Re: [Fis] FW: social flow
Folks, On issue that I don't think Christophe deals with adequately in his otherwise excellent post is that the organization of life is hierarchical, and can therefore lead to conflicts between levels. For example, reproduction and heredity are important to life, so linage extinction resistance is also important. This can lead to conflicts between traits that are good for resisting death in organisms but not in the lineage, and vice versa. Also, sometimes groups are subject to selection, and resistance to group extinction becomes a factor independent of the resistance to death of individual organisms. This can also lead to conflicts between levels. I might as well add that human mind can create ends that are in conflict with human life (it is another level, but not part of some easy hierarchy that might combine features I mentioned above). Best, John At 01:17 AM 11/24/2013, Christophe wrote: Dear Pedro, The framework you present is interesting and deserves some comments. You write: Without entering self-production of the living there can be no sense, no meaning. I agree. You positions meaning generation with the coming up of life in evolution, assuming there is no meaning generation in the world of inert matter. But what is life? The best definition I know: the sum of the functions by which death is resisted [Bichat]. So life is organized around maintaining its nature, around satisfying a stay alive constraint (not that circular if you position the constraint as local vs ubiquist laws). But we should keep in mind that the nature of life is a mystery for today science and philosophy. Then come humans: But, little problem, how can the gap to the human dimension be crossed? Humans are indeed living entities, but with self-consciousness and free-will in addition. And these performances also are mysteries for today science philosophy. Also comes in language amorphously structured around the advancement of one's life. And, key point: most of our social exchanges are supradetermined by status, self-image, ambitions, affinity, collective identities, deception, self-deception, attraction, etc. Rather than noise, it is life itself! The only point I would disagree with you is the last part of the sentence, as human behavior is much more than life itself. The constraints that humans have to satisfy contain some specificities like valorize ego and limit anxiety. The field of human constraints is not that well understood. Probably because it is closely linked to these mysterious human specificities. So we are looking at a difficult subject: understand information flow within entities that we do not understand. The former can indeed feed the latter but I feel that an evolutionary thread should be explicitly considered in order to make available a background that we understand. (More on this in http://philpapers.org/archive/MENCOI ). Best Christophe From: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es To: joe.bren...@bluewin.ch; avi...@gmail.com Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 20:52:58 + CC: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] social flow Dear FIS colleagues, Many thanks for the comments exchanged. Welcome to Roly, the first party of the Xian's conference publishing in the list (I mean concerning the invited speakers, as Bi-Lin who also posted recently was a Xian participant too). I agree with Roli's interpretation and Joseph's points, and also with the direction started by John. It is one of the few times we are producing interesting ideas on social information infrastructures. Perhaps at the time being the received wisdom on communication social information is not working terribly well. For instance, Jakobson six communication functions could be perfectly collapsed into three, or expanded into nine... I have found a similar relativity in the not so many approaches to cellular / biological communication. One of the essential points to reconsider is, in my opinion, the lack of connection between communication and life itself. Without entering self-production of the living there can be no sense, no meaning. The notion of information flow (rather than the signal) has helped me to cohere the cellular intertwining scheme. But, little problem, how can the gap to the human dimension be crossed? Essentially human communication is not logical, but bio-logical... amorphously structured around the advancement of one's life, and that includes masterminding well organized motor apparatuses, as those involved in language production and language interpretation (cerebellar computation). Logics is a byproduct of this motor/perceptual system underlying our concepts and the interlinking of our exchnges, which becomes mastermined by the fitness demands within social groups --responding to Bi-Lin's off line comments too. Actually most of our social exchanges are supradetermined by status, self-image, ambitions, affinity, collective identities, deception, self-deception, attraction, etc. Rather than noise, it is life itself! Haven't we
[Fis] Fw: social flow. Finding correspondences
Dear Colleagues Pedro wrote: Actually most of our social exchanges are supradetermined by status, self-image, ambitions, affinity, collective identities, deception, self-deception, attraction, etc. Rather than noise, it is life itself! Haven't we a lot of work to be done in these essential matters? Loet wrote: It seems to me that one can use models from biology to study inter-human communication; but inter-human communication is not alive. The dynamics are non-linear, but probably very different from the dynamics among molecules. Without the individual reflections on perceptions, the social distribution of expectations would not be reproduced. However, one cannot reduce these structural couplings to dependency relations, in my opinion. Christophe wrote: The only point I would disagree with you is the last part of the sentence, as human behavior is much more than life itself. The constraints that humans have to satisfy contain some specificities like valorize ego and limit anxiety. The field of human constraints is not that well understood. Probably because it is closely linked to these mysterious human specificities. So we are looking at a difficult subject: understand information flow within entities that we do not understand. Joseph writes: I think that the pessimism of Loet and Christophe could be helped by looking for dynamic relations at the different levels that are grounded in basic physics and chemistry, namely ones of changing actuality and potentiality. The dynamics are not /the same/, but if they have some common principle, we have something at least to work with. We do take over the biological model in its totality, but that portion of it which applies throughout nature. The couplings (Loet) are probably not simple dependency relations, but interactive relations involving presence and absence, along the lines of Deacon. Christophe is right that we do not understand completely the human entities within which information flow occurs, but the rules (Luhn) they follow are not necessarily totally different or mysterious. Someone with an oversized ego, A, is going to behave accordingly until he runs, inevitably, into some resistance (someone with a bigger ego, B). The subsequent dynamics will follow the same pattern as at lower levels, A's usual behavior will be potentialized at the expense of B's. Under good conditions, the A and B interaction will produce an emergent behavior, AB, in which, however, the original 'egos' have not totally disappeared. If this line is followed, there is not a total, but a minimum continuity in the form of the interactions between non-life and life. Information is in this form. Best, Joseph - Original Message - From: Loet Leydesdorff To: fis@listas.unizar.es Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2013 8:18 AM Subject: Re: [Fis] social flow Dear colleagues, It seems to me that one can use models from biology to study inter-human communication; but inter-human communication is not alive. The dynamics are non-linear, but probably very different from the dynamics among molecules. For example, counterfactual orders can be shaped culturally among us such as the rule of law. This cannot be reduced to biological principles (such as survival of the fittest). The dynamics of expectations are very different from that of historical events. The psychological may be mediating reflexively between the cultural and the biological, with a dynamics of itself. Without the individual reflections on perceptions, the social distribution of expectations would not be reproduced. However, one cannot reduce these structural couplings to dependency relations, in my opinion. Best, Loet Reference: Niklas Luhmann's Magnificent Contribution to the Sociological Tradition: The Emergence of the Knowledge-Based Economy as an Order of Expectations, in: Nachtflug der Eule: 150 Stimmen zum Werk von Niklas Luhmann. Gedenkbuch zum 15. Todestag von Niklas Luhmann (8. Dezember 1927 Lüneburg - 6. November 1998 Oerlinghausen), Magdalena Tzaneva (Ed.). Berlin: LiDi Europe Verlagshaus, 2013; http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2355880 . From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2013 9:53 PM To: Joseph Brenner; Roly Belfer Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] social flow Dear FIS colleagues, Many thanks for the comments exchanged. Welcome to Roly, the first party of the Xian's conference publishing in the list (I mean concerning the invited speakers, as Bi-Lin who also posted recently was a Xian participant too). I agree with Roli's interpretation and Joseph's points, and also with the direction started by John. It is one of the few times we are producing interesting ideas on social information infrastructures. Perhaps at the time being the received wisdom on communication
