Hi,
I've been lurking, semi-attentively through these discussions. Given Loet'sand
Guy's recent interjections about the scope of the interpretive faculty, a
couple of comments came to mind.
Loet talks about the correlation between words that occur in a corpus, but do
not necessarily co-occur in any document as a buttress to their synonymous
nature. This is actually interpreted by language proficient humans, as there
would certainly be other correlative pairs of words that would not be synonyms.
Hence it is important to remind ourselves of the framing of the discussion that
Terry had initiated. When Guy mentioned that interactions between the sensory
apparatus and the environment do not all end up with relational semantics, it
occurred to me that this attribution of a relation necessarily comes from
outside the frame. I.e., only when actions undertaken by the proto organism get
triggered by the cocktail of sensoria that we can assign a semantic
"intentionality." There will of course be modes that appear to miss this narrow
specification. That may be because we have not had instruments to look into
this proto organism's apparatus or life histories. And in the other contexts
that we miss out, there may be traces of responsive modes that, in the context
of the initial attribution of "intentional" semantics, could only, post hoc, be
deemed "intensional".
To ground this rather vague and generalist outline, let me give an example from
a single celled organism, E. Coli. In chemotaxis, the binding of
chemo-attracting molecules to surface receptors triggers a chain of molecular
events leading to the clockwise movement of bacterial flagella. That is the
behavioural correlate of the "interpretive" step, and the internal biochemistry
that executes this response have been honed by natural selection. (This might
already be too far down the history of selective refinement to fit the "proto"
prefix that Terry might like, but it might still be appropriate to elaborate
the argument.) This physical-chemical set of effects is a chain of
phosphorylation events followed by diffusion. Alongside the response is a
"higher order" property, that of adaptation whereby the bacterium modulates its
sensitivity to the signal in order to reliably pick out changes in the signal
to respond to. The correlative biochemistry is mediated by methylation events.
It is only when we know, as external experimental observers, which actions are
linked to which signals -- the response to signal, or the adaptation to
anticipate other, changed, levels of signal -- that we can decide where among
the plenum of sensory engagements is the token that will be type lies. Where,
under possible worlds not directly encountered in one set of encounters is the
ambit of the bacterium's intensional apparatus honed.
It is in the framing of the investigations that we can demarcate associative
states not directly linked to physical events lying outside the correlation
time of dynamical variables into meaningful entities. The frames come built
into solipsistic corrals of each organism, and the bumping of these corrals
against each other shapes the formation of what we call meaning.
Cheers,
Sri
Srinandan Dasmahapatra
-------- Original message --------
From: "Terrence W. DEACON" <dea...@berkeley.edu>
Date:24/04/2015 20:45 (GMT+00:00)
To: Guy A Hoelzer <hoel...@unr.edu>
Cc: Foundations of Information Science Information Science
<fis@listas.unizar.es>
Subject: {Disarmed} Re: [Fis] New Year Lecture: Aftermath
Hi Guy,
Yes. At the very basic level that I explore with these ultra simple model
systems it would not be easy to distinguish perception and reaction. Both
involve interpretive steps, in that only some material features—specifically
those with potentially disruptive or constructive potential for system
organization—are "assigned" informative value in consequence of the
self-rectifying dynamics they correlate with.
— Terry
On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 11:09 AM, Guy A Hoelzer <hoel...@unr.edu> wrote:
Hi Terry,
I have used the term ‘perception’ in referring to in-formation that affects
internal structure or dynamics. This would contrast with forms of potential
information that might pass through the system without being ‘perceived’. For
example, we have a finite number of mechanisms we call senses, each of which is
sensitive to particular modes of information we encounter in our environment,
but we are not able to perceive every form of information that we encounter
(e.g., UV light). I think you are using the term ‘interpretation’ to describe
the same thing. Do you agree? Do you think the notions of perception and
interpretation are effectively the same thing?
Cheers,
Guy
Guy Hoelzer, Associate Professor
Department of Biology
University of Nevada Reno
Phone: 775-784-4860
Fax: 775-784-1302
hoel...@unr.edu
On Apr 24, 2015, at 10:22 AM, Terrence W. DEACON <dea...@berkeley.edu> wrote:
Hi Pedro,
Indeed, you capture a fundamental point of my work. I entirely agree with your
comment about living processes and their internal "informative" organization.
The three exceedingly simple molecular model systems (forms of autogenesis)
that I discuss toward the end of the paper were intended to exemplify a minimal
life-like unit that—because of its self-reconstituting and self-repairing
features—could both exemplify an origin of life transition and a first simplest
system exhibiting interpretive competence. It is only because these autogenic
systems respond to disruption of their internal organizational coherence that
they can be said to also interpret aspects of their environment with respect to
this. My goal in this work is to ultimately provide a physico-chemical
foundation for a scientific biosemiotics, which is currently mostly exemplified
by analogies to human-level semiotic categories.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and your mediation of these discussions.
Sincerely, Terry
On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 5:34 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>
wrote:
Dear Terry and colleagues,
I hope you don't mind if I send some suggestions publicly. First, thank you for
the aftermath, it provides appropriate "closure" to a very intense discussion
session. Second, I think you have encapsulated very clearly an essential point
(at least in my opinion):
"Among these givens is the question of what is minimally necessary for
a system or process to be interpretive, in the sense of being able to utilize
present
intrinsic physical properties of things to refer to absent or
displaced properties or phenomena. This research question is ignorable
when it is possible to assume human or even animal interpreters as
part of the system one is analyzing. At some point, however, it
becomes relevant to not only be more explicit about what is being
assumed, but also to explain how this interpretive capacity could
possibly originate in a universe where direct contiguity of causal
influence is the rule."
My suggestion concerns the absence phenomenon (it also has appeared in some
previous discussion in this list --notably from Bob's). You imply that there is
an entity capable of dynamically building upon an external absences, OK quite
clear, but what about "internal absences"? I mean at the origins of
communication there could be the sensing of the internal-- lets call it
functional voids, needs, gaps, deficiencies, etc. Cellularly there are some
good arguments about that, even in the 70's there was a "metabolic code"
hypothesis crafted on the origins of cellular signaling. For instance, one of
the most important environmental & internal detections concerns cAMP, which
means "you/me are in an energy trouble"... some more evolutionary arguments can
be thrown. Above all, this idea puts the life cycle and its self-production
needs in the center of communication, and in the very origins of the
interpretive capabilities. Until now I have not seen much reflections around
the life cycle as the true provider of both communications and meanings, maybe
it conduces to new avenues of thought interesting to explore...
All the best!
--Pedro
Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
Dear FIS colleagues,
Herewith the comments received from Terry several weeks ago. As I said
yesterday, the idea is to properly conclude that session, not to restart
the discussion. Of course, scholarly comments are always welcome, but
conclusively and not looking for argumentative rounds. Remember that in
less than ten days we will have a new session on info science and library
science. best --Pedro
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Retrospective comments on the January 2015 FIS discussion
Terrence Deacon (dea...@berkeley.edu)
During the bulk of my career since the early 1980s I studied brain
organization with a particular focus on its role in the production and
interpretation of communication in vertebrate animals and humans. One
core target of these studies was to understand the neurological
changes that led to the evolution of the human language capacity and
why it is so anomalous in the context of the other diverse
communication systems that have evolved. This work was largely
conducted using standard lab-based neuroscience tools—from axonal
tracer techniques, to fetal neural transplantation, to MRI imaging,
and more—and studying a diverse array of animal brains. Besides
evolutionary and developmental neuroscience, this path led me to
explore ethology, linguistics, semiotic theories, information theories
and the philosophical issues that these research areas touched upon.
Indeed, my first co-authored book was not on neuroscience but on the
design of the early Apple desktop computers. So I came at the issues
explored in my FIS essay from this diverse background. This has led me
to pose what may be more basic questions than are usually considered,
and to reconsider even the most unquestioned assumptions about the
nature of information and the origins of its semiotic properties.
I am aware that many who are following this discussion have a
career-long interest in some aspect of human communication or
computation. In these realms many researchers —including many of
you— have provided sophisticated analytical tools and quite extensive
theories for describing these processes. Though it may at first seem
as though I am questioning the validity of some of this (now accepted)
body of theory, for the most part I too find this adequate for the
specific pragmatic issues usually considered. The essay I posted did
not critique any existing theory. It rather explored some assumptions
that most theories take for granted and need not address.
I believe, however, that there remain a handful of issues that have
been set aside and taken as givens that need to be reconsidered. For
the most part, these assumptions don't demand to be unpacked in order
to produce useful descriptions of communicative and information
processes at the machine or interpersonal level. Among these givens is
the question of what is minimally necessary for a system or process to
be interpretive, in the sense of being able to utilize present
intrinsic physical properties of things to refer to absent or
displaced properties or phenomena. This research question is ignorable
when it is possible to assume human or even animal interpreters as
part of the system one is analyzing. At some point, however, it
becomes relevant to not only be more explicit about what is being
assumed, but also to explain how this interpretive capacity could
possibly originate in a universe where direct contiguity of causal
influence is the rule. Although, this may appear to some readers as a
question that is merely of philosophical concern, I believe that
failure to consider it will impede progress in exploring some of the
most pressing scientific issues of our time, including both the nature
an origins of living and mental processes, and possibly even quantum
processes.
In this respect, my exposition was not in any respect critical of other
approaches but was rather an effort to solicit collaboration in digging
into issues that have —for legitimate pragmatic reasons— not been a
significant focus of most current theoretical analysis. I understand why
some readers felt that the whole approach was peripheral to their current
interests. Or who thought that I was re-opening debates that had long-ago
been set aside. Or who just thought that I was working at the wrong level,
on the conviction that the answer to such questions lies in other realms,
e.g. quantum theories or panpsychic philosophies. To those of you who fell
into these categories, I beg your indulgence.
The issues involved are not merely of philosophical interest. They are of
critical relevance to understanding biological and neurological information.
So if there are any readers of this forum who are interested in the issue
of the whether reference and significance are physically explainable
irrespective
of human subjective observation, and who have been quietly reflecting on my
proposals, I would be happy to carry on an email dialogue outside of
this forum.
For the rest, thank you for your time, and the opportunity to present
these ideas.
Sincerely, Terrence Deacon (dea...@berkeley.edu)
--
Professor Terrence W. Deacon
University of California, Berkeley
--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from
"urldefense.proofpoint.com" claiming to be
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------
--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from
"urldefense.proofpoint.com" claiming to be
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------
--
Professor Terrence W. Deacon
University of California, Berkeley
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--
Professor Terrence W. Deacon
University of California, Berkeley_______________________________________________
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