Resilient FISers,
Let me expand, again, on some biological and social-economic matters
related to below (John), and also to Steve, Hans, Marcin...
>... The nature of meaning is the great object of desire for information
>theory. Within the scope of meaningful, or semantic information, is
>intentional information, or cognitive content. At the next level of
>restriction is social information, though some authors hold that cognitive
>content depends on language, which is a social activity... So rather than
>a single definition of information, I suggest we work more towards a
>unification of the theory of information, otherwise there will be no
>science of information as such.
If we relate meaning not only to human language but also to "life", as most
biosemioticians would agree, we could ask what differential traits of
biomolecular networks lead to a new type of dynamics that allows eg, a
Bayesian behavior --anticipatory respect the coming "states" of the
system-- that bona fide appears only in living matter. Theoretically,
perhaps, the cellular construction of meaning throughout emergent
properties of molecular networks has not attracted a lot of attention
---not a glamorous big question, such as the "red herring" of
consciousness. But several aspects of the new studies (particularly in
network analysis, in signaling systems, and in proteomics, even in systems
biology) might help to achieve a new, clearer picture of what "meaning" may
consists of at the cellular realm. At least, having the next discussion
session on biomolecular networks might represent a nice occasion of making
some initial advancement into that "terra incognita". Apart from the
classics, what new formal constructions could be of help into that task
(eg, Steve's suggestions, or Karl's, or Bayesian views, or Michael Leyton's
ones?
Overall, my contention is that we have a lot of new "informational"
thinking ahead, necessarily including science, society and economics. Some
of the basic abstractions of science concern the ways and means by which
individual thought overcomes its own limitations of time, space, and
"intensionality" (Stan), so that the little piece of knowledge can be
accepted into the collective repository of a scientific "discipline". But
once we insensibly accept anyone of these regimented regimes, the
ecumenical vision of info we aspire dissolves into the provincial one... it
will be dizzy until we frame our own "supradisciplinary" way of thinking.
In our economy-centered societies, we do not interpret "signals" sent from
the marketplace "invisible hand" but in a rudimentary quasimechanistic way
--away from equilibrium, would say a neoclassic. As we do not see the
"informational" commonality of enterprises and living beings, being
constantly changing, with additions and deletions of components, where the
stability at any moment depends on the importance of a given "signal"
ingoing or outgoing from the momentary structure. Being informational means
keeping always the own structure in-formation... as the cell does (and not
as computers do!).
Thanking the patience,
Pedro
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Received on Thu Sep 15 17:51:06 2005
