Re: [Fis] Information states/informatives/partitions
Dear Pedro, You wrote: so easily (only some selected parts of the extrinsic become external "information", those upon which the info entity will perform distinctional operations), but the intrinsic is not really reducible to a collection of variables and parameters, it is a life cycle in progress I'm still not entirely convinced about the hermeticality of information within the life cycle - but then we're coming from different habitats and I bow to your expertise in a foreign country. My natural environment being the lingosphere rather than the biosphere I see language as the entity which enables the interplay between the intrinsic and the extrinsic through a context-binding process of recursion and repetition. I support Stanley's view of 'externalisation' through language and communication. This linguistic interplay between internal and external worlds is enacted partly through 'informatives' (cf Georg Meggle's Grundbegriffe der Kommunikation 2ed 1997). Similar to Austin's 'performatives' informatives are words and phrases which betray intentionality - 'in fact', 'en effet', 'intrinsically', 'n'est-ce-pas', 'an und fur sich' etc. The statement 'Intrinsically Jack is smart' masks the implication 'but he does stupid things' and the Janus-like character of info emerges through use of the informative 'intrinsically' . Within Second Order Cybernetics Klaus Krippendorff's identifies 'informative artefacts' (outlined in his book The Semantic Turn and in his paper 'Semantics: meaning and contexts of artifacts' (2007) http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/91/ on the 'life cycle' of artifacts. Informatives are for him 'clues' to information states, events and narratives. Could we identify similar specialised informatives within the biosphere and proceed empirically to identify such 'info entities' in the human body and in events we now describe as 'information processing'? Hippocampal pyramidal neurons, chandelier cells, action potentials, astrocytes, etc. could be candidates for the category of 'informatives' (at least in Krippendorff's sense of entities providing 'clues' to information at work.) If we then examine the similarity of their pattern and shape (say in the asteriskal branching patterns of laterally radiating dendrites) could we discover a symmetry or a form of symmetry-breaking which could parallel Meggle's or Krippendorff's notions of informatives in their spheres of language and design respectively? With reference to the DOTA hypotheses I find the concept of partition/impingence intriguing. Partitioning has counterparts in music (natural harmonic stop points), in syntax (full stops, commas), in cinematic cuts (where meaning 'impinges' on the mind of the audience through montage) Aristotelian taxonomies, dividing fences (across which the neighbour's barking dog impinges on my state of mind) the Dedekind cut and set partitions and even in the ovipositing chambers or partitions of the female mason wasp Monobia quadridens through which the larvae must break through (pingere) to survive. In his article on 'Narrative partitioning' http://home.mira.net/~kmurray/psych/in&out.html the psychologist Kevin Murray commented 'Partitioning names the process by which the environment is held still by the observer in order to make perceptible the object of interest...it divides the world into what is given (data affordances) and what can be taken.' (p.14) Could there be a power law operating here around partition/impingence (breaking through symmetrical lines) which also includes the prokaryotic realm? Best John H On Tue Nov 10 20:12 , "Pedro C. Marijuan" sent: Dear FIS colleagues, The comments, days ago, by John H on "information states" were intriguing. In my view, the differences he addresses between physical states and informational states could be compacted as the "primacy of the intrinsic" regarding informational entities. The physical state (in my limited understanding) contraposes the extrinsic (boundary conditions) and the intrinsic (state variables and "identity" parameters), and reunites them by means of a set of dynamic equations that express the laws of nature pertinent to the whole context. In the information state, the intrinsic and the extrinsic cannot be separated so easily (only some selected parts of the extrinsic become external "information", those upon which the info entity will perform distinctional operations), but the intrinsic is not really reducible to a collection of variables and parameters, it is a life cycle in progress. Then, how can we express a life cycle in a compact way so to interact lawfully with the extrinsic? Socially we consider this new kind of informational-subject-happenstances as "biographies", and refer to their coupling with the extrinsic as "events." Echoing Koichiro Matsuno (as we wrote together in 1996, after the second FIS event in Washington 1995, in Symmetry Culture and Science, 7,3, 229-30). "This mutual upholding bet
Re: [Fis] Information states
At 05:33 PM 2009/11/14, you wrote: >While not suggesting a discussion on this, I note that > >John says -- "information and the interpretation of information are >different from >each other" > >I think this is not as clear cut as that. Beginning all the way >back to von Uexkull's >Theoretical Biology, the constructivist perspective takes a >different view. The >'epistemic cut' is created by the observer. The observer is part of the universe and deserves no special status except as a representer. That must be understood in terms of the basic conditions of the universe. This sort of dualism of epistemic cuts is doomed to self-destruction as it removes the observer from the universe. John -- Professor John Collier 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://www.ukzn.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Information states
At 03:42 PM 2009/11/14, Joseph Brenner wrote: Dear Colleagues, John's opening of a new topic Well, Pedro actually raised it, and his article on the subject was contemporaneous with my own. I think that th major difference is that I tried to emphasize both the symmetry and asymmetry aspects. gives the chance of commenting both on his and on my "Assymetry of Information", since both talk about symmetry and symmetry-breaking. John asks how one can make a principled coupling between intrinsic and extrinsic informational entities. I will say, quickly, that my logic in reality would look at these as processes involving mutually dependent variables. Without further detail here, I am inclined to agree. Extrinsic information is mutual information with intrinsic information. There are other forms of mutual information, perhaps of course, which are marvelously interedsting. I don't wish to push this logic further here, but if we are talking, or trying to talk, about a physical interpretation of information, then something like my logic is needed to be able to make inferences about physical states and their evolution. No quarrel here. My definition of "positive" and "negative" information was very crude, but the issue I was trying to get at is how to describe information such that it has /at least/ this much causal "assymetry". I am not happy with the notion of negative information in general, as it seems to me that ideas of information flow (Barwise and Seligam, Information Flow: the Logic of Distributed Systems) requires that information is always positive. They also give conditions und4r which their logic can lead to apparent information being false. But in such cases it is not a flow of information. John I will be very interested in further postings about getting beyond agreement on the physical interpretation. Best regards, Joseph - Original Message - From: John Collier To: Pedro C. Marijuan ; fis Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 12:06 PM Subject: Re: [Fis] Information states At 02:12 PM 2009/11/10, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote: Dear FIS colleagues, The comments, days ago, by John H on "information states" were intriguing. In my view, the differences he addresses between physical states and informational states could be compacted as the "primacy of the intrinsic" regarding informational entities. The physical state (in my limited understanding) contraposes the extrinsic (boundary conditions) and the intrinsic (state variables and "identity" parameters), and reunites them by means of a set of dynamic equations that express the laws of nature pertinent to the whole context. In the information state, the intrinsic and the extrinsic cannot be separated so easily (only some selected parts of the extrinsic become external "information", those upon which the info entity will perform distinctional operations), but the intrinsic is not really reducible to a collection of variables and parameters, it is a life cycle in progress. Then, how can we express a life cycle in a compact way so to interact lawfully with the extrinsic? Socially we consider this new kind of informational-subject-happenstances as "biographies", and refer to their coupling with the extrinsic as "events." Echoing Koichiro Matsuno (as we wrote together in 1996, after the second FIS event in Washington 1995, in Symmetry Culture and Science, 7,3, 229-30). "This mutual upholding between symmetry and information in theoretical science suggests a unique perspective addressing how the description of both 'states' and 'events' could be integrated in a unified manner." Or in other words, the very need of a new abstraction procedure about the social process of knowledge accretion and recombination... I could not agree more. For an excellent review and expansion of the notion of intrinsic information and how it is viewed extrinsically, see the published PhD thesis of my student Scott Muller, Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information. By Scott Muller. Springer: Berlin. 2007. VIII, 165 p. 33 illus., Hardcover. CHF 139.50. ISBN: 978-3-540-69883-8 I do not agree with Lin's assessment, but there are questions of priority here that are always difficult to resolve. Scott should have, and I told him this, be careful to be clear about what was original to his thesis. I claim the asymmetry principle from a 1996 paper Information Originates in Symmetry Breaking http://www.ukzn.ac.za/undphil/collier/papers/infsym.pdf In the journal Symmetry. Scott added substantially to the justification of my basic idea. The ideas however are implicit in MacKay, Donald M., Information, Mechanism and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969. and Bateson, G. (1973), Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Paladin. Frogmore, St. Albans). The first calls
Re: [Fis] Information states
While not suggesting a discussion on this, I note that John says -- "information and the interpretation of information are different from each other" I think this is not as clear cut as that. Beginning all the way back to von Uexkull's Theoretical Biology, the constructivist perspective takes a different view. The 'epistemic cut' is created by the observer. STAN ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Information states
Dear Colleagues, John's opening of a new topic gives the chance of commenting both on his and on my "Assymetry of Information", since both talk about symmetry and symmetry-breaking. John asks how one can make a principled coupling between intrinsic and extrinsic informational entities. I will say, quickly, that my logic in reality would look at these as processes involving mutually dependent variables. I don't wish to push this logic further here, but if we are talking, or trying to talk, about a physical interpretation of information, then something like my logic is needed to be able to make inferences about physical states and their evolution. My definition of "positive" and "negative" information was very crude, but the issue I was trying to get at is how to describe information such that it has /at least/ this much causal "assymetry". I will be very interested in further postings about getting beyond agreement on the physical interpretation. Best regards, Joseph - Original Message - From: John Collier To: Pedro C. Marijuan ; fis Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 12:06 PM Subject: Re: [Fis] Information states At 02:12 PM 2009/11/10, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote: Dear FIS colleagues, The comments, days ago, by John H on "information states" were intriguing. In my view, the differences he addresses between physical states and informational states could be compacted as the "primacy of the intrinsic" regarding informational entities. The physical state (in my limited understanding) contraposes the extrinsic (boundary conditions) and the intrinsic (state variables and "identity" parameters), and reunites them by means of a set of dynamic equations that express the laws of nature pertinent to the whole context. In the information state, the intrinsic and the extrinsic cannot be separated so easily (only some selected parts of the extrinsic become external "information", those upon which the info entity will perform distinctional operations), but the intrinsic is not really reducible to a collection of variables and parameters, it is a life cycle in progress. Then, how can we express a life cycle in a compact way so to interact lawfully with the extrinsic? Socially we consider this new kind of informational-subject-happenstances as "biographies", and refer to their coupling with the extrinsic as "events." Echoing Koichiro Matsuno (as we wrote together in 1996, after the second FIS event in Washington 1995, in Symmetry Culture and Science, 7,3, 229-30). "This mutual upholding between symmetry and information in theoretical science suggests a unique perspective addressing how the description of both 'states' and 'events' could be integrated in a unified manner." Or in other words, the very need of a new abstraction procedure about the social process of knowledge accretion and recombination... I could not agree more. For an excellent review and expansion of the notion of intrinsic information and how it is viewed extrinsically, see the published PhD thesis of my student Scott Muller, Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information. By Scott Muller. Springer: Berlin. 2007. VIII, 165 p. 33 illus., Hardcover. CHF 139.50. ISBN: 978-3-540-69883-8 I do not agree with Lin's assessment, but there are questions of priority here that are always difficult to resolve. Scott should have, and I told him this, be careful to be clear about what was original to his thesis. I claim the asymmetry principle from a 1996 paper Information Originates in Symmetry Breaking http://www.ukzn.ac.za/undphil/collier/papers/infsym.pdf In the journal Symmetry. Scott added substantially to the justification of my basic idea. The ideas however are implicit in MacKay, Donald M., Information, Mechanism and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969. and Bateson, G. (1973), Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Paladin. Frogmore, St. Albans). The first calls information a distinction that makes a difference, and the second a difference that makes a difference. Both permit the physical interpretation. I really wish we could get beyond this, and deal with more substantive issues. It has already been decided: information and interpretation of information are different from each other. Regards, John -- Professor John Collier 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://www.ukzn.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html ---
Re: [Fis] Information states
At 02:12 PM 2009/11/10, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote: Dear FIS colleagues, The comments, days ago, by John H on "information states" were intriguing. In my view, the differences he addresses between physical states and informational states could be compacted as the "primacy of the intrinsic" regarding informational entities. The physical state (in my limited understanding) contraposes the extrinsic (boundary conditions) and the intrinsic (state variables and "identity" parameters), and reunites them by means of a set of dynamic equations that express the laws of nature pertinent to the whole context. In the information state, the intrinsic and the extrinsic cannot be separated so easily (only some selected parts of the extrinsic become external "information", those upon which the info entity will perform distinctional operations), but the intrinsic is not really reducible to a collection of variables and parameters, it is a life cycle in progress. Then, how can we express a life cycle in a compact way so to interact lawfully with the extrinsic? Socially we consider this new kind of informational-subject-happenstances as "biographies", and refer to their coupling with the extrinsic as "events." Echoing Koichiro Matsuno (as we wrote together in 1996, after the second FIS event in Washington 1995, in Symmetry Culture and Science, 7,3, 229-30). "This mutual upholding between symmetry and information in theoretical science suggests a unique perspective addressing how the description of both 'states' and 'events' could be integrated in a unified manner." Or in other words, the very need of a new abstraction procedure about the social process of knowledge accretion and recombination... I could not agree more. For an excellent review and expansion of the notion of intrinsic information and how it is viewed extrinsically, see the published PhD thesis of my student Scott Muller, Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information. By Scott Muller. Springer: Berlin. 2007. VIII, 165 p. 33 illus., Hardcover. CHF 139.50. ISBN: 978-3-540-69883-8 I do not agree with Lin's assessment, but there are questions of priority here that are always difficult to resolve. Scott should have, and I told him this, be careful to be clear about what was original to his thesis. I claim the asymmetry principle from a 1996 paper Information Originates in Symmetry Breaking http://www.ukzn.ac.za/undphil/collier/papers/infsym.pdf In the journal Symmetry. Scott added substantially to the justification of my basic idea. The ideas however are implicit in MacKay, Donald M., Information, Mechanism and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969. and Bateson, G. (1973), Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Paladin. Frogmore, St. Albans). The first calls information a distinction that makes a difference, and the second a difference that makes a difference. Both permit the physical interpretation. I really wish we could get beyond this, and deal with more substantive issues. It has already been decided: information and interpretation of information are different from each other. Regards, John Professor John Collier 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://www.ukzn.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
