Dear all,
Is this a question about counting? I'm thinking that Ashby noted that Shannon
information is basically counting. What do we do when we count something?
Analogy is fundamental - how things are seen to be the same may be more
important than how they are seen to be different.
It seems that this example of DNA is a case where knowledge advances because
what was once thought to be the same (for example, perceived empirical
regularities in genetic analysis) is later identified to be different in
identifiable ways.
Science has tended to assume that by observing regularities, causes can be
discursively constructed. But maybe another way of looking at it is to say what
is discursively constructed are the countable analogies between events.
Determining analogies constrains perception of what is countable, and by
extension what we can say about nature; new knowledge changes that perception.
Information theory (Shannon) demands that analogies are made explicit - the
indices have to be agreed. What do we count? Why x? Why not y? otherwise the
measurements make no sense. I think this is an insight that Ashby had and why
he championed Information Theory as analogous to his Law of Requisite Variety
(incidentally, Keynes's Treatise on Probability contains a similar idea about
analogy and knowledge). Is there any reason why the "relations of production"
in a mechanism shouldn't be counted? determining the analogies is the key
thing isn't it?
One further point is that determining analogies in theory is different from
measuring them in practice. Ashby's concept of cybernetics-as-method was: "the
cyberneticist observes what might have happened but did not". There is a point
where idealised analogies cannot map onto experience. Then we learn something
new.
Best wishes,
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: "Loet Leydesdorff" <l...@leydesdorff.net>
Sent: 09/06/2016 12:52
To: "'John Collier'" <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; "'Joseph Brenner'"
<joe.bren...@bluewin.ch>; "'fis'" <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] Fw: "Mechanical Information" in DNA
Dear colleagues,
It seems to me that a definition of information should be compatible with the
possibility to measure information in bits of information. Bits of information
are dimensionless and “yet meaningless.” The meaning can be provided by the
substantive system that is thus measured. For example, semantics can be
measured using a semantic map; changes in the map can be measured as changes in
the distributions, for example, of words. One can, for example, study whether
change in one semantic domain is larger and/or faster than in another. The
results (expressed in bits, dits or nits of information) can be provided with
meaning by the substantive theorizing about the domain(s) under study. One may
wish to call this “meaningful information”.
I am aware that several authors have defined information as a difference that
makes a difference (McKay, 1969; Bateson, 1973). It seems to me that this is
“meaningful information”. Information is contained in just a series of
differences or a distribution. Whether the differences make a difference seems
to me a matter of statistical testing. Are the differences significant or not?
If they are significant, they teach us about the (substantive!) systems under
study, and can thus be provided with meaning in the terms of studying these
systems.
Kauffman et al. (2008, at p. 28) define information as “natural selection
assembling the very constraints on the release of energy that then constitutes
work and the propagation of organization.” How can one measure this
information? Can the difference that the differences in it make, be tested for
their significance?
Varela (1979, p. 266) argued that since the word “information” is derived from
“in-formare,” the semantics call for the specification of a system of reference
to be informed. The system of reference provides the information with meaning,
but the meaning is not in the information which is “yet meaningless”.
Otherwise, there are as many “informations” as there are systems of reference
and the use of the word itself becomes a source of confusion.
In summary, it seems to me that the achievement of defining information more
abstractly as measurement in bits (H = - Σ p log(p)) and the availability of
statistics should not be ignored. From this perspective, information theory can
be considered as another form of statistics (entropy statistics). A substantive
definition of information itself is no longer meaningful (and perhaps even
obscure): the expected information content of a distribution or the information
contained in the message that an event has happened, can be expressed in bits
or other measures of information.
Best,
Loet
Loet Leydesdorff
Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
Associate Faculty, SPRU, University of Sussex;
Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC, Beijing;
Visiting Professor, Birkbeck, University of London;
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en
From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of John Collier
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2016 12:04 PM
To: Joseph Brenner; fis
Subject: Re: [Fis] Fw: "Mechanical Information" in DNA
I am inclined to agree with Joseph. That is why I put “mechanical information”
in shudder quotes in my Subject line.
On the other hand, one of the benefits of an information approach is that one
can add together information (taking care to subtract effects of common
information – also describable as correlations). So I don’t think that the
reductionist perspective follows immediately from describing the target
information in the paper as “mechanical”. “Mechanical”, “mechanism” and similar
terms can be used (and have been used) to refer to processes that are not
reducible. “Mechanicism” and “mechanicist” can be used to capture reducible
dynamics that we get from any conservative system (what I call Hamiltonian
systems in my papers on the dynamics of emergence – such systems don’t show
emergent properties except in a trivial sense of being unanticipated). I think
it is doubtful at best that the mechanical information referred to is
mechanicist.
John Collier
Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Associate
University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier
From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Joseph Brenner
Sent: Thursday, 09 June 2016 11:10 AM
To: fis <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Subject: [Fis] Fw: "Mechanical Information" in DNA
Dear Folks,
In my humble opinion, "Mechanical Information" is a contradiction in terms when
applied to biological processes as described, among others, by Bob L. and his
colleagues. When applied to isolated DNA, it gives at best a reductionist
perspective. In the reference cited by Hector, the word 'mechanical' could be
dropped or replaced by spatial without affecting the meaning.
Best,
Joseph
----- Original Message -----
From: Bob Logan
To: Moisés André Nisenbaum
Cc: fis
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2016 4:04 AM
Subject: Re: [Fis] "Mechanical Information" in DNA
Thanks to Moises for the mention of my paper with Stuart Kauffman. If anyone is
interested in reading it one can find it at the following Web site:
https://www.academia.edu/7835
[The entire original message is not included.]
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