Re: [Fis] A definition of Information

Dear colleagues,

I cannot help but sharing some of Rafael concerns about doctrinary
positions that so much remind bygone ways of 'explanation' (dialectical
materialism). However, I disagree with him about the importance of the
'down' direction in the (top down) approach to meaning. Reductionism is
not at the stake, but 'integrationism' among the different
approaches. Even if the molecular view can offer little at the time being,
it regularly pays off (quite many a theoretical breakthrough are derived
from vaguely asking about 'information' in living beings: von Neumann
computer architecture, neural nets, genetic algorithms....)

Personally I have often argued about the living cell as a microcosm for
'informational phenomena' (meaning included). In this sense, at least three
basic info categories occur in the living cell, and one can barely produce
a unitary conceptualization of information (or of celular 'meaning')
without distinguishing them and adumbrating their interconverting dynamics.

In that regard, I have a number of agreements / disagreements with recent
postings of Stan and Viktoras and Christophe (among others) that I will
handle better in my second ticket for this week... I anticipate my sorry
for Kali's greatness, for the omnipresence of Her chaotic hands; but it is
Oknos who dominates in the cellular realm: as the rope-maker, the
'polymerization' patron, the ENTHALPY factor in Gibb's free energy of
biological reactions (one can find intriguing molecular allegory in
Ortega's essay)... I penned months ago some statements about that in this
list http://fis.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/mailings/1209.html. The chaotic fingers
of the Goddess dominate in some realms, but not in others. See in that
posting that in general the 'informational' entity (cells, brains,
enterprises) do not wait to see the entropic collapse of their
components---conversely, they actively eliminate those who are not needed
or whose presence becomes non-adaptive... so, being informational may also
be interpreted as keeping oneself in the making, in formation.

Just to conclude, we should keep working and arguing on a molecular
approach to meaning (even though the complexity of our own cellular
signaling system, of our 'language' of cells, is so defeating). And just
for curiosity, let me rephrase again my statement on Bateson so as to cover
the three basic categories of cellular information:

structural: The pattern,

generative: The pattern which makes another pattern,

communicational: The pattern which makes a distinction.

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best wishes
Pedro

  
Received on Tue Feb 24 11:44:12 2004