[Fis] 10 Principles

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear List,
In my third of the week, I am responding to Marcus.

> From your 11 July post . . .
> > The genuine properties of information appear with life: the 
> capability to persist <
> > and react and relate according to inner drives unseen in inanimate 
> matter.<
> – This "informational way of existence" (as you say), I typify as 
> 'adaptive logic'; an equal concept that I hope we may agree on.
/No problem if the "adaptive logic" is pretty similar and may also be 
extended into cells, organisms, social entities... /
> With that as background, in your 11 and 14 July posts there are some 
> key points I wish to address:
> – Your 11 July post shows your bias to LIFE (agency), which *in 
> itself* is fine and I have no problem with. But I have also seen 
> earlier notes from you elsewhere (and implied above) where you seem to 
> insist LIFE's informatic expressions be held above all else – I 
> paraphrase – 'LIFE is Primary in ALL informational respects!' Is this 
> fair to say, does this indeed reflect your view? This view of yours 
> seems clear to me from prior exchanges, but I do not want to put words 
> in your mouth. Also, you are not alone in taking this view. It is 
> important to be clear about this issue of Primacy, and your position 
> on the matter . . . as it often seems to influence the nature of FIS 
> exchanges (re Loet's 14 July note).
>
/There are many different views in this list (see eg, what Karl compiles 
in his recent message). As there are many "street lamps" in the info 
fields, and the temptation is to remain searching close to one of the 
"local lights", rather than going toward the obscure place where the car 
keys were lost (as says the trite anecdote often told by physicists on 
the drank driver). The place to look for the info keys would be where, 
originally, info implies the whole retinue of meaning, knowledge, 
adaptation, complexity, etc.etc.  It starts with living cells and 
radiates in multiple directions. Life has two basic characteristics: 
_the active elements are coded_ inside inner memory banks of the system, 
and _the system _/_/itself /_/_replicates_ along a functional trajectory 
--life cycle-- open both to environmental energy flows and to signaling 
(info) flows. This does not exist at all in inanimate matter, and the 
sheer molecular complexity it generates is just abysmal, incomparable. /
> – If you see LIFE as Primary in all informational respects, I disagree 
> with this (as you know). To say LIFE is Primary ignores Evolution by 
> Natural Selection (EvNS) which ultimately defines what all LIFE looks 
> like – what is extant, what Lives and what is Extinct/Dead. In turn, 
> EvNS is guided by indifferent 'selection forces' (purifying, divisive, 
> and directional) which are themselves ultimately 'inanimate' [unless 
> you subscribe to super-naturalism?]. As such, the inanimate defines 
> what the animate is: the INANIMATE is Primary in guiding what the 
> ANIMATE *might* be, but the inverse is not true. LIFE does not direct 
> atoms and elementary particles in how they might behave, or what they 
> might *be*. Still, this does not *by any means* negate LIFE's vital 
> informatics – it merely places LIFE in an adaptive role, that of 
> adapting to inanimate (but still dynamic/chaotic) matter. This schism 
> between what is Primary and what is Secondary, I think, must first be 
> resolved if FIS is to ever advance on its presumed 'foundational' goal.
/When your computer compositional elements --SiO2 doped lumps plus 
different metals and plastics-- are at work, they become immersed in a 
systemic dynamics that "enslaves" them. The SiO2 in desert sands is 
"more free", but it cannot show its potential semiconductor properties 
that the fabrication & later functioning make manifest. The inanimate is 
used by a higher order organization because of its basic properties, not 
viceversa (formerly, vacuum tubes were used instead of Silicon). Then, 
about the role of natural selection, there is an ongoing serious debate 
on the limits of that conceptualization. Probably, the term covers only 
half of the biological evolutionary process. As it lacks the crucial 
reference to the generation of "variety" --curiously, most of the 
proponents of that debate (James Shapiro, Denis Noble, John Torday, 
William Miller, Robert Reid, Guenther Witzany, even Marcello 
Barbieri...) try to establish in informational terms the "innovation" 
component that Darwinians omit. To put a familiar example, we may state 
that it is the market which "selects" the winner cell phone artifacts 
and technologies...  So, evolution by market selection? Nope! would 
immediately shout the thousands engineers and technologists working in 
the phone industry innovations, the winner ones and the eliminated ones 
as well. How biological innovation crafts the varieties that go to the 
selection markets? Basic aspects are not yet well understood, for 
instance, the role of viruses, or the "hot points" of meiosis, or 
epigenetic inheritance, or symbiosis... For Witzany and Villarreal, 
viruses have been dismissed but they probably were behind most further 
codes developed by multicellulars, and pathogenic viruses would appear 
as the debris left along the eukaryotic evolution of complexity --they 
ceaseless struggle to enter into our own epigenetic systems as other 
ancestors achieved (now the case of covid-19).//
/
>
> – To be clear when we say inanimate we mean 'lacking conscious will or 
> power (survival intent) in manifest acts and deeds'. But inanimate 
> does NOT mean lacking force or energy in the underlying dynamics 
> of EvNS. It is more that simple atoms, etc. do not bother with 
> adaptive survival, but LIFE is mostly concerned with survival . . . 
> given its relatively 'higher-order' vulnerable complexity.
>
/I do not belittle the microscopic (quantum information) world within 
the "inanimate". There is some classical, great work by Michael Conrad 
in that regard. But the discussion would go beyond the present context./
> – Lastly, you alternatively speak of 'points' and 'principles' which 
> are entirely different things (which I am sure you know). Still, I am 
> unsure if the list you offer is meant to convey 'points' or 
> 'principles'? Would you please clarify this. As 'points' it seems 
> little new is added. I do not see how point 1 significantly improves 
> Donald MacKay's “Information is a distinction that makes a difference” 
> or Bateson's 'a difference that makes a difference' – could you offer 
> some clarifying examples, or a bit more detail? The 'adjacent' role 
> you name in point 1 is in scare quotes and unspecific. I do not 
> address later points, as I presume they are shown in a step-wise 
> manner, and I must agree the first point before focusing on later points.
>
/It is work in progress. Talking about points makes discussion easier, I 
think, but the goal is that they become principles. Although the whole 
set is very heterogeneous and who knows whether it will be workable 
enough... time will tell. I prefer to leave the discussion on Point 1 
for a next exchange, as this has already become too long./

/Thanks for the comments./

/--Pedro
/

-- 
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Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group

pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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