SV: INFOPOIESIS

Dear Pedro

Thanks for these constructive ponderings.

Going down to the smallest difference we can measure in physics can be
seen as an attempt to give an objective answer to the possible amounts
of "differences" in the world. This seems to be relevant as we know
sense organs in different animals - and for instance our own eyes - that
seems to be able to react to single quanta, for instance of light. The
sensitivity of the brain on quantum levels is also discussed in studies
of brain and consciousness. But two things should be considered:

1. We react to change in patterns. Patterns are combinations of
differences. So if we want to count possible numbers of relevant
differences they will be pontiated by the combinations they go into.

2. In Peirce's semiotics I would put differences as secondness. An
important point for Peirce is that we only get knowledge through
thirdness (regularity, habit, law, logic) where we give meaning to
difference by attaching a sign through the establishing of an
interpretant. My point is that this is the difference that makes a
difference (to an autopoietic system)

So I would accept the idea of "a grain". but it only give us a very week
idea of a frame of possibilities for making information. Or Tom would
say that this is the information out of which we make meaning. But the
grain is not organisation!?

        Further you write:
I would say Tom prefers "objectivism" (sci. truth) and "materialism"
(particles) and Soeren"constructivism" (social construc), and
"theoretical-structuralism" theories and relationships instead of
"particles").

I can see objectivism and constructivism as to different epistemologies,
as I do pertain to some kind of realism I am rather a 'critical
constructivst' or rather more close to Peirce's 'pragmaticism' (not
James or Devey's pragmatism).

I would believe that Tom is a kind of materialistic atomist, maybe even
a mechanicist. But I would prefer to see him describe his own ontology!

I do not know the concept of 'theoretical- structuralism' and do not
understand how one can have an ontology of 'theories and relationships'.
If you had written 'processes and relationships' it would have been
closer. Maybe that was your intention? Which bring us to creation and
destruction in an ever ongoing evolution as you describe it. Patterns
and systems are created tested and some destructed and new ones made.

You talk of language on different levels. So far we recognize natural
human languages and formal languages. To speak of language we normally
demand syntax and generative ability to create meaningful sentences.
Wittgenstein speaks of language games related to life forms as the basis
for establishing signification. So I would not say that animals have
languages - as this offends most linguists and philosophers of language
- but have suggested that they have 'sign games' in some of my papers. I
consider this to be a system of messages on a lower structural and
generative level. I think we should be careful to coin such new concepts
as we move from human abilities 'down' to lower levels.

Venlig hilsen/Best wishes

Assoc. Prof. Ph. D. S�ren Brier
Royal School of Library and Information Science, Aalborg Branch
Langagervej 4, DK-9220 Aalborg �st
Telephone: +45 98 157922 , Fax: +45 98 151042
Homepage: http://www.db.dk/dbaa/sbr/home_uk.htm
Ed. & Publisher of Cybernetics & Human Knowing
homepage: http://www.db.dk/dbaa/sbr/cyber.htm

> ----------
> Fra: marijuan@posta.unizar.es[SMTP:marijuan@posta.unizar.es]
> Sendt: 12. december 1997 14:26
> Til: Multiple recipients of list
> Emne: INFOPOIESIS
>
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> just a brief answer to Tom and a couple of questions about autopiesis
>
> INFO & MEANING -- Tom�s response to my previous comments is eloquent
> and
> very well-crafted. It makes me feel guilty of having been too formal
> and
> restrictive, for in my previous private exchanges with him I really
> had
> given a most ponderate view about the strong assets and qualities of
> the
> book (first of all: it is very well written!). He is quite right that
> embarking oneself into this type of synthesis, outside the protective
> university environment, is a formidable venture...
> Anyhow, here I am again with the Energy&Info topic. The KT "minimum
> thermodynamic prize for distinguishablity from an environment" (also
> pointed out by Efim, Michael, and quite a few people related to
> biocomputing and quantum computing) should be another way of restating
> the
> relationship between joules and bits. I believe that when Tom
> obliterates
> the logaritmic transformation of the number of microstates in
> Boltzmann
> formula he should arrive at this same result: the minimum energy
> difference
> between to different microstates. May I ask the considerate opinion of
> our
> thermodynamicist colleagues (now, or in the physics coming
> conference)?
>
> THE DIFFERENCE WHICH MAKES A DIFFERENCE--that�s exactly what Tom
> quantifies
> (its limit!) and takes as the "grain" of the INFO magnitude. Can
> Soeren
> agree about this thermodynamic "tag" to his Batesonian approach (the
> "observer" becomes now the quantum computer scientist, or the
> thermodynamicist working at ideal conditions). The further difference
> in
> epistemological and ontological views is another story. I would say
> Tom
> prefers "objectivism" (sci. truth) and "materialism" (particles) and
> Soeren
> "constructivism" (social construc), and "theoretical-structuralism"
> (theories and relationships instead of "particles"). Of course, both
> views
> enrich our collective "multiperspectivistic" storage of knowledge.
>
> INFOPOIESIS -- Perhaps from the info microstate we could jump up to
> the
> vast array of self-constructive processes that autopiesis considers.
> However, my point is that any "info society" is characterized by a
> strange
> (info mediated) coupling between self PRODUCTION (OK, autopoiesis) and
> self
> DESTRUCTION (no general name: but obviously patent in the astonishing
> cellular world of proteases and proteasomes,in the necessary apoptotic
> process of organismic cells, in the growth and disappearance of
> synaptic
> sites, in the economicly necessary disappearance of 30 % of companies
> every
> 3 or 4 years... I would suggest "autonecrosis" as a provisional term).
> So
> to speak, INFO entities rejuvenate themselves, and adapt to their
> changing
> environment, by a sort of global INFOPOIESIS that couple both AP and
> AN
> ("autonecrosis"). Perhaps the signaling (info) mediated processes that
> every enzyme iremediably follows from RIBOSOME to PROTEASOME (first,
> from
> "soup" to cradle; later on, from the coffin to "soup" again) becomes
> the
> clearest biological example.
>
> And a final jump to "languages":
> Most of the natural info that permeates such AP & AN (so, globally
> "infopoietic") processes is not POSITIONAL but COMPOSITIONAL.
> Accordingly,
> on the one side we would have our own languages, DNA coding, computer
> languages, etc. which work by processing symbols in strict positional
> succession, a la Shannon. And on the other side we would have cellular
> languages built upon info exchanges by chemical compositions arriving
> in
> bulk, both intracellular and intercellularly, and also numerous social
> and
> ethological languages of odors, colors, gestures, emotions (perhaps
> including our own musical and pictoric languages) that follow the
> other
> compositional style of info. "Maverick" Karl Javorszky has produced a
> "partitional calculus" that I am trying to apply to the language of
> cells
> (and has much inspired these lines themselves)... Anyhow, summarizing
> about
> languages, I would strongly disagree with strict semiotic views that
> only
> discuss info & language in our own (terribly limited) speech
> apparatus.
>
> I adore the current philo discussion, and hope not having introduced
> much
> cacophony,
>
> bests
>
> Pedro
>
> PS. Thanks to our new colleague Birger for his greetings a few days
> ago...
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Mariju�n --FAX 34 976 761 861 --TEL 34 976 761 927
> Dto. Ingenieria Electronica y Comunicaciones
> CPS, Universidad de Zaragoza
> Zaragoza 50015, SPAIN
>
>
Received on Sun Dec 14 00:58:02 1997