Re: [Fis] [Fwd: Re: Information is a linguistic description of structures]--T...
Dear Howard:
I am afraid one of your examples is not really accurate historically:
"the most amazing metaphor of relationality available to us is not math,
it's not mechanism, and it's not reduction to "elements," it's
language. by using the metaphor of a form of language called "code,"
watson and crick were able to understand what a strand of dna does and
how. without language as metaphor, we'd still be in the dark about the
genome."
The idea how to pack huge amount of information in something as small as
chromosome came not from language, but from Schroedinger's concept of
aperiodic crystal in his book "What is Life?". Crick switched from his
candidacy in physics to biology after reading this book. He knew very
well what he was looking for together with Watson. And crystals,
periodic or not, do not have much common with language.
Regards,
Marcin
On 9/29/2015 2:39 PM, howlbl...@aol.com wrote:
re: it is likely to be problematic to use language as the paradigm
model for all communication--Terrence Deacon
Terry makes interesting points, but I think on this one, he may be
wrong. Guenther Witzany is on to something. our previous approaches
to information have been what Barbara Ehrenreich, in her introduction
to the upcoming paperback of my book The God Problem: How a Godless
Cosmos Creates, calls "a kind of unacknowledged necrophilia."
we've been using dead things to understand living things. aristotle
put us on that path when he told us that if we could break things down
to their "elements" and understand what he called the "laws" of those
elements, we'd understand everything. Newton took us farther down
that path when he said we could understand everything using the
metaphor of the "contrivance," the machine--the metaphor of
"mechanics" and of "mechanism."
Aristotle and Newton were wrong. Their ideas have had centuries to
pan out, and they've led to astonishing insights, but they've left us
blind to the relational aspect of things. utterly blind.
the most amazing metaphor of relationality available to us is not
math, it's not mechanism, and it's not reduction to "elements," it's
language. by using the metaphor of a form of language called "code,"
watson and crick were able to understand what a strand of dna does and
how. without language as metaphor, we'd still be in the dark about
the genome.
i'm convinced that by learning the relational secrets of the body of
work of a Shakespeare or a Goethe we could crack some of the secrets
we've been utterly unable to comprehend, from what makes the social
clots we call a galaxy's spiral arms (a phenomenon that astronomer
Greg Matloff, a Fellow of the British interplanetary Society, says
defies the laws of Newtonian and Einsteinian physics) to what makes
the difference between life and death.
in other words, it's time we confess in science just how little we
know about language, that we explore language's mysteries, and that we
use our discoveries as a crowbar to pry open the secrets of this
highly contextual, deeply relational, profoundly communicational cosmos.
with thanks for tolerating my opinions.
howard
Howard Bloom
Author of: /The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the
Forces of History/ ("mesmerizing"-/The Washington Post/),
/Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the
21st Century/ ("reassuring and sobering"-/The New Yorker)/,
/The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism/ ("A
tremendously enjoyable book." James Fallows, National Correspondent,
/The Atlantic/),
/The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates/ ("Bloom's argument
will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
/How I Accidentally Started the Sixties/ ("Wow! Whew! Wild!
Wonderful!" Timothy Leary), and
/The Mohammed Code/ ("A terrifying book…the best book I've read on
Islam." David Swindle,/PJ Media/).
www.howardbloom.net
Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University.
Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; Founder, Space
Development Steering Committee; Founder: The Group Selection Squad;
Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding Board
Member, The Darwin Project; Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab;
member: New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of
Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International
Society for Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board Member, Lifeboat
Foundation; Editorial Board Member, Journal of Space Philosophy; Board
member and member of Board of Governors, National Space Society.
In a message dated 9/28/2015 11:47:26 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es writes:
From Terry...
Original Message
Subject:Re: [Fis] Information is a linguistic description of
structures
Date: Sun,
[Fis] Fw: [Fwd: SV: SV: The Travellers]
I am trying again to submit my message to the list. Marcin From: MARCIN Schroeder Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2014 12:22 AM To: Pedro C. Marijuan Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] [Fwd: SV: SV: The Travellers] Dear Pedro and FIS Colleagues, I do not contribute much to FIS discussions, but always read them with interest. I found recent contributions from Soeren very disturbing. Actually, I feel insulted by them. I understand that the rules adopted by FIS require academic code of conduct. Personal atacks, or even argumenta ad personam directed at any member of the list are degrading discussion to the level beneath dignity of the academic discourse. I would like to propose that we stick to the old academic rule to ignore all contributions which are directed not against some views, opinions, statements or works, but against the person associated with them. Regards, Marcin Marcin J. Schroeder, Ph.D. Professor Akita International University Akita, Japan m...@aiu.ac.jp From: Pedro C. Marijuan pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 21:54:53 +0900 To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: [Fis] [Fwd: SV: SV: The Travellers] (Herewith Soeren's response, again the server has stopped it (?) From my part, only saying that we are in polar opposites, so the difficulty --and interest-- of the exchanges. Anyone can interpret sentences in his own, but my intention was far from offending: knowledge exchanges are fun in themselves and should always be fun. OK, I suggest a future fis discussion session inviting some interesting semiotician --outside our circle-- so that a lively discussion might be maintained. best --Pedro) Original Messagenbs p; Subject: SV: SV: [Fis] The Travellers Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 20:38:24 +0100 From: Søren Brier sb@cbs.dk To: Pedro C. Marijuan pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es, fis@listas.unizar.es fis@listas.unizar.es References: 207c3aeedf3347258b028dd5f67f0...@hcc-mbx-2.local.ukzn.ac.za 201410270613.s9r6dbm7004...@ortiz.unizar.es CAEvKwyRr06Wg=fzkk+5Dq1Hf3z9=zrgb86dt06pr-43tv2t...@mail.gmail.com ca+nf4cx-m2aul891wg-qrm568tvnrjznneqk+pbcq+pbrry...@mail.gmail.com 5450ef85.2060...@aragon.es d98697a7796aed4589385cf99329a76c05c66be...@exchange01.hhk.dk 54523d16.4060...@aragon.es Dear Pedro Thank you for your answer. Reading it, I nbsp;am surprised that you are unable to see that you are the one starting this discussion with an arrogant tone. I certainly felt offended by your mail. Though I am originally a biologist I have come to teach philosophy of science interdisciplinary and do research in many different paradigms and learned to consciously reflect on paradigms and methodology and has had to live with the neglect of these aspect from people within classical educations and research traditions. But in Denmark it is now obligatory for all students to have ;a course in philosophy or theory of science. What I read out of you answer is, that you are so entranced in the received view of science (which I was originally educated in) that you do not consider yourself to be in any kind of paradigm or metaphysics and therefore do not have to make a conscious reflection and a comparison with the work in other paradigms, which is of cause an insult to us who have worked with these things for 30 years and who's work you seem to neglect. Neglecting is a muc h more powerful weapon than critique in nbsp;the world of science - actually the ultimate one -and then you can top it off by suggesting to leave those paradigms that has not had your interest anyway and you therefore do not have the proper knowledge of. I wonder what the non-insulting meaning of your sentence: Semiotics could be OK for the previous generation--something attuned to our scientific times is needed now. is for a biologist like me who has worked with semiotics for 25 years and being part of creating the association of biosemiotic studies, which now h as it yearly conference, a journal and a book series with Springer?? A status that FIS has not achieved yet. I have known you for a long time and in that period you have shown no interest in semiotics or commented on any papers and books in biosemiotics or on the relation between information and what so ever. My own book Cybersemiotics: Why information is not enough is now out in paperback and Kindle and as a Google book . It has taken me more than 20 years to get a reasonable understanding of nbsp;Peirce's semiotic philosophy and why and how I think it offers a more comprehensive framework for transdisciplinary view of the natural, life, social and human sciences that is much more fruitful than info-computationalism. So I am a little impatient with people who discharge Peirce without having studying him properly. The same goes for Luhmann's systems theory. It is not unusual to see
