Information and Meaning: author's response to Pedro

Author's Response to Comments made by Pedro Marijuan about
INFORMATION AND MEANING (Springer 1997):

Here is what Pedro said :
"About Tom�s last book, Information and Meaning, Springer 1997,
one can hardly disagree with the overall attempt: setting a conceptual
system bridging the gap in between our physical (chemical, biological,
etc.) knowledge and our own social environment. Information is the central
arch, but intelligence, meaning, consciousness, language, feedbacks,
resonance, etc. also play important roles (unfortunately, not always very
clearly established)."

"About the starting point on information and energy, I would suggest going
to the Madrid 1994 Proceedings (BioSystems, 38, p. 151) where Welch
refers to the thermodynamic costs of molecular computing-- the dissipated
energy for one bit as equals to K.T . Perhaps I am wrong, but this seems
the
same value than Tom�s for the relationship between entropy and information.
So, there might be no great thermodynamic novelties there (without denying
that Tom�s re-estatement is more suggestive and thought provoking)."

"The new aspects of the book include fascinating comments about social
knowledge (eg, medieval Europe and China), origins of human language (info
proc. role of vowels and consonants in primates), and some hints about
consciousness putting together Edelman�s reentrant circuits with the
"semantic metabolism" analogy. Personally I find the metabolic analogy very
rich --well, maybe because myself am independently devoting some thought
to it in the BioSystems FIS sp. issue to appear. The tecno-utopian
excursions
look far less interesting. Perhaps they are addressed to non-scientific
public."

"Far more considerations should have been introduced, particularly about
consciousness: time, molecular dimension, cellular internal architectures,
evolution & brain organization, topology, etc. (sure that our coming
conference will show that!). Besides, very few references, if any, are made
to neuroscience models, schemes, theories, etc., that could be plausible
from the point of view of rigorous scientific reasoning (even Edelman is
only indirectly cited--he does not appear in the References list).
Frequently one can find trouble in the way Tom builds his thought based on
analogical reasoning. In this, it ressembles the way popular books are
written. That mixing of audiences may be a two edge sword. It can be very
dangerous for the sci. level of the book, but conversely it might bring a
large educated public to become interested in the info sci. topics."

"In my opinion, Tom�s views become a rather premature synthetic attempt.
But let us wait and see! I will be very glad to "eat" these critical
comments
(fortunately they have virtual suport)."
========================= Author's response to follow ==>

Pedro and I have had an on-going discussion about the above book. Some
of the points raised earlier might be of interest to the FIS community --
something to put out on the net in the future. At the moment, I confine
myself to the above comments made in Pedro's communication of
Wed. 3 Dec. 1997.

I begin with the confession that I suffered from "information overload".
As
I indicated in the "Apologia" at the beginning of the book, the book took
well over five years to write (not full-time) and many relevant references
ended up being omitted. In addition, the broad scope of the book,
precluded my being on top of all the literature. My ignorance covers large
areas of well established knowledge.

Having said that, at this point in time, it may be well to recall Erwin
Schroedinger' admonition: "A scientist is supposed to have a complete and
thorough knowledge, at first hand, of some subjects, and, therefore, is
usually expected not to write on any topic of which he is not a master."
Schr�dinger, however, argues that: "... The spread, both in width and
depth of the multifarious branches of knowledge ... has confronted us with
a queer dilemma. We ... are only now beginning to acquire reliable
material
for welding together the sum-total of all that is known into a whole; but,
on
the other hand, it has become next to impossible for a single mind fully to
command more than a small specialized portion of it." He concludes: "I
can see no escape from this dilemma ... than that some of us should venture
to embark on a synthesis of facts and theories ... at the risk of making
fools
of ourselves."

This apologia is to put into perspective the dearth of neuroscience models,
schemes, theories, etc. I chose from my reading those models whose
cogency appeals to me. There is an awful lot of nonsense out there,
although the field is moving at enormous speed. I should think that before
another decade has passed, we will have a very good understanding of how
the brain works. In the meantime, INFORMATION AND MEANING will
have elucidated how a physical, organic entity, the brain, is able to
create
this ephemeral entity, called: the mind. The book also proposes a theory
about the underlying mechanism by which neural networks store and
manipulate semantic items.

Needless to say, I would be thankful for any suggestions from colleagues of
significant work of which I should be aware. I am, after all, somewhat
isolated in the wilds of Western Massachusetts.

It is not surprising, in view of his own significant contributions to the
field,
that Pedro is happy with my effort to shift the model which describes the
functions of the brain from one of "information processing" to "semantic
metabolism" -- a paradigm shift which analogizes the action of the brain,
not so much to what a computer does, but to how a cell metabolizes
incoming molecules.

The "techno-utopian excursions" are not really a part of INFORMATION
AND MEANING, or at least, only peripherally so. This matter will be
explored in a future work entitled "From Ape to Essence" (if this broad,
interdisciplinary manuscript can ever find a publisher).

Analogous reasoning should not be an object of criticism. Not only is
analogous reasoning a powerful intellectual tool -- many profound insights
owe their existence as a result of taking a phenomenon or experience in one
field of knowledge, and applying it to another -- but it is also an
extremely
valuable pedantic tool. Polya's dictum, that when teaching a child, you
should always begin with an example which is already known and
understood by the child, applies equally to readers unfamiliar with the
subject under discussion.

For example, I make no apologies for using the ticker-tape sign on Times
Square (New York) as a device whose moving letters create an information
"reality" for its viewers, or that certain aspects of brain processes
behave in
a manner analogous to a symphony orchestra. True, such common-day
examples may degrade the academic discourse somewhat but is it a sin to
try to reach out to a wider audience than those of the FIS community?

I am puzzled by the remarks on "the starting points on information and
energy". The equation that 1J/oK = 10*23 bits (approximately) was
arrived at independently in the late 1980s and published in
INFORMATION AND THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE
UNIVERSE (Springer 1990 pg. 51). Pedro's comments made me go back
to Rickey Welch's paper -- which promptly made me blush because it was a
paper which I had meant to include in the chapter on "Semantic
Metabolism" but missed -- my apologies to him. However, the equation
E 8 kT ln(2), where k is the Boltzmann constant and T, the absolute
temperature, does not convey a relationship between information (as bits)
and energy (as Joules per degree) anywhere near as clearly and
unequivocally as does ~10*23 bits = 1J/K.

Obviously, I would welcome further comments and discussion on these, or
any other points, concerning information, intelligence, and meaning.
Tom
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Received on Wed Dec 10 08:03:07 1997