[Fis] Tom Stonier

From: Chris Klopper <[email protected]>
Date: Sat 10 May 2003 - 10:44:38 CEST

Friends

I am a new FISitor.

I will lurk for a while. However, i joined while in search for an article by
Tom Stonier. Some 3 -4 years ago i found an article in which he sketched
(over the course of some 7 -8 pages) the outlines of his departure point on
the nature of the universe. I lost the aritcle in one of the numerous
catastrophes with changing and unstable operating systems. Despite the fact
that i lack a detailed reference i sense that members of this list may be
able to point me in the right direction.

kind regards

chris k

PS There is a mature courteousness evident on your list that is very
appealing.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Goranson" <tedg@sirius-beta.com>
To: "fis-listas.unizar.es" <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2003 2:59 AM
Subject: [Fis] Music, Leyton, Governance (Longish)

> Friends-
>
> Forgive me as I try to integrate more than one FIS thread among those
> pinging about in my brain.
>
> I greatly appreciate that the topic has shifted to music. It seems
> different enough that we may actually get some fresh perspectives,
> especially with the entry of the new-to-FIS views of Michael Leyton.
>
> First a disclaimer: I know Leyton's work and so admire it am
> incorporating it into an agenda of my own somewhat alien to
> Michael's. And as I have said on this list, those three foci:
> Leyton's own imperative, my application need and the focus of the FIS
> group may be useful complements but it would be a mistake (for me) to
> conflate or confuse them.
>
> As I understand the FIS agenda, it takes a fresh look at the nature
> of the "message" in certain phenomenon and looks for new laws that
> pertain to that "information" rather than the behavior usually
> associated with it. In many cases, this will involve redefining or
> even creating a new notion of that message: for instance in the
> "dialog" among molecules.
>
> Juan's approach to music starts with the phenomenon of the carrier,
> an approach one would expect of a physicist. I, of course, agree with
> most everything he says. Michael does the opposite: starting with how
> the receiver is affected by and incorporates the message, developing
> a notion of information in the context of history/memory/situation
> and then projecting backwards into the nature of the message. This
> also is understandable as from a cognitive scientist. As I say, I
> find this latter approach extremely useful because (my speculation
> here:) it fits ANY kind of message, allows a concise ALGEBRA over
> history and information, and as I will conclude below can describe
> memory of systems as well as individuals.
>
> But Michael's success comes at the cost of the FIS agenda. He can
> impute the token of information as an element of the history and stop
> there. FISers can make something of that imputation and define
> information tokens in the "pure" as Stonier and Conrad would have it,
> or look at the grammar of that information as Matsuno and Marijuan
> do. I'm up for that: enthused about it. But I have to keep in mind
> that it may not be in Michael's program to do so, because everything
> in his argument depends on the situating of the tokens.
>
> But yet, let's try. And here I wish to bring in another thread: the
> structure of science and government.
>
> (Note to Michael: the FIS list often goes off on tangents from the
> programmed topic, usually productively. As the scope of
> self-organization investigated by FIS spans from molecules to
> societies, many messages comment on how an advance in theory would
> lead to "engineering" - forgive the word - techniques that would make
> human society better. The more outrageous of these are calls to arms
> to combat international conspiracies to murder children with
> radioactive poison. But behind that noise is an honest attempt to
> understand the dynamics at societal - and by this posters usually
> mean political - levels.)
>
> Political systems to my mind is a matter of defining behavior and
> mechanisms in three areas. At the "top" level are things that are a
> matter of natural law, or appear to be so for all practical
> consideration. Below that is a domain of the "social compact,"
> conventions that evolve in societies as a community bargain where
> each member pays a cost and receives a valuable benefit. The third
> tier are simpler matters of automatic negotiation, where laws of
> economics make it desirable to collaborate outside the social compact.
>
> An example of the first, at least in the US, is the notion that all
> men should carry the same weight as agents in the system. Though this
> is a modern idea that was clearly invented, it is treated by
> Americans as though the "creator" made things this way. An example of
> the second is proscription against theft; "ownership" of property is
> a purely artificial concept and respect for it is an evolved matter
> of the social compact. The third tier can be exemplified by a postal
> service. Conservatives in the US are adamant that no one has a
> "right" to postal service, and further that it is not something a
> government SHOULD do. But they allow it because it makes economic
> sense for the government to do it and serve everyone.
>
> People with different philosophies will put different things in
> different bins, for instance in the US there is great debate over
> "rights" and priorities of rights, and therefore which of the rights
> is more natural and therefore basic.
>
> (Here, I digress to noet an outstanding FIS controversy about whether
> "logic" is in the second or first category. Some adamantly hold that
> the universe itself is logical in its fundamental nature, and others
> - including myself - that logic is an evolved artifact of the social
> compact in the evolution of science. But never mind.)
>
> What goes in what bin is less interesting than the evolutionary
> mechanics at each level. Clearly they are different: the economic one
> being easily engineered by changing metrics (the vocabulary of
> discourse).
>
> Science has the same three tiers and they work in the same way. Since
> FIS is both WITHIN science and ABOUT the structure of science, we
> have to consider these dynamics - or whatever structure one uses
> instead. So there is in my mind a complete congruence between FIS
> examination of the evolution of science (with the science of
> evolution) and the evolution of government political systems.
>
> I suppose that the stuff of the top level is determined by our
> hardwiring. We know a lot about messages in logical content with
> respect to that hardwiring. We know much less about messages in
> musical content and what "language instinct" comes into play. With
> music, I suppose more is on the "natural" side and with logic, more
> on the "social compact" side.
>
> Whew - all that is by way of making a first stab at Juan's challenges
> in the context of ongoing FIS dialog:
>
> WHAT IS MUSIC?
> WHY IS THERE MUSIC?
> COULD THERE BE MUSIC ELSEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE?
>
> I suggest the grammar of music has as little to do with acoustics as
> the meaning of written sentences has to do with the shapes of
> letters. In the FIS context, "music" can be characterized as having
> illogical content that relates in an orderly way in the receiving
> mind. Therefore the mechanics of music in humans is more "natural,"
> and more apt to inform us about the types of communications among
> molecules, even though that statement carries Theosophical overtones.
>
> "Music" of this type exists because self-organizing systems do. The
> most fundamental operation in any cognitive apparatus (human to
> molecular) is symmetry-based, which is why Leyton finds group theory
> natural to describe the aggregative organizing effect of information.
> Fiber groups lend themselves well to his interest (memory and
> situation) and my FIS interest (derived abstractions). There are
> bundles that are formed internal to agents and those collectively
> among agents. Where Michael doesn't go but FIS must is in looking at
> how those abstractions define evolutionary mechanics at "lower"
> levels of governance. And so, here we are with Jerry Chandler's
> arguments of the importance of categories and functors across
> abstractions (as bundles).
>
> Sorry for the length, Ted
> --
> Ted Goranson
> Advanced Enterprise Research Office
> _______________________________________________
> fis mailing list
> fis@listas.unizar.es
> http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis

_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Received on Sat May 10 10:47:32 2003

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Mon 07 Mar 2005 - 10:24:46 CET