Dear Fernando, Luis, and FIS colleagues,
In a few days the list will take vacations (it is our tradition that in
August we do not make discussions). At your convenience, around next
week better, you are invited to make some concluding comments if you
find them opportune. The discussion has had quite interesting points and
you may have obtained elements of reflection --as we all have had.
As an overall opinion, probably distorted and biologically biased, I
find the way of thinking of your essay too much relying on
mechano-physicalist elements. It is part of what I call the XIX and XX
Century "social thermodynamics" complex (social forces, social masses,
irreversible social processes, productive forces, etc.). Maybe because
of the space-mechanistic view, at the microlevel, the bases of the
theory of human act, and the accompanying classifications, have scarce
ecological and neurological sense. For instance, the neural areas
devoted to the hand are at least ten times larger than the areas devoted
to the whole arm (and the tongue has also a disproportionate large
representation) both in the sensory and motor cerebral "homunculi".
Sure, it is accordance with the behavioral complexity and degrees of
freedom of the corresponding actions. The hierarchic approach does not
fit well with the biological organization of behavior either. Besides,
what about the info value of the actions of other Anthropoidea in their
niches--the same as humans? Also, why in the vital acts the info
escalates to infinity?, while at the same time "the information of the
life world is constant." Creativity in itself is not unbounded, as
Kauffman put, the "adjacent possible" holds for the possible
technological, creative, and social changes. Regarding the "dignity" and
"zooming" of the vital acts, these terms and the way they are used are
again alien to elementary cognitive stances...
Finally, the most important "action" of the human being is talking. See
the "Social Brain Theory" of Baron-Cohen and Dunbar. Talking is second
only to sleeping in the daily hours devoted. The relative social,
intercultural, historic constancy of that ecological time devoted to
talking (and the number of bonding relationships associated) has
motivated the concept of "sociotype", within the triad
genotype-phenotype-sociotype. This enlarged sociotype was the crucial
evolutionary factor of humans. Whatever impinges in the communication
practices that subtend the sociotype (writing, books, computers) etc.
has a disproportionate impact in the actions, practices, products and
artifacts related to human sociality. The cortical space devoted to
sociotype dynamics and memory contents is the highest within our brain.
Actually, by decreasing our social capabilities, we may concentrate in
new cultural activities... Thus, the sociotype would delineate our basic
info constraint.
I would like to ad several other comments, but it is not the case. The
point of view adopted by this essay is quite curious and interesting for
both the micro and macro levels, although some more
bio-neuro-compatibility would benefit its acceptability, I think.
All the best & enjoy the vacations
---Pedro
Fernando Flores wrote:
Dear Mark
Thanks for your commentaries. Our use of the term “foundational” is
more philosophical than practical. You are right; the term contradicts
in some sense our intentions which are “very” practical. (This is a
term which we could leave behind without hesitation.) In fact, we have
no intentions in “instituting” a new concept of “information”. Our
work is “foundational” only in one aspect, and that is in searching
for methods to measure the informational value of collective acts in
everyday life. We found that it was necessary to classify human acts
in such a way that their informational value could be “operative”
(useful in practical tasks); we did that, grouping the acts in types
depending on their complexity. We found that these acts could also be
distinguished in relation to their consequences on the everyday world.
We noticed that the movement from the very complex acts to the
simplest acts follows a reduction of the surrounding world and that
the human body is the natural reference in the understanding of this
reduction. We knew that we could express informational value in
relation to probabilities and found in the von Mises/Popper frequency
series a possible and easy solution (an accessible mathematics). We
insist; we have been working only with practical problems and we have
not been thinking so much of which concept of information we are
using; we believe that cybernetics does not address the practical
problems we confront. However, we are sure that if we succeed, some
cybernetic theorem will explain our success. The question is that the
state of knowledge we have today is insufficient to understand the
simplest informational problems in our surrounding world.
Informational theory and cybernetics have been developed in the world
of Physics; instead, we try to develop solutions that work in everyday
life. If you understand as “variety” the measure of the “states of a
system”, the series of von Mises/Popper could be our kind of variety,
but we are not sure. You are certain, our “acts” are neither “actions”
nor “events”, but they are not the hybrids of Latour either. Our acts
are phenomenological; they are intended to be congruent with concepts
as “work”, “money”, “culture”, “thing”, “market”, and the like. The
concept “informational value” for example, is very close to the
concept of “information” without meaning exact the same.
Fernando Flores PhD
Associate Professor
History of Ideas and Sciences
Lund University
--
-------------------------------------------------
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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