Re: Meta discussion

Dear Ted --and colleagues

Below I am trying to answer your metadiscussion points. It would be quite
interesting hearing responses from other parties too.

>This is a great list. Perhaps the discussion on the necessity of sign
>should also be included. What you have listed are where the discussion has
>indicated non-convergence, but I suspect that the actual nubs behind the
>differing opinions can be discovered and exposed --the different
>"religious issues" if you will.

Yes, I agree that the sign problem has to be included. Just for personal
parsimony, I prefer making sense on cellular communication first ('language
of cells'--metabolic origins of cellular semantics), and then comparing the
obtained insights with the very strong schools of thought on human symbolic
capabilities... About our personal motifs, maybe we have to 'imagine' these
actual nubs, and organize cooperation in spite of them (or just thanks to
them).

>I have found the virtual conference very much more useful than, say, the
>physical one in Vienna because the virtual intercourse has exposed some
>"first principles" to have more utility than I had previously allowed. The
>e-conference is a self-organizing system in itself, with interaction of
>abstractions for recognition and dominance. For instance, I previously saw
>investigations of "signing systems" in emergent chemical behavior as a
>dead end. I preferred the abstractions humans use to deal with molecules
>rather than working seriously with the abstractions that molecules
>themselves use. I'm now convinced otherwise -- not sure I have the tools
>to make something of this insight, but to do so a research team would have
>to choose among the various philosophies espoused here.

Yes, I quite agree. The hundreds of messages exchanged during these eight
months represent quite a lot for laying down coherent foundations of the
science --more than we did either in Madrid or in Vienna. But well, it
means just three days against 8 months. Still, I think we need the
intensity and livelihood of a real conference. I got local support in that
beautiful city of Tarazona (close by the big Moncayo mountain) for a fis
event, but we would need further sponsors to finance some portions of
travels and stay... Is there any FISer who could offer some financing, or
just offer the organization in a different city? Suggestions will be very
welcome.

>An example is the category theory issue versus set theory as the basis for
>the abstraction. It seems you MUST prefer one, and the question is of
>which strikes very deep into the issue of whether meaning or effect
>follows or bears any relationship at all to recognition.
>
>Pedro, your job is to be polite and inclusive, so you tend to skirt these
>issues. But isn't there value in digging deeper and at least trying to
>clarify the basic differences in approach? It might help our self-organization.

As far as I see, we have possibilities to organize a new 'conceptual
itinerary', a very exciting one, including more or less that list of
unsolved themes. Making a consistent whole body of doctrine, dealing with
the info, entropy, recognition, abduction, and adaptability theories from
molecule to organism, looks impossible; but it is feasible to prepare an
optimized conceptual itinerary making new bridges in strategic points. The
result, I think, is a brave new view on living matter, plus the serious
possibility that the most sensible part of that view could work for further
existentialities based also on info games & adaptability within 'abstract'
sociosystems.

In short, the cell highlights the firm --although it may perfectly run the
other way around: the firm highlights the cell... As far as I know there is
a current crisis in knowledge management (entrepreneurially oriented) and
knowledge engineering. It means a real opportunity for us, in either
direction we choose to contemplate the info relationship. And who knows
whether brains, the 'mental engines', would get a very parsimonious view in
this conceptual itinerary too --a very strategic item for our contemporary
'info society' problems.

Stating my theoretical ignorance, I prefer set theory, expressed through
partitions (� la Karl). The problem is that I have a very deep disagreement
in the way Karl advances his biological ideas. I have told him long ago to
explore other directions in his extremely interesting conceptual system,
but maybe I have offered him scarce practical cooperation in order to do
that. In particular I think that his interrelation between sequences and
mixtures needs an in-depth revision (well, I accept that I can be wrong,
but at the time being I do not think so). In protein science there is a
very curious historical anecdote about a similar situation of deep mixing
of ideas... better in a next message, as this gets too long. Anyhow, these
rather abstruse theoretical matters necessarily have to be discussed
face-to-face. So the importance of a real conference right now (around next
year!).

>If we were putting together a research lab for this work, we�d need to
>make some basic decisions (quite independently of personalities) about:
>
>--the mix of disciplines,
>
>--some application domain in which the science can be tested (and
>presumably be useful), and
>
>--some essential leverageable principles, including some commitments as
>noted above.
>
>I take your notion of a soccer team to address the first bullet more than
>the third.
>
>As to the second, I believe your preference for the application domain is
>in social and economic systems which will then provide a new "economics"
>for molecular organization. This is the other way around from many
>represented here.

Assembling a fis research project --if there is anyone brave enough to
create the institutional logistics-- would be a dream. As Karl and John
have put it, THE GREAT EXPECTATION.

best

Pedro
Received on Thu Dec 19 15:15:39 2002