[Fis] Verification of the Principle of Information Science

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear All,

After Xueshan clarion call, I partially change what I was writing. Of 
course I have to thank him for his support of the 10 principles. 
Actually, in connection with the recent exchanges, particularly with 
Gordana's and John (Torday) posts, I was working in some ideas further 
related to the principles. On the one side the general view on the "new 
kind of natural science/philosophy" around information, and on the other 
side the transcendentalism of life... I think they also connect with 
Xueshan call of synthesis between info disciplines in his last 
paragraph. Trying to be concise I present herewith three points:

First. "There is Life--and Information."
Second. "We contemplate the World."
Third. "The society around us."

1. Life and Information: In biology, information is the new mantra. All 
kinds of scientific-technological-entrepreneurial gurus have proclaimed 
it, based on the revolutionary discoveries and gigantic bio-data 
accumulations. But scientifically, few people are trying to accommodate 
a new central theory of biology that could incorporate that new 
empirical reality of amazing complexity. In my own preliminary approach 
I describe how the simplest cells confront "the information flows" of 
their environment and couple them with the inner information flows 
related to their self-production, always doing it adaptively. Regarding 
the excellent work that John Torday has done on the evolutionary 
organizational achievements of multicellulars, as he mentioned, there 
are ample possibilities of mutual connection... Everything is rather  
preliminary but at least we can open the door so that other people 
behind could do it better.
In any case, around life and information, we see an amazing world of 
molecular complexity in action that contains some of the fundamentals of 
the new info perspective. The living cell can really "perceive" selected 
portions of the world around (information flow) and regularly intercepts 
them by means of its sensory apparatus (signaling system). Then it 
reacts adaptively, modifying its processes and structures according to 
inner stocks of permanent information (knowledge), sculpting a life 
cycle, also communicating with other living cells, and really building 
"molecular meaning" upon the received signals. Besides, the pervasive 
horizontal gene transfer in microbial ecosystems (phages, viruses, 
plasmids, sex...) has generated a collective multi-species assemblage or 
genuine "planetary library" of global molecular knowledge. It is not 
bombastic, as all planetary cycles of fundamental elements that sustain 
all present life are based on trillions of molecular machines of 
prokaryotes that have been churning around for eons. This Molecular 
Internet of sorts (Sorin Sonea dixit) was the beginning, and made 
possible so many things that now we may call in so many ways: 
evolvability, autopoiesis, agency, informational existence, ecological 
webs, ecosphere, GAIA, etc.
We may discuss quite legitimately about information physics, but 
clarifying first the scientific discourse about biological information 
by means of a new consistent viewpoint looks a priority (at the same 
level, at least).

2. Looking at the World: After the incredible complexification of life, 
nervous systems, etc. we, the improbable, the unexpected, are here. And 
like our humble bacterial ancestors, we have to confront the world for 
our individual living, and so we regularly contemplate and are immersed  
into the quasi-infinite information flows of the environment. But this 
time, by means of language, acting both as our new social communication 
tool and as an open-ended symbolic system, our collective capabilities 
of relating with the world have boomed. And historically we have 
developed those social repositories or stocks of knowledge we call 
science and all kinds of accompanying technological tools that allow us 
a new contemplation and action onto the world around. Now we can sense 
the most remote perceptions, we can colligate them with the different 
disciplines, and produce adaptive (or non adaptive) responses, with 
supposedly the final goal of advancing our lives both individually and 
collectively.
The new kind of science/philosophy to establish around this 
informational "looking at the world"  would demand a new "observer", in 
this case starting from a differentiated set of disciplinary principles 
of observation. But that creates a lot of logic and scientific 
difficulties. Recognizing the limitation of the agent/observer is one of 
them; leaving open-ended the observable is another. I am aware of the 
invincible circularity that easily surrounds all of this. So the need of 
a set of new principles sidestepping the worst problems and allowing 
fresh new thought. Probably, the easiest part would be the parallel 
realization of a new synthesis incorporating a new stock of scientific 
concepts (admittedly, most of them in the making yet); at least it could 
start by a compendium of the numerous theories around information 
already existing. At the end, a more "natural" and efficient approach to 
our limitations in the individual and social handling of "knowledge 
ecologies" would also emerge...

3. The Society Around: When we look at our societies, what we see along 
history is that the biggest global changes have always been induced or 
accompanied by substantial changes in the information/communication 
flows around individuals: writing, codices, printing press, books, 
newspapers, new media, computers, internet, social networks... Our 
societies have always been "information societies." The current 
acceleration of artificial information flows represents a challenge to 
the most natural info flows (face to face conversation) so ingrained in 
our social and psychological adaptation and personal lives. 
Paradoxically, in the "information society", mental health and wellbeing 
problems are steadily mounting as public health problems (a terrible 
escalation of depression and suicides), plus new de-socialization 
pathologies that are emerging, including the resurgence of nastiest 
political movements at a global scale. We do not recognize the perils 
and pitfalls of that intangible "social information" stuff, explosive 
like nitroglycerine in social milieus when improperly or maliciously 
handled. In many ways, the advancement of social information science is 
tremendously important, and I quite agree with the gist of the message 
just received from Xueshan... we must have a specific session devoted to it.

Along coming weeks, we can progressively ascend along the topics related 
with the principles, entering into biology, and then to other 
territories, perhaps until finally confronting the hottest social 
challenge... At least I will periodically make suggestions in that 
sense. Maintaining our usual chaoticity is not a bad thing either--as 
usual navigating in between Scilla and Charybdis.

All the best
--Pedro


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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 0
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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