[Fis] _ RE: _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

[Christophe]

Dear Soren,
Thanks for these details on the Peircean approach.
You write that ‘the concept of experience and meaning does not exist in the 
vocabulary of the theoretical framework of natural sciences'.
Would you consider the modeling of meaning generation (MGS in previous post) 
and the linking of intentionality to meaning generation (2015 Gatherings 
presentation http://philpapers.org/rec/MENBAM-2) as introducing such a 
framework ?

[http://philpapers.org/assets/raw/philpapers-plus250.jpg]

Christophe Menant, Biosemiotics, Aboutness, Meaning and 
...
philpapers.org
The management of meaningful information by biological entities is at the core 
of biosemiotics [Hoffmeyer 2010]. Intentionality, the ‘aboutness’ of mental 
states ...




Looking at another part of your presentation, you write.

My conclusion is therefore that a broader foundation is needed in order to 
understand the basis for information and communication in living systems. 
Therefore we need to include a phenomenological and hermeneutical ground in 
order to integrate a theory of interpretative/subjective and intersubjective 
meaning and signification with a theory of objective information, which has a 
physical grounding (see for instance Plamen, Rosen & Gare 2015). Thus the 
question is how can we establish an alternative transdisciplinary model of the 
sciences and the humanities to the logical positivist reductionism on one hand 
and to postmodernist relativist constructivism on the other in the form of a 
transdisciplinary concept of Wissenschaft (i.e. “knowledge creation”, implying 
both subjectivism and objectivism)? The body and its meaning-making processes 
is a complex multidimensional object of research that necessitates 
trans-disciplinary theoretical approaches including biological sciences, 
primarily biosemiotics and bio-cybernetics, cognition and communication 
sciences, phenomenology, hermeneutics, philosophy of science and philosophical 
theology (Harney 2015, Davies & Gregersen 2009).

I’m not sure that introducing ‘the basis for information and communication in 
living systems’ should be done by referring to complex notions like 
phenomenology, hermeneutics, inter-subjectivity or philosophical theology.
The relations of most animals with their environment can be addressed in quite 
simple terms. A paramecium avoiding a drop of acid or a mouse escaping a cat 
can be modeled quite simply (see previous post). Of course it is pretty obvious 
that an elaborated philosophical vocabulary comes as a needed tool for the 
human living system where complex characteristics like self-consciousness and 
free will are to be considered. But using such a vocabulary for basic life may 
run against an evolutionary framework which looks to me as mandatory when 
addressing information and communication in living systems.
Animals and humans are at different levels of living complexity. They should be 
differentiated in terms of meaning generation as they are not submitted to the 
same constraints. And an evolutionary thread looks as naturally introducing 
such a differentiation in terms of increasing complexity.
But perhaps you want to include such a differentiation in your approach.
Pls let us know
Best
Christophe


De : Søren Brier 
Envoyé : samedi 2 avril 2016 00:43
À : 'Christophe'
Cc : fis@listas.unizar.es
Objet : SV: [Fis] _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS


Dear Christophe



I agree in your argument that where we should rather focus  on the natures of 
life and of consciousness.



This is also where I have been going with my research on Peircean biosemiotics  
and the development of Cybersemiotics. Let me make a first introduction to how 
Peirce formulate a different approach. If you then want I can go into further 
detail. References can be  found in the long version of my target article.



Many analytical philosophers of science might argue that meaning and experience 
are not central notions while truth, objectivity, scientific method, 
observation, theory, etc are (Carnap 1967, Bar-Hillel and Carnap’ s (1953) and  
Bar-Hillel (1964)). In the view of many researchers this is seen as due to a 
lack of accept of phenomenology and hermeneutics (for instance Plamen, Rosen & 
Gare 2015 and Brier 2010). Husserl’s early phenomenology had a problem with 
getting out to the outer world (Harney 2015), where Peirce develops his 
pragmaticism as a way to unite empirical research, meaning and experience 
(Ransdell,1989). His phaneroscopy makes it clear that his ontology is not only 
materialistic science using only mechanistic explanatory models but does also 
include meaning through embodied interaction through experiential living bodies 
and thereby the social as well as the subjective forms of cognition, meaning 
and interpretation (Brier 2015 a+b).

Thereby Peirce goes further than Popper’s (1978) view of the 

[Fis] _ _ Re: _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Soren,
I want to make a further comment on 

"It thus seems obvious that Bateson's “pattern that con­nects” includes the 
phenomeno­logical-emotional dimen­sion in its concept of mind but viewed as 
computational thoughts of relation, not as first person experiences. 
Cybernetics does not have a theory of qualia and emotion – not even in 
Bateson’s theories.”

There is a reason why I read Bateson as I do. I take difference to mean 
distinction in the sense of GSB (Spencer-Brown). This means that 
I take seriously GSB’s statement that “We now see that the observer and the 
mark are in the form identical.” That is, I see a distinction as arising with 
both a difference and an awareness of that difference. I am not very happy with 
the notion of a ‘first person experience’ but could take most distinctions for 
an observer to be just that: ‘first person experiences’. Then, agreed we are 
not here giving a theory of how such experiences arise. 

We are not delimiting how a distinction can arise. But the arising of a 
distinction is the arising of an awareness that is inextricably associated with 
that difference. The difference is one that has awareness. This is not yet at 
the level of a perceived difference except as that difference perceives (is 
aware of) itself. The awareness associated with a distinction is in the first 
place coallaesced with it. For the awareness to become aware of itself is yet 
another distinction and it is at this point that we have a difference that 
makes a difference. It may be that what I preach is not Bateson at all,but an 
amalgam of Bateson and GSB. Bateson wanted to keep the theory of types. GSB 
understands in the coalescence of awareness and distinction, that there is no 
need for the theory of types. My cybernetics begins with GSB. 

One more sally. You write in the form “Cybernetics does not …” as though there 
were one cybernetics. And there is. And no one has yet expressed it. Here we 
are indeed herding cats. Each person in that field called (second order) 
cybernetics comes to an awareness and a distinction of cybernetics that is his 
or her own. Our latest fad is to point to cybernetics as a ‘science of 
context’. This is not wrong, not even wrong, but it can work as a conversation 
starter. Cybernetics is, has been, and I submit always will be in process of 
finding something about 
itself. So it is NOT FAIR to point fingers at Cybernetics. Feel free to 
criticize the theories of various fallibles like Bateson and the rest. They do 
their best.

Oh. And now this ‘computational thoughts’. Oy. What the heck is a computational 
thought? A thought is not a thought without awareness.
There are computations. They are patterns that can be viewed by an awareness 
and can be appreciated, generalized, understood, thrown in the wastebasket, 
whatever. But to imagine that mechanical computation (that is the metaphor you 
promote by your language) can give rise to  or be equivalent to mind, that is 
absurd. People like Penrose try to prove that it is absurd, but it is just 
absurd. We carefully separated the mechanical from the thought-suffused part 
and then suggested that the part of this distinction that has no thought can 
give rise to thought!

Absurd? Of course not. Any thing is identical to what it is not. The widest 
extension of the mechanical fully delineates what is not mechanical. We will 
come fully upon the mind by going to the limits of mechanism. But this does not 
say that mind arises from mechanism.
Nor does it say that mechanism arises from mind. There is a marvelous pair 
mind/mechanism and that should be investigated to the hilt.
Best,
Lou 



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 

[Fis] _ Re: _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Soren,
If you were to read the dialogues with Mary Catherine Bateson (as a child) and 
Gregory Bateson in “Steps to an Ecology of Mind”, you might change your notion 
of
what sort of view of the observer is being studied in cybernetics. It is all, 
through and through about a feeling for and an awarenss of context.
This deep awareness of context is what brought so many of us to study the 
cybernetics of Bateson, von Foerster, Pask, Matrurana and others!

I feel sorry that you have acquired such a mechanistic view of cybernetics.
 I have no idea what you could possibly mean by a ‘cybernetic mind built out of 
circular logical reasoning’! 
Do you mean what comes from 

“I am the observed link between myself and observing myself” (HVF)?

Note that the words 
observer,
observed,
myself,
I,
are all undefined here and it is up to the reader of this evocation to fill 
them in with feeling in the circular round that is but a walk or spiral about 
the notion of self,
based on the given that selves can observe ‘themselves’.

Similarly in your sentence, the words
cybernetic,
mind,
cybernetic mind,
built,
are undefined. The most treacherous is the word ‘built’ suggesting as it does 
that we would perhaps imagine that we can construct, as in building Uinivac, 
a ‘cybernetic mind.’ I think that i prefer the postitronic brains of Isaac 
Asimov. 

Perhaps you are a reader of Stanislaw Lem and his Science Fiction Robots. 

In taking a concept such as circularity, and emphasizing it, we run the risk of 
making it sound like a be-all and end-all. It is important to understand that 
circularity is really always a spiral, and when we return to the first place it 
has been transformed in the next newness. Feeling emerges in the eternal return 
to the new and just born. These are the metaphors that we take to heart.
Very best,
Lou

P.S. I am quite conscious that I use an apposite strategy, speaking as 
poetically as I know how in the face of apparently logical but undefined 
rhetoric.
It is easy for us to get lost in our own words.


> On Apr 2, 2016, at 2:28 PM, Søren Brier  wrote:
> 
> Dear Lou
>  
> Thank you for your comments. My critique of Bateson is that his definition of 
> the observer was purely cybernetics and  never included the experiential and 
> therefore the emotional and meaning producing aspect of awareness. This is 
> simply not included in the foundation the transdisciplinary foundation of 
> cybernetics and may I add most of system science. Bateson’s observer is a 
> cybernetic mind build out of circular logical reasoning, like McCulloch’s and 
> von Foerster’s observer and I will include Maturana’s observer too. It is an 
> inherited limitation of the cybernetic paradigm. This is the reason I have 
> tried to integrate it into Peirce’s deep form of transdisciplinarity.
>  
> Luhmann see the lack of a phenomenological foundation in systems science and 
> cybernetics (his system theory attempts to integrate them all including 
> Bateson). Because of this lack he attempts to integrate his model with 
> aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology by including a horizon of expectations but 
> conceptualized in probability mathematics. Luhmann (1990) and Peirce both 
> share the idea of form as the essential component in communication. Peirce 
> writes:
>  
> […] a Sign may be defined as a Medium for the communication of a Form. [...]. 
> As a medium, the Sign is essentially in a triadic relation, to its Object 
> which determines it, and to its Interpretant which it determines. [...]. That 
> which is communicated from the Object through the Sign to the Interpretant is 
> a Form; that is to say, it is nothing like an existent, but is a power, is 
> the fact that something would happen under certain conditions.  (MS: 793:1-3)
>  
> In Peirce’s dynamic process semiotics, a form is something that is embodied 
> in an object as a habit. Thus, form acts as a constraining factor on 
> interpretative behavior or what he calls a real possibility in the form of a 
> ‘would-be’. The form is embodied in the object as a sort of disposition to 
> act (Nöth 2012). This is based on Peirce’s metaphysics of Tychism, which is 
> close to the spontaneity found in the vacuum fields of quantum filed theory, 
> except that Peirce’s view of substance differs from modern physics in that he 
> is a hylozoist like Aristotle, but now in an evolutionary process ontology.
>  
> I did meet Penrose many years ago and discussed his three world scenario with 
> him and it is correct that on p.17-21 in The road to reality he give one of 
> his most deep discussion of the model. But I do not recognize you far 
> reaching and subtle interpretation there. For me the important ontological 
> assumption is the independent mathematical platonic world, which is why the 
> book’s subtitle is A complete guide to the laws of the Universe, which is 
> connected to his prejudice that “the entire physical world is depicted as 
> being governed 

Re: [Fis] _ Re: _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

[Francesco Rizzo]

Caro Louis e Cari Tutti,
tutta la mia più che cinquantennale ricerca si basa proprio
sull'informazione semiotica unita all'informazione naturale o
termodinamica, genetica e matematica. Anzi ho incontrato e conosciuto
Pedro, se non ricordo male, il 17-22 setmbre 2002 ad Acireale (Catania) si
è svolto un convegno sul tema "Energy and information transfer in
biological systems", al quale invia "Valore e valutazioni. La scienza
dell'economia o l'economia della scienza" (FrancoAngeli, Milano, 1999) che,
fra l'altro, comprende uno specifico capitolo. di "Semiotica economica" e
l'intera Terza Parte (9 capitoli) dedicati alla teoria del valore intesa
come combinazione creativa di energia e informazione. Inoltre il 1 aprile
2016 ho pubblicato "La scienza non può non essere umana, civile, sociale,
ECONOMI(C)A, enigmatica, nobile, profetica" in cui la problematica appena
rievocata e  ripresa nella  Fis è affrontata con una certa sistematica ed
organica consistenza o dimensione. Per non parlare di "Nuova economia"
(Aracne editrice, Roma, 2013) che spiega perché e come ho rivoluzionato la
scienza economica.
Quindi sono grato a Louis per avere compendiato un introduzione assai utile
e significativa, se non si vogliono scambiare lucciole per lanterne o
focacce per pane.
Grazie ancora.
Un abbraccio augurale e ancora pasquale a Tutti, ai quali voglio bene anche
se talvolta non ricambiato.
Francesco.

2016-04-02 5:46 GMT+02:00 Louis H Kauffman :

> Dear Soren and Folks,
> I have included some comments inside Soren’s introduction.
> Best,
> Lou K.
>
>
> Infobiosemiotics
>
> Søren Brier, CBS
>
> This discussion aims at contributing to the definition of a universal
> concept of information covering objective as well as subjective
> experiential and intersubjective meaningful cognition and communication
> argued in more length in Brier (2015a). My take on the problem is that
> information is not primarily a technological term but a phenomenon that
> emerges from intersubjective meaningful sign based cognition and
> communication in living systems. The purpose of this discussion is to
> discuss a possible philosophical framework for an integral and more
> adequate concept of information uniting all isolated disciplines (Brier,
> 2010, 2011, 2013a+b+c).
>
> The attempts to create *objective concepts* of information were good for
> technology (Brilliouin 1962) and the development of AI, but not able to
> develop theories that could include the *experiential (subjective) aspect*
>  of informing that leads to meaning in the social setting (Brier 2015b).
> The statistical concept of Shannon (Shannon and Weaver 1963/1948) is the
> most famous objective concept but it was only a technical invention based
> on a mathematical concept of entropy, but never intended to encompass
> meaning.  Norbert Wiener (*1963) *combined the mathematics statistical
> with Boltzmann’s thermodynamically entropy concept and defined information
> as neg-entropy. Wiener then saw the statistical information’s entropy as a
> representation for mind and the thermodynamically entropy as representing
> matter. So he thought he had solved the mind matter problem through his and
> Schrödinger’s (1944/2012) definition of information as neg-entropy.
>
>
> The idea was developed further into an evolutionary and ecological
> framework by Gregory Bateson (1972, 1979, 19827) resulting in an ecological
> cybernetic concept of mind as self-organized differences that made a
> difference for a cybernetically conceptualized mind (Brier 2008b). But this
> concepts that could not encompass meaning and experience of embodied living
> and social systems (Brier 2008a, 2010, 2011).
>
> [It seems to me that Bateson is well aware of the neccesity of being
> meaningful and thoughtful in relation to information and that his
> ‘difference that makes a difference’ is often the difference that is
> understood by an aware observer. Thus for him it is often the case that
> information arises within awareness and is not just
> a matter of channel capacities as in the Shannon approach. The whole
> reason one is take by Bateson and can find much to think about there is
> that he has a sensitive and thoughtful approach to this area of problems.
> It is too harsh to just say that “the idea was developed further …”.
>
> My main point is that from the present material, energetic or
> informational ontologies worldview we do not have any idea of how life,
> feeling, awareness and qualia could emerge from that foundation.
>
> [Yes.]
>
> Ever since Russell and Whitehead’s attempt in Principia Mathematica to
> make a unified mathematical language for all sciences and logical
> positivism failed (Carnap, 1967 & Cartwright et.al. 1996),
>
> [Personally, I do not regard the incompleteness results of Godel as an
> indication of failure! They show for the first time the true role of
> formalism in mathematics and in intellectual endeavor in general. We cannot
> rely on formalism only for 

[Fis] _ Re: _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Soren and Folks,
I have included some comments inside Soren’s introduction.
Best,
Lou K.

>  
> Infobiosemiotics
> 
> Søren Brier, CBS
> This discussion aims at contributing to the definition of a universal concept 
> of information covering objective as well as subjective experiential and 
> intersubjective meaningful cognition and communication argued in more length 
> in Brier (2015a). My take on the problem is that information is not primarily 
> a technological term but a phenomenon that emerges from intersubjective 
> meaningful sign based cognition and communication in living systems. The 
> purpose of this discussion is to discuss a possible philosophical framework 
> for an integral and more adequate concept of information uniting all isolated 
> disciplines (Brier, 2010, 2011, 2013a+b+c). 
> 
> The attempts to create objective concepts of information were good for 
> technology (Brilliouin 1962) and the development of AI, but not able to 
> develop theories that could include the experiential (subjective) aspect of 
> informing that leads to meaning in the social setting (Brier 2015b). The 
> statistical concept of Shannon (Shannon and Weaver 1963/1948) is the most 
> famous objective concept but it was only a technical invention based on a 
> mathematical concept of entropy, but never intended to encompass meaning.  
> Norbert Wiener (1963) combined the mathematics statistical with Boltzmann’s 
> thermodynamically entropy concept and defined information as neg-entropy. 
> Wiener then saw the statistical information’s entropy as a representation for 
> mind and the thermodynamically entropy as representing matter. So he thought 
> he had solved the mind matter problem through his and Schrödinger’s 
> (1944/2012) definition of information as neg-entropy.
> 

> The idea was developed further into an evolutionary and ecological framework 
> by Gregory Bateson (1972, 1979, 19827) resulting in an ecological cybernetic 
> concept of mind as self-organized differences that made a difference for a 
> cybernetically conceptualized mind (Brier 2008b). But this concepts that 
> could not encompass meaning and experience of embodied living and social 
> systems (Brier 2008a, 2010, 2011). 
> 
[It seems to me that Bateson is well aware of the neccesity of being meaningful 
and thoughtful in relation to information and that his ‘difference that makes a 
difference’ is often the difference that is understood by an aware observer. 
Thus for him it is often the case that information arises within awareness and 
is not just 
a matter of channel capacities as in the Shannon approach. The whole reason one 
is take by Bateson and can find much to think about there is that he has a 
sensitive and thoughtful approach to this area of problems. It is too harsh to 
just say that “the idea was developed further …”. 
> My main point is that from the present material, energetic or informational 
> ontologies worldview we do not have any idea of how life, feeling, awareness 
> and qualia could emerge from that foundation. 
[Yes.]
> Ever since Russell and Whitehead’s attempt in Principia Mathematica to make a 
> unified mathematical language for all sciences and logical positivism failed 
> (Carnap, 1967 & Cartwright et.al. 1996), 
> 
[Personally, I do not regard the incompleteness results of Godel as an 
indication of failure! They show for the first time the true role of formalism 
in mathematics and in intellectual endeavor in general. We cannot rely on 
formalism only for our search, but it is through examining the limits of given 
formalisms that the search can be carried further. I do not say this is the 
only way forward, but we are no longer stuck with idea of a perfect mechanism 
that can in principle generate all mathematical 
truths. This has failed and we are happy at that.]
> the strongest paradigm attempting in a new unification is now the 
> info-computational formalism based on the mathematic calculus developed by 
> Gregory Chaitin (2006 and 2007) ).
> 
[The ‘mathematical calculus’ of Chaitin iis very stimulating and it is based on 
the same incompleteness arguments as Goedel. Chaitin defines ‘random’ relative 
to a given formal system L. A sequence is random if there is no algorithm in L 
simpler than THE SEQUENCE ITSELF that can generate the sequence. Complexity of 
algorithms can be examined from this point of view. What we do not see in 
Chaitin is that same thing we do not see in Shannon. We do not see a role for 
judgement or phenomenolgy. I am interested in your notion that Chaitin has done 
more than this. Please say more.]


> The paradigm is only in its early beginning and is looking for a concept of 
> natural computing (Dodig-Crnkovic, 2012) going beyond the Turing concept of 
> computing. But even that still does not encompass the experiential feeling 
> mind and the meaning orienting aspect of intersubjective communication wither 
> be only sign or also language based.
> 
[Here I think you