Re: [Fis] What is ³Agent²?

2017-10-24 Thread Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic 
agoras.
>>
>> But in epistemology, computable can be defined in very elementary
>>theories
>> and languages. The deep reason is the closure of the partial computable
>> functions for cantor diagonalization (Gödel's called that a Miracle),
>>and
>> its price: the non computability of most predicate on most machines
>> behaviors (like halting), and the loss of control and the art of
>>letting go
>> the things which go without saying.
>>
>> The universal (Löbian) machine can already defeat all normative or
>> reductionist theory about their first person. They know that their soul
>>is
>> not a machine!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> For human agency (given that matter/energy side is functioning)
>>information
>> is what to a high degree drives agency.
>>
>>
>> OK.
>>
>>
>>
>> Do you think this would be a fruitful path to pursue, with ³agency² of
>> elementary particles and agency of social institutions as two limit
>>cases?
>>
>>
>> Agency of elementary particles? I am not sure this would not make all
>>the
>> number relations into an agent. Social institution are closer, perhaps
>>even
>> more the corporations, but none are really autonomous. I don't know.
>>
>>
>> This was my second (and last) post of the week.
>>
>> All the best and best to All,
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Gordana
>>
>>
>>
>> __
>> Gordana Dodig Crnkovic, Professor of Computer Science
>> Department of Computer Science and Engineering
>> Chalmers University of Technology
>> School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University
>> http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/
>> General Chair of is4si summit 2017
>> http://is4si-2017.org
>>
>>
>> From: Fis <fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Loet Leydesdorff
>> <l...@leydesdorff.net>
>> Organization: University of Amsterdam
>> Reply-To: "l...@leydesdorff.net" <l...@leydesdorff.net>
>> Date: Friday, 20 October 2017 at 08:40
>> To: 'Bob Logan' <lo...@physics.utoronto.ca>, 'fis'
>><fis@listas.unizar.es>
>> Subject: Re: [Fis] What is ³Agent²?
>>
>> Dear Bob and colleagues,
>>
>> I agree with the choice element. From a sociological perspective,
>>agency is
>> usually defined in relation to structure. For example, in terms of
>> structure/actor contingencies. The structures provide the background
>>that
>> bind us. Remarkably, Mark, we no longer define these communalities
>> philosophically, but sociologically (e.g., Merton, 1942, about the
>> institutional norms of science). An interesting extension is that we
>> nowadays not only perceive communality is our biological origins (as
>> species), but also in terms of communicative layers that we construct
>>and
>> reproduce as inter-agency (interactions).
>>
>> The relation with the information issue is not obvious. I worked on
>>this a
>> bit in the first half of the 90s:
>>
>> "Structure"/"Action" Contingencies and the Model of Parallel Distributed
>> Processing, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 23 (1993) 47-77.
>> The Production of Probabilistic Entropy in Structure/Action Contingency
>> Relations, Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 18 (1995) 339-56.
>>
>> Best,
>> Loet
>>
>> 
>> Loet Leydesdorff
>> Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam
>> Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
>> l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
>> Associate Faculty, SPRU, University of Sussex;
>> Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC,
>> Beijing;
>> Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London;
>> http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJ=en
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Bob Logan
>> Sent: Friday, October 20, 2017 6:11 AM
>> To: Terrence W. DEACON <dea...@berkeley.edu>
>> Cc: fis <Fis@listas.unizar.es>
>> Subject: Re: [Fis] What is ³Agent²?
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear Terry and FIS friends - I agree with all that Terry has said about
>> agency. I do wish to however to point out that an agent has choice and a
>> non-agent has no choice. I would suggest that the defining
>>characteristic of
>> an agent is choice and therefore an agent must be a living organism and
>>all
>

Re: [Fis] What is ³Agent²?

2017-10-23 Thread Mark Johnson 
ementary arithmetic, or
> elementary combinators, or to any universal machinery (universal in the
> mathematical Church-Turing-Post-Kleene sense).
>
> We can decide to consider the arithmetical beings being zombies, but this
> would entails a very special definition of matter to make it differ from the
> testable "arithmetical distribution".
>
> We can't have weak mechanism and weak materialism, and the evidences might
> side on a mathematical (somehow theological or psychological) origin of the
> physical reality.
>
> Incompleteness entails that all (platonist, classical reasoner machine) are
> confronted with many different, and conflicting, views about itself. Indeed
> it enforces the Theaetetus' distinctions, between true, provable, knowable,
> observable, sensible:
>
> p,
> []p,
> []p,
> []p&~[]f,
> []p&~[]f
>
> With p sigma_1 arithmetical (equivalently: partial computable) this gives a
> proposition account of a theology, testable as it explains how the physical
> laws emerges from some "dream percolation" in arithmetic.
>
> The physical is very important, but like in Plato, it could be, and seemed
> to be, the border of another non physical, more mathematical, plausibly
> arithmetical, reality.
>
>
>
> but when we think about epistemology and the ways we know the world, for us
> and other biological agents there is no physical interaction without
> informational aspects.
> Can we somehow think in terms those two faces of agency?
> Without matter/energy nothing will happen, nothing can act in the world but
> that which happens and anyone registers it, has informational side to it.
>
>
> Without matter/energy nothing physical will happen. But if we assume a very
> weak form of digital mechanism, arithmetic justfies limiting dreams, with
> rich indexical, relative amount of information, from "inside arithmetic".
> And what we take as the physical might be what emerges from a first person
> statistics on those dreams.
>
> The logic of which is testable, and up to now, it matches the data (thanks
> to QM without coilapse of the wave).
>
> It is just premature to conclude that information (in the 1p and 3p sense)
> needs the physical. The physical might be an invariant in a notion of normal
> sharable number dream. (A dream can be defined by a computation containing
> the emulation of a Löbian machine (they know they are universal) with
> respect to different or not universal numbers.
>
> In arithmetic, the universal numbers infers that below their substitution
> level, if it exists, they are confronted to a statistics on infinity of
> universal numbers, and above, locally, only with a finite (but huge) number
> of universal machine/number.
>
> I am aware I ask a huge spiritual or theological effort, coming back to
> Plotinus, and Parmenides, and Plato, if not Pythagoras.
>
> But in epistemology, computable can be defined in very elementary theories
> and languages. The deep reason is the closure of the partial computable
> functions for cantor diagonalization (Gödel's called that a Miracle), and
> its price: the non computability of most predicate on most machines
> behaviors (like halting), and the loss of control and the art of letting go
> the things which go without saying.
>
> The universal (Löbian) machine can already defeat all normative or
> reductionist theory about their first person. They know that their soul is
> not a machine!
>
>
>
>
> For human agency (given that matter/energy side is functioning) information
> is what to a high degree drives agency.
>
>
> OK.
>
>
>
> Do you think this would be a fruitful path to pursue, with “agency” of
> elementary particles and agency of social institutions as two limit cases?
>
>
> Agency of elementary particles? I am not sure this would not make all the
> number relations into an agent. Social institution are closer, perhaps even
> more the corporations, but none are really autonomous. I don't know.
>
>
> This was my second (and last) post of the week.
>
> All the best and best to All,
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Gordana
>
>
>
> __
> Gordana Dodig Crnkovic, Professor of Computer Science
> Department of Computer Science and Engineering
> Chalmers University of Technology
> School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University
> http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/
> General Chair of is4si summit 2017
> http://is4si-2017.org
>
>
> From: Fis <fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Loet Leydesdorff
> <l...@leydesdorff.net>
> Organization: University of Amsterdam
> Reply-To: "l...@leydesd

Re: [Fis] What is ³Agent²?

2017-10-23 Thread Bruno Marchal 
hine!





For human agency (given that matter/energy side is functioning)  
information is what to a high degree drives agency.


OK.




Do you think this would be a fruitful path to pursue, with “agency”  
of elementary particles and agency of social institutions as two  
limit cases?


Agency of elementary particles? I am not sure this would not make all  
the number relations into an agent. Social institution are closer,  
perhaps even more the corporations, but none are really autonomous. I  
don't know.



This was my second (and last) post of the week.

All the best and best to All,

Bruno








Gordana



__
Gordana Dodig Crnkovic, Professor of Computer Science
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Chalmers University of Technology
School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University
http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/
General Chair of is4si summit 2017
http://is4si-2017.org


From: Fis <fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Loet  
Leydesdorff <l...@leydesdorff.net>

Organization: University of Amsterdam
Reply-To: "l...@leydesdorff.net" <l...@leydesdorff.net>
Date: Friday, 20 October 2017 at 08:40
To: 'Bob Logan' <lo...@physics.utoronto.ca>, 'fis' <fis@listas.unizar.es 
>

Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

Dear Bob and colleagues,

I agree with the choice element. From a sociological perspective,  
agency is usually defined in relation to structure. For example, in  
terms of structure/actor contingencies. The structures provide the  
background that bind us. Remarkably, Mark, we no longer define these  
communalities philosophically, but sociologically (e.g., Merton,  
1942, about the institutional norms of science). An interesting  
extension is that we nowadays not only perceive communality is our  
biological origins (as species), but also in terms of communicative  
layers that we construct and reproduce as inter-agency (interactions).


The relation with the information issue is not obvious. I worked on  
this a bit in the first half of the 90s:
"Structure"/"Action" Contingencies and the Model of Parallel  
Distributed Processing, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour  
23 (1993) 47-77.
The Production of Probabilistic Entropy in Structure/Action  
Contingency Relations, Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 18  
(1995) 339-56.

Best,
Loet

Loet Leydesdorff
Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
Associate Faculty, SPRU, University of Sussex;
Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC,  
Beijing;

Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London;
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJ=en


From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Bob Logan
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2017 6:11 AM
To: Terrence W. DEACON <dea...@berkeley.edu>
Cc: fis <Fis@listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

Dear Terry and FIS friends - I agree with all that Terry has said  
about agency. I do wish to however to point out that an agent has  
choice and a non-agent has no choice. I would suggest that the  
defining characteristic of an agent is choice and therefore an agent  
must be a living organism and all living organisms are agents.  
Agents/living organisms have choice or are capable of choice or  
agency and they are the only things that have choice or can  
interpret information. Abiotic non-agents do not have information  
because they have no choice. We humans can have information about  
abiotic objects but those objects themselves do not have that  
information as they have no mind to be informed. That includes this  
email post, it is abiotic an has no agency. It has information by  
virtue of you reading it because you are able to interpret the  
visual signs with which I have recorded my thoughts. Marshall  
McLuhan would add to my comments that “the user is the content” as  
well as saying that Shannon’s work was not a theory of information  
but a "theory of transportation”. I think of Shannon’s work in a  
similar light. I also do not regard Shannon’s work as a theory of  
information but it is a theory of signals. Shannon himself said his  
theory was not about meaning and I say what is information without  
meaning and that therefore Shannon only had a theory of signals.


Another insight of McLuhan’s that of figure and ground is useful to  
understand why we have so many different definitions of information.  
McLuhan maintained that one could not understand a figure unless one  
understood the ground in which it operates in. (McLuhan might have  
gotten this idea from his professor at Cambridge, I. A. Richards,  
who said that in order to communicate one needs to feedforward [he  
coined the term btw] the context of what one is communicating.) The  
different definitions of information we

Re: [Fis] What is ³Agent²?. Nothing Extra Needed

2017-10-20 Thread Joseph Brenner 
Dear Gordana, Dear All,

In a few carefully chosen words, Gordana has established a 'two faces' picture 
of 'agency', involving energy where it should be and with reference to several 
levels (the limit cases). All this is within the principles of physics, closure 
and completeness, with no arbitrary entities thrown in. Process is the 
consequence of agency and vice versa.

The two faces of agency, and the relation between them are thus within science 
and have a logic, an informational logic. I suggest there may be value in 
listing candidates for such a logic.

Best wishes,

Joseph
  - Original Message - 
  From: Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic 
  To: Terrence W. DEACON ; 'Bob Logan' ; l...@leydesdorff.net ; 'fis' 
  Sent: Friday, October 20, 2017 11:02 AM
  Subject: Re: [Fis] What is ³Agent²?




  Dear Terry, Bob, Loet


  Thank you for sharing those important thoughts about possible choices for the 
definition of agency.


  I would like to add one more perspective that I find in Pedro’s article which 
makes a distinction between matter-energy aspects and informational aspects of 
the same physical reality. I believe that on the fundamental level of 
information physics we have a good ND simplest example how those two entangled 
aspects can be formally framed.
  As far as I can tell, Terrys definition covers chemical and biological agency.
  Do we want to include apart from fundamental physics also full cognitive and 
social agency which are very much dominated by informational aspects (symbols 
and language)?
  Obviously there is no information without physical implementation, but when 
we think about epistemology and the ways we know the world, for us and other 
biological agents there is no physical interaction without informational 
aspects.
  Can we somehow think in terms those two faces of agency?
  Without matter/energy nothing will happen, nothing can act in the world but 
that which happens and anyone registers it, has informational side to it.
  For human agency (given that matter/energy side is functioning) information 
is what to a high degree drives agency.


  Do you think this would be a fruitful path to pursue, with “agency” of 
elementary particles and agency of social institutions as two limit cases?


  All the best,
  Gordana






  __
  Gordana Dodig Crnkovic, Professor of Computer Science
  Department of Computer Science and Engineering
  Chalmers University of Technology 
  School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University
  http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/
  General Chair of is4si summit 2017
  http://is4si-2017.org 




  From: Fis <fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Loet Leydesdorff 
<l...@leydesdorff.net>
  Organization: University of Amsterdam
  Reply-To: "l...@leydesdorff.net" <l...@leydesdorff.net>
  Date: Friday, 20 October 2017 at 08:40
  To: 'Bob Logan' <lo...@physics.utoronto.ca>, 'fis' <fis@listas.unizar.es>
  Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?



  Dear Bob and colleagues, 



  I agree with the choice element. From a sociological perspective, agency is 
usually defined in relation to structure. For example, in terms of 
structure/actor contingencies. The structures provide the background that bind 
us. Remarkably, Mark, we no longer define these communalities philosophically, 
but sociologically (e.g., Merton, 1942, about the institutional norms of 
science). An interesting extension is that we nowadays not only perceive 
communality is our biological origins (as species), but also in terms of 
communicative layers that we construct and reproduce as inter-agency 
(interactions).



  The relation with the information issue is not obvious. I worked on this a 
bit in the first half of the 90s: 

a.. "Structure"/"Action" Contingencies and the Model of Parallel 
Distributed Processing, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 23 (1993) 
47-77.
b.. The Production of Probabilistic Entropy in Structure/Action Contingency 
Relations, Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 18 (1995) 339-56.
  Best,

  Loet




--

  Loet Leydesdorff 

  Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam
  Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)

  l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
  Associate Faculty, SPRU, University of Sussex; 

  Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC, Beijing;

  Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London; 

  http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJ=en





  From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Bob Logan
  Sent: Friday, October 20, 2017 6:11 AM
  To: Terrence W. DEACON <dea...@berkeley.edu>
  Cc: fis <Fis@listas.unizar.es>
  Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?



  Dear Terry and FIS friends - I agree with all that Terry has said about 
agency. I do wi

Re: [Fis] What is ³Agent²?

2017-10-20 Thread Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic 

Dear Terry, Bob, Loet

Thank you for sharing those important thoughts about possible choices for the 
definition of agency.

I would like to add one more perspective that I find in Pedro’s article which 
makes a distinction between matter-energy aspects and informational aspects of 
the same physical reality. I believe that on the fundamental level of 
information physics we have a good ND simplest example how those two entangled 
aspects can be formally framed.
As far as I can tell, Terrys definition covers chemical and biological agency.
Do we want to include apart from fundamental physics also full cognitive and 
social agency which are very much dominated by informational aspects (symbols 
and language)?
Obviously there is no information without physical implementation, but when we 
think about epistemology and the ways we know the world, for us and other 
biological agents there is no physical interaction without informational 
aspects.
Can we somehow think in terms those two faces of agency?
Without matter/energy nothing will happen, nothing can act in the world but 
that which happens and anyone registers it, has informational side to it.
For human agency (given that matter/energy side is functioning) information is 
what to a high degree drives agency.

Do you think this would be a fruitful path to pursue, with “agency” of 
elementary particles and agency of social institutions as two limit cases?

All the best,
Gordana



__
Gordana Dodig Crnkovic, Professor of Computer Science
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Chalmers University of Technology
School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University
http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/
General Chair of is4si summit 2017
http://is4si-2017.org<http://is4si-2017.org/>


From: Fis <fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es>> 
on behalf of Loet Leydesdorff 
<l...@leydesdorff.net<mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net>>
Organization: University of Amsterdam
Reply-To: "l...@leydesdorff.net<mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net>" 
<l...@leydesdorff.net<mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net>>
Date: Friday, 20 October 2017 at 08:40
To: 'Bob Logan' <lo...@physics.utoronto.ca<mailto:lo...@physics.utoronto.ca>>, 
'fis' <fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>>
Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

Dear Bob and colleagues,

I agree with the choice element. From a sociological perspective, agency is 
usually defined in relation to structure. For example, in terms of 
structure/actor contingencies. The structures provide the background that bind 
us. Remarkably, Mark, we no longer define these communalities philosophically, 
but sociologically (e.g., Merton, 1942, about the institutional norms of 
science). An interesting extension is that we nowadays not only perceive 
communality is our biological origins (as species), but also in terms of 
communicative layers that we construct and reproduce as inter-agency 
(interactions).

The relation with the information issue is not obvious. I worked on this a bit 
in the first half of the 90s:

  *   "Structure"/"Action" Contingencies and the Model of Parallel Distributed 
Processing, <http://www.leydesdorff.net/jtsb93/index.htm> Journal for the 
Theory of Social Behaviour 23 (1993) 47-77.
  *   The Production of Probabilistic Entropy in Structure/Action Contingency 
Relations, <http://www.leydesdorff.net/jses95/jses95.pdf> Journal of Social and 
Evolutionary Systems 18 (1995) 339-56.
Best,
Loet


Loet Leydesdorff
Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
l...@leydesdorff.net <mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net> ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
Associate Faculty, SPRU, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/> University of Sussex;
Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ.<http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/>, Hangzhou; 
Visiting Professor, ISTIC, <http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html> Beijing;
Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck<http://www.bbk.ac.uk/>, University of London;
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJ=en


From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Bob Logan
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2017 6:11 AM
To: Terrence W. DEACON <dea...@berkeley.edu<mailto:dea...@berkeley.edu>>
Cc: fis <Fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es>>
Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

Dear Terry and FIS friends - I agree with all that Terry has said about agency. 
I do wish to however to point out that an agent has choice and a non-agent has 
no choice. I would suggest that the defining characteristic of an agent is 
choice and therefore an agent must be a living organism and all living 
organisms are agents. Agents/living organisms have choice or are capable of 
choice or agency and they are the only things that have choic

Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

2017-10-20 Thread Loet Leydesdorff 
Dear Bob and colleagues, 

 

I agree with the choice element. From a sociological perspective, agency is 
usually defined in relation to structure. For example, in terms of 
structure/actor contingencies. The structures provide the background that bind 
us. Remarkably, Mark, we no longer define these communalities philosophically, 
but sociologically (e.g., Merton, 1942, about the institutional norms of 
science). An interesting extension is that we nowadays not only perceive 
communality is our biological origins (as species), but also in terms of 
communicative layers that we construct and reproduce as inter-agency 
(interactions).

 

The relation with the information issue is not obvious. I worked on this a bit 
in the first half of the 90s: 

*<http://www.leydesdorff.net/jtsb93/index.htm> "Structure"/"Action" 
Contingencies and the Model of Parallel Distributed Processing, Journal for the 
Theory of Social Behaviour 23 (1993) 47-77.
*<http://www.leydesdorff.net/jses95/jses95.pdf> The Production of 
Probabilistic Entropy in Structure/Action Contingency Relations, Journal of 
Social and Evolutionary Systems 18 (1995) 339-56.

Best,

Loet

 

  _  

Loet Leydesdorff 

Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)

 <mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net> l...@leydesdorff.net ;  
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/ 
Associate Faculty,  <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/> SPRU, University of Sussex; 

Guest Professor  <http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/> Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou; 
Visiting Professor,  <http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html> ISTIC, Beijing;

Visiting Fellow,  <http://www.bbk.ac.uk/> Birkbeck, University of London; 

 <http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJ=en> 
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJ=en

 

 

From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Bob Logan
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2017 6:11 AM
To: Terrence W. DEACON <dea...@berkeley.edu>
Cc: fis <Fis@listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

 

Dear Terry and FIS friends - I agree with all that Terry has said about agency. 
I do wish to however to point out that an agent has choice and a non-agent has 
no choice. I would suggest that the defining characteristic of an agent is 
choice and therefore an agent must be a living organism and all living 
organisms are agents. Agents/living organisms have choice or are capable of 
choice or agency and they are the only things that have choice or can interpret 
information. Abiotic non-agents do not have information because they have no 
choice. We humans can have information about abiotic objects but those objects 
themselves do not have that information as they have no mind to be informed. 
That includes this email post, it is abiotic an has no agency. It has 
information by virtue of you reading it because you are able to interpret the 
visual signs with which I have recorded my thoughts. Marshall McLuhan would add 
to my comments that “the user is the content” as well as saying that Shannon’s 
work was not a theory of information but a "theory of transportation”. I think 
of Shannon’s work in a similar light. I also do not regard Shannon’s work as a 
theory of information but it is a theory of signals. Shannon himself said his 
theory was not about meaning and I say what is information without meaning and 
that therefore Shannon only had a theory of signals. 

 

Another insight of McLuhan’s that of figure and ground is useful to understand 
why we have so many different definitions of information. McLuhan maintained 
that one could not understand a figure unless one understood the ground in 
which it operates in. (McLuhan might have gotten this idea from his professor 
at Cambridge, I. A. Richards, who said that in order to communicate one needs 
to feedforward [he coined the term btw] the context of what one is 
communicating.) The different definitions of information we have considered are 
a result of the different contexts in which the term information is used. We 
should also keep in mind that all words are metaphors and metaphor literally 
means to carry across, derived from the Greek meta (literally ‘across') and 
phorein (literally 'to carry'). So the word information has been carried across 
from one domain or area of interest to another. It entered the English language 
as the noun associated with the verb 'to inform', i.e. to form the mind. Here 
is an excerpt from my book What Is Information? (available for free at 
demopublishing.com <http://demopublishing.com> ):

"Origins of the Concept of Information - We begin our historic survey of the 
development of the concept of information with its etymology. The English word 
information according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) first appears in 
the written record in 1386 by Chaucer

Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

2017-10-19 Thread Terrence W. DEACON 
entually consist of those atoms and molecules.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Moreover, the exercise of free will on the part of the constituent
>>> atoms and molecules could come to implement the centripetality of Bob
>>> Ulanowicz at long last under the guise of chemical affinity unless the case
>>> would have to forcibly be dismissed.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>This has been my second post this week.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Koichiro Matsuno
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Alex
>>> Hankey
>>> *Sent:* Thursday, October 19, 2017 6:42 AM
>>> *To:* Arthur Wist <arthur.w...@gmail.com>; FIS Webinar <
>>> Fis@listas.unizar.es>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> David Chalmers's analysis made it clear that if agents exist, then they
>>> are as fundamental to the universe as electrons or gravitational mass.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Certain kinds of physiological structure support 'agents' - those
>>> emphasized by complexity biology. But the actual subject has to be
>>> non-reducible and fundamental to our universe.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Alex
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ___
>>> Fis mailing list
>>> Fis@listas.unizar.es
>>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Professor Terrence W. Deacon
>> University of California, Berkeley
>>
>> ___
>> Fis mailing list
>> Fis@listas.unizar.es
>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>>
>>
>


-- 
Professor Terrence W. Deacon
University of California, Berkeley
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Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

2017-10-19 Thread Stanley N Salthe 
Here is an interesting recent treatment of autonomy.

Alvaro Moreno and Matteo Mossio: Biological Autonomy: A Philosophical

and Theoretical Enquiry (History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life
Sciences 12);

Springer, Dordrecht, 2015, xxxiv + 221 pp., $129 hbk, ISBN 978-94-017-9836-5


STAN

On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 11:44 AM, Terrence W. DEACON <dea...@berkeley.edu>
wrote:

> AN AUTONOMOUS AGENT IS A DYNAMICAL SYSTEM ORGANIZED TO BE CAPABLE OF
> INITIATING PHYSICAL WORK TO FURTHER PRESERVE THIS SAME CAPACITY IN THE
> CONTEXT OF  INCESSANT EXTRINSIC AND/OR INTRINSIC TENDENCIES FOR THIS SYSTEM
> CAPACITY TO DEGRADE.
>
>
> THIS ENTAILS A CAPACITY TO ORGANIZE WORK THAT IS SPECIFICALLY CONTRAGRADE
> TO THE FORM OF THIS DEGRADATIONAL INFLUENCE, AND THUS ENTAILS A CAPACITY TO
> BE INFORMED BY THE EFFECTS OF THAT INFLUENCE WITH RESPECT TO THE AGENT’S
> CRITICAL ORGANIZATIONAL CONSTRAINTS.
>
> On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 6:00 PM, Koichiro Matsuno <cxq02...@nifty.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 19 Oct 2017 at 6:42 AM, Alex Hankey wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> the actual subject has to be non-reducible and fundamental to our
>> universe.
>>
>>
>>
>>This view is also supported by Conway-Kochen’s free will theorem
>> (2006). If (a big IF, surely) we admit that our fellows can freely exercise
>> their free will, it must be impossible to imagine that the atoms and
>> molecules lack their share of the similar capacity. For our bodies
>> eventually consist of those atoms and molecules.
>>
>>
>>
>>Moreover, the exercise of free will on the part of the constituent
>> atoms and molecules could come to implement the centripetality of Bob
>> Ulanowicz at long last under the guise of chemical affinity unless the case
>> would have to forcibly be dismissed.
>>
>>
>>
>>This has been my second post this week.
>>
>>
>>
>>Koichiro Matsuno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Alex
>> Hankey
>> *Sent:* Thursday, October 19, 2017 6:42 AM
>> *To:* Arthur Wist <arthur.w...@gmail.com>; FIS Webinar <
>> Fis@listas.unizar.es>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?
>>
>>
>>
>> David Chalmers's analysis made it clear that if agents exist, then they
>> are as fundamental to the universe as electrons or gravitational mass.
>>
>>
>>
>> Certain kinds of physiological structure support 'agents' - those
>> emphasized by complexity biology. But the actual subject has to be
>> non-reducible and fundamental to our universe.
>>
>>
>>
>> Alex
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Fis mailing list
>> Fis@listas.unizar.es
>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Professor Terrence W. Deacon
> University of California, Berkeley
>
> ___
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
>
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Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

2017-10-19 Thread Terrence W. DEACON 
AN AUTONOMOUS AGENT IS A DYNAMICAL SYSTEM ORGANIZED TO BE CAPABLE OF
INITIATING PHYSICAL WORK TO FURTHER PRESERVE THIS SAME CAPACITY IN THE
CONTEXT OF  INCESSANT EXTRINSIC AND/OR INTRINSIC TENDENCIES FOR THIS SYSTEM
CAPACITY TO DEGRADE.


THIS ENTAILS A CAPACITY TO ORGANIZE WORK THAT IS SPECIFICALLY CONTRAGRADE
TO THE FORM OF THIS DEGRADATIONAL INFLUENCE, AND THUS ENTAILS A CAPACITY TO
BE INFORMED BY THE EFFECTS OF THAT INFLUENCE WITH RESPECT TO THE AGENT’S
CRITICAL ORGANIZATIONAL CONSTRAINTS.

On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 6:00 PM, Koichiro Matsuno <cxq02...@nifty.com>
wrote:

> On 19 Oct 2017 at 6:42 AM, Alex Hankey wrote:
>
>
>
> the actual subject has to be non-reducible and fundamental to our universe.
>
>
>
>This view is also supported by Conway-Kochen’s free will theorem
> (2006). If (a big IF, surely) we admit that our fellows can freely exercise
> their free will, it must be impossible to imagine that the atoms and
> molecules lack their share of the similar capacity. For our bodies
> eventually consist of those atoms and molecules.
>
>
>
>Moreover, the exercise of free will on the part of the constituent
> atoms and molecules could come to implement the centripetality of Bob
> Ulanowicz at long last under the guise of chemical affinity unless the case
> would have to forcibly be dismissed.
>
>
>
>This has been my second post this week.
>
>
>
>Koichiro Matsuno
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Alex
> Hankey
> *Sent:* Thursday, October 19, 2017 6:42 AM
> *To:* Arthur Wist <arthur.w...@gmail.com>; FIS Webinar <
> Fis@listas.unizar.es>
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?
>
>
>
> David Chalmers's analysis made it clear that if agents exist, then they
> are as fundamental to the universe as electrons or gravitational mass.
>
>
>
> Certain kinds of physiological structure support 'agents' - those
> emphasized by complexity biology. But the actual subject has to be
> non-reducible and fundamental to our universe.
>
>
>
> Alex
>
>
>
>
>
> ___
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
>


-- 
Professor Terrence W. Deacon
University of California, Berkeley
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Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

2017-10-18 Thread Koichiro Matsuno 
On 19 Oct 2017 at 6:42 AM, Alex Hankey wrote:

 

the actual subject has to be non-reducible and fundamental to our universe.

 

   This view is also supported by Conway-Kochen’s free will theorem (2006). If 
(a big IF, surely) we admit that our fellows can freely exercise their free 
will, it must be impossible to imagine that the atoms and molecules lack their 
share of the similar capacity. For our bodies eventually consist of those atoms 
and molecules. 

 

   Moreover, the exercise of free will on the part of the constituent atoms and 
molecules could come to implement the centripetality of Bob Ulanowicz at long 
last under the guise of chemical affinity unless the case would have to 
forcibly be dismissed.

 

   This has been my second post this week.

 

   Koichiro Matsuno

 

 

 

From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Alex Hankey
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2017 6:42 AM
To: Arthur Wist <arthur.w...@gmail.com>; FIS Webinar <Fis@listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

 

David Chalmers's analysis made it clear that if agents exist, then they are as 
fundamental to the universe as electrons or gravitational mass. 

 

Certain kinds of physiological structure support 'agents' - those emphasized by 
complexity biology. But the actual subject has to be non-reducible and 
fundamental to our universe. 

 

Alex 

 

 

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Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

2017-10-18 Thread Bruno Marchal 

Dear Jose, dear Loet, dear Krassimir, dear Alex, dear Pedro, dear All,

I sum up answers to Loet, and many others in this answer to Jose, to  
avoid too much posts, but also I am in a very busy period.


On 16 Oct 2017, at 01:34, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero wrote:


Dear Krassimir, dear all,

I have noticed that some descriptions of information make use of  
anthropocentric metaphors and that might be misguiding (for  
instance, subjective and objective information (Sung)). Agent is a  
concept that retains some sort of action-theoretic background but at  
the same time assumes the existence of nonhuman agents. Agency would  
be then a causal relation wherein the agent "causes" some sort of  
effects.


I don`t feel confortable with this concept. I prefer the the concept  
of observer. But this one is problematic too, for the same reason:  
it is supposed that a human is there watching, feeling, measuring,  
etc.


I think we have to get rid of these humanistic assumptions in order  
to gain insight into the issues we want to explore.


Definitely I don`t think I have the answer, but following D.  
Hofstadter, H. von Foerster, N. Luhmann and others we could think of  
a agent/observer as a self-referential loop. Most of information  
processing devices consist of a design of some sort of feedback  
loop.  I don`t know if we could translate this idea to all the kinds  
of systems we all deal with. But it would be worth finding out.




Hofstadter is a rare physicist who is not wrong on Gödel's theorem,  
technically, and with respect to the digital mechanist thesis.
Logicians, including myself, have exploited this a lot in the  
fundamental studies. See my paper "Amoeba, Planaria, and Dreaming  
Machine". But see also the work of Myhill, John Case, Emil Post  
refered in.
Note also the very good book by Judson Webb illustrating how the  
discovery of "incompleteness" is a lucky event for mechanist philosophy.
In fact incompleteness saves machine from reductionist theories, as it  
makes all theories of them essentially undecidable ("essentially"  
means incomplete *and* incomplete-able).


In fact, I was about deciding to study biology when I discovered that  
Gödel exploited the same kind of self-reference, in arithmetic (!)   
that I discovered in the books of molecular biology.


Today, we got the ultimate theory of self-reference through two  
fundamental theorems by Solovay:
1) The provable part of self-reference is axiomatized soundly and  
completely by the modal logic G, and
2)  the true (provable and non provable) part is axiomatized  
soundly and completely by the modal logic G*. G is properly included  
in G*, by incompleteness. For example, Gödel's second incompleteness  
theorem, with "~" for "not", and [] for the modal box representing  
Gödel's arithmetical provability predicate, and "f" representing the  
sentence "0 = 1":


   ~[]f -> ~[](~[]f) (if I am consistent (~[]f) then I will  
never prove that I am consistent),


is a theorem of G. But consistency itself is not, and is (only) a  
theorem of G*.


The machine which is as powerful as Peano Arithmetical in arithmetic,  
and all its  sound effective (recursively enumerable) extensions obeys  
to G and G*. Their beweisbar (provable) predicate is sigma_1 complete,  
which is an arithmetical equivalent with Turing universal.


This offers eventually a complete "Neopythagorean or Neoplatonist  
theology" to all arithmetically sound machine.


As Gödel said in his 1933 short notice: "provable" does not obey to a  
logic of knowledge. It cannot prove its own soundness, in fact it  
cannot prove all []p -> p. Indeed consistency ~[]f is equivalent with  
[]f -> f.


That invites to take back the oldest theory of knowledge from  
Theaetetus; to know is to believe and be true: to know p is (to  
believe p , and it is the case that p). This works: the logic of  
"beweisbar ('p') & p" to obey to a logic of knowledge. In fact we get  
the 8 nuances:


p(true)
[]p   (provable, rationally justifiable, third person self-reference)  
split on G/G*
[]p & p  (knowable, first person self-reference, not justifiable as  
such, not nameable, "soul", and does not split on G/G*)
[]p & ~[]f  (bet-table, predictible, observable, repeatable, quanta,  
observer, split on G/G*)

[]p & ~[]f & p (sensible, feel-able, qualia, feeler, split on G/G*)

with p restricted on the semi-computable (sigma_1) predicate, this  
provides arithmetical interpretations of intuitionist logic and  
quantum (and mixed) logics, at the place some thought experiences show  
where it should be.


G* proves, at that sigma_1 (partial computable, semi-decidable,  
machine) level all the equivalence betwen the nuance above. It can be  
shwon axiomatized by G + p -> []p.


G1* proves p <-> []p <-> ([]p & p) <-> ([]p & ~[]f) <-> ([]p & ~[]f &  
p).


But G1 does not prove them, and indeed, they obey to those different  
logics mentionned above. This means that there is one

Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

2017-10-17 Thread Arthur Wist 
Dear Krassimir, Dear FIS,

I suspect one might find a way to answer this question about what
constitutes an agent in this paper by J.H. van Hateren:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1407.8314

Entitled: "What does Maxwell's demon want from life? When information
becomes functional and physical"

(which also provides an important distinction about 'information')

However, I would propose that 'an agent' /as such/ cannot exist, in the
sense that it cannot exist as a fundamental, but that a system imbued with
quality of agency however, *can* exist.

Yet, this, as does the paper, would seem to pose the question of what
endows a system with the quality of 'agency'. Perhaps one ought to use
Heinz von Förster's approximation of "Recursively Operating Non-Trivial
Machine", but replace "machine" with "system", and assume that this
consequently leads to that...

Kind regards,


Arthur


On Mon, 16 Oct 2017, 09:46 Gyorgy Darvas,  wrote:

> Information exists at all levels of Agents.
>
> Good luck,
> Gyuri
>
>
> On 2017.10.15. 23:27, Krassimir Markov wrote:
> > Dear FIS Colleagues,
> >
> > After nice collaboration last weeks, a paper Called “Data versus
> > Information” is prepared in very beginning draft variant and already is
> > sent to authors for refining.
> > Many thanks for fruitful work!
> >
> > What we have till now is the understanding that the information is some
> > more than data.
> > In other words:
> >   d = r
> >   i = r + e
> > where:
> >   d => data;
> >   i => information;
> >   r => reflection;
> >   e => something Else, internal for the Agent (subject, interpreter,
> > etc.).
> >
> > Simple question: What is “Agent”?
> >
> > When an entity became an Agent? What is important to qualify the entity
> as
> > Agent or as an Intelligent Agent? What kind of agent is the cell? At the
> > end - does information exist for Agents or only for Intelligent Agents?
> >
> > Thesis: Information exists only for the Intelligent Agents.
> >
> > Antithesis: Information exists at all levels of Agents.
> >
> > Friendly greetings
> > Krassimir
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ___
> > Fis mailing list
> > Fis@listas.unizar.es
> > http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
> ___
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Re: [Fis] What is "Agent"?

2017-10-16 Thread Robert E. Ulanowicz 
Dear Krassimir,

In agreement or partial agreement with most responses, I see the kernel of
agency as autocatalysis, by virtue of the centripetality that dynamic
engenders.

Autocatalysis is a subset of feedbacks wherein each link in a loop
benefits the next member. It is easy to show that such action selects for
all perturbations that augment inputs to any member. That is, the loop
acts like a vortex to draw resources into the autocatalytic orbit. (See
p289 of , or better
yet, pp70 – 73 in
.)

Centripetality is a directional phenomenon that defines the self of any
living being. It is ubiquitous to *all* living entities, but is hardly
ever mentioned among the necessary attributes of life. Bertrand Russell
called it “chemical imperialism” and cited it as the drive behind *all of
evolution*. It is the generatrix of competition. No actor can compete at
any level without centripetality at work at the next level down.

Centripetality, the expression of agency, serves not only to change the
environment of the organism, but does so in a way that sustains and
imparts advantage to the self.

Intelligence does not seem to be a necessary attribute of such agency.

Greetings to all,
Bob

> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>
> After nice collaboration last weeks, a paper Called “Data versus
> Information” is prepared in very beginning draft variant and already is
> sent to authors for refining.
> Many thanks for fruitful work!
>
> What we have till now is the understanding that the information is some
> more than data.
> In other words:
>  d = r
>  i = r + e
> where:
>  d => data;
>  i => information;
>  r => reflection;
>  e => something Else, internal for the Agent (subject, interpreter,
> etc.).
>
> Simple question: What is “Agent”?
>
> When an entity became an Agent? What is important to qualify the entity as
> Agent or as an Intelligent Agent? What kind of agent is the cell? At the
> end - does information exist for Agents or only for Intelligent Agents?
>
> Thesis: Information exists only for the Intelligent Agents.
>
> Antithesis: Information exists at all levels of Agents.
>
> Friendly greetings
> Krassimir
>
>
>
>
>
> ___
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>


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Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

2017-10-16 Thread Koichiro Matsuno 
On 16 Oct 2017 at 8:35 AM, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero wrote:

 

Most of information processing devices consist of a design of some sort of 
feedback loop.  I don`t know if we could translate this idea to all the kinds 
of systems we all deal with.

 

  Right. We know a lot of cycles or loops in our profession including 
autocatalytic cycles of various types, semiotic closure (Howard Pattee), 
circular causality (Gregory Bateson) and closure to efficient cause (Robert 
Rosen) just to name only a few. What concerns us at this point is that when we 
call something a loop without referring directly to the material object 
supporting the loop, the chance of being accused of assuming an 
anthropocentrism would be pretty high. How could we avoid this?

 

   One lesson we have learned from physics is that if one can associate the 
name tag of anything with the state attribute of a given system at any moment, 
the name-calling of anthropocentrism could be waived.  For instance, something 
called entropy could survive insofar as it is associated with the state 
attribute of the system of interest. Despite that, no state assignment of a 
loop could be likely because the state has been static by itself unless it is 
acted upon by something else. Most of us must be familiar with how clumsy it 
would be to describe the operation of a loop in terms of ad hoc state 
transitions.

 

One likelihood of approaching a loop descriptively might be to admit any 
elements of interest on the table at any moment without stipulating the 
congruent state assignment globally. That is to say, the environment to any 
element could differ from that to any other. One advantage of this picture 
might be that the environments of each element could  be agential in their 
internal coordination if we can luckily escape from the entrapment by “anything 
goes”. Whether such an internal coordination could be likely must be totally an 
empirical matter. This issue may be most crucial for the origins of life 
anywhere. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. 

 

Koichiro Matsuno

 

 

 

From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Jose Javier Blanco 
Rivero
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2017 8:35 AM
To: Krassimir Markov <mar...@foibg.com>; Fis, <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

 

Dear Krassimir, dear all,

I have noticed that some descriptions of information make use of 
anthropocentric metaphors and that might be misguiding (for instance, 
subjective and objective information (Sung)). Agent is a concept that retains 
some sort of action-theoretic background but at the same time assumes the 
existence of nonhuman agents. Agency would be then a causal relation wherein 
the agent "causes" some sort of effects. 

I don`t feel confortable with this concept. I prefer the the concept of 
observer. But this one is problematic too, for the same reason: it is supposed 
that a human is there watching, feeling, measuring, etc. 

I think we have to get rid of these humanistic assumptions in order to gain 
insight into the issues we want to explore. 

Definitely I don`t think I have the answer, but following D. Hofstadter, H. von 
Foerster, N. Luhmann and others we could think of a agent/observer as a 
self-referential loop. Most of information processing devices consist of a 
design of some sort of feedback loop.  I don`t know if we could translate this 
idea to all the kinds of systems we all deal with. But it would be worth 
finding out. 

An operative loop enables the differentiation of system and environment. The 
system acquires the capacity to control its own behavior. At some point its 
internal states are so many that it biffucartes and grow complex. Subsystems 
can differentiate by the same mechanism. So, that`s my point: one have to look 
for self-referential loops in order to find the observer/agent. 

An intelligent agent would be some kind of loop (strange loop, maybe). It`s 
just a hypothesis anyway...

Best regards,

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Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

2017-10-16 Thread Gyorgy Darvas 

Information exists at all levels of Agents.

Good luck,
Gyuri


On 2017.10.15. 23:27, Krassimir Markov wrote:

Dear FIS Colleagues,

After nice collaboration last weeks, a paper Called “Data versus
Information” is prepared in very beginning draft variant and already is
sent to authors for refining.
Many thanks for fruitful work!

What we have till now is the understanding that the information is some
more than data.
In other words:
  d = r
  i = r + e
where:
  d => data;
  i => information;
  r => reflection;
  e => something Else, internal for the Agent (subject, interpreter,
etc.).

Simple question: What is “Agent”?

When an entity became an Agent? What is important to qualify the entity as
Agent or as an Intelligent Agent? What kind of agent is the cell? At the
end - does information exist for Agents or only for Intelligent Agents?

Thesis: Information exists only for the Intelligent Agents.

Antithesis: Information exists at all levels of Agents.

Friendly greetings
Krassimir





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Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

2017-10-15 Thread Alex Hankey 
Dear All,

I particularly approve of theJose's comment that:

" following D. Hofstadter, H. von Foerster, N. Luhmann and others we
could think of a agent/observer as a self-referential loop."

That is because I show that such loops occur at the locus of control of
biological systems where the mind is situated. In complexity biology, the
condition is known as 'criticality'.

Maybe the idea of a 'perfectly self-observing loop', as a suitable
self-referential structure could be inserted in the paper. I will suggest a
suitable place,

May I also draw your attention to the fact that Karen Barad has written
extensively on the reality of the Agent. Her book, Agential Realism .
is published by Routledge.  No less a scientist than Brian Josephson at the
Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge is deeply interested in her work and
regards it as of fundamental importance.

All best wishes to you all,

Alex Hankey


On 16 October 2017 at 05:04, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero <
javierwe...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Krassimir, dear all,
>
> I have noticed that some descriptions of information make use of
> anthropocentric metaphors and that might be misguiding (for instance,
> subjective and objective information (Sung)). Agent is a concept that
> retains some sort of action-theoretic background but at the same time
> assumes the existence of nonhuman agents. Agency would be then a causal
> relation wherein the agent "causes" some sort of effects.
>
> I don`t feel confortable with this concept. I prefer the the concept of
> observer. But this one is problematic too, for the same reason: it is
> supposed that a human is there watching, feeling, measuring, etc.
>
> I think we have to get rid of these humanistic assumptions in order to
> gain insight into the issues we want to explore.
>
> Definitely I don`t think I have the answer, but following D. Hofstadter,
> H. von Foerster, N. Luhmann and others we could think of a agent/observer
> as a self-referential loop. Most of information processing devices consist
> of a design of some sort of feedback loop.  I don`t know if we could
> translate this idea to all the kinds of systems we all deal with. But it
> would be worth finding out.
>
> An operative loop enables the differentiation of system and environment.
> The system acquires the capacity to control its own behavior. At some point
> its internal states are so many that it biffucartes and grow complex.
> Subsystems can differentiate by the same mechanism. So, that`s my point:
> one have to look for self-referential loops in order to find the
> observer/agent.
>
> An intelligent agent would be some kind of loop (strange loop, maybe).
> It`s just a hypothesis anyway...
>
> Best regards,
> El oct 15, 2017 6:29 PM, "Krassimir Markov"  escribió:
>
>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>
>> After nice collaboration last weeks, a paper Called “Data versus
>> Information” is prepared in very beginning draft variant and already is
>> sent to authors for refining.
>> Many thanks for fruitful work!
>>
>> What we have till now is the understanding that the information is some
>> more than data.
>> In other words:
>>  d = r
>>  i = r + e
>> where:
>>  d => data;
>>  i => information;
>>  r => reflection;
>>  e => something Else, internal for the Agent (subject, interpreter,
>> etc.).
>>
>> Simple question: What is “Agent”?
>>
>> When an entity became an Agent? What is important to qualify the entity as
>> Agent or as an Intelligent Agent? What kind of agent is the cell? At the
>> end - does information exist for Agents or only for Intelligent Agents?
>>
>> Thesis: Information exists only for the Intelligent Agents.
>>
>> Antithesis: Information exists at all levels of Agents.
>>
>> Friendly greetings
>> Krassimir
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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>


-- 
Alex Hankey M.A. (Cantab.) PhD (M.I.T.)
Distinguished Professor of Yoga and Physical Science,
SVYASA, Eknath Bhavan, 19 Gavipuram Circle
Bangalore 560019, Karnataka, India
Mobile (Intn'l): +44 7710 534195
Mobile (India) +91 900 800 8789


2015 JPBMB Special Issue on Integral Biomathics: Life Sciences, Mathematics
and Phenomenological Philosophy

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