[Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 86, Issue 9

Sun Feb 6 16:31:09 CET 2022

Humour, systems and information

Dear all, 

All these discussions around humour could lead to the following question:
Does humour in a given system contain information about itself and about
the system to
which it is addressed?

In system, we can for example include religion, science or art or try to
extend this
reflection to any physical system and thus find an equivalent of humour in
biology, physics, mathematics and information theory.

Any system contains a series of rules and conventions that give it
structure and maintain
consistency. One might, at first glance, suggest that humour is an element
that
endangers the order of this structure. In one way or another, it questions
and
challenges certain rules, plays with conventions and thus undermines the
established order in a given system.

Of course, there are certainly different categories of humour... (I am not
familiar with
the philosophy of humour, nor with the work that has considered the place
of
humour in information theoryŠ)

Let's take, for example, a play on words: a shift in meaning turns a
discourse on its head,
but also the entire semantics, the entire edifice of a language, and this
is
perhaps why it can make people laugh, it's associated with the vertigo of
the
order of a world that vanishes in a fraction of a second. What suddenly
makes
one laugh? the awareness that nothing holds together?

Umberto Ecco, the great semiotician, placed humour - the laughter of
Christ - at the centre
of his novel 'The Name of the Rose'. He showed that religious orthodoxy
left
little room for humour, which could threaten its coherence and very
existence.

In Western music, another system based on multiple conventions ranging
from the rules of
harmony to bourgeois decorum in concert halls, humour has little place. A
musical performance, such as a classical music concert or an opera, would
be
the place of a musical discourse of course, but also of a ceremony, a
ritual
even, intended to reinforce the established order, the social structuring
of
the Western bourgeoisie. It is very rare that humour and derision disrupt
these
ceremonies (see the movie of F. Fellini, Prova d¹orchestra).
However, some composers have made a point of teasing out these
rituals: Haydn, for example, broke with protocol in his 'farewell
symphony',
where the musicians leave one by one before the end of the piece... the
opposite can be seen in the film The Concert (2009, Radu Mihaileanu),
where the
two trumpeters arrive late with large bags filled with jars of sweet and
sour
pickles at the Théâtre du Chatelet of Paris. These scenes create a comic
effect that shakes up the order and rituals of the Viennese or Parisian
upper
middle class in a bittersweet way. The humour here carries a message: it
disturbs, disrupts and questions conventions, but also the conventions
associated with 20th century musical representations.

Science, like religion, is not conducive to humour: the seriousness of
scientific
theories and the experiments that are supposed to demonstrate them do not
tolerate humour. However, a scientific theory should be, Œin theory¹,
refutable
(Popper) and in this respect, ephemeral.... Being aware of the brevity of
existence should however encourage a certain distance, humour and
derision...
but unfortunately, we rarely laugh at a scientific conference. Most
researchers
take themselves very seriously and it must be admitted that you don't come
to a
seminar to have a laughŠ
I would dream of a congress where after the conferences, actors or clowns
would take up
our speeches by caricaturing them... this would create a more cordial
atmosphere between researchers. David Lodge, in a "small world", also
made fun of scientific rituals, we should make all students read it...

With his Cantatrix Sopranica, George Perrec has
made a mockery of scientific protocol! A magnificent parody of an article
published in Nature, with colourful bibliographic
references and a beautiful caricature of the scientific method that is both
serious and grotesque. Serious and Grotesque are unfortunately the
qualifiers
that one could attribute to many articles published in "Great"
journals... and that one finds retracted quite early (see the Lancet
episode).
The established order and the Narcissism of researchers (see Science,
narcissism and the quest for visibility from Bruno Lemaitre; DOI:
10.1111/febs.14032) is a major obstacle to humour in research.

Thus, one could hypothesise here that humour contains indispensable
information: this
information challenges and shakes up the rigid rules of a system and
allows it
to evolve.... If we extrapolate to biology, the appearance of a mutation, a
sequence shift, would therefore be a form of humour... ? the humour of DNA?

Youri

Le 06/02/2022 12:00, « fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es on behalf of
fis-request at listas.unizar.es » <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es on behalf of
fis-request at listas.unizar.es> a écrit :

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>Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: [External Email] Re: Fis Digest, Vol 85, Issue
>      16--CLOSING (Loet Leydesdorff)
>   2. Re: [External Email] Re: Fis Digest, Vol 85, Issue
>      16--CLOSING (Francesco Rizzo)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2022 11:13:14 +0000
>From: "Loet Leydesdorff" <loet at leydesdorff.net>
>To: karl.javorszky at gmail.com, fis <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>Subject: Re: [Fis] [External Email] Re: Fis Digest, Vol 85, Issue
>	16--CLOSING
>Message-ID: <emba24b591-9376-42ee-bc49-0d7eff2db1b2 at pc2014>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>
>Dear Karl,
>
>>The Lecture by Youri has opened many approaches towards understanding
>>the general concept of information, specifically in a biologic context.
>>
>The concept of information, defined specifically in a biological context
>is for that very reason not the general concept of information. This
>confusion does not help for the understanding. In economics, for
>example, one should not work with a biological concept of information.
>
>Information can be measured in bits and bytes. I have not heard a single
>argument in this discussion of how the biological theorizing leads to
>(proposals for) the measurement of information. Without the beginning of
>an operationalization, the theory remains a pure philosophy. I don't
>think that one should go for a biological philosophy, including social
>darwinism etc.
>
>Best,
>Loet
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>Message: 2
>Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2022 14:59:24 +0100
>From: Francesco Rizzo <13francesco.rizzo at gmail.com>
>To: Loet Leydesdorff <loet at leydesdorff.net>
>Cc: fis <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>Subject: Re: [Fis] [External Email] Re: Fis Digest, Vol 85, Issue
>	16--CLOSING
>Message-ID:
>	<CAEvKwyTCjpP63GCsbVK1pD00zU-725AMZd1y9JQAny3f0caMzA at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>Caro carlo e Cari tutti,
>nessuna scienza dell'informazione, compresa quella di Shannon, pu? basarsi
>sull'esattezza delle misurazioni delle variabili dei fenomeni
>che analizza e studia, figuriamoci l'economia. D'altra parte all'economia
>interessano pi? le valutazioni che le misurazioni. Cio? il prezzo
>o valore di mercato di un bene (capitale) pu? calcolarsi tenendo conto
>dell'affidabil?t? e della probabilit? dei dati della cosiddetta realt? di
>mercato e dei comportamenti  degli operatori economici (acquirenti e
>venditori) che, fra l'altro, stabiliscono un rapporto di complementarit?
>con i beni economici medesimi.. Nascono cos? i valori normali dal punto di
>vista soggettivo, sottesi. da un'economia quantistica.
>Questo per?, come economista, non mi ha impedito  di elaborare una teoria
>del valore basata sulla legge dell'informazione in uno con
>il processo  produttivo di tras-in-formazione, di cui la Fis si ?
>(pre)occupata in passato.
>La legge generale e universale dell'informazione  consiste nel prendere o
>nel dare forma a tutto e a tutti: alle persone, alle idee e alle cose-.
> Sulla base di questo procedimento che, in maniera interattiva e
>relazionale  coglie il relativo valore delle differenze, ? possibile
>esprimere
>giudizi di valore, pi? o meno attendibili. Quindi v'ha una sola legge
>dell'informazione, ma infiniti modi di misurarla-valutarla.
>Spetta alle diverse discipline teoriche o alle pratiche operative darsi le
>norme o regole ad-atte alle proprie specifiche misurazioni o valutazioni.
>Ad es. gli economisti matematici, che  a partire dal diciannovesimo secolo
>hanno incominciato ad applicare il calcolo infinitesimale al fine di
>quantizzare-quantificare le variabili della produzione e della
>distribuzione della ricchezza, sono in irreversibile crisi, in grande
>sfacelo, fuori strada,
>perch? incapaci di comprendere e vedere-leggere la realt? economica
>capitalistica.
>Vi chiedo scusa se sono stato pi? lungo di quanto volevo essere.
>Un abbraccio
>Francesco
>
>
>
>Il giorno sab 5 feb 2022 alle ore 12:13 Loet Leydesdorff <
>loet at leydesdorff.net> ha scritto:
>
>> Dear Karl,
>>
>> The Lecture by Youri has opened many approaches towards understanding
>>the
>> general concept of information, specifically in a biologic context.
>>
>> The concept of information, defined *specifically *in a biological
>> context is for that very reason not the *general *concept of
>>information.
>> This confusion does not help for the understanding. In economics, for
>> example, one should not work with a biological concept of information.
>>
>> Information can be measured in bits and bytes. I have not heard a single
>> argument in this discussion of how the biological theorizing leads to
>> (proposals for) the measurement of information. Without the beginning
>>of an
>> operationalization, the theory remains a pure philosophy. I don't think
>> that one should go for a biological philosophy, including social
>>darwinism
>> etc.
>>
>> Best,
>> Loet
>>
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>> Fis at listas.unizar.es
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