<x-html><!x-stuff-for-pete base="" src="" id="0"><html>
At 11:20 PM 18/04/00 +0200, you wrote:
<blockquote type=cite cite>>To Pedro Marijun, Do you think these three
info aspects you mention
>(constitutive, generative, comunicational) could be lumped
together in a
>unified brain info theory, as you seem to suggest implicitly in
another
>message?
This is a fundamental question, on related to the earlier query
regarding
the role of representation in the brain. Is neural activity in the
brain
constitutive (e.g., comprising some kind of informational
structure),
generative (e.g., generating emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in a
fashion best understood as an unfolding creative process), or
communicational (e.g., the basis conversations between nerve cells,
as
suggested in traditional texts)? </blockquote>
I don't see these as mutually exclusive. Then real problem, I
think,
is to find the relations among them. As I see it, and as introduced
in my book chapter:
<a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/papers/semiosis.pdf" eudora="autourl">http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/papers/semiosis.</a><a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier
/papers/semiosis.pdf" eudora="autourl">pdf
</a>in <font face="Arial, Helvetica">�The Dynamical Basis of Information
and the Origins of Semiosis�,
in Edwina Taborsky (ed) Semiosis. Evolution. Energy Towards a
Reconceptualization of the Sign. AachenShaker Verlag 1999 Bochum
Publications in SemioticsNew Series. Vol. 3 (1999): 111-136, the neural
activity,
under certain closure conditions, maps onto the information
structure
of thoughts (I didn't consider emotions, etc, which I would agree
are
important), so that the causal powers of the former an latter are
isomorphic (I use a causal information theory as outlined in
<a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/papers/causinf.pdf" eudora="autourl">http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/papers/causinf.</a><a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/p
apers/causinf.pdf" eudora="autourl">pdf
</a>in �Causation is the Transfer of Information�, Howard Sankey (ed)
<i>Causation,
Natural Laws and Explanation</i> (Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1999):
279-331.
Behaviour is linked to these causal powers. The view is basically
Peircean. Creativity is covered in my paper for the CASYS 98
meetings and the CASYS 99 meetings: �Autonomy in anticipatory
systems: significance for functionality, intentionality and meaning.
In: Computing Anticipatory Systems�, CASYS'98 - Second International
Conference, edited by D. M. Dubois, American Institute of Physics,
Woodbury,
New York, AIP Conference Proceedings 465, pp. 75-81 (1999):
<a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/papers/casys98.pdf" eudora="autourl">http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/papers/casys98.</a><a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/p
apers/casys98.pdf" eudora="autourl">pdf
</a>and in �Information Theory as a General Language for Functional
Systems�,
Anticipatory Systems: CASYS'99 - Second International Conference, edited
by D. M. Dubois, American Institute of Physics, Woodbury, New York,
AIP Conference Proceedings, 2000.
I don't claim to have solved all the problems, and my paper for CASYS
2000
deals with creativity in the face of the unexpected. One of the
requirements
is that the informational system not be in equilibrium. This also
comes
out in some of the other papers I've cited. The ideas are influenced
by
my view on emergence, at the moment best expressed in a paper for ECHO
III:
<a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/papers/echoiii.pdf" eudora="autourl">http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/papers/echoiii.</a><a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/p
apers/echoiii.pdf" eudora="autourl">pdf
</a>At least I think I have laid out some of the requirements for
unifying
the three aspects you mention.
Cheers,
John
</font>
<div>John
Collier
pljdc@alinga.newcastle.edu.au</div>
<div>Department of
Philosophy
<a href="http://bcollier.newcastle.edu.au/" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://bcollier.newcastle.edu.au</a></div>
<div>University of Newcastle, NSW 2308 AUSTRALIA</div>
<a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/collier.html" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/pl/Staff/JohnCollier/collier.html</a>
</html>
</x-html>
Received on Fri Apr 21 12:50:06 2000
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Mon 07 Mar 2005 - 10:24:45 CET