[Fis] Fwd: Re: Fwd: TR: RE: How Molecules Became Signs. Response to Karl and Howard

[Karl Javorszky]

Hi Folks,



life is coming back to this august and serene chatroom, thanks to Howard’s
oomph and Josephs tentative, possible, maybe some little interest in
collaboration towards a comprehensive clean-up of all that that surrounds
the term ‘information’.

Two ideas have not been transmitted sufficiently clearly: 1. in the
beginning there was truth and contradiction coexisting and 2. Some have an
affliction with tautologies which turns some others off.

The concept of the Big Bang assumes that there was a beginning (by counting
backwards, they established that all that is there now must have been
focused in one place, as it is dispersing now continuously from that one
place.) There and then, everything could have been said about that
agglomeration which was just about to explode. About an amorphous heap of
not clearly distinguished constituents anything can be said, and its
opposite, too. Like about a new-born the aunties are observed to say: he
looks like a scientist or like a movie star or a strong sportsman, the
subject of the debate is as yet devoid of all descriptions and is therefore
in possession of any and all descriptions. (It fits that the technical term
for a new-born’s lust economy is ’polymorph perverse’, because it could
have any form /anything that satisfies a baby satisfies a baby/ and because
it does not function according to our conventions about what is noble and
what are the limits.) Everything that can happen has its seeds in that
moment, in that agglomeration state. This is meant by ‘if every logical
rule exists, no logical rules exist’. If anything is possible, everything
is possible. Of this Urzustand (archaic state), some organisational rules
create such entities about which specific distinctions can be made. Howard
assumes that the first organisational rules be named ‘magnetism’ and the
first such sub-agglomerations that can be distinguished against all other
be called ‘leptons’. It is not my job to decide whether ‘some
organisational rules’ means actually magnetism, and the first discernible
something was indeed a lepton. My job is to shout hear! hear!  for the idea
that there is something very basic that differentiates and the result of
some very basic differentiation is some discernible subset of the whole
collection. This idea Howard does promote and I am happy about it.

My tuppence to that is that the first organisational principle be called
‘similarity – diversity’ and the delineated somethings be called
‘numerosity’.  You see, in the moments before, it was possible to say *6+5=4,
2+1=5, etc. *because there were not any things delineated that would have
the properties of *6,5,4,2,1,5, etc. *because these properties have not
been developed yet. What can have developed is a general rule saying *‘if
<so many> stuff is together, it will be in <this> extent similar and in
<that> extent diverse’. *



Using Howard’s concept of a beginning and differentiation of types of
matter and some first distribution of properties that make the types
similar and diverse, as Chapter I, we can fast forward to today, where we
try to understand the feedback loops establishing the creation and the
annihilation of type-ness, amount and placement of matter. The DNA
spectacle is a huge sudoku of which we have not yet understood the rules.
This is Chapter X, where properties of similarity, diversity and numerosity
have been clearly established and the interaction between: *move the
position of token here **↔ add specific type of amino acid there *is looked
into. The background is stable in theoretical genetics and in mnemonics.
Everything is such as it should be and accounting works. There is
absolutely no meaning, aboutness, reason, progress or else in the mechanism
as such in Chapter X. The cogs fit, the valves open and close and the
regulation is error-free because *tautologic*.

Tautologie in German lacks the pejorative slur connotation in English
of *boring,
useless, copy, ersatz, one more of the same. *In its usage in the Vienna
circle of early 20th century, it meant: *correct, self-explicative, kosher,
says the same, is in effect the same, is arrived at by observing the rules,
nihil obstat, as follows from the definition*. Indeed, all reasoning is
done based on tautologies, of which the finest and etalon form is *a=a.* We
use that magical moment in which there is a balance between two ideas. That
the content agrees to its definition is the meaning of tautology.

Example: We define ‘milk’ to be a ‘fluid extracted from the udders of a
cow’. This allows us to disregard all questions relating to mother-milk,
soja-, rice-, synthetic milk. No variants and no external influences, just
the two things as such.

Tautologies are the algebra of logic. Their most useful application is in
the context of solid state physics at room temperature (Wittgenstein has
summarised the ideas of the industrial revolution.) Because Life takes
place in stable environments at room temperature, one is encouraged to use
classical, solid-state logic when discussing places of chromosomes and
molecular geometry and proceedings in physiology. (No need to think about
space bended by gravity, relativity effects or plasma.) Life is based on a
system of interacting regulations, with feedback loops. No feedback loops,
no life. If feedback loops sustainable, these are well-regulated.
Well-regulated means the results are as expected. The outcomes fit the
predictions. Everything points to everything else in a well-defined
fashion. The system runs like it should. *The system is a tautologic
construction. *



In Chapter XX, Joseph will give a connoisseurs’ twist to that all, by
showing that whatever system does have two states, one expected and one
actual, there are manifold similarities and diversities among the two views
of one and the same thing, or of two (potential, possible) parts of a thing
that is in essence two things – this is Joseph’s distinction to make.
Whatever contrapunto melodies he fits into his way of addressing duality,
the notes and the rhythm will be there to serve any and all of his needs.
The whole system is one unscrewing of a knot (Chapter I), and during the
unscrewing, the parts are for a while in specific circumstances in such a
relation to each other that it is possible to correctly foretell their
interaction pattern (this is Chapter X, the phase of the close fitting),
and then the unscrewing continues where there appear areas that are
interchangeable (Chapter XX). The relations there may well also be such
which are not tautologic, like Schrödinger’s and Joseph’s (if I understand
his ideas correctly). Like Newton would have agreed that his ideas have a
speed limit of validity, we have to concede that rules of consistent,
predictive counting are no more valid if the assembly lacks the basic
property of *cohesivity*, of which it had at the beginning too much of.



Karl





Am Mo., 21. März 2022 um 18:43 Uhr schrieb joe.brenner en bluewin.ch <
joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>:

> Dear All,
>
> Karl’s note below, and that part of it which refers to Howard’s below,
> refers to aspects of my approach to logic, information  and reality. They
> deserve some responses and clarifications, the order (in this case) does
> not have any particular significance.
>
> 1.       1. The intent of the statement “all logical statements being
> true, etc.”, relevant only for standard logics, is not clear to me in this
> context.
>
> 2.       2. On the other hand, my non-propositional, non-truth-functional
> logic of processes is a way of seeing *how *(my emphasis) things interact.
>
> 3.       3. I do not think we are talking about “the same interdependence
> of parts and wholes” unless you can agree that interdependence means that
> parts and wholes share some of each other’s properties, to a different and
> changing degree.
>
> 4.       4. The reference to the beginning of an interaction is very good
> since it avoids reification of an “interaction”. One could simply say that
> interactions imply transformations, more or less continuous.
>
> 5.       5. The concept introduced of exactitude as a property of
> interactions, leading to tautologies, is a difficult one for me to grasp. I
> tend to avoid tautologies like the plague, and my interactions are far from
> exact.
>
> 6.       6. In this context, we have a core definition of information as
> anything a receiver can interpret. The concepts of a receiver and
> information, however, appear to be everything that participates in a
> real-world process, at all levels of reality, in other words, everything.
> There is a certain attraction to seeing “everything” as information, but it
> is ultimately a form of idealism I for one cannot accept.
>
> 7.       7. A meaningful sentence for me is that information is an
> “artefact of the stage of our dramas.” I would say that it is built on the
> existence of entities (with different densities, OK) moving between
> actuality and potentiality. I would be interested in seeing if either of
> our authors could integrate this statement in *their* systems.
>
> Thank you and best wishes,
>
> Joseph
>
> ----Message d'origine----
> De : karl.javorszky en gmail.com
> Date : 19/03/2022 - 17:31 (CEST)
> À : howlbloom en aol.com
> Cc : fis en listas.unizar.es, christophe.menant en hotmail.fr,
> joe.brenner en bluewin.ch
> Objet : Re: [Fis] Fwd: TR: RE: How Molecules Became Signs. One Way Out.
>
> Oomph this does have, Howard. An idea came to me on reading this
> explanation of what happened right after the big bang.
> All logical statements being true, none of them is true.
> Some of the melee will become differentiated, on whichever property. In
> your model, these are leptons etc mainly along magnetism.
> This fits all very well as the first chapters of a book for young adults.
> My contribution would come later, as we discuss the ideally running stable
> middle stage of the contraption, where and on which we demonstrate that and
> how the cogs fit together. Maybe a polite invitation to Joseph to attach
> words to concepts that are the background to what we all 3 (actually, all
> of fis) try to put to words and concepts and numbers and drawings.
>
> Namely that information is an artefact of the stage of our dramas. It is
> built on the difference between densities space vs matter. There are
> thresholds below and above which the concept of unit changes. We could
> figure that out once we clearly see how things interact.
>
> Memory functions like genetic only in the best of ideal circumstances. So
> in my world the interactions are that exact that one may talk about
> tautologies.
>
> In the beginning of the interaction or during transformations of it, there
> are the pictures Joseph and you paint.
>
> In my impression, we talk about the same interdependence of many parts of
> a whole.
>
> Karl
>
>
> On Fri, 18 Mar 2022, 01:45 Howard Bloom, < howlbloom en aol.com> wrote:
>
>> The Evolution of Information
>>
>>
>> Most of us think that information is a relatively new phenomenon, limited
>> to human kind, computers, and perhaps to animals.  But that view is wrong.
>> Information reared its head in the first 1032 second of the big bang.
>> It got its start when space first told matter how to move.  That was a
>> communicational exchange.  An informational exchange.  And information
>> showed itself  in that first 1032 second after the Big Bang when the
>> first “things” precipitated from a sheet of space and time.  Those first
>> things were leptons and quarks.  And quarks have a peculiar property.  They
>> cannot survive on their own. So they rushed to find each other and to gang
>> up in groups of two or three.  But not just any partners would do.  Each
>> quark was born with the equivalent of an etiquette book, an instruction
>> manual telling it which fellow quarks to rush toward and which quarks to
>> avoid.  Each quark was born picky.  Each quark was born with a vocabulary
>> called attraction and repulsion.  Each quark read the signals from another
>> quark and either sped away or glommed together in a permanent embrace.
>> Yes, quarks met others and either rushed away or sped toward each other to
>> embrace.  How did quarks “know” which to do?  They read each other’s
>> signals.  They read each other’s electromagnetic and weak force.  Then they
>> acted on those signals.  In other words, quarks exchanged information.  In
>> my book The God Problem, How a Godless Cosmos Creates, I give a simple
>> definition of information.  Information, says the God Problem, is anything
>> a receiver can interpret.  How do we know when a receiver is getting the
>> message?  We watch the receiver’s response.  In other words, stimulus and
>> response—the two things that BF Skinner felt were the core of
>> psychology--are vital to the observation of information.  Quarks fleeing
>> from each other or flying together were responding to the cues of other
>> quarks.  They were interpreting a stimulus and producing a response.  They
>> were communicative.  They were social.  And they were informational. Those
>> 13.8-billion-year-old social quarks, by the way, are alive inside of you
>> and me today.  Quark threesomes are your protons and neutrons. But there’s
>> more. Informational processes of the sort we see in quarks appear at every
>> stage of the cosmos’ evolution.  They appear in attraction and repulsion.
>> Information, attraction, and repulsion showed up 380,000 years after the
>> big bang in electrons and protons.  Electrons and protons read each other’s
>> electromagnetic signals and came together as atoms.  Attraction, repulsion
>> and information appeared in the sweepings of cosmic dust that would someday
>> be called galaxies.  Information and attraction showed up in the form of
>> gravity, signals that change based on a body’s mass.  Information and
>> attraction appeared in the gravity balls that would form stars, planets and
>> moons.  Informaion, attraction, and repulsion appeared when atoms read each
>> others signals and came together in the first molecules.  And they
>> information, attraction, and repulsion are alive in every macromolecule
>> that would become a part of life.  Molecules communicate with each other
>> via electromagnetism and either attract or repel.  Information is the
>> backbone of the evolution of the universe.  And information is the essence
>> of the gatherings of matter that think of themselves as you and me.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Karl Javorszky <karl.javorszky en gmail.com>
>> To: Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>
>> Cc: fis <fis en listas.unizar.es>; Christophe Menant <
>> christophe.menant en hotmail.fr>
>> Sent: Thu, Mar 17, 2022 6:57 am
>> Subject: Re: [Fis] Fwd: TR: RE: How Molecules Became Signs. One Way Out.
>>
>> Yes, this is absolutely correct
>> *Meaningful information is reality in potential form*
>>
>> *Congratulations! *
>>
>>
>> joe.brenner en bluewin.ch < joe.brenner en bluewin.ch> schrieb am Do., 17.
>> März 2022, 11:34:
>>
>> 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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