[Fis] NEW YEAR LECTURE (Youri Timsit)

[Pedro C. Marijuán]

Dear Youri and All,

Gojng back to the Lecture theme, one of the things that worries me is 
the biological disarray when having to deal with "the informational." I 
mean, when you work with the relational properties of these fascinating 
ribosomal proteins, apart of mathematical-statistical techniques and 
algorithms to make sense of their interactions and evolutionary 
co-adaptations, you have nothing else but to recur to the metaphor, 
"molecular brains", neural like", etc.  It is fine, as you do not have 
any consisting framework to refer to. It already happened to the 
proponents of "bacterial intelligence", also forced to the metaphor 
(Bray, Armitage...).

In my view, tools from maths, statistics, computer science, etc. are 
just that, tools. Ironically some of these tools themselves had 
biological origins (genetic algorithms, neural networks, perceptrons). 
So, my contention is that a new filed like bio-chemistry or bio-physics 
would be needed concerning the biological-informational themes, a 
bio-information discipline comparable to those just mentioned. According 
to several authors  (me included), the prokaryotic cell should be 
considered as the fundamental, basic unit of biological cognition. 
Thereafter, there would be different ways to characterize its 
informational processes, particularly along the "information flow" 
conceptualization... interested parties may go to the recent 
contribution of Jorge Navarro and mine: 
https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/21/11965 , it is in the special issue 
coordinated by Youri.  I also discuss that the from the informational 
thinking one could find the ways and means to renew the outdated Modern 
Synthesis.

Otherwise, without a clearer disciplinary framework, am afraid the new 
biology will be reduced to bioinformatics and experimental "omic" 
disciplines. Just another (advanced, "very advanced") technology.

Best wishes to All,
--Pedro



El 11/01/2022 a las 17:04, Youri Timsit escribió:
> Dear Joseph and pedro
>
> thank you very much for your mail…
>
>
> I also think that humour and poetry are indeed not incompatible with 
> science…
> (I still don't know what good science is, since to detect it, we 
> probably need a certain amount of hindsight ..., and although I passed 
> my sixties recently, it still doesn't seem sufficient)
>
> There was a more favourable time for the marriage of arts and 
> sciences, with for example Diderot's "D'alembert's dream", but this 
> luminous time seems very far away today…
>
> this bL20 protein was truly subversive by refusing to crystallize for 
> 4 years... and it was the uncontrolled rise in temperature of the 
> crystallization room that finally coaxed it...
> the hazards of the climate and the cooling circuits came to my aid and 
> it was about time: the CNRS evaluation committee, faced with a 4-year 
> publication gap, was getting impatient
>
> especially as a "competitor"/colleague had just solved this « same" 
> structure by NMR in a few months!!! his secret: he had cut the long 
> flexible extension and had only kept the small globular domain…
> this colleague has moreover made a meteoric rise and has even become 
> president of a Parisian university and former right-hand man of the 
> minister of research....
>
> thank you again for your kind email, and thank you to Pedro for 
> allowing these exchanges and reflexions
>
> all the best
>
> Youri
>
> De : "joe.brenner at bluewin.ch <mailto:joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>" 
> <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch <mailto:joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>>
> Répondre à : <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch <mailto:joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>>
> Date : dimanche 9 janvier 2022 12:54
> À : Pedro <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com 
> <mailto:pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>>, Youri Timsit 
> <youri.timsit at mio.osupytheas.fr 
> <mailto:youri.timsit at mio.osupytheas.fr>>, "\"fis\"" 
> <fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>>
> Objet : Fwd: [Fis] NEW YEAR LECTURE (Youri Timsit)
>
> Dear Youri, Dear Pedro, and All,
>
> The same to you in spades, as we used to say in school in the U.S.!
>
> I see again in your work, Youri, how good science can be enjoyable as 
> well as thought-provoking. The  lines which particularly struck me 
> were the following:
>
> This r-protein had a kind of subversive and unique behaviour in 
> deciding to crystallize in both a folded and an unfolded form within 
> the same crystal ^20 .
>
> I see here the underlying "dynamic dualism" of the universe for whose 
> expressions I have tried to find the logic, my Logic in Reality. 
> Although touching on the essence of mind, Youri avoids any 
> anti-scientific panpsychism. I look forward to learning more about 
> this "brain" and its informational dynamics.
>
> Best,
>
> Joseph
>
>     ----Message d'origine----
>     De : pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
>     Date : 08/01/2022 - 20:49 (E)
>     À : fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
>     Objet : [Fis] NEW YEAR LECTURE (Youri Timsit)
>
>     Asunto: 	 NEW YEAR LECTURE
>     Fecha: 	Thu, 06 Jan 2022 15:09:26 +0100
>     De: 	Youri Timsit <youri.timsit at mio.osupytheas.fr>
>     Para: 	Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
>
>
>


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