Dear FIS colleagues,
I found very intriguing the "fast & furious" messages of past days. One
of the main triggers, I think, was Karl's response to Joseph's requests
on his info theory... The logic of distinctions that Karl worked out
years ago was in my view an outstanding contribution (the use of
multidimensional partitions in set theory). Unfortunately he linked it
to very idiosyncratic notions on cellular dynamics between DNA and
cytoplasm, and he also miscalculated the number of multidimensional
partitions. These are nontrivial matters that he has to solve or that we
can discuss (necessarily in face to face exchanges!!), at least for me
to accept any of his further developments. But let me insist that his
"logic of distinctions" is highly original and very elegant.
Then, among the many other exchanges (Jerry, Loet, Gavin, John, Bob...)
my contention is that most of them were insisting in the predominance of
some disciplinary orientation versus the competing ones. Jerry put it in
a very clear way: "The abstract symbol systems of Dalton, Lavoisier, and
Coulomb underly the foundations of thermodynamics as well as the Shannon
theory of information as well as our concept of such abstractions as
"energy" and "entropy." These symbol systems are now firmly embedded in
the logic of scientific communications..."
Thus, was the exciting discussion basically a rhetorical contest between
disciplinary orientations (where unfortunately neuroscience was
missing)? Yes and No. Let me interpret it in favor of what I argued
about the undefinability of information, and the possibility to
establish a number of info conceptions after reliance on some particular
disciplinary narrative. If we accept that undefinability, we can start
to discuss in a different and more productive way: about conditions and
procedures to establish the most elegant and economic general approach
to information GIVEN THE DISCIPLINARY CONTENTS OF OUR TIME.
Thus the past discussion on "intelligence and information" was very
strategic (entering a new focus in our discussions), as can be the
coming session, on the historical background of modern science. What
kind of "info theory" and what conceptions of information could be
framed or were present in the medieval world? How were they
"recombining" their knowledge? Our presenter Dr. *James Hannam* (James
in our friendly list) has recently written a very successful book.
*"God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of
Modern Science"* in Icon Books (2009), which has been translated to
several languages and has been shortlisted for the Royal Society Science
Book Prize 2010 (and is now out in paperback). The "official"
announcement of the session will be made in a few days.
Information science is different, and fascinating, as it contains so
many tricks and labyrinthine paths!
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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