Re: [Fis] Group-theoretic biology

From: <[email protected]>
Date: Tue 03 Jun 2003 - 01:50:26 CEST

An Open Comment:

I had sought to identify a link between group theory and biological
processes for many years.

Later, I had sought to identify a link between chemical processes and
group theory.

Even later, I sought to identify a linkage between chemical structure
and group theory (not merely the spatial relations among the nuclei
of a molecule, e.g., x-ray crystallographic results).

At present, I do not seek to identify linkages between chemical
structures, chemical processes or biological processes and the
abstract mathematical structure of group theory.

You ask "why"?

Because the simplest possible mathematical representation of a
chemical molecule is a labeled bipartite graph.

And, because the structure of a mathematical object need not
represent the relations among or correspond to the structure of
natural object.

I conclude that the languages and structures of natural systems are
vastly richer than I was able to state or imagine.

Cheers

Jerry LR Chandler

>I realize that it is way off the music topic, but my student, Scott
>Muller has been applying group theory to the foundations of
>information theory. He has some nice arguments to the effect that
>though people like jaynes have argued that the information mapping
>is arbitrary, if one actually considers the physical transformation
>that one can perform on a structure, the result is fully determined
>(and gives, incidentally, exactly the information content I would
>calculate from my paper Causation is the Transfer of Information). I
>tried to convince Scott to come to the Symmetry Festival in
>Budapest, but I didn't get very far. He makes his income as a
>computer (databse) programmer, and that is on hard times right now
>(my brother is having the same problem). Anyway, Scott shows very
>clearly the central connections between group theory and information
>theory, and has some really original ideas concrning the physical
>interpretation of information.
>
>As I said, these recent postings just prompted me to remark on this,
>and I don't really have anything to add. If anyone wants to get in
>touch with Scott, they can ask me, or lese go to the Complex
>Adaptive Systems research Group site at the University of Newcastle
>in OZ. I don't have my address book here, but a search on CASRG
>Newcastle, or Hooker Complexity will turn it up. It is also
>addressed on my own web site here.
>
>John
>
>
>
>Professor John Collier
>Philosophy, University of Natal
>Durban 4041 South Africa
>T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292
>F: +27 (31) 260 3031
>email: collierj@nu.ac.za
>
> >>> "Pedro C. Mariju�n" <marijuan@posta.unizar.es> 05/30/03 14:24 PM >>>
>Dear FIS colleagues,
>
>Thanks to Sergei and Michael for their recent exchanges on theoretic
>biology. Let me add that there is now included among the fis papers a
>contribution of mine on the informational phenomena of the cell ('From
>inanimate molecules to living cells: the informational scaffolding of
>life'). It is a chapter of a whole book the editor of which is Franco
>Musumeci (in this list too): his 'Foreword' for that very interesting book
>can also be visited in our web (let us thank Rey Abe for his accurate
>maintenance of our site!!).
>http://fis.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/resources/papers..html
>
>I am reluctant to get into depth about this discussion right now, in spite
>of its centrality... Mixing that group-theoretic biology with the
>generative-structural and communicational fis categories, and the insights
>we gained about molecular recognition and cellular 'abduction' and
>'constraints' in fis 2002 will be a challenging experience (this Summer,
>this Autumn?). Perhaps we will be lead to re-discuss some of Ted's and
>Jerry's postings months ago about fis theoretical options: the elegant
>tools proposed from group theory, so useful for rationalization of
>'computational fields', could they do a similar job for the central
>'informational fields' (in my opinion, the triad bio & neuro & socio)?
>Indeed we will have to examine very carefully the phenomenology of the cell
>(what I tried to do in my above paper).
>
>And about music? Someone attempting to build a bridge in between the
>different levels recently addressed here would do a great job. For my
>taste, Michael and Andrei have gone for the 'syntactic analysis' while Juan
>focuses on 'word structure' (and I was heading towards the 'emotional
>utterance'--or the 'semiotics' of music?). Along this very text metaphor,
>some reflection on the origins of the Western musical notation itself could
>be illuminating... the accurate alphabetic 'picture of the voice' by the
>Greeks, the Medieval 'picture of the song' achieved in the monasteries
>(curious, Why in the monasteries?).
>
>About some of Juan's questions, the auditory perception would be caught
>into similar enigmatic processes as other sensory infos. For instance, the
>Weber-Fechner logarithmic law, that (in Rodolfo Llin�s' opinion--2001)
>underlies the octave tonal structure. The preference for '7' in quite many
>of our sensorimotor categorizations could be linked to aspects of musical
>representation too (the seven basic notes, but also seven colors, seven
>vowels.... again see Llin�s, and the classical work of G. Miller). Some of
>my paper interpretations on 'cellular and tissular measurement problems'
>could also be pertinent in this regard, and also would be, I think, Karl's
>funny 'partitional constancy' of 7 (it is the only number with that
>property!). Again, we are lead to discuss the formal grounding that
>underlies the biological strategies of 'info optimization': rather confussing.
>
>all the best
>
>Pedro
>
>
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Received on Tue Jun 3 01:36:36 2003

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