Re: [Fis] finding the common in the diverse and the diverse in the common

Karl,

very shortly: the only problem I see with your materialistic stance is...
that numbers are not material! so your whole underlying (ontological)
argument (being=being material) is constructed upon a contradiction. This
is a long (Western) story going back to Plato (not just Marx) and beyond.
kind regards
Rafael
Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro
Hochschule der Medien (HdM) University of Applied Sciences, Wolframstr. 32,
70191 Stuttgart, Germany
Private: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
E-Mail: rafael@capurro.de; capurro@hdm-stuttgart.de
Voice Stuttgart: + 49 - 711 - 25706 - 182
Voice private: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)
Homepage: www.capurro.de
Homepage ICIE: http://icie.zkm.de
Homepage IJIE: www.ijie.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Javorszky (by way of ""Pedro C. Mariju�n""
<marijuan@unizar.es>)" <kj04@chello.at>
To: "fis-listas.unizar.es" <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 10:24 AM
Subject: [Fis] finding the common in the diverse and the diverse in the
common

> Dear Fis,
>
> this is a very great discussion. It does touch on a common underlying
> principle of belonging-together, being-understandable, well, consilient.
> This very deep emotion (which may be hard-wired, such is its basic nature)
> will probably forever elude grasping by intellectual(cortical) tools, as
> it
> is an underlying axiom, on which we base our system of thoughts.
> (Wittgenstein: the axioms UNDER our sentences cannot be described by our
> sentences.)
> The other aspect of the discussion, interdisciplinarity and the need for a
> common perspective, language, system of references, itches me to make a
> point on. There is a common system of references behind all phaenomena of
> natural science: namely their material property. I may sound Marxist by
> sticking to the principle of material first, ideology is a sequel hereto.
> If
> it is a subject of material science, then it is material. There is no
> natural science of immaterial things.
> A rather brutal and barbaric way of finding something common in very
> diverse
> contexts is by referring to the meterial side of the concepts. If it is
> material, then it can be counted. I propose to the FIS community the
> ideology of an engaged accountant, very restricted in his views, only the
> numbers talk. No details, please, only the numbers. A Marxist natural
> philosophy would rejoice on finding a way of consolidating observations in
> diverse fields by finding that their numeric pictures allow handling them
> in
> common ways.
> Now the argument would come, that the numbering (and therefore, the
> measuring) system does not allow for a common way of picturing the
> phaenomena, because their numeric pictures do not throw similar shadows
> unto
> each other, so that they cannot be translated into each other.
> Let me please repeat that this interjection is wrong. The numbering system
> is flexible enough to privide a transportable background on which we can
> calculate and predict the effects of a position change of a genome in the
> same classical fashion as we are able to calculate and predict the
> occurrence of the next eclipse of the Moon in Central Europe. One has only
> to understand the tricks the numbering system plays when describing
> diversity, similarity, probability and size. The size attribute of an
> interdependent, autoregulated system is of a secondary importance. It
> appears that the more diverse the parts of an assembly are, the more
> "inner
> tension" (maybe, energy) is there. The size itself is not the important
> attribute when discussing the inner diversity of subsets of a set. (In
> actual fact, there is - to top it off - a super little trick concerning
> size: if one categorises sets according to their inner diversity, there
> are
> two virtually equivalent sizes.)
> We have the cultural tradition that if mathematics is about anything then
> it
> is about size, extent, measure and that these are the things that are
> stable. If not even a mathematical count on the number of objects of a set
> and the count on their similarities and the count on their dissimilarities
> can remain stable, but rather make an unclosed loop like an Escher
> staircase, then one has no solid axioms under one's system of thoughts.
> Obviously, genetics is understandable. We can use it, what we lack is a
> theory to explain what we observe and do. The key attribute of this theory
> is that it looks at logical attributes distinguishing parts of a whole and
> disregards the size congruence. We have to capture the obvious feeling:
> "this is the same just bigger / smaller" in order to begin understanding
> phaenomena which appear to belong to different sciences. We have to come
> to
> terms about what we do as we recognise two things that are the same (but
> bigger or smaller) before we can attack the task of describing what we do
> as
> we compare two things that are different in order to find similarities
> among
> them. So, diversity is, in my eyes, the subject we should discuss, rather
> than the similarity which consilience describes.
>
> E-mail address new: kj04@chello.at
>
> -----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es]Im
> Auftrag von Pedro C. Mariju�n
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 28. Oktober 2004 17:58
> An: fis-listas.unizar.es
> Betreff: Re: [Fis] consilience of limited observers
>
> Dear Malcolm and colleagues,
>
> Sorry for going backwards in the discussion (I have moved in to a new
> institute in this univ., see my new address at the bottom). After two
> weeks, I have this response pending:
>
> At 18:09 18/10/2004, Malcolm wrote:
> >So, you don't think that the use of common tools, such as logic,
> >statistics, etc., or even common concepts (such as Aleks's example of
> >intereactive information) are enough to forge a genuine
> >inter-disciplinary
> >consilience? In what way would a *genuine* informational approach be
> different?
> >
>
> Those common tools do not help to connect --but very superficially-- the
> different disciplines involved in the analysis of any moderately complex
> phenomenon. We do not have 'logical cues' intradisciplinary situated
> informing the practitioner that his/her favorite discipline becomes
> irrelevant to understand the phenomenon, and that a new perspective has to
> enter. Like medieval rhetors we have to "weigh" the heterogeneous
> conceptual paths and compose an ad hoc disciplinary mix. I dare to call
> "informational" to this artistic blending or switching between separate
> knowledges because this type of compositional work is archetypal in other
> info "model systems" too (fis old story), such as in cellular signaling
> systems' pathways, and in nervous systems' separate sensory modalities.
> Switching to a new discipline and/or creating a new interdisciplinary
> field
> is like our own attentional switching: we continuously change the focus
> and
> put a new modality or a new sensory patch into the job of scanning little
> bits of the world.
>
>
> >There is a distinction made in philosophy of science between the internal
> >dynamics of science, which excludes socio-psychological factors, and
> >external dynamics, which looks only at the social dynamics of scientific
> >communities. This seems to be similar to the distinction that Pedro is
> >making. If so, his claim is that interdisciplinary consilience cannot be
> >captured within the internalist's way of viewing science (that is, in
> >terms of the bare relationship between theories and their evidence). I
> >have some questions about this.
> >
> >I think that anyone who studies science has to make some kind of
> >idealization or abstraction--science is too complex to understand in
> >total. Some simplifications have to be made when studying any complex
> >phenomenon. Clearly that does not imply that the particular idealizations
> >made by the internalists or the externalists are the right ones, or the
> >best ones, to make for the purpose of understanding some particular
> >aspect
> >of science, such as interdisciplinary consilience. So, I am very open to
> >Pedro's line of thought. On the other hand, there has to some kind of
> >simplification made. How should this be done?
>
> I do not have a good response yet. My personal contention is that the
> simplest 'info society', the living cell, has not received a sound info
> analysis yet. Why the bionformaticians community, basically committed to
> reductionist views, is making all that fuss on "systems biology" (and not
> only them: eg, some biosemioticians too)? An intriguing piece of new
> knowledge is needed.
>
> Concretely about the internal/external views of science, it might be that
> what we need is the "externalist" of the internal, and the "internalist"
> of
> the external. I mean, we can only build a social accumulation of knowledge
> (of associative learning) by relying on the most crude and elementary, and
> abstract elements within the action/perception cycle (eg, counting). And
> viceversa, we universalize and objectivize upon that knowledge by socially
> networking the limited, individual pieces produced... (references,
> professional commmunities, etc.)
>
> >This is a partial answer to my question: A general understanding of how
> >macroscopic order arises out of simple interactive micro-systems may
> >point
> >the way towards a better understanding of science.
> >
> >An example that I know more about arises in physics, where it is
> >difficult
> >to explain why matter organizes itself into liquid, gas and solid phases
> >when interacting molecules "know" nothing about the macroscopic order of
> >which they are a part. This phenomenon is hard to explain because
> >critical phenomena (occurring during phase transitions) depend on
> >correlations that act at all distances at the same time. That is, the
> >usual idealization that density fluctuations are limited to micro-scales
> >does not work. Rather, the fluctuations occur at all length scales
> >(hence
> >the self-similarity of critical phenomena). The mathematical techniques
> >applied to this problem (scaling, intermediate asymptotics, and
> >renormalization methods borrowed from quantum field theory) are still not
> >very well understood from a mathematical point of view.
> >
> >However, I still don't see exactly how this connects with
> >interdisciplinary consilience in Pedro's sense. This may be because I'm
> >not sure exactly what interdisciplinary consilience amounts to on this
> view.
>
> I tend to disagree on that micro/macro view. Perhaps it happens with some
> cleanliness in phyiscial systems, that one can extensively track the
> physical information movements around (those ups and downs in Stan's
> scheme) notwithstanding phase transitions; but not in the biological
> realm.
> There one finds strange entities with info "black hole" properties: living
> cells advancing in their respective life cycles can disregard very robust
> info items on a facultative basis, and produce new items. And they do so
> monumentally independent of their whereabouts (up to some limits, of
> course). How the inner and the outer 'command flows' may systematically
> ignore each other, annihilate, reinforce, etc., (quite differently from
> the
> obedient average of the physical) is a great question: systems biology
> (and
> classical integrative physiology too), in need of a massive disciplinary
> switching becasue that black holing game is played massively..
>
> >But why should it be considered seriously, exactly? I don't (yet) see
> >why
> >the internalist view of science has this limitation. For it abstracts
> >away of the distinction between individual scientists and a group of
> >scientists, so it could easily include emergent features that arise from
> >the interactions between individuals. If not, why not?
>
> "Consilience" is great because it conveys a bygone aspect of the sciences:
> their conciliation, their permanent session in "concilium" ... (lost into
> the hierarchy and reduction dusts, and merely left into the territory of
> pragmatics); and also because it evokes the global wisdom or 'consilience
> of closure' that we may legitimately demand to our social system of
> creation of knowledge: that it should contribute to the advancement of
> life.
>
> (that's all I can ramble around the questions!)
>
> best greetings
>
> Pedro
>
> PS. to Rafael --Borges is indeed a treasure-- I remember his "Funes el
> memorioso" too: isn't it a parable of the limitations of the observer? And
> to Jerry: can you connect your molecular algebra (syntax) to the protein
> folding problem? (I will try to read carefully all this recent stuff).
>
> =============================================
> Pedro C. Mariju�n
> Institute of Engineering Research of Aragon (I3A)
> Maria de Luna, 3. CPS, Univ. of Zaragoza
> 50018 Zaragoza, Spain
> TEL. (34) 976 762761 and 762707, FAX (34) 976 762043
> email: marijuan@unizar.es
> =============================================
>
>
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Received on Fri Oct 29 11:11:19 2004