On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Stanley N Salthe <ssal...@binghamton.edu > wrote:
- Regarding the question: What is your
- Informational Science"?
- In a general sense the meaning is that, although every locale in the world is mediated by history -- requiring information to be understand beyond knowledge of physical and material laws -- biological systems have internalized and replicate the results of historical accident as preserved in the information in the genetic system. In general, history passes away, but biological systems capture some of it in the form of species and variety differences.
I would add to Stan's correct remarks that unlike physics, in which the laws tend to dominate, and boundary conditions are pretty irregular (but not always!), in biology the boundary conditions are very important, especially their regularities both in individual biological entities, within kinds of biological entities, and across kinds of biological entities. For example, most kinds of biological entities are cohesive levels or nestings in information hierarchies, which allows application of statistical mechanics to their information dynamics (Hierarchical dynamical information systems with a focus on biology Entropy 2003, 5, 100-124). Furthermore, inasmuch as biological systems are emergent, boundary conditions are not separable from their dynamical principles, so issues of form (which require information theory for full analysis, or as full as we can expect), are wound up with the system dynamics, or laws ( A dynamical account of emergence (Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 15, no 3-4 2008: 75-100)). The last point was made some time ago by Conrad and Matsuno, but has not been appreciated as much as it should (much lip service, perhaps, but not enough precise application).
Cheers,
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
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