WG: [Fis] "Ecological Economics and Information"

Dear FIS friends,

Please, allow me to try to mix number theory as a style among the points
discussed presently. As Jerry points out:

It appears to me that attempting to identify a common basis of
representation for communication among us requires ... an attempt to use
language consistency.

Maybe the language of numbers will be acceptable and suited to get to the
skeleton of what we try to express.

Loet:
I do not understand what you mean by "asymmetry" in this context.
Perhaps you mean an ecological system? I would not even guess
at what you are seeking to communicate with the term "triple Helix
Dynamics" unless this is a metaphor for a particular belief system.
Perhaps you are suggesting an intertwining of relations?
Symmetry appears as a mathematical concept if one renumbers the numbers
according to their being made up of dissimilar units. Using the symmetrical
property of logicl statements as an additional criterium of whether this
statement is true, one finds differing heights of truth levels. Therefore,
the concept of symmetry and asymmetry is indeed deeply intertwined in
whatever logical, reasonable we say (about Nature).

Rafael:
Based on your posts in May / June, I ask: How can one include and
exclude terms in communicating about information? If one is to
separate words into two classes, one related to information and one
not, then what is the boundary between the two classes? After our
discussion in Baden-Baden, I wonder how you view the treed structures
of statements (Satz) from the basic (Grund) structures.
There are dependencies of sentences. One can draw like family-trees of
logical statements (that are variations on one logical sentence). This also
without having to transform the language from sequence-based into
common-based representation or back. In the language itself there are
parents and dependents. If it specifies and individuates more than the
other, then this is the son, the other the parent.
The description of the sentence in a meta-communicational way happens by
its translation into the other language. (Human brain can hardly separate
the biochemical and the electrical components within thinking but we
discuss the effects the interplay between feeling and thinking causes in us.)

Heiner:
  I admire the works of several economists, including Herman
Daly. However, how is this philosophy of economics to be related to
natural principles? What in you mind distinguishes intelligent
opinions from scientific information? With effort, many posters to
this list serve can create plausible scenarios about our common
future. What allows us to distinguish between pessimistic and
optimistic scenarios?
What logical set of syllogisms will tie these threads of ideas into a
persuasive picture? The concept of Human Destiny? How do you relate this
concept to "information" or communication?

Emotion and intelligence are intertwined in the brain like in a sponge
producing electrical impulses. It is the interplay between how the fluids
are made up and in what pattern the discharges happen. If one speaks
exactly that what he feels then he generates for himself no information,
tho for his surroundings he may have given communication.
What we talk about is the weather in our brain. We exchange feelings and
ideas about how
a) relative to how wet and humid the ground is how many or few lightnings
happen; or,
b) relative to how many lightnings are there, how barren and dry the ground
appears.
Information is how and in what one translation of the same sentence into
the other language differs (an intraindividual evaluation), communication
is the change in the oral (receiving, integrating, including) partner's
representation of the present as opposed to the remembered: this may be
caused by an anal (sending, discharging, excluding) partner in the
communication.

Pedro:
   You are correct in picturing a bifurcation between the
individual and the population. In purely mathematical terms, there
is a syllogistic separation. In another sense, if it takes a village
to raise a child, does it take a society to heal a patient? My point
is that the mathematical usage creates a complete separation between
the component and the assembly while the biological and social usage
sustains a relation between the component and the assembly.

Set theory tries to deal with the individual and the whole. Usually,
marketing, sociology and statistics (and games and programming, etc.) try
to find a focus in the middle between unit and collection. Agglomerational,
granulational questions are not that easy to formalise because they do have
emotional connotations. The chi-square distribution is quite useful in
discussing expected densities of (combinations of) properties on
individuals. The field is wide open for a good theory for an averagely
structured assembly.

Luis:
I continue to think about your questions but have not a clear vision
of what you are asking. Is a concealed component of your question a
desire to apply the MKS system of coherent measurements across all of
nature? What is your view of "units" such that the commonality of
mathematical operations is preserved? How can we be assured that
local relations are extensible to global relations?

Indeed, if one could come up with a good interface between biological and
mechanical, that would be an interesting proposal, isn't it. There are some
currents saying that this is possible. Then one would understand biology
like one understands navigation. As a unit they propose "matches" or
"congruences" between logical statements, because these are by far not
infinite (although quite a lot). These matches even translate into a more
solid presence, as the proponents of this approach calculate the average
number of logical relations per object and re-extrapolate how many objects
are there if the logical space is that dense.
This schmuck little invention of renumbering 1:0, 2:-1, 3:0, 4:+1; 5:-1, 6:0,
7:+1; 8:-2, 9:-1, .... is of a huge practical value. One can transport form
sentences over sizes by just sending the m-equivalents. In fact, this is the
technique of meta-communication.

I do hope that by this re-rendering of what I understood to be the status of
the discussion, there appear more possibilities to explain to each other
what we have in mind.

Best wishes
Karl
Received on Wed Nov 5 12:56:35 2003