Loet --
On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 1:43 PM, Loet Leydesdorff <l...@leydesdorff.net>
wrote:
Dear Stan,
Wasn’t it Tycho Brahe’s suscipio descipiendo, descipio suscipiendo? Nothing
but uncertainty; if order emerges, selection mechanisms must have been
specified.
S: If uncertainty emerges, particular choices must have been specified.
I hesitate: it seems to me that randomness (maximal uncertainty) is the
basic assumption and that order needs to be explained.
I should explain a bit more fully. By 'uncertainty', I was using
this term to label the situation where definite choices appear to an agent
that must choose a path or action. So, my view implies an ordered (First
Person) agency. This agency could be as simple as an abiotic dissipative
structure. So, I see that an ordered agency needs to accompany uncertainty,
and, indeed, helps to locate the situation of any such agent. If we go to a
more primitive (purely physical, or Peircean 'tychastic') situation, without
any agents, this is where I would say there can be no uncertainty -- unless
a Third Person (another agent) is observing that physical situation. So, if
you can "explain order" you will have implicitly explained uncertainty as
well. Thus, we could parse the evolutionary situation as {Gaussian physical
locale -> {added bounding constraints -> {emerged agency}}}, with
uncertainty coming in in the innermost subclass.
STAN
Otherwise, I agree with most of your points. We should not move too easily
from probability functions to (continuous) probability density functions.
The Shannon formulas provide us with a calculus in the discrete domain, that
is, the one where differences prevail.
Best wishes,
Loet
In reply to the above, Loet added:
My reply was not based on assuming agency, but on Shannon-type information.
Observed information (by an agent) should be distinguished from expected
information.
It was my point that there could not be expectation unless there was
an observer, even if that observer was of the most general kind. That is,
both expectation and observer would have to have been the products of
evolution.
Perhaps, you can appreciate this difference in our assumptions in your reply
to the list?
If one assumes that our physical (mathematical) constructs predate the
origin of Western-style science, then your point is well-taken.
STAN
Best wishes,
Loet
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