----- Original Message ----- From: Joseph Brenner To: fis Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2015 10:13 AM Subject: Fw: [Fis] Philosophy, Computing, and Information - apologies!
Dear Colleagues, I completely agree with Krassimir's position and on the importance of the issue on which it taken. Neither he nor I wish to say that there cannot be models and insights for science in religious beliefs, such as the Kabbala, but then John's diagram would be more appropriate if it had En Sof at the center rather than It-from-Bit. The statement "It-from-Bit is just information", further, requires analysis: do we 1) accept this as dogma, including the implied limitation of information to separable binary entities? or 2) assume that the universe is constituted by complex informational processes, in which the term 'It-from-Bit' is misleading at best, and should be avoided? I feel particularly uncomfortable when dogmatic computational views such as those of Lloyd and Davies are presented as authoritative without comment, except by appeal to the authority of 'some physicists'. Those FISers who would like to see a reasonably considered rebuttal might look at my article in Information: "The Logic of the Physics of Information". Best wishes, Joseph ----- Original Message ----- From: Krassimir Markov To: John Collier ; Stanley N Salthe ; fis Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 11:18 PM Subject: Re: [Fis] Philosophy, Computing, and Information - apologies! Dear John and Stan, Your two hierarchies are good only if you believe in God. But this is belief, not science. Sorry, nothing personal! Friendly regards Krassimir From: John Collier Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 5:02 PM To: Stanley N Salthe ; fis Subject: Re: [Fis] Philosophy, Computing, and Information - apologies! Not quite the same hierarchy, but similar: It from bit is just information, which is fundamental, on Seth Lloyd’s computational view of nature. Paul Davies and some other physicists agree with this. Chemical information is negentropic, and hierarchical in most physiological systems. John From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Stanley N Salthe Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 3:40 PM To: fis Subject: Re: [Fis] Philosophy, Computing, and Information - apologies! Pedro -- Your list: physical, biological, social, and Informational is implicitly a hierarchy -- in fact, a subsumptive hierarchy, with the physical subsuming the biological and the biological subsuming the social. But where should information appear? Following Wheeler, we should have: {informational {physicochemical {biological {social}}}} STAN On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 5:34 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> wrote: Thanks, Ken. I think your previous message and this one are drawing sort of the border-lines of the discussion. Achieving a comprehensive view on the interrelationship between computation and information is an essential matter. In my opinion, and following the Vienna discussions, whenever life cycles are involved and meaningfully "touched", there is info; while the mere info circulation according to fixed rules and not impinging on any life-cycle relevant aspect, may be taken as computation. The distinction between both may help to consider more clearly the relationship between the four great domains of sceince: physical, biological, social, and Informational. If we adopt a pan-computationalist stance, the information turn of societies, of bioinformation, neuroinformation, etc. merely reduces to applying computer technologies. I think this would be a painful error, repeating the big mistake of 60s-70s, when people band-wagon to developed the sciences of the artificial and reduced the nascent info science to library science. People like Alex Pentland (his "social physics" 2014) are again taking the wrong way... Anyhow, it was nicer talking face to face as we did in the past conference! best ---Pedro Ken Herold wrote: FIS: Sorry to have been too disruptive in my restarting discussion post--I did not intend to substitute for the Information Science thread an alternative way of philosophy or computing. The references I listed are indicative of some bad thinking as well as good ideas to reflect upon. Our focus is information and I would like to hear how you might believe the formal relational scheme of Rosenbloom could be helpful? Ken -- Ken Herold Director, Library Information Systems Hamilton College 198 College Hill Road Clinton, NY 13323 315-859-4487 kher...@hamilton.edu <mailto:kher...@hamilton.edu> -- ------------------------------------------------- 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 http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ -------------------------------------------------
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