Re: [Fis] "no new and doubtful physical concepts need to be introduced"
Steven, Joe I always understood that the action of information is the introduction of 'new and doubtful concepts' (Bateson's 'news of a difference that makes a difference') and is in fact predicated on doubt, probability, uncertainty. John H Original Message - 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 http://iase.info [1] Links: -- [1] http://iase.info ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] fis Digest, Vol 570, Issue 2
Dear Xueshan,
Another interesting source for Bateson's DTMD is in 'Angels Fear:
towards an epistemiology of the sacred' (1988):
'That which gets from territory to map is news of difference, and at
that point I recognized that news of difference was a synonym for
information' (http://www.oikos.org/angelsfear.htm#introduction [1] )
Reading from James Gleik's book 'The Information' recently and his
description of the seminal Macy's Conferencesof 1941 it would seem
that Shannon Wiener and Bateson were coming from the same new idea of
'information' but with different formulations. Mackay's formal
approach (in-form-ation) is closer to the historical/philosophical
concept inherited from Plato and Aristotle.
I think 'news of information' (cf Shannon's 'surprise') is related
to the symmetry-breaking phenomenon that Pedro and John Collier
identified back in 1996 as an essential feature of in-formation at
work (where the in- prefix implies the deconstructive force of the
Greek 'ana' (as in the verb _anamorpheoin_, to transform by breaking
down the shape). Without the antisymmetric force of
'news' difference does not become a dynamic phenomenon (as in
differentiation) but remains a speculative abstraction (like 'drawing
a distinction').
The key question for IS is - to what , for whom and how is the
difference made.
John H
- Original Message -
From:y...@pku.edu.cn
To:
Cc:
Sent:Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:52:40 +0800
Subject:Re: [Fis] fis Digest, Vol 570, Issue 2
Dear Pedro, Dear Joseph,
About the Milton Keynes Conference, i.e., about DTMD
definition, we saw this quote long long ago, but there two
different sayings: One is "Information is a distinction that
makes a difference" from Donald M. MacKay in his
"Information, Mechanism and Meaning" (1969), and another is
"Information is a difference that makes a difference" from
Gregory Bateson in his "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" (1972).
Although I have checked it page by page in Donald M.
MacKay's book but can't found it, whereas it is easy to find
"Information is a difference that makes a difference" in
Gregory Bateson's "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" at page 230,
361, 339, etc., who can tell the accurate priority about
DTMD?
Best wishes,
Xueshan
16:49, April 14, 2013 Peking University
> -Original Message-
> From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es
> [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of
> fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es
> Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2013 12:00 AM
> To: fis@listas.unizar.es
> Subject: fis Digest, Vol 570, Issue 2
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: FIS News (Moscow 2013) (joe.bren...@bluewin.ch)
> 2. Re: FIS News (Moscow 2013) (PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN
FERNANDEZ)
> 3. Re: FIS News (Moscow 2013) (Gyorgy Darvas)
>
>
>
--
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:11:58 + (GMT+00:00)
> From: "joe.bren...@bluewin.ch"
> Subject: Re: [Fis] FIS News (Moscow 2013)
> To: ,
> Message-ID:
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Pedro,
>
> Glad to hear from you. Your silence was, of course,
> expressive, containing much information . . .
>
> Now all of us will be waiting impatiently to learn about
the
> the new, exciting themes that were discussed at the Milton
> Keynes Conference.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Joseph
>
> Message d'origine
> De: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
> Date: 12.04.2013 11:02
> À:
> Objet: [Fis] FIS News (Moscow 2013)
>
> Dear FIS Friends,
>
> Apologies for my long silence. As I have already said
several
> times, my science management duties are killing not only
my
> time but also my nerve (well, not completely!). Imagine
what
> is happening with the financing and organization of
Spanish
> science these years...
>
> Anyhow, a couple of good news about our common Information
> Science endeavor. First, there has been an excellent
> conference in Milton Keynes, organized by the Open
> University, about Information ("the difference that makes
a
> difference"). Quite exciting discussions on our most dear
> themes, and some new ones that we have rarely addressed
here.
> The organizers, a very active team indeed, are cordially
> invited to lead a discussion session in our FIS list to
> continue with the conceptual explorations addressed in
their
> conference.
>
> And the second news is about an imminent FIS CONFERENCE,
> MOSCOW 2013, the Sixth FIS, and the 1st of the ISIS
> organization. It
Re: [Fis] Physical information - anyone for an anyon?
Quoting Michael Devereux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: Thanks Michael for your cogent reply. I understand Landauer's insight not as an analysis of the logical structure of information, nor of its ubiquitous utility throughout human endeavors, but rather as a more precise description of the mechanisms for storage and transmission of information. I agree that 'storage and transmission of information' (if info is predefined as physical data carrying marks) is a useful description of the mechanism. But if the data carry numbers and letters the information exchange process involves qualia as well as quanta, implies structure shape and pattern (like anyons in quantum knot theory imply two dimensional worlds). Human communication is notoriously more complex than barcoding brains but we don't need to resort to a metaphysical account involving 'disembodied abstract entities' to explain the rules (Descartes can crawl back into his oven - some axiom like Miller's 'plus or minus 7' might suffice). I suppose neuroscientists today may even be able to locate those specific >areas of the brain that process mathematical thoughts. Yes, if info transmission is basically a physical process we should be able to map its movement within the cerebellum (like Pinker maps verb tense usage in the brain with MRI scans). The corollary of the physical view is that 'information' is (unlike concepts such as language, mind, consciousness or number) not a distinct phenomenon but merely a feature of matter. If info transmission is an 'event' (as Stanley and Rafael) suggest, then what is its essential structure? 'Any surprising such representing a range of suches' perhaps? If so then any mere transmission of physical data (signals) would only qualify as information under certain conditions. It may be that information 'takes place' in the no-man's land of possibility between the ones and the zeroes, between the lines of text, between noise and news and occurs deep within the interstitial spaces of microtubular networks or in the sense-data filtering mechanisms of the thalamus. The anyon phenomenon may even have counterparts across the 'ubiquitous utilities' of human endeavours - e.g. rhetoric - homonyms, puns, metaphors logic - paradoxical statements, nonsense grammar - syntactic ambiguity, ambipositions computing - wildcarding/regular expressions card games - the joker (representing all the possible cards playable) punctuation - asterisks (representing any of a range of swear words) I suppose I am arguing that information transfer is not a transmission of X from point A to point B but the act of in-form-ation becomes a trans-form-ation to Y in the process (just as reading material print can inform and transform the consciousness of a reader). This 'mysterious transformation of raw information into cognitive content' (Collier) remains the philosopher's stone of cognitive science. The stone itself, of course, may be composed of neither bosons nor fermions. Cheers, John H Dear Colleagues, I understand Landauer's insight not as an analysis of the logical structure of information, nor of its ubiquitous utility throughout human endeavors, but rather as a more precise description of the mechanisms for storage and transmission of information. According to Landauer, and I think he was right about this, information is exclusively stored in the configuration of physical objects,.and transmitted only by material entities. So, for example, the energy configuration of a simple bi-level atom would contain a single bit of information, represented by zero, say, in its ground configuration, and by one in its excited level. Of course the physical configuration of the atom's nucleus, made up of protons and neutrons, must also contain additional information, ignored in this instance. And we know that protons and neutrons are themselves composed of quarks, whose physical configuration must also contain more information. And, as far as we know, those quarks may be constituted by some structure of strings, with even more information, and so on. I also understand Landauer to tell us that information is transmitted from one thing to another only by physical objects, all of which are composed of energetic quanta. As, for instance, sending information on a telegraph line by a series of electrical impulses, each of which contains many electrons. I know of no reason to suppose that the information any person holds and exploits, even about mathematics, is not stored and transmitted physically, as Landauer has said. Jerry wrote that "mathematics is often deemed as abstraction, (so) mathematical information is often deemed as abstract." But, it is the brain cells and synaptic connections, their chemical and electrical configuration and signal processing, which alone permits us to employ mathematics. Clearly, traumatic injury to the brain (or death, even) can destroy a person's mathematical facility. I suppose neuroscien
Re: [Fis] Physical Information
Quoting Michael Devereux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: Dear Michael, You wrote: and symmetry breaking tend to address the second - formal - cause the statement of essence (X is what it is to be Y). [in-form-ation]. Von Weiszacker and L yre 's pragmatic school found information on the efficient cause (X produces Y) [in-formation] Paninformationists (like Norbert Wiener) who deny the materialist basis of information tend to describe the final cause (X is what Y is for) [in-for-mation]. If we can ground our concepts of information on Aristotelian causation IS may no longer be the pseudo-science it is today. In this sense the 'difference that MAKES a difference' can be based on Aristotle's cause (aitos) (what makes information intrinsically information ) (AITOS = make). The relationship between the phenomenon information and the material world is what information science is yet to discover. That split between 'informatio sensis' and 'informatio intellectus possibil is' (informationem de voluntate et meditationem de potestate nexu individuo commiscens et copulans) which occurred in Bacon's Novum Organum still continues today in rival material/nonmaterial or realist/antirealist information theories. In a quantum sense both are wrong and both are right at the same time. Sincerely John H Dear Andrei, John, and colleagues, The relationship between information and the material world was correctly described, I believe, some ten years ago, by Rolf Landauer, the chief scientist at the IBM Watson laboratory in New York. In several seminal papers he insisted that all information is physical. In his words, "Information is not a disembodied abstract entity; it is always tied to a physical representation. It is represented by engraving on a stone tablet, a spin, a charge, a hole in a punched card, a mark on paper, or some other equivalent. This ties the handling of information to all the possibilities and restrictions of our real physical world, its laws of physics, and its storehouse of available parts." (Physics Letters A 217, 1996, p. 188.) When information is exchanged between two objects, as in a measurement, there is, necessarily, a transfer of some physical thing. I would note that all physical objects are composed of quanta and all quanta carry energy. So, according to Landauer, and many scientists who have read his work, the correspondence of information with the experienced, physical world is definite. Cordially, Michael Devereux ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis This message was sent using MyMail ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
RE: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics - psotconference thought
Hi Pedro, Rafael
Thanks for a fascinating session which opened up some windows and let in some
(occasionally foggy)air. But I still see the possibility a future IS which
will redefine metaphysics, ethics and science itself (a bit like Ted G.)
where the essential shape of 'in-form-ation' is identified as an
interrupted circle, cycle, circulation, circularity (and first occurring in
Greek philosophy sometime between Thales and Socrates).
This 1996 paper by Adrian Mckenzie looks at bioethics through a postmodern
prism.
http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.196/mackenzie.196
The 'difference/differentiation/circularity' paradigms of Bateson, Deleuze
Varela et al prevent us from reverting to linear solutions or to the
revival of medieval scientism which seriously threatens to dominate Eastern
and Western thought ('intelligent design' movement in the USA, religious
fundamentalism in East and West, demise of the academe etc).
This strikes me as the major 'ethical' problem for our time. Compared to
those acts the digital agenda of posthumanism may be just a side show at
the circus of Science.
I'm looking forward to hearing which school of 'quantum information' is the
most convincing...I suspect that (like librarians) some physicists may have
latched on to the
concept of information (as a flashy synonym for data) to successfully
enhance their professional reputations.
John H
Quote - 'At the end of the day earthly death is nothing but a dearth of
information' - Anon
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Pedro Marijuan
Sent: Tuesday, 9 May 2006 2:10
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics
Dear colleagues,
If ethics relates mostly to the quest for the "good" or for the "good
reasons" of our social behavior, apparently it can be treated as another
discipline --really? An initial complication is about the subject --good...
"to whom"? It maybe one's personal interests, or his/her family, business,
profession, country, species, Gaia... but those goodnesses are usually in
conflict, even in dramatic contraposition. It is a frequent motif of
dramas, movies, poetry, etc. (aren't we reminded "arts as technologies of
ethics"?).
And then the complications about the circumstances, say the "boundary
conditions". Any simple economic story or commercial transaction (e.g.,
remember that ugly provincial story about "the nail found in Zaragoza") may
involve quite a number of situational changes and ethical variants ---if we
put scale into a whole social dimension of multivariated networkings... it
is just mind boggling. So I really would not put much weigh on those
hierarchical categorizations that only take a minimalist snapshot upon a
minimalist, almost nihilist scenario. However, some points by Loet months
ago on how complexity may hide-in & show up along privileged axis might
deserve discussion at this context.
Could we accept ethics just as an Art of moral problem solving? Quite many
conceptual tools would enter therein, but the "scientificity" of the whole
would not be needed. Even more, such scientificty would look suspicious to
me. A few decades ago, a "scientific" guiding of the whole social evolution
was taking place in a number of countries... apparently paving the way to a
new, conflict less Era!
best regards
Pedro
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