Vedr.: realism and information

Edwinas view here is very interesting:

"To me, information is, again, the
result of relations. Matter/energy...in relation to other
matter/energy is not longer non-informed but IS informed, it is
information, it operates, in order to be in these relations, as
'information'. A mass of energy, when it is organized such that it has
a particular relation of its energy/mass...with one proton and one
electron, IS informed mass. Its informed nature permits it to enter
into specific relations with other informed mass - ie - more hydrogen
atoms...to become a molecule..or whatever. So, these relations, which
operate according to rules, are most certainly, in my view, actions of
information."

It can be understood in many ways. she declares she is not a Platonic but an Aristotelian. From my other readings this is only partially true, I think, as she is also an evolutionary thinker. I cannot find out if she subscribes to Aristotl's concept of active reason (nus poieticos) that is a common intellect for al human as it is the godlike reason behind nature too and if information is an actor in itself doing things with it self and with other things. I often perceive Edwina's information concept to be alive and with a rudimentary mind that then develops as information organize material structure to become cells and later nervous systems, but I am not sure. We have had this debate a couple of times, and to me it get a bit clearer every time.

Again this type of clarification is essensial to find out what the point, advantages and shortcomings are in a paradigm of information as the one Edwina is developing. I would like FIS and it conferences to do that.

S�ren Brier

http://www.flec.kvl.dk/personalprofile.asp?id=sbr&p=engelsk

Ed. of Cybernetics & Human Knowing

http://www.imprint-academic.com/C&HK

>>> taborsky@primus.ca 19-12-01 12:35 >>>
I guess the debate between the 'lowest limit' of the site for
information processing will continue to be debated and I don't see the
point of coming to a single conclusion, for I feel that it would be
not only impossible but counterproductive. Science is about
exploration not about consensus. So- I disagree with a 'lowest limit'
that considers that information processes only take place within the
living organism. James Barham writes about the 'reification of
information' and I don't know what he means by this. A reificiation of
anything, to me, is the transformation of a dynamic process into a
closed symbolic process and I don't see how this relates to my theme
that information processing takes place within physical and chemical
processes as well as within biological and socioconceptual processes.

I agree that we operate within both internal and external realities.
However, I do not agree that information exists 'as itself' . Never.
That's Platonic and I'm a die-hard Aristotelian. Information is
matter-in-relation-to-other matter. Such relations, of both habitual
and immediate type, can take place within all interactional processes
in this cosmos - the physical-chemical, the biological and the
socioconceptual. I therefore don't agree that information exists
"only in conjunction with living matter" (quote from Barham). I think
that the nature of 'what is information' and 'what is knowledge' has
to be very clearly defined by each researcher - and we probably will
not come to a unanimous conclusion. To me, information is, again, the
result of relations. Matter/energy...in relation to other
matter/energy is not longer non-informed but IS informed, it is
information, it operates, in order to be in these relations, as
'information'. A mass of energy, when it is organized such that it has
a particular relation of its energy/mass...with one proton and one
electron, IS informed mass. Its informed nature permits it to enter
into specific relations with other informed mass - ie - more hydrogen
atoms...to become a molecule..or whatever. So, these relations, which
operate according to rules, are most certainly, in my view, actions of
information.

The biological realm operates within a more complex process of
relations - but again, the axioms are the same - ie, with the
necessity for these relations to operate according to codal rules, and
the result of the relations meaning a more complex formation of
mass/energy.

I don't agree that in the abiotic or 'inanimate universe', that
'information is always relative to us as knowers" (Barham quote).
Information is part of the abiotic formation of mass. As I said, an
atom has to organize itself in a particular relation of mass/energy,
in order to be that atom, to be that molecule. That's an informed
relation...and most certainly the molecule doesn't rely on us, as
agents-who-come-along- and -describe, in order to exist as that
organized/informed molecule. Our description is irrelevant to its
reality.

Edwina Taborsky
39 Jarvis St. #318
Toronto, Ontario M5E 1Z5
(416) 361.0898