[Fis] Principles of IS
Rafael Capurro
rafael at capurro.de
Fri Sep 29 13:31:30 CEST 2017
Dear Pedro,
thanks for food for thought. When talking about communication we should
not forget that Wiener defines cybernetics as "the theory of messages"
(not: as the theory of information) (Human use of human beings, London
1989, p. 15, p. 77 "cybernetics, or the theory of messages" et passim)
Even for Shannon uses the (undefined) concept of message 'as' what is
transmitted (which is not information) is of paramount importance. And
so also at the level of cell-cell communication.
The code or the difference message/messenger is, I think, a key for
interpreting biological processes. In this sense, message/messanger are
'archai' (in the Aristotelian) sense for different sciences (no
reductionism if we want to focus on the differences between the
phenomena). 'Archai' are NOT 'general concepts' (as you suggest) but
originating forces that underline the phenomena in their manifestations
'as' this or that.
From this perspective, information (following Luhmann) is the process
of interpretation taking place at the receiver. When a cell, excuse me
these thoughts from a non-biologist, receives a message transmitted by a
messenger, then the main issue is from the perspective of the cell, to
interpret this message (with a special address or 'form' supposed to
'in-form' the cell) 'as' being relevant for it. Suppose this
interpretation is wrong in the sense that the message causes death (to
the cell or the whole organism), then the re-cognition system (its
immune system also) of the cell fails. Biological fake news, so to
speak, with mortal consequences due to failures in the communication.
best
Rafael
> Dear FISers,
>
> I also agree with Ji and John Torday about the tight relationship
> between information and communication. Actually Principle 5 was
> stating : "Communication/information exchanges among adaptive
> life-cycles underlie the complexity of biological organizations at all
> scales." However, let me suggest that we do not enter immediately in
> the discussion of cell-cell communication, because it is very
> important and perhaps demands some more exchanges on the preliminary
> info matters.
>
> May I return to principles and Aristotle? I think that Rafael and
> Michel are talking more about principles as general concepts than
> about principles as those peculiar foundational items that allow the
> beginning of a new scientific discourse. Communication between
> principles of the different disciplines is factually impossible (or
> utterly irrelevant): think on the connection between Euclidean
> geometry and politics, biology, etc. I think Ortega makes right an
> interpretation about that. When Aristotle makes the first
> classification of the sciences, he is continuing with that very idea.
> Theoretical sciences, experimental or productive sciences, and applied
> or practical sciences--with an emphasis on the explanatory theoretical
> power of both physics and mathematics (ehm, Arturo will agree fully
> with him). I have revisited my old reading notes and I think that the
> Aristotelian confrontation with the Platonic approach to the unity of
> knowledge that Ortega comments is extremely interesting for our
> current debate on information principles.
>
> There is another important aspect related to the first three
> principles in my original message (see at the bottom). It would be
> rather strategic to achieve a consensus on the futility of struggling
> for a universal information definition. Then, the tautology of the
> first principle ("info is info") is a way to sidestep that
> definitional aspect. Nevertheless, it is clear that interesting
> notions of information may be provided relative to some particular
> domains or endeavors. For instance, "propagating influence" by our
> colleague Bob Logan, Stuart Kauffman and others, and many other
> notions or partial definitions as well--I include my own "distinction
> on the adjacent" as valuable for the informational approach in
> biology. Is this "indefinability" an undesirable aspect? To put an
> example from physics, time appears as the most undefinable of the
> terms, but it shows up in almost all equations and theories of
> physics... Principle three means that one can do a lot of things with
> info without the need of defining it.
>
> As for the subject that is usually coupled to the info term, as our
> discussion advances further, entering the "information flows" will
> tend to clarify things. The open-ended relationship with the
> environment that the "informational entities" maintain via the
> channeling of those info flows--it is a very special coupling
> indeed--allows these entities the further channeling of the "energy
> flows" for self-maintenance. Think on the living cells and their
> signaling systems, or think on our "info" societies. Harold Morowitz's
> "energy flow in biology" has not been paralleled yet by a similar
> "information flow in biology". One is optimistic that the recent
> incorporation of John Torday, plus Shungchul Ji and others, may lead
> to a thought-collective capable of illuminating the panorama of
> biological information.
>
> (shouldn't we make an effort to incorporate other relevant parties,
> also interested in biological information, to this discussion?)
>
> Best wishes--Pedro
>
> El 23/09/2017 a las 21:27, Sungchul Ji escribió:
>>
>> Hi Fisers,
>>
>>
>> I agree.
>>
>> Communication may be the key concept in developing a theory of
>> informaton.
>>
>>
>> Just as it is impossible to define what energy is without defining
>> the thermodynamic system under consideration (e.g., energy is
>> conserved only in an isolated system and not in closed or open
>> systems; the Gibbs free energy content decreases only when
>> a spontaneous process occurs in non-isolsted systems with a constant
>> temperature and pressure, etc), so it may be that 'information'
>> cannot be defined rigorously without first defining the
>> "communication system" under consideration. If this analogy is
>> true, we can anticipate that, just as there are many different kinds
>> of energies depending on the characteristics of the thermodynamic
>> systems involved, so there may be many different kinds of
>> 'informations' depending on the nature of the communication systems
>> under consideration.
>>
>>
>> The properties or behaviors of all thermodynamic systems depend on
>> their environment, and there are three system-environment relations
>> -- (i) isolated (e.g., the Universe, or the thermos bottle), (ii)
>> closed (e.g., refriegerator), and (iii) open (e.g., the biosphere,
>> living cells).
>>
>>
>> It is interesting to note that, all communication systems (e.g.,
>> cell, organs, animals, humans) may embody ITR (Irreducible Triadic
>> Relation) which I found it convenient to represent diagramamatically
>> using a 3-node network arrows as shown below:
>>
>>
>> / f g/
>>
>> *A* ----------> *B *---------> *C*
>> | ^
>> | |
>> |__________________|
>> /h/
>>
>>
>> Figure 1. The Irreducible Triadic Relation (*ITR*) of C. S. Peirce
>> (1839-21914) represented as a 3-node, closed and directed network.
>> The arrows form the /commutative triangle /of category theory,
>> i.e., operations /f/ followed by /g/ leads to the same result as
>> operation /h/, here denoted as /fxg = h./
>>
>> /f/ = information production; /g/ = information interpretation; /h/ =
>> correspondence or information flow. Please note that Processes f
>> and g are driven by exergonic physicochemical processes, and /h/
>> requires a pre-existing code or language that acts as the rule of
>> mapping A and C.
>>
>>
>> Again, just as generations of thermodynamicists in the 19-20th
>> centuries have defined various kinds of "energies" (enthalpy,
>> Helmholtz free energy, Gibbs free energy) applicable to different
>> kinds of thermodynamic systems, so 'information scientists' of the
>> 21st century may have the golden opportunity to define as many kinds
>> of 'informations' as needed for the different kinds of "communcation
>> systems" of their interest, some examples of which being presented in
>> Table 1.
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________________________________________
>>
>> Table 1. A 'parametric' definition of information based on the
>> values of the three nodes
>> of the *ITR, *Figure 1.
>>
>> ________________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>> *Communication system* *A B C *
>> (Information)**
>>
>> ________________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>> /Cells / DNA/RNA Proteins Chemcal reactions
>> (Biological informations)
>> or chemical waves
>>
>> _________________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>> /Humans / Sender Message Receiver
>> (Linguistic informations)
>>
>> _________________________________________________________________________
>>
>> /Signs / Object Representamen Interpretant
>> (Semiotic informations, or
>>
>> 'Universal informations' (?))
>> __________________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>> With all the best.
>>
>>
>> Sung
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* Fis <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> on behalf of JOHN TORDAY
>> <jtorday at ucla.edu>
>> *Sent:* Saturday, September 23, 2017 10:44:33 AM
>> *To:* fis at listas.unizar.es
>> *Subject:* [Fis] Principles of IS
>> Dear Fis, I am a newcomer to this discussion, but suffice it to say
>> that I have spent the last 20 years trying to understand how and why
>> physiology has evolved. I stumbled upon your website because Pedro
>> Maijuan had reviewed a paper of ours on 'ambiguity' that was recently
>> published in Progr Biophys Mol Biol July 22, 2017 fiy.
>> Cell-cell communication is the basis for molecular
>> embryology/morphogenesis. This may seem tangential at best to your
>> discussion of Information Science, but if you'll bear with me I will
>> get to the point. In my (humble) opinion, information is the
>> 'language' of evolution, but communication of information as a
>> process is the mechanism. In my reduction of evolution as
>> communication, it comes down to the interface between physics and
>> biology, which was formed when the first cell delineated its internal
>> environment (Claude Bernard, Walter B Cannon) from the outside
>> environment. From that point on, the dialog between the environment
>> and the organism has been on-going, the organism internalizing the
>> external environment and compartmentalizing it to form what we
>> recognize as physiology (Endosymbiosis Theory). Much of this thinking
>> has come from new scientific evidence for Lamarckian epigenetic
>> inheritance from my laboratory and that of many others- how the
>> organism internalizes information from the environment by chemically
>> changing the information in DNA in the egg and sperm, and then in the
>> zygote and offspring, across generations. So here we have a
>> fundamental reason to reconsider what 'information' actually means
>> biologically. If you are interested in any of my publications on this
>> subject please let me know (jtorday at ucla.edu
>> <mailto:jtorday at ucla.edu>). Thank you for any interest you may have
>> in this alternative way of thinking about information, communication
>> and evolution.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Fis mailing list
>> Fis at listas.unizar.es
>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>
>> As promised herewith the "10 principles of information science". A
>> couple of previous comments may be in order.
>> First, what is in general the role of principles in science? I was
>> motivated by the unfinished work of philosopher Ortega y Gasset, "The
>> idea of principle in Leibniz and the evolution of deductive theory"
>> (posthumously published in 1958). Our tentative information science
>> seems to be very different from other sciences, rather multifarious
>> in appearance and concepts, and cavalierly moving from scale to
>> scale. What could be the specific role of principles herein? Rather
>> than opening homogeneous realms for conceptual development, these
>> information principles would appear as a sort of "portals" that
>> connect with essential topics of other disciplines in the different
>> organization layers, but at the same time they should try to be
>> consistent with each other and provide a coherent vision of the
>> information world.
>> And second, about organizing the present discussion, I bet I was too
>> optimistic with the commentators scheme. In any case, for having a
>> first glance on the whole scheme, the opinions of philosophers would
>> be very interesting. In order to warm up the discussion, may I ask
>> John Collier, Joseph Brenner and Rafael Capurro to send some initial
>> comments / criticisms? Later on, if the commentators idea flies,
>> Koichiro Matsuno and Wolfgang Hofkirchner would be very valuable
>> voices to put a perspectival end to this info principles discussion
>> (both attended the Madrid bygone FIS 1994 conference)...
>> But this is FIS list, unpredictable in between the frozen states and
>> the chaotic states! So, everybody is invited to get ahead at his own,
>> with the only customary limitation of two messages per week.
>>
>> Best wishes, have a good weekend --Pedro
>>
>> *10 **PRINCIPLES OF INFORMATION SCIENCE*
>>
>> 1. Information is information, neither matter nor energy.
>>
>> 2. Information is comprehended into structures, patterns, messages,
>> or flows.
>>
>> 3. Information can be recognized, can be measured, and can be
>> processed (either computationally or non-computationally).
>>
>> 4. Information flows are essential organizers of life's
>> self-production processes--anticipating, shaping, and mixing up with
>> the accompanying energy flows.
>>
>> 5. Communication/information exchanges among adaptive life-cycles
>> underlie the complexity of biological organizations at all scales.
>>
>> 6. It is symbolic language what conveys the essential communication
>> exchanges of the human species--and constitutes the core of its
>> "social nature."
>>
>> 7. Human information may be systematically converted into efficient
>> knowledge, by following the "knowledge instinct" and further up by
>> applying rigorous methodologies.
>>
>> 8. Human cognitive limitations on knowledge accumulation are
>> partially overcome via the social organization of "knowledge ecologies."
>>
>> 9. Knowledge circulates and recombines socially, in a continuous
>> actualization that involves "creative destruction" of fields and
>> disciplines: the intellectual /Ars Magna./
>>
>> 10. Information science proposes a new, radical vision on the
>> information and knowledge flows that support individual lives, with
>> profound consequences for scientific-philosophical practice and for
>> social governance.
>>
>> --
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> 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/
>> -------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Fis mailing list
>> Fis at listas.unizar.es
>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
>
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------
> 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/
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis at listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
--
Prof.em. Dr. Rafael Capurro
Hochschule der Medien (HdM), Stuttgart, Germany
Capurro Fiek Foundation for Information Ethics (http://www.capurro-fiek-foundation.org)
Distinguished Researcher at the African Centre of Excellence for Information Ethics (ACEIE), Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Chair, International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE) (http://icie.zkm.de)
Editor in Chief, International Review of Information Ethics (IRIE) (http://www.i-r-i-e.net)
Postal Address: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
E-Mail: rafael at capurro.de
Voice: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)
Homepage: www.capurro.de
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