Re: [Fis] Information and communication

Dear FIS colleagues

Let me try a few comments on Michel´s recent question, connecting also with
recent messages of Kevin and Koichiro.

>Finally, I asked again my question about order/disorder/chaos:
>is there a definition valid in the "static" case (no time) ?

I cannot help but reminding the ISIS-Symmetry conference in Haifa, 1998,
the motto of which was "Order and Disorder". There were quite many
presentations heterogeneously dealing with the order/disorder theme, some
of them addressed towards symmetry/information/entropy conceptualizations
(e.g., Gyuri's). My impression then, and now, is that the unification of
all the different approaches to 'order' under one single conceptual scheme
is impossible: tantamount to the extension of Hilbert's formalistic program
to the whole scientific enterprise (I think other parties have said similar
things in recent weeks, however I disagree in the way they see the
relationship among scientific disciplines. Mixing up with another
discussion, in general all the disciplines become 'open', 'pluralistic' and
'symmetric' in their interrealtionships within the system of the sciences.
Some ideas exchanged months ago on 'locality' of knowledge militate in this
direction. 'Reductionism' as an exclusive intellectual strategy becomes a
cul-de-sac, particularly for us information scientists).

Different theories or approaches to 'order' are needed, the most elegant,
concise and minimalist the best. I like Karl's multidimensional partitions
approach (though I cannot see yet how a complex qualitative distribution in
three dimensional space may be handled down). I also much like Michael
Leyton approach to symmetry breaking as symmetry extension by wreath
products --and his two books are monumental catalogs of how group theory
may be used to built unending varieties of 'order'), etc. Going in the
thermodynamic direction, treating entropy as 'space-time occupancy' makes
it amenable to see how space-time neighborhood relationships are altered
(this is my personal preference for 'order': and also of some physical
chemists). This is fine if the model system is simple enough,
and restricted to molecular systems frankly homogenous --the cosmological
connotations of order are quite fascinating, but they would be completely
outside my personal scope, biologically oriented.

The problem of singularity, uniqueness, heterogeneity, etc. (Bob mentioned
it weeks ago) is so enormous in the molecular-biological realm that any
mechanical statistical approach identifying entropy-energy changes with
information changes becomes meaningless. Protein folding, protein-protein
recognition (protein degradation too), and in general protein (enzyme)
function are central players of biological organization where
energy/entropy/information flows are definitely decoupled. We badly need a
new framework where these bioinformation conundrums get properly
established. In this sense, I much welcome the general comments made by
Kevin on Conrad's adaptability and molecular recognition. Do adaptability
tradeoffs also reign within the molecular-intracellular realm? Under this
guidance I made some speculations that the fraction of the genome that can
be potentially expressed in each tissue, the protein 'complement' or the
proteome effectively materialized in each tissue, and the amount of
'signaling system' elements (signalome) follow that global tradeoff. In the
neuronal case the result is an enormous physiological stress... (by far the
most delicate tissue of the organism). I hope this discussion will get
progressively developed within our list.

It also connects with the question I made last week to Koichiro on neuronal
involvement in quantum processing (thanks for his quantum entropies
comments). I will try to rephrase the question. If an ideal observer, say a
Maxwell's demon enters into a 'house of wonders' where everything is kept
in a coherent state, what would happen with his space-time observations
upon the coherent world there, by means of his clock and ruler for instance
(perhaps also in coherent state)? Then, a 'window' is suddenly open
(magnetically?) upon the external world that precipitates into decoherence:
how the demon would see our classical world? And finally, what if the demon
can connect to a Web from the very inside, and Internet of sorts, could he
combine in any way the quantum processing he can make inside the House of
Wonders with the mundane Internet? By breaking the initial question into
three, I hope that at least one of them becomes a little more answerable!

best greetings

Pedro
Received on Fri May 21 14:45:48 2004