RE: info and physics - from data to date

Edwina,

Your 'camera angle' is interesting.

The 'epistemological cuts' you refer to are I assume more
cinematic than surgical...

Can we pan cross to the 'socioconceptual realm' for a moment?

>From a linguistic perspective there does seem to be a deictic shift
involved as we move from your notion of 'informedness' in the domain of
physics to that of chaotic embodied experience ('human jello') and, say,
Freudian psychology where informedness = psychic awareness.

Is your theory equally valid for the domain of human emotions?

How do we, in your view, 'convert' data into sense-data (other than via
the mechanistic information processing model of contemporary psychiatry)?
Is their a Peircean psychology within Secondness to account for the transition?

Please excuse this perslifage but it might illustrate my point :>

'A date is what I refer to as a brief relationship. It is a relationships set up
between one mass (XX) and another mass (XY), where the energy from XY enters the
field of the energy/mass of XX. This brief contact is a date, highly
charged, in present time (brief), highly entropic. Will it be accepted
in full? Rejected in full? Accepted in part? If accepted in part (and
it's never ever accepted in full!)...then, the courtship system will transform
it, 'interpret' it...within its own MORALITY base. As interpreted,
this energy/mass (sex/love) is now a part of XX's and XY's memory.
It is in perfect time, 'held', it is more stable.

How long will they stay together before entropically dissipating?'

Obviously something is lost in the translation here but I think we can jump the divide
and compare cross-disciplinary informatory experience (which includes, say, both protein
binding and psychological 'binding') but I am not convinced that the environment
(or even the system) is making the 'cut'. It is IMO made by the ghost behind the camera
- human consciousness.

Any comments?

John H

 
-----Original Message-----
From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:taborsky@primus.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, 15 May 2002 0:38
To: Multiple recipients of list FIS
Subject: info and physics

I agree with those who consider that information is a basic process of
all systems, including the physical. As Gyorgi points out, a helium
atom is 'informed' in that its mass is organized in a particular way
and that formation operates in a continuous manner and will not
violate those stable 'laws of formation'.

The way I see it, information is a dynamic process, transforming
'uninformed or symmetrical energy/mass' to asymmetrical or 'informed
energy/mass'. This dynamic process, found within the physico-chemical,
the biological and the socioconceptual realms (and yes, there is a
qualitative 'jump' between these three realms), operates within a
series of ontological and epistemological 'cuts' that move energy/mass
from a symmetrical or near-symmetrical to an asymmetrical state.
Information is the means by which energy mends these cuts. Information
then, is really the establishment of increasingly complex relations of
mass/energy.

Because of these cuts, we are dealing with differences of space. There
is local space where energy/mass is capable of entering into relations
with other mass - but these relations are strictly local. The
relations, which I consider are actions-of-encoded-measurement are
local measurements (this particular molecule related to that
particular molecule; this particular insect related to that particular
flower). There is global or communal space, where the measurements
can operate within an entire community ( all insects in that genre
behave in a certain way). Importantly, there is internal space and
external space. After all - if we didn't have this basic ontological
cut - our universe would exist in pure symmetry, something like a bowl
of jello.
    Then, importantly, there are the epistemological cuts - which
establish the difference between codal properties that operate only
within the singular instance (this particular insect) and those that
operate within the formal genre (all insects of that species). These
cuts involve time. Present time - which is merely 'nowness' of the loc
al relation. Perfect time - a crisp external definition. And
progressive time that involves the past/future continuity of a code
(the continuity of the code of helium).

With the above conceptual frame, I can come up with three processes of
information dynamics. Data, Information and Knowledge.

First- my concept is that information is an action, a process, of
establishing relations between energy/mass, such that this mass/energy
can then exist as 'informed mass/energy', which is to say, it has a
spatiotemporal reality - even as a thought, as well as an atom or
cell.
    The dynamics require those cuts, which set up gradients of
energy/mass. These asymmetrical gradients then exist by virtue of
establishing relations - encoded or measured relations. These
relations cannot be ad hoc and random or our universe would be a mess.
Nor can they be completely frozen or our universe would be a crystal
block. Therefore, dynamics requires gradients of relations, gradients
of measurement, which enable brief relations, crisp and more stable
relations, and continuous law-like relations. That's three basic types
of relations and therefore, three basic types of mass/energy.

DATA is what I refer to as brief relations. They are a relation set up
between one mass and another mass, where the energy from X enters the
field of the energy/mass of Y. This brief contact is data, highly
charged, in present time (brief), highly entropic. Will it be accepted
in full? Rejected in full? Accepted in part? If accepted in part (and
it's never ever accepted in full!)...then, the system will transform
it, 'interpret' it...within its own KNOWLEDGE base. As interpreted,
this energy/mass is now a part of Y system's information. It is in
Perfect time, 'held', it is more stable. How long will it stay as
information before entropically dissipating?

So- INFORMATION is data that has been accepted within a system, moved
into a different time phase (perfect rather than present time),
encoded within the normative codes of a system. It is 'informed mass',
held by the measurement relations of the system.

KNOWLEDGE is the formal continuous Laws of a system, that enable it to
process and move data to information. Knowledge is operative in
progressive time; it is an abstract formal process of measurement (ie,
the laws of atomic particles, of molecular formation, of biological
entities, ..and the normative laws of societies. Some call these laws
'structure'. I prefer to retain the term knowledge, for I don't want
to set up an image of a stable structure. As Gyuri also points out,
the knowledge base or information capacity (knowledge, potential)
increases during evolution. An atom has far less knowledge-or energy
processing capacity than a biological cell...and the human realm has
the most complex capacity (and as a result, must pay for that capacity
by a concomitant requirement that is knowledge base and information is
volatile, its dynamics are at high speed).

As Gyuri says, 'we can get information only from interacting
objects' - and what you have is a dynamic process of
energy-interactions, where energy/mass from one gradient field will
move into the energy field of another gradient. It is, in this
tentative state, called 'Data'. If accepted and recoded within the
normative formal codes (Knowledge) of this new energy
field/mass...then.... it moves into a more stable relation, operative
within perfect time and is Information.
This informed mass will itself contribute to the knowledge-base of the
system, for knowledge is itself an evolving process.

This is just a brief outline, but the entire system of energy/mass
dynamics - as operative within a series of increasing ontological and
epistemological gradients sets up spatial and temporal differences
that enable different types of relations of energy/mass - resulting in
data, information and knowledge. Such an architecture enables complex
processes of energy/mass transformation.

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