[Fis] _ Re: _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS

[Louis H Kauffman]

Dear Soren,
Excellent!
What it amounts to is that you and I interpret all this a bit differently.
I am happy with Bateson’s unmarked states and his 
                                                                "All that is for the preacher
> The hypnotist, therapist and missionary
> They will come after me
> And use the little that I said
> To bait more traps
> For those who cannot bear
> The lonely
>         Skeleton
>                    of Truth”
Best,
Lou


> On Apr 2, 2016, at 9:18 PM, Søren Brier <sb.ibc at cbs.dk> wrote:
> 
> Dear Lou
>  
> I did red these very nice metalogues, but these are not the philosophy of science conceptual network underlying the real theory:
> For Bateson, mind is a cybernetic phe­nomenon, a sort of mental ecology. The mental ecology relates to an ability to register differen­ces and is an intrin­sic system property. The elementary, cyberne­tic system with its messages in circuits is the simplest mental unit, even when the total system does not include living organ­isms. Every living system has the following charac­teristics that we generally call men­tal:
> 1. The system shall operate with and upon differences.
> 2. The system shall consist of closed loops or networks of path­ways a­long which differ­ences and transforms of dif­fer­ences shall be trans­mitted. (What is transmitted on a neuron is not an impulse; it is news of a difference).
> 3. Many events within the system shall be energized by the respon­ding ­part rather than by impact from the trig­gering part.
> 4. The system shall show self‑corrective­ness in the direc­tion of home­ostasis and/or in the direction of runaway. Self-correc­tiveness implies trial and error.
> (Bateson 1973: 458)
> 
> Mind is synonymous with a cybernetic system that is compri­sed of a total, self-correc­ting unit that prepares infor­mation. Mind is imma­nent in this wholeness. When Bateson says that mind is immanent, he means that the mental is immanent in the entire system, in the complete message circuit. One can therefore say that mind is immanent in the circuits that are complete inside the brain. Mind is also immanent in the greater cir­cuits, which complete the system “brain + body.” Finally, mind is imma­nent in the even greater system “man + environ­ment” or - more generally - “orga­nism + environment,” which is identical to the elementary unit of evo­lution, i.e., the thinking, acting and deciding agent:
> The individual mind is immanent, but not only in the body. It is imma­nent also in pathways and messages outsi­de the body; and there is a larger Mind, of which the individual is only a subsystem. This larger Mind is com­parable to God and is perhaps what some people mean by “God,” but it is still immanent in the total inter-con­nec­ted social system and planetary ecology. Freud­ian psychology expanded the concept of mind inward to in­clude the whole communi­cation system within the body - the auto­nomic, the habitual and the vast range of uncons­cious processes. What I am saying expands mind outward. And both of these changes reduce the scope of the cons­cious self. A certain humility becomes appropri­ate, tem­pered by the dignity or joy of being part of something bigger. A part -- if you will -- of God.
> (Bateson 1973: 436-37).
> 
> Bateson’s cybernetics thus leads towards mind as immanent in both animate and inanimate nature as well as in culture, because mind is essentially the informational and logical pattern that connects everything through its virtual recursive dynamics of differences and logical types. The theory is neither idealistic nor materialistic. It is informational and functionalistic[1] <x-msg://14/#_ftn1>.Norbert Wiener (1965/1948) has an objective information concept, which Bateson develops to be more relational and therefore more ecological. He develops a cybernetic concept of mind that includes humans and culture. Bateson’s worldview seems biological. He sees life and mind as coexisting in an ecological and evolutionary dynamic, integrating the whole biosphere. Bateson clearly sympathizes with the etholo­gists (Brier 1993, 1995) when he resists the positivistic split between the rational and the emotional in lan­guage and thinking that is so important for cognitive science. He acknowledges emotions as an important cognitive process:
> It is the attempt to separate intel­lect from emotion that is mons­trous, and I suggest that it is equally monstrous -- and dangerous -- to attempt to separate the external mind from the internal. Or to separate mind from body. Blake noted that “A tear is an intellectual thing,” and Pascal asserted that “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows noth­ing.” We need not be put off by the fact that the reasonings of the heart (or of the hypothalamus) are accom­panied by sensa­tions of joy or grief. These computations are con­cerned with matters, which are vital to mammals, namely matters of relation­s­hip, by which I mean love, hate, re­spect, depend­ency, spectatorship, perfor­man­ce, dominance and so on. These are central to the life of any animal, and I see no objection to calling these computa­tions “thought,” though cer­tainly the units of relational computation are dif­ferent from the units which we use to compute about isolable things.
> (Bateson 1973: 438-39)
> 
> It thus seems obvious that Bateson's “pattern that con­nects” includes the phenomeno­logical-emotional dimen­sion in its concept of mind but viewed as computational thoughts of relation, not as first person experiences. Cybernetics does not have a theory of qualia and emotion – not even in Bateson’s theories.
> In my opinion, this cybernetic viewpoint tells a great deal about motivational and emotio­nal functionality as seen through an ecological and evolutionary framework. It avoids physicalistic explanations, but although Bateson developed his theory far in this direction, he never revisited the first-order cybernetic foundation it was built upon. In Mind and Nature (1980:103) Bateson further develops his criteria for a cybernetic definition of mind:
>  
> 1. A mind is an aggregate of inter­acting parts or components.
> 2. The interaction between parts of mind is triggered by difference, and differ­ence is a non-substantial phenom­enon not located in space or time; differ­ence is related to neg-entropy and entropy rather than to energy.
> 3. Mental processes require collateral energy.
> 4. Mental processes require circular (or more complex) chains of deter­mina­tion.
> 5. In mental processes, the effects of differ­ence are to be regarded as trans­forms (i.e., coded versions) of events preced­ing them. The rules of such trans­formation must be com­paratively stable (i.e., more stable than the con­tent) but are them­selves subject to trans­formation.
> 6.   The description and classification of these processes of transfor­mation dis­close a hier­archy of logical types imma­nent in the phe­no­mena.
> (Bateson 1980: 102 and Bateson and Bateson 2005 p.18-19))
>  
> Today these criteria are famous and basic within the cybernetic understanding of mind. My critique concentrates on the foundation of the second criteria: “differ­ence is related to neg-entropy and entropy... .” I find it problematic that Bateson follows Norbert Wie­ner's idea that the concept “infor­mation” and the concept “negative entropy,” are synonymous. He is not only thinking of the statistical concept of entropy that Shannon uses in his theory, since this is not connected to energy. Further, he thinks that this insight unites the natural and the social sciences and finally resolves the problems of teleol­ogy and the body-mind dichotomy (Ruesch and Bateson 1967: 177). Regarding how the mystery of mind is resolved through the relation between the concept “information” and the concept “negative entropy” Ruesch and Bateson typically write:
> Wiener argued that these two concepts are synonymous; and this statement, in the opinion of the writers, marks the greatest single shift in human thinking since the days of Plato and Aristotle, because it unites the natural and the social sciences and finally resolves the problems of teleology and the body-mind dichotomy which Occidental thought has inherited from classical Athens.
> (Ruesch and Bateson 1987/1951: 177)
> 
> This statement characterizes the views of many researchers using this framework within systems, cybernetics, and informatics. To Bateson cybernetics provides a radical new foundation for a theory of mind and communication, as well as cognitive science, with a modern expression that unites the natural and social sciences. Psychology as such is not mentioned.
>  
> Here is Bateson’s poem he wrote after completion of Mind and Nature (Bateson and Bateson 2005/1987:6), which I think makes my point very clear:
>  
> The manuscript
> So there it is in words
> Precise
> And if you read between the lines
> You will find nothing there
> For that is the discipline I ask
> Not more, not less
>  
> Not the world as it is
> Not ought to be –
> Only the precision
> The skeleton of truth
> I do not dabble in emotions
> Hint at implications
> Evoke the ghosts of old forgotten creeds.
>  
> All that is for the preacher
> The hypnotist, therapist and missionary
> They will come after me
> And use the little that I said
> To bait more traps
> For those who cannot bear
> The lonely
>         Skeleton
>                    of Truth
>  
>  
> Best
>  
>                              Søren
>  
> Fra: Louis H Kauffman [mailto:kauffman at uic.edu <mailto:kauffman at uic.edu>] 
> Sendt: 3. april 2016 01:09
> Til: fis
> Cc: Søren Brier
> Emne: Re: [Fis] _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS
>  
> Dear Soren,
> If you were to read the dialogues with Mary Catherine Bateson (as a child) and Gregory Bateson in “Steps to an Ecology of Mind”, you might change your notion of
> what sort of view of the observer is being studied in cybernetics. It is all, through and through about a feeling for and an awarenss of context.
> This deep awareness of context is what brought so many of us to study the cybernetics of Bateson, von Foerster, Pask, Matrurana and others!
>  
> I feel sorry that you have acquired such a mechanistic view of cybernetics.
>  I have no idea what you could possibly mean by a ‘cybernetic mind built out of circular logical reasoning’! 
> Do you mean what comes from 
>  
> “I am the observed link between myself and observing myself” (HVF)?
>  
> Note that the words 
> observer,
> observed,
> myself,
> I,
> are all undefined here and it is up to the reader of this evocation to fill them in with feeling in the circular round that is but a walk or spiral about the notion of self,
> based on the given that selves can observe ‘themselves’.
>  
> Similarly in your sentence, the words
> cybernetic,
> mind,
> cybernetic mind,
> built,
> are undefined. The most treacherous is the word ‘built’ suggesting as it does that we would perhaps imagine that we can construct, as in building Uinivac, 
> a ‘cybernetic mind.’ I think that i prefer the postitronic brains of Isaac Asimov. 
>  
> Perhaps you are a reader of Stanislaw Lem and his Science Fiction Robots. 
>  
> In taking a concept such as circularity, and emphasizing it, we run the risk of making it sound like a be-all and end-all. It is important to understand that circularity is really always a spiral, and when we return to the first place it has been transformed in the next newness. Feeling emerges in the eternal return to the new and just born. These are the metaphors that we take to heart.
> Very best,
> Lou
>  
> P.S. I am quite conscious that I use an apposite strategy, speaking as poetically as I know how in the face of apparently logical but undefined rhetoric.
> It is easy for us to get lost in our own words.
>  
>  
> On Apr 2, 2016, at 2:28 PM, Søren Brier <sb.ibc at cbs.dk <mailto:sb.ibc at cbs.dk>> wrote:
>  
> Dear Lou
>  
> Thank you for your comments. My critique of Bateson is that his definition of the observer was purely cybernetics and  never included the experiential and therefore the emotional and meaning producing aspect of awareness. This is simply not included in the foundation the transdisciplinary foundation of cybernetics and may I add most of system science. Bateson’s observer is a cybernetic mind build out of circular logical reasoning, like McCulloch’s and von Foerster’s observer and I will include Maturana’s observer too. It is an inherited limitation of the cybernetic paradigm. This is the reason I have tried to integrate it into Peirce’s deep form of transdisciplinarity.
>  
> Luhmann see the lack of a phenomenological foundation in systems science and cybernetics (his system theory attempts to integrate them all including Bateson). Because of this lack he attempts to integrate his model with aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology by including a horizon of expectations but conceptualized in probability mathematics. Luhmann (1990) and Peirce both share the idea of form as the essential component in communication. Peirce writes:
>  
> […] a Sign may be defined as a Medium for the communication of a Form. [...]. As a medium, the Sign is essentially in a triadic relation, to its Object which determines it, and to its Interpretant which it determines. [...]. That which is communicated from the Object through the Sign to the Interpretant is a Form; that is to say, it is nothing like an existent, but is a power, is the fact that something would happen under certain conditions.  (MS: 793:1-3)
>  
> In Peirce’s dynamic process semiotics, a form is something that is embodied in an object as a habit. Thus, form acts as a constraining factor on interpretative behavior or what he calls a real possibility in the form of a ‘would-be’. The form is embodied in the object as a sort of disposition to act (Nöth 2012). This is based on Peirce’s metaphysics of Tychism, which is close to the spontaneity found in the vacuum fields of quantum filed theory, except that Peirce’s view of substance differs from modern physics in that he is a hylozoist like Aristotle, but now in an evolutionary process ontology.
>  
> I did meet Penrose many years ago and discussed his three world scenario with him and it is correct that on p.17-21 in The road to reality he give one of his most deep discussion of the model. But I do not recognize you far reaching and subtle interpretation there. For me the important ontological assumption is the independent mathematical platonic world, which is why the book’s subtitle is A complete guide to the laws of the Universe, which is connected to his prejudice that “the entire physical world is depicted as being governed according to mathematical laws” (p.18). Like Popper he operates with a mental world, but never gives a phenomenological or otherwise definition of the experiential world of experience, feelings and meaning, which is a place Popper also avoids and therefore never goers into a discussion of the qualitative “sciences”. In his development of his basic three world model in Fig.1.3 Penrose in figure 1.4 does believe that  “there might be mentality that is not rooted in physical structure”(p.20) and there is “the possibility of physical action beyond the scope of mathematical control” (p.20). On p. 21 he write about the mystery of “how it is that mentality – most particularly conscious awareness –can come about in association with appropriate physical structures...” and like in his work with Hameroff he believes that this understanding has to come from “..  major revolutions in our physical understanding”. They want to go deeper in quantum theory to transgress the type of physical worldview science is working from now. I am puzzled by how his views here are consistent with his view in the Emperor’s new mind and Shadows of mind where he argues against AI having the same qualities as the human mind.
>  
> Thanks
>  
>                     Søren
>  
>  
>  
> Fra: Louis H Kauffman [mailto:kauffman at uic.edu <mailto:kauffman at uic.edu>] 
> Sendt: 2. april 2016 05:46
> Til: fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
> Cc: Pedro C. Marijuan; Søren Brier
> Emne: Re: [Fis] _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS
>  
> Dear Soren and Folks,
> I have included some comments inside Soren’s introduction.
> Best,
> Lou K.
>  
>  
> Infobiosemiotics
> 
> 
> 
> Søren Brier, CBS
> This discussion aims at contributing to the definition of a universal concept of information covering objective as well as subjective experiential and intersubjective meaningful cognition and communication argued in more length in Brier (2015a). My take on the problem is that information is not primarily a technological term but a phenomenon that emerges from intersubjective meaningful sign based cognition and communication in living systems. The purpose of this discussion is to discuss a possible philosophical framework for an integral and more adequate concept of information uniting all isolated disciplines (Brier, 2010, 2011, 2013a+b+c). 
> The attempts to create objective concepts of information were good for technology (Brilliouin 1962) and the development of AI, but not able to develop theories that could include the experiential (subjective) aspect of informing that leads to meaning in the social setting (Brier 2015b). The statistical concept of Shannon (Shannon and Weaver 1963/1948) is the most famous objective concept but it was only a technical invention based on a mathematical concept of entropy, but never intended to encompass meaning.  Norbert Wiener (1963) combined the mathematics statistical with Boltzmann’s thermodynamically entropy concept and defined information as neg-entropy. Wiener then saw the statistical information’s entropy as a representation for mind and the thermodynamically entropy as representing matter. So he thought he had solved the mind matter problem through his and Schrödinger’s (1944/2012) definition of information as neg-entropy. 
> 
> 
> 
> The idea was developed further into an evolutionary and ecological framework by Gregory Bateson (1972, 1979, 19827) resulting in an ecological cybernetic concept of mind as self-organized differences that made a difference for a cybernetically conceptualized mind (Brier 2008b). But this concepts that could not encompass meaning and experience of embodied living and social systems (Brier 2008a, 2010, 2011). 
> [It seems to me that Bateson is well aware of the neccesity of being meaningful and thoughtful in relation to information and that his ‘difference that makes a difference’ is often the difference that is understood by an aware observer. Thus for him it is often the case that information arises within awareness and is not just 
> a matter of channel capacities as in the Shannon approach. The whole reason one is take by Bateson and can find much to think about there is that he has a sensitive and thoughtful approach to this area of problems. It is too harsh to just say that “the idea was developed further …”. 
> 
> 
> My main point is that from the present material, energetic or informational ontologies worldview we do not have any idea of how life, feeling, awareness and qualia could emerge from that foundation. 
> [Yes.]
> 
> 
> Ever since Russell and Whitehead’s attempt in Principia Mathematica to make a unified mathematical language for all sciences and logical positivism failed (Carnap, 1967 & Cartwright et.al. 1996), 
> [Personally, I do not regard the incompleteness results of Godel as an indication of failure! They show for the first time the true role of formalism in mathematics and in intellectual endeavor in general. We cannot rely on formalism only for our search, but it is through examining the limits of given formalisms that the search can be carried further. I do not say this is the only way forward, but we are no longer stuck with idea of a perfect mechanism that can in principle generate all mathematical 
> truths. This has failed and we are happy at that.]
> 
> 
> the strongest paradigm attempting in a new unification is now the info-computational formalism based on the mathematic calculus developed by Gregory Chaitin (2006 and 2007) ).
> [The ‘mathematical calculus’ of Chaitin iis very stimulating and it is based on the same incompleteness arguments as Goedel. Chaitin defines ‘random’ relative to a given formal system L. A sequence is random if there is no algorithm in L simpler than THE SEQUENCE ITSELF that can generate the sequence. Complexity of algorithms can be examined from this point of view. What we do not see in Chaitin is that same thing we do not see in Shannon. We do not see a role for judgement or phenomenolgy. I am interested in your notion that Chaitin has done more than this. Please say more.]
>  
> 
> 
> 
> The paradigm is only in its early beginning and is looking for a concept of natural computing (Dodig-Crnkovic, 2012) going beyond the Turing concept of computing. But even that still does not encompass the experiential feeling mind and the meaning orienting aspect of intersubjective communication wither be only sign or also language based.
> [Here I think you say the same as I just said above. It does not go far enough.]
> 
> 
> So far there is no conclusive evidence to make us believe that the core of reality across nature, culture, life and mind is purely absolute mathematical law as Penrose (2004) seems to suggest
> [Penrose says more. He is a particular sort of Platonist and he speaks of Three Worlds: World of Mind, Platonic Ideal World, Physical World.
> He has a triplicate circular relationship of these three worlds. The subtle part of Mind is included in the Platonic. The subtle part of the Platonic is included in the 
> deep mathematical structure of the physical. The subtle part of the physical is included in the Mind. These are all proper inclusions. Mind is greater than the subtle physical. The Platonic is greater than the subtle mind. The Physical is greater than its subtle mathematical core. You can find all this in the introduction to Penrose’s
> book “The Road to Reality”. ]
> 
> 
> or purely computational. 
> [In his books Penrose argues again and again against the notion that we are purely computational and he does not believe that the Universe is purely computational.]
> Meaning is a way of making ‘sense’ of things for the individual in the world perceived.
> [I think it would help to raise (once again) the question of the meaning of meaning. It is too easy to say that meaning is a ‘making sense of’ or that it is non-mathematical. The problem with saying non-mathematical is that one has to raise (once again) the question of what it means (sic) to be mathematical.
> And when all is said and done it will become clear that one has to differentiate between mathematical meaning calculational and mathematical meaning 
> conceptual (the number two is the concept of pair). When one asks how comes about a concept then one is thrown fully into the relationship of thought,percept and concept. I say that this is where meaning comes about. And indeed ‘feeling’ is important in this domain, as feeling is what intermediates thought,percept and concept.
> There is a strong need for very careful and sensitive phenomenological discussion of this issue.]
> 
> 
> It is a non-mathematical existential feeling aspect of life related to reflection past, present and future of existence in the surrounding environment, in humans enhanced by language, writings, pictures, music through culture. In animals cognition and communication are connected to survival, procreation and pleasure. In humans beings cognition develops into consciousness through subjective experiential and meaning based (self-) reflection of the individual’s role in the external world and becomes an existential aspect.
> [Here you discuss exacty that arena of though, concept and percept.]
> 
> 
> My conclusion is therefore that a broader foundation is needed in order to understand the basis for information and communication in living systems. Therefore we need to include a phenomenological and hermeneutical ground in order to integrate a theory of interpretative/subjectiveand intersubjective meaning and signification with a theory of objective information, which has a physical grounding (see for instance Plamen, Rosen & Gare 2015). Thus the question is how can we establish an alternative transdisciplinary model of the sciences and the humanities to the logical positivist reductionism on one hand and to postmodernist relativist constructivism on the other in the form of a transdisciplinary concept of Wissenschaft (i.e. “knowledge creation”, implying both subjectivism and objectivism)? The body and its meaning-making processes is a complex multidimensional object of research that necessitates trans-disciplinary theoretical approaches including biological sciences, primarily biosemiotics and bio-cybernetics, cognition and communication sciences, phenomenology, hermeneutics, philosophy of science and philosophical theology (Harney 2015, Davies & Gregersen 2009).
> Peirce develops his pragmaticism as a way to unite empirical research, meaning and experience. His ontology is not only materialistic science but does also include meaning through embodied interaction through experiential living bodies and thereby the social as well as the subjective forms of cognition, meaning and interpretation. Thereby he goes further than Popper’s (1978) view of the three worlds. Communication is not only a world of objective knowledge but is intersubjective meaningful information. Peirce’s idea of ‘the world’ is much bigger than what science considers being ‘the world’... 
> [Thank you for this fine introduction to your thinking!]
>  
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> <FIS Soeren Infobiosemiotics abstract NEW.docx>_______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:Fis at listas.unizar.es>
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis <http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis>
>  
> 
> [1] <x-msg://14/#_ftnref1> Functionalism is a philosophical view of mind, according to which mental processes are characterized in terms of their abstract functional or even computational relationships to one another, and to sensory inputs and motor outputs. The mind should be explained in terms of the function of the human body within a given environment.  Bateson expands this idea further into the environment. Its core idea is that mental states can be accounted for without taking into account the underlying physical medium such as the brain. In the computational view the mind is seen as the software and the brain as the hardware. As these processes are not limited to a particular physical state or physical medium, they can be realized in multiple ways. Some call it a non-reductive materialism others the information processing paradigm. It is probably the dominant theory of mental states in modern philosophy (Brier 1992 and 1999). I know that many researchers using Bateson’s work do not share this understanding and find it provoking and unfair to their interpretation of Bateson’s paradigm. But I find my interpretation clearly supported by the two first chapters in the posthumous published book Angels Fear (2005/1987), which Mary Catherine Bateson participated in and finished after her fathers dead, and it is also supported by Hayles (1999) interpretation of cybernetics and in the way Luhmann (1995) uses Bateson in his theory:  The view is further developed in this article.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/attachments/20160403/ce7f2551/attachment.html>