[Fis] What are "information" and "science"?

[Dai Griffiths]

Thanks Robert,

I agree with what you say about DNA, so I may be on the same slippery 
path to catastrophic heterodoxy!

In responding to the question "what is information", started by Marcus, 
I was pointing out what seemed to me to be a shifting definition of 
'communication', and wondering if this corresponded to a shifting 
definition of 'information'.

Loet stated that "the communication of words and sentences generates the 
interhuman domain of communication". I am not taking issue with this. My 
question is whether we are using the word 'communication' and 'generate' 
in the same sense when we also say "the communication of molecules 
generates a biology".

Your comments raise a related question. Perhaps it is not that molecules 
generate biology, but rather it is that biology (in the shape of the 
network of proteomic and enzymatic reactions) generates the 
communication of molecules?

Perhaps the problem is one of keeping track of the system in focus, and 
demarcating it clearly (as Stafford Beer might have argued at this 
juncture).

Dai

On 20/05/15 16:05, Robert E. Ulanowicz wrote:
> Dear Dai:
>
> To say that molecules only interact directly is to ignore the metabolic
> matrix that constitutes the actual agency in living systems. For example,
> we read everywhere how DNA/RNA "directs" development, when the molecule
> itself is a passive material cause. It is the network of proteomic and
> enzymatic reactions that actually reads, interprets and edits the
> primitive genome. Furthermore, the structure of that reaction complex
> possesses measurable information (and complementary flexibility).
>
> Life is not just molecules banging into one another. That's a physicist's
> (Lucreatian) view of the world born of models that are rarefied,
> homogeneous and (at most) weakly interacting. (Popper calls them vacuum
> systems.) The irony is that that's not how the cosmos came at us! Vacuum
> systems never appeared until way late in the evolution of the cosmos. So
> the Lucreatian perspective is one of the worst ways to try to make sense
> of life. We need to develop a perspective that parallels cosmic evolution,
> not points in the opposite direction. To do so requires that we shift from
> "objects moving according to universal laws" to "processes giving rise to
> other processes" (and structures along the way).
>
> The contrast is most vividly illustrated in reference to the origin of
> life. Conventional metaphysics requires us to focus on molecules, whereby
> the *belief* is that at some point the molecules will miraculously jump up
> and start to live (like the vision of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel). A
> process-oriented scenario would consist of a spatially large cycle of
> complementary processes (e.g., oxidation and reduction) that constitutes a
> thermodynamic work cycle. Those processes then can give rise to and
> support smaller cycles, which eventually develop into something resembling
> metabolic systems. A far more consistent progression!
>
> Of course, this view is considered catastrophically heterodox, so please
> don't repeat it if you don't already have tenure. ;-)
>
> Peace,
> Bob U.
>
>>   I see two distinct cases:
>>
>> Case 1: For molecules 'communication' consists of interaction between
>> the molecules themselves, resulting in biology.
>> Similarly, for atoms 'communication' consists of interaction between the
>> atoms themselves. They bang into each other and exchange their components.
>>
>> Case 2: For words and sentences (in my view of the world) it is human
>> beings who communicate, not words and sentences. From a Maturana
>> perspective, language is a recursive coordination between autopoietic
>> entities, not interaction between linguistic items.
>>
>> In case 1, there is no mediating domain. Molecules and atoms interact
>> directly.
>>
>> But in case 2, there is a hierarchy. Communication is between human
>> beings, but interaction is through words and sentences in a linguistic
>> domain. When I respond to your email, I do not have an effect on that
>> email. Rather, I hope to have an effect on your thought processes.
>
>

-- 
-----------------------------------------

Professor David (Dai) Griffiths

Professor of Educational Cybernetics
Institute for Educational Cybernetics (IEC)
The University of Bolton
http://www.bolton.ac.uk/IEC

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