Re: [Fis] BBC Doco; Cell

2011-03-28 Thread Robin Faichney 
Monday, March 28, 2011, 12:05:54 AM, Gavin wrote:

 Even at the most basic level of an organism's communication with its
 environment. There is no discernable information exchange. Every single one
 of our senses is an energy transduction structure-processing unit. All we do
 is transduce say light and sound energy to electrical energy. This much is
 pretty well established.

I think you need to think about what the light and sound, on one hand
-- or rather one side of the transduction -- and electrical energy, on
the other side, have in common. These are carriers for patterns, and
it is the patterns that are carried by light, sound, electricity,
whatever, that constitute the information. So the informational
analysis is a higher level one, relative to matter and energy, a
useful (to some, at least) way of looking at patterns embodied in
material/energetic processes.

-- 
Robin Faichney
http://www.robinfaichney.org/


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Re: [Fis] BBC Doco; Cell

2011-03-28 Thread Gavin Ritz 
Well then we totally agree on that.

The second part of your response then, if some energy transduction has the
properties of information flow where is it (what are these properties) and
if it's there how do we measure it either qualitatively or qualitatively.

Because it looks like to me, any exchange language or otherwise is really
only energy transduction albeit a mix of sight and sound (and the other
senses) which is really shape and hues (both nouns) of different energy
patterns. Which is really just the basis of scientific thought, made of
patterns of energy. Spectrums, chromatography, etc

No information here. Just energy patterns.

Gavin

Gavin,

Everything is energy transduction, even your thinking. Some energy
transduction has the properties of information flow, sensu Barwsie and
Seligman, Information Flow: the Logic of Distributed Systems (Cambridge UP,
1997 or so). 

John


At 01:05 AM 2011/03/28, Gavin Ritz wrote:

I watched a BBC documentary on the weekend with a friend who recommended it.
It was a really interesting and well presented programme.

Some very far out stuff about the creation of life.

However what I observed again (now more than ever before) that the DNA
molecule is an information carrying molecule. Simple, all we have to do is
decipher this information. Richard Dawkins also says this in a number of his
publications. living matter is just matter plus information

I'm no biologist or biochemist (I'm an engineer). There's something wrong
here. 

Even at the most basic level of an organism's communication with its
environment. There is no discernable information exchange. Every single one
of our senses is an energy transduction structure-processing unit. All we do
is transduce say light and sound energy to electrical energy. This much is
pretty well established.

Unless information is just a colloquial way of saying energy transduction
(or conversion). I doubt this though; information seems to be containing
much more than just this. It's almost as if commentators are saying behind
all this energy (and conversions, and work) lies a new and more powerful
notion.

All of chemistry is the reaction of structures with other structures, there
are no informational exchanges. 

If there are informational exchanges where is the science?

I'm not talking about computing machines or old fashioned telephony
(of-course we have created information here).

These informational exchanges about organisms seemed to have crept into our
thinking around the 1950's circa cybernetics. Prior to this very little on
living organism and information exchange.

Regards
Gavin



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Professor John Collier, Acting HoS  and Acting Deputy HoS
   colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 (31) 260 3031
http://collier.ukzn.ac.za/




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[Fis] BBC Doco; Cell

2011-03-27 Thread Gavin Ritz 
I watched a BBC documentary on the weekend with a friend who recommended it.
It was a really interesting and well presented programme.

Some very far out stuff about the creation of life.

However what I observed again (now more than ever before) that the DNA
molecule is an information carrying molecule. Simple, all we have to do is
decipher this information. Richard Dawkins also says this in a number of his
publications. living matter is just matter plus information

I'm no biologist or biochemist (I'm an engineer). There's something wrong
here. 

Even at the most basic level of an organism's communication with its
environment. There is no discernable information exchange. Every single one
of our senses is an energy transduction structure-processing unit. All we do
is transduce say light and sound energy to electrical energy. This much is
pretty well established.

Unless information is just a colloquial way of saying energy transduction
(or conversion). I doubt this though; information seems to be containing
much more than just this. It's almost as if commentators are saying behind
all this energy (and conversions, and work) lies a new and more powerful
notion.

All of chemistry is the reaction of structures with other structures, there
are no informational exchanges. 

If there are informational exchanges where is the science?

I'm not talking about computing machines or old fashioned telephony
(of-course we have created information here).

These informational exchanges about organisms seemed to have crept into our
thinking around the 1950's circa cybernetics. Prior to this very little on
living organism and information exchange.

Regards
Gavin



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