[Fis] Information and Locality.

[Francesco Rizzo]

Cari Tutti,
sforzandomi di interloquire e per quel che riesco a capire, ribadisco i
 contenuti dei due messaggi che ho inviato il 12 e il 14 settembre scorsi,
al secondo dei quali ha risposto magnificamente Terry Deacon lo stesso 14
settembre. "Qui" ed "ora" mi limito a riportare il pensiero del
neuro-biologo cileno H. Maturana: "L'esperienza del fisico, che si occupi
di fisica classica, relativistica o quantistica, non riflette la natura
dell'universo, bensì l'ontologia dell'osservatore come sistema vivente, in
quanto egli "opera linguisticamente" mentre realizza le entità fisiche e le
coerenze operative dei loro domini di esistenza. Come affermava Einstein
'le teorie (spiegazioni) scientifiche sono libere creazioni della mente
umana' " (H. Maturana, "Autocoscienza e realtà", Milano 1993, p. 114).
In questo con-testo, "operare linguisticamente" significa essere e vivere
nel linguaggio, mediante una cooperazione comportamentale, ricorsiva e
descritta semanticamente. Tutto esiste e si svolge all'interno della
comunicazione, non al di fuori. Ed è per questo che non si può prescindere
dal rapporto tra informazione e significato.
Beninteso, niente di quanto ho scritto ha un significato polemico.
L'obiettivo scientifico ed umano che mi pongo sempre è quello di realizzare
un'economia del pensiero o un pensiero dell'economia inclusivo, non
esclusivo.
Grazie e saluti.
Francesco Rizzo.

2015-09-21 10:44 GMT+02:00 Steven Ericsson-Zenith <steven at iase.us>:

> Dear List,
>
> I ended my last note highlighting that Bits are strongly local and their
> organization is arbitrary.
>
> The “word” in my last post is the binary word, such as “1010” and not
> “THIS.” The latter is more complex than the former, although they both
> depend upon an arbitrary organization.
>
> It may not seem that way to you but this is merely because we are familiar
> with conventions that enable us to apprehend, to perceive or “feel,” a
> particular organization. An 8bit or a 64bit word is equally arbitrary and
> has little locality, except that which is useful for engineering, not
> science.
>
> *On BIT Locality*
>
> So a weaker view of Bit Locality concerns the width of organization and,
> necessarily because we are dealing with Bits, the step-wise nature of their
> transformation.
>
> But let me point out that stated at its most dramatic nothing varies, the
> world can be said to transforms. It moves from one distinct state
> to another.  But there is no “returning” to a prior state, there can be no
> variable state. These are simply ways to speak about the world.
>
> Clearly we can dig a hole in the ground and place a stone in it. Between
> us we may call this hole a “Bit.” We may agree that when there is a stone
> in the hole its value is 1 and when there is no stone its value is 0.  We
> may dig a second hole at your house and we can do the same. We can agree to
> combine the two such that were a stone in each hole the value can be said
> to be “11” and when not the value can be said to be “00.”  We may also
> speak about the value “10.”  To increase our confidence, perhaps, we may
> pay a grandchild to stand by the hole and shout out whether or not there is
> a stone in the hole.
>
> By this means we may eventually build a computing system, grandchildren
> shattered all over the neighborhood. But this organization has little
> locality, it does not “scale,” and it is not sustainable. Children tire,
> holes eventually fill and stones break.
>
> And, this is especially challenging, each time a stone is placed in the
> hole it is not, in fact, the same stone nor is it the same hole. Even
> though this will not be how it will seem to our grandchildren. The reuse of
> the stone and the hole is itself an arbitrary pragmatic.
>
> Automated information processing varies from this scenario only as a
> matter of degree. Reducing the problem to microelectronics enables us to
> put the machine into our pocket but it does not change the locality
> question nor does it make the states the same.
>
> Every state is, in fact, new. The illusion that it is otherwise is
> transitory.
>
> Now, obviously, engineers make best efforts to give us the impression that
> things are other than this. And, of course, I understand that for practical
> purposes we take the organization of machines to maintain repeatable states
> for practical purposes. Indeed, we depend upon this fragile pragmatism.
>
> The illusion is so pervasive that we call our time the Digital Age and we
> attempt to explain everything in terms of illusory Bits. We are enamored.
>
> *On Step-wise Functions*
>
> At the core of the Bit issue is a dualism that extends back to the start
> of the twentieth century. It is the dualism of “This” and “That,” “True”
> and “False.” It was brought to us largely by Bertrand Russell, his advocacy
> of Logicism and his celebrated authorship of the Principia Mathematica.
>
> Gödel showed us in 1931 that this system is necessarily inconsistent and
> even that the foundations of arithmetic based upon well considered but
> none-the-less arbitrary axioms, like those of Peano, could express no
> truth.
>
> I argue that the conventional axiomatic method is not well grounded and
> must be replaced by one that has greater rigor. I suggest one that is
> explicitly structuralist and covariant.
>
> It has to be admitted, of course, that despite these problems we have
> achieved remarkable success. But, again, we must shake off our love of this
> success in order to see how things are.
>
> Adoption of dualistic and strong bit-wise locality, arbitrary
> organization, and step-wise functions (due to Alan Turing and Alonzo
> Church) define the effective methods of modern computing.  We have also
> finally accepted that the parallel processing of large-scale data is
> required. But this acceptance does not help us if we we are merely back to
> where I started 30 years ago.
>
> In fact, step-wise functions are deeply flawed. The result of a step-wise
> function is entirely unrelated to its former or subsequent value. In
> addition, the parallel execution of such a function suffers the long known
> problems of parallelism. Structure is hidden from such functions and is
> present only as a matter of fait or deception and must be enforced or
> imposed by engineering or mathematical artifice.
>
> I can hear many software engineers and applied mathematicians crying out
> in rebellion that this simply cannot be the case, but it is an imposition
> upon their minds that is involved and the truth of the matter has likely
> never occurred to them.
>
> *Holomorphism and at once “Functors”*
>
> I distinguish "step-wise functions” from “holomorphic functors.”
>
> True Holomorphism (a continuous and whole dynamic structure) is simply
> impossible for a computing machine to simulate.
>
> The "at once” geometric transformation of a structure may only be
> simulated by very fast machines using great electrical power burning and
> time consuming step-wise functions for only small cases - or many such
> small cases. We can and do fool ourselves into believing the magic by
> pointing at the movie or the game screen.
>
> But it is all artifice, a sham of Moore’s law, timing, and the miracle of
> theatre.
>
> There are important differences in the power profile of computing machines
> and biology, two important differences that despite the clever short cuts
> and mechanisms identified by Shannon and others demand that we accept that
> Turing computation, in all of its forms (including neural networks), is
> excluded from biophysics.
>
> These are the low power requirements of biology and the absence of
> hotspots. Hotspots occur in computing systems because of locality in their
> operation. There appears to be no such “hotspot" locality in biology.
>
> Alan Turing dismissed this lack of locality in his famous paper concerning
> Computing Machines And Intelligence.
>
> "I do not wish to give the impression that I think there is no mystery
> about consciousness. There is, for instance, something of a paradox
> connected with any attempt to localise it. But I do not think these
> mysteries necessarily need to be solved before we can answer the question
> with which we are concerned in this paper.” Alan Turing, 1950.
>
> By dismissing locality Turing excludes a role for biophysical sensation,
> what he calls “consciousness," in his mechanics. Of course, his paper
> concerned the vague notion of “intelligence” and this really is a separate
> question to that of sense.
>
> But I believe that if we are to build truly intelligent machines, machines
> with the strength of the uniquely human skill set - admittedly shrinking
> since the time of Turing, I am thinking of the things that are truly
> unique: easy general recognition, self-maintenance, reproduction and
> creativity, not chess, arithmetic etc… - then we must find a role for
> sensation, feeling or “experience” in our physical mechanics.
>
> I make a pragmatic argument that Turing computation is necessarily
> excluded from biophysics that runs along the following lines: The human
> brain dissipates 15Joules of power per second in a profile that is quite
> extraordinary. The power dissipation is uniform across the brain to within
> 1degree everywhere. There are no hotspots. Neurons and astrocytes work
> together to change blood flow, they change the brain’s structure.
>
> It has been widely predicted, although there is now a great deal of push
> back from the neuroscience community, that the human brain can be simulated
> in a machine with 10^18 operations (of some kind), the fabled “Exascale”
> machine.
>
> Let us ignore the architecture of such a machine, and the hotspots, and
> simply consider the numbers.  If a brain possessed this much computing
> power it would require 94eV per operation. Although estimates vary widely,
> projections for the Exascale machine, with designs that are close to
> physical limits, are 60MegaWatts, a reasonably sized power station
> sufficient to power a moderately sized city.
>
> Biology has the locality problem solved, the Exascale machine does not.
> Plus biology has the advantage of being able to function effectively on a
> couple of burritos and a few cups of coffee per day.
>
> *Allosteric Conformance*
>
> The absence of locality in biophysics, generally refers to the variety of
> biophysical conformances called Allostery. This is defined as "a
> fundamental process by which ligand binding to a protein alters its
> activity at a distant site.”
>
> The truth is that biophysicists are still mystified by this effect,
> despite putting their best foot forward to provide an explanation is
> conventional terms. See, for example, the latest edition of Essential Cell
> Biology, 4th Edition.
>
> This absence of locality in biology defies Information Theory. If,
> however, we listen to Brit Cruise closely we discover that he makes many
> assumptions concerning locality despite the fact that he mentions the Bit
> as the foundation of information theory. He fails, as do most information
> theory presentations, to mention locality and existent structure as a
> consideration.
>
> We speak about data structure, certainly, but data structure is not an
> existential structure. Its various implementations are no less arbitrary
> than the word.
>
> If I confront a Tiger alone on the path I feel the entire experience at
> once across my physical structure. My apprehension is bound intimately with
> my responses. There is no time for reasoned thinking. I stand or run as one
> entity, fully coordinated, no part of me is standing still while the rest
> of me is running. This is not merely a matter of software, it is one of
> structure.
>
> At the end of the day only holomorphic functors can describe biophysical
> sense and actions, allosteric conformances, and it is only the binding of
> these as hyperfunctors that they can describe my sense and response at all
> scales.
>
> *Shapes and Shaping*
>
> At its simplest, information in biophysics involves shapes and shaping.
> These shapes are cell receptors and motor functions, changed and bound by
> genetic mechanics in flexible closed structures (cells and membranes). We
> can describe these shapes at all levels of the organism with dynamic
> holomorphic functors. These describe the shapes upon the surface of cells,
> be they receptor clusters or motor functions.
>
> These are sensitized by a necessary new basis. A universal that is across
> all flexible closed structure and is responsible for the associated range
> of sensation, allosteric shaping and coordination across these structures.
>
>
>
> I have one more piece to add, expanding information science into its
> proper domain.
>
>
> My apologies for the delay between posts. I am still in recovery and in
> addition to the problems with the FIS server last week my Thyroid crashed
> (the consequence of radiation treatment last year) leaving me feeling
> pretty ill.
>
> Regards,
> Steven
>
>
> --
>     Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith, Los Gatos, California. +1-650-308-8611
>     http://iase.info
>
>
>
>
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>
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