<div dir="ltr">Jeremy -- It is no longer so easy to declare that the physicochemical realm has no end-rirectednes. There is a burgeoning viewpoint -- the maximizing entropy production principle (MEPP) -- that proposes an end for all actions and activities whatever.<div><br></div><div>In my version, it is the constitutively poor energy efficiency of any work that gives us the hint that all actions serve first to further the thermodynamic equilibration of the Universe.</div><div><br></div><div>Finalisms can be parsed, using a subsumptive hierarchy, as follows:</div><div><br></div><div> {entropy production {free energy utilization {work {projects}}}}</div><div><br></div><div>on the template:</div><div><br></div><div> {physical realm (chemical realm (biological realm (social realm}}}}</div><div><br></div><div>The Second Law of thermodynamics establishes the finality here, carried molecularly by the least action principle. At the levels of biology and society these are weak forces compared to the need to survive and the urgency of social projects. But these latter come and go, while the urge to do anything-at-all is always pulling, even at rest (where in biology healing takes place as well as brain reorganization).</div><div><br></div><div>I send references to you at your e-mail address.</div><div><br></div><div>STAN</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Jeremy Sherman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mindreadersdictionary@gmail.com" target="_blank">mindreadersdictionary@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:13px">It would be satisfying perhaps to think of our collective work as at the forefront of the development of what will become A Grand Domain of Science, but I would say the better trend in current science is toward careful integration between domains rather than toward established grand divisions, which seems a more a classical approach. Doesn't information play out in the biological and the social domains? Isn't our most ambitious goal here to explain scientifically the relationship between information and the physical domain? </span><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Whether modest or foolhardy as Terry suggests or of some other stature, Terry's approach addresses the source of the great schism in all academic and intellectual circles: Physical scientists are appropriately barred from explaining behavior in terms of the value of information for some end-directed self about, or representative of anything. But biological and social scientists can't help but explain behavior in those terms. Focusing, precisely on possible transitions from the physical domain to the living and social domains is exactly what a scientific approach demands.</div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Lacking an explanation for the transition from mechanism to end-directed behavior (which is inescapably teleological down to its roots in function or adaptation--behaviors of value to a self about its environment), science is stuck, siloed into isolated domains without a rationale. </div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">To my mind, this makes the implications of meticulous work at the very border between mechanism and end-directed behavior anything but modest in its possible implications. In this I agree with Pedro. With what we now know about self-organization-- how it is footing on the physical side for a bridge from mechanism to end-directed behavior but does not itself provide the bridge, we are perfectly poised to build the bridge itself, through an integrated science that explains the ontology of epistemology, providing solid scientific ground over the absolutely huge gaping hole in the middle of the broadest reaches of scientific and philosophical endeavor. </div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Whether Terry's work or someone else's work bridges that gap, I predict that, at long last, the gap can and will be finally filled, probably within the next decade. As ambitious researchers this would be a lousy time for any of us, Terry included, to stick to our guns in the face of substantial critique revealing how a theory we embrace merely provides a new, more clever way way to hide or smear over the gap pretending it isn't there, which is why I would love to see this discussion refocus on the article's detailed content. Though the implications of this research at the borderline may be grand, the research, in the doing, is as Terry implies as modest any careful scientific work.</div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Jeremy Sherman</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:06 AM, Moisés André Nisenbaum <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:moises.nisenbaum@ifrj.edu.br" target="_blank">moises.nisenbaum@ifrj.edu.br</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Hi, Pedro.<div>I didnt receive th image (Figure 1. The Four Great Domains of Science)</div><div>Would you please send it again?</div><div><br></div><div>Thank you.</div><div><br></div><div>Moises</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2015-01-17 9:00 GMT-02:00 <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fis-request@listas.unizar.es" target="_blank">fis-request@listas.unizar.es</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Send Fis mailing list submissions to<br>
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<br>Today's Topics:<br>
<br>
1. Re: Beginnings and ends---Steps to a theory of reference &<br>
significance (Pedro C. Marijuan)<br>
<br><br>---------- Mensagem encaminhada ----------<br>From: "Pedro C. Marijuan" <<a href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" target="_blank">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>><br>To: "'fis'" <<a href="mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es" target="_blank">fis@listas.unizar.es</a>><br>Cc: <br>Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 12:43:40 +0100<br>Subject: Re: [Fis] Beginnings and ends---Steps to a theory of reference & significance<br><u></u>
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Dear Terry and FIS colleagues---and pirates,<small><br>
<br>
</small><big><small>Just a brief reflection on the below. </small><br>
<br>
</big>
<pre><small>(From Terry's last message)...
So my goal in this case is quite modest, and yet perhaps also a bit
foolhardy. I want to suggest a simplest possible model system to use
as the basis for formalizing the link between physical processes and
semiotic processes. Perhaps someday after considerably elaborating
this analysis it could contribute to issues of the psychology of human
interactions. I hope to recruit some interest into pursuing this goal.</small></pre>
In my view, any research endeavor is also accompanied by some
"ultimate" goals or ends that go beyond the quite explicit disciplinary
ones. In this case, say, about the destiny of the constructs that would
surround the information concept (or the possibility of framing an
informational perspective, or a renewed information science, or
whatever), wouldn't it be interesting discussing in extenso what could
that ultimate vision? <br>
<br>
I mean, most of us may agree in quite many points related to the
microphysical (& thermodynamic) underpinning of information, as it
transpires in the exchanges we are having--but where do we want to
arrive finally with the construction activity? <small><small><small><span style="font-family:Arial;color:black" lang="EN-US"></span></small></small></small>I
tend to disagree with localist aims, even though at the time being they
may look more prudent and parsimonious. Putting it in brief, too
briefly!, and borrowing from Rosenbloom (P.S.
2013. On Computing: The Fourth Great
Scientific Domain) the idea is that information
science, properly developed and linked with computer science and
mathematics, should
constitute one of the Great Domains of contemporary science. The
informational
would go together with the physical, the biological, and the social:
constituting
the four great domains of science. See Figure below. Rather than
attempting the
construction of another average or standard discipline, information
science is
about the making out of one of the “great scientific domains” of
contemporary
knowledge.<br>
<br>
More cogent arguments could be elaborated on how to cover
sceintifically the whole "information world" (human societies, behaving
individuals, brain organization, cellular processes, biomolecules) and
the problem of interlocking--crisscrossing a myriad of information
flows at all levels. But the point is, "ends", although unassailable,
may be as much important as "beginnings".<br>
<br>
Thanks in advance for the patience!<br>
<br>
---Pedro<br>
<br>
<small><span style="font-family:Arial" lang="EN-US"><span style="color:black"></span></span></small><br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:Arial" lang="EN-US"><span style="color:black"></span></span></p>
<span style="font-family:Arial" lang="EN-US"><span style="color:black"> <u></u><u></u></span></span>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><b><span style="font-family:Arial" lang="EN-US"><img height="386" width="424"><u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><big><big><big><big><big><b><span style="font-size:9pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Arial;color:black" lang="EN-US">Figure
1. The Four Great Domains of Science</span></b><span style="font-size:9pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Arial;color:black" lang="EN-US">. The graphic shows the network of contemporary
disciplines in the background; <br>
while the superimposed “four-leaf clover” represents
the four great scientific domains.<u></u><u></u></span></big></big></big></big></big></p>
<br>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. <a href="tel:%2B34%20976%2071%203526" value="+34976713526" target="_blank">+34 976 71 3526</a> (& 6818)
<a href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" target="_blank">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
<a href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/" target="_blank">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a>
-------------------------------------------------
</pre>
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<br></blockquote></div><span><font color="#888888"><br><br clear="all"><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br></div>-- <br><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Moisés André Nisenbaum<br>Doutorando IBICT/UFRJ. Professor. Msc.<br>Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro - IFRJ<br>Campus Maracanã<br><a href="mailto:moises.nisenbaum@ifrj.edu.br" target="_blank">moises.nisenbaum@ifrj.edu.br</a></div></div></div></div>
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