[Fis] [External Email] A little methodical remark

[Jaime Cardenas-Garcia]

Dear Marcus and Bruno,

I notice you share an ability to misrepresent my name:

Marcus => JAMIE

Bruno => James

I just want to tell you that I do not appreciate this, in the context that
with all other names you seem to do just fine. Including with Pedro’s name,
which I don’t see written as Peter or Perdr. Maybe it reflects bias on your
part, or simply mental laziness.

Marcus,

As to your question regarding Why Information Grows: The Evolution of
Order, from Atoms to Economies by Cesar Hidalgo, a physicist by training, I
would suggest that you ask him that question. As to his work (
https://cesarhidalgo.com/), it is an interdisciplinary undertaking:

César A. Hidalgo is a Chilean-Spanish-American scholar known for his
contributions to economic complexity, data visualization, and artificial
intelligence. He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Notre Dame
and a Bachelor in Physics from Universidad Católica de Chile.

Hidalgo currently holds a Chair at the Artificial and Natural Intelligence
Institute (ANITI) at the University of Toulouse. He is also an Honorary
Professor at the University of Manchester and a Visiting Professor at
Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Between 2010 and 2019
Hidalgo led MIT’s Collective Learning group as an Assistant and then
Associate Professor. Prior to joining MIT, Hidalgo was a research fellow at
Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Hidalgo is also a founder of
Datawheel, an award winning company specialized in the creation of data
distribution and visualization systems.

Hidalgo’s contributions have been recognized with numerous awards,
including the 2018 Lagrange Prize and multiple Webby Awards (see below).
Hidalgo's is also the author of several books, including Why Information
Grows (Basic Books, 2015), The Atlas of Economic Complexity (MIT Press,
2014), and How Humans Judge Machines (MIT Press, Forthcoming 2020).

The Atlas of Economic Complexity treats economic development in a unique
way and ties everything together. It’s worth taking a look if you are
interested in looking at all the economic, technological innovation and
other interconnections in any society.

Bruno,

Clearly, we see ‘reality’ differently. I don’t think it is a matter of what
assumptions you make. We share a ‘reality’ that is in front of us and to
which we have access to through our sense organs. It is very simple. It
goes back to the fundamental problem of information: how do we become what
we become. A problem statement with which many of you might agree or
disagree since Shannon has a different take. I would say that this is still
an unanswered question, no matter what your musings.

Your musings and any other musings, one cares to make, suffer from the fact
that in expressing them, after info-autopoietic construction
(info-autopoiesis has no relation to Maturana or Varela), are done
syntactically (language, symbols, writing, mathematics, sounds, elementary
arithmetic, food, perfumes, etc.). Syntactic expressions always lose
something in their manifestation (mainly meaning). So, in my naïve and
simple world, all constructions that rely on syntactic expressions are
flawed by definition. No matter how much scientific rigor you throw at it.
Also, when you start having thought experiments, they don’t really lead
anywhere except where you want them to lead. Imagination might be a
blessing, but it also can be the curse of lack of progress in the ‘real
world’, whatever that is. Each of us is blessed with the ability to believe
whatever we want to believe and makes us happy, but if after many years our
work leads nowhere, we better take a second look at other musings by other
individuals. Myth is not only built out of imagination; it can also be
built out of complex mathematical and physical formulations and
imagination. That is why whatever is scientifically valid today may not be
tomorrow.

Loet,

I don’t know why agents always creep into the conversation. We are not
agents since we are an expression of nature that no one knows how it came
to be. We are organisms-in-our-environment that can have no claim to
agency. I don’t even know what agency means. From a fundamental
perspective, if you do not control your origin, you cannot aspire to agency
even though you might claim that you have agency.

As an organism, the only meaning that is worth having is the one that leads
to satisfaction of our physiological and relational needs, as part of an
ecological network that we did not devise, except as unwilling
participants. The future ecological network that we will inherit, because
of our greed, might take its revenge against us hapless beings with no
agency. This is the context of information and eventually meaning.
Matter/energy are fundamental, ‘differences which make a difference’ are
derived from use of our sensory organs. What is our motivation?
Satisfaction of our physiological and relational needs, as part of an
ecological network. Action potentials may be viewed as the bits (binary
digits) that result in information. That is what needs discernment and
discovery. How does that happen? Your two-dimensional probability
distribution is not far off the mark, if you consider that our sensory
organs are at least two-dimensional in nature. Again, this is what needs
further exploration and discernment. But my belief is that it is not a
probabilistic distribution problem.

Stan,

Info-autopoiesis, or the self-referenced self-production of information is
a process that yields information in many forms and guises from the
detection by our sensory organs of moving matter/energy in our environment.
This means that there is no information in the environment, i.e., our
sensory organs are not organs for detection of information. This leads to
the conclusion that there is no information in the genome. Also, my feeling
is that the only emergent processes that exist are the ones we do not
understand, because if we did understand how they came about, there would
be nothing unexpected about them. This also means that the only effect of
the creation of information is the instantiation of actions within/without
an organism, consciously or unconsciously.

Moisés,

Info-autopoiesis is a process of self-referenced self-production of
information (Bateson information) where,

To begin the journey of determining differences using our five primary
senses, it is important to note that our senses deal with commensurable
quantities/qualities, i.e., quantities/qualities that have a common
measure. For example, the sense of touch (whose multidimensional structure
includes mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors, nocireceptors, proprioceptors)
might be, for simplicity, arbitrarily ascribed as being sensitive only to
pressure. In that limited role, our sense of touch is able to keep track of
all pressure sensations that come into its sphere of action. As might be
imagined, from one instant of time to the next, pressure sensations are
felt by the human in question and become part of her experience. This is
how quantitatively and unambiguously “a (pressure) difference” becomes
qualitatively “a (pressure) difference which makes a difference”. In a
similar way, the other dimensions of the sense of touch contribute with
their own unique quantitative/qualitative characteristics. Thus, in toto
contributing to a multidimensional sensory experience that consists of
temporal/spatial differences. This is the process of information that
Bateson discovered and is applicable to any and all of our primary senses,
which not only act individually but in concert. Our primary senses provide
for us our only contact with our environment and are key to our
development.

This is a short description related to our five senses. Notice that with
these five primary senses we are able to get to any level of
multi-dimensional information that we devise. It is a process of
differences on top of differences on top of differences. Notice that we are
having this conversation, whether agreeing or disagreeing. Also, every
organism-in-its-environment has its unique set of primary senses that allow
it to perceive a signature of the environment that is particular to their
experience. I invite you to read my paper as presented earlier.

My best wishes for everyone's continued health in this pandemic that has
all the fingerprints of a Trump COVID-19 pandemic (Trump virus?) in the
United States (Wuhan virus indeed!).

Kind regards,

Jaime

On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 3:00 PM Stanley N Salthe <ssalthe at binghamton.edu>
wrote:

> Joseph -- What you have added here, as I understand it, is the idea of
> ‘resistance’ to an unfolding of a physical potential in an interaction
> involving (or maybe only triggered by) it. I’m unsure of whether there is
> ALWAYS resistance (implied by you via Lupasco), and to what extent that
> resistance could modify or even nullify the potential via the interaction,
> thus leading to an emergence where the potential has been effectively
> screened out.
>
> STAN
>
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 1:35 PM Krassimir Markov <markov at foibg.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Joseph and FIS Colleagues,
>>
>> Thank you very much for the nice posts!
>> Please excuse me for the delay of my current post!
>> During the last weeks I had been occupied with organizing the ITHEA® ITA
>> 2020 International Scientific Events, including the GIT 2020 Int.
>> conference.
>>
>> Now, I want to make a little methodical remark.
>>
>> If we take 0 and 1 as phenomena which we want to investigate we have to
>> make choice.
>> To take 0 as primary concept and to try to explain 1 by it or vice versa.
>> In both cases, we couldn’t do any reasonable conclusion.
>> Our two concepts – 0 and 1 – are concepts at the same level.
>>
>> We need a third concept to be accepted as a primary and to explain our
>> concepts by it.
>> In mathematics this problem had been solved centuries ago.
>> Here I want to remember it.
>>
>> The third concept can be the concept “Digit”.
>> This way, 0 and 1 may be explained easily as concrete states of Digit.
>>
>> The same problem was pointed by Stan. The dialectical unity of two
>> opposite states.
>> Following the reasons given above, we can solve the problem with dualism
>> of concept “Information” by taking an other concept as primary.
>>
>> Such concept for me is the concept “Reflection”.
>>
>> As I already had written, the information and data are kinds of
>> reflection which differ only on the basis of subject’s or agent’s
>> possibility to connect the reflection to other his/her mental models.
>>
>> Friendly greetings
>> Krassimir
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 08, 2020 4:38 PM
>> *To:* fis <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Krassimir's question about information
>>
>>
>> Dear Friends,
>>
>> A short dialogue:
>>
>> Stan: Krassimir: “Is information primary or derived/secondary?” My
>> (Stan’s) restatement is:  "Is information, as physical form, potential? --
>> or emergent upon having an effect? This formulation shows that there is no
>> difference between these concepts.”
>>
>> Joseph: HOW is it both? What does it mean “to be both” at the same time?
>>
>> Stan: My “potential” refers to ‘in itself’, which (at any moment) is
>> timeless, and is Krassimir’s “primary information”. While my “having an
>> effect” refers to a particular moment when a primary physical form is
>> acting, or being acted upon, when its form may have consequences, or become
>> consequential. In this event its form generates “derived/secondary
>> information".
>>
>> Joseph: This is what requires explication and where I think Lupasco had
>> something to offer, in his basic principle of dynamic opposition (Stan:
>> generating “derived/secondary information). This is no more and no less
>> than that a falling object instantiates kinetic and potential energy at the
>> same time (Stan: That is, its primary form still exists, even if
>> deformed), except that real complex processes do not “fall to the
>> bottom” (no 0 nor 1).
>>
>> Stan:  Effects necessarily emerge from potentials (IF they emerge at
>> all). But are both potential and emergent 'at the same time' only while the
>> potential is unfolding: a physical situation embodies a potential, which
>> can inform. When/if that potential unfolds the potential is realized, and
>> emerges in its effects.
>>
>> Joseph: I agree, but in my view your correct expression, “while the
>> potential is unfolding” has two significant consequences: the process is
>> neither instantaneous nor spontaneous. In the Lupasco view of dynamics, a
>> potential ‘unfolds’ against some actual resistance to that unfolding, and
>> the effects, in almost the same language, emerge, actualized, as a
>> consequence of that opposition. The word “only” to modify “at the same
>> time” is justified for simple processes which *do* go to an ideal limit
>> of 0 or 1, *not* for complex, informational processes. Is there an ‘end’
>> to this dialogue?! And is information not present throughout it?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Joseph
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> [image: Avast logo] <https://www.avast.com/antivirus>
>>
>> L'absence de virus dans ce courrier électronique a été vérifiée par le
>> logiciel antivirus Avast.
>> www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/antivirus>
>>
>> ------------------------------
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-- 
Jaime F. Cárdenas-García, PhD, PE
JFCardenasGarcia at gmail.com
(240) 498-7556 (cell)
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