Dear FISers,
Thanks to Christophe for his agents "narrative" and to Joseph for openly
"buying" populational thinking and the doctrine of limitation. As for
the narrative, I concur that the link between intelligence and info
implies the introduction of some "agent" thinking --what kind of agent
and scenario? Krassimir has attempted here some general-style option
too. Murray Gell-Mann framed an interesting general description, about
Information Gatherers and Information Utilizers or "Iguses" (in "the
Quark and the Jaguar", 1995), which was accepted by quite many
complexity scientists afterwards. The point is that knowledge gets
introduced into a workable conceptual scheme together with information
and intelligence.
Let me try a different track. Starting with an ample conception of
intelligence, for instance what Raquel and Jorge penned "the capability
to process information for the purpose of adaptation or problem solving
activities. In the case of cells, problems can be caused by the
environment, extracellular aggressions, communications, etc." But an
important aspect is missing here. If we see some biological entity
regularly entering some metabolic inputs and processing some external
signals, we do not get much attracted to ad the term intelligence
(plants, for instance). Rather intelligence implies "the ability to
manipulate the life stories (and evolution) of the living portions of
the environment and to develop efficient mechanisms (for
cooperation/defence/aggresion) conducing to survival and
multiplication." The important difference is the introduction of the
"life cycle" concept, either as life stories or as survival and
multiplication.
Optimality principles can be discussed now, but limitation may be
easier. Why the cell, any cell, does not grow indefinitely its genome
(stock of knowledge) so to indefinitely increase its repertoire of
intelligent mechanisms? Why the proteins encoded in bacterial genomes,
the intracellular "intelligent" components or molecular agents, are not
far bigger and powerful? And why do they become substantially "smaller"
than their eukaryotic counterparts? Limitations of genome size, of
energetics of protein synthesis, and those due to the folding process
("problem") have to be invoked, among others.
I mean, one cannot make an abstract, idealized scheme of the bacteria
(A. Danchin, 2009) as a computer or a Turing Machine without taking into
account of the biolimitations at work. Something similar should be
discussed with respect animal and human intelligence, particularly in
the social setting. ---e.g., structures of political or economic
organizations; or our idealized science for instance. The evolution of
science during last centuries and the fascinating process of
disciplinary recombination cannot properly be explained without
developing a "doctrine of limitation" that helps make real sense of
those mythical terms of today: interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinary,
pluridisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, etc. Why have we passed from
estimates of 3,000 disciplines in the 70's to close to 7,000 in our
decade? Why not just 100 bigger ones? What are the laws of scientific
recombination and how do they relate to our fundamental human
limitations? In Beijing I proposed a collective research project on this
very matter, I keep thinking it was a good idea.
all the best,
--Pedro
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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/
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