Re: info & physics

Dear colleagues,

Goodness, what a trepidant discussion! We have at least half dozen open
tracks... I believe we have stumbled upon really crucial elements of info
sci. future identity. In what follows I try to interconnect some of those
views with my own themes.

About the info & physics discussion, obviously I am closer to James and
Juan; but I do not feel there is any terrible divide involved. At least
from my side, the use of the term 'information' in the physical realm is
not bluntly rejected: eg, structural or 'state' info, as contemplated in
the different mechanics, or as Shu-Kun was discussing statiscal-molecularly
oriented. We cannot run against the most consolidated scientific traditions
in that regard. However, what I do in my own contribution (discussants are
kindly invited to take its contents into account too--actually this
pretends to be a discussion bassed on papers!), is to apply the term
'informational' only to those paradigmatic entities on which I propose
focussing theoretical discussion and future empirical research --cells,
brains, firms.

Let me explain why metaphorically. While the time any of the fis
discussants is reading these comments, one minute say, billions of their
own enzymes and proteins are being degraded by their proteasomes &
proteases; in the hundred thousands of their constitutive cells are
committing apoptosis; billions of synapsis in their brains are becoming
'plastic' and weakening or strengthening their electro-molecular
conductivity (even sprouting or disappearing themselves); and who knows, if
the fiser owns a research company he or she my be cashing 10 bucks (or
losing them!); and if she or he owns stocks in a capital risk biotech
company, maybe 100 bucks are coming in-out each very minute...

To that club of strange existentialities, always in the making and in the
degrading, always receiving signals from their evironment and counting and
processing those signals and changing accordingly (ADAPTIVELY) their
structures... is to what I reserve 'informational'.

It may look a retreat from more ambititious conceptualizations, but
focusing on the above type of paradoxical entities, emerging out from a
continuous 'evanescent permanence' (and let us include quite many other
human social and cultural 'products', eg, the sciences, the arts, or
library science), we might gain the conceptual generalizations to advance
the info science synthesis. As Robert Rosen put, biology ('info') finally
becomes larger than physics... For instance, exploring the impact of such
signaling dynamics upon the related structures, we find the 'power law'
theme, emerging as a peculiar signature of 'mature' info systems (see
Andrei's convergent physical views about that too). I also refer to a host
of interesting conceptualizations looming (eg, function, knowledge,
symmetry, etc.--see my paper).

It is clear for me, that in the long term, there should be a convergence
with new physics' basic themes. But right now it is rather
counterproductive trying to directly forge such links: in a subtle way, it
conduces to another instance within the 'particulate' complex of thought
which characterizes most approaches to info (see my paper). For instance,
why 'econophysics' has recently been coined to describe most of the new
approaches, complexity inspired ones, to the dynamics of firms? The
position of a firm in a market and its strategic moves -mergers,
splittings, monopoly- can be cogently described by the 'invisible hand'
emerging from the above informational exchanges in a special power lw
setting...

In sum (and let me be bold): why relapsing into mere neo-reductionisms
rather than revolutionarily exploring the conceptual, theoretical and
empirical avenues of the new info science so necessary for the other
sciences and for societies in the new 'info era'?

best wishes

Pedro

PS. I could exhange discussions on some of the above stuff with Michael
Conrad. His only objection was that the sequence of fundamental info
entities was for him: cells, brains, niches. Economy, he put, was but our
'artificial ecosystem'... We finally agreed that human societies have
performed a dramatic bifurcation and invented a brand-new existential realm
(but not independent from nature's own info games: it is finally supported
by the info 'calculations' of the natural ecosystems too!)
=========================================
Pedro C. Mariju�n
Fundaci�n CIRCE
CPS Univ. Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762036-761863, FAX (34) 976 732078
email: marijuan@posta.unizar.es
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Received on Thu May 16 14:41:10 2002