[Fis] Information and Locality, on the Introduction

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Thanks Steven. I find it curious that you have referred  to 
biophysical/physical grounds to establish meaning and apprehension.  In 
the latter, it is rather unclear for me whether you put together in the 
same footing the taking away of a metabolite from the environment and 
the taking away of a signal (which is not really taken 'away'). For the 
living cell this difference is crystal clear, although very few people 
have worked on it --notoriously Gerhardt great paper on eukaryotic 
signaling paths (1999) and also some of my bioinfo works. In my view, 
this distinction is essential to draw a natural history of 
communication, and particularly to understand meaning. Locality, in the 
way you have started to introduce it, looks quite close to "embodiment": 
in what extent can one talk about  locality without endorsing some form 
of embodiment and of situatedness? As Landauer (1987) put, "information 
is always physical", which I agree, but not with the coda that often 
accompanies it : "and hence ultimately quantum".
best--Pedro
> From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith <steven at iase.us>
> Subject: Information and Locality, on the Introduction
> Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2015 09:54:52 -0700
> To: Foundations of Information Science Information Science 
> <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>
>
> Dear List,
>
> First a few clarifications on the definition of terms for my usage.
>
> "Semantics" are the rules of transformation for syntax, per Carnap.
>
> "Meaning" is the physical behavior that is the consequence of 
> apprehension, where apprehension is a biophysical taking away from the 
> world in an organism.
>
> Strictly, "apprehension" begins with a sense that leads to a response. 
> Depending on the type of organism, apprehension may involve a physical 
> processing by the organism. This may result in a failure to manifest a 
> response external to the organism.
>
> I understand that this use of the term "meaning" differs from its 
> ambiguous informal use. The reason for this rigor is to enable the 
> discussion to be unified in the physical sciences.
>
> Because many in this forum are familiar with the work of Charles 
> Peirce, let me note that this is a stricter Pragmaticism. I intend to 
> leave Charles Peirce's semiotic theory aside (except to acknowledge it 
> here).
>
> One of the reasons for the form of my introduction is to highlight the 
> distinction between Communication and Information. We can ignore dance 
> and other arts as communication for now and consider the arts solely 
> as something in the environment to apprehend.
>
> I do not intend to diminish the arts by this move. In fact, I will 
> treat everything of the arts and sciences as of the environment.
>
> One of the first criticisms to make of the standard presentation of 
> Information Theory is the acknowledgment of the binary digit (bit) but 
> the failure to observe the lack of locality in the mechanisms of the 
> presentation. Of course, the reason for this is its pedagogical nature 
> but it also reflects the dogma of modern thought and engineering.
>
> It should be clear that the bit alone is local and that any 
> organization of the bit what-so-ever, be it in the form of a word, a 
> Turing machine tape, in some form on a disk drive or in a text book 
> is, to some degree, lacking that locality. Indeed, this organization 
> is entirely separate and, worse, arbitrary.
>
> The statistical matters that we may consider have nothing at all to do 
> with the bit.
>
> More shortly...
>
> Regards,
> Steven
>
> --------------------
> Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
> Los Gatos, California. +1-650-308-8611
> http://iase.info
> --------------------
>
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>


-- 
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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.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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