that science may be
 universally applied) but did not want science to lose touch with the
 deeper cosmological issues and issues of quality. (In this he, and
 the others of his ilk in and around Harvard, were thwarted by
 conservative social forces and subsequently Unitarianism lost its
 way).

 These same motivations led in Europe to a concern over the social
 implications of the failure of past conceptions (in the rise of
 science and rejection of scripture) and in the absence of an
 alternative. A concern expressed in terms that God is dead.

 The social pragmatism of this Harvard centered group was to place our
 concerns over the nature of our existence clearly into the domain of
 science and to re-conceive of the notion of God in scientific terms. A
 view articulated by Charles in his Neglected Argument.  I've been
 saying that it is a sort of atheism without the a, but this is not
 quite fair I think since atheism is most generally a form of
 materialism. This move acknowledges the common ground in the inquiry
 of science and theology on the deeper issues, i.e, the intimate human
 inquiry into the nature of the world and our place in it.

 Anyhow, this narrative has unfolded before me during the development
 of my work and provides the historical context and precedence for it.
 It is discussed in one chapter of the forthcoming book and I will
 speak of it (working from this chapter) on January 15th when I lecture
 at Stanford on the life and work of Charles Sanders Peirce. This
 lecture will place Charles in this broader context. As you know, 2014
 is the centenary of Charles' death.

 For others, if you have not yet caught my lecture last month, you can
 see it here: http://youtu.be/zF5Bp_YsZ3M  The transcript of the
 lecture is available as a book review here:
 https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1137409

 Again, my thanks for your kind comments.

 Best regards,
 Steven


 On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 12:21 AM, Anny Ballardini
 anny.ballard...@gmail.com wrote:
 Steven Ericsson-Zenith,

 I finally had some time to follow this interesting presentation of your
 book. And if I understand properly, which is also connected with some of
 your previous contributions on this list, the fact that you want to show
 that light is static is an hermetic statement that God exists in an
 ever-present presence. And as far as I can remember, you will be able to
 show mathematically your supposition. This draws back to your previous
 commitment as a religious member of our community. You also say that new
 ideas are not familiar, but as you know, new ideas are the bread of
 artists, and this goes well along with what research is supposed to be. The
 only difference in-between artistic and scientific research is that the
 latter requires an armamentarium of historical information (precise
 quotations, previous theories) that artistic performance does not have. That
 all belongs to the digestion of art criticism.
 I am wondering in this moment about Leonardo. He simply skipped all previous
 history and created on his own in a gut-lived process that put himself in a
 competition with his own self. Those who play an instrument or paint,
 perfectly know what I am talking about.
 After this book, which I can see as a major contribution to the scientific
 community, maybe you will finally be able to get to pure research, your own.

 What might be difficult here for people like

Re: [Fis] Informatics vs. Mathematics

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

This view is fundamentally flawed. The introduction of subjectivity confusing 
the matter. The distinction is not about objects but operations.

In mathematics, taken as the science that draws necessary conclusions, 
operations suffer no causal loss. Whereas, information is the means to reason 
about the causal integrity of interaction.

Turing machines conduct mathematical operations, not informational operations. 
Communication of one machine to another, OTOH, is an informational operation.

Regards,
Steven


On Apr 15, 2013, at 4:10 PM, Krassimir Markov mar...@foibg.com wrote:

 Dear FIS Colleagues,
 It is really pleasure to read your posts in this exciting mail list.
 During the time I am subscribed in (Thanks to Pedro for inviting me!) I have 
 read interesting and very useful ideas.
 Now I think is the right time to put one very important question: 
 What is the main difference between Informatics and Mathematics?
 In other words: What is the main difference between “Information object” and 
 “Mathematical one” ?
 Well, I nave answer (of course, from my point of view):
 The main difference is the Subject!
 Mathematical theories totally avoid the subject and subjective interpretation 
 of mathematical structures and operations.
 It doesn’t mater who will interpret the mathematical constructions ( like 
 y=f(x) ) – now and after 1000 years the interpretation MUST be the same.
 In Informatics it is just the opposite – it is of crucial importance who will 
 interpret the information structures and operations.
 Let remember the Turing Machine, the basic Subject of Informatics with which 
 all interpretations of algorithms have to be compared.
 The philosophical conclusion is simple – the information phenomena (as 
 reflections) exist in the reality but may be interpreted ONLY by the Subjects.
 In other words, the information is kind of reflection for which the CONCRETE 
 Subject have appropriate interpretation (an evidence what is reflected).
 Subject may be a human, an animal, an electronic device, etc. i.e. natural or 
 artificial entity.
 In all cases, the “reflection” (or “pattern”, if you prefer) has to be 
 recognized by the Subject to became “information”. 
 
 Friendly regards
 Krassimir___
 fis mailing list
 fis@listas.unizar.es
 https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis


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Re: [Fis] Paper on Ulanowicz's A Third Window: Ulanowicz’s Process Ecology, McLuhan’s Media Ecology and Kauffman-Logan’s Notion of Biotic Information

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Bob,

I can make no sense of this usage of the term constraint. And while I 
understand where you are going, mainly because I'm familiar with yours and 
Kauffman's work, this paper strikes me as flawed.

First, the paper claims to seek a non-reductionist answer but fails to 
provide an alternative scientific epistemology - non-reductionism is not an 
epistemology. In brief, the problem is in the methodology of the paper which is 
still atomistic - and this is why you have a problem with atomistic reduction. 
Reduction as a method is not necessarily atomistic - reduction to a point is 
obviously empty.

Leaving aside any question concerning the existential nature of the suggestions 
made in the paper, that might be clarified if a theory of knowledge had been 
stated, the term abused most in this paper is semiotic.  That semeiotic 
theory is relevant I have no doubt, but as used here it is meaningless faddism.

In its atomism the paper commits the crime it seeks to avoid in rejecting 
reduction, for rather than an integration assembling the atomic parts as 
suggested under environmental limits, you need to identify mechanisms that 
differentiate from the whole - like Darwin's natural selection - which is 
surely the true nature of organization propagation by constraint. 

And I know this is where you are trying to go here but I believe it is 
necessary to go beyond the naive constraints of known physics. As to 
information theory, the paper seems misguided.

Best regards,
Steven


On Feb 1, 2013, at 6:11 AM, Bob Logan lo...@physics.utoronto.ca wrote:

 Dear Colleagues - I received the following response below to my paper from 
 Christophe Menant on the FIS listserv so some of you might not have received 
 it. The easiest way for me to respond to the question that Christophe raises 
 is to share with you the original paper I wrote with Stuart Kauffman and 
 others in which we argue that in biotic systems that the constraints are the 
 information.
 
 1POEFeb1.pdf
 
 Christophe Menant christophe.men...@hotmail.fr wrote on Jan 31, 2013 
 8:34:51 AM EST.
 
 Dear Bob,
 Your paper is interesting. And there is a point on which I would appreciate 
 knowing a bit more. It is about the way you use the word constraint. 
 Here are the understandings I got from your paper (your last paragraph):
 1) Constraint  as information: 
 - biotic information is nothing more than the constraints that allows a 
 living organism to harness energy from its environment to propagate its 
 organization.
 - I do not know where the energy comes from to build the constraints but the 
 constraints are the information.
 - That  constraint, that vital piece of information was the spark that 
 ignited the biosphere.
 2) Constraint as part of a system transforming energy into work:
 - a living organism must be able through constraints to do work with the 
 energy it imports from its environment 
 - where does the energy come from to build the constraints to turn 
 environment energy into the work needed by an organisms to achieve its 
 metabolism 
 3) Constraint as constructing information: 
 - foundation which views information as the construction of constraints.
 4) Constraint as allowing a finalized work: 
 - an aleatoric event took place in which a constraint emerged that allowed a 
 collection of organic molecules to do the work necessary to propagate their 
 organization. 
 These usages of the word look as gravitating around information and 
 energy/work. But perhaps you mean something else as the word can be used in 
 many different ways. (as you may remember, I use it as characterizing the 
 nature of a system: http://cogprints.org/6279/2/MGS.pdf) 
 It would interesting you tell us a bit more about the way you position the 
 word in your approach.
 Thanks in advance
 Christophe 
 
 Here are Christophe's usage of constraint: A meaning is a meaningful 
 information that is created by a system submitted to a constraint when it 
 receives an external information that has a connection with the constraint. 
 The meaning is formed of the connection existing between the received 
 information and the constraint of the system.
 The function of the meaning is to participate to the determination of an 
 action that will be implemented in order to satisfy the constraint of the 
 system.
 
 On 2013-01-30, at 11:02 PM, Bob Logan wrote:
 
 Dear Colleagues - I was very moved by Robert Ulanowicz's book A Third Window 
 - I saw parallels with the work of McLuhan and a project I co-authored with 
 Stuart Kauffman and others. That resulted in the attached paper. Some of you 
 on FIS  will receive this email post twice as I do not know who all is on 
 FIS - I am sending this post to all folks that were copied on emails to or 
 from Robert Ulanowicz.
 I hope you will find time to read my paper and sent me your comments. If you 
 like this paper I have another that I submitted to Zygon that deals with 
 matters spiritual and theological also stimulated 

Re: [Fis] fis Digest, Vol 564, Issue 3

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

For a Whole-Cell Computational Model this paper, an interesting pulling 
together of the pieces as it is, says precious little about the membrane 
behavior and dynamic structure of the cell - something that I expect from a 
paper that claims to be a whole-cell model. The title of the paper appears to 
be missing the word Toward …

Steven

--
  Dr Steven Ericsson-Zenith
  Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
  http://iase.info



On Oct 16, 2012, at 1:19 PM, Kevin Clark kbclark...@yahoo.com wrote:

 A Whole-Cell 
 Computational Model Predicts Phenotype from Genotype


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Re: [Fis] CFP: Special theme issue of Elsevier's Journal “Progress in Biophysics Molecular Biology” (JPBMB)

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Only if Elsevier address the following concerns:

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info







On May 30, 2012, at 11:26 AM, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov wrote:

 
 
 
 Dear Colleagues,
 
  
 I am pleased to invite you to submit a contribution for
 
  
 a special theme issue of Elsevier's Journal “Progress in Biophysics  
 Molecular Biology” (JPBMB)
 
  
 http://www.journals.elsevier.com/progress-in-biophysics-and-molecular-biology/
 
  
 
 entitled
 
  
 Can Biology Create A Profoundly New Mathematics and Computation?
 
  
 Submission deadline: 31.08.2012
 
  
 CFP  Submission page:  
 http://www.inbiosa.eu/en/Workshops-And-Conferences-View.html?article=can-biology-create-a-profoundly-new-mathematics-and-computation
 
   
 This theme issue continues the effort of the FP7 project INBIOSA 
 (www.inbiosa.eu), the results of which are recently published in a Springer 
 volume
 
 
 
 http://www.inbiosa.eu/en/Press-View.html?article=integral-biomathics-tracing-the-road-to-reality
 
 
 
 I would appreciate if you distribute this announcement to your colleagues and 
 other mailing lists.
 
 
 
 Thank you!
 
 
 
  
 Best wishes,
 
 
 
 ___ ___ ___
 
 Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov
 landline:   +49.30.38.10.11.25
 fax/ums:   +49.30.48.49.88.26.4
 mobile: +44.12.23.96.85.69
 email: pla...@simeio.org
 URL:  www.simeio.org

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Re: [Fis] [Fwd: Re: Physics of computing]--Plamen S.

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

I'm with Bob on this to a point. 

Too often I see people giving information an existential status that it is not 
due. As you will recall, in my terms, information is simply a way of speaking 
about that which identifies cause and adds to knowledge, knowledge is simply 
a way a way of speaking about that which determines subsequent action. 

However, this does allow me to identify a rock as the source of information and 
to speak about its behavior in terms of its knowledge, that about its 
structure and dynamics that determine its subsequent action.

I do not use semeiosis in the universal way that I use knowledge. I could 
see it being so used only if it excludes sensory operation, since I argue for a 
role that sense plays in the behavior of living systems, and I include that 
role as distinguishing semeiosis, the term for me refers only to the sign 
processing of living systems.

With respect,
Steven


--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info







On Mar 18, 2012, at 9:30 AM, Bob Logan wrote:

 Dear Stanley - how can there be information in the abiotic world? Information 
 is the noun associated with the verb to inform or informing. A rock can not 
 be informed. An abiotic entity can not be informed. Information begins with 
 life. A bacterium can be informed but not an abiotic entity. When we look at 
 stars or the moon or a fossil, they are not information. Our interpretation 
 of the things in nature we observe, biotic or abiotic is the information. 
 Perhaps I am missing something but that is how I see things from my naive 
 point of view. The star, the moon or the fossil are not signs unless you 
 believe that God exists and he or she made these signs for us to interpret. 
 What do you mean that semiosis is a universal phenomenon? 
 
 best Bob
 On 2012-03-18, at 11:48 AM, Stanley N Salthe wrote:
 
 As my first posting for this week:
 
 Bob, Loet -- I respond by clarifying that my meaning in this little equation 
 is that (following Sebeok) semiosis is a universal phenomenon.  The system 
 of interpretance in my effort here is the LOCALE.  It is such locales that 
 have evolved into organisms and social systems.  In organisms and other 
 distinct systems of interpretance, the sign is the context for 
 interpretation.  So, in the little equation, I am GENERALIZING semiosis into 
 abiotic Nature.
 
 STAN
 
 
 On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 2:57 AM, Loet Leydesdorff l...@leydesdorff.net 
 wrote:
 Dear Bob,
 
 
 
 Yes, I agree: the difference that makes a difference is operationally 
 generated by a receiving system; information itself is nothing but a series 
 of differences (contained in a probability distribution). The selection 
 mechanisms in the receiving systems that position the incoming uncertainty 
 have to be specified (as hypotheses). Meaningful information emerges from 
 selecting the signal from the noise.
 
 
 
 The meaningful information (the differences that make a difference) can 
 again be communicated as information (for example, in and among biological 
 systems). Thus, the operation is recursive and the communication / 
 autopoiesis continues. Meaning can only be communicated by systems which are 
 able to entertain a symbolic order reflexively such as human beings and in 
 interhuman discourses.
 
 
 
 I’ll read the book by Reading.
 
 Best,
 
 Loet
 
 
 
 Loet Leydesdorff
 
 Professor, University of Amsterdam
 Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), 
 Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam. 
 Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-842239111
 l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/ ; 
 http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJhl=en
 
 
 
 From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On 
 Behalf Of Bob Logan
 Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2012 10:55 PM
 To: Stanley N Salthe
 Cc: fis
 Subject: Re: [Fis] FW: [Fwd: Re: Physics of computing]--Plamen S.
 
 
 
 Stan - great formula but as I learned from Anthony Reading who wrote a 
 lovely book on information Meaningful Information - it is the recipient that 
 brings the meaning to the information. 
 
 
 
 PS My book What is Information was been translated into Portuguese and 
 published in Brazil where I am doing a 4 city, 5 university speaking tour. 
 The book has not yet appeared in English but it is scheduled to be published 
 soon by Demo press.
 
 
 
 Regards from Brazil - Bob
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 On 2012-03-17, at 11:17 AM, Stanley N Salthe wrote:
 
 
 
 
 Concerning the meaning (or effect) of information (or constraint) in 
 general, I have proposed that context is crucial in modulating the effect -- 
 in all cases.  Thus: it would be like the logical example:
 
 
 
 Effect = context a   x   Constraint ^context b
 
 
 
 STAN
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 2:18 PM, Christophe Menant 
 christophe.men...@hotmail.fr wrote:
 
 Dear FISers, 
 Indeed information can be considered downwards (physical

Re: [Fis] Discussion of Information Science Education

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

I find this view a little disturbing. 

If you do not have a definition, of some kind, of the term information. Your 
claim is simply equivalent to saying that you have no idea what you are talking 
about. How can you proceed without a clarification of terms? 

I can at least point toward living things, organisms, and ask: What is this 
and what distinguishes it?  And thereby justify the question What is life? 

What justification do you have for asking the question: What is information?

If it appears that we do not know what we are talking about, that would appear 
to be an adequate explanation of why Information Science has little traction.

Recall my own definition of information as that which identifies cause and 
adds to knowledge, i.e., speaking of that which is in-formation, it rests 
between cause and that which determines subsequent action, it modifies that 
which determines subsequent action. 

Is information then a necessary distinction, forced upon us by the world, or 
is it a way of speaking, a notion that we force upon the world? And what does 
it mean to have a science of it?

I think it is clear, Information is a way of speaking about the ongoing 
transformation of the unfolding world, it is a way of speaking about change. 
Just as cause and effect are ways of speaking about change. Information has 
no existential status beyond our conception of it as such.

A science of information then would be the study and language of change, of 
differences, of the process of causes and effects and ways of speaking about 
them. Information exists in this sense then only if the cause it identifies 
makes a difference to the effect under consideration.

With respect to Library Science, that I will take to be simply the organizing 
of text to facilitate effective access to reading materials, information 
science relates only to the measure of the difference such organization makes 
to the behavior (effective or otherwise) of those accessing these materials.

This suggests that Information Science is a useful study for those that wish 
to reason about behaviors of any kind, and if I were to teach or study the 
subject then this would be the motivation for placing it into my curriculum. 

With respect,
Steven


--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info
http://senses.info







On Dec 3, 2011, at 4:23 AM, m...@aiu.ac.jp wrote:

 Dear Colleagues: 
 There are some questions which periodically return to FIS 
 discussions without conclusive answers. For instance: What is 
 information? However, the lack of consensus regarding central 
 concept is not an obstacle in the development of Information 
 Science. There is no commonly accepted answer to the question 
 What is life? But, this does not threaten the identity of 
 Biology. 
 
 Information Science has not yet achieved a status of a 
 commonly recognized discipline. It is frequently confused with 
 Computer Science, because of the term Informatics which in 
 Europe denotes what in the US is called Computing, or with 
 Library 
 Science and sometimes even with Philosophy of Information, 
 as visible from the Handbook on the Philosophy of Information 
 http://www.illc.uva.nl/HPI/ where philosophy and science 
 interleave 
 on many levels. 
 
 Information Science will never receive recognition without an 
 organized effort of research community to introduce its 
 philosophy, 
 goals, methods, and achievements to the general audience. 
 
 Books and articles popularizing the theme of information as 
 a subject of independent study do not have big enough 
 circulation to be sufficient in establishing an identity of 
 the discipline. The only effective way is to introduce 
 Information Science as a subject of education at the college 
 level for students who do not necessarily want to specialize 
 in this direction. 
 
 Certainly, introduction of a new subject to curriculum is not 
 easy, but it is possible. After all, Information Science is a 
 perfect tool for integration of curriculum, especially in the 
 context of Liberal Arts education. Which other concept, if not 
 information, can be applied in all possible contexts of 
 education? 
 
 Now, the question is whether we are ready to come out with a 
 syllabus for such a course acceptable for all of us, those who 
 are involved in the subject, and those who aren't, but 
 participate in the development of curricula. Can we overcome 
 differences between our views on the definition of 
 information, on the relationship of information understood in 
 a general way to its particular manifestations in other 
 disciplines? 
 
 Since the course (or courses) should present an identity of 
 the discipline of Information Science, it is very important 
 that we are convinced about the authentic existence of a large 
 enough common ground. Can we develop a map of this territory? 
 Can we pool resources to establish foundations

Re: [Fis] Fw: The General Information Theory of Sunik

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

 2. Brain: Are Neurons and bits really that different? 

Yes, the difference is stunning. I suggest you read a few papers on the subject.

  Neither C++ no other practically used programming
 languages ever got any formal proofs of their functionality.

This is simply not the case. Again, I suggest you search for a few papers on 
the subject and read them. There are many.

With respect,
Steven



On Oct 10, 2011, at 3:09 AM, Krassimir Markov wrote:

 
 
 -Original Message- 
 From: boris.sunik
 Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 10:26 PM
 To: 'Krassimir Markov'
 Subject: RE: [Fis] Fw: The General Information Theory of Sunik
 
 
 
 
 Dear Krassimir,
 Below are my points regarding discussed issues.
 
 Regards,
 Boris Sunik
 
 1. I never claimed that computer algorithms could provide all you know, and
 all you need to know about information. To the contrary, I consider this
 statement as wrong.
 
 My idea is that the relevant way of information representation and
 information explanation consists of viewing the real world in the same
 conceptual coordinates, which are used for representation of computer
 algorithms.
 
 IMHO, this approach exactly matches the computing experience of the modern
 world. Computer languages are not able to express any information except the
 rules of manipulation with the bits and bytes of the computer storage. BUT,
 these very limited abilities are nevertheless sufficient not only for the
 controlling very different machines but also for the manipulating human
 beings.
 
 Why a computer is that efficient? It is while computer languages adequately
 model the real world. Among other this means that data designated in
 computer languages coincide with the outside real  objects as the names
 coincide with the designated objects.
 Hence follows the idea of creating the programming-language-like-notation,
 which allows words directly designating external objects.
 
 2. Brain: Are Neurons and bits really that different?) that are the proof of
 the entire premise are unable to be proved, have no tests or evidence and
 are taken as self-evident.
 
 In my opinion, no proofs for that are necessary. The solution is to build
 the knowledge system based on this premise and see whether it will
 practically work. Neither C++ no other practically used programming
 languages ever got any formal proofs of their functionality. The usability
 of a language depends not on any formal checks but on whether they could be
 effectively used in practice. I mean TMI could practically be used and hope
 it will.
 
 3. definition of meaning
 
 In TMI semantics and meaning are synonyms. The  characteristic for TMI
 understanding of semantics is firstly considered at the end of Problem
 Statement. Another place is 2.6 where I deliberately chose the simplest
 systems, because they are the best in showing the approach's basics. The
 approach itself could be applied on arbitrary complex systems.
 
 In a few words: ―  meaning of the linguistic item is the branch(s) of
 algorithm(s) associated with this item.
 
 
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: Krassimir Markov [mailto:mar...@foibg.com]
 Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 22:32 PM
 To: boris.sunik
 Subject: Fw: [Fis] Fw: The General Information Theory of Sunik
 
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: Gavin Ritz
 Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 11:22 PM
 To: 'Steven Ericsson-Zenith' ; 'Joseph Brenner'
 Cc: 'Foundations of Information Science'
 Subject: Re: [Fis] Fw: The General Information Theory of Sunik
 
 I agree with you both.
 
 The declarative statements (4 statements in 2.4.1 Digital Computer versus
 Brain: Are Neurons and bits really that different?) that are the proof of
 the entire premise are unable to be proved, have no tests or evidence and
 are taken as self evident.
 
 This path is a dead end.
 
 Regards
 Gavin
 
 
 
 The document seems extremely confused to me. This is not least because the
 author does not appear to present a clear definition of the terms in the
 title or the expression of subject in the work. In particular, I can find no
 definition of meaning other than the one presented in a quote from Shannon
 and the subsequent use of the term is confused to say the least. Similarly,
 the term semantic is not clearly defined and abused. The same goes for
 other terms such as knowledge.
 
 So I take an even harsher view than Joseph since it is not even a good
 representative of the view that computer algorithms can provide all you
 know, and all you need to know. The definitive representative of that view
 is Stephen Wolfram's book A New Kind Of Science, and while I have my
 problems with the theory in the book, it is - at least - well defined.
 
 With respect,
 Steven
 
 
 On Oct 3, 2011, at 9:17 AM, Joseph Brenner wrote:
 
 Dear Krassimir,
 
 Thank you for bringing this document to our attention, for
 completeness. I
 
 would have wished, however, that you had made some comment on it,
 putting
 it
 into relation with your own work

Re: [Fis] Fw: The General Information Theory of Sunik

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

The document seems extremely confused to me. This is not least because the 
author does not appear to present a clear definition of the terms in the title 
or the expression of subject in the work. In particular, I can find no 
definition of meaning other than the one presented in a quote from Shannon 
and the subsequent use of the term is confused to say the least. Similarly, the 
term semantic is not clearly defined and abused. The same goes for other 
terms such as knowledge.

So I take an even harsher view than Joseph since it is not even a good 
representative of the view that computer algorithms can provide all you know, 
and all you need to know. The definitive representative of that view is 
Stephen Wolfram's book A New Kind Of Science, and while I have my problems 
with the theory in the book, it is - at least - well defined.

With respect,
Steven


On Oct 3, 2011, at 9:17 AM, Joseph Brenner wrote:

 Dear Krassimir,
 
 Thank you for bringing this document to our attention, for completeness. I 
 would have wished, however, that you had made some comment on it, putting it 
 into relation with your own work and, for example, that of Mark Burgin, 
 which are dismissed out of hand.
 
 From my point of view, Sunik's work is another one of those major steps 
 backwards to an earlier, easier time when it was claimed that computer 
 algorithms could provide all you know, and all you need to know about 
 information. One example of a phrase the author presents as involving 
 meaning is Peter's shirt size. . .
 
 From a methodological standpoint, I think it underlines, /a contrario/, the 
 danger of focus on a single approach to information. My current idea, which 
 I propose for discussion, is that a document purporting to offer a theory of 
 information should provide a reasoned, comparative discussion of 4 to 5 
 theories. This number is large enough for judgments to be possible on a 
 preferred approach and small enough for the average reader, like myself, to 
 keep the similarities and differences in mind.
 
 Thank you and best wishes,
 
 Joseph
 
 - Original Message - 
 From: Krassimir Markov mar...@foibg.com
 To: FIS fis@listas.unizar.es
 Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 12:00 PM
 Subject: [Fis] Fw: General Information Theory
 
 
 -Original Message- 
 From: boris.sunik
 Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 11:10 AM
 To: ithea-...@ithea.org
 Subject: General Information Theory
 
 Dear Colleague,
 
 For your information:
 http://www.GeneralInformationTheory.com
 
 Regards,
 Boris Sunik
 
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Re: [Fis] meaningful information

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

There is a lot of concept overloading in the community involving the term 
meaning. So it would help me if you and Antony could just give a one sentence 
definition of the term. For example, for me:

meaning = the behavior that is the product of apprehending a sign.

Which is an extreme pragmatic definition in the spirit of Peirce. Note that 
this definition excludes, or rather characterizes differently, descriptive 
sentences of the form The dog runs toward the house. The meaning of which is 
not that the dog runs toward the house, but the behavior of the apprehender.

With respect,
Steven


On Jul 20, 2011, at 10:41 AM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:

 Dear colleagues,
 
 Some of you may be interested in this context in my forthcoming article “
 Meaning as a sociological concept: A review of the modeling, mapping, and 
 simulation of the communication of knowledge and meaning, Social Science 
 Information 50(3-4) (2011) 1-23. In preprint available at 
 http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1011/1011.3244.pdf .
 
 I argue that the dynamics of meaning are very different from those of 
 information.
 
 Best wishes,
 Loet
 
 
 Loet Leydesdorff
 Professor, University of Amsterdam
 Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), 
 Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam. 
 Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-842239111
 l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
 
 From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On 
 Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan
 Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 1:38 PM
 To: fis@listas.unizar.es
 Subject: Re: [Fis] meaningful inforamtion
 
 Thanks, Anthony, for the info on your book. As you will see during future 
 discussion sessions (currently we are in the vacation pause) some parties in 
 this list maintain positions not far away from your own views. In our archive 
 you can check accumulated mails about the matter you propose --e.g. 
 discussions during the last spring. But I think you are right that the whole 
 biological scope of information has been rarely discussed.  best wishes 
 ---Pedro
 
 FIS website and discussions archives: see http://infoscience-fis.unizar.es/
 
 
 aread...@verizon.net escribió:
 I emailed an earlier version of the following contribution to the listserve a 
 few days ago and am interested in finding out if it is suitable  for 
 dissemination and, if os, when it might be included. My main interest is in 
 promoting discussion about the approach it takes to dealing with the 
 observer-dependent aspects of information.
 
 My book  Meaningful Information: The BridgeBetween Biology, Brain and 
 Behavior' has just been published by Springer. Itintroduces a radically new 
 way of thinking about information and the importantrole it plays in living 
 systems. Thiså opens up new avenues for exploring howcells and organisms 
 change and adapt, since the ability to detect and respondto meaningful 
 information is the key that enables them to receive their geneticheritage, 
 regulate their internal milieu, and respond to changes in their 
 environment.The types of meaningful information that different species and 
 different celltypes are able to detect are finely matched to the ecosystems 
 in which theylive, for natural selection has shaped what they need to know to 
 functioneffectively within them. Biological detection and response systems 
 range fromthe chemical configurations that govern genes and cell life to the 
 relativelysimple tropisms that guide single-cell organisms, the rudimentary 
 nervoussystems of invertebrates, and the complex neuronal structures of 
 mammals andprimates. The scope of meaningful information that can be detected 
 andresponded to reaches its peak in our own species, as exemplified by our 
 specialabilities in language, cognition, emotion, and consciousness, all of 
 which areexplored within this new framework.
 
 The book's home page can be found at: 
 http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/evolutionary+%26+developmental+biology/book/978-1-4614-0157-5
 
 I am eager tofind out what members think about it.
 
 Anthony Reading
 
 
 
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 -- 
 -
 Pedro C. Marijuán
 Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
 Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
 Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª
 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
 Telf: 34 976 71 3526 ( 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554
 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
 http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION THEORY--Mark Burgin, Colophon

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Mark,

My concern about all recent discussions on FIS is the apparent tendency to 
endow the notion of information with an existential status that is 
unwarranted. Information does not exist beyond our conception and so the 
language you use here worries me since there is nothing that is actually 
carried. Therefore, any discussion of a carrier of information is either 
meaningless or a convenience. 

For me, at least, the term information is simply a way of speaking about the 
necessary distinctions of causality. It is that which identifies cause and adds 
to knowledge, where knowledge is our way of speaking about that which 
determines subsequent action.

So for me it is difficult to imagine types of information unless we are 
referring to causal types. Any other categorization is cannot be general.

There are, of course, special ways of speaking about information in the 
particular and in this we may find categorization convenient, not absolute.

With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://senses.info


On Jun 7, 2011, at 6:34 PM, Mark Burgin wrote:

 Discussion colophon
 
   Dear all participants of the discussion (active and passive),
 
   I would like to express my gratitude to Pedro for asking me to start a 
 discussion about basic problems of information theory and methodology, in 
 which many qualified researchers have participated. I also appreciate efforts 
 of all active participants of the discussion, who shared their interesting 
 ideas related to information theory and practice, and especially to Joseph 
 Brenner, who expertly distilled communication of different participants 
 separating more or less direct answer to the suggested questions. As these 
 questions have quintessential importance for information theory and 
 methodology, I would like to suggest tentative answers to these questions, 
 giving arguments in support of this approach.
 Question 1. Is it necessary/useful/reasonable to make a strict distinction 
 between information as a phenomenon and information measures as quantitative 
 or qualitative characteristics of information?
  All educated people understand that a person and her/his measure, for 
 example height, are essentially different entities. It’s impossible to reduce 
 a person to one measure. The same is true for subatomic particles and other 
 physical, chemical and biological objects. However, when it comes to 
 information, even qualified researchers don’t feel a necessity to make a 
 strict distinction between information as a phenomenon and information 
 measures, although there are infinitely many information measures. We can 
 often hear and read such expressions as “Shannon information” or “Fisher 
 information”.
 
 Question 2. Are there types or kinds of information that are not encompassed 
 by the general theory of information (GTI)?
   A grounded answer to this question depends what we understand when we 
 say/write “types or kinds of information”, that is, on information 
 definitions. If we take intrinsic information definitions, then the answer is 
 YES as it is demonstrated in the book (Burgin, 2010). 
   At the same time, if we take all information definitions suggested by 
 different people, then the answer is NO because some of those definitions 
 define not information but something else, e.g., information measure or 
 knowledge or data. There are also other “definitions” that actually define 
 nothing. Naturally, these definitions and related concepts (if there are any) 
 are not encompassed by the GTI. However, GTI organizes all existing knowledge 
 on information and information processes in one unified system, allowing one 
 to discern information from other phenomena.
 Question 3. Is it necessary/useful/reasonable to make a distinction between 
 information and an information carrier?
  In the mundane life, it is possible not to make a distinction between 
 information and an information carrier. For instance, we do not make 
 distinctions between an envelope with a letter and the letter itself, calling 
 both things “a letter”, or between a book with a novel and the novel itself, 
 calling both things “a novel”.
  At the same time, a proper theory of information demands to make a 
 distinction between information and an information carrier, especially, 
 because any thing contains information and thus, is an information carrier, 
 but it is evident that to consider that everything IS information is 
 unreasonable and contradicts principles of science.
 
  I would appreciate any feedback to the ideas from this e-mail. 
 
  Sincerely,
 Mark
 
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Re: [Fis] end of session

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

I prefer that you do not speak for others, to any degree. I certainly exclude 
myself.

With respect,
Steven
 

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://senses.info


On May 30, 2011, at 1:37 PM, karl javorszky wrote:

 Dear All,
 
 please let me contribute to the summary of this session. Of the multi-faceted 
 work we have done, I'd like to touch but two points: a. applicability and 
 code, b. time.
 
 To have a businessman in our group is a blessing. We are reminded that 
 science is not only a pastime but should bring some profit, too. The 
 hypothesis we have accepted (I do not dare to write: the result we have 
 agreed on) is that there was a deep logical flaw in our rational thinking 
 these last centuries. We have culturally accepted a rounding error in our 
 calculations by concentrating on one - rather debatable - definition, namely 
 that a1+b1=c=a2+b2 with a1#a2. This has turned out to be the result of a 
 wishful thinking. Our ancestors have not been able to look deeper into the 
 consequences of this rounding error. Our generation has had access to 
 computing devices which have allowed shifting through wast amounts of data 
 until some numerical facts could be found that allow a much exacter modeling 
 of Nature than the classical way of reckoning has so far made possible.
 
 The basic tool one uses - in its easiest and lightest, primitive version -, 
 is a Table with 136 rows and 72x71 columns and 9 planes. The actual 
 complexity is in fact a bit more demanding. Yet, this Table appears to give a 
 good model for quite many applications relating to order, information, 
 movement, places, mass, velocity, alternatives, potentials (energy) and many 
 more concepts one is happy to have found a rational explanation (definition) 
 for.
 
 The Table will at first be studied in C++  or Matlab varieties. After its 
 usefulness will have been recognised, it will be doubtlessly integrated in 
 chips (prominently, on both ends of a communication channel), therefore 
 written in machine code, if not hardwired.
 The practical uses of the Table cannot now be enumerated. Focused hearing, 
 pattern recognition and cryptography will be the most evident beneficiaries. 
 
 As the concept behind the Table deals only with a+b=c, the concept will be 
 useful in every field where formal logic contributes. The relationship 
 between place and mass is of a high importance both in Physics and in 
 Chemistry. The quality property of assemblies of mass in (relatively) fixed 
 places is what Chemistry in the sense of Biochemy and - later - Genetics 
 deals with. So, the businessman in our midst may look forward to fruitful 
 results of the translation of basic science into applications.
 
 Natural numbers and operations with them cannot be patented. Their 
 applications can. This group may have made progress beyond the most 
 optimistic estimations - if the group can and will act responsibly. Now, it 
 is the turn of the businessmen to be active. The proposition is out in the 
 open.
 
 To the discussion on what we call colloquially time. There can be at least 
 three different readings found if one understands the concepts behind a+b=c. 
 First, there is the length of a convoy. This is a local, closed loop of 
 time. Second, there is time as the differentiating semantic marker between 
 cause and effect. This  can be read off the Table by means of the ties. If 
 the ties are ordered, there must have been a before. Third, there is the 
 global reading of time. This is visible on differentiations of a+b=c as a 
 temporal-spatial process. One unified reading being logically impossible 
 (there cannot be concurrently contradicting readings of priorities of 
 orders), there evolve subsegments in space in which each a different version 
 of the local times exist. As not all possible reorders can take place 
 concurrently, there will be sub-alternatives, in each of which those reorders 
 can take place which would be elsewhere contradictory.
 
 Thank you for the collaboration and the high level of discussions in this 
 session.
 Karl 
 
 2011/5/27 Pedro C. Marijuan pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
 Dear FIS colleagues,
 
 The ongoing session on  information theory  (information: mystery
 solving) will be closed soon. At his convenience, Mark Burging will
 send the usual Colophon with his impressions and some synthesis.
 
 These are pretty complicate weeks for teaching and research, so some
 pause in the discussions will be appreciated by many. In any case, the
 list is always open to tangential discussions and spontaneous new
 themes. Personally I would like to contribute next week to the ongoing
 exchanges on information and the nature of time --from the point of view
 of neurosciences, am affraid conventional time is quite untenable (as
 well as the personal sense of!)
 
 best wishes
 
 ---Pedro
 
 -
 Pedro C. Marijuán

[Fis] Email Formats by FIS Contributors

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear List,

There is an increasing tendency by FIS contributors to use a variety of quoting 
formats that make reading the contributions extremely difficult. This includes 
the use of font-size and font-color that will be removed when the message is 
presented in plain text form as, for example, when the message is stored in the 
FIS archive.

Can I suggest that contributors take care not to use rich text or HTML formats, 
despite the obvious temptation and send mail to the list only in plain text and 
are careful to demark the contributions appropriately, removing material that 
is not relevant to the response.

With respect,
Steven


--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info
http://senses.info








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Re: [Fis] WG: Re: [Fwd: Foundational Views of Shannon Information Theory]--From Gavin Ritz

[Steven Ericsson Zenith]

Amen.

Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info
http://senses.info



On Feb 16, 2011, at 12:51 PM, joe.bren...@bluewin.ch wrote:

 Dear Pedro and Friends,
 
 It is rather fascinating to observe - scientifically, without vested interest 
 - that an initiative such as this one, devoted to information, is continually 
 accompanied by its loss. Previously discussed subjects, such as the existence 
 of alternative logics that speak directly to issues of process structure, 
 identities and diversities, are often not given even a passing reference. In 
 the absence of any mechanism that might automatically call attention to 
 this fact, one is forced either to silence, which is also a loss of 
 information, or to repetition, which requires energy that might be better 
 expended otherwise in debate.
 
 I know that Pedro has been and still is struggling with the archives and 
 their indexation. All I can suggest is that all of us make a particular 
 effort, as we make our comments, to search the archives to give some minimum 
 recognition of and to prior effort. The objective is not its acceptance, but 
 to insure a dialogue in which no theory or position is given, actually or by 
 implication, any unjustified exclusivity or universality.
 
 Thank you,
 
 Joseph 









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[Fis] On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton

[Steven Ericsson Zenith]

Dear List,

I bring Erik Verlinde's recent paper to your attention because it highlights 
some foundational issues in Information Science and the general use of the 
notion of Information in physics.

Here is the paper:

On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton
http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.0785

The paper has attracted a lot of attention and Lee Smolin's response, also on 
arvix, is really what made me begin to look at this question seriously. Though 
various people have been bringing the paper to my attention since it was first 
published in January.

Verlinde appeals to a notion of an entropic force associated with a 
conception of information and frankly I'm puzzled by it. What, exactly, does he 
refer to I wonder and how does it relate to Shannon, if at all? 

My initial view is to suspect that the paper is a work of pure metaphysics and 
not physics at all. But then I ask myself to what degree it is less 
metaphysical than anything else we see in physics today. So I reserve judgement 
until I have given the matter more consideration.

Anyone else concerned by this?

With respect,
Steven


--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info
http://senses.info








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Re: [Fis] Explaining Experience In Nature

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Joe,

I confess that it takes me half a day to review my Introductory  
Remarks. Your comments are received within an hour of my notification  
to the list. So I suspect that if you spend a little more time  
actually reading the content of my work you will find most of your  
questions answered.

I will take the time to review your comments below, especially those  
that relate to the information science aspects of my work, and I will  
offer a considered response to them later.

My initial suggestion is that you read my notes on Quantum Mechanics  
found in the manuscript.

With respect,
Steven



On Mar 2, 2010, at 4:06 PM, joe.bren...@bluewin.ch wrote:

 Dear Steven,

 I have made a first reading of your text and am sympathetic to its  
 objectives. Three quick comments:

 a) In 1947, Stephane Lupasco wrote: Logic is experience; experience  
 is logic. He then and I now in my rework of his theory Logic in  
 Reality (2008) Dordrecht: Springer reject standard logic in favor of  
 a logic of real physical interactions. Thus when you write about  
 opposition against the primitive, the dynamics of opposition look  
 very similar.
 b) My logical system, however, does not have to establish a new  
 primitive, since I believe all the necessary interactions can be  
 derived from the fundamental physical dualities at the quantum  
 level, percolating into the thermodynamic and eventually the  
 cognitive world.
 c) Under these circumstances, I would like to understand the  
 necessity of the concept of Peircean signs. In what way is it  
 necessary to say that physical, informational processes, in which  
 information is both a means to model the world, and a part of the  
 world modeled, are something else than what they are? Can you please  
 expand on this point?

 Perhaps the complete book does this, but I am concerned that the  
 manuscript as is fails to discuss the implications of your approach  
 to information as in the work that has become familiar to me of the  
 people in the FIS group, also Floridi and others.

 Perhaps you can outline a specific advance you have made which will  
 make it easier to comment.

 Thank you and best wishes,

 Joseph






 Message d'origine
 De: ste...@semeiosis.org
 Date: 02.03.2010 20:49
 À: Foundations of Information Science Information 
 Sciencefis@listas.unizar.es 
 
 Objet: [Fis] Explaining Experience In Nature

 Dear List,

 After two years of intense and difficult work I am finally prepared  
 to represent my Introductory Remarks, the first 75 pages of my  
 book Explaining Experience In Nature: The Foundations of Logic and  
 Apprehension.

 I am still shy of showing off the mathematics, that'll please some  
 and disappoint others, but I do encourage my friends to read this  
 update.

 This update is, I feel, a significant advance over earlier work and  
 a plausible attack on the Church-Turing Thesis.

 The update can be found at:

   http://senses.info

 With respect,
 Steven

 --
 Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
 Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
 http://iase.info
 http://senses.info










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http://iase.info
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Re: [Fis] Asymetry and Information: A modest proposal

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

I am a little troubled by this account of the term meaning. As  
described the distinction is not necessary and the concept of  
constraint seems arbitrary. How are we to identify these  
constraints? What is the measure of meaning?


As I understand it Christophe proposes that the measure of meaning is  
the suitability of information for some purpose as defined by a  
natural constraint. So that we may say that a system input is  
meaningful if and only if it produces a behavior that statisfies some  
constraint, otherwise it is not meaningful.


However, Christophe provides no means to systematically identify  
constraints. I'm sure those he mentions seem obvious to him but they  
seemed far from obvious to me. It isn't clear, for example, how to  
derive to stay alive or to pursue happiness as a natural constraint.


I much prefer a more general definition derived from the Peircian  
pragmaticist definition (and internally consistent in my model).  
Meaning is a term concerning signs, it is the difference that a sign  
makes in the world.


A meaning is a reference to the information that a sign provides. It  
is a meta concept allowing us to reason about information.


With respect,
Steven

--
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://IASE.info
http://senses.info


On Nov 30, 2009, at 3:48 AM, Christophe Menant christophe.men...@hotmail.fr 
 wrote:



Yes Joseph, you are right.
As the satisfaction of the constraint is mandatory for the system to  
maintain its nature, system and constraint are indeed tightly linked.
The “stay alive” constraint came up on earth with the first  
organisms that had to maintain a local far from equilibrium status.  
The existence of the constraint goes with the being of the living en 
tity.
As we are all more or less Cartesian networked, we are naturally  
brought to identify components. (“divide each of the problems I was  
examining in as many parts as I could”).

More on this in a wider perspective at
http://www.idt.mdh.se/ECAP-2005/INFOCOMPBOOK/CHAPTERS/MenantChristophe.pdf
All the best
Christophe


From: joe.bren...@bluewin.ch
To: christophe.men...@hotmail.fr; fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] Asymetry and Information: A modest proposal
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:01:35 +0100

Dear Christophe,

I like your approach. Here is something even simpler: the system is  
the meaning of the information. System and meaning are not totally  
separable. One's perspective focuses on one or the other, as the  
case may be.


Best wishes,

Joseph
- Original Message -
From: Christophe Menant
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 9:30 AM
Subject: Re: [Fis] Asymetry and Information: A modest proposal

Dear all,
As the notion of information is again (and interestingly) put on the  
forefront, let’s not forget the evolutionary approach that naturally 
 introduces the notion of meaning and allows to bring in a system or 
iented perspective.
Assuming we put aside the reason of being of the universe, there is  
no entity to care about information before the coming up of life on  
earth.
Information is a notion that we humans have invented as a set of  
tools to help the understanding and managing of our world. And  
animals also manage information.
A basic tool is the measurement of the quantity of information with  
the Shannon transmission capacity of a channel, whatever the meaning  
of the information being transmitted thru the channel.
The meaning of an information can be called many names: content,  
purpose, aboutness, goal, target, sense, aim, …
As already presented in the FIS discussions, I feel that the meaning  
of information (whatever it’s naming) exists because there is a syst 
em that needs this meaning, a system that creates this meaning or us 
es it in order to satisfy a constraint. The system being an animal,  
a human or an artificial system. The constraints guiding the meaning 
 generation can be very many. Constraints are then organic (stay ali 
ve, maintain the species, …), human (valorise ego, look for happines 
s, …), artificial (obey a process, …). And following such an  
approach allows to model meaning generation by a simple system usabl 
e for animals and humans and robots (1), (2).
This does not pretend answering all the questions related to the  
complex subject of meaningful information, but it introduces that  
needed notion in simple terms.

All the best
Christophe
(1) http://cogprints.org/6279/2/MGS.pdf
(2) 
http://www.eucognition.org/uploads/docs/First_Meeting_Hamburg/Workshop_A__menant-web.pdf


 Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:53:48 +0200
 To: l...@leydesdorff.net; fis@listas.unizar.es
 From: colli...@ukzn.ac.za
 Subject: Re: [Fis] Asymetry and Information: A modest proposal

 At 11:13 PM 2009/11/27, you wrote:
 Dear Joseph,
 
 Be my guest and have some Irish children for breakfast!
 
 I did not mean my intervention as directed against substantive  
theorizing.
 In addition to a mathematical theory of communication, 

Re: [Fis] FW: Fw: Definition of Knowledge?

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Stan. Loet, List ...

It is simply incorrect to assume that language distinguishes our  
species. Many species make use of language and, within the limits of  
physiology, construct marks to communicate persistently with other  
members of their species. It is the opposable thumb and other aspects  
of our physical structure that enable us to write books, print,  
construct libraries, etc...

The notion of person-independent knowledge makes little sense to me.  
If there is a consistency between the knowledge that I embody and the  
knowledge that Loet embodies it is due entirely to a regularity in our  
personal behaviors derived from a commonality of relevant physical  
structure and common habit. Common habit is still person dependent.

I have never understood the idea of biosemiotics. This, or any other  
qualified semeiotic, seems to introduce a fundamental misunderstanding  
about the nature of semeiotic theory.

With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info
http://senses.info




On Oct 7, 2009, at 1:44 AM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:

 S: The difference between us and animals is basically language.

  S: Why not 'check out' 'Biosemiotics'?

 STAN

 Dear Stan,

 I don't understand the bio in this. If we distinguish between two  
 systems
 of reference for knowledge -- discursive knowledge to be attributed to
 interhuman communication, and personal knowledge to be attributed to  
 human
 psychologies -- the latter one is biologically embedded by the body,  
 but the
 former is only embedded by human minds (which are of course embodied).
 Knowledge can then also be globalized and become person-independent.  
 In
 other words: discursive knowledge is generated bottom-up, but  
 control can be
 top-down.

 Shouldn't it therefore be psycho-semiotics? Bio-semiotics is  
 only valid
 for personalized knowledge. (For the good order, let me hasten to  
 add that
 the two systems of knowledge -- the interpersonal and the personal  
 ones --
 are reflexive to each other.)

 Best wishes,


 Loet
 

 Loet Leydesdorff
 Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR),
 Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam.
 Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
 l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/

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Re: [Fis] Fw: Definition of Knowledge? (FIS Digest, Vol 530, Issue 1)

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Necessary and sufficient distinctions:

Knowledge is that which determines subsequent action.

Information in that which identifies cause and adds to knowledge.

With respect,
Steven

--
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://IASE.info
http://senses.info


On Oct 6, 2009, at 6:32 AM, José María Díaz Nafría jnaf...@uax.es  
wrote:

 -- Mensaje reenviado --
 De: Rafael Capurro raf...@capurro.de
 Fecha: 6 de octubre de 2009 02:28
 Asunto: Re: [Fis] Definition of Knowledge? (FIS Digest, Vol 530,  
 Issue 1)
 Para: José María Díaz Nafría jnaf...@uax.es


 dear jose maria and fis colleagues,

 greetings from japan

 I very much agree with pedro's suggestions about naturalizing the
 concept of knowledge i.e. of not reducing it to the propositional
 traditional (platonic and partly arisotelian) concept (as suggested
 also by floridi building a hierarchy where the top is propositional
 scientific knowledge). the concept of implicit knowldge or
 fore-knowledge in hermeneutic terms is a key issue that links in some
 way the 'typical' human propositional knowledge with knowledged in
 non-human agents. we should diversify our concepts and avoid
 hierarchical and dogmatic human-centered views also through a classic
 connection of data becoming information becoming knowledge, where
 'becoming' is some kind of black box that explains nothing.

 kind regards

 rafael




 Zitat von José María Díaz Nafría jnaf...@uax.es:

 Dear FIS colleagues:

 I apologize for being so quiet, considering the interesting topics
 arisen with the occasion of our proposal to the COST open call of  
 past
 March, which we thank once again. This proposal as revisited by FIS
 came to coincide in time with a call for themes proposal by the
 European Science Foundation (Eurocores Theme Proposal), which we also
 presented with a short timing. We may not succeed in the first
 attempt, but anyhow it aims at opening a new scientific topic in the
 ESF. If the proposed theme were selected, new projects in the
 delimited field (well fitted to FIS interests) from any European  
 state
 could be presented to joint the research network. I say that, to
 justify our silence in the FIS arena, while we were actually working
 on it, although in the background. Afterwards, it was too late to
 answer, when already other issues were under discussion… To keep on
 the argument thread of our COST essays: we were not among the few
 selected proposals, but were given reasons to hope and reworked the
 proposal and applied again one week ago. About the theme proposal for
 Eurocores, we do not have any evaluation yet.

 Even if I am not answering straight forward Pedro’s words, I feel  
 that
 we should let FISers know our efforts in finding new cooperative
 research scenarios within the realm of FIS interests. Now taking back
 Pedro’s proposal of discussion about knowledge: on the one hand, I
 cordially thank Pedro’s initiative of bringing to this outstanding
 stage a part of our elucidation; on the other hand, before saying
 something about the topic, I feel the need to set the context were  
 the
 strive for this definition take place, which also implies giving a
 general idea about BITrum project (see
 http://www.unileon.es/congresos/bitrum/T_Bitrum_presentation.htm),
 where we pursue an interdisciplinary approach to the information
 concept from a maximally open perspective, aiming at the mutual
 understanding of all the concerned points of view. As you may see in
 the given link, one of the main means to get such a mutual
 understanding is a glossary of concepts, metaphors, theories and
 problems concerning information. At the first stage, it should help  
 in
 the definition of working teams, while in following stages it may
 become an arena of discussion about particular issues, a reference of
 specific themes and crystallization of both research (within working
 teams) and consensus.
 Hence, the elucidation itself will be somehow reflected in this
 glossary, which edition has already started and its first public
 version -although very incomplete- will see the light at the end of
 this year.

 Although BITrum members are committed to feed the glossary, any
 interested author is wellcomed to contribute. The managing schema of
 the glossary includes: 1) a coordination board for glossary edition;
 2) an editor per article, who takes over the integration of every
 contribution to such voice in a non redundant and rather systematic
 article; 3) any other may contribute, as author or coauthor, with
 entries, which will be afterwards integrated by the editor in an
 article.
 As an example, Pedro is editor of the voices: “Action-perception
 cycle”; “Cognit”; “Foundations of Information Science”;  
 “Knowledge
 recombination”. Other FISers, like Rafael Capurro, Wolfgang
 Hofkirchner or Peter Fleissner also contribute as editors of other
 voices.

 After having given a general picture of the glossary and the projects
 where it is a main axis, I 

Re: [Fis] Fw: Neuroscience of Art:Insights Leads: Reply to Jerry and Stan

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

On Oct 1, 2008, at 9:00 AM, Joseph Brenner [EMAIL PROTECTED]  
wrote:



Dear Friends,

  ...
Jerry wrote:

Your post was studied for some time. I would suggest that, from my  
perspective, that you are developing a internal language that orders  
your feelings in a manner that is satisfying to personal your  
needs.  But, I find it difficult to translate your expressions into  
the usual usages that allow me to understand your expressions.  What  
is it, really, that you are seeking to signify?


I have no interest in translating my expressions into the usual  
usages since it is exactly those I claim fail to give an adequate  
picture of the real processes involved in creativity. My personal  
needs have nothing to do with it. My system is grounded in science,  
and I seek scientific validation.




Well. This would all be very well if there were some definitions to  
support the terms you use and some evidence of a scientific approach.


With respect.
Steven




In particular, your style suggests that the notion of sign, signals  
and semiosis at the base of natural and human communication is  
purposefully excluded from your discourse.  The information content  
of messages comes to us in these forms. And, we give our sensual  
experiences to others in these forms.  Is this merely my  
imagination or do you intentionally exclude the profound separation  
that guides an artist from the sensory impressions to the sensual  
expressions?


I do not wish to exclude semiosis from my system. I merely point out  
that your style excludes the dynamics ;-). Both are needed for an  
adequate description of the complex of creative processing of  
information. I will indeed exclude the profound separation to  
which you refer. I see nothing but complex systems of non-separations.


The phrase:

be directed inversely to the logic of ethics, inversely to any  
rational or irrational process, that is, inversely to processes that  
lead toward the absolute identity or diversity of non- 
contradiction.reads to me as an abuse of the everyday usage of the  
notion of both inverse and and identity.  Can you give meaningful  
definitions of how you are using the terms identity and inverse  
in this context?(Neither of these terms cohere to logic as it is  
typically expressed although both are common in mathematics.)


It should be clear by now that my system cannot be judged in terms  
of what it critiques. I am dealing with neither everyday usage nor  
what and what does not cohere to logic as it is typically  
expressed. An identity to me is a macrophysical object or inert  
concept that to all intents and purposes does not enter into  
interactions with its environment (since its production). It is a  
non-contradiction without an antagonistic partner. Moving in the  
inverse direction means the moving of two contradictory elements  
toward maximum dialectic interaction, where there is the ground for  
creative emergence under the right conditions.


Perhaps the critical phrase in your thinking is:dynamic  
electrostatic equilibrium.Is it your intention to communicate that  
mental dialectics in the parliament of the mind must engineer the  
absolute stoppage of time?


Exactly the opposite. I wished to point out that the resting  
potential of a nerve cell is anything but rest or stoppage.


 In my simple notion of a Greek-ish world, the pleasures of art  
should parallel the pleasures of good friends, good food, good wine  
and a good lover!


I would not dream of changing your notion, which I totally share.  
What have I said that might have led you to think otherwise?


Stan wrote:

As an artist (all media) my reaction to the below is quizzical.   
Neuroscience, information science, esthetics, etc. are logical  
products in  the realm of 'knowing that', which I call Nature, or  
Reality, while the unfolding of an artistic work takes place in the  
realm of 'knowing how', which I call The World, or Actuality.  The  
one is a view from the outside, the other a view from the inside,  
reflecting the 'externalist / internalist' duality.


My logic in reality states that this duality is an illusion.  
External and internal, reality and actuality interact dialectically,  
that is, share part of one another's properties such that when one  
predominates, the other is repressed (or potentialized) and vice  
versa, alternately and reciprocally.


I think it could be urged that the current 'social intent' of  
external logical understanding is to serve technology (as in  
computation).  In this it makes things replicable.


This is because external logical understanding is as  
(unnecessarily) limited in its scope as you imply. My logic is a  
logic of non-computability, that is, it applies to real processes  
that are non-Markovian, hence non-computable.


An artist makes things unique, as is any actual occasion, even  
though it may be working within a strong tradition (e.g., medieval  
Islamic tilework), or with the 

Re: [Fis] Plasticity and the History of Art

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear John,

I confess that I get a little alarmed when people prepend neuro to  
everything. So perhaps you can justify exactly why you regard neural  
plasticity as a tool of explanation. What is it about plasticity  
that would allow explanation in the history of Art? And why would this  
provide any better explanation than any other variable physical  
characteristic, for example, the cellular life-cycle, body weight or  
organism topology?

With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info
http://senses.info


On Sep 21, 2008, at 10:08 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Hi,everyone,
 I  have been listening in and behaving myself till now, taking great
 interest in the discussion of big issues. Now I want to step in  
 because
 with Ramachandran's 'laws' the big issues are coming down to  
 specifics  in
 my area.  For the last fifteen years I have been trying to use
 neuroscience to help understand the history of art and have been  
 delighted
 to discover that neuroscientists are similarly engaged, following a  
 two
 and a half thousand year tradition. Indeed, last year I published a  
 book
 with Yale reviewing that history 'Neuroarthistory. From Aristotle and
 Pliny to Baxandall and Zeki'.  It is fascinating that big thinkers  
 have
 been trying to formulate laws-or at least principles-in this area.   
 But of
 course nobobody until today had enough knowledge of the brain to  
 explore
 the neurological foundations of those principles.  Now I believe we  
 do,
 and my next two books will endeavour to do that.   One puzzle for me  
 is
 that people in neuroaesthetics tend to disregard neural plasticity  
 which
 to me is an essential tool as I  try to explain why different  
 individuals
 have made art in different ways at different times and in different
 places.   That is why I differentiate my activity, which has much in
 common with neuroaesthetics, as neuroarthistory.  What I am trying  
 to do
 is to formulate principles which explain those differences, using the
 record of all art worldwide from prehistory to the present as  
 experimental
 material.  If you want to find out a bit about this project you can  
 read
 the introductory material to my Atlas of World Art 2004(just  
 reissued in a
 cheaper edition as the Atlas of Art 2008).   I like to think that the
 wealth of data provided by that rich record allows us both to  
 formulate
 and test such principles.  The testing is the essential part.
 Whether
 the principles I -and others working in this area-come up with are
 eventually recognised as laws remains to be seen, John


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Re: [Fis] list discussions

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear list,

I like this question Is nature orderly? and agree that it is worthy  
of discussion. However, let me ask exactly how you would define an  
orderly nature, how you would detect an orderly nature and what do you  
think the implications are of it not being orderly?

Joe, I'm not sure what you mean when you say any order we may  
discern and logical in an expanded sense of logic; surely any order  
we discern is a priori logical in any expanded sense.

With respect,
Steven


On May 23, 2008, at 7:06 AM, Joseph Brenner wrote:

 Dear FIS Colleagues,

 With due respect to Pedro, my first reaction to Stan's proposed  
 question is  a positive very useful. I believe that there are deep  
 issues of randomness or spontaneity, determinism and computability  
 that will emerge from its discussion. Another aspect is whether any  
 order we may discern can be, as I suggest, logical in an expanded  
 sense of logic. I would look forward to a discussion of this topic.

 Best wishes,

 Joe Brenner




 - Original Message -
 From: Pedro Clemente Marijuan Fernandez
 To: fis@listas.unizar.es
 Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 5:56 PM
 Subject: [Fis] list discussions

 Dear FIS colleagues,

 It is a long time that we do not have discussions in the list. I  
 have not been able to arrange any other planned session after Bob  
 Logan's one, due to work reasons (changing to a new job months ago).  
 It is not sure at all that in a few weeks there will be a new  
 session arranged. However, several weeks ago, Stan suggested  
 starting an open, informal discussion around a simple question:

 Is Nature Orderly?

 As a side comment (or response of sorts), I quote from P.M. Binder:  
 The field of complex systems currently appears as an unfinished  
 mosaic. Many capable researchers are polishing and gluing the tiles  
 that may turn it into the queen of all sciences, the science of  
 synthesis and surprise. As we realize how much everything is  
 connected, both cooperation [or emergence] and dynamical frustration  
 can become important tools for our understanding of how the world  
 works.  (2008, Nature, 320, pp. 320-21)..


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[Fis] A New Kind of Positivism

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Colleagues,

As a courtesy, allow me to bring to your attention a talk that I will  
be giving at Stanford on the 13th (this coming Thursday).

http://iase.info/presentations/coglunch-march-2008-introductory-talk.html

Sincerely,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info
http://senses.info


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Re: [Fis] info meaning

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Christophe,

There is an overloading or contradiction and inconsistency in your  
argument from my point of view. First you argue for this notion  
abstract meaning; meaning that exists around us and then you  
argue that meaning is generated.


From the point of view of my model there is no meaning at all in  
newspapers. Newspapers are marks and meaning occurs in relation to  
them when they are apprehended. That act of apprehension is the final  
act in a communication in the Shannon sense, the apprehension of the  
physical newspaper, the medium containing the signal. The information  
in that act of apprehension causes behavioral modifications in the  
organism (meaning).


This act of apprehension applies to both author and reader. In the  
author it is present in the incremental act and refinement of  
creation. The author can be said to have acted meaningfully and we  
call this meaning behavior intention, but there is no meaning in  
the marks and at this level there is no difference between the sender  
and the receiver in terms of the mechanisms involved.


There do exist two types of mark, those that are the product of  
intention and those that are not (natural marks) - but these are  
both treated in precisely the same way by the organism. Discerning  
the difference between them is something that relies upon learning  
(being able to refer to past analysis of the world - or, more simply,  
the recognition of similarity as Carnap would put it).


Similarly, from the point of view of my model, there is no meaning at  
all in thunderstorms. But they are marks and these marks are  
apprehended. They provide information in that apprehension. You refer  
to this as meaning generation.


In both cases the significant processes of semeiosis differentiate  
these marks and maps them to different behaviors. If the newspaper  
contains some especially outrageous news I may exclaim and cancel my  
planned family vacation to Iraq. If the thunderstorm is especially  
fierce and proximate I may take shelter. If the fly is stationary I  
may not be able to apprehend it. It is the same semeiotic process at  
work in all cases.


The important things of note here are that meaning is simply the  
behavior produced by interactions between the organism and the  
world.  Marks are the subjects of those interactions (the message, in  
the Shannon sense). We treat marks equally. Signs are individuated  
experiences.


The point it that you cannot give special meaning status to the  
stationary fly and the moving fly, the blank sheet of paper and the  
newspaper, in any sense as meaning existing around us or not. There  
is only the potential of meaning in the fly if the fly is apprehended  
under any circumstance. There is only the potential of meaning in the  
apprehension of the paper, in any circumstance, and only if  
apprehend. By which I mean that the fly and the paper, under all  
circumstances, if apprehended, are treated in the same way - the  
behavior produced (in the what it means for me now of the frog say)  
may vary.


I challenge your phrase information present around us can be  
meaningful as lacking rigor. Information is not present around us,  
information is the result of a communication, out interaction with  
the world, those communications are happening constantly. The  
source these communications (marks) are present around us.


I think our disagreement may merely be about the rigorous use of  
language, and not really substantive. Newspapers simply cannot be  
said to contain meaning but they can be said to be the subjects of  
meaning; unless, that is, you propose some supernatural property to  
meaning.


With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info
http://senses.info



On Oct 7, 2007, at 4:15 AM, Christophe MENANT wrote:


Dear Steven,
Thanks for having corrected your statement about “Abstract meaning”.
Let’s put our discussion back of the fis@listas.unizar.es  list.

Coming to an understanding of Information and meaning exist around  
us, let me illustrate this reality by a couple of examples.


A newspaper contains meaningful information (contains meanings).  
The meanings exist prior our reading. They are the ones that the  
writer has put in his text. When reading the text we may on our  
side generate a meaning similar to the one put by the writer, or a  
different one if we interpret the words and sentences differently  
from what the writer wanted to mean. An article that we do not read  
also contains some meaning (the one put by the writer). But if we  
do not read the article, we will not access this meaningful  
information which is existing in the article. We will not interpret  
the information.


Thunderstorm noise present in the air has no meaning. But when you  
hear it, it can participate to meaning generation for you (and the  
meaning will be different if you are under a shelter

Re: [Fis] Re: info meaning

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

I have to confess that I have not yet had the time to review the  
paper that opened this session.


Metaphors aside, what you have described here is consistent with  
information theory, is it not? Except that you have not defined  
meaning. In particular, you do not suggest how a meaning might be  
measured so that it can be compared.


From my point of view the appropriate definition of meaning is that  
a meaning is a behavior. This is a useful definition that is  
malleable to comparison. It applies in all semantic cases from  
computer science to biophysics. Meaning then is the behavioral  
product of a communication in a system, it is the ultimate product  
of apprehension through semeiosis in a biophysical system.


Exactness then, as you suggest, is the degree to which behaviors  
are similar - but I am certain that this would distress Shannon  
because the comparison is external to the system; it requires a  
privileged point of view. Indeed, it distresses me.


A more interesting approach is to assume that the behavior between  
like systems is deterministic; assume that the effective transmission  
of a meaning is determined if only both the signal is complete and  
clear, and the sender and receiver are similar systems.


Thus if sign S produces behavior B in the sender, then the complete  
and clear transmission of S to R, the receiver, will produce behavior  
identical to B in the systems R to the degree that R is similar to S.


So, it is not that meaning itself cannot me communicated, but rather  
that the systems involved vary. In the case of members of our  
species, our constant system modification by the variety of our  
sensory inputs changes the behavior potentially produced by a given  
sign at any given point in time.


With respect,
Steven



--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info
http://senses.info



On Oct 2, 2007, at 9:17 AM, Guy A Hoelzer wrote:


Greetings All,

In my view ‘meaning’ exists (or not) exclusively within systems.   
It exists to the extent that inputs (incoming information) resonate  
within the structure of the system.  The resonance can either  
reinforce the existing architecture (confirmation), destabilize it  
(e.g., cognitive disequilibrium), or construct new features of the  
architecture (e.g., learning).  Social communication often involves  
the goal of re-constructing architectural elements present in the  
mind of one agent by another agent.  I am using highly metaphorical  
language here, but a very straightforward example of this at the  
molecular level is the transfer of structural information between  
prions and similar proteins folded in ‘ordinary’ ways.  In this  
sense, meaning itself cannot be transferred between agents;  
although a new instance of meaning can be constructed.  This is  
essentially the idea behind the Dawkins model of populations of  
memes (concept analogs of genes).


From this point of view, the ‘exactness’ of a meaning doesn’t seem  
to make sense.  A meaning defines itself without error.  It would  
make sense, however, to talk about the degree of similarity between  
meanings when the social goal was to replicate a particular  
instance of meaning.  Perhaps this is what Jerry meant and I have  
over-analyzed the idea here, but if this is a novel or erroneous  
perspective I would like to see some discussion of it.  I guess my  
main point here is to separate the notion of meaningfulness from  
the social context that demands the sharing of meanings and  
constrains the construction of meanings to resonate at the level of  
the social network.






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

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear List,

I must disagree with the notion that there is any real separation of  
nature and culture. There are things that can be known that do not  
exist - as a general category that includes culture - but culture  
does not stand alone - it's right up there with irrational numbers  
and televisions.


The force of natural ethics (inevitable behaviors) is mediated by  
convention and manifest in the behavior of individuals - culture is  
merely one such convention.


With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info



On Feb 5, 2007, at 11:37 PM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:


Dear colleagues,

I agree with most of what is said, but it does not apply to social  
systems because these -- and to a lesser extent also psychological  
ones -- operate differently from the hierarchical formations that  
are generated naturally. That is why we oppose nature to  
culture in the semantics: cultural (and social) systems enable us  
to model the systems under study and this changes the hierarchical  
order. I understand that Maturana et al. argue that the next-order  
systems always model the lower-order ones, but then the word  
model is used metaphorically. The model (e.g., the biological)  
model enables us to reconstruct the system(s) under study to such  
an extent that we are able to intervene in these systems, e.g. by  
using a technology. This inverts the hierarchy.


Thus, let me write in Stan's notation: biological {psychological  
{social}} -- or is this precisely the opposite order, Stan? -- then  
our scientific models enable us to change nature, for example, by  
building dykes like in Holland and thus we get: social {biological}  
since the ecological changes can also be planned in advance.


While lower-order systems are able to entertain a model of the next- 
lower ones -- and even have to entertain a model -- human language  
enables us not only to exchange these models, but also to study  
them and to further codify them. The further codification sharpens  
the knife with which we can cut into the lower-level ones. We are  
not constrained to the next-order lower level, but we can freely  
move through the hierarchy and develop different specialties  
accordingly (chemistry, biology, etc.). Scientists are able to  
adjust the focus of the lense. This is a cultural achievement which  
was generated naturally, but once in place also had the possibility  
to distinguish between genesis and validity. No lower-level systems  
can raise and begin to answer this question. And doubling reality  
into a semantic domain that can operate relatively independently of  
the underlying (represented) layer increases the complexity which  
can be absorbed with an order of magnitude.


The issue is heavily related to the issue of modernity as a  
specific form of social organization. While tribes (small groups)  
can still be considered using the natural metaphor, and high  
cultures were still organized hierarchically (with the emperor or  
the pope at the top), modern social systems set science free to  
pursue this reconstruction in a techno-economic evolution. All  
that is solid, will melt into air (Marx). Because of our  
biological body, we are part of nature, but our minds are entrained  
in a cultural dynamics at the supra-individual level (culture)  
which feeds back and at some places is able increasingly to invert  
the hierarchy.


With best wishes,


Loet
Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/

Now available: The Knowledge-Based Economy: Modeled, Measured,  
Simulated. 385 pp.; US$ 18.95
The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society; The Challenge  
of Scientometrics



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:fis- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Collier

Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 5:18 PM
To: Jerry LR Chandler; fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] Re: fis Digest, Vol 501, Issue 5

Hi folks,

I'll take a few minutes from my moving and dealing with academic  
emergencies at UKZN to make a comment here.


Jerry brings up a point that keeps arising in the literature one  
constraints and information. Recall that Shannon said that they are  
the same thing. That is a clue.


Loet and I dealt with this issue previously on this list about a  
year ago when he claimed that social communications channels open  
up new possibilities (analogous to Jerry's position here), and I  
asked him why this was so, since any further structure must reduce  
the possibilities, not increase them. We each promoted out view for  
a while, and then stopped, as it wasn't going anywhere. The reason  
is that there is nowhere to go with this issue. Both positions are  
correct, and they do not contradict each other; they are merely  
incompatible perspectives, much like Cartesian versus polar

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

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

On Feb 2, 2007, at 5:07 AM, Igor Matutinovic (by way of Pedro  
Marijuan [EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:



...
Considering that we necessarily operate under certain genetic  
constraints, are there (absolute) upper limits to our ability to  
manage social complexity?

...


By genetic constraints I assume you simply mean that we have  
certain capacities and are not omnipotent. Is not conflict and war an  
indicator of our individual failure to manage social complexity? Or  
would you argue that war is social complexity management?


With respect,
Steven

--
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Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info



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

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Interesting comments. I basically agree with Loet - the biological  
metaphor is the wrong starting point.


However, when Loet says


..is constrained by the room of individuals to experience and
phantasize. This is no biological, but a psychological constrain.


This does not appear to be a psychological constraint but an  
environmental constraint.


I am also unclear about Loet's distinction between information and  
meaning. So let me interpret in my terms.


As Loet describes meaning it appears to have a zero impact upon the  
world.


Recall that my definition of knowledge is it that which determines  
subsequent action (I discovered recently that this is consistent with  
Varela) and information is that which identifies cause and adds to  
knowledge. Meaning is then either an unnecessary term or it is a  
function of knowledge (which is my preference).


I don't really know what Loet means by meaning is provided from the  
perspective of insight. I think we agree however: for meaning to  
have an impact upon the world as a function of knowledge it must also  
be a source of information in my model.


With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info



On Feb 2, 2007, at 10:53 AM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:

Like the individual mind is somewhat constrained by the biology of  
the body,

society is constrained by the room of individuals to experience and
phantasize. This is no biological, but a psychological constrain.  
Thus, it
is not the volume of our brains, but the complexity with which we  
are able
to process meaning. The dynamics of meaning processing may be very  
different
from the dynamics of information processing. For example,  
information is

processed with the arrow of time, while meaning is provided from the
perspective of hindsight. Different meanings can be based on different
codifications (e.g., economic or scientific codifications), while  
meaning

itself can be considered as a codifying the information.

My main point is that the biological metaphor may be the wrong  
starting

point for a discussion of social and cultural complexity.

With best wishes,


Loet



Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/




-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Pedro Marijuan
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 2:39 PM
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and
Cultural Complexity

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

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

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Joseph,

I think it is a mistake to consider the brain in isolation as a  
structural complexity. Especially, if your goal is to lead to  
questions of social and cultural complexity.


It seems to me that aspects of form independent of the structural  
complexity of the human brain are likely to introduce dominant  
complexities that are transparent to such an analysis. For example,  
height and weight, gender, ethnicity and social status are eliminated  
in such an analysis and each of these are contributors to social and  
cultural complexity that is unrelated to the superficial complexity  
in the form of the brain.


I also think it is an error to consider the brain in isolation to the  
rest of the physiological form in general, but that seems to be quite  
a different objection.


With respect,
Steven



--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info



On Jan 26, 2007, at 1:31 PM, Joseph Tainter wrote:

... The immediate example is not social/cultural complexity  
(although the example certainly generates social and cultural  
complexity), but something more fundamental: the complexity of the  
human brain. As I hope to show, some questions about brain  
complexity lead into general questions about social and cultural  
complexity, and indeed about complexity in general.

...
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[Fis] Explaining Experience in Nature

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear Colleagues,

We have started a new information site at http://senses.info and I  
have just posted a sample chapter from my book there as a stimulus  
and discussion point for a workshop we are holding at Stanford  
University's Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI)  
in March.


The sample chapter can be found here:

http://senses.info/explaining-experience-in-nature/introductory- 
remarks/


The workshop, under the same theme, deals with The Foundations of  
Logic and Apprehension, and details can be found here:


http://iase.info/symposiums/stanford/2007/Explaining-Experience- 
in-Nature.html


The workshop is small and invitation only, if you are interested in  
participating please contact myself or one of the programme committee  
to express an interest. The goal of the workshop is to explore the  
formalization of theories that explain experience in nature, and to  
tackle exactly what such a theory and formalization might look like.


The proceedings of the workshop will be published in a new academic  
journal entitled Explaining Experience that we will launch mid  
year. If you are interested in participating on the Editorial Board  
of this journal then please contact me and I will send you the  
journal proposal.


Sincerely,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info


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[Fis] Joseph Tainter's Social and Cultural Complexity

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear List,

I agree with Stan Salthe that Tainter's kinds of complexity are not  
kinds at all but simply different circumstances in which complexity  
appears.


From a anthropological point of view, it should be clear that no  
scholar wisely references Wikipedia unless it is to study the  
anthropological and sociological implications of its unreliable  
nature and its risk to the public. It is hardly surprising that one  
would find conceptual diversity there.


How does an anthropologist quantify complexity? What are the measures  
that illustrate Tainter's claim that complexity has increased in  
societies? It is not clear to me that these claims are true. The  
numbers of individuals in societies has increased - and we certainly  
appear to prefer to believe that our society is more complex than  
earlier societies - but there seems to be little basis for this  
intuition. These claims need to be founded upon some means of  
quantification (per algorithmic complexity is, for example).


Does an individual in a hunter gatherer society, in fact, live in a  
more complex society than an individual in today's society? In my own  
proximity, for example, I doubt that my social relationships are  
fewer than that of a hunter gatherer in a relatively sized community  
of the hunter gatherer period - my family relationships are likely to  
be simpler since I am disconnected from extended family - it is true  
that all my relationships have a greater geographic diversity and the  
medium by which I communicate has a different nature often, but this  
does not seem to be enough to increase the complexity of my  
individual experience.


The number of relationships that any individual can possibly maintain  
is surely self limiting and this would constrain the complexity that  
any individual - any single node in the complexity - can manifest. If  
the nodes are bound in this way then complexity is also also bound  
despite scale.


It seems likely that the complexity in societies has a natural  
threshold. While the overall number of unique arrangements may  
increase, the actual complexity never breaches a self-limiting  
threshold. If I were to apply algorithmic measures of complexity, I  
would say there is a limit to the number of steps that any given  
individual can manage.


Simply enumerating elements tells us nothing about complexity.  
Diversity does not equal complexity, it may be the product of  
complexity but because diversity is increasing does not mean that  
complexity is increasing.


For example, in algorithmic terms - if, in the example given, the  
organization in which the artifacts were shipped to Africa actually  
required more steps to assemble a weapon than other more orderly  
organizations, then the system was indeed more complex, not merely  
complicated.


If the behavior of a society for an individual becomes simpler  
because of arising diversity then the complexity is, in fact,  
reduced, not increased, for that individual. Overall complexity may  
remain the same.


I feel a clear definition of complexity is missing from Tainter's  
discussion and I see distinct concepts being confused. I find myself,  
for example, wanting a clear specification of complexity versus scale  
and diversity.


I could argue that civilization is simply the inevitable product of  
scale. Simply, just the result of the number of individuals.  
Creativity has nothing to do with it *except to the degree that  
solutions are kept within the bounds of the complexity threshold* and  
despite scale the complexity of the system is unchanged beyond an  
identifiable threshold.


In my view scale and complexity are not necessarily correlated and  
problem solving efforts, in fact, do not increase in complexity -  
they change and get smarter. Smarter or intelligence is a word  
that seems to be missing from Tainter's discussion - intelligence  
necessarily increases so that solutions live within the bounds of the  
available complexity threshold.


When the complexity necessary for individuals in the system to  
operate effectively has requirements that go beyond these limits then  
the system remains constrained to function at the capacity of the  
threshold - it simply cannot breach this threshold. Instituted  
systems that require more complexity simply fail until the system is  
constrained by natural selection and solutions within the complexity  
threshold are re-established.


Now, in this limited response I have applied a simple algorithmic  
definition of complexity - the number of steps required to do  
anything - and I have avoided other characteristics of complexity -  
such as decidability and termination - Tainter may be applying some  
other measure and have some other way of characterizing complexity.  
If he does, it isn't mentioned in his posting.


With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info

[Fis] On Mantras and Realism

[Steven Ericsson-Zenith]

Dear List,

I wish to add a simple observation concerning the discussion of  
realism and Arne's complete rejection of it. I advocate the solipsism  
of logical positivism and place semeiotics first among sciences but I  
consider Arne's rejection of realism to be incorrect, it fails to  
allow the inference of reality from direct experience.


For example, I take it as a fundamental premise that any  
communication requires the medium of reality - and thereby confirms  
its being.


Nor do we have to adopt objective realism and reject solipsism. There  
are clearly, from the point of view of my models at least, things  
that have epistemological status (can be known) and no ontological  
status (do not exist) - e.g., irrational numbers (and other  
relations) and televisions - conversely there are clearly things that  
have both epistemological status and ontological status - e.g.,  
quantity (and other rational measures) and apples.  Further, I can  
establish criteria that allows me to distinguish between the two:  
that which can be known and does exist, and that which can be known  
that does not. If we do not allow reality then there is no means to  
make this important distinction.


I prefer to accept the position that there is nothing that has  
ontological status that cannot also be known - though I cannot be  
certain of it in science since this would deny falsification - but  
this allows the recognition that much of ontology is unlikely to be  
available in my experience except by inference through reason.


With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info



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Re: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics

[Steven Ericsson Zenith]

In response to Michael Nagenborg.

We surely have nothing to fear from knowing how ethics work in the world 
and applying that knowledge can only help us all.  Any effort to 
establish a science of ethics can only be done without prejudice and by 
following wherever it leads.  We cannot expect it to concur with our 
existing conventions or support existing prejudices.  As to morality 
this seems to me to be a term applied to notions that have no foundation 
except precedence.  There can be no room for such precedence in an 
honest effort of this kind.


As observed earlier, for me natural ethics are the cause of inevitable 
behaviors.  These behaviors are mitigated by conventions.  One can 
readily see these behaviors are tractable to good logic and are thus 
likely to be predictable.  Conventions are only useful in so far as they 
mitigate for the optimization of the goals by individuals.  Arbitrary 
conventions, by which good sense is vastly outnumbered today, is the 
cause of chaos and enslaves us.


Michael does not mind considering ethics and medical science an art form 
- I object on both counts :-) since this seems to me a most 
unsatisfactory state of affairs.  In this context art form simply 
means hand-waving and appeals to mystery - it does not mean Art.


Further, it seems futile to me to attempt to wrest sense from moral 
facts - this is as futile as any other deconstruction. A science of 
ethics demands we rebuild the world on natural foundations.


With respect,
Steven




M. Nagenborg wrote:

Dear Pedro,
dear all,

when it comes to ethics as science we should be distinguish between 
the scientific research on morality (or the good) and the attempt to 
use the scientific nature of ethics to establish a certain form of 
morality or a set of rules called ethics within a society.


Scientist working in the field of ethics may be considered experts in 
moral questions, but they should not be considered as a form of 
preacher who tells people exactly what to do. (You may not even become 
more ethical by doing research on ethics.)


From my own understanding, I consider ethics as a way to describe and 
reflect on morality. The results of this may even be used by some 
people to reflect on their own morality, but I do not believe (or 
hope) that Plato's idea that a philosopher should become king is still 
alive. What ethics may be good for is to work as a tool to remind us 
of alternatives in what we are doing.


So, as good as it seems to consider ethics as an Art of problem 
solving this is a little bit unsatisfying, because if we really 
believe that morality can not become the object of scientific 
research, we should at least be able to make clear, why we think so. 
For example we should explain what makes the difference between moral 
and non-moral facts - and, voilà, we are doing ethics again! And I 
think we should at least try to clear this kinds of question in a 
scientific manner, which should help us to make the discussion 
rational in the sense, that we can communicate and justify our views 
on morality.


I do not mind considering ethics as a form of art, by the way, just 
like I would consider medicine as an art. But - like in the example of 
medicine - there is plenty of space left for scientific reasoning 
within the field of an art. Thus, I would not make a strong 
distinction between art and science, in the sense that something that 
is considered art can not include elements of scientific reasoning.


With best regards,
Michael Nagenborg

Pedro Marijuan schrieb:

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 

Re: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics

[Steven Ericsson Zenith]

Dear List,

The recent discussions on ethics are bewildering and irrationally vague.

What, for example, does integrity mean?  Did I miss a formal
definition of it?  And what, exactly, is a much deeper knowledge -
this distinct between integral and intellectual simply makes no sense to me.

In my view there are two senses in which the term ethics may be justly
used.  And by ethics I mean exactly the cause of intentional
behaviors, no more.

There are natural ethics the sources of inevitable behavior, in which
survival and welfare are the primary motivators.  Piracy, for example,
is an natural ethic - it is the inevitable product of social conditions
in which property dynamics are not in balance (where some are denied
access to available resources and others hoard).  The second form is of
the kind more generally discussed, the conventions that mitigate natural
ethics.

Even though this second kind of ethics, conventions, are prescriptive in
nature, my constructive view of ethics itself is not prescriptive.  One
can readily imagine a meta-ethics, a science of ethics, that formalizes
the characterization of natural ethics and mitigating conventions that
is predictive; i.e., can predict intentional behavior in groups.

Only when such a science exists can we begin to consider optimization.

With respect,
Steven





Luis Serra (by way of Pedro Marijuan [EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:

...
What is the type of information required to be integral, to reach 
individual's completeness? In my opinion, Integrity, in the sense 
referred by Michael, requires a much deeper knowledge than just 
intellectual knowledge: it requires to realize it, to deeply assume 
it. In my opinion it is not either a question of, say, blind belief 
in some behavior or something doctrinal. Integrity, in the sense I 
understood to Michael, comes naturally as a result of personal 
maturity and experience. Therefore, in the context of this great 
discussion on Ethics and Information I wonder:
- what kind or what type of information is required to reach 
individual's completeness?, and also,

- where this information can be obtained?

A second comment very much connected with the previous one.
Somebody said (Socrates, I think) that human beings' evil does not 
exist, it is just a question of ignorance. Again, a similar question 
arises to me: What kind of information could be the antidote of 
human evil? Does this question make a very special sense in our 
globalized societies?

...


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