[Fis] The phenomenology of life

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear Alex and FIS colleagues,

Thanks for your "adventures in knowledge". I found very interesting the 
first part of your presentation, about "experiential information", that 
critical instabilities may be used in control/communication instances by 
biological systems looks acceptable and partially well-known, as 
witnessed by your references and many other authors. I am not sure 
whether the other forms of information you mention (Fisher, Shannon, 
Quantum) are enough to cover other instances of information present in 
the biomolecular scaffolding of life. One form to see the variety of 
cases is through "molecular recognition" categories, another is to look 
directly to the different informational architectures present in the 
living cell. In both cases "more is needed"... Also, along my own work 
in cellular signaling systems (prokaryotic and eukaryotic), I have got 
the impression that we tend to terribly simplify most of the matters 
around cellular communication. The advancement of a life cycle (final 
goal and continuous reference of communication processes) is but a 
convoluted two part drama: the cell creates the world, and the world 
creates the cell. The very different way environmental metals are 
present in prokaryotic versus eukaryotic systems provides a curious 
story about that.

In my interpretation, none of the the above cannot be taken as the 
immediate basis of awareness or subjectivity. And in that respect, from 
a biological point of view, your "new lay of physics" may look rather 
gratuitous. Regarding cortical dynamics and the relationship with 
language and consciousness structures, your point is more sustainable, I 
think. The whole "experiential" flow image is more vivid and dynamic 
than Tononi's structural integrated information we were discussing days 
ago in this list. Can it directly be taken as a model for mind-to-mind 
communication of gestalts-ideas? Your cases and arguments are very 
readable and quite intriguing, but difficult to enter under the pale of 
science. In any case the matter is amazing: in a National Geographic TV 
series I have occasionally watched, the main character "Frank of the 
Wild"  (or so) becomes always accepted by the most dangerous, poisonous 
and solitary animals in the wild, approaching them, touching them, 
kissing them, etc. No tricks, just an amazing "hand".

Coincidentally I was reading today an editorial by one of those big 
names: "all of us must invest much more in out-of-the-box approaches at 
the very edges of knowledge".

All the best--Pedro

PS. I could not upload the kickoff text in the fis web pages yet 
(http://fis.sciforum.net/).
However, it could be found at:
http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/attachments/20160423/96146f05/attachment-0001.docx

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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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