Dear FIS colleagues,
A very interesting comment by Bob about "energy as a bookkeeping device"
in the other discussion track motivates these rough reflections.
Actually, within the "culture of mechanics" (following Frank Wilczek)
energy appears as the more reliable concept, beyond its cousins force
and mass. Mechanics, like most scientific theories, finally is but a
method to "count" upon variable aspects of simplified phenomena and
provide inter-subjective "objectivity"(?). Numbers are due to our mental
"counting" operations; and concepts, formulas and theories become
bookkeeping devices to obtain more complex counting that dovetail with
more complex phenomena. That our mental counting dovetails with nature's
pretended "counting" is what the experimental side of science tries to
establish. It becomes of great merit that energy constructs such as
those mentioned by Bob do their bookkeeping accurately, in spite of
their intrinsic limitations.
My concern with the views expressed in the other track is that
"informational bookkeeping" appears to be rather different from the
mechanical physical bookkeeping or counting. There are new aspects not
covered by the "extensive" and "inflexible" mechanical-dynamic counting,
and which are essential to the new informational organizations we are
discovering --and practicing around-- and to the new worldview that
presumably we should search and promote. Is there bookkeeping in life?
Do molecules count? Do bacteria or unicellulars bookkeep--and organisms?
And complex brains? And individuals? And social groups? And companies
and markets? And cities, regions and countries?
Admittedly it is a potpourri; but yes, there are some clear instances
where quite explicit a bookkeeping is maintained. It may be about
signaling flows, about self production stuff flows, or about their
inextricable mixing--involving whatever aspects. But these bookkeepings
are made with "attentional" flexibility and different "closure"
procedures that allow for new forms of compositional hierarchy
("informational") not found in the mechanical. They are "adaptive", they
"recognize", they are productively engaged in "life cycles" where the
"meaning" is generated, they co-create new existential realms... In our
own societies, the exaggerated importance of new informational devices
(historically: numbers, alphabets, books, calculi, computers, etc.)
derives from their facilitation and acceleration of all the enormous
bookkeeping activities that subtend the social complexity around.
Who knows, focusing on varieties of bookkeeping might be quite productive!
best ---Pedro
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Pedro C. Marijuán Fernández*
Dirección de Investigación
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud (IACS)
Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Aragón (IIS Aragón)
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta 1
50009 Zaragoza
Tfno. +34 976 71 4857
email. dirinvestigacion.i...@aragon.es
<mailto:dirinvestigacion.i...@aragon.es>
www.iacs.aragon.es
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