Dear Joseph and FIS colleagues, "When we look at a biological system we are looking at the face of the underlying physics of the universe... The picture is not one of of simple upscale percolation. The higher levels act down scale on the lower levels to redefine their fundamental characteristics... the flow of influence is thus circular as well as vertical, with multiple inner loops. The circularity is imperfect; complete self-consistency is never attainable..." This appears in Conrad (1996, BioSystems vol. 38 p. 108).
I think that more important than the concrete advancements along the fluctuon model guidelines is the validity of the pioneering vision. It was this "vertical flow of percolating information" what inspired in early 90's the creation of FIS and a new dialog including the social sciences and the humanities, not restricted to the biological and ecosystems domains. Beyond the "biomimetic" horizon of Complexity theorists and Artificial Life schools (then in their peak), this type of reflection was proposing a new informational perspective to be extended to the inner generativity of multiple realms in the scientific enterprise (not to start a new reductionist game, but to offer a fresh-new player in the whole social recombination of knowledge). Some trends in information physics are undoubtedly running very close to this direction (see for instance Lee Smolin's books; or "Decoding Reality" on quantum information science by Vlatko Vedral, 2010) rather unfortunately ignoring this pathway. It could be argued that some parties in Systems Biology are also running along this trend. And leaders of "advanced" Artificial Intelligence are nowadays proposing a reflection on the nature of Intelligence that conduces to reconsider information itself and the foundations of information science in a general sense. Perhaps in this general framework our more detailed discussions (eg, about info signatures) or the extent of Shannon's Theory, or the plausibility of cellular (quantum?) intelligence, or how to articulate social information sciences... or my unanswered question on the materiality of the microphysical laws of nature themselves --as information that acts on information--- appear with more cogency. all the best ---Pedro Joseph Brenner escribió: > Dear Friends and Colleagues, > > The following "impressionist" recap is intended not as a critique, but > simply to perhaps help organize the continuation of this fascinating > discussion. > > For me, almost all the notes have illuminated aspects of the > "Foundations of Information Science", where participants have > re-presented their theories developed over many years. Some of the new > interactions, such as those between Robert U., Loet and Koichiro, > deserve development in their own right. > > However, my and Kevin K.'s basic question of whether /new evidence > exists of any interaction between the world modeled by fluctuons and > the thermodynamic world/ has in my opinion not been answered. If none > of us has this knowledge, then we must somehow "send a mission" to > those who might have it that could report back to us. I do not > consider myself as competent enough in physics to simply rephrase > Conrad's statements from the papers available. > > In relation to this, it is helpful when participants indicate their > basic positions about Conrad's /kind/ of theory. Steven did. There is > also the idea of a "physics-neutral" theory. Perhaps a total picture > of information can be built up without /any/ reference to the > structure (or lack of it) of the sub-quantum world? > > I disagree, of course: microphysical laws will, I believe, define the > information about information "in reality" that Pedro refers to. This > thread, that includes Karl's approach to physics and logic, needs to > be explored further. It is possible, (by now I guess it is reasonable > to assume most of you know my view on this), that information cannot > be defined completely by reference to a sentential logic such as that > proposed by Karl. Further, I am very curious, and would welcome > comments on in relation to information, about progress in the theory > of dissipative systems that has been made /since/ Prigogine, such as > the catastrophe theory of Thom and Petitot (itself rather outdated). > > Best wishes, > > Joseph > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pedro C. Marijuan" > <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> > To: <fis@listas.unizar.es> > Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 1:37 PM > Subject: [Fis] Recapping the discussion? > > > Dear FIS colleagues, > > A usual practice in past chaired discussions is that after the first > round of debates, after three weeks or so like in the current session, > the chairs recap the discussion by refocusing it on the most salient or > relevant aspects, or just by pointing to some unnoticed connections. > Could it be OK in this case? In the interim, while Kevin and Joseph try > to find their time to follow this tradition, I would point to some of > the many threads that have surfaced during the exchanges. > > First, some parties, not very close to physics, have off-line asked me > for more understandable info on the fluctuon model itself. What was > published in the kickoff text was a little brief and too synthesized. > Could this point be responded by some of the physicists in the list, or > maybe by Kevin himself in his recapping? > > The ratio that Bob Ulanowicz has pointed out in the self-organization > processes of ecosystems looks very important. Is it an "informational > signature" that we can find in other fields (eg, competing companies, > financial flows, neurodynamic sel-organization) accompanying problem > solving operations performed in a populational way? Does a similar ratio > appears in microphysical realms? Maybe Bob will be willing to expand on > the emergence of that complexity indicator. I should also point to the > strong regularities and ratios, and power laws, that > unidimensional/multidimensional partitions show (Karl has uncovered some > of them). > > The problem of hierarchy / heterarchy is a very tough one. I will > reserve some arguments for a future posting as I think that comments > from Stan, Guy, Xueshan and others deserve further discussion. Lee Jacob > has raised a point very close to Koichiro reflections --my own bold > question about that: if microphysical laws of nature are, so to speak, > "information about information" shouldn't they be situated in > space-time, rather than in the disembodied idealistic framework we take > for granted. Could the "materiality" of the laws themselves be involved > in the "perpetual disequilibrium" Koichiro mentions? > > best wishes > > Pedro > > PS. I am very pleased to announce that the next discussion session will > deal with "Intelligence and Information", chaired by Professor Yi-Xin > Zhong (Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications). > > -- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ ------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
