Dear Pedro, John and Colleagues, The article by Terrence Deacon in the book referred to by John is entitled "What is Missing from Theories of Information?" and, as Pedro has indicated, it and Deacon's new book Incomplete Nature. How Mind Emerged from Matter may be major new additions to the foundations of information. Among other things, far from supporting "it from bit", Deacon provides expert arguments against this position, adopted indeed in a majority of the other articles in the Davies compendium. Deacon's key point is that what is missing from theories is operation in reality of constraints, extending their role discussed previously by Stuart Kauffmann, Bob Logan, Bob Ulanowicz, Stan and John himself and focussing on what, as the consequence of constraints, is absent in information and other complex processes. I hope that many colleagues will make the effort to access this material so that we may achieve a critical mass for its discussion and evaluation. Best wishes, ----Ursprüngliche Nachricht---- Von: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es Datum: 21.02.2012 18:02 An: Betreff: [Fis] stuff and non-stuff Dear FIS colleagues, John's comments below on that book are quite interesting. Most approaches to information rely on "stuff" and "organization of stuff" --information is inevitably physical, as Rolf Landauer put long ago. However, "non stuff" and "organization of "non stuff" might be taken as central ideas too, e.g. in Deacon's approach --through the notion of absence. Deacon is one of the main contributors of that book, and author of another very recent info book that has already been referred in this list, by Joseph I think. My further point, to connect with an unfinished message on info science teaching some weeks ago, is that genuine informational entities, those capable of making "distinctions" that are used for self-constructing in permanent communication with the medium, deserve a special status within the whole info science studies. These distinctional entities are but the great players of the absence game... Therfor info science teaching should cover "central themes", "multidisciplinary recombinations", and the comparative study of "informational-distinctional entities." Best wishes to all! ---Pedro John Collier escribió: Hi all, I am reviewing a book edited by Paul Davies and Niels Henrik Gregersen titled Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics. There is a lot of quasireligious stuff that I find hard to swallow, mostly by people I have never heard of before, but many of the chapters are by well-known scholars who have been influential in physics and biology, as well as the history of science. The most common thread through the articles is that the world is not made up of "stuff" (matter), and that the idea has been problematic since its introduction. Instead the world is made of information (the "It from Bit" view). Interesting book, even if you don't agree with it. John Professor John Collier Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban 4041 South Africa T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031 email: colli...@ukzn.ac.za>>> On 2012/01/23 at 07:18 PM, in message <4f1d967a.8070...@aragon.es>, " -- ------------------------------------------------- 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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