[Fis] Fw: Sustainability through multilevel research: Energetic Realm-Informational Realm. Social Complexity

[Francesco Rizzo]

Caro Joseph e Cari Tutti,
l'energia è l'informazione della natura e l'informazione è l'energia della
cultura.
L'energia libera o neg-entropia vitale non è altro che conseguenza del
gradiente termico o differenza tra molecole calde e veloci e molecole
fredde e lente di un gas, quindi è una particolare forma di informazione,
cancellata la quale si ha un equilibrio termico o mortale: una sorta di
dis-informazione o entropia (termodinamica) che confonde e omogeneizza le
molecole, degradando l'energia e rendendola non più trasformabile in lavoro
utile o meccanico..
L'informazione è energia della cultura che dà luogo ad una carica
attrattiva o detrattiva tipica della teoria del caos o dei bacini
culturali, come a me piace chiamarli. Sicché un bacino archeologico, ad
es., diventa un faro che illumina la pianificazione o la rigenerazione
urbanistica o un museo si struttura e funziona come una città viva e alla
luce del sole: crea ordine dal disordine mediante fluttuazioni e
instabilità (struttura dissipativa); in questa prospettiva l'entropia
assume la sostanza e la forma di un costo della neg-entropia..
Gli esempi potrebbero continuare, ma  sfuggo alla tentazione di ingrossare
questo elenco. Perché qualunque altro sistema che si auto o etero-organizza
dovrebbe fare eccezione? Biologia, fisica, chimica, matematica, economia,
sociologia, etc., sono in-centrate su questa singolare e generale, ad un
tempo, conoscenza della conoscenza.
La mia teoria del valore (economico) è frutto della combinazione creativa
di energia e di informazione. Ma la mia scienza dell'economia svolge una
funzione mediatrice; è un'ancella della conoscenza generale, cioè
un'economia della scienza. I sistemi complessi non possono comprendersi se
non alla luce dell'una, energia, e dell'altra, informazione.
Di ciò sono fermamente convinto, anche se essendo un "poverino
esponenziale", sono sempre grato se qualcuno mi fa la cortesia di
correggere il mio pensiero pensante. Che può prendere qualche cantonata.
Un abbraccio sincero.
Francesco.

2015-12-13 12:09 GMT+01:00 Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>:

> Dear Pedro,
>
> I agree with your presentation here of the dynamics of informational
> entities and the necessary dominance of the informational realm. But my
> reaction to your placing the energetic and informational realm in a kind of
> opposition was a Capurrian 'hm'. What is still and will be always needed is
> a proper description of the relation between the two. The principles of
> Logic in Reality may provide that relation without being 'thermodynamic
> inflation', and I believe more attention should be paid to the
> relation than any disjunction. We have had too much of *those*.
>
> Regarding social complexity, the long-term trend is probably irreversible.
> Short-term, in spite of the 'inventions', processes of regression and
> reduction are now flourishing world-wide. Fukuyama is one of people I
> personally trust least to say what's wrong here.
>
> Gloomily,
>
> Joseph
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
> *To:* 'fis' <fis at listas.unizar.es>
> *Sent:* Friday, December 11, 2015 1:36 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Sustainability through multilevel research:
>
> Dear FISers,
>
> I agree with Loet's views (for once! :-) ).  The energy flow supporting
> the biosphere and society as a whole have not much explanatory power
> regarding the bonding complexity of contemporary societies. Of course, it
> is an interesting exercise, particularly concerning the limits of
> sustainability, but we have had so much thermodynamic inflation that it is
> very difficult adding anything relevant. Irrespective of its
> sophistication, the energetic realm can hardly substitute for the
> informational realm.
> About the intriguing interrelationship between kinship and nonkinship
> modalities of human bonding, a very interesting view was drafted by Francis
> Fukuyama (1995), centered on "trust". He was distinguishing between
> "familial" centered societies and "high trust" societies. In European terms
> (exaggerating), it is the dichotomy between the Mediterranean societal
> culture and the Anglosaxon culture. It is not a black and white narrative,
> as each polarity has advantages and disadvantages (think on wine &
> Mediterranean food!), and actually today each country and each culture has
> some terrible mix of everything, but it is interesting just to see how the
> two kinds of bonding may interact within a complex society.  I also penned
> a few ideas about the matter in my recent "How the Living is in the world"
> (DOI information: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2015.07.002.) I am copying below a
> paragraph (maybe a little bit long--excuses).
>
> *This coarse reflection on the dynamics of successive “informational
> entities” helps us make sense of fundamentals of social evolution. The
> transition to a new social order, more or less ‘revolutionary’, tends to be
> produced by new information channels and communication practices that
> support the emergence of new ways to organize the structures of social
> self-production. Thus, the development of social complexity appears as
> irreversibly linked to a chain of historical inventions for communication
> and knowledge generation: numbers, writing, alphabet, codices,
> universities, printing press, books, steam engines, means of communication,
> computers, Internet, etc. (Stonier, 1990; Hobart and Schiffman, 1998). This
> succession of fundamental inventions has dramatically altered the
> “infostructure” of modern societies, and subsequently the informational
> formula for being in the world has been applied with multiple variants
> along that complexity runaway: with plenty of room generated by the new
> information tools, not at the bottom but at the supra-individual top. We
> should not forget that the momentous Scientific Revolution was preceded by
> what has been called the silent “corporate revolution” (Huff, 2011), which
> opened the way for collective organizations legally autonomous in European
> cities during XIII and XIV centuries: universities, parliaments, counsels,
> municipalities, professional colleges, guilds, mercantile associations,
> charities, schools, etc. It was this Medieval awakening in the cities of
> Western Europe what made possible the later hyperinflation of autonomous
> collective organizations, –“information based”– growing exponentially and
> propelling all the further complexity of modern societies.*
>
> All the best--Pedro
>
> Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I don’t consider it as fruitful to recycle the argument that society were
> to be modeled as a meta-biology. The biological explanation can perhaps
> explain behavior of individuals and institutions; but social coordination
> more generally involves also the dynamics of expectations. These are much
> more abstract although conditioned by the historical layer. For example,
> one cannot expect to explain the *trias politica* or the rule of law
> biologically. These cultural constructs regulate our behavior from above,
> whereas the biological supports existence and living from below. The
> historical follows the axis of time, whereas the codification (albeit
> historical in the instantiations) also restructures and potentially
> intervenes and reorganizes social relations from the perspective of
> hindsight.
>
> In analogy to codifications such as the juridical ones, scientific
> knowledge provides the code for technological intervention. This type of
> knowledge is human-specific; perhaps, we are also able to build machines
> that mimick it. This technological evolution is going on for centuries. If
> I look up from my screen, I look into the gardens which have a typical
> Dutch polder vegetation. The polder was made in the 17th century and
> replaced the natural ecology of marsh land and lakes. The order of the
> explanation was thus inverted: the constructed structures (instead of the
> constructing agencies) increasingly carry the system. The constructs don’t
> have to be material; see my example of the rule of law. It is not a
> religion, but a dynamics of expectations. Replacing it with a biology
> misses the point.
>
> Best,
>
> Loet
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Loet Leydesdorff
>
> Professor, University of Amsterdam
> Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
>
> loet at leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
> Honorary Professor, SPRU, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/>University of
> Sussex;
>
> Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ. <http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/>,
> Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC,
> <http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html>Beijing;
>
> Visiting Professor, Birkbeck <http://www.bbk.ac.uk/>, University of
> London;
>
> http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en
>
> *From:* Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es
> <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>] *On Behalf Of *Nikhil Joshi
> *Sent:* Friday, December 11, 2015 9:47 AM
> *To:* FIS Group
> *Cc:* Nikhil Joshi
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Sustainability through multilevel research: The
> Lifel, Deep Society Build-A-Thon - 1
>
> Dear Guy and FIS colleagues,
>
> Thank you for your comments and the copy of your article. Your views on
> the roots of biological systems and their evolution in dissipate systems
> are very interesting. Your paper reminds me of a paper by Virgo and Froese
> on how simple dissipative structures can demonstrate many of the
> characteristics associated with living systems, and the work of Jeremy
> England at MIT.
>
> Given your research focus and expertise in looking at living systems as
> dissipative systems, I would appreciate your views and assistance in
> understanding the energetics involved in the common multilevel
> organisational pattern (CMOP) (presented in the paper II of the kick-off
> mail).
>
> At first glance, it appears that different levels in self-organization in
> living systems  a core dynamic in living systems is comprised of a cycle
> between a class of more-stable species (coupled-composite species) and a
> class of less-stable species (decoupled-composite species), see paper II in
> the kick-off mail.
>
> hence:
>
> Level 1: Molecular self-organization, involves a cycle between oxidised
> molecules (more stable) and reduced molecules (less stable) in molecular
> self-organization in  photosynthesis and cellular metabolism [Morowitz and
> smith].
>
> Level 2: Cellular self-orgnaization, involves a cycle between autotrophic
> species (more stable) and heterotrophic species (less stable) in ecosystems
> [Stability of species types as defined by- Yodzis and Innes Yodzis, P.;
> Innes, S. Body Size and Consumer-Resource Dynamics. *Am. Nat.* 1992, *139*,
> 1151].
>
> Level 3: Social self-self-organization, involves a cycle between
> kinship-based social groups (more stable) and non-kinship-based social
> groups (less stable) [Stability of species types as suggested in Paper II,
> based on an extension of work of Robin Dunbar and others].
>
> At level 1 (molecular self-organiztion)- solar energy is stored in the
>  high-energy reduced molecules. Do you see a possibility that
> living systems could store energy in cycles involving less stable species
> at the two other levels (level 2, and 3) as well? (When I speak of stored
> energy, I am referring to stored-energy as introduced by Mclare,
> and discussed by Ulanowicz and Ho [Sustainable Systems as Organisms?, BioSystems
> 82 (2005) 39–51].
>
> These are early thoughts and your views are much appreciated.
>
> Many Thanks,
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Nikhil Joshi
>
> On 01-Dec-2015, at 10:27 pm, Guy A Hoelzer <hoelzer at unr.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> I have been following this thread with interest as much as time permits.
> I think multilevel approaches to understanding information flow is an
> important one.  I also think the structure of natural systems exhibits both
> hierarchical and heterarchical features.  The hierarchies we formally
> recognize can be extremely useful, but they are rarely exclusive of
> alternatives.  Here is a link to a paper Mark Tessera and I published a
> couple of years ago arguing for one particular hierarchy of multilevel
> emergence in physical systems connecting lower level physical systems to
> biological systems:
>
> Tessara, M., and G. A. Hoelzer.  2013.  On the thermodynamics of
> multilevel evolution.  Biosystems 113:  140–143.
>
> Regards,
>
> Guy
>
> Guy Hoelzer, Associate Professor
> Department of Biology
> University of Nevada Reno
>
> Phone:  775-784-4860
> Fax:  775-784-1302
> hoelzer at unr.edu
>
>
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Marijuán
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
> Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
> Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
> Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
> 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
> Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.eshttp://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
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