Re: Next stage, and Q1

From: Gyorgy Darvas <[email protected]>
Date: Tue 25 Jun 2002 - 12:35:26 CEST

At 10:51 2002.06.25. +0200, you wrote:
>At 10:48 PM 24/06/02, Gyuri wrote:
>>At 16:36 20/06/02 +0200, you wrote:
>>>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 ....
>>
>>
>>Dear John, Pedro and FISers,
>>
>>I agree with your thoughts as you reached to put this question.
>>I am not sure, I can give a definite answer. I try only to share my thoughts.
>>A closed system differs from an open one, that there is no exchange of
>>anything on its boundaries. This means, a closed system does not change
>>information with its environment either. As I see now (but maybe I am
>>wrong), as soon as we allow any dissipation (of whatever property) we can
>>speak about information transmission too. Maybe the essence of providing
>>information would be in this fact (dissipation of something), and not in
>>the specification what is dissipated? (Of course, this does not mean,
>>that any property plays this role, I think only that many properties may
>>do.) What do you think?
>
>Dear Gyuri,
>
>That is an interesting observation about open systems. Personally, I am
>inclined to agree with your suggestion, but others who have a more
>restricted notion of information will not be so ready. In any case, I
>think that Pedro's observation that there are different kinds of
>information, like different kinds of forces (the analogy is weak, I think,
>and it would be nice to find a stronger one), suggests that there may
>still be a problem with understanding how different kinds of information
>might be convertible. Even in an open system in which we can talk of
>information flows in and out, any internally emergent information may be
>of another kind than the flows. This seems to be required for the
>emergence of new kinds of information (e.g., codes, intentional
>information). So I think Pedro's problem still stands. On the other hand,
>your suggestion does focus on the issue of what conditions must hold for
>information of one type (or some sort of proto-information) to dynamically
>emerge as another kind of information.
>
>I must confess that I have not taken this problem very seriously so far,
>since I have been working with what I understand to be a unitary notion of
>information that is close to, but not the same as the "it from bit" view.
>(I restrict "its" to macrostates, basically, adopting the negentropy
>principle of information, so I would not accept what David Layzer calls
>"microinformation" in his 1975 Scientific American article, Layzer, David.
>1975. The arrow of time. Scientific American 233: 56-69 as information.)
>In this case, any macroscopic order that emerges would be information. So
>I have concentrated on 1) how previous information systems can "recruit"
>potential information, and 2) how new kinds of information can be formed
>by special conditions under which self-organization occurs. The second
>problem is really just another version of the conversion problem, so it
>can't be avoided, I think, but perhaps the best view is one that mitigates
>the problems in understanding conversion most effectively. Incidentally,
>this problem is one that our small group at Fuschl found to be very
>pressing, and one that discussions in Vienna with Wolfgang Hoffkirchner
>and his group keep coming back to. I don't think that the common issue has
>anything to do with my more or less accidental participation in both
>groups -- it seems to arise out of the definition of the problem, which
>was set long before my participation. So I expect that other people and
>groups have come up against the same issue in one form or another, which
>might be called "the conversion problem".
>
>The conversion problem may have no single solution for all kinds of
>information and proto-information. On the other hand, I think that some
>sort of solution is required for a unified theory of information.
>
>John
>
>
>----------
>Dr John Collier john.collier@kla.univie.ac.at
>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

Dear John,

Thanks for the explanations, what are close to and accepatble for me.
Really, we are navigating in a dark cave.
Two remarks, not do debate what you wrote, rather to extend:

(1) I tend to think, that information should be an extra property, added to
the set of properties when we have spoken on closed and open systems in
respect of that set of prop.

(2) Obviously, there are different kinds of information. Our task would be
to find what is the common in them. How to find what is the common, while
we could not identify and define those individual 'informations'?

Gyuri
___________________________________________________________________
Gyorgy Darvas darvasg@helka.iif.hu; h492dar@ella.hu
                        http://www.mtakszi.iif.hu/darvas.htm
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Received on Tue Jun 25 12:36:49 2002

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