Re: [Fis] (no subject)

Dear Viktoras,

I have a great esteem for Jerry's work and for Jerry as a scholar. One
learns a lot in these discussions.

I apologize if my remark sounded as so anti-religious that it could be read
as offensive. That is not what I meant. I also don't wish to impose my
opinion on others like the Soviets did a few decades ago.

My argument was not in favour of restoring another grand narrative (like
Marxism), but rather against the belief that there is a way back to an
eternal unity or another type of cosmology (reality). Order is no longer
given ex ante, but constructed and emerging ex post. There is no reason to
assume that there is a single order that unifies all possible orders (except
perhaps the heat death of the universe, but I cannot oversee that).

With kind regards and a happy new year,

Loet

At 04:39 PM 12/29/2003 -0800, viktoras wrote:
> Dear Loet,
>
>I have been following this one and others extremely interesting discussion
>threads since I joined the FIS-list. But your latest comment on Jerry's
>thoughts provoked me to respond directly as I see something that looks like
>a potential danger (would it be a commonly accepted truth) to the science.
>What prompted me is your last sentence: "my answer would be negative because
>this would restore a kind of wholeness that I consider as religiously
>motivated." Sure, I understand that this is your attitude and everybody is
>free to have own opinion therefore it is not you whom I want to address this
>message, but the very idea of avoiding any "possibly being religiously
>motivated" developments in science. What makes me think that it hides a
>danger are numerous examples from a post-Soviet space where this very
>motivation indeed was a compulsory rule of the ideology and policies of the
>science of those not-so old days.
>
>As a result the Big-bang theory in Russia and neighbouring countries has
>been considered to be fake for an incredibly long period. The same was with
>the entire sciences of cybernetics, genetics and all relating theories. The
>only answer to "why" was - all these theories and sciences are capitalistic
>and religiously motivated and therefore are not conformal with
>scientific-materialistic worldview... As you understand this situation
>virtually killed any developments in these sciences and related theories in
>the former Soviet space for several decades. Although nor Big-bang theory
>neither sciences of cybernetics or genetics were religiously motivated...
>
>In fact I find Jerry's ideas very important as scientists from different
>fields still miss the holistic point in worldview and sometimes, I would say
> naively expect that properties of atoms or cells that constitute systems of
>higher hierarchies do not influence emerging new properties in those systems
> Thence we have "strange unexplored Territories" or mismatches between
>theories of some sciences. Although it has been used to be widely accepted
>for already several decades among close branches of sciences that natural
>systems explored are somehow similar: physicists and chemists used to say
>that nuclear reactions in principle are similar to chemical ones, ecologists
>(e.g. Odum) state that response to stress in ecosystems is in principle
>similar to the response of an individual, etc... I think these similarities
>are indeed very interesting points to be deeper investigated using
>intellectual tools of the science of cybernetics and related branches.
>
>Seasons greetings !
>With best regards
>Viktoras Didziulis
>
>-------Original Message-------
>
>From: loet@leydesdorff.net
>Date: 2003 m. gruodis 28 d. 13:29:48
>To: "jlrchand@erols.com"@relay.unizar.es; jlrchand@pop.mail.rcn.net;
>fis@listas.unizar.es
>Subject: [Fis] (no subject)
>
>Dear Jerry,
>
>Thank you for these interesting quotations from Whitehead.
>
>Apologies for the following misunderstanding:
>
>>I am puzzled on how one would fit chemical philosophy into such a
>>mathematical philosophy. Chemistry philosophy is grounded on ratio's
>>of small whole numbers and neither nuclei or electrons can be
>>distributed into "1/2 + 1/2". Loet's post suggests that we need to
>>look carefully at how the marketing of information is tied to simple
>>mathematical operation of addition.
>
>The example of 50/50 was just chosen to explain how information theory is
>grounded in probability theory. The addition is generated because by
>definition the sum of the probabilities is equal to unity. Additionally, the
>Shannon formulas are so elegant because they are based on simple summations
>(to the maximum of the maximum entropy of a system under study).
>
>In chemical systems the distributions are more complex than 50/50. However a
>distribution can always be expected to contain an information. This
>description of the system is different from the chemical one. It generates
>an information-theoretical model of the system. The system under study is
>specified in terms of its operation: what is communicated when the system
>communicates? What is redistributed? This remains epistemologically the
>specification of an expectation.
>
>Observations can be generated by specifying "how" the system is expected to
>operate. One can then ask whether this operation can also be indicated. The
>specification of an indicator may lead to the measurement. Thus, this is not
>a philosophy of mathematics or a philosophy of chemistry, but the
>specification of a cybernetics program. The measurements improve and update
>our expectations. In principle, a third question can be to ask for the "why"
>of what one observes using the indicators thus specified. This leads to
>substantive theorizing in the subject domain under study.
>
>Each subject domain can thus be developed into a special theory of
>communication. This accords with your nice quotations from Whitehead. The
>mathematical theory of communication provides us with the formal methodology
> Of course, one can also use other statistics. The advantages of using the
>mathematical theory of communication, however, are manifold. For example,
>one can elegantly combine the multi-variate perspective (complexity) with
>the time series perspective in order to develop the instruments of measuring
>complex dynamics.
>
>Thus, my contribution is not to be misunderstood as a philosophical one. The
>philosophical question would be whether one expects a general theory of
>communication to be possible. My answer would be negative because this would
>restore a kind of wholeness that I consider as religiously motivated.
>
>With kind regards,
>
>
>Loet
>
>Loet Leydesdorff
>Science & Technology Dynamics, University of Amsterdam
>Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
>Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
>Tel.: +31-20-525 6598; fax: +31-20-525 3681
>
>http://www.leydesdorff.net/ ; [email protected]
>http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm
>
>
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******************************************************************
Loet Leydesdorff
Science & Technology Dynamics, University of Amsterdam,
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences,
OZ Achterburgwal 237
1012 DL Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Tel: +31-20- 525 65 98
fax: +31-20- 525 20 86

loet@leydesdorff.net
http://www.leydesdorff.net/

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Received on Fri Jan 2 00:28:50 2004