Re: talking exactly about what we are talking about

Dear Rafael, Karl, James, and All:

This is another long email addressing the views expressed in response
to the potential for a grounding of information. This thread was
motivated by Rafael suggestion that such a grounding within
metaphysics may be possible. My previous post on this subject is
appended at the end of this message if you would like to refresh your
memories of the issues under discussion.

Rafael:
Your response was appreciated. You covered vast territories. From
the engineering perspective of Shannon, which lies at the root of the
current questions, it seems that an alternative route to a relation
between metaphysics and information is conceivable. (Fortunately,
the work, "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" is available on
line so that we can read the same text. The address is:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/paper.html )

It is critical to recognize the foundation of engineering information
in order to distinguish it from other forms of information used in
physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, etc. As is often the case in
engineering, one seeks a simple way to accomplish a task. Shannon is
very explicit about his objectives (Introduction,page 31),

  "The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at
one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at
another point."

This statement implies that MORE THAN ONE SYSTEM is essential for
engineering communication. Later, Shannon is explicit about the
number of different systems required for engineering communication:
(see Figure 1, p. 34.)
By a communication system we will mean a system of a type indicated
schematically in Figure 1. it consists of essentially five parts:
1. An information source which produces a message or sequence of
messages to be communicated to the receiving terminal....
2. A transmitter which operates on the message in some way to produce
a signal suitable for transmission over the channel.
3. The channel is merely the medium used to transmit the signal from
the transmitter to the receiver.
4. The receiver ordinarily performs the inverse operation of that
done by the transmitter, reconstructing the message from the signal.
5. The destination is the person (or thing) for whom the message is intended.

How do these five components of communication relate to the
engineering mathematics that is often compared with entropy?

NO DIRECT RELATION EXISTS!

What is missing from this list of five components is the concept of
noise. it is the concept of noise, that generates the uncertainty
and the entropy-like equation (see Figure 1.!)

Shannon's engineering mathematics is based solely on the temporal
duration of the time required to transmit a symbol over the channel.
(One of his examples is based on the Morse code and telegraphic
transmission.) On page 37, Shannon states:
"Each of the symbols S(i) is assumed to have a certain duration of in
time t(i) seconds (not necessarily the same for for different S(i),
for example the dots and dashes of in telegraphy.)

What theory does Shannon use to justify the mathematical measure of a
logarithm for measuring "information"?

NONE! Rather, Shannon offers three utilitarian justifications: (page 32)

1. It is practically more useful.
2. It is nearer to our intuitive feelings as to the proper measure
3. It is mathematically more suitable.

These three justifications are certainly not relevant to measures of
chemical communication in living systems. Nor are these three
justifications related to measures of human communication in
general. (See the work of Boisot cited in my abstract.) I conclude
that Shannon's justification of the basic measure of information is
not related to measuring information in dynamic biochemical systems
or other biological or human situations. The mathematics used to
measure information must stand in a direct correspondence relation
with the transmission itself.

How do Shannon's engineering formulas relate to metaphysical
primitives? I suggest that a relation could exist through the
primitive notion of "identity".
Exchange of information requires two or more systems, each with a
separate identity.

   EMISSION from one system is essential BEFORE transmission to one or
more other systems. The essential nature of communication is
conceptually dependent on the relation between systems; THE CONCEPT
OF "NOISE" IS SECONDARY TO THE METAPHYSICAL PRIMITIVES OF IDENTITY
AND RELATIONS BETWEEN IDENTITIES. Thus, the engineering mathematics
of Shannon relates to the rates of transmission and the impact of
errors on that rate. A chief concern is the maximum rate or maximum
load that a channel can carry, which he names the channel capacity.
(see the reference in my abstract to Schneider application of
Information theory to DNA recognition for an example of how these
functions are adapted to a biochemical circumstance.)

In this context, one can relate Shannon's information to THREE
metaphysical primitives: 1.identity of separate systems, 2. the space
separating two or more systems and 3. the time required to carry a
message from one system to the other.

Rafael:
Does this gloss make any sense to you?
Can you relate human communication to Shannon's justification of
logarithmic measures of information?

James: My reference to "Organic communication" could imply that I
was distinguishing it from "inorganic". However, that is not my
intent. Organic is meant in the sense of 'not inanimate'. Thus
your logic is remote from my intent expressed in my abstract.

I concur with your quote of Elsasser. The essence of a wave is the
essence of a wave.

Karl:

Thank you for sending the paper via post.
We are far apart on basic issues. I remain skeptical on both
mathematical and philosophical grounds. For example, I wrote:

Could you say more about what you mean by "pre-logical"? I do not
understand this usage at all.

In psychologic terms: whatever is experienced by the older regions of
the brain than the cortex is pre-logical. In physical terms: what is
there without me being able to deny its existence (for a newborn:
breast, light, Sun, gravity, solid things, etc.) Logic is produced in
the cortex. The subcortically registered impressions constitute the
set of pre-logical sensations. What you run into and causes pain
irrespective of what you think about it is pre-logical. (In
Wittgenstein terms: this is what logic is embedded in.)

Your response suggests that "pre-logical" is related to brain
anatomical structures. I would suggest that this is a confusing
usage of the sense of "pre" as "before"; what is implied is a
hierarchical organization of mental function. In this sense,
biochemical functions of brain are also "pre-logical", nicht wahr?

When you write, A: The chemical systems are not irregular. I have no
idea what you are seeking to communicate. Perhaps you have an
example in mind? Hopefully, in discussing the example, you will
relate it to biochemical dynamics as this is the source of biological
communication.

More generally, could you provide an example of representing a
chemical molecule in terms of statistical concepts as you see the
relations? More precisely, an exact accounting of the components of
a molecule must be related to one another.

As you can see, we differ on the basics of biology - structure and
function; system and emission.

Cheers

Jerry LR Chandler

 
>
>Dear Karl, Rafael, Werner, Pedro and All
>
>This message seeks to address several related points and hence is a
>bit long. The topic of this thread is exactly the related points to
>which I am referring. I close this long message with a plea for HELP!
>
>First, thank you Rafael for your excellent summary of the
>philosophical history of the concept of "thingedness." It covers the
>history up to the middle of the last century nicely. However, in the
>last fifty years, our basic understanding of life and being has been
>altered by the progress in molecular recognition, molecular biology,
>molecular nutrition, molecular neurology, etc. The basic premise of
>chemistry, that all (stable) matter of ordinary experience is
>composed from atoms of the atomic table has been shown to apply to
>life itself. This is a radical change in our knowledge of ourselves.
>Thus, the need for a new metaphysics.
>
>So, what is the metaphysics of information? My dictionary defines metaphysics
>
> >1. A branch of philosophy that deals with first principles of things,
> >including such concepts as being, substance, essence, time, space,
> >cause, and identity; theoretical philosophy as the ultimate science
>
> >of being and knowing.
>
>This definition shows correspondence relations between basic
>concerns of science, space, time, substance, identity and cause and
>the basic concerns of metaphysics.
>
>What can metaphysicians contribute to this discussion of information?
>
>I argue that information is a concept related to communication.
>Thus, when Werner argues that:
>
>(I cannot understand why several FISers like to consider information as
>a property of a system itself, like mass, energy, momentum in physics.
>To me and I believe to any engineer,
>information is binary as interaction in physics it is a relation between
>two things),
>(See below, Werner and Shannon appear to be in full agreement on this point.)
>
>I strongly support Werner's view (except for the possible ambiguity
>of the reference for usage of "binary". Chemical communication is
>between two things but a chemical communication is not via a
>"binary" object.)
>
>As pointed out in my extended abstract, the notion of communication
>is derived from the root of "common" and hence tightly associated
>with the concept of community. From this perspective, which draws
>upon radically different metaphysical foundations, information is
>seen as a relation between two things (objects, entities, beings).
>This relation can be a simple binary relation (such as a bit, or it
>could be more complex, a signal, a molecule, a set of molecules, a
>page of a written transcript, a musical score, etc.
>
>This metaphysical perspective of information recognizes that
>information flows can be "one to many" or "many to one", as well as
>binary. (See the book by Biosot referenced in my extended abstract.)
>Shannon information, as defined, must conform to a bijection, in
>Shannon's terminology, "to reproduce the message" exactly.
>
>My view of "information as a relation between two" (or more) things
>was motivated from Shannon's model by relaxing the presupposition
>that communication is merely for engineering purposes. From a
>metaphysical perspective, I presuppose that a community of
>individuals communicate about matters of common concern to the
>community. (This FIS list is an example of the preceding sentence)
>
>(The exact quote from Shannon (page 31):
>"The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing a
>message at one point either exactly or approximately a message
>selected at another point. Frequently, messages have meaning, that
>is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with
>certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of
>communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem.")
>
>A second metaphysical problem concerns the metaphysics of time as it
>relates to information, particularly the mathematics of information
>of Shannon.
>From logic, we know that mathematical symbols are arbitrary. Thus
>the meaning of a symbol depends on the assignment to a particular
>concept, thing, entity, idea, relation, etc.
>
>Shannon's mathematical symbols are assigned to mean a relation to
>time intervals for transmission of a symbol.
>Mathematical symbols for entropy are assigned to mean a relation
>with Heat and with other thermodynamic parameters which form the
>bilinear group of thermodynamic equations.
>
>The metaphysical problem, from this perspective, if one desires
>relate the symbols of information with the symbols of heat, is to
>find a conversion factor or a narrative or a myth which creates a
>bijection between heat and time.
>
>Rafael - your comment on these views from your perspective of
>metaphysics would be warmly welcomed.
>
>Karl: I found much to agree with in your response. We concur on the
>need for a public language. (This concept is closely related to the
>concept of communication in a community; a public language is
>essential to form a community of individuals.)
>
>We also agree that on the central role of thingedness in the
>material world. Your views are close to the typical view of a
>chemist / biochemist. (I have referred to similar, but conceptually
>abstract, views as "radical materialism".)
>But, as noted above, progress in chemistry has given us material
>descriptions of most "things" in terms of chemical structures and
>associated chemical agglomerations and often these descriptions are
>strongly supported by quantum mechanical calculations grounded in
>physics. Many advances of technology are directly relatable to our
>new understandings of the dynamical structures of simple components
>of complex objects.
>
>But, do physicists agree that this is a source of solutions to "deep
>problems"?
>And, it appears to me that the recent advances in the chemistry of
>life have created vast new problems for the philosophers. (The
>relevance of this comment is questionable... given the nature of
>philosophical problems.)
>
>Could you say more about what you mean by "pre-logical"? I do not
>understand this usage at all.
>
>With regard to number theory, I remain pretty much in the dark as to
>your meaning. I certainly concur that numbers play a critical role
>in science and technology and human communication in general. The
>fact that numbers can be used indexically is crucial. And, numbers
>are critical for creating correspondence relations between the
>external world (thingedness) and our internal mental images.
>Furthermore, numbers play a central role as a central "generator" of
>mathematical objects of many types (ie, the concept of species in
>category theory).
>
>I wrote:
>
>Your "very technical approach" could be translated as a special type
>of super-reductionism by incorporating temporal relations and
>conditional propositions into materialism. Can you relate this "very
>technical approach" to complex systems and such problems as
>evolution?
>
>Once we have agreement on the existence of a mathematical entity
>that behaves like a thing (or "carrier of potential information" in
>Rafael's parlance) then we shall be able to use this building block
>to build structures with no end in sight. Like once we define this
>is a Lego building block, we can build very complex and useful
>models. Indeed, my theory is a fine example of a super-reductionism.
>It investigates the translation between logical structures and
>carrier objects on which one can observe the logical structures. The
>theory does allow rather complex evolutionary processes.
>
>
>Intuitively, I find your response very appealing, but I do not
>understand how this is to be done. A central problem is the
>irregularity of the mathematics of chemical systems. This implies
>also the mathematics of living systems. The irregularity of chemical
>structures and chemical dynamics (living structures and living
>dynamics) denies me access to
>
>"the translation between logical structures and carrier objects on
>which one can observe the logical structures"
>
>I am denied access to this route by the fact that chemical
>structures are mathematically expressed in terms of labeled graphs
>and that these labeled graphs can not be placed in correspondence
>with the natural numbers. In short, each chemical identity (entity,
>compound, object, thing) is a unique category.
>
>I wrote:
>
>the concept of time is intertwined with the concept of number. How
>do you justify this interrelation? At issue is the nature of
>continuity.
>
>I find one of the strong suits of my theory that it uses any kind of
>sequence and relates its information-carrying capacity to the
>information-carrying capacity of any kind of contempororary
>assembly. One is free to give a sequence (a mathematical entity) an
>interpretation as time slices. If you can number it consecutively,
>then it is a sequence. I look into the interdependence between
>cross-sectional and longitudinal collections of objects (carriers of
>symbols /information/). In everyday speak this means: I look into
>the relations between collections that are here all at the same time
>and collections that come one after the other. In a heroic allegory
>about a theoretical living organism: the theoretical cell's
>constituents are all present at the same time and all (each) of them
>is relevant at the same moment, while the theoretical DNA gets read
>off from start till the end, one (triplet) at a time, one after the
>other. In the sequence, it is the neighbourhood relations that count
>(this comes after that), while in the contemporary assembly the
>inclusion relations matter (this is like these and like those).
>Continuity and discontinuity are discussed at great length and
>detail also.
>
>
>Ok. I now understand part of the mathematical approach. The
>metaphysical issues concerning time are critical. Would it be fair
>to state that the metaphysical symbol exchange for "time - heat" is
>simpler than your proposed symbol exchange for "time - matter"?
>
>You wrote:
>
>I propose to transcend the gap between well established principles
>of number theory and the concepts of communication between two
>collections of message carriers by following steps:
>1) extend number theory to include multidimensional partitions,
>hitherto left undefined;
>2) introduce the concept of the structure of a set by discussing
>properties of multidimensional partitions;
>3) introduce the technique of linearisations of structured sets;
>4) discuss congruence relations between neighbourhood relations on a
>sequence and structures in a set.
>I'd prefer not to call neither a structured set (a contemporary
>assembly) nor a sequence a system, but the interplay between these
>two constitutes a system.
>
>
>
>Your agenda is clear. Have you published works concerning these
>topics? I would be very interested in the details or in receiving
>electronic copies.
>
>Congratulations to all who have read this far!
>
>Can others contribute to the task of creating a new metaphysics that
>can be inclusive of information?
>
>Cheers
>
>Jerry LR Chandler
Received on Fri Jun 14 07:48:52 2002