[Fis] Anticipatory Systems

[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear colleagues,

It seems to me that the strongest tool that we have for making 
predictions is a model. Let's take a simple one: f = m * a. It enables 
us to predict the path of a mass with a certain velocity, etc. It is not 
a narrative, but we can narrate it. The narrative is in natural 
language; that is, the not-yet codified communication. The model takes 
it one step up.

Following Damasio and others, Pedro gave a very rich account of the 
anti-dualist program in biology and ai. In my opinion, the error is not 
Descartes', but in the narrative about Descartes. One cannot reduce mind 
to body and make the body understand symbolic expressions such f = m * 
a. One may be able to anticipate intuitively, but the model is far 
superior because it is a means of communication among us. One can solve 
problems with it at the supra-individual level. In other words, my 
position is thoroughly dualistic and anti-reductionist. (Of course, one 
should not return to Descartes; but let's say Husserl's intersubjective 
intentionality which transcends the individual noesis.)

Interestingly, the forward arrow follows the entropy law; the backward 
arrow in the case of anticipation does not generate entropy, but 
redundancy. It can be backward because we can entertain the model which 
gives us access to the state at t+1. The specification of this state can 
then operate as an independent variable (cause) upon our current state 
(at t= t). For example, we can construct technologies such as vaccines. 
The prediction of a risk makes it possible to anticipate.

Best,
Loet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loet Leydesdorff

Professor emeritus, 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


------ Original Message ------
From: "Mark Johnson" <johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com>
To: "Karl Javorszky" <karl.javorszky at gmail.com>
Cc: "fis" <fis at listas.unizar.es>
Sent: 10/29/2018 4:48:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] Anticipatory Systems

>Wonderful, Karl - thank you!
>
>I think one of the most important stories that we have to look at is 
>the story about how we have come to think about science. More 
>pertinently, there is a question about whether we need a new story – 
>and whether a story with “information” (or perhaps "redundancy") at its 
>heart is that new story.  From digital ontology, quantum mechanics, 
>biosemiotics, cybernetics, black hole cosmology and the theology of 
>people like Arthur Peacock and John Haught, it seems that this indeed 
>is the beginning of a new story for the world. We  need it, don’t we?!
>
>
>I’m reading David Wootton’s “The Invention of Science” at the moment. 
>It’s a wonderful scholarly account of the construction of scientific 
>narrative in the 17th century. Highlighting the invention of concepts 
>like “discovery”, “fact”, “evidence”, “laws” and “experiment”, Wootton 
>points out that poets knew what was happening decades before the likes 
>of Bacon put it in more prosaic terms. This is John Donne, who Wotton 
>quotes in the first chapter:
>
>A new philosophy cals all in doubt,
>
>The element of fire is quite put out;
>
>The sunne is lost, and th’earth, and no mans wit
>
>Can well direct him, where to looke for it.
>
>And freely men confesse, that this world’s spent,
>
>When in the Planets, and the firmament
>
>They seeke so many new; they see that this
>
>Is crumbled out againe to his Atomis.
>
>‘Tis all in pieces, all cohaerence gone;
>
>All just supply, and all Relation;
>
>Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne are things forgot,
>
>And every man alone thinks he hath got
>
>To be a phoenix, and that then can bee
>
>None of that kind, of which he is, but hee.
>
>
>
>Extraordinary, isn’t it? We have everything from atoms to the 
>individualism of capitalism. But Donne gets what was missing: it was 
>coherence. We’ve tried to put the pieces back together again. But it 
>doesn’t work. We need something else.  To emphasise my earlier point, 
>there is a choice as to how we look at narrative: if we look through 
>the lens of the scientific revolution, we see the world broken down 
>into constructions and stories where “every man thinks he hath got to 
>be a phoenix” (or indeed, has no choice but to be one). I’d prefer to 
>look through Donne’s lens, and see the coherence we have lost.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Mark
>
>On Mon, 29 Oct 2018 at 15:33, Karl Javorszky <karl.javorszky at gmail.com> 
>wrote:
>>Anticipation
>>
>>
>>
>>Learned Friends,
>>
>>
>>
>>We deal with the observation, that biologic organisms anticipate what 
>>will happen next. Some concentrate on the narrative of the 
>>anticipation, some on the phenomena that are anticipated. As a human 
>>faculty, anticipation can range from intuition, guess, instinct, to 
>>prediction and certitude. Science has more or less dealt with 
>>certitude (b follows from a) and has understood prediction (if a then 
>>p(b) ~ x). Now we work our way towards understanding instinctive 
>>prediction.
>>
>>The utility and efficacy of the narrative version of anticipation 
>>varies also greatly: we have the wish formulae, where faith and belief 
>>causes anticipating an effect (if I say “please” they will give that 
>>to me), magical incantations with powerful words, inputting arguments 
>>of an algorithm in the hope of receiving a result, and the classical 
>>case of the words of the narrative being one and inseparable from the 
>>facts that are the case (the DNA is a narrative of what will happen, 
>>and its predictions are in the closest possible way related to the 
>>facts of the matter the narrative talks about). (Interactive online 
>>reporting, where the narration is a part of the process.)
>>
>>We do have some difficulties with a running narration, because such a 
>>thing as telling the future has no place in classical, Wittgenstein 
>>logic and the corresponding narrative about the proceedings. That, 
>>what will come into existence is presently not the case. Whichever way 
>>we turn it, we are not supposed to talk about things that are not the 
>>case.
>>
>>
>>
>>Foretelling the future (anticipating correctly) is a task that humans 
>>can despair of. This problem being with us since the beginning of 
>>time, it has been addressed by many generations using diverse lexica. 
>>Bruno’s suggestion that we have no shy using words and concepts of 
>>theology is a wise one: Our forefathers expressed themselves in 
>>allegories involving divine figures. This has given me courage to 
>>present to you an Allegory on the Seduction of Arithmetica by Amor, 
>>with a bow to Martianus Capella. May your serene judgement of this 
>>non-polished draft be softened by magnanimous mercy extended against a 
>>beginner.
>>
>>
>>
>>-----------------------
>>
>>
>>Seduction of Arithmetica by Amor (20181028)
>>
>>
>>
>>Amor: (enters scene of idyllic Elysian character) Oh All you Gods! 
>>Your help is needed now that I have lost my way in my quest for my 
>>beloved second-sister Arithmetica, and now I am in unknown terrain, 
>>where no human intelligence had shed any light so far. Where are you, 
>>oh Arithmetica?!
>>
>>Arithmetica: (enters from behind a tree) Here I am my Amor, never far 
>>from you. You have a desire to talk to me
>>
>>Amor: Please help. I have a problem I cannot solve on my own. You 
>>know, Zeus has gone more mercantilist, in the wealth-generating mood, 
>>and he tasks each of us to prepare reports the end of every quarter. 
>>How many arrows fired, how many hits, and among these how many with 
>>operational achievement. Now what is a success I know: if I hit with 
>>my arrow the heart of one individual. What they want to know is, 
>>however, how many couples I generate and how fruitful the resulting 
>>fornications will turn out to become. They are in population 
>>management up there and are obviously scheming to make me less 
>>industrious or less precise, but first they want the numbers. How can 
>>you tell me, my dear second-sister, how many healthy offspring are 
>>generated per arrow shot of mine?
>>
>>Arithmetica: You, my dear second-brother, like so many others, want to 
>>know whether we can foretell the future by our dexterous fingers, 
>>using distinguishable objects which we count. The answer is: 
>>theoretically no, practically yes. You may at first not understand 
>>this reply. To help to open up your mind, let me tell you in all 
>>confidence a sordid part of my life.
>>
>>Amor: Ah, my dearest Arithmetica? How come you have suffered 
>>indignities? Surely by the acts of the mortals?
>>
>>Arithmetica: Yes, the bipeds have kidnapped me from the Gardens of 
>>Olymp and pressed me into their service. This would have not been 
>>necessary, first of all, but for the cruel circumstances of that 
>>rendition into the realm of the humans, the shame of it has kept my 
>>forced adoption for a long time in the dark. Everybody knows that my 6 
>>sisters and I are of a cooperative, willing, pleasing character, 
>>because we find pleasure in what we do. No one needs to force Music to 
>>be the essence of Music, there is no need to coerce Geometry into 
>>doing geometry! We are the far relatives of the Muses, in the 
>>technical, applicational fields. We like what we do, otherwise we 
>>could not embody the spirit of that what we are. But what happened to 
>>me was of an otherworldly brutality. All the bipeds agree in praising 
>>our diligence and competence, in my case my speciality, exactitude. 
>>There is no need to subject a person of our divine breed to such 
>>indignities.
>>
>>Amor: What, oh Arithmetica, what did they did to you?
>>
>>Arithmetica: That subgroup of the bipeds which calls itself the 
>>Quadrivials have captured me and keep me locked up in a place with 
>>rectangular axes on which identically spaced units are measuring 
>>distances. You cannot imagine a less creative surroundings for a young 
>>girl. It is pure sensory deprivation, the intellectual equivalent of a 
>>solitary confinement. I have no permission to have anything in hand 
>>that is not of a uniform make, as such indistinguishable from any 
>>other unit element. They just eliminated all diversity from their 
>>castle. These are very strict people.
>>
>>Amor: what a sad story! You with all your talents and you love of 
>>glitzy things to be left on your own among grey uniform units that 
>>have no relations among each other! You always loved arranging and 
>>re-arranging your manifold glitzy things according to their inner 
>>connections among each other. You always knew that there is a system 
>>of a-priori relations among the things: this is what their differing 
>>ways of being glitzy expresses.
>>
>>Arithmetica: You, my beloved, understand my pain. It is all right if 
>>those of strong faith require that one serves them according to their 
>>beliefs and rituals, but it is not right, if these well-educated 
>>rulers discourage any parallel way of looking at things, which in my 
>>case means counting them.
>>
>>Amor: As far as I know you, my dear Arithmetica, you will never give 
>>up. Every day, the efforts of deciphering the original creativity of 
>>Zeus and his ancestors will bring up new details about the world, 
>>where your unerring faculties are needed. The bipeds rejoice in thy 
>>works and bring you many spectacles and offerings, I understand?
>>
>>Arithmetica: Indeed, I am not without resources. Evading the intrusive 
>>surveillance of my quadrivial masters, this maiden has imagined up her 
>>beloved glitzy things, which she so much enjoyed arranging about 
>>during chaste childhood, playing with the frolicking centaurs, naiads 
>>and nymphs. To evade any malign attention, I have replaced the actual 
>>form of the glitziness with a number, and only worked on the first few 
>>natural numbers.
>>
>>Amor: Indeed, I have been hearing you muttering to yourself:
>>
>>Position ( (a,b), d, (b,a) ) = b * (b+1)/2 + a,
>>
>>Position ( (a,b), d, (a,b) ) = d * (d+1)/2 – (d-a+1) * (d-a+2)/2 + 
>>(b-a+1)
>>
>>the other day.
>>
>>Arithmetica: That was the x,y coordinates on a plane of pairs (a,b) 
>>which can have any of d degrees of glitziness. These coordinates can 
>>be grouped into what is called cycles by lines that connect elements 
>>that change places with each other in a sequence of push-aways. The 
>>concurrent running of several cycles creates rhythms. This is pure 
>>arithmetic, no one can deny that. Still, the Lords distrust the idea 
>>of order, as long as it comes from ordering by one’s own free will. 
>>They learned well, how Poseidon orders water, how Helios throws his 
>>bolts, but they would never think of sequencing just for the sake of 
>>it, to see how far they get until they overdo it. They do not believe 
>>that if you generate all of the possible alternatives, the reasonable 
>>ones will turn up among these and will be recognised. The a-priori 
>>relations that exist in the world, do have something to do with order, 
>>or am I mistaken on this point? What mortal people don’t notice is 
>>that you can stick axes into each other in a rectangular fashion and 
>>completely valid Descartes spaces emerge, just on the glitzy 
>>properties of the first 16 numbers. They haver a deep revulsion 
>>against considering objects that are different to each other.
>>
>>Amor: So, you can build rectangular spaces just from natural numbers? 
>>Just by re-ordering them? You can demonstrate what is called 
>>gravitation by the bipeds to be an implication of linear order (of the 
>>Peano axioms)?
>>
>>Arithmetica: Now we come to the answer to the question you have 
>>started out with. Can we foretell Future? Only the Gods can do that in 
>>a full sense, but we are catching up. The problem is that my 
>>overlords, the Quadrivials, do not like conflicts and unpredictable 
>>outcomes. As if an unpredictable outcome would be on average any 
>>better or worse than a predictable one. It is the subjective tension 
>>they do not like, and this is why they discourage a relaxed, rational 
>>view of predictability.
>>
>>Amor: Well, I was always an admirer of your countless fingers, 
>>tentacles and other appendices that you can bend to a high number of 
>>distinct degrees each, but do your arithmetic calculations allow me to 
>>foretell the number of living births per woman between 15 and 45 years 
>>of age?
>>
>>Arithmetica: That detail can be solved, once the Lords of 
>>Quadriviality encourage the industrious bipeds to base their 
>>calculations on recurrences and their predictability. The problem is, 
>>they officially have no concept for a future: everything in classical 
>>logic happens in the moment; classical logic is as such: timeless. 
>>They have to laboriously calculate around the concept of cycles, 
>>because to use cycles as the basis of all calculations would admit to 
>>the existence of alternatives. If alternatives a priori exist, the 
>>whole edifice of classical logic turns out to be a special case, 
>>riding the wave, surfing along a moment of truth, being in the air 
>>while running in jumps.
>>
>>Amor: This might be the curse by the descendants of Cheiron the wise 
>>centaur. Being as well a horse and as well a man teaches one some 
>>insight into biology and its relation to rational thinking. The 
>>Quadrivials have decided that theirs is the rational way to determine 
>>the greenness of grass and could not suffer Cheiron’s frequent 
>>intermissions: is maybe the grass indeed greener the other side of the 
>>road? Before getting too much disturbed in their picture of the world, 
>>they have eliminated Cheiron and all of his folk. They could not 
>>stomach the common-sense approach a half-horse brings to counting. He 
>>could argue his case as eloquently as he wanted. He was all for 
>>predictability and a natural web of relationships among the parts of 
>>the world. He could have argued to electrically powered Wittgenstein 
>>machines for all the understanding and sympathy he got. They do not 
>>wish to be engaged in ambiguities. That, what can be resolved by 
>>finding the one, correct solution, that is quadrivial. That, what can 
>>be discussed, put in different lights, can have several solutions, 
>>none of which is completely right: this delineates a subject the 
>>quadrivials make a wide berth around. Conflicts are trivial. Centaurs 
>>are creating conflicts, they are as such, in themselves a conflict, so 
>>they get radically removed from the quadrivial world. How will they 
>>now try to understand what makes centaurs function, let alone reason? 
>>They were not able to understand that axiomatics begins with axiom 1: 
>>there must be recurrent feeding. Till today, they burn holy weeds in 
>>their offices if the word “recurrent” is uttered. These people are 
>>beyond the point of no return. The divine retribution for the 
>>extermination of the centaurs is presently taking place. Our ruling 
>>elite is unable to think it terms of recurrent states of a set, 
>>because they have deep feelings of guilt and emptiness for having 
>>expelled the animal spirits from their reasoning-thinking part of the 
>>brain.
>>
>>Arithmetica: Is it so, that fertility rates are sinking in those parts 
>>of the world, where you induce pairing, depressive as you sound, Amor? 
>>Do not paint my overlords in such a harsh light, my friend. Rigid they 
>>may appear, but some of them are flexible and clever. Let me continue 
>>whispering in as many ears as stand open, in the low voice of reason, 
>>that working on uniform things during the day does not prohibit one 
>>from working with glitzy things, in off time. Perhaps, some of the 
>>quadrivials do like engineering, puzzles and the building of 
>>kaleidoscopes.  Do not give up hope yet, my beloved Amor. So, we shall 
>>part for a time now, but we shall meet again. Your arrow has touched 
>>me in my inner being, and our chaste meeting of minds has resulted in 
>>the creation of a new baby girl, of which you are the father, my 
>>beloved Amor.
>>
>>(Enter young child, growing on stage into young woman)
>>
>>Amor: Sacre bleu! A nice conversation about predictions turns out to 
>>be a love affair, with consequences, and here she is, the consequence: 
>>one maiden, quite becoming, who seems to be fully enjoying all 
>>feelings of vibes. She is the fruit of our love? What a divine end to 
>>this story!
>>
>>Arithmetica: Yes, your longings have awakened in my heart the desire 
>>to be a well behaving daughter of Philosophia and, like my respected 
>>Mother, from time to time to give birth to a baby Science. Please meet 
>>your sweet daughter Rhythmonomia, who will help you and all bipeds to 
>>give different names to different rhythms and make a great work of it, 
>>deriving much pleasure from finding the correct answers to some of 
>>their questions. My Quadrivial Lords will surely forgive me for 
>>getting impregnated by an idea, once they see how pleasingly helpful 
>>Rhythmonomia will be in their everyday household tasks or in their 
>>great campaigns to achieve intellectual brilliancy.
>>
>>(Exeunt)
>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Fis mailing list
>>Fis at listas.unizar.es
>>http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
>
>--
>Dr. Mark William Johnson
>Institute of Learning and Teaching
>Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
>University of Liverpool
>
>Phone: 07786 064505
>Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
>Blog: http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com
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