At 10:30 AM 20/06/02, Pedro wrote:
Dear FISers,
So, no more Don Quixotes trying their spears against the Q1, Q2, Q3
giants?
We will wait a few days, and then the new chair John Collier will
start
another batch of papers...
The next set of papers are to be:
Christophe Menant
Information and Meaning
R. Lahoz-Beltra and Vieri Di Paola
Towards a computational view of cell: do cells bear a resemblance with
computers?
Jerry LR Chandler
Organic Communication I. Conceptual Background
These three papers deal with abstract issues, again returning to issues
of the definition of information, but they each have a specific context.
I will ask people to try to keep within these contexts as much as
possible. In a few days I will post a brief summary and some issue that I
think are worth discussing that are raised by the papers, but of course
these are just suggestions prompted by my own interests, and aren't
intended to restrict discussion.
In the mean time, now that I have put one (terrestrial) conference behind
me, and the two in July are prepared, I will take a stab at Peter's
questions. I am prepared only to give my thoughts, based on my own work,
and I don't intend these to be synoptic answers.
1. Werner Ebeling states in his eights statement:
**********************************************
Information can be created by self-organization
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Question 1: How this statement appears in the cellular, whole brain,
and
firm level ?
Rather than answer this question for each case, I think it is worth
addressing what it is at stake in general. I have argued that information
appears only through symmetry breaking (�Information originates in
symmetry breaking�
Symmetry: Culture & Science 7
(1996): 247256. �Order From Rhythmic Entrainment and the Origin of Levels
Through Dissipation� John Collier and Mark Burch,
Symmetry: Culture
and Science Order / Disorder, Proceedings of the Haifa Congress,
1998 Vol. 9, Nos. 24 (1998): 165-178. �Complexly Organised
Dynamical Systems�, with C.A. Hooker,
Open Systems and Information
Dynamics,
6 (1999): 241-302.
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/centre/casrg/publications/Cods.pdf)
In the last paper, Hooker and I distinguish between self-reorganization
and self-organization proper. The former is determined (but usually
requires dissipation of energy for reasons I won't go into here except to
say that something must damp out the bounces), and all of the
consequences are contained in the initial conditions. No new information,
form, or anything measurable by information theory is created. An example
might be the formation of fat membranes through hydrophilic/hydrophobic
molecules. Another is the production of spots on a butterfly's wings
under the control of just six genes. In each case the result is
energetically stable, and does not require continuous input of energy to
be maintained. Self-organization is spontaneous, unpredictable in detail,
creates new constraints or information, and dissipation is not just
required for the outcome, but is integral to the process and is required
to maintain the new constraints. A (very) simple example is the formation
of B�nard convection cells. I have argued elsewhere (�The Dynamical Basis
of Information and the Origins of Semiosis�, in Edwina Taborsky (Ed)
Semiosis, Evolution, Energy: Towards a Reconceptualization of the
Sign. Aachen Shaker Verlag 1999 Bochum Publications in Semiotics New
Series. Vol. 3 (1999): 111-136. �Autonomy and Process Closure as the
Basis for Functionality�
Closure: Emergent Organizations and their
Dynamics, edited by Jerry L.R. Chandler and Gertrudis van de Vijver,
Volume 901of the
Annals of the New York Academy of Science
(2000): 280-291.
http://www.kli.ac.at/personal/collierpdf/CLOSURE.PDF
�Information Theory as a General Language for Functional Systems�,
Anticipatory Systems: CASY�99 - Third International Conference, edited by D. M. Dubois, American Institute of Physics, Woodbury, New York, AIP Conference Proceedings, 2000.
http://www.kli.ac.at/personal/collierpdf/casys99.pdf) that this requirement is minimal for functionality and meaning.
Now, if self-organization is taken seriously, rather than merely as some vaguish metaphor, there must be something that is dissipated to create and maintain information. Furthermore, not just any dissipation will do; it will have to be dissipation of something of the right sort to permit the relevant sort of information to form.. So, rather than give an answer, I ask the following questions:
What is dissipated in the production of information within the cell? Is it just energy, or is there a selection and disposal of information as well? How much is the information budget of the cell hierarchical? Are the lowest levels primarily energetic, and does this continue in the same mode to higher levels, or are their specifically informational (control) levels in the cell in which new information requires the dissipation of information at lower levels?
In the brain, I think it is obvious that the formation of new information requires the rejection of dissonant information. Higher level concepts aren't merely the sum of a lot of lower level instances, but act as filters that sort and reject information. The question I ask is, can this be usefully reduced purely to the processing of energy, or is there a special sort of dissipation related to the formation of concepts? Alternatively, is concept formation not really a case of self-organization, but merely a very fancy sort of reorganization that produces no new constraints?
The same questions can be asked at the firm level, but here we may also have dissipation at the social level of communications and perhaps other resources. What are the relevant resources?
Mark Burch and I extended our treatment of rhythmic entrainment, in both the reorganization and self-organization cases to the social level: �Order From Rhythmic Entrainment and the Origin of Levels Through Dissipation� John Collier and Mark Burch,
Symmetry: Culture and Science Order / Disorder, Proceedings of the Haifa Congress, 1998 Vol. 9, Nos. 24 (1998): 165-178. We argued that self-organization is kinder, gentler, and, economic rationalists take note, more efficient. We also argued that it requires the encouragement of variety coupled with moderate top-down regulation (economic rationalists again take note). While hardly conclusive, our metaphor of a jazz percussion band is illustrative of this idea.
More to come.
John
Dr John Collier
[email protected]
Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research
Adolf Lorenz Gasse 2
+432-242-32390-19
A-3422 Altenberg Austria
Fax: 242-32390-4
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
Received on Thu Jun 20 16:37:01 2002