Dear FIS colleagues,
Most of recent messages transpires a strong parallel between energy &
information. Biologically (ecosystems included) that parallel can be quite
misleading, particularly if it implies --perhaps inadvertently-- the
'interconversion' between any forms of information, like happens among the
forms of energy. In the functionality of the living there is no such thing
as a global information content to interrelate with a corresponding energy
global. Actually, along past FIS discussions we have developed a brute
taxonomy of info categories at the molecular level, but the dynamics is not
well solved yet.
It is interesting that in the perspective of information science
(tremendously incomplete at it is nowadays), themes that disciplinarily are
worlds apart become quite close here. Somehow, information propitiates an
original realignment of themes, for instance: meaning, knowledge, fitness,
value,... Regarding ecological economics and sustainable development, the
exploration of such alignment could provide (who knows) a genuine
'informational theory of value'. And it could help to point at the blind
spots of the 'invisible hand' of market economies --beyond the guidance of
the Second Law.
There are many laws of nature that are also crucial for the organization of
the living (and not only the Second Law): Pauli's exclusion (so we may
have complex atoms), or De Broglie�s and Schrodinger�s wave-particle
complementarity (so we may have bonds), Maupertuis & Hamilton's minimal
action, Gibbs' free energy, etc. Fair interdisciplinary (or
multidisciplinary) practices imply that one cannot 'reduce' all the
complexity looking only under one disciplinary box and disregarding the
rest. It is a pity that 'reductionism' methods have been discussed ad
nauseam--but there is almost nothing about 'integrationism'.
greetings to all
Pedro
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Received on Thu Dec 11 14:39:17 2003
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