Re: disconnected points

FISers--

I heartily salute Pedro's call for focus. Already it is under challenge.

The driver in this from my perspective is not to have an enlightening
dialog, but to produce results which further the discipline and
produce a possible revolution in practical science. The proposed
econference has limited scope, as with all planned events. My past
FIS experience is that aspirations and interests of the group so
greatly exceed the scope of coherence that little useful results in
the end.

I have communicated this a few times to Pedro, and do so here publicly.

I do not see Pedro's modest suggestions (reproduced below) to suggest
in any way that the application domain be limited to biology. In
fact, he explicitly addresses the connective mechanics between
so-called inorganic and organic.

The point, I think, is to try and herd us cats in the direction of a
focus on mechanisms, without the distractions we are so noted for.
You know what those are: obsessive focus on terminology rather than
unifying concepts; a pedantic need to tie the dialog to you favorite
dead thinker or school; or an unfocusing tendency to get lost in
domain examples and artifacts of the theory.

I would propose to tighten Pedro's suggested focus as a goal. This
goal would be something that key moderators and responsible
participants would strive to anchor the conclusions of any discussion
around.

Pedro's "advanced draft" proposed as a starting point
"inconsistencies and paradoxes" of the "old way" that the "new way"
resolves. Knowing this group, he wisely suggested we start not with
the black hole of what information is, but what it is not. I think
this is wise and reasonable.

I think his second paragraph below ("and discuss:...") destroys this
focus unless it is seen as a framework for the narrow issue of what
info is not, and where current thinking leads to untenable paradoxes.

I am entering into this with high hopes that some real advance will
result, and secure in the belief that focus is required. So unless I
am shouted down, will continue to remind from time to time of the
central compact behind the collaborative econference.

Best, Ted

>Dear colleagues:
>
>Just a few disconnected points motivated by the theor. postings
>these days (thanks for the exciting messages!):
>
>-- Although quite many novelties in bio & neuro & computer sciences
>(and social and techno changes too) induce to a new
>conceptualization of information phenomena, maybe we should wisely
>consider the living cell as the "zero" system to start out the
>analysis (and later on the synthesis).
>
>-- The new info conceptualization most probably has to revise
>central tenets of physics (the "four mechanics core": classic,
>stastistic,fluid, quantum). And rediscuss, also, an array of philo &
>multidisciplinary notions on causality, matter-mind, knowledge,
>identity, fitness, utility, rationality, value, etc. Such
>"mechanically abstruse" notions might get a fair revision and a
>clearer footing at the info field.
>
>-- So to speak, after two centuries of "imperialism of physics", an
>entanglement of mechanistic non-informational ideas has pervasively
>colonized the system of the sciences and persisted in quite many
>wrong places, appearing in the form of insidious surrogates. Weeding
>them out is really difficult and a long term enterprise (not to
>mention the infamous breach between natural sci.and the humanities).
>
>-- It may well be that, individually, we feel having already made
>substantial advancements in these and related themes. But at the
>time being perhaps we should collectively insist on exposing the
>conceptual gaps and leaving them open as much as possible. Nothing
>attracts more in science than "a void to fill in".
>
>best wishes
>
>Pedro
>

-- 
_____________
Ted Goranson
Sirius-Beta and the Advanced Enterprise Research Office at ODU
757/426-6704
tedg@sirius-beta.com
Virtual Enterprise Framework: http://sourceforge.net/projects/alfve/
-- 
_____________
Ted Goranson
Sirius-Beta and the Advanced Enterprise Research Office at ODU
757/426-6704
tedg@sirius-beta.com
Virtual Enterprise Framework: http://sourceforge.net/projects/alfve/