Dear Jerry & other colleagues,
Further comments on cellular-mol. meaning are included below.
>>But I have to concede defeat in this point, as almost no party in this
>>list has been interested in discussing about a cellular-molecular
>>approach to meaning. patience.
Really?
>If one considers that the conservation rules of chemistry ensure the
>preservation of symbolic meanings in hierarchies, then I fail to see the
>logic basis of your conclusion.
Jerry, although you were misinterpreting my comment, the discussion point
is interesting. I disagree with other responses (e.g., Loet), in the sense
that meaning is not preserved at all along the vertical hierarchy: it is
transformed dramatically within each domain. Besides, there is not a unique
sense of circulation for meaning (just assesing the meaning of what I say
and the meaning of what I hear or I feel implies information processes
mostly in opposite directions, afference-efference, for instance). An
hypercomplex topology of relations, processes, and networks is actually
involved in each domain or stage of neuronal information. When we abandon
the comfortable province of language and literary-historical analysis,
meaning processes cannot be taken "totum revolutum" anymore, and have to be
discussed differently for molecules, for cells, for human parties, for
social institutions, for countries (reifying "phase space" is another
surrogate of scarce biomolecular value). My initial point above was to
emphasize the need to discuss meaning in the cellular realm, directly in
conjunction with the discussions on Systems Biology--a nascent discipline
that tries to make sense of gene-protein-metabolite-signaling networks.
Obviously, not only conservation rules of chemistry intervene...
>The preservation of chemical identity is intrinsic to the construction of
>chemical hierarchies and to the composition of living systems from
>nutrients. In what sense should meaning extend beyond the essence of
>matter and dynamics?
>
>I would be delighted if you would point to the fallacies in these
syllogisms.
>
I assume Jerry that you are referring to your chemical-logic scheme
---then, in what extent such scheme may highlight the bonding properties
inherent in structurally simple but dynamically hypercomplex
molecules--i.e., the case of water? I think I already made you this very
question weeks ago. If it helps to clarify some of the
cellular-organization problems, I would much welcome it. Otherwise I fail
to see that its interest goes beyond the province of chemistry. The
hardware-software relationship may help in the argument: as I already
commented, solid state physics is restricted to the hardware, and It does
not help one the slightest when the software domain is concerned. In what
sense the software is reducible and goes "beyond the essence of matter and
dynamics?" It may be an interesting metaphor on what happens with the
"dynamics" of our own nervous systems. At the time being, there is ample
room left for "vagueness" and speculation. And I concur with Stan in this
regard (with an additional factor: scientific constructions are utterly
supraindividual--nobody can grasp them in their entirety, even within a
modest field, so an endless dialog and consensus seeking processes,
misunderstandings, fuzziness, etc. are inseparable companions of our
profession---fortunately!).
best regards
Pedro
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Received on Wed Feb 8 14:01:36 2006
