RE: art, shape, and symmetry

Ted, Pedro

Yes, Leyton's work is thought-provoking.

I'd just like to make a comment from an IS perspective.

To the extent that information is itself the constituting
mechanism/experience exploring the symmetry/asymmetry paradigm
creates an interesting vista which may account for a wide range of
relevant phenomena - from aesthetic necessity to 'asymmetric information'
in market economies
(http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/2001/public.html)
to ligand/substrate binding and Gestalt theory.

Bateson's 'difference that makes/finds a difference' becomes 'a shape that
makes/finds
its shape' as the quest for a theory of information moves into a classical
phase.

But doesn't the informational experience or situation always constitute the
relationship between the participants as asymmetric?

For example, I lend Pedro a book which contains some good information
(content)
on the language of cells. He returns the book but that exchange does not
satisfy my
particular informational need. The specific content is contingent.
The informational relationship is not symmetrical - it involves
a unidirectional movement between participants without reciprocity.

In the same way the enzymatic modification of the substrate by its ligand,
my genealogic connection to my grandfather or a copy's relationship to an
original are intrinsically asymmetric.

I can return my grandfather's love, his book and possibly his words but not
'his'
information. This is reflected in English usage - we never talk about
'giving back' or 'returning' information only 'receiving it' or 'passing it
on'.
  
By comparison interactive speech acts are symmetric in the sense of "Do you
want to
borrow my book, Pedro?" The artefact of knowing (the physical book) and the
word 'book'
can constitute a symmetric relationship between the participants. The
informational content cannot.

If Leyton's ideas are to move out of the world of CAD and into the
conceptual substrata of other domains (as you hope, Ted) the
symmetry/asymmetry paradigm needs to 'find a shape' which resonates
across the board.

For example, the attempt to impose lingusitic symmetry (say Boolean) on
asymmetric informational experiences/behaviours is a critical issue within
contemporary IS.

And it would be nice to discover one day that the folding pattern of RNA
and the holding shape of the humble paper clip reflected a similar principle
of functional symmetry...

John

John Holgate
Director of Library Services
St. George Hospital

Tel: 0293502042
email: holgatej@sesahs.nsw.gov.au

 
-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Goranson [mailto:tedg@alum.mit.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, 16 April 2002 1:17
To: Multiple recipients of list FIS
Subject: Re: art, shape, and symmetry

Pedro--

Our convergence may be even closer than you indicate below. As my FIS
paper probably won't make the deadline, let me briefly comment here.

My remark on the focus of receiver verses message: Leyton allows the
receiver to host the "situating" mechanism. In contrast, I presume
that the impetus for situating needs to be in the information itself,
using a modified thermodynamics. In other words, though we all focus
on the actions of the receiver, we have to impute the primary agency
to information. You and I are in agreement on this point I think.
Moreover, the vast majority of FISers seem attracted to the larger
notion of functional agency in the information.

Back to Leyton. He uses a group theoretic "wreath product" to relate
control (including the organizational/constitutive impetus) to
content. For FIS to adopt Leyton's elegant group operators, we'd need
to add self-referential control groups WITHIN the content. That was
my point. I think this is a non-trivial problem. We could adopt
Michael's general approach but not his specific mechanism without
some bother.

In our work here, we accommodate this problem of
control-in-the-message by using speech act theory, a widely employed
technique. It presumes the agency to "do work" is in the information
itself and has many mature and useful computational tools. But it is
a mere trick, devoid of the type of theory FIS attempts.

Your language of cells work, Matsuno's examination of the grammar of
action, John C's implicit perspectives on intrinsic clustering
concepts all seem promising to me to fill this need for formal
principles. In this, I am acting as a consumer of ideas toward a
theory for my synthetic environments not a generator of those ideas.
But my perspective is one which has tried (often inexpertly) to dive
below the general ideas in search of formal mechanisms that work.

Leyton actually has a mechanism on which to comment, prompting the
type of discussion around which real progress can be made. Rosen, so
far as I can see does not, though his ordering of concepts is thought
provoking.

Best, Ted

>Dear Ted,
>
>Thanks for the exciting posting!
>I agree with most of your comments, and I think we are getting close to
>converge on really foundational items of our field. Let me slightly amplify
>the minor differences:
>Your elegant comments on Leyton (a complete surprise--thanks Jim!) induce
>me to initially support his position of focusing on the subject, either
>emitter or receiver. Actually we are working here (a few fisers in
>Zaragoza) on a sort of info theory, not really embodied, but at least
>attempting a bridge on how the info realms in the 'constitutive' and the
>'communicational' may interrelate. Our stuff is very modest (remember the
>language of cells contribution we presented to the fis 98, based on
>Javorsky's multidimensional partitions) and we are very excited with the
>'food for thought' that your posting and similar works that are arriving
>for the conf. do provide. Also, let me add that rather than talking about
>"cognition" of things like cells and elementary particles, I would join
>John Holgate's and prefer 'informational' (entities), however, I feel quite
>reluctant to consider as informational the merely physical existentialities
>(though, of course, one can always apply to them some Thermo or Sannon info
>measurements). Informational existences start with the living cell onwars.
>John Collier also made an intriguing point on Rosen--then shouldn't we look
>for co-defining clusters of info concepts, as Kauffman mentions in his
>Investigations, curiously relating Wittgenstein and Rosen views?
>
>best
>
>Pedro

-- 
Ted Goranson
Advanced Enterprise Research Office
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