[Fis] Answer to the comments made by Joseph

[Joseph Brenner]

Dear Fernando,

This is becoming very interesting. I understand your critique, but I do not believe it applies exactly to what I am trying to say. I start from a position that the apodictic statement by Wiener is not or in any case is no longer valid. In my view, the following should be taken into account:  
a) information is more than order; there is information in absence (Deacon), in disorder, in incoherence as well as coherence;
b) information is not the same as matter-energy, but it is inseparable from it and reflects its dualistic properties; 
c) information is both energy and a carrier of meaning, which is not, in my humble opinion, a hard physicalist approach; 
d) it remains to be shown that digitalism or computationalism is or could be the natural language for the description of the non-digital world, that is, of the complexity of the world that is of interest. Rafael Capurro has talked about the 'digital casting' of the world that we (or most of us) use in our daily lives, but this philosophical concept, with which I agree, is not a scientific description of the physics of informational processes as such. The best synthesis here of which I am aware is the Informational-Computationalism of Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic and even that is a framework, not an ontology.
e) it is possible to use probabilities to describe the evolution of real processes, as well as as a mathematical language for describing acts;
f) your presentation of a parameter designated as 'freedom' is indeed original, but it is a classificatory system, based on bits. It will miss the non-algorithmic aspects of values. I am suspicious of things that have infinite levels and represent 'pure' anything; 
g) I do not feel you have added value to human acts by designating them as ∞-free This may not be intended as doctrine but it looks like it.
h) your conclusions about informational value are correct from what I will call a hard neo-capitalist ;-) standpoint, but I am sure you agree there are other ones.

In trying to learn through association with this FIS group, I have come to believe that Informational Science is unique in that it can capture some of the complexity of nature, culture and society. It is not a 'hard simplification' as you suggest some sciences are.  The concept of (its) foundations is very broad, and it can and should include careful binary analyses such as the one you have made. However, I am pleading for a more directed positioning of your approach with respect to others. Is this an acceptable basis for you for continuing the debate?

Thank you again,

Joseph
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Fernando Flores 
  To: fis at listas.unizar.es 
  Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2015 3:58 PM
  Subject: [Fis] Answer to the comments made by Joseph


  Hello everybody:

   

I will answer to the comments made by Joseph and Luis will answer to the comments made by Moisés. 

  Dear Joseph:

   

  Thank you for your comments. We are not sure about the usefulness of identifying “information” (order) with “mater”. In this sense we are very carefully to avoid any hard physicalist approach. In this sense we believe with Norbert Wiener: 

  The mechanical brain does not secrete thought “as the liver does bile”, as the earlier materialist claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter nor energy. No materialism, which does not admit this, can survive at the present day.

  An informational description of the world must stand as a new branch of science in which “digitalism” will be the natural language.  Of course as any other science, it is a simplification of the complexity of nature/society/culture. I believe that we are shown that we are very conscious about the risks of a hard simplification, and that is why we introduced that idea of freedom in a chain of acts and use probability as mathematical language. We considered the vital acts as ∞-free.

   

   

   

  Fernando Flores PhD

  Associate Professor

  History of Ideas and Sciences

  Lund University

   



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