RE: [Fis] Re: gravity and symmetry - hormesis?

Dear John and colleagues,

Thanks for your stimulating comments. I have added a few points,
cellularly-oriented, below

At 10.44 12/3/03 +1100, you wrote:
>Pedro, Mark
>
>I think there might be some interesting parallels between hormesis
>and informational psychology - worth exploring.
>
>A small amount of relevant 'information' (say an article abstract
>or a fortuitous analogy) often stimulates the growth of individual
>knowledge while a superfluity of data can lead to 'disintermediation'
>and information overload. This is one of the key problems of IS.

Indeed. Both cellular systems and nervous systems suffer similar
info-overload problems. Any component cell of a complex organism has to
sculpt its signaling system in order to cope with the extraordinary amount
of different signaling molecules. Further, in spite of their specific set
of receptors, cells have to discard a number of irrelevant ongoing
'conversations' with the environment. The genome (or the proteasome) are
the final targest for the signaling system 'serious' workings: to modify
the existing population of molecular agents, producing new ones, and also
to eliminate the obsolete agents recycling its component amino acids. So
the abduced signals 'tip' the existing balances in the system structures:
they 'inform' the system on how to re-form its fleeting populations of
agents (the paradoxical 'evanescent permanence' of the living state; its
in-formability).

>There may be a hormetic process within human
>cognitive experience which is a reflection and
>continuation of the biochemical one.

I quite agree, but at the same time emphasizing that we have not properly
characterized the cellular dynamics of information yet. In the triad often
appeared during the conference discussions [cells-brains-(enterprises)
societies] although quite probably each info element opens a specific
avenue of info-research, the easiest entity to be contemplated in a global
info-dynamic grasp could be the cell...

>However Harold Boxenbaum's criticism leaves us with a salutary rider:
>
>"Hormesis is a hodgepodge of biological phenomena/events, lacking focus,
>uniformity and objective significance. Unless and until hormesis is better
>defined, it will continue to be ridiculed and ignored.
>Confidence in any scientific principle is roughly proportional
>to its conceptual precision. Viewed thusly, hormesis is promiscuous,
>credulous and inane. Our challenge is to survey, condense, simplify,
>infer, define, dissect, categorize, focus, restrict, etc. � to order
>the relevant information from the sea of data in which we are adrift.
>But does anyone think this can be done without knowledge of mechanism?
>We don't even concur if hormesis is an event, an outcome, both or
>neither." http://www.belleonline.com/n3v83.html
>
>Doesn't that remind you of our erstwhile FIS discussions about 'information'?

Indeed. Quite many strange ideas are too close to the still poorly defined
hormetic model. Homeopathy for instance (it is a particular opinion, but I
think that most of homeopathy only works through the placebo effect). The
big point, and I concur with the orientation of Boxenbaum's criticism, is
that the informational workings of cellular signaling systems are at the
time being almost unfathomable. The lack of a consistent info-dynamic
scheme of the cell is a big problem not only in Medicine but also in
bioinformatic fields, evo-devo studies, etc.

The past conference was seminal in the advancement of several discussion
areas. We have to think on new ways to keep the momentum up, to expand the
integration of info visions...

best wishes

Pedro

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Received on Fri Mar 14 13:05:04 2003