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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:.5in'>-----Original Message-----<br>From: Robert E. Ulanowicz [mailto:ulan@umces.edu] <br>Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2015 7:11 PM<br>To: Mark Johnson; Loet Leydesdorff<br>Cc: Robert Ulanowicz<br>Subject: Re: [Fis] [Fwd: Re: Information is a linguistic description of structures]--T...</p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:.5in'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:.5in'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:.5in'>Dear Mark & Loet,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:.5in'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:.5in'>What Bateson described is a special example of a more general agonism that traces back to Heraclitus, who saw reality as the outcome between two opposing tendencies -- "one that builds up and another that tears down".<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:.5in'>Of course, the tension is fundamental to Eastern thought as well (e.g., Yin - Yan).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Dear Bob, Mark, and colleagues, <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>It seems to me that these general denominators are nowadays not specific enough; the system(s) of reference have to be specified and we also are able to specify what is integrating and what is differentiating. In general, one can expect a trade-off between organization and self-organization of the information flows.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>In the case of interhuman communication, I suggest that the codes of communication are self-organizing and differentiating; whereas they have to be organized by individuals reflexively in instantiations (action). The self-organizing codes are second-order attributes to the communications (and not the communicators), structural, and therefore selection mechanisms; the differentiation drives the communication so that it can increasingly process complexity. The trade-offs generate tensions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>I read Mark’s comments as a reference to the tradition of the “Dialectics of Enlightenment”: when communication tends to take over control, this generates also alienation at the level of the individual because the communication differentiates, while the individual wishes to integrate. Marx expressed this as the relation between exchange and use value: exchange value is the reflection on the abstract market of “human” use value. The market can be considered as an interhuman communication (exchange) system guided by a symbolically generalized code of communication (e.g., price). Capitalism is based on the inversion of the cycle Commodity-Money-Commodity into Money-Commodity-Money (Geld-Ware-Geld).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>Bateson is interested in personal development (“mind”) and (organizational) action. From the perspective of the communication, individual minds provide the sources of variation. Variation is needed for further developing the communication. Reflexively, action also reproduces structure and retains organization. All these relations are to be further specified, in my opinion. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>Finally, I would like to say that this is not a dialectics. It is increasingly obvious that at least three mechanisms are needed for complex systems formation; for example: triadic closure and the generation of mutual information/redundancy among three or more dynamics. The vertical differentiation in levels A., B, and C is also not incidental. In the case of two, we obtain co-evolution models that explain mutual shaping, but not yet complex systems that may go into crises, globalize, etc. Trialectics, Triple Helix, …., etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>Best, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>Loet<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>PS. This was my second email for this week. L.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D'><hr size=3 width="100%" align=center></span></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D'>Loet Leydesdorff </span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D'>Professor Emeritus,</span></i><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D'> University of Amsterdam<br>Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net" title="mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'>loet@leydesdorff.net </span></a><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D'>; </span><a href="http://www.leydesdorff.net/" title="http://www.leydesdorff.net/"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'>http://www.leydesdorff.net/</span></a><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D'> <br></span><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:black'>Honorary Professor, </span><a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:blue'>SPRU, </span></a><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:black'>University of Sussex; <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:black'>Guest Professor </span><a href="http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:blue'>Zhejiang Univ.</span></a><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:black'>, Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, </span><a href="http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:blue'>ISTIC, </span></a><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:black'>Beijing;<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:black'>Visiting Professor, </span><a name="_GoBack"></a><a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk/"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:blue'>Birkbeck</span></a><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:black'>, University of London; <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en"><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:blue'>http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>