[Fis] Heretic

[Michel Godron]

Dear colleagues

In order to know the relations between living organisms and their 
environment, I use Brillouin's formula (and its fundamental 
thermodynamical signification) to compute the information contained in 
biological structures and the probability of events.

It is written in french, but I could prepare an english version if you 
help me.

Cordialement. M. Godron

Le 04/10/2017 à 09:16, Loet Leydesdorff a écrit :
>>
>> Nobody of us is able to provide an operative framework and a single 
>> (just one!) empirical  testable prevision able to assess "information".
>>
> Dear colleague,
>
> One should not confuse the confusion on the list with the clarity of 
> the concept information in information theory. This definition is 
> operational (e.g., in bits). Your computer would not work without this 
> definition (1 byte = 8 bits). The problem is that this definition of 
> information as uncertainty is counter-intuitive.
>
> The search for an intuitive definition of information has led to 
> unclear definitions. In a recent book, Hidalgo (2015, at p. 165), for 
> example, has defined “information” with reference “to the order 
> embodied in codified sequences, such as those found in music or DNA, 
> while /knowledge and knowhow /refer to the ability of a system to 
> process information.” However, codified knowledge can be abstract 
> and—like music—does not have to be “embodied” (e.g., Cowan, David, & 
> Foray, 2000).
>
> Beyond Hidalgo’s position, Floridi (2010, p. 21) proposed “a general 
> definition of information” according to which “the well-formed data 
> are /meaningful/” (italics of the author). Luhmann (1995, p. 67) 
> posits that “all information has meaning.” In his opinion, information 
> should therefore be considered as a selection mechanism. Kauffman et 
> al. (2008, at p. 28) added to the confusion by defining information as 
> “natural selection.”
>
> Against these attempt to bring information and meaning under a single 
> denominator--and to identify variation with selection--I argue for a 
> dualistic perspective (as did Prof. Zhong in a previous email). 
> Information and meaning should not be confounded. Meaning is generated 
> from redundancies (Bateson, 1972, p. 420; Weaver, 1949; see 
> Leydesdorff /et al./, 2017).
>
> Best,
> Loet
>
> *References:*
>
> Bateson, G. (1972). /Steps to an Ecology of Mind/. New York: Ballantine.
>
> Cowan, R., David, P., & Foray, D. (2000). The Explicit Economics of 
> Knowledge Codification and Tacitness. /Industrial and Corporate 
> Change, 9/(2), 211-253.
>
> Floridi, L. (2010). /Information: A very short introduction/. Oxford, 
> UK: Oxford University Press.
>
> Hidalgo, C. (2015). /Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, 
> from Atoms to Economies/. New York: Basic Books.
>
> Kauffman, S., Logan, R. K., Este, R., Goebel, R., Hobill, D., & 
> Shmulevich, I. (2008). Propagating organization: an enquiry. /Biology 
> and Philosophy, 23/(1), 27-45.
>
> Leydesdorff, L., Johnson, M., & Ivanova, I. (2017). Toward a Calculus 
> of Redundancy: Signification, Codification, and Anticipation in 
> Cultural Evolution. 
> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3030525 .
>
> Luhmann, N. ([1984] 1995). /Social Systems/. Stanford, CA: Stanford 
> University Press.
>
> Weaver, W. (1949). Some Recent Contributions to the Mathematical 
> Theory of Communication. In C. E. Shannon & W. Weaver (Eds.), /The 
> Mathematical Theory of Communication/ (pp. 93-117.). Urbana: 
> University of Illinois Press.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Loet Leydesdorff
>
> Professor, University of Amsterdam
> Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
>
> loet at leydesdorff.net <mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net>; 
> http://www.leydesdorff.net/
> Associate Faculty, SPRU, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/>University of 
> Sussex;
>
> Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ. <http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/>, 
> Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC, 
> <http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html>Beijing;
>
> Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck <http://www.bbk.ac.uk/>, University of London;
>
> http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en
>
>
>
>
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