[Fis] Principles of IS

[Michel Godron]

Dear Pedro,

" Rafael and  Michel are talking more about principles as general 
concepts". It is not exactly  what I meant, because the general 
principles (for example the principle of identity or the principle of 
non-contradiction)  are not exactly  "concepts".

Yet I agree with "the connection between Euclidean geometry and 
politics, biology, etc. is factually impossible."

In " the panorama of biological information" we could include the 
thermodynamical information gained by photosynthsis, the structural and 
biochemical information used by macromolecules self-reproducting and by 
the division of cellules in epigenetics, the strucutural and bionomical 
information of vegetal and animal communities. and the formal 
information used by humans in economy.

Cordialement.
M. Godron
Le 29/09/2017 à 12:55, Pedro C. Marijuan a écrit :
>
> 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