[Fis] Msg. from Bill Hall ---A new voice
From: Bill Hall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, 25 June 2008 6:57 PM To: 'bob logan'; 'fis@listas.unizar.es' Subject: RE: [Fis] Breaking my silence I have been a lurker on FIS for nearly a year, and have found the discussions to be quite interesting. However, I have been focused primarily on writing for formal publication, rather than in discussion forums (although I do contribute rarely to other forums where I have been a long-time member and once active, e.g., in the areas of epistemology, autopoiesis and knowledge management practice). However, Bob Logans contribution today leads me to break my silence here, and to seek feedback on one of my writing projects that I think is central to the foundations of information systems. Bob has pointed us to some of his recent manuscripts and other work on the emergence of organization, neo-dualism and the symbolosphere. I reach similar conclusions, but from very different source materials. (Except for citations to Kauffman and trivial ones to Kuhn and Popper, there is no overlap in our reference material). Although I am an evolutionary biologist by training (PhD Harvard, 1973), with two years postdoctoral study of epistemology and the history and philosophy of science as applied to my research into evolution and speciation, I spent the last 25 years until my retirement in July last year in a variety of documentation and knowledge management roles in industry. (My 1983 paper on the epistemology of the comparative approach as used in biology, http://tinyurl.com/pmaln, describes my postdoctoral findings). However, since 2000 I have returned (initially part time) to the academic world to understand the nature of organizations and organizational knowledge, where organization covers everything from the first living things to emerging social organizations including firms, industry clusters and even nation states. My intellectual journey has led me to combine Maturana and Varelas concept of autopoiesis with Karl Poppers evolutionary epistemology in three worlds, biosemiotics (Howard Pattee, Peter Corning, Jesper Hoffmeyer and Claus Emmeche) and aspects of hierarchy theory (Herbert Simon, Stan Salthe). My most recent MS is Autopoiesis and Knowledge in the Emergence of Self-Sustaining Organizations coauthored with a couple of my previous students has been submitted for inclusion in a book on Autopoiesis in Organizations and Information Systems being edited by Rodrigo Magalhaes (It can be accessed via http://tinyurl.com/6lvfkv Note, so as not to cause problems with the publisher, this paper will be removed from my web site in two weeks, but you are welcome to download it now). A more biologically oriented working paper Emergence and growth of knowledge and diversity in hierarchically complex living systems. Workshop on Selection, Self-Organization and Diversity CSIRO Centre for Complex Systems Science and ARC Complex Open Systems Network, Katoomba, NSW, Australia 17-18 May 2006 (http://tinyurl.com/p2fl7) gives more background on the similarities between genetic information and printed information. Other, earlier papers can also be found via my publications list (http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net/Index/PapersandPresentations.htm). To very briefly summarise some of my arguments. Popper (1972 and later) defines knowledge as solutions to problems and argues that all knowledge is constructed in living entities (world 2), but can be articulated into persistent artifacts (world 3) where its existence and content can be demonstrated intersubjectively by taking it back into the living entity for application to the real world (world 1). Popper explains how the iterated process of generating tentative solutions and selectively eliminating those that fail (i.e., errors) leads over time to the growth of knowledge. Maturana and Varelas concept of autopoiesis defines the nature of living things as autonomously self-producing entities which continuously produce their own organization, and explains how survival knowledge is embodied in the structural organization of the autopoietic entity. I argue that in time, mechanisms will eventually evolve where knowledge can be stored and replicated in inert forms, such as DNA and writing. This corresponds to the two codes described in Hoffmeyer and Emmeches code duality papers. I also argue that autopoietic entities can emerge at any level of organization where a sufficient variety of interacting components exist to build organizationally closed systems: e.g., single cells, multicellular organisms, insect colonies and other colonial organisms, human social organizations such as firms, etc. At each level of organization where autopoietic systems emerge there is the potential to evolve the two worlds of knowledge. In this picture, the primary commodity is knowledge to solve problems of life. The mathematics of information theory have little applicability until means are evolved to transmit knowledge in codified form
[Fis] Msg. from W. Riofrio---streams of order (III): Logic
Dear Joseph, Thank you for your answers. They provoked in me the following comments: 1. I agree with you about the totally abstract and idealized character of Hegelian terms. 2. In your first post you said: Order and disorder: simply, no real process is totally ordered or disordered, and does not have to be so considered in my logic. Every process includes both a tendency to degradation of information (via the 2nd Law) and creation of new information, morphogenesis, new functionality based ultimately on the differentiation or diversification of elements possible due to the Pauli Exclusion Principle for electrons. Q. Your LIR is a kind of dynamic logic which intends to reveal the way things, events, success, etc. works in reality. This, then, claims for a new ontology or metaphysics; could you say something about it? Also, it claims for some epistemological approaches about truth, confirmation, etc. Your picture about reality is of continuous nature and the relations between levels are changing, but you think in certain border conditions that in turn change depending of some specific circumstances? If I read you well, the fundamental source of novelties are found in the properties of electrons? The dynamical nature of physical reality since atomic level (due to its properties) contains the seeds of novelty? But it doesnt happen if there are no transitions between potentialities and actualities in some specific phenomenon. Adaptability in an informational vision: I claim that LIR includes an new element of structure that is common to such domains as cells, societies and brains that avoids absolute separation between internal and external, presence and absence in phenomena that are sufficiently complex. The problems associated with self-production or autopoësis are avoided since the information necessary for emergence of higher level entities is carried not only by the actualities but the potentialities of the lower-level elements (atoms, chemicals, macromolecules, organs, etc.) Q. With your LIR logic you could address the problem of what is sufficiently complex phenomenon For instance, if we consider sufficiently complex the folding protein problem containing not only the dynamics of protein since its unfolding to its native state, but the dynamic of chaperones, the micro-differential changes in the charges of internal milieu and possible other factors, your LIR could help to clarify some remaining questions in this issue? On the other hand, with the emergence of higher level properties like our cognitive capacities, your LIR would be an interesting tool to address the emergence of global cognitive phenomena? Not only more information but information-with-meaning? 3. I think it is better to read your book Sincerely, Walter *** Walter Riofrio Theoretical and Evolutionary Biology Researcher Associate Professor; Peruvian University Cayetano Heredia. Chercheur Associé; Complex Systems Institute (ISC-PIF). E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Breaking my silence
Hi Stan - thanks for commenting on my post. I really liked your remark highlighted in pink. But I have a problem understanding the remarks in blue. Perhaps you could clarify for me. Why is it also true for any dissipative system and what exactly do you mean by a dissipative system? Also I do not see how Shannon info can be used to roughly assess relative configurations. Also why does a tornado have more possible macroscopic conformations than does a bird, and this has more than a snail. Finally. what is a conformation? These questions are not posed to challenge your assertions but rather to help me understand them. Thanks - Bob L On 29-Jun-08, at 10:03 PM, Stanley Salthe wrote: Replying to Bob Logan, then to Pedro, then to Ted - -snip- Bob said: The reader will find in this paper an argument that Shannon info does not work for biological systems precisely because as has been pointed out in the discussion evolution cannot be predicted. This reinforces Bob U's remark In my judgement there are far too many folks who want to use the Shannon entropy itself as the measure of information, and I believe that doing so erects major impediments to grasping what information truly is. Bob U remark is right on the money according to POE. The material reason that Shannon information cannot be used to calculate information carrying capacity in biology (or for any dissipative structures), is that there is no way way to find the complete repertoire of any such system. Thus, it is not technologically 'useful'. However, it does carry conceptual weight nevertheless. It can be used to roughly assess relative configurations. Thus, a tornado has more possible macroscopic conformations than does a bird, and this has more than a snail. --- ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] reference details
Dear FIS colleagues,
Someone was asking me about the complete reference of Wright (2007)...
indeed his key ideas are pretty relevant for the ongoing exchanges.
Alex Wright, 2007, Glut: Mastering Information through the Ages. Joseph
Henry Press (Wash.)
-
In Stan's last posting, below, he has attributed me some paragraphs
from Joe, I think.
Pedro said -
1. The Hegelian structure of thesis - antithesis -synthesis is in my
terms abstract and idealized, applicable to linguistic entities. What is
the driving force, even in Hegelian terms, that enables movement from
one stage to the other?
2. Real systems, on the other hand, have a dynamics, usually driven by
some form of energy gradient. My approach is different in that I
attribute a logic to the resulting changes, which seem to follow a
pattern of alternating predominance of first one element, then the
opposing one.
S: It seems to me that you appear here to have joined Engels in
trying yo generalize the Hegelian developmental movement to material
systems
--.
-
Thanks to Bill for his first posting. I was attracted by his
encapsulation "...the primary commodity is knowledge to solve the
problems of life." it may not only be an elegant intermediate
statement, but also a very fertile starting point. One of the
advantages of advancing a new info science/discipline (Ted's last msg.
too) is that one can plant new "principles" directly in the most
strategic places, and the "epistemic backpack" one has to carry becomes
considerably lighter. The famous quotation from Whitehead --on
historical advantages of using the "zero" figure-- which I have
repeated several times in this list ("operations of thought are like
cavalry charges...") may be reminded in this context... Sorry if all
this sounds like a telegram.
Pedro
--
___
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
