[Fis] [External Email] Fwd: TR: RE: How Molecules Became Signs. One Way Out.
Karl Javorszky
karl.javorszky at gmail.com
Thu Mar 17 22:23:55 CET 2022
Thanks, Stan that you engage in clearing the terminology.
*Stan:*
*1. Information generation and transfer occur in nature as a natural
process that is constituted by and requires energy.*
*2. Information is present throughout nature, but its conversion to
meaning requires organisms capable of recursive processing of it.*
*3. Meaning is constituted by all the information valuable to a living
organism for its survival, reproduction and well-being.*
* Information processes follow principles applicable to energy and
energetic processes in general *
*So, you have a specification hierarchy {1 {2 {3 }. 4 is an assertion
outside this hierarchy but relates most closely to 1. *
*Thus, I think you might want to rewrite the hierarchy as {4 {1 {2 {3} *
Remarks:
*1. Information generation and transfer occur in nature as a natural
process that is constituted by and requires energy. *
Information is a name for a property of Nature. The property we call
information is present
a. in Nature,
b. in our pictures of Nature.
Both the underlying facts and our pictures of the fact, are caused and made
perceptible for us, by a slight inner discongruence (relative inexactitude,
slack, bias, dis-calibration, etc.) that exists in Nature and exists in our
correct depictions of Nature. Like high and low tides are caused by the
gravity of the Moon, information is caused by the inner inexactitude of
counting similarities and diversities.
If we assume that metamorphoses among diverse kinds, types, appearances of
information are linked to the consumption of energy, then we assume that
a. energy is inserted into Nature from an external source or that
b. Nature keeps a *perpetuum mobile machine *running.
This would run contrary to established articles of beliefs, according to
which models that have as a core principle the functioning of a *perpetuum
mobile * are to be discounted as not being rational.
That information also has a form, type, appearance, which we are prone to
mix up with energy, is one thing. Both information and energy refer to
potential, that is to alternatives that may also have been the case, be the
case or will possibly turn out to be the case. The translation of
possibilities to certainties shows their difference: while the translation
of energy into matter or space has been solved with regard to matter, the
question of how much space is generated by a given amount of energy/matter
is not answered as yet. The situation with information is different. The
translation of information into properties of matter is seen in physiology
and genetics (where the how-ness /information/ of logical tokens
/information, the DNA's sequence/) translates into the how-ness of the next
material segment /amino acid/. The information does not get consumed, in
contrast to energy, which gets consumed by a translation into matter.
Look at magnetic attraction and repulsion. Two magnets attract, if in their
common space there is too much diversity and repel if in their common space
is too much of similarity. This is done by information, not energy. In the
basic model of the world, with axes z: *a+b, x: b-2a, y: a-2b, *we have one
vertical axis (the gravity axis), and a plane (the plane of diversity). In
such a space, nearing two magnets with opposite ends shows that *there is *a
plane (the current actual plane), on which parts with so much diversity *do
have *a place near or on the common axis, whereto the two magnets belong.
Nearing two magnets with their similar ends shows that *there is no *such
plane on which two assemblies that are so much similar to each other would
have a common place.
One would not call magnetic properties of things a kind of energy. One can
call the results of magnetic phenomena to be caused by *information, *if
information is understood to mean our ability to assign places to objects
in dependence of the objects' similarity and diversity properties.
Information is the catalogue of places where things actually are (the
actual values) as a deviation to the places things would be in the ideal
case (expected values). Information is the extent of being otherwise. Some
properties of things that are otherwise can be translated into each other
by using the auxiliary concept of energy. Information is the order concept
and the deviations to the order concept, energy is the method by which the
deviations in the order concept can be rectified. Information is the plan,
how to make out of heaps of sand, cement and iron a house, energy is needed
to carry and assemble the sand, cement and iron while one builds the house.
*2. Information is present throughout nature, but its conversion to
meaning requires organisms capable of recursive processing of it.*
'Meaning' apparently refers to mental images to be included in a web of
relations. The sentence, as it stands, is true. The facts of leaves turning
brown, temperatures decreasing and daylight becoming shorter are a part and
parcel of information that Autumn has begun. The name 'Autumn' is the
meaning of the observed facts. We create meaning by superimposing one
general name for a multitude of concepts. For some people, Autumn will be
declared, if the migratory birds leave (or arrive) or the wife wants new
shoes. The assignment of meaning to a collection of impressions has nothing
to do with conversions of information (as can be seen by means of the
erroneous attachment of meaning of thunder to Thor throwing around his
hammer). Meaning is created by putting observations into a web of possible
explanations. At the stage we presently are in understanding information as
a property of Nature, it appears an overreach to try to match information
to mental processes. We would be happy, I believe, if we could peel off all
the irrelevant connotations to information and understand which natural
phenomenon we talk about, before we investigate how this natural phenomenon
affects our thinking.
*3. Meaning is constituted by all the information valuable to a living
organism for its survival, reproduction and well-being.*
One could use the sentence as it stands, but it would be rather circuitous
and unnecessarily complicated. In case we would have an agreed-on concept
what a 'living organism' means, we would still have to decide: if the
sentence refers to the implication that solitary confinement (a state of
enduring sensory deprivation) is a torture and is detrimental to health,
because a living organism needs a sufficiently varied environment to
survive, then the sentence would make a sense. If the sentence refers to
the fact that a living organism needs other, different and varied
constituents of the world to function well (things to eat need to be
different to the organism and the partner for reproduction needs to be
different, etc.), then the sentence would again make sense. But these
aspects are not yet the bridge to cross. We are presently at the stage
where we try to understand how the information contained in the DNA matches
the information contained within the living organism. We are not yet on the
search for the diversities that remain after we shall have solved the
riddle of similarities: how the information contained in the DNA is the
same as the information contained in the living organism. What the
organism thinks, hopes, wishes and what is valuable for the organism, is
not yet any topic of discussion.
There's a problem of not as many closing parentheses as there are opening
parentheses in: *{1 {2 {3 }. *There is no statement numbered *4*.,
although the writer refers to point *4. *
*Summarising: *Information does not consume energy. Information is the
description of Δ (actual value, target value). The Δ (actual value, target
value) is a constituent fact of Nature. Some variants of Δ (actual value,
target value) have forms of realisations which make Δ (actual value, target
value) comparable to energy. The two concepts are closely related, like
disorder and work to clean up are related. These two concepts should not be
mixed up. What the meaning of the subject is, when confronted with the fact
of an existing disorder and the requirements that he cleans up, is neither
here nor there in the current discussion.
Karl
Am Do., 17. März 2022 um 20:09 Uhr schrieb Stanley N Salthe <
ssalthe en binghamton.edu>:
> 1. Information generation and transfer occur in nature as a natural
> process that is constituted by and requires energy.
>
> 2. Information is present throughout nature, but its conversion to
> meaning requires organisms capable of recursive processing of it.
>
> 3. Meaning is constituted by all the information valuable to a living
> organism for its survival, reproduction and well-being.
>
> Information processes follow principles applicable to energy and
> energetic processes in general
>
>
> So, you have a specification hierarchy {1 {2 {3 }. 4 is an assertion
> outside this hierarchy but relates most closely to 1.
>
> Thus, I think you might want to rewrite the hierarchy as {4 {1 {2 {3}
>
> STAN
>
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2022 at 6:34 AM joe.brenner en bluewin.ch <
> joe.brenner en bluewin.ch> wrote:
>
>> Dear Christophe and All,
>>
>> In his note, reproduced below, Christophe provides an interim answer to
>> my first response to his of the same day (March 13). In looking at the
>> relation between Information and Meaning, he looked forward (as I certainly
>> do) to further input by Terry regarding the potential of information as
>> meaning and the process of emergence. (One should perhaps better write
>> information_as_meaning.) In the meantime, I offer my own interpretation
>> from my recent (2020) book with Andrei Igamberdiev:
>>
>>
>> "I summarized the concept developed in LIR (Logic in Reality) in the
>> following points:
>>
>>
>>
>> 1. Information generation and transfer occur in nature as a natural
>> process that is constituted by and requires energy.
>>
>> 2. Information is present throughout nature, but its conversion to
>> meaning requires organisms capable of recursive processing of it.
>>
>> 3. Meaning is constituted by all the information valuable to a
>> living organism for its survival, reproduction and well-being.
>>
>> 4. Information processes follow principles applicable to energy and
>> energetic processes in general
>>
>>
>>
>> Many authors have noted the complexity of information and the difficulty
>> of giving a ‘single, clear’ definition of it. Attempts to do so are typical
>> of standard substance ontologies, where firm definitions – identities - are
>> automatically given preference. The failure of such attempts suggests that
>> a major categorial error is being made. I therefore made the following
>> lapidary statement:
>>
>>
>>
>> *Meaningful information is reality in potential form.*
>>
>>
>>
>> It is derived from the Lupasco/LIR conception of consciousness which
>> basically looks at the real dialectical interactions in and between
>> internal and external, and internalizing and externalizing processes as
>> they move between potentiality and actuality.
>>
>> I suggest that the above can be placed in relation to Christophe's
>> Systemic Theory of Meaning, most recently of March 2020, (his reference
>> MENITA-7 below), which constitutes the primarily epistemological part of a
>> more complete theory embodying my ontological ideas as well.
>> These fit well, at least in my view, with Christophe's treatment of
>> anxiety in which potential states are critical, also for emergence.
>>
>> Thank you and best wishes,
>> Joseph
>>
>> *De :* Christophe Menant <christophe.menant en hotmail.fr>
>> *Envoyé :* dimanche 13 mars 2022 18:26
>> *À :* joe.brenner en bluewin.ch <joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>
>> *Objet :* RE: RE: [Fis] How Molecules Became Signs. One Way Out.
>> OFF-LINE for one point
>>
>>
>> Joseph,
>>
>> We can agree that a process transforms an input into an output.
>> Reverse engineering, as I know it, is a tool to improve processes. We
>> know what we want at the output. We look at how the process builds it in
>> order to see if it is the best way to do so (other ways may exist and be
>> better).
>> The output is then the starting point. It needs to be clearly defined and
>> understood to address possible improvements of the process that builds it.
>> Our case is about an evolutionary process that transforms meaningless
>> states present in a-biotic matter into meaningful states present in living
>> matter. We need there a precise definition of what is expected as output of
>> the process (meaningful information) in order to look at how the
>> evolutionary process may have produced it.
>>
>> Best
>> Christophe
>> ------------------------------
>> *De :* joe.brenner en bluewin.ch <joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>
>> *Envoyé :* dimanche 13 mars 2022 15:12
>> *À :* christophe.menant en hotmail.fr <christophe.menant en hotmail.fr>
>> *Objet :* Re: RE: [Fis] How Molecules Became Signs. One Way Out.
>> OFF-LINE for one point
>>
>> Before giving a full response to your very promising note, please let me
>> ask you one question about reverse engineering: is it really necessary to
>> know the *outcome *of the process, which may be difficult or impossible?
>> If Information IS Meaning, then the relative weight of actual and potential
>> defines the probability of an outcome, not the outcome itself. Qu'est-ce
>> que tu en dit?
>>
>> Best,
>> Joseph
>>
>> ----Message d'origine----
>> De : christophe.menant en hotmail.fr
>> Date : 13/03/2022 - 14:46 (CEST)
>> À : joe.brenner en bluewin.ch
>> Cc : fis en listas.unizar.es, deacon en berkeley.edu
>> Objet : RE: [Fis] How Molecules Became Signs. One Way Out
>>
>> Thanks Joseph for your position.
>>
>> If I understand you well:
>> 1) There is information and meaning in our world (I&M).
>> 2) There is no information nor meaning in an a-biotic/inert world.
>> 3) In that a-biotic/inert world there is only “potential for information
>> as meaning”.
>> 4) Information is defined in the process of its emergence from some
>> energetic ground.
>>
>> In addition, I feel we can say that:
>> a) I&M can be defined (https://philpapers.org/rec/MENITA-7
>> <https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Frec%2FMENITA-7&data=04%7C01%7C%7C51d6eef991104b4f37b108da04fb8e0e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637827775706215913%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=e2LmaRbblxmlDLTa90ByDnVicS4oek6hA%2Bjm4g4qb8c%3D&reserved=0>
>> ).
>> b) Having from Terry his definitions for I&M would allow a better
>> understanding of the “potential for information as meaning” and of the
>> “process of emergence”.
>> This is about the well known reverse engineering activity where the
>> outcome of a process is available, and when we look for some understanding
>> about the process itself. The more we know about the outcome of the
>> process, the more we can pretend understanding the process.
>> Here we need to clearly know the outcome of the process. We need
>> definitions for I&M by Terry. Their availability is needed to look at
>> understanding the “potential for information as meaning” and the
>> “process of emergence”.
>>
>> All the best
>>
>> Christophe
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *De :* joe.brenner en bluewin.ch <joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>
>> *Envoyé :* dimanche 13 mars 2022 11:51
>> *À :* christophe.menant en hotmail.fr <christophe.menant en hotmail.fr>
>> *Cc :* fis en listas.unizar.es <fis en listas.unizar.es>; deacon en berkeley.edu <
>> deacon en berkeley.edu>
>> *Objet :* Re: [Fis] How Molecules Became Signs. One Way Out
>>
>> Dear Friends and Colleagues,
>>
>> There is one way out of the dilemma which has not been directly refuted.
>> When Christophe and others ask if can we talk of information in an a-biotic
>> or pre-biotic world, if information means something actual, present, the
>> answer is no. If one asks instead did the *potential * for information
>> as meaning exist, the answer for me is yes.
>>
>> An additional statement must be added, otherwise the above is no more
>> than a trivial tautology. It is that information is defined in the process
>> of its emergence from some energetic ground. Since no process, nothing *in
>> process* is complete, complete and *incomplete *parts of the process are
>> present simultaneously and dynamically. The locus of this "nascent"
>> information is the detailed physico-chemical structure of the living
>> entities involved and their non-living constituents. These or parts of them
>> move from actual to potential and *vice versa *and this movement is what
>> ultimately defines their meaning.
>>
>> One reading of the above is that I have given a new interpretation of the
>> nature of a sign. I would gladly accept this, provided it can be
>> subsequently decided whether or not the concept of sign adds further
>> information. It may not.
>>
>> Thank you and best wishes,
>> Joseph
>>
>>
>>
>> ----Message d'origine----
>> De : christophe.menant en hotmail.fr
>> Date : 13/03/2022 - 00:02 (CEST)
>> À : deacon en berkeley.edu, fis en listas.unizar.es
>> Objet : [Fis] How Molecules Became Signs
>>
>> Dear Friends,
>> that war is a horrible drama for innocent civilians. And I agree with
>> your comments.
>> Our FIS discussions cannot bring much help to that human drama, but our
>> tentative analysis of what is “information” may somehow lead to a better
>> understanding of human motivations guide behaviors.
>> Let me add another comment to Terry’s work.
>>
>> Dear Terry,
>> In addition to my Feb 23 post I would appreciate some information on
>> parts of your paper I may not have understood that well.
>> Regarding the concept of information, you consider that information in a
>> pragmatic-functional sense can be understood in terms of molecular
>> evolution.
>> This brings to consider that “information” is present in an a-biotic or
>> pre-biotic world (a purely molecular world). Such pre-biotic world has
>> existed before the emergence of life in our universe. But can we talk of
>> information and meaning, of signs, in such a world? How should they be
>> understood in a purely material world devoid of living entities?
>> As said, it would be nice if you could clarify these points by making
>> available definitions for information, meaning and sign in such an a-biotic
>> world. This would allow a better understanding of your starting point.
>> Also, I do not see that well using the Peircean term of “Interpretant”
>> for an inert world. We know that the Interpretant (the meaning) needs an
>> Interpreter (the meaning generator). So introducing Interpretants in your
>> paper also brings to introduce Interpreters in an inert world. Your
>> sentence “In Peircean terms, this amounts to asking what sort of molecular
>> system is competent to produce the Interpretants” is equivalent to: “what
>> sort of molecular system is competent to generate meanings”. I’m not sure
>> that meaning generation by a molecular system in a purely material and
>> inert world can be clearly understood by today science or philosophy.
>> And I do not remember Peirce theory of sign being about inert matter. Could
>> you tel us more about your position on these subject?
>> Thanks again for your time
>> Christophe
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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