[Fis] _ MODERATION NOTE

[pedro marijuan]

Participants are kindly reminded that only two messages per week are allowed. 
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-Original Message-
From: Louis H Kauffman 
Sender: Fis 
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2016 00:18:08 
To: fis
Cc: Søren Brier
Subject: [Fis] _ Re:  _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

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


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

Re: [Fis] NEW DISCUSSION SESSION: THE BIOLOGIC

[pedro marijuan]

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


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

Please resend the attachment 


__

Robert K. Logan
Prof. Emeritus - Physics - U. of Toronto 
Fellow University of St. Michael's College
Chief Scientist - sLab at OCAD
http://utoronto.academia.edu/RobertKLogan
www.physics.utoronto.ca/Members/logan
www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Logan5/publications










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

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

[pedro marijuan]

Dear Plamen and colleagues, 

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

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

Best vacations to all,
--Pedro
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-Original Message-
From: "Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov" 
Sender: Fis 
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2015 09:54:44 
To: Loet Leydesdorff
Cc: fis
Subject: Re: [Fis] Answer to Mark. Phenomenology and Speculative Realism

Dear colleagues,

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

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

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

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

Best wishes,

Plamen



On Sun, Aug 2, 2015 at 9:09 AM, Loet Leydesdorff 
wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
>
>
> Without wishing to defend Husserl, let me try to formulate what is
> according to my knowledge core to his contribution. The message is that the
> transcendental intersubjectivity is phenomenologically present in our
> reality. He therefore returns to Descartes' (much rejected) distinction
> between *res extensa* and *res cogitans*. Intersubjectivity is *res
> cogitans*. It is not "being" like in the Latin *esse*, but it remains
> reflexively available. Thus, we cannot test it. The philosophy of science
> which follows (in "*The Crisis*") is anti-positivistic. The
> intersubjectivity is constructed and we live in these constructions.
>
>
>
> Descartes focused on the subjective *Cogito*. According to him, we meet
> in the doubting, the Other as not limited and biologically constrained,
> that is, God or the Transcendency. Husserl shifts the attention to the
> *cogitatum*: that about what we are in doubt. We no longer find a hold in
> Transcendency, but we find the other as other persons. Persons relate to
> one another not only in "being", but also in terms of expectations. This
> was elaborated as "dual contingency" (among others, by Parsons). The
> dynamics of inter-personal expectations, for example, drive scholarly
> discourses, but also stock exchanges.
>
>
>
> Alfred Schutz was a student and admirer of Husserl, but he did not accept
> the Cartesian duality implied. He writes: "As long as we are born from
> mothers ..." He then developed sociological phenomenology (Luckmann and
> others), which begins with the meta-individual phenomena. This is close to
> Mannheim's position: one cannot analyze the content of the sciences
> sociologically, but only the manifestations. The strong program in the
> sociology of science (SSK: sociology of scientific knowledge) positioned
> that socio-cognitive interests can explain the substantive development of
> the sciences (Bloor, Barnes, and others) in the 1970s. It returns to a kind
> of materialism.
>
>
>
> Luhmann "criticized" Husserl for not taking the next step and to consider
> meaning ("*Sinn*") as constructed in and by communication. In my opinion,
> this is an important step because it opens the realm of a communication
> theory based on interhuman interactions as different from basing theories
> (micro-foundationally) on human agency (e.g., the *homo economicus* or
> agent-based modelling). The communications can be considered as first-order
> attributes to agents; the analysis of communications is in terms of
> second-order attributes; for example, codes of communication. This is very
> much the domain of the information sciences (although Luhmann did not see
> this connection).
>
>
>
> In sum, “phenomenological” is sometimes used as an appeal to return to the
> phenomena without invoking explaining principles *a priori*. The
> question, however, remains whether our intuitions, imaginations, etc. are
> also part of this “reality”. Are they limited (constrained; enabled?) by
> material conditions or epi-phenomenological consequences of them? Husserl’s
> critique of the modern sciences was the reduction of the very concept of
> “reality” to *res extensa* (that what “is”). Derivatives of *esse* such
> as ontology dominate the scene. Shannon-type information, however, is the
> *expected* uncertainty in a distribution. Thus, we stand on common

[Fis] RV: Chuan's reply

[pedro marijuan]

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-Original Message-
From: 赵川 
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2015 23:20:58 
To: 
Subject: Chuan's reply 2

Dear Pedro and Joseph, 
This is the reply2. This file is very small. And please allow me use 
picture. For pictures can save many words and avoid misunderstanding. You know 
translation is a difficult thing, specially from Chinese. 
Chuan
2015-3-5



15-03-05study plan.docx
Description: 15-03-05study plan.docx
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[Fis] Concluding the Lecture!

[pedro marijuan]

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


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-Original Message-
From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith 
Sender: Fis 
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2015 11:38:17 
To: Foundations of Information Science of Information Science Information 
Information Science
Subject: Re: [Fis] Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Concluding the Lecture?

Dear list,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards,
Steven


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

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

[Fis] RV: FIS, Weekly posting frequency.

[pedro marijuan]

BlackBerry de movistar, allí donde estés está tu oficin@

-Original Message-
From: Jerry LR Chandler 
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2014 10:37:32 
To: Pedro C. Marijuan
Subject: FIS, Weekly posting frequency.

Pedro:

Just a small suggestion about the rules for posting to the FIS list serve.

Personally, I find the current constraint of two posts per week is so 
restrictive that it makes a conversation very difficult.  It necessitates long 
delays, during which time, one looses interest in the topic.  (We are flooded 
by a plethora of new ideas!)

I feel that the value of the list would be enhanced by permitting three or even 
four posts per week.

I would suggest that you consult with other members about this issue.

You may post this message to the list serve if you wish.

Cheers

Jerry


On Nov 3, 2014, at 5:09 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:

> Dear Marcin and colleagues,
> 
> Many thanks for the sympathy and for the suggestion. I think your proposal is 
> quite in the spirit of the fis initiative. Maintaining the academic code of 
> conduct should be the First Rule of the list. The Second Rule, as is well 
> known, says that only two messages per week are allowed. And the Third Rule, 
> should be about clean posting. I mean, in order to placate the susceptibility 
> of the server filters the messages should be addressed only to fis, 
> exclusively, (a few other addresses might appear in the "cc", but the lesser 
> the better), and not dragging old messages at the bottom is strongly 
> recommended... Additionally, we have a fis steering committee (integrated by 
> Yixin, Krassimir, Shu-Kun, and myself) that can arbitrate in contentious 
> cases where the First Rule should apply.
> 
> Let us forget the present incident; always clarifying that FIS list is 
> completely open to criticisms, first on fis itself, and also addressed to any 
> other school or doctrine, either contemporary or from the past... knowing the 
> opinion of "contrarians" is as much important as knowing the opinions of the 
> followers. INFORMATION HAS ENORMOUSLY CHANGED OUR 
> SCIENTIFIC-ECONOMIC-CULTURAL-SOCIAL WORLD AND WE NEED RADICALLY DIFFERENT 
> IDEAS. By the way, there is an important work on "social physics" (but 
> arguing from the information flow point of view) by Alex Pentland that in my 
> opinion establishes the very foundations of "SOCIAL INFORMATION SCIENCE"--it 
> is a pity, and possibly  an error (?), that this author has placed his 
> exciting research under the banner of physics.
> 
> best wishes ---Pedro
> 


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[Fis] Informational Bookkeeping

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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

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

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

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

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

best ---Pedro


*Pedro C. Marijuán Fernández*
Dirección de Investigación

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

www.iacs.aragon.es

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Re: [Fis] DNA sequencing, intron-extron data needed

[Pedro Marijuan]

At 11:42 17/01/2008, you wrote:

Dear Pedro and Colleagues,

some progress has been made in the translation table between 3 times 
1_of_4 in a sequence and 20 resp. 21 logical markers being matched to one 
the other.
The next task appears to be to find out the iterations between introns and 
extrons.
Would you please advise me, where to find the collection of observations 
that details the length and the sequence between introns and extrons.

Your coopeartion is highly appreciated.
Best
Karl


Dear Karl and Colleagues,

Sorry for the awful delay, but I am moving to a new research institution 
(in around two weeks) and my usual disarray has remarkably increased...


It is nice hearing that you have made progress regarding the intron / exon 
relationship. There exists a vast literature in theoretical biology about 
the subject, particularly with all those genomes already sequenced. For a 
taste of the papers see for instance the abstract at the bottom (in my 
view, the recombination theory to generate new functions they discuss, is a 
little more interesting). Different eukaryotic species may present rather 
different data. For humans, exon size mean is 171 nucleotides (standard 
deviation of 262!, as there is a pretty long tail in the distribution). 
Concerning the introns of  H. sapiens, mean = 124 triplets (around twice 
the average length of exons thus) with a tail far more extended than the 
exons (no value of standard deviation was provided in my source). See fine 
statistics for exons in the paper cited below.


I hope this may help you for a first inspection.

best wishes

Pedro


Exon size distribution and the origin of introns

Sigurbjorg Gudlaugsdottir1 


Contact Information
, D. Ross Boswell2, Graham R. Wood1 and Jun Ma1
(1)  Department of Statistics, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, 
NSW, 2109, Australia

(2)  Middlemore Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand

Contact Information
 Sigurbjorg Gudlaugsdottir
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Received: 12 October 2005  Accepted: 6 January 2007  Published online: 6 
February 2007
Abstract  Since it was first recognised that eukaryotic genes are 
fragmented into coding segments (exons) separated by non-coding segments 
(introns), the reason for this phenomenon has been debated. There are two 
dominant theories: that the piecewise arrangement of genes allows 
functional protein domains, represented by exons, to recombine by shuffling 
to form novel proteins with combinations of functions; or that introns 
represent parasitic DNA that can infest the eukaryotic genome because it 
does not interfere grossly with the fitness of its host. Differing 
distributions of exon lengths are predicted by these two theories. In this 
paper we examine distributions of exon lengths for six different organisms 
and find that they offer empirical evidence that both theories may in part 
be correct.


---


<>
=
Pedro C. Marijuán
Cátedra SAMCA
Institute of Engineering Research of Aragon (I3A)
Maria de Luna, 3. CPS, Univ. of Zaragoza
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762761 and 762707, FAX (34) 976 762043
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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[Fis] concluding the session & season greetings

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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


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


Cordial greetings/ Merry Christmas

Pedro

--







  )))
   @(o  o)@
 +oOO---( )---OOo+
 |  FIS  |
 |   SEASON GREETINGS   |
 |  and |
 |A HAPPY  2008 NEW  YEAR|
 |  |
 +-.oooO---Oooo.-+
 \( )  ( )/
  ( )  ( )
   _/
_/ _/
_/ _/ _/ _/
  _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
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Re: [Fis] An invitation

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Bob,

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


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

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


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


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


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


Good luck with the book!

Pedro
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Cátedra SAMCA
Institute of Engineering Research of Aragon (I3A)
Maria de Luna, 3. CPS, Univ. of Zaragoza
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
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RE: [Fis] more thoughts about bio-info

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

Thanks to John for the rigorous comments on info and entropy. Although the 
theme has been passed over in several occasions, mopping up the conceptual 
spill overs is always convenient.


However, one of the crucial aspects of biological information seems to be 
the general decoupling information-energy (starting with the enzyme 
work-cycle), compounded with a complex division of work among molecular 
agents so that any conceivable environmental challenge can be rounded up, 
in evolutionary time. What looks irrelevant today will be necessary 
tomorrow, and viceversa. Multiple evolutionary inventions are silently kept 
within the depths of genomes just to reappear almost by magic. Someting 
similar happens in human cultures, and within the sciences (aren't 
"mavericks" superfluous but badly needed?). I think Loet makes a point below.


Looking to meaning producing entities (at the time being, only living ones) 
through the conditions of a particular science put in the top of scientific 
hierarchy, may be OK, only if successively all the other disciplines are 
also put in circulation over the top. It is interesting that mathematicians 
are now looking in a very different way to neurosciences, searching for the 
"unreasonable effectiveness of maths to explain physical phenomena", as 
Wigner had coined. Areas of maths even ones based on simple axiomatic 
foundations have unexpected outcomes beyond the capacity of individual 
researchers--"emergences" from the "knowledge states" of agents coupled as 
complex systems, including research on cosmology  (I am stealing ideas from 
Foote, 2007).


I proposed weeks ago that Bob's (and Kauffman's) concluding statements on 
meaning and life (the propagating organization theme)  could be more 
interesting than the discussion on gauging the Shannonian limitations 
themselves, and should be taken actually as a starting point, as the "zero" 
of the bioinformational "algebra". A lot of complexity can be elegantly 
hidden, recovered, and used under that rug. Thus, after the 
reception/abduction of some environmental signals by a living cell/animal 
---what happens? What is the meaning there?, and, How is it produced? 
That's the biological foundation of info & meaning. Days ago I tried to pen 
10 points basically around that vision: am sure they can be improved by 
creative discussion and maybe another step or "figure" added to the bioinfo 
zero.


best regards

Pedro


At 08:15 20/11/2007, you wrote:


> > JC: This is true. However any theory that is not consistent
> > with physics is in
> > LaLa Land as far as I am concerned. If you have a good
> > argument why this is not reasonable, I would like to know.
>
> I suppose that most of the social sciences are not inconsistent with
> physics, but also not so relevant for it. Entropy calculus
> can be used in
> much broader range of sciences because of its mathematical character.
>
> I am sure that on the stock exchange, stocks are physically or
> electronically exchanged. However, the value of the stocks
> has nothing to do with these physical carriers.

However the information they carry does include information
about things other the "physical carriers", or else there wouldn't be much 
point

in trading them. If the connections don't line up the right way to
fit the physical parametres, such as resources, waste, consumption,
etc., then something will go wrong, in much the same way as it will
go wrong if our representations do not correspond to the world. There
has to be a match between the encoding and what is encoded, or
anticipations will fail, eventually. At least that is what happens in the
sort of biological system that I look at. For example the genetic code
is fairly arbitrary, but unless it codes not just for aspects
of phenotypic expression but also aspects of the environment (not to
mention internal workings and processes of the organism), then 
maladaptation will

occur. A completely free floating level would be irrelevant to anything
else. Interesting perhaps, but pretty useless.

John

Dear John:

Since this is a new week, let me assure you that I was not talking about 
"freely floating" angels sitting on the tip of a needle, but levels of 
(self-)organization other than physics which are indeed constrained and 
enabled by their physical conditions. The dynamics of these systems are 
not in LaLa Land, but for example, studied in the biological and social 
sciences.


In a formal sense the physical determination is limited to the mutual 
information between the physical world and the self-organizing dynamics of 
the emerging systems. The relevance of the mutual information 
(transmission) can be rather limited, for example, in meaning-processing 
systems. I was just objecting to the (perhaps erroneous) impression that 
you had converted to reductionism with the expression of discarding all 
other systems as LaLa Land. The formalisms of entropy statistics are not 
constrained by their physical ap

RE: [Fis] definitions of information

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

Adding to Bob's and Karl's on Shannonian info, I am still under the 
influence of Seth Lloyd (one of the founders of quantum computation) 
insights about inf physics. For him, the second law is but a statement 
about information processing, how the underlying physical dynamic laws of 
the universe "preserve bits and prevent their number for decreasing". 
Landauer's principle connect it with erasure... (and temperature becomes 
energy per bit). Anyhow, some of Karl's releted statements should be put 
into test --first, by establishing empirically the number of 
multidimensional partitions, a crucial point in my view).


Then, on Stan & Loet about semiosis, I civilizedly disagree. Perhaps I 
should have written my ten points more universally (they were put mainly 
around the "street lamp" of biology), but the central argument  is clear: 
in which place there is more generality concerning wholistic information 
(which for instance comprises: generation, coding, emision, communication 
channel, reception, decoding, meaningful interpretation, etc.), either in 
"human language" or in the "bioinformational realm"?


That's the question. Very shortly, I would bring three arguments on the 
primacy of the latter: evolutionary (real origins), ontogenetic 
(developmental process), and formal (Robert Rosen's train of thought about 
physical/biological systems and degeneracy in "Life itself" ).


Otherwise, by straitjacketing the global discussion of info into some 
particular semiotic or pansemiotic school, we are lead into cul-de-sacs 
with different decorations.  As often stated in this list, we need new 
thought, a new info synthesis.


best regards

Pedro

PS. By the way, a famous paper (a talk initially) by Lloyd on "31 Measures 
of Complexity" may be a good idea for our info field too. This is a 
suggestion addressed to Dail and other collegues of the nascent info institute.




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Cátedra SAMCA
Institute of Engineering Research of Aragon (I3A)
Maria de Luna, 3. CPS, Univ. of Zaragoza
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762761 and 762707, FAX (34) 976 762043
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[Fis] definitions of information

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

Sorry that I could barely follow and participate in the recent exchanges 
(bureaucratic work overload). I was very interested in all the exchanges, 
particularly in the early stages of the discussion. Notwithstanding the 
high quality of the postings maybe we have a natural proclivity in this 
list --the trend of looking for and discussing about  those places where 
there is light, evitating the obscure ones (as the joke of the theoretical 
physicist looking for the lost keys of his car the closest possible to the 
street lamp, and far from the very place he had lost them, "searching where 
there is light!").


Thus, I come back to meaning, helas, to do the same than the theoretical 
physicist, but in the province of biology. The following 10 points could be 
defended:


1. Meaning is built molecularly, by the living cell.

2. The self construction machinery of the cell is susceptible of being 
guided by external signals evolutionarily "afforded" (converged upon).


3.  Metabolic networks, signaling networks, gene networks, degradation 
networks ---make sense overall, and together they provide the molecular 
signature of meaning.


4. A very special organization is formed, with formal properties not well 
explained yet, that provides attractors, amplification, robustness, 
resilience, stability, etc. involving the whole cellular system. See the 
contemporary problems of "System Biology" (or those of the old, outdated 
notion of "autopoiesis").


5. When eukaryotic multicellularity emerges, the above (4) becomes an even 
more fascinating set, where some of the mathematical- 
statistical-computational properties, converging in a controlled life 
cycle, become paradoxically more susceptible of formal approaches.


6. Nervous systems adopt the specialized function of putting in 
"electro-molecular" terms the computational task of guiding the whole 
multicellular organism along the implementation of its fitness in an open 
ended environment.


7. Self-reference is an important aspect, both cellular-molecularly and 
also for nervous systems.


8. Any social, cultural, individual, neuronal, etc., visions or 
acceptations of meaning finally conduce to life cycles in-the-making and 
confronting an open ended environment.


9. Meaning can only be about life, around the multiple dimensions of fitness.

10. The informational philosophy of the above points could be put in 
congruence with some new information-physics approaches ("generatitivity" 
of the vacuum).


Thanks for the patience.

Pedro



=
Pedro C. Marijuán
Cátedra SAMCA
Institute of Engineering Research of Aragon (I3A)
Maria de Luna, 3. CPS, Univ. of Zaragoza
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762761 and 762707, FAX (34) 976 762043
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Fis] info & meaning

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

Thanks to all the discussants for the ideas & comments. Something else than 
meaning is at the stake in the current discussion. At fis, aren't we in a 
delicate juncture? After more than 10 years of discontinuous activities, 
but overall having cumulated a very respectable amount of knowledge & 
insights, we are still at the "isolation" phase --following the classical 
three stages in the emergence of new disciplines: 1. Isolation, merely a 
few scholars.  2. Identification, creating an organized nucleus and a first 
research center and starting some regular meetings, teaching & lectures, 
and succedding with a journal and some big books. 3. Instutionalization, 
receiving a lot of attention & PhD students, creating ad hoc departments in 
big univ., creation of professional societies, many journals & books, etc.


Actually, organizing Paris 2005 by Michel, to be continued by another 
meeting in the US, and the Info Institute idea launched by Dail, Mary Jo & 
Wolfgang appeared as two of the classical requisites to enter into phase 2. 
Plus a modest fis board that initiated some exchanges in spring-summer... 
But how are we faring in all these items? It is annoying that in spite that 
some of our contents are in phase 3, organizationally we are still in phase 1!


So, Steve and Ted and were quite right --it is "a call to arms" that we 
need. The FIS initiative is very atypical and maybe it will have to find 
its own atypical way too.  All FISers interested in moving ahead our 
problems should share reflections on possibilities and resources; right now 
the easiest way may be to try interleave both kind of contents 
---organization & discussion. At least, we can try for a while.


best wishes

Pedro

PS. In this case, given the centrality of the absence of Meaning in the 
classical theories of information, and given the oportunities open by the 
conceptual revolution of Sistems Biology that is transforming biology, 
neuroscience and medicine, plus the intense  "informationalization" of new 
ideas in physics (see "Programming the Universe" 2005 by Seth Lloyd, 
"Decoding the Universe" 2006 by Charles Seife, and "Information, the New 
Language of Science" 2004 by our FIS colleague Hans Christian von Baeyer), 
plus other robust trends in a variety of fields... the point is whether a 
common articulation of these info avantgarde ideas is feasible. Let me bet 
that "zero" is not far away.


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Re: [Fis] info & meaning

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

What if meaning is equivalent to "zero"?

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


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


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


best

Pedro



  


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Re: [Fis] Re: info & meaning

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

Answering to a couple of Jerry's questions,


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


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


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


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


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


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


best

Pedro
=
Pedro C. Marijuán
Cátedra SAMCA
Institute of Engineering Research of Aragon (I3A)
Maria de Luna, 3. CPS, Univ. of Zaragoza
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762761 and 762707, FAX (34) 976 762043
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Re: [Fis] info & meaning

[Pedro Marijuan]

-- Forwarded message --
From: karl javorszky <<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Date: 25.09.2007 15:54
Subject: Re: [Fis] info & meaning
To: bob logan <<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Pedro Marijuan 
<<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] >, 
<mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>fis@listas.unizar.es



Dear Bob and FIS,

let us further clarify the object of these discussions:
+ we discuss the concept of information;
+ we discuss how the idea of information shows itself in sociology, 
biology, medicine, etc.;
+ we discuss how information is understood in a relational context within 
its context;
+ we discuss how information is different in one set of relations to an 
information contained in a different set of relations.


We do NOT discuss here:
+ the concept of information is beyond human understanding;
+ we have no idea what information is;
+ there is no numeric-logical definition of information;
+ we don't want to confront information as a numeric task.

The whole point of FIS was so far to reach an agreement on:
* there is a well-circumscribed concept of information,
* information is that what we neglect as we conduct an addition,
* using that what we neglect as we conduct an addition as a logical 
ordering principle we can very well calculate and relate information,
* using that what we neglect while we conduct an addition as a logical 
ordering principle a multitude of logical truths, numeric constants and 
mathematical functions appear,
* the collection of logical constants which appear as we use as an ordering 
principle that what we ususally neglect while conducting an addition 
resebles very much that what is called the periodic system of elements,
* quite many of the functions and constants which become apparent as one 
orders and reorders the numbering system according to that what we neglect 
as we conduct an addition resemble very much such fucntions and constants 
and procedures as known from books on Physics, Chemistry and Genetics.


It is funny that the task itself got out of focus in this discussion. We 
should not lament about the lack of a consistent function to measure 
information with but start using seriously that what has been evolved and 
poresented within FIS.


To repeat:
Information is that what we neglect as we conduct an addition.

In the more detailed definition:
1. Information is the relation of symbols to their meaning on both sides of 
an equivalence sign.

Expl.1:
3+4=5+2
contains the following amount of information.
step 1: establish number of symbols
there are 4 symbols in this equivalence.
step 2: establish meaning of symbols
there is (3+4)=7 on the left side and (5+2)=7 on the right side, therefore 
the meaning of this equivalence is 2*7 that is 14.

step 3: divide meaning by number
the meaning of 14 is divided by the number of symbols, that is 4. The 
result is 14/4, 7/2, that is 3.5.

The information content in "3+4=5+2" is 3.5.

2. The tautology's information is the tautology itself
3=3 has the info content of 6/2=3

3. The unit-type counting understates the information content of an equivalence
1+1+1+1+1=5 has the info content of 10/6. Generally, n=1+1+1+1+...+1 has 
the information content of 2n/(n+1).


4. Information is both a scalar and an indexed value
The information  S1=3 (symbol 1 has the value 3) is a fixed scalar in the 
unit-type counting. It is an indexed value in the relational counting, 
because the information lies in (and depends from) many other properties:
+ in which unit-type result equivalence is S1 included (what is the 2n 
being stated on both sides);

+ in which side is S1 included (3+3+3+3=1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+3);
+ how many symbols;
+ how different the symbols;
+ which smallest symbol;
+ level of truth
and so forth.

5. Information density is material density
That what we consider "material" is certainly the truest form of logical 
existence. Relative to this extent of truth, there exist lesser true forms 
of logical existence. "Material" is both true and certain to a specific 
degree, "space" is true and certain to a specific pair of degrees, "forces" 
are differently true and differently certain to those describing a "field".
There exists a subset among the subsets of the set of true sentences which 
is certain and true to the maximal extent.


Let us build on these common understandings. The definitions presented here 
agree to the dot to the predictions of Shannon. This is a probability 
function free of dimensions and it can be used to predict (actually, the 
size of the average symbol, that is, the average size of matter as a 
mathematical entity) those structural constants which we use in our 
perception and cognition as background, which evolve as the results of the 
interaction between the traditional interpretation of the term 
"mathematical" in this sentenc

Re: [Fis] info & meaning

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Bob and colleagues,

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


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


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


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



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


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



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


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





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


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


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


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

best regards

Pedro

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Cátedra SAMCA
Institute of Engineering Research of Aragon (I3A)
Maria de Luna, 3. CPS, Univ. of Zaragoza
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762761 and 762707, FAX (34) 976 762043
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[Fis] ANNOUNCING THE 12th SESSION

[Pedro Marijuan]

Announcing the 12th FIS Discussion Session:


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





Chaired by:

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

-


The session will start this very weekend.

greetings to all---Pedro

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Re: [Fis] More introductions to the FIS list

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

Thanks to Bob for all his mindful contents. Given the many ideas to comment 
in his draft, I will briefly refer to a couple of them just at the 
beginning of the paper. First, on "concepts" as the basic stuff of human 
language-communication. And second, on the notion of "information overload".


About the former, if one is interested on the "motor" side of the 
action-perception cycle that seemingly organizes the neurodynamics of 
vertebrate brains, there might be alternative approaches to "concepts". 
Alain Berthoz general vision, and more concretely, J. Fuster who made a few 
years ago (2003) the proposal of "cognits", might deserve be entered into 
the discussion... one of the central points is that nowadays we are missing 
a good, fertile synthesis around the enormous experimental accumulation in 
neuroscience last decades (as claimed by Edelman, Arbib, etc.). Anyhow, I 
leave here, as this theme probably will reappear in the session next September.


The "information overload" theme (in the evolution of social modes of 
communication), is really intriguing. Should we take it, say, in its prima 
facie? I am inclined to put it into question, at least to have an excuse 
and try to unturn that pretty stone...


best regards

Pedro

Thanks to Stan for the elegant homage to the Dark Goddess!  


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[Fis] More introductions to the FIS list

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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


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


best regards

Pedro

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Re: [Fis] Bob Logan's introduction to the FIS list

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Bob and colleagues,

Many thanks for your Introduction. It is an honor for FIS parties 
exchanging with a pioneer in such a number of informational themes ---and a 
colaborator of Marshall McLuhan. Though this author is not so fashionable 
nowadays (at least in comparison with the enormous cultural impact he 
produced in the 60's and 70's) we can contemplate him as The forerunner of 
contemporary new approaches to "meaningful" information. Given that our 
plans for future fis sessions include, first of all, an approach to 
INFORMATION AND MEANING (early-middle September, co-chaired by Bob himself 
and our veteran FIS colleague, Soeren Brier), I leave untouched the brief, 
intense comments on info relativity and the meaning of life (below) --but, 
aren't they a crucial discussion? Rather, I would like to deal with the 
"intellectual tourism" aspect. There is a small but quite creative 
community of artists at fis, but up to now we have not attempted any 
specific discussion "tourism"  on the humanities and the arts territory 
(except on information and music, years ago). The promise by the arrival of 
Bob and some other new parties (kindly invited to self-introduce during 
these vacation weeks too) is but the anticipation of exciting rewards.


welcome,

Pedro

At 17:08 03/07/2007, you wrote:

From: bob logan < [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: June 30, 2007 8:48:19 AM EDT (CA)
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Bob Logan's introduction to the FIS list


Dear, Cher, Caro, Liebe Colleagues

I am honoured to have been invited to this list and look forward to our 
discussions. I was trained as an elementary particle physicist at MIT and 
contributed to that field for a number of years. My most memorable result 
was to show that elementary particles behave as Regee poles, i.e. they 
have complex values of spin when the are exchanged virtually (1965). I 
became a physics prof at the U. of Toronto 1968 where in 1971 I introduced 
a course that I teach today called the Poetry of Physics and the Physics 
of Poetry teaching physics without math and studying literature and art 
related to science. It was then I began my career as an "intellectual 
tourists" exploring the relationship of science and the humanities and the 
social sciences. My journey has taken me into many different academic and 
practical territories. My Poetry of Physics course caught the attention of 
Marshall McLuhan with whom I collaborated for 6 exciting years researching 
the impact of media of communications. This study led me to study the 
impact of alphabetic writing on the development of Western culture, the 
origin and evolution of language including speech, writing, math, science, 
computing and the Internet. I also wandered into future studies, knowledge 
management, collaboration studies, industrial design and systems biology. 
I founded and operated with a spouse a company that engaged in computer 
training, Web development and knowledge management consulting 1982 to 
2000. Along the way I became involved in Canadian politics as a policy 
advisor to Prime Minister Trudeau and several cabinet ministers. I am 
currently a professor emeritus, teaching one semester per year and 
actively pursuing my interests all of which are consistent with the FIS 
project. I am interested in the meaning of information which I believe has 
many different manifestations. Along with a team headed by Stuart Kauffman 
we formulated, based on our study of biotic information, the relativity of 
information, i.e. the notion that information is not an invariant like the 
speed of light but is a relative quality depending on the context in which 
it is being used. We also concluded that the "meaning" of life (or living 
organisms) is the propagation of their organization. I apologize for this 
lengthy introduction to a 50 year career that began when I began my 
studies at MIT in 1957. For more details and access to my most important 
papers and the first chapter of most of my books please visit my Web site 
at www.physics.utoronto.ca/~logan. 
Thank you for your attention and I look forward with enthusiasm to our 
conversations and interactions. You can reach me by email at 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Bob Logan aka Robert K. Logan

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Re: [Fis] FIS mailing list

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

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



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


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


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

best regards

Pedro

best regards

Pedro
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Re: [Fis] about fis discussions (2)

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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


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

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


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


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


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


best regards

Pedro

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


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[Fis] Introduction of Fco.Javier Mateos to FIS

[by way of Pedro Marijuan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

Hello,

I'm Francisco Javier Mateos, Director of " Aleen S.L.", a company situated
in Barcelona (Spain) and dedicated to Knowledge Engineering.
I learnt about the FIS through releases on Internet and I consider
that the objective of the FIS , together with the research of an adequate
theory (science) of information, could really enrich my company process, 
which is dedicated

to business innovation. Most of all, for creativity and information
evolution/combination. Indeed, a new understanding of information can be 
very important for the world of business in general.


I remain at your disposal for any additional information or discussion,

Best regards

Javier Mateos
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: [Fis] about fis discussions (2)

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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


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


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


Quantum Information (the bit versus the it)

Molecular Recognition (molecular info & complexity)


Biomolecular Embodiment of Meaning (informational "cell-core" theory)



The Theory of Mind (sensorimotor "cognits", logics)

The Integrative Problem (informational dynamics of sci. disciplines)

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


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


Best regards

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Re: [Fis] about fis discussions

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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


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


best regards

Pedro

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[Fis] about fis discussions

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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


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


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


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


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


cordial regards

Pedro

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[Fis] Social Complexity: concluding comments

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS collegues,

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


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

best regards

Pedro

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[Fis] collective mind

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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


best

Pedro   


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

[Pedro Marijuan]

Thanks, Stan and others.

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


best regards

Pedro

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

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

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

Then Pedro asked:

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

STAN
-

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


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

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

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


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



best regards

Pedro 


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

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Igor and Stan,

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


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


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


with regards,

Pedro

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

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Igor and colleagues,

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


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


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

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


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


best

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

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

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


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


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


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


best greetings

Pedro

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

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

On the complexity limits of human societies, my impression is that in the 
social application of our brain capabilities (evolved to confront a very 
big "natural group" --it is interesting to check psychologist Robin Dunbar, 
or neurobiologist Robert Allman, on how brain size escalates in hominids 
with the increase in size of social groups, thus making possible language 
but also laughter and crying, blushing, etc.) we have somehow substituted 
"weak bonds" for "strong bonds". Quite many roles with little personal 
acquaintances versus those charged with a lot of emotional and 
interpersonal information... Interestingly, some tightly-knitted societies 
of today are very reluctant to incur into abstract generic relationships 
with scant interpersonal ties, the "organizational revolution" described by 
Kenneth Boulding in the Western world during early 20th century.


Thus those ecological limits on ecological networking, succinctly described 
by Bob, may have an intricate counterpart in social complexity. Given that 
our own social networking implies far more "info flow" (communication) than 
the material flows of ecosystems, the connectivity limits do not exert an 
"iron grip" related to physical optimization like in ecosystems or in our 
won circulatory system (but subtle limits are also at play).


On the hierarchies debate, I would like to enter the role of "boundary 
conditions" ... when we make "reverse engineering", trying to go from 
scratch stuff to the prototype ,  (stuffs(parts(wholes))) a la Stan, the 
big problem where the crucial info resides is in the 
forms-designs-assemblies, so that boundary conditions for every functional 
set are properly established. The inner "constraints" also count, of 
course, but somehow are given for free (usually are part of the "nature" of 
the stuff). This fact of not being able to introduce the boundary 
conditions in the construct makes those hierarchical categorizations as 
empty, useless conceptualizations ---britle, rhetorical ones like those 
pompous Expert Systems of Artificial Intelligence (we all remind that 
fanfare during early 80's).


Also, the tremendously changing nature of the boundary conditions around 
us, makes the severe dichotomies like nature-culture as artifacts. What a 
meal is? Depending on the context of the event, it is chemical, 
biophysical, mechanical, psychological, neurological, social, 
administrative, legal, cultural, fashionable... what aspect becomes more 
relevant depends on the generativity of the occasion.


And that's all for today.

greetings

Pedro

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

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Igor and colleagues,

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


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


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


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


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


best regards

Pedro 


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

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Joe and colleagues,

Thanks for the new angle. The problem on how to ascribe complexity looks 
quite "complex" in itself...  It connects with the aspect of 
decomposability in parts / components of entities which surfaced last month 
(when arguing on the "human factor"). For obscure reasons, maybe connected 
with the philosophical and methodological dominance of reductionism, we 
have not assimilated yet that informationally "open systems" (or entities) 
cannot be treated in isolation neither of their boundary conditions, nor of 
their intrinsic activity. The brain itself is an excellent case in point. 
Depending on both external boundaries and inner propensities it is not 
complex nor simple: it depends. (Thus I agree with the comments below). 
However, it should not be read as an argument in defense of relativism or 
radical perspectivism. Rather it means that informationally open entities 
cannot be treated cavalierly in the same way than mechanical, closed 
entities ... they are structured in a different, strange way. Perhaps this 
type of proper, general treatment should be, in other words, the  "info 
sci. methodology", the so much looked after "sci. of open systems."


regards,

Pedro


At 22:31 26/01/2007, you wrote:

So the brain is simple for this purpose. Therein lies the broader 
question. Is the complexity of the brain relative to the perspective of 
the analyst? Or is the complexity of the brain innate? Surely a simple 
brain of three parts could not generate social and cultural complexity as 
we know them? But to a doctor treating a patient with epilepsy, this is 
irrelevant. The brain is simple, and so is the treatment.


Inevitably we are led to more general issues. Is social/cultural 
complexity an attribute of a society/culture, or is it an attribute of the 
observer's perspective? Is complexity innate or asscribed? Clearly this 
question applies to any kind of complex system, not just social or 
cultural ones.


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[Fis] information/complexity limits

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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


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


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


best greetings,

Pedro

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[Fis] Knowledge and social complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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

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


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


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


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


best regards

Pedro



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RE: [Fis] Social and Cultural Complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Loet and colleagues,

see interleavings:

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

Dear Pedro:

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

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


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


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


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




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



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


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


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


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


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


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

Pedro _

Re: [Fis] FIS--nature of complexity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

After all these excellent postings (Joe's kickoff text has been really 
inspiring), one does not know what direction looks more promising than the 
other.


Initially, I do not find Stan, Guy and Loet's responses convincing enough. 
Properly speaking about the social realm, the impervious dominance of the 
"formal" organizations or "systems" separated form the intrinsic complexity 
of individual's life, hasn't it been the capital sin of the past century? 
Among other miscarriages, let us remind dialectical and historical 
materialism, that pretended science of social change... a form of social 
mechanics in its purest acception (social masses, social forces, social 
revolutions, etc.), creating a new standard for human beings, writing in 
the pretended "blank slate" of human minds.  One of the lessons to learn is 
that the HUMAN FACTOR (or human nature if one prefers) will 
"systematically" defeat to any systemic planner --be it economic, urban, 
technological, political, etc.-- who does not care about it. All those 
"systems" superimposed upon individuals will plunder if they do not let 
open avenues for the advancement of the human life-cycle.


I remember that early computers contained a sort of "refresh" or "reset" 
tension affecting every transistor so that their functional state, after 
any work cycle, was effectively set as planned by the designer --probably 
contemporary microchips are above that limitation... what I mean is that 
there is no effective, generalized way to isolate the emergent or complex 
behavior in any realm from all the vagaries of upper and lower realms 
--except laboratories themselves and techno installations. Nature does not 
care about crossing our well established disciplinary borders: out-there, 
herein.


The extrinsic versus the intrinsic--this motto transpires quite often (now, 
for instance) our discussions: the exo vs. the endo, the external vs. the 
internal, the mechanical vs. the organicist, reductionism vs. holism 
...  rather than confronting both sides, they should be coupled. My 
emphasis on the cellular model to adumbrate a cogent integrative 
informational perspective (connecting with some of Ted's points), is that 
we can appreciate therein how that integration intrinsic/extrinsic happens 
in terms of molecular agents inside, and of the signaling clouds from the 
rest of the organism outside. Apparently, far easier (though not done by 
the "systems biology" guys yet) than in neuronal or human social realms.


In any case, putting together the extrinsic AND the intrinsic, has really 
caught me while thinking on the recent messages. .. Please, add customary 
spoonful of salt to those rough statements.


best

Pedro 


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

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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


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


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


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


Having spent my two cents for the week,

bye!

Pedro

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Re: [Fis] INTRODUCING SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COMPLEXITY

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Joe and colleagues


After very interesting postings these days by Igor, Loet, Karl, etc., let 
me re-elaborate the initial questions I made --getting them even worse.


First, about the unrecognized consequences directly stemming out from 
"biological complexity" (I wrote awkwardly about a background of cellular 
and molecular complexities, while I should be addressing the natural roots 
of communication within human groups). Communication needs themselves among 
growing and growing numbers of individuals generate several thresholds 
which can only be crossed --in order to increase social complexity--- by 
fundamental say "informational devices". For instance, without writing and 
numbers you cannot grow cities, develop urban civilizations. Without a 
justice system and some shared religion you cannot unite feudal territories 
and cities into a relatively big kingdom (more or less!!). There is a very 
curious table in Jared Diamond (1996), where basic social levels of 
complexity are into an axis, and development of institutions and social 
problem solving devices are on the other axis. It can be interpreted under 
the above... and deserves a lot of reflection indeed.


Second, on the kind of social networks, hierarchy and heterarchy would 
appear as two extremes, or two very different cases within a number of 
alternative net topologies. Conversely to discussing only topologies, the 
notion of "bond" itself could be put into focus. A very curious distinction 
between "strong" bonds, implying permanent emotional attachment and "weak" 
ones providing only a modicum of interrelationships, but a number of them, 
would remind parallel dynamics of biomolecular bonds in the water milieu. 
Complexity is based on multifarious identities and networkings impersonated 
by the same individual, wearing very different weak bonding "hats", say 
like the flickering clusters in water. This may be a useful paradigm to 
discuss on the evolution of social structures ---including "agency".


Third, on social complexity and information, again. I cannot help but 
thinking dogmatically: that information science should provide the keys 
related to understand the essential openness of human beings and societies, 
their self-production which derives from their biological roots and 
involves the crucial phenomenon of meaning --rather than the relatively 
"inanimate" parlance derived from systems & complex adaptive entities... we 
need new thought (socioinformational?) beyond the cul-de-sac originated in 
the conceptual dominance and overextensions from physicalism.


Joe, as you see we are like a band of jazz players... hope that our 
cacophony does not saturate your hears!


best regards

Pedro





  


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Re: [Fis] INTRODUCING SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COMPLEXITY

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Joe, and FIS colleagues

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Thanking again your "food for thought",

Pedro





 


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[Fis] list problems?

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

Herewith some recommendations from the computer management of this Uni 
about the recent spam problems:



DIRECT POSTING: messages should be posted "first hand" to the list (to:), 
and not as a copy (cc:)


MEANINGFUL TITLES, better putting scientific terms (not funny items, or 
gibberish such as response to response to response...)


FRESH CONTENTS, keeping away old, long texts dragged from previous messages 
repeated and repeated.


NO ATTACHMENTS of any files at all.

FROM "CLEAN" SERVERS: dirty servers which are sending both legal mail and 
illegal spam are detected by the filters, directly blocking any message 
from them (in a Bayessian way, I was told)... better not to insist if you 
are rejected, as this problem with the servers is very complex, affecting 
mostly to users of webmails and google mails, temporarily in general.


And that's all I was told. In any case, if people taking care of the above 
extremes are still suffering the blocking by the spam filter, they should 
contact me off list, and I will send their case to the management: they 
will try to solve it on a case by case basis.
The coolest we keep, the easiest will be to sort out the problem. Remember 
that the list archives to check whether effectively your message is in the 
list or not (some parties have complained these days on false blocking...) are:


List-Archive: 

FIS web site: http://fis.icts.sbg.ac.at/mailings/

Thanking the patience!

Pedro




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[Fis] ANNOUNCING THE NEXT SESSION

[Pedro Marijuan]

Announcing the 11th FIS Discussion Session:


INTRODUCING SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COMPLEXITY




Chaired by:

Joseph A. Tainter

Global Institute of Sustainability
and School of Human Evolution and Social Change,
Arizona State University,
Tempe, Arizona, USA

-

The kind cooperation of Igor Matutinovic is acknowledged.


The session will start in very few days.

best greetings ---Pedro

PS. Tomorrow I will post some recommendations from the manager of the 
computer center here, so that the spam problem we have had gets a better 
prospect.



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Re: [Fis] Re: request - Biological Computing

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear John and colleagues,

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


Thanks for the stuff.

Pedro


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

Dear colleagues,

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

John


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


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[Fis] Re: request - Biological Computing

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FISers,

I was recently asked some short views summarizing the field of biological 
computation. After several weeks delay, I finally penned a few lines. Maybe 
someone in the list can find some interest in the very rough reflections below.


---

In my view, there is some trouble in biological computation or 
bioinformation or whatever name one chooses for the field. One of the main 
inputs has traditionally come from theoretical biology, even in the 60's 
(e.g., Waddington, Dancoff & Quastler, von Bertalanffy), but mostly in late 
80's and early 90's, with leading figures such as Michael Conrad and Robert 
Rosen. They both were very critical on any easy-going marriage between 
computers and biology. Michael produced a very fine contraposition of 
computational differences, between living cells and classical computers, 
from the point of view of adaptability. On the other side, the influences 
from computer fields did crystallize into Artificial Intelligence, and more 
recently into Artificial Life (Holland, Brooks, Langton, etc.) and perhaps 
complexity theorists (Kauffman); notwithstanding important differences 
among these fields , as a whole they never saw any terrible difficulty in 
the cross-fertilization, or better hybridization, between computers and 
biology.


In actuality I think that around "biological computing" there is a very 
tough problem --that means I am unable to produce any really convincing 
argument! But the whole point may be that biological microscopic functional 
elements (say the enzyme, or the nucleic acid stretch) are not amenable to 
"sufficient" logical description in similar terms to functional components 
of computers. Structure, functionality, estrategy, etc. are in every 
respect (and every "level") non-comparable, and in general non-compatible. 
The basic functionalist point of separability between hard and software 
DOES NOT RULE biologically. Of course, in science one can always drop 
embarrassing elements of  distinction...  by "disciplinary" fiat. And then 
produce flamboyant names "artif. intel.", "artif. life", "biocomputing", etc.


In the fis discussion list I produced several further arguments 
(  http://fis.icts.sbg.ac.at/mailings/  ), in the 2005 discussion on 
molecular bionetworks.


Anyhow, thanks for the stimulus to pen these late reflections.

Pedro


PS. Jumping from biological complexity to "social complexity", as we will 
start discussing in a few weeks (hopefully!),  one would expect a serious 
scientific-foundational problem too. It is the fate of those informational 
entities, so poorly amenable to formal treatments.


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[Fis] Fwd: Please post for me Returned mail

[Pedro Marijuan]

>Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 17:04:13 -0500
>To: fis@listas.unizar.es
>From: "Stanley N. Salthe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: [Fis] Post-concluding remarks:Realism/anturealism: Laws of
> nature?
>
>Commenting upon Andrei's:
>>Of course, the main problem is as Soren Brier emphasized that we do not
>>have at the moment the real understanding of information. It is always
>>reduced to the definition of probability, through entropy.
> There are three active concepts of information, which do not overlap
>and are not commensurable, they are
>(1) Shannon's information is a reduction in uncertainty or variety of
>possibilities.
>(2) In the mathematical sciences, information is any constraint on entropy
>production (which is any event whatever in our universe).  It is represened
>in constants in descriptive equations.
>(3) In semiotics information is Bateson's 'a difference that makes a
>difference' to some system of interpretance, changing ts behavior.
> If only the first was dealt with in our discussions, we have been
>quite remiss.
>
>STAN


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[Fis] posting in the list

[Pedro Marijuan]

Hi,

these days some of you are having difficulties to post in the list. Please, 
be patient. We are receiving in this server lots and lots of spam (in my 
own account around 200 each day) and I can do nothing with the computing 
management about lowering the filters. Well, if your message is repeatedly 
rejected, what you can do is ask anyone else to introduce it, or send it to 
me (and I will automatically re-enter it). It is understandable the sense 
of urgency, but we try Fis to be a quiet, reflective list, where messages 
can be posted today, or tomorrow...


yours,

Pedro

PS. By the way, Joseph Tainter (author of "The collapse of complex 
societies") has agreed to chair a fis session on "Social Complexity" around 
beginnings of December. Thanks are due to Igor Matutinovic for his kind 
help in the preparation of this session.


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

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Andrei and FIS colleagues,

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


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


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


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


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

Pedro

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


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

All the best, Andrei


> Dear Andrei and colleagues,
>
> Thanks a lot for your re-capping of the session. It is a very
> thoughtful
> perspective on information from the quantum side. My only comments
> would
> relate to your (partial) identification of models, reality, and
> mathematics. It sounds too strong to my hears. We have cut science
> from its
> human origins, and then we resort to very curious reification myths.
> How
> does the practice of science relate to our human nature? The
> tentative new
> branch of \"neuromathematics\" (it has already surfaced in past
> discussions)
> could throw interesting new light on the several fascinating topics
> around
> the necessarily \"social\" construction of human knowledge...
>
> I join your concerns when you state:
>
> >I am trying to sell the idea that the whole quantum enterprise is
> about
> >simplification of description of extremely complex physical
> phenomena.
> >I developed models in that the quantum probabilistic model appears
> as a
> >projection of more complex classical statistical model.
> >Then I proceed: Wau! In such a case it seems that quantum
> probability
> >theory and quantum information could be used everywhere where we
> could
> >not provide the complete description of phenomena and we just try
> to
> >create a simplified representation in complex Hilbert space.
> >So one can apply quantum information theory everywhere, from
> financial
> >mathematics to genetics.
>
> Months ago, when discussing on biomolecular networks, I argued that
> rather
> than a classical \"state\" the central info construct of the living
> cell
> should be the \"cycle\", then implying the advancement of a \"phase\"
> (recapitulating and somehow making continuous the classical
> biomolecular
> views of Start, Gap1, Mitosis, Gap2 as discrete phases of the cell
> cycle)
> maintaining at the same time a continuous adaptation of the inner
> molecular
> population to the environmental demands. These biological sentences
> may
> sound very different from quantum statements, but I do not think so.
> My
> opinion is that the the living cell and other genuine \"informational\"
>
> entities share a fundamental \"adaptability\"

Re: [Fis] QI-session: concluding remarks

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Andrei and colleagues,

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


I join your concerns when you state:


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


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


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


Thanking your inspiring comments,

Pedro

   


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[Fis] new course

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FISers,

We are going to resume activities in the list very soon. The chairs of the 
quantum information session will publish their "concluding comments" during 
next days --meaning, as usual, some extra rounds on the topic-- and then, 
we will keep some extra weeks of unfocused exchanges --we have had too many 
sessions in a row, and having some more spare time seems convenient.


Quite probably the next session will deal with "social complexity" (its 
origins, development, networking dynamics, economic & ecologic basis...); 
further ideas and suggestions are welcome, either in the list or privately. 
Several dozen people have entered in the list during the last year, and we 
are more than 160 subscribers now. It would be nice if, during the 
unfocused exchanges, they introduce themselves and post about their views 
and interests (of course, the two postings per week continue its supreme 
ruling in the list).


best wishes for the new course,

Pedro

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[Fis] LIST VACATIONS

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FISers,

Following our tradition, the discussions in the list should be suspended 
(or notably reduced) during the coming month. After these monthly 
vacations, we will resume the regular exchanges in September 1st.


Have a nice time!

Pedro

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Re: [Fis] Physical Information

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear John and colleagues,

I would add a couple of motifs to your cogent reflections.

On causation, I do not quite see that the Aristotelian categories 
adequately cover the "pristine" info causation we see for instance in 
living beings-- as I have often argued they lack any stable form, always 
engaged in creation / annihilation processes. At least, three types of info 
are at work there molecularly (structural "dilute", generative 
"sequential", communicational "signaling pathways"), together incessantly 
handling and revamping and adapting the "form" to the environmental 
demands. Perhaps as I have pointed out during recent discussions here, an 
overall notion of information "as a distinction on the adjacent" might 
apply to all of them. It would bring some easy-going thought about that. 
About extending  this vision on "info causation" towards neuronal and 
social-economic realms, it does not look uncanny, particularly regarding 
the adaptability of companies to the information received (and not 
"forces"!) from markets. Unfortunately, staunch mechanistic visions prevail 
in most of those quarters.


Thus, the strict separation of physical information from physical laws 
themselves (or "informational laws" for Andrei-- which I prefer) may be 
another stumbling block. I do not have any further hint about that, but I 
see it as a serious problem for any information physics approach that 
really attempts a renovation and a cohesion of ideas. My only guess is what 
I already mentioned about elementary Planck cells in string theory and 
Kalabi-Yau spaces, plus all those singularities about information recently 
discussed on black holes by Hawkins, Penrose and others.


Igor's conceptual solution of information as a fundamental category is a 
very interesting temptation... Maybe we should restrict our visions to 
those strategic areas where un-satisfaction and unrest with 
information-surrogates is a fact.


best regrds

Pedro



At 11:20 19/07/2006, you wrote:

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

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Re: [Fis] Realism

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear All,

The usual lack of thinking time, plus the more than usual accumulation of 
small things to do, have precluded me of participating in these fascinating 
exchanges. Let me make a few brief points:


-- The qbit versus the bit (central matter in Jonathan's recent 
reflections): does the former reduce to the latter? I think so. The 
difference stems more of the "processing side" (Laws) than on the extant 
information (states). Thus, some microphysical laws of QM could be singled 
out as not having any counterpart in classical (and statistical) mechanics.


-- "Reality of the laws": as it seems we only care about the "truth" of 
theories, and cavalierly assume they exist only in our heads or when we 
encode them somewhere else---Michel D. Why do we treat so differently the 
"realism" of natural objects/entities versus the realism of natural laws 
which "handle" them? Otherwise, how are they capable of efficient action 
without a "reality" --is not the world "causally closed"?


-- Exploring more seriously the notion of information as "distinction on 
the adjacent" could take us to minimalist assumptions on "physical" 
implementation of such laws at the microphysical level. Thus, some parts of 
Stephen Wolfram's program (his pretended New Sience) on cellular automata 
might rightly conceptualize in a minimalist way the Planckian granularity 
of space time in its "processing" capabilities to lawfully handle those 
qbits & bits.


-- I much like Karl's original ideas on counting (notwithstanding some 
differences on how to count multidimensional partitions). Indeed the 
counting problem in maths has required the invention of several  types of 
numbers, which have been devised beyond natural numbers: integers, 
rationals, reals, complex, transfinite, hypercomplex, quaternions, etc.  I 
wonder whether that  proposed type of counting would make sense handling 
the logically of "distinctions" in those elementary Planckian automata.


-- Physics has to change a lot. The problems it has in very strategic 
corners, some of them concerning information (and symmetry!), might be 
crucial places to work out both for physicists & information scientists...


best wishes

Pedro

PS. By the way, reductionism and reductionist programs look fine, if 
accompanied and complemented by similarly robust "integrationism" and 
integrative programs. That's not the case nowadays.



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Re: [Fis] Limited info

[Pedro Marijuan]

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

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

STAN


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


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


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


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


best regards

Pedro  



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Re: [Fis] Limited info

[Pedro Marijuan]

At 00:23 17/06/2006, you wrote:


I wonder if we might have some expansion of that last sentence?

STAN


>Dear Hans and colleagues,
>
>Thank you for the seminal insights. In my view, genuine informational
>entities (living beings, nervous systems, social entities, enterprises, the
>observing scientist, etc.) are involved in germane problems on how to
>optimize their very limited resources concerning an open-ended realm of
>interactions... "limited information" appears as an overarching notion
>concerning both the animate and the inanimate. It may recapitulate in bits
>the mechanical principle of "minimal action" in nature's evolution.


Thanks, Stan. One possible way to expand that last sentence about the 
whimsicalities of nature's course, could be the discussion of sort of a 
"principle of minimal informational description."


A metaphor of the above could be put if we go around a very dear statement 
of yours: "nature abhors a gradient" (which I share, though not quite 
globally). Under the above informational vision it could be: "nature abhors 
a distinction". It would cover then directly the gradient case, but also 
the atomic bonding events, as if we go to Gibb's expression of free energy 
in chemical making & braking of bonds, the enthalpy term would imply the 
"thriftiness" of nature concerning the diminished distinctions it has to 
make regarding the now more symmetrical bonded electronic shells. Now we 
could glimpse getting along the relatively well-trodden paths of molecular 
information via the underlying conception of information "distinction on 
the adjacent". Jim Jhonson made weeks ago a short reference to Michael 
Leyton's approach to information via group theory. It may strongly relate 
to these speculations... Sorry that his comment is too encapsulated yet.


best regards

Pedro 


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Re: [Fis] Limited info

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Hans and colleagues,

Thank you for the seminal insights. In my view, genuine informational 
entities (living beings, nervous systems, social entities, enterprises, the 
observing scientist, etc.) are involved in germane problems on how to 
optimize their very limited resources concerning an open-ended realm of 
interactions... "limited information" appears as an overarching notion 
concerning both the animate and the inanimate. It may recapitulate in bits 
the mechanical principle of "minimal action" in nature's evolution.


Concerning the second point (below), I would distinguish between the 
capability to store just one bit into that Planck's scale, and the 
processing capability of that very bit. We may take an image from string 
theorists: that an elementary granularity of spacetime could be represented 
under the guise of a manifold called Calabi-Yau space, with 9 dimensions, 
three of them allowing adjacency relationships (so we would have capability 
for info circulation, "distinction on the adjacent"), while the other 6 
would be curled and uncommunicated. Apart from physical theoretical 
reasons, maybe all that complexity in the elementary granularity would be 
needed to locate therein both the "bit" and the further algorithms of 
nature's laws for info processing (right within the curled up dimensions?). 
Sorry that I return to that point of law physicality, but in our 
informational perspective ontological conditions would be different than in 
orthodox QM... Anyhow, along this scheme, it also looks cogent that when 
space-time fall into the conditions of black wholes, all possibilities of 
adjacency disappear, and no info can be contained or circulated in the now 
isolated manifolds--except at the limiting overall surface of the region.


Thanking the patience!

Pedro


At 17:34 13/06/2006, you wrote:
For me the biggest problem is the precise formulation of a principle that 
limits the information nature allows us to discover...
Quantum mechanics is an elaboration of the idea that a box with volume h 
in six-dimensional phase space can SOMEHOW carry one bit of info.


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Re: [Fis] Bell\\\'s inequality: Can we find its classical analogue? Classical and Quantum waves

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear John and colleagues,

Thanks for the rigorous philosophical directions to connect with. Getting 
ahead with the speculation business, here there are a few related "pills" 
that perhaps could be matched with aspects of the current discussion:


-- physical (and biological?) information: as a distinction on the adjacent 
(taking "distinction" in Karl's set theory sense).


-- principle of "limited information" (behind measurement, complementarity, 
and perhaps entanglement?).


-- vacuum energy and quantum fluctuations: as a result of the inner 
generativity / destructivity of the "engines" of nature laws imprinted on 
space-time?


--  motion: not as merely displacement but as "reconstruction" (along 
information flows ? "it" from "bit"?).


-- if laws of nature do process "information" and are themselves "info", 
What kind of physicality they do purport? (to Michael Deveraux's 
consideration: "information is always physical").


with best greetings,

Pedro






At 15:08 12/06/2006, you wrote


Dear colleagues,

let me add another aficionado naive speculation on the matters below :

We might regard every locus of space-time as having the capacity to 
instantiate the whole laws of nature, in relation to any existential 
perturbation by what we call matter, energy, etc. If there is an 
"information processing capacity" strictly by adjacency, in which 
informational perturbations --physical "state" information-- are passed 
or reconstructed only from locus to locus..
For the non-technical view, a sense of wholeness, of global "entity", has 
to be added to interpretations of space-time...


Seems right to me. It also allows application of some (minimalist) views 
of causation to the QM world. Much of this is in our forthcoming book (All 
things must go: Information theoretic ontic structural realism, Oxford UP 
probably 2007), Ross, Ladyman, Spurrett, Collier. We look at open and 
closed block universes, among other things...

Cheers,
John


--
Professor John Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 (31) 260 3031
http://www.nu.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html


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Re: [Fis] Bell\\\'s inequality: Can we find its classical analogue? Classical and Quantum waves

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

let me add another aficionado naive speculation on the matters below :

We might regard every locus of space-time as having the capacity to 
instantiate the whole laws of nature, in relation to any existential 
perturbation by what we call matter, energy, etc. If there is an 
"information processing capacity" strictly by adjacency, in which 
informational perturbations --physical "state" information-- are passed or 
reconstructed only from locus to locus, then the entanglement phenomenon 
represents a serious violation of that scheme. Either a non-markovian 
nature of the locus processes themselves (sort of memories in the 
perturbation trails of entangled events) or communication through a new 
meta-realm upon the previous laws have to be invoked. In the second case, 
interpreted within a market scheme, all laws of nature would represent 
mouth-to-moth direct communication between adjacent marketing individuals, 
while in entanglement an uncanny transmission mechanism has to intervene: 
phone, radio, etc. (but maybe not acting both bidirectionally and 
simultaneously), so that the entangled parties may adjust to each 
other.  For the non-technical view, a sense of wholeness, of global 
"entity", has to be added to interpretations of space-time...


best

Pedro



>>> Andrei Khrennikov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 06/05/06 2:54 PM >>>
Dear John,

>
> On a somewhat different track, but relevant,
> Nancy Cartwright was studying econometrics, and
Do you know how is it possible to find a description of her ideas. I am
guite sure that there will be something wrong in her considerations.

I really doubt it, since Bas van Fraasen felt obliged to respond to it 
with a very ad hoc antirealist response. She gave the paper at the 11th 
Annual Wittgenstein Congress, and it should be in the proceedings, 
published in 1987 by Vienna: Holder-Pichler-Tempsky. As, I mentioned, it 
fits my information theoretic account of causation perfectly (though the 
means of transmission are obscure, unless you adopt the Bohm-Hiley 
interpretation of QM, or some variant), which has other attractions.


In any case, the Bell inequalities apply to the econometics case. Nancy's 
book on that is among the references on her summer course page (2005) at 
http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/nielsen/res/Cartwright/Econometrics%20Summer%20School%20on%20Causality.pdf


You probably want to look also at Nature's Capacities and Their 
Measurement. The Amazon page is 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198235070/103-4607926-5971044?v=glance&n=283155


I am posting this to fis as well, since there may be more general interest.

Cheers,

John


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Re: [Fis] Bell\'s inequality: Can we find its classical analogue? Classical and Quantum waves

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FISers,

A question I have about entanglement is what this phenomenon can tell us on 
the nature of physical law. The "physical" existentiality of physical laws 
themselves looks intriguing ---where do they "seat"? And what coherence and 
entanglement may tell about that? Some physicists have replied me it is a 
metaphysical and trivial question... but maybe not for advancing toward a 
comprehensive informational vision of the quantum it / bit.


In another matter, as we change the time (& space) window from which we 
observe phenomena, different modes of existence are found, or have to be 
established. So to speak, things and entities pop-in and pop-out from 
existence. I have doubts that some entities in Q Mechanics, e.g. about 
particles and waves, are really adequate to their peculiar time 
window--notwithstanding their mathematical description neatness. And about 
their permanence within time itself, a curious "biologization" a la Smolin 
might be thought of.


best regards

Pedro

 


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Re: [Fis] QUANTUM INFORMATION

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Andrei and Jonathan, and colleagues

As an outsider in the theme, let me make a couple of light observations. 
First about the curious problem of very few Q. algorithms:


In quantum computing there were created a few quantum algorithms and 
developed devices, "quantum pre-computers", with a few quantum registers. 
However, difficulties could not be more ignored. By some reason it was 
impossible to create numerous quantum algorithms which could be applied to 
various problems. Up to now the whole project is based on 2-3 algorithms 
and among them the only one, namely, the algorithms for finding prime 
factors, can be interesting for real applications. There is a general 
tendency to consider this situation with quantum algorithms as an 
occasional difficulty. But as years pass, one might start to think that 
there is something fundamentally wrong.




It reminds a problem I mentioned on biological information months ago. In 
purity, no such thing as "biological information processing" can be 
accessed, rather the living cell is always engaged in the advancement of 
its own life cycle, and therein some ad hoc "processual" activities may be 
superimposed... "nested processing" might be called too. Therefore, the 
algorithmic decomposability in Boolean streams mandated by Turing schemes 
(see Jonathan, below), may occur only as an exception in some brief 
biological windows, and perhaps as I see in Quantum Information it would be 
similar. Somehow the quantum existentiality is also engaged in the 
informational advancement of its cycle/phase in connection with an 
open-ended environment. Let me then conclude this comment with a dictum by 
Michael Conrad (1996): "when we look at a biological system we are looking 
at the face of the underlying physics of the universe."


Turing machines provide a good formal model for classical digital 
computers. Is there an equally good formal model for quantum computation?


Can the output from a physically feasible quantum computer ever be more 
than a single classical bit --a single yes or no answer?


More generally: What exactly is computable with quantum computation? (For 
comparison, Church's Thesis says that Turing machines compute recursive 
functions.)


Sometimes it is claimed that the human brain displays certain aspects of 
quantum computation. Is this analogy helpful? How far does it go?


A related claim recently made by some parties, some of them in this list 
(Hans), takes a further step: information as the ultimate stuff of the 
universe (Wheeler, Zeilinger, Smolin... ); but maybe this direction is a 
little premature, right now at the beginning of our discussion.


best regards

Pedro

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[Fis] Announcing the Q.I. session

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FISers,
Let us hurry up with the latest comments on information ethics (including
the chairs' final comments if it is viable for them--and many thanks for
their chairing!!), as  we are going to start at the beginning of
next week a very challenging session on Quantum Information. Let me
acknowledge, and cordially thank, the cooperation of our FIS colleague
Michel Petitjean in the organization of this new session.

best regards,  ---Pedro
  

Announcing the 11th FIS Discussion
Session:
QUANTUM INFORMATION 


Chaired by:
Prof. Andrei Khrennikov
Director of International Center for Mathematical Modeling in
Physics,
Engineering, Economy and Cognitive Sc.,
University of Vaxjo, Sweden.
and
Prof. Jonathan D.H. Smith
Department of Mathematics,
Iowa State University, USA.
-

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[Fis] DISCUSSION CALENDAR

[Pedro Marijuan]

FIS Friends,
It is a pity, but the very interesting discussion on ethics is getting
closer to the end. At the beginning of next week, a new discussion on
QUANTUM INFORMATION should take place, chaired by Andrei
Khrennikov and Jonathan D.H. Smith. 
As usual, the current session will be formally closed by the concluding
comments of the chairs --at their convenience. If possible, exchanges on
ethics should stop around Sunday... In any case, we could recap some of
its basic themes in an extra session on FIS strategies (to be held after
the physics session itself). 
best regards
Pedro



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Re: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear colleagues,

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


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


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


best regards

Pedro



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

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

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

STAN



>Dear FIS colleagues,
>
>The question recently raised by Luis, but also in a different way by Karl,
>Stan and others, is a tough one. How do our formal "disciplinary"
>approaches fare when confronting the "global" reality of social life? My
>point is that most of knowledge impinging on social life matters is of
>informal, implicit, practical, experiential nature. How can one gain access
>to cognitive "stocks" of such volatile nature? Only by living, by
>socializing, by a direct hands-on participation...  Each new generation has
>to find its own way, to co-create its own socialization path. No moral or
>ethical progress then!!! (contrarily to the advancement of other areas of
>knowledge). Obviously, learning machines or techno environments cannot
>substitute for a socialization process --a side note for "prophets" of the
>computational.
>
>By the way, in those nice categorizations by Stan --it isn't logically
>awkward that the subject tries to be both subject and observer at the same
>time? If it is so, the categorization process goes amok with social
>openness of relations and language open-endedness, I would put.  Karl's
>logic is very strict, provided one remains strictly within the same set of
>reference. Anyhow, it is a very intriguing discussion.
>
>best
>
>Pedro
>
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Re: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

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


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


best

Pedro

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Re: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Michael and colleagues,

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


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


best

Pedro

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

Dear Pedro,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

best
Michael

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Re: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Rafael, Jerry, and all

Perhaps another view of ethics (closer to Jerry's questions?) would revolve 
around the tentative conciliation between the first person view and the 
third person's. A recent fis session chaired by Stan and Koichiro dealt 
with that very problem (addressed towards scientific description, the "endo 
and "exo" perspectives). Say, once societies get sufficient complexity, 
"ethical" problems erupt with increasing virulence as layers and layers of 
complexity are added, and the "exo" environment gets more and more 
untractable. Robinson Crusoe did not need any ethics in his solitary 
island. Put several thousand (or million) people there, and the ethical 
dilemmas will be a plague. Another way to treat that (in 
evolutionary-economic terms) would be "the tragedy of the commons", and 
also the "public goods problem". In the game-theoretical approaches, Nash's 
equilibriums and quite a few other constructs, relate to the 
conceptualization of this type of problems when the individual's 
fitness depends on a considerable portion of a "healthy" wider group, but 
at the same time he or she can "steal" good chunks from the common pot, 
provided other parties do not cheat either. It is the "reputation" theme 
too...


If the above is cogent, a fascinating body of theoretical stuff (in my 
opinion, neatly "informational" applies to ethical foundations too.


best,

Pedro



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Re: [Fis] social opacity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Rafael and colleagues,

Just a couple of points. First, about your paragraph "ethics as a 
scientific discipline is viable at all times... " I tend to agree, but only 
partially. Morals in the philosophical wide sense you take (as already 
stated, I prefer to restrict them only to "human nature", that instinctive 
behavior in a protogroup, directly related say to the chain of successive 
realms: genotype, phenotype, ecotype, sociotype) would have to contend with 
quite a few scientific disciplines dealing with human behavior.  At least, 
we could mention: neuroethology, human ethology, ecological psychology, 
social psychology, cultural anthropology... even political philosophy. 
Perhaps one cannot be much optimistic about the integration of contents in 
any of those disciplines (or in ethical foundations) for a central theory 
of the neurosciences is still missing (Edelman, Crick, Arbib...). It does 
not mean that we should stop thinking, but that we must carefully select 
and analyze quite many stepping stones we have traditionally considered 
firm enough. A lot of interdisciplinary practice with "consilience" may be 
needed to advance towards info foundations for ethics.


Thanks for Varela's reference. I had read a couple of other editions he 
made during the 90's (with Evans and others) and was left rather 
unsatisfied. Apart from "bodily reactions" which I like and take home, in 
the perception side of our action-perception cycles there is also very 
intriguing loads. We have put socially in circulation quite a few "visions" 
--utopias and other modernist and postmodernist stuff of amazingly abstract 
visual nature-- that are very disturbing of any rational discourse of 
ethics. If one is in commands of such high views of social order, why do 
not remove those disposable micro-individuals who may be resisting (wasn't 
a prelude of it that part of the Faustian story, when the great Planner 
assasinates the two modest persons resisting his big scheme of social 
order??). Unfortunately the story keeps repeating endlessly.


best regards

Pedro

At 18:58 07/04/2006, you wrote:

Dear Pedro and all,

ethics as a scientific discipline is viable at all times. It has been so 
for thousands of years in our tradition. I see no reason why we 
should/could stop reflecting on morals. This would mean a re-action that 
would block (or intend to block) the process of giving ourselves reasons 
for our actions. The foundation of ethics is itself not the same as the 
foundations of morals, if we compare ethics with physics (and morals with 
nature) then the foundations of ethics corresponds to the foundations of 
physics (which is not a physical but a philosophical matter).


Regarding Maturana and Varela: As you probably know, Varela published a 
very remarkable book on ethics "Un know-how per l'etica"  (Roma 1992) in 
which he describes how morality (!) is "enacted" in bodily reactions, i.e. 
as bodily "know how".
This is similar to what Aristotle says about "habits" ("hexis"). Varela's 
book is a reflection on morality, i.e. it is a book on ethics but ethics 
is not itself a foundation of moral action (at
least not directly). The question of the sources (or "forces") for moral 
action
is a deep and very controversial (ethical) question not only in Western 
thought (think about the difference between Rousseau and Hobbes concerning 
human nature).


kind regards

Rafael

Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro


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[Fis] social opacity

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleagues,

I have the impression that a serious attempt to establish informational 
foundations for ethics is not viable, at the time being. Although we can 
produce discourses about different threads involved ---traditional 
philosophic, evolutionary, postmodern, politico-economic, technologic, 
theoretical science, etc.-- finally we have to deal with real people living 
their own lives, and this "vitalism" does not accept reduction within any 
disciplinary grid. In ethics, like in the arts, we can make provisional 
constructs and keep them afloat as long as they are useful.


However, "morals", taking them in the sense of basic-guidelines coming out 
from our human nature, appear as very permanent bodies, susceptible of 
being put into codes, which traditionally have been elaborated by 
religions. This means that religions are highly relevant for the debate of 
ethics:  they handle the transcendent aspect of our lives.


In my opinion, the info foundations of ethics imply a similar problem to 
establishing the concepts of meaning, value, and fitness at the cellular 
realm ---and in the recent discussion we couldn't. It is a pity that 
Maturana and Varela's autopoietic views have not been updated, as I think 
that the stumbling block that presumably we confront  ("social 
opacity")  implies revisiting some of their tenets.


best regards

Pedro



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Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS

[Pedro Marijuan]

FIS Friends,
A modest heap of ideas is accumulating on info ethics. I will comment on
some recent postings (Stan, Rafael, Michael...)
To Stan's simplifications on Global Capitalism, second law plus Darwinian
penchant, I would had another two: complexity growth and instinct of
"conformity with the group", both in combination with the
previous ones. Complexity growth may occur precisely because of the
introduction of -"constraints", from the very beginning (at the
very quantum level of Pauli's exclusion principle!). In human language,
the constraints we introduce either in pronunciation or in grammar make
possible the linguistic fabrication of open-ended contents. Such rules
clearly represent a burden, but are a necessary path to follow in order
to generate novelty.  It also occurs socially, for we can organize a
complex social structure only because people have to follow an
increasingly complex set of rules (e.g., think on traffic). Then, the
instinct of "conformity with the group" appears as a curious
phenomenon, a sort of collective life-saving device which is widely
shared among anthropoidea, and that in the human case creeps into a vast
variety of social networkings, primitive and advanced ones. At the same
time, we compete and are willing to stay safely into the pack. In the US
it means it means Wall Street and Silicon Valley together with
"Sunday America" and religious fundamentalism... In any case,
there seems possible to draw neat relationships of ethics with these two
new aspects that add some spice to Second Law and Darwinian competence.

Then Rafael says that "ethics is an informational science as far
as it analizes morality i.e. the rules of society(ies) considering them
under the conditions of their historical development and future
possibilities. The key point is then how far such rules block societal
development which means at the same time that the "ideas" or
"goals" must/can be reconsidered and "re-imaginized."
This is the deep connection between ethics with drama, poetry,
music..."  I much agree with the vision of ethics as an
informational science, particularly because of the "closure"
operation that ethics has to perform at the social level. Other
integrative disciplines are forced to such closure operations, but
perhaps none of them with the amplitude and complexity that ethics has to
confront. We have not talked about "values" yet... are they a
shorthand for people being able to get a collective ethical orientation,
a minimalist "mapping" allowing themselves to align with the
group? In the relationship between ethics, arts, sciences and
technologies I would disagree with Foucault's over-extended use of the
term technologies (see in Rafael's); it can be  confusing and
misleading. 
  
I have already pointed that the informational discussion of ethics should
connect with Jared Diamond's (1996) proposals on the evolution of social
complexity. And some of Michael's points on books, media, etc., might be
discussed along the guidelines of the informational needs of societies as
their complexity grows. This idea may be extended to reopen Richard's and
Marcin's suggestions about organizing some modest research on a taxonomy
of information. To put it in the terms of the current discussion, the
evolution of societies is another theater where an informational way of
thinking may enrich traditional disciplines. 
At the time being, however, that fis explorations dovetail in
conventional institutional settings looks almost a miracle ---unless
institutional proposals presented in Paris (2005) by some fis parties
fructify, we will be left in the could permanently. As far as I know,
Dail, Mary Joe, and Wolfgang are already doing some legal and
administrative advancements, so that interesting "novelties"
might occur relatively soon. Who knows?
with best wishes,
Pedro  

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Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear All,

Should we keep discussing the Prolegomena on info & ethics or should we 
jump into the concrete questions about the contemporary revolution of info 
technologies? Apologies for being focused again in the former, hopefully it 
will help to produce more interesting answers about the latter...


If ethics is related to a collective dimension of an individual's 
"fitness"  (within a complex society), and if we suppose that fitness 
itself is amenable to formal/informational treatments (or will be in a 
foreseeable future), it seems difficult not to conclude on some form of 
informational reductionism on ethics. However, I feel in a strong 
disagreement with that apparent reductionist conclusion derived from my own 
responses to the opening text. So, let me backtrack.


In a complex society, any individual's action may be subject to scrutiny on 
very different grounds: say as immoral, unprofitable (non-economic), 
unjust, unethical...  The "moral" ground is usually understood as very 
close to the core of human condition, related to human nature itself (that 
"zoe" pointed out by Rafael), and then understood slightly different from 
the classical view in philosophy. Religions have been the traditional 
providers of the moral sense in almost every society: eg, the very clear 
ruling in the Ten Commandments of Christianity. Going to the "economic" 
ground, it is highly regimented and abstract, wrapped in strict accounting 
procedures (curiously related to the historical origins of numbers, 
algebra, symmetry...) and purports a high level of formal abstraction, 
notwithstanding its apparent immediateness. Then the "legal system" appears 
as another grid, formally structured too, which attempts to make a 
procedural "map" of almost any human action, particularly in the situations 
amenable to conflict.


Ethics would be different. Ethics implies the realization that none of the 
previous grids to map human action has fulfilled its mission globally, in 
achieving a "total" vision of the social behavior of the person. Some 
concrete actions of a person may be moral, profitable, and legal---but they 
may not be ethical after all. In bioethics (or in info ethics) we might 
point out very concrete, contemporary cases.


Ethics means that the formal schemes of other disciplinary realms have 
failed (either economic, legal, or moral---well, "moral", as least in the 
common sense I have taken it,  representing the proto-group acceptable 
behavior for collective survival, is not necessarily formal after all, but 
quite often it has little to say relating a complex social setting). 
Overall those regimentations of behavior would have failed to provide 
sufficient convergence or "closure" on the social interests. Actually any 
human community becomes too complicated and variable to yield its "secrets" 
to any bureaucratic, economic, legal, scientific, etc. formulae --am 
following J.C. Scott, 1998.


Ethics, then, would explore the "irreducible" residues of the common good 
which have not been detected by those other formal grids. Ethics explores 
particularly the new phenomena, the new techs, the new problems, the new 
achievements, as they impinge on the social fabric... those very events 
that will be a matter of legislation and economic ruling in a pretty near 
future. But, how could ethics achieve its focus on the unfocussed matters? 
How would social collectives dramatize those new strange, unruled, 
conflicting events? Drama, poetry, music... would they be a good social 
tool in order to feel the unknown, to visualize it, to anticipate it? I 
think so.


We are lead again to that discussion on "meaning and art" ... where I 
subscribe a good portion of Lauri's dictum weeks ago: "arts are 
technologies of ethics". Maybe it could be said differently, but the 
exploration direction looks intriguing.


best wishes

Pedro


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Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Rafael and colleages,

Thanks for the sympathetic response concerning the evolutionary views on 
ethics (see below). You are right about my mistake between the "zoe" and 
the "bios" (quite tricky that historical zoologization of the "bios" 
concept!). Let me go one step beyond in the evolutionary-informational 
direction: if we consider the advancement of the life cycle as the "primum 
mobile" behind the whole communication processes of the individual (say, 
the cell cycle as I tried to schematize in the past discussion concerning 
the biomolecular realm), then both the "zoe" and the "bios" get united in 
their tentative maximization of fitness for the individual. More 
concretely, behind our conceptualizations (in "ethics"), there is the 
generative reality of the human life cycle in a socially complex dimension, 
realizing that a considerable portion of our own fitness rests upon the 
global fitness of a collectivity which is organized far away from our 
instinctive "zoe". The historical alienation of emotions, feelings, and 
ethics itself out from the scientific realm has been a conceptual 
mirage---presumably there would be neat scientific-philosophical 
foundations for "information ethics".


would you agree with those rushed opinions?

Pedro

PS. I will respond to Richard later on, as my two cents for the week are 
depleted and his comment (and Marcin's) are quite strategic on fis futures.


At 20:01 07/03/2006, you wrote:

Dear Pedro,

very shortly. I very much agree with your evolutionary views.
The only point of disagreement concerns the use of the word "bios" instead 
of "zoe" in the case of "proto-groups," if we agree that "zoe" is related 
to the biological (!) level. This is probably the reason for the 
misunderstanding. Biology is the wrong word for "zoology." I do not know 
who created these words and why the original concept of "bios" was 
"zoologized"!
Second remark: at the moment when a human population starts making (oral) 
reflections on who has the power to disseminate (accept, deny...) messages 
we have to do with a human (information) society. I do not know if this is 
strictly speaking "a moment" in the history of mankind and I do not know 
how this informational 'effect' came about. What we call (moral) 
information rules started then. Ethics came (probably) later, and much 
later, of course, if we conceive it as "science of morals."


kind regards

Rafael

Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro
Hochschule der Medien (HdM) University of Applied Sciences, Wolframstr. 
32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany


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Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear Rafael & Michael,

Thanks for the thoughtful opening text. Given that apparently ethics is far 
away from an informational perspective (and that they can only be 
reproached through the contraption "info ethics"), perhaps a preliminary 
discussion on the evolution of social complexity might be in order. Let me 
try with a few basic ideas.


If we go to the most primitive human societies, e.g., following Jared 
Diamond, to those proto-groups (hunter-gatherer "bands") of 60 to 100 
people, there we find the enactment of your "bios" (see below in R & M 
text), and only that. Behaving into that close-knit group goes mostly as a 
direct gift from our genome, supposing that a regular epigenesis and a 
regular social group are embracing the individual. In this "natural" 
setting, the morality is pretty strict. No ethics needed.


With husbandry, agriculture, villages, etc. (artificial ecosystems), we 
have a different and far more complex social environment ---not readily 
accessible like the previous one. Some social inventions are needed, 
including norms of behavior regarding people not directly connected 
(conflicts, extended parenthood), plus the forging of a collective 
identity, ceremonies, counting, calendars, etc. Indeed this has to be made 
coherently, more or less rationally, and overall this appears as the social 
creation of the "ethos" (see below) terribly dependent on the concrete 
artificial ecosystems which support social life.


In a common view of both bios & ethos, one could emphasize that crossing a 
critical threshold of complexity in the social network is at stake. Beyond 
that, our evolutionary genotype-phenotype--"sociotype" cannot provide 
anymore the behavioral guidance. From the instinctive "moral" we need 
additional "ethics" (as Rafael implies, the latter often putting into 
question big portions of the former). Given that any stage in social 
evolution, social complexity is tantamount to the overlap of dynamic social 
networks (or networks of social "bonds"), which are built, maintained, 
dissolved, etc., by information exchange ---one arrives with some relative 
easiness to the notion that indeed there is deep connection between 
information and ethics.


Let me boldly argue that ethics means but the conditions for "collective 
closure" of a viable, complex society. So, previous "informational 
revolutions" in societies have always needed to put in a different light 
the ethical dimension, irrespective of the concrete "doctrine" which has 
torn asunder the preexisting fabric. And nowadays it is the turn for the 
genuine "information society (as questions Q2 -- Q5 clearly imply).


best regards

Pedro

PS. I have just received Karl's and cannot include comments on it.


At 14:05 03/03/2006, you wrote:

Ethics is, like any other field of scientific and philosophic research, 
not only controversial concerning its methodology and goals but also 
concerning its very nature. Philosophers have been developing ethical 
theories for thousands of years in different cultures. One starting point 
for our discussions could be the difference between "life" in a biological 
sense and "life" or "human existence". This difference was basic in Greek 
philosophy. The ancient Greek used two different words for life, namely 
"zoe" and "bios". Ethics is basically about "bios," i.e., about the 
'design' of human existence or of the place where we live ("ethos"). This 
presupposes that we do not only live within open possibilities (this is 
the case of other living beings too), but that we are aware of them. In 
classic terms, this is the question of freedom in the sense not only of 
freedom "from" but of freedom "for". But things are of course more 
complex, since we are not only living beings in the sense of "bios" but 
also of "zoe" so that our options for "good life" are intertwined with the 
possibilities given by nature as well as with the ones we artificially 
create by ourselves.

..



We usually make a difference between ethics and morality, where ethics (or 
"techne ethiké") is the science of morals ("ethos"), morals being the 
phenomenon we study. This is an important difference because in normal 
life people use both words (and even both concepts!) as synonyms. It is 
also important to grasp ethics as the place where morality can be 
(theoretically) questioned. In other words, an ethical discussion arises 
when given moral laws governing our behavior are not any more obvious.


As you know, Kant suggested that moral laws should be conceived in analogy 
to natural laws from a formal standpoint. Kant also made a strong 
difference between human beings as far as they belong to nature and as far 
as they are "ends in themselves." These (and other) Kantian are part of 
our Western culture, including our legal norms. They were Kant's answer to 
Newton, i.e., to a universe conceived as deterministic in which there was 
no place for freedom. We have not a similar fundamental philosophic ans

[Fis] Announcing the 10th session

[Pedro Marijuan]

Dear FISers,
Let us thank Jerry (and Kevin) for the inspired chairing of the
biomolecular session; and let us also thank all the participants.
Overall, we have had a fine session, indeed. It is quite interesting that
some of the themes and responses left pending during last weeks might
surface again during the next session "On Information Ethics"
(the kickoff text of which will be posted around next Friday.) 
Around the beginning of May we would start another session "On
Quantum Information", at the end of which we could include the
discussions on consciousness commented by John H., Jerry, and John C.

best regards,  ---Pedro
  

Announcing the 10th FIS Discussion
Session:
ON INFORMATION ETHICS


Chaired by:
Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro
International Center for Information Ethics.
Hochschule der Medien (HdM),
University of Applied Sciences, 
Stuttgart, Germany.

Dr. Michael Nagenborg
Applied Ethics & Philosophy
Institute of Philosophy, 
University of Karlsruhe,
Germany.
 

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