FIS discussion.

 Dear Colleagues:

 The issues raised by Koichiro on Information and Physics are indeed very
suggestive. I am trying to pursue the view that information is that which
makes it possible for any process or agent to act in correlation with its
environment, that is, to function. This evokes Weizsacker's motto,
referred to earlier in the conference, which says that "information is
that which produces information."

 I find the view of information as something necessary for a process to be
possible compatible with Soren's point in relation to the measurement
problem in quantum mechanics, that information is "out there" as
potentiality, manifested only by measurement.

 Werner's points seem to me very solid. However, the view of information
as providing a potential ability to act in coordination with the
environment, which in my opinion makes information processing an integral
part of the dynamics of the processes using the information, raises some
issues that I think are worth exploring. One of them, in my opinion, is
that this view makes Werner's distinction between free and bound
information more difficult to discern, especially in the context of
biochemical and physiological processes. I think it is also relevant to
the problem stated by Jerry of how ot define teh interrelationships
between structures of different degrees of organization.

 Regards,

 Roberto
Received on Mon Feb 2 20:09:05 1998