Dear Stan， Generally speaking, we have two kinds of Information Science, one is materialist, another is imformationist. Of course, what FIS colleagues are discussing here is materialist one. As to the imformationist information science, it sprang from John Wheeler and is becoming confirmative in some frontiers of physics recently, for example, the string-net theory advocated by some theoretical physicists of MIT. In materialistic information science, self-organization and autopoiesis are two wonderful criteria, they can exclude those information sciences based on information technology from real information science for their hetero-organization and heteropoiesis. As to the information science based on library science spread through the United States, whether it is a real information science, undoubtedly, it is questionable. Let’s come back to our topic. Facing so many kinds of information and disciplines of information theory/informatics/information science, we urgently need a classification to handle them, and the hierarchy consideration maybe is more fundamental. Which was activated by Pedro (He said it is Fisher’s idea, really Pedro?) with Cell, Brain, Firm many years ago, and advanced by Joshi these days. In fact, Joseph and I had some private communication about this issue several weeks ago, the topic is something I named “From Mechanism to Organicism” which was arisen when I predict the paradigm shift of information studies in the next 10 years or more. In those mails, we have touched this problem. According to your expression, we have several different hierarchies: 1. [firm [brain [cell]]]: Pedro 2. [society [cell [molecule]]]: Joshi 3. [social [organism [cell [molecular [microphysical ]]]]]: Stan 4. [organism [cell [molecule [fundamental particle]]]]: Xueshan 5. [organism [cell [molecule]]]: Xueshan >From its narrow sense, social character only belongs to organism, so we can absorb “society” into “organism”. In the organism group, we have animal and plant. In animal, we have man, chicken, dog, tiger, lion, etc. Of course, our main object is man, just like medicine and physiology that claim their object over all animals, but man is their main object. Man’s information problem is our main aim here. >From communication standpoint, that man (of course also all organism), cell, molecule (at lest organic molecule) can communicate each other are undoubtedly, so the information disciplines can emerge from this level undoubtedly naturally. But question is: can communication take places between two fundamental particles, such as two atoms? So, I am not sure if we can have a physical informatics at last. It is very humorous, this will bring us to the FIS discussion 13 year ago again: Is informational existences still only start with the biological? Is it still a huge black hole? (Gyorgy Darvas). Best wishes, Xueshan _____
From: Stanley N Salthe [mailto:ssal...@binghamton.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2015 5:01 AM To: y...@pku.edu.cn Subject: Re: [Fis] Sustainability through multilevel research: The Lifel, Deep Society Build-A-Thon - 1 Xueshan -- Your hierarchy nformation studies. Cellular (level2): It can indicate the all cellular/biological information studies. Molecular (level1): It can indicate the all molecular/chemical information studies. XXXXXXX (level0): Particlate/physical information studies?? is OK, but, since it may be that not all organisms are social, to be more general one could insert: [social [organism [cell [molecular [microphysical ]]]]] Of course, it could be argued that organisms are societies of cells! STAN On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 9:40 AM, Xueshan Yan <y...@pku.edu.cn> wrote: Dear Joshi, No matter what topic/title you used, no matter what goal you want to reach, your post has raised a very important theory which can decide the future of information science: Three Level Theory: Molecular (level1), Cellular (level2), Social (level3). (Please excuse my minor modification). The FIS colleagues can easily recollect the theory of Cell, Brain, Firm which was advocated by Pedro about 10 years ago, but I think this hierarchy is could be much better spent taking some positive action. Social (level3): It can indicate the all human/social information studies. Cellular (level2): It can indicate the all cellular/biological information studies. Molecular (level1): It can indicate the all molecular/chemical information studies. XXXXXXX (level0): Particlate/physical information studies?? As we know, due to the Technological Information Science (It includes computer science and telecommunications) is not self-organizational, or antipoetic, so we generally don't consider it as a real information science. With my best regards! Xueshan Peking University _____ From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Nikhil Joshi Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2015 7:35 PM To: fis@listas.unizar.es >> fis@listas.unizar.es Cc: Nikhil Joshi Subject: Re: [Fis] Sustainability through multilevel research: The Lifel, Deep Society Build-A-Thon - 1 Dear Joseph and Stan, Both of you mention about earlier work on isomorphisms, and you also mention hetero-organization. If it is not inconvenient, may I request more information on this? You also mention that the use of self-organisation could be a distracting, could you recommend an alternate formulation? At this time, I must clarify that I am not suggesting a hierarchical relationship between the three levels. I am referring to hierarchical organisation within the species at each level - molecules (level1), cellular species (level2) and social groups (level3). Coming to your question- how does the concept of hierarchy affect the analysis? The common multilevel organisational pattern presented here suggests that a core element in human social organisation involves exchange networks based on flow of human resources between kinship based social groups (like families) and non-kinship based social groups (like businesses). This implies that evolution of social organisation is based on the emergence of two species classes with greater complexity and greater compositional hierarchy- kinship based social groups and non-kinship. The question then are- why and how do living species give rise to exchange networks between species with increasing complexity (and compositional hierarchy) ? Will this pattern continue at the next higher level? Bob Logan and others point to the role of human language and the generation of conceptual knowedge in the emergence of non-kinship based social groups. It is interesting that Timo Honkela and Kohonen generalise these ideas and describe processes that gives rise to conceptual knowledge in systems of interacting agents. Do Alphabetic catalysts like DNA and Proteins play a similar role as human language in the emergence of exchange networks at two different levels? (see section 4.4., paper II in this kick off email). While many theoretical perspectives have been presented on the evolution of such systems (Stanley Salthe- Evolving Hierarchial Systems, Ch 8, John Holland- aggregate agents, Eric Chaission- growing energy rate density, and others) what is most interesting here is that the CMOP provides opportunity to examine processes that give rise to such organisation in much greater details. This could provide more insights into the emergence and evolution of such organisations. Given the diverse research interests and great depth in this group, I would love to get your views on these questions. Your views are greatly appreciated. Thanking you, Regards, Nikhil Joshi Given the wide ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- Dear Nikhil, I think it is a very interesting exercise to see how a consensus might be reached on your work by both adding to and subtracting from the different perspectives. Thus, I agree with Stan that we are looking at instances of isomorphism at different levels, and this for me is entirely logical (;-). Levels of reality exist and the rules that apply in them are not identical, and this constitutes a discontinuity between them. Also, within a given level involving three elements, even if they all influence one another, it should be possible to decompose the interactions into those between A and B, the resultant of which interacts with C. This is Pedro's comment in somewhat different terms. On the other hand, as I have argued elsewhere, the use of the term 'self-organization' does not bring any additional knowledge. It diverts attention from the dynamics of the different flows, which are also affected by such a multitude of external factors, actual and potential, that the process could equally well be called hetero-organization. Also, and I really just ask this as a question, how does the concept of hierarchy affect the analysis? If as you write there are different species involved in exchange networks across ascending levels, what would be important to know are the details of these exchanges. Here, the above discontinuity between levels seems to be replaced by a degree of continuity. Your statement implies to me interactions /between/ different levels, but are these interactions bi-directional reactions? How would the rates of forward and back reactions be related? I look forward to your comments on the above which I assure you is intended to be constructive. Best wishes, Joseph _______________________________________________ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
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