[Fis] Contingency signals: AI Information, Decision and Learning

Mon Nov 24 21:08:00 CET 2025

Dear all,

The problem with information is that, barring Shannon (which is a special
case), it lacks operationalisability. Shannon gives us a way of counting -
which is analogous to Ashby's law of requisite variety (Ashby acknowledged
this), and it clearly works for communication networks. It is a curiosity
for social communication (leaving many questions), and even more so for art
or music.

Surely we need a new way of thinking which can be operationalised? That is
the spirit of the paper I sent round. And the message is that we "measure"
in order to organise ourselves better. Often today we see measurement used
as a way of organising ourselves worse (think of Doge or Key Performance
Indicators!). So we need an antidote.

I remain fascinated by Shannon but I am not convinced it is the way
forwards. I see variations of it - in Leydesdorff (who I deeply respected),
or in Friston - as algorithmic tweaks which lack ontological resonance. Our
binary logic (bits) still gets in the way.

So I come back to perception (which is what the paper is about). Perception
is not information but behaviour. We do not "process" what we perceive, but
act with it, as Gibson said. Bill Powers Perceptual Control Theory may be
closer to the mark. If AI perceives as we do, that is important beyond
information. It must be to do with movement and space, because space is
essential to the behaviour of perceiving. There is, I suspect, a latent
encoding of space in AI, just as there was an encoding of space in Ashby's
"box" (see https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://constructivist.info/20/2/181.fischer__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!S_vWo3XbDlTqWOhMGqQ30dIDKIM6cIj8BJsfsncu-6hIiZoic3pav22nlYkEdr2zD3msykOOVUsJ3n5DI58XZZU$  ). There is no
space in Shannon, or in Friston, nor (ironically) in metaphors that talk of
"infospace", phase space, etc. Metaphorical space is often little more than
2d vectors.

I think we need a simple operationalisable topology - an "iconic calculus
of space" (I don't think this is Spencer-Brown, but perhaps that's a start,
as is Joe Brenner's LIR). I am very drawn to Milo Beckman's brilliant "Math
Without Numbers" ( https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://amzn.eu/d/9deAiZU__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!S_vWo3XbDlTqWOhMGqQ30dIDKIM6cIj8BJsfsncu-6hIiZoic3pav22nlYkEdr2zD3msykOOVUsJ3n5Dc-P0i4Y$ ) as a starting point for this.
Part of the answer to the challenge lies in understanding why Beckman's
book is so ingenious and engaging. If we could speak and act in relation to
biology, art, learning and organising in equally simple iconic ways, then I
hope we would make some progress.

Best wishes

Mark

Dr. Mark William Johnson
Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health
University of Manchester

Department of Science Education
University of Copenhagen

Department of Eye and Vision Science (honorary)
University of Liverpool
Phone: 07786 064505
Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
Blog: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!S_vWo3XbDlTqWOhMGqQ30dIDKIM6cIj8BJsfsncu-6hIiZoic3pav22nlYkEdr2zD3msykOOVUsJ3n5D7iTQWyM$ 

On Mon, 24 Nov 2025, 17:01 William Miller, <wbmiller1 at cox.net> wrote:

> Kassimir,
> I appreciated our astute comments. You might be interested to note that
> what you detailed is codified through the concept of infoautopoiesis,
> initiated by Jaime Cardenas-Garcia and emphasized by my work and our mutual
> papers. In this framework, all the information that any cell has of its
> external environment is the result of its internal measurement of received
> syntactic information from its receptors (syntactic information is stimuli
> resulting from matter-energy interactions devoid of intrinsic meaning).
> That received information, as a source of initial ambiguity, is measured
> internally by a cell for value as infocomputation for salience and valence,
> pertaining to its relationship to any cell's preferential state of flux).
> This is the cell's actual information (Effective Information, *EI) , which
> it has developed internally, which is the translation of syntactic
> information into semantic meaning-laden information that can be used by the
> cell for decision-making and problem-solving. A necessary correlate
> follows: all the information that any cell has is self-produced. Jaime and
> I regard this linkage as a fundamental aspect of the living frame.
> Best regards,
> Bill
>
> On Monday, November 24, 2025 at 09:44:00 AM MST, Krassimir Markov <
> itheaiss at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Dear Steve,
> I was pleased to read your letter. You are very close to the definition of
> what we call "information", but you have not yet separated information as a
> result of its mention on a par with the causes.
> In fact, things are quite simple - what you call a "signal" is a two-sided
> entity.
> On the one hand, the environment affects the receptors, on the other hand,
> the receptors are activated and send impulses further into the body. Not
> all external influences are perceived as signals. For example, no matter
> how loudly you speak to a 100% deaf person, he will not register the
> arrival of signals from you.
> Therefore, it is correct to talk not about "signals", but about
> "reflections".
> Only when the receptors reflect the impact, only then does a process begin
> that leads to the appearance of "information".
> Any perceived reflection is "data" until it is recognized by the body.
> It is precisely the recognized data that is information, i.e. information
> is data with meaning.
> Further, if the information is fixed in the long-term memory of the
> organism, it becomes "knowledge".
> Some organisms can externalize their knowledge and thus interact with
> others.
> Well, in everyday jargon, usually, either out of ignorance or laziness,
> people use the word "information" to denote either data or externalized
> knowledge, for example, it is usually said "I collect information from
> sensors", while the correct one is "I collect data from sensors", as well
> as "I read a lot of information in the library today", instead of, "I
> gained a lot of knowledge in the library today".
> As an illustration, I attach a slide from my presentation at the 7th
> International Conference on Philosophy of Information (ICPI 2025), which
> was part of IS4SI 2025 - The 2025 Summit of the International Society for
> the Study of Information, June 2025, In-person and on-line, Varna, Bulgaria.
> With respect,
> Krassimir
>
> [image: information.jpg]
>
>
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