Re: [Fis] general theory of order and disorder

Loet,

I very much agree with your views on order from an evolutionary perspective and particularly on the differences you state concerning the selection mechanisms in different levels. This is exactly the conception that Birger Hjoerlad (Denmark) and myself develop in our state-of-the-art "The Concept of Information" that we published last year in ARIST (Annaul Review of Inf. Science and Technology) and that you will find here http://www.capurro.de/infoconcept.html

We might say that not only symmetry but also order is a second-order category (like information too...).
If you think about Karl's explanation of the concept of order this becomes evident. Then following Karl we have to do for instance with "places (that) do not have properties of their own" or with "objects (that) have those properties as symbols attached to objects." The analogies (!) between, say, a cell and a city or the European Union (after May 1, 2004) are probably not completely disparate but we have to be cautious. "Law and order" in a political system, that is the fixation of places and objects, although the significance of places to human beings which are only partially objects with properties, is different from order and disorder in cells (cancer).
In some way we are confronted here once more with Koichiro's dilemma of present tense, present progressive tense and present perfect tense. It seems to me that at the human level we are able to see order (as selection) from a present progressive tense perspective having the tendency to apply our observation to things or events as if we had the capacity of looking at it beyond history which is only a partial idealization. We do this then in the present perfect tense when we objectivize our observations, that is doing science. In other words, what we call order, remains always subject to further revision. There is a long discussion about this for instance related to the order of books or documents in a library (or now in the internet) and we have learned from the idealizations concerning permanent order systems like for instance the Dewey Decimal Classification. We don't need to reject it (sometimes thi becomes very expensive!) but our perspective becomes more pragmatic. In other ways, be change from a first order to a second order semiotics.
kind regards
Rafael
Received on Thu Apr 29 17:31:28 2004