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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear FIS Colleagues,<br>
<br>
Some brief responses to the different parties:<br>
<br>
Marcus: there were several sessions dealing with info physics,
where I remember some historical connotations with mechanics
emerged. Mostly 1998 and 2002 chaired by Koichiro Matsuno and 2004
by Michel Petitjean. Afterwards the theme has surfaced relatively
often. About the present possibilities for a UTI, my opinion is
that strictly remaining within Shannon's and anthropocentric
discourse boundaries there is no way out. I do not think that
machine communication is going to advance the generalization
either (but who knows? In conjunction with computational
neuroscience and the "Bayesian" brain we may have surprises).
Actually, my personal bet is for reconsidering the evolutionary
origins, attending to the infrastructure of our cellular
communication and to the bacterial origins of everything. I think
we share some parts along this exploratory way, at least the
curiosity.<br>
<br>
To Loet, bacteria never apologize (not much different from some
humans, eg politicians) but chimps often do ("grooming" after
conflicts, with the winner offering peace to the defeated). The
restrictive use of the term communication as proposed is contrary
to the existing body of research, not only in biology. That
"biology as a science itself is communication" is a strange
argument. For the same token it is also observation, reflection,
action, learning, experiment, tradition... and biology, and
whatever science, is also a form of knowledge necessarily
performed by a living subject--so all science is "biology"
following with that strange argument. Finally, talking about
"priorities" or hierarchies in mutual relationships between bodies
of knowledge is out of our times; priorities have to be won by
cooperation/competence within the global knowledge-recombination
markets of science. Rather than closing doors, establishing
multidisciplinary teams and directions is the new mantra. <br>
<br>
To Jerry, given that explicitly my approach to biological
information /communication is based on molecular recognition, your
generative approach to the nature of molecular information under
the banner of electrical fields and atomic numbers looks
congruent. It is a pity that so few biophysical approaches have
been devoted to the general problematic of molecular recognition
and molecular complexity. The way living cells rely on different
informational architectures is a showcase of amazing multiplicity
achieved from a few model-patterns. But it is very difficult
establishing appropriate ontologies on the enormous functional
complexity that emerges. It relates to the last question of your
message, I think.<br>
<br>
To Francesco, thanks, I also believe that the relationship between
economic and biomolecular "currencies" share a similar inner
logic. Information has "value", indeed... And finally I should
clarify that the universals scheme proposed around bacterial
communication is a mere initial draft --it will get worst!
Actually it crystallized during the first days of these
discussions, thinking about the limits of the present
mechanical-Shannonian communication paradigm.<br>
<br>
Again, thanking the patience<br>
--Pedro<font size="+2"><br>
</font> <font size="+2"><br>
<br>
</font>El 07/07/2016 a las 18:44, Francesco Rizzo escribió:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Caro Pedro,
<div>ho apprezzato moltissimo quella magnifica sintesi tra vita,
auto-riproduzione e comunicazione con l'ambiente nella
prospettiva o logica della moneta biologica. Problematica che
ho affrontato più volte anch'io dal punto di vista della
"Nuova economia". Le pagine 120-130 di "Valore e valutazioni"
(FrancoAngeli, Milano, 1999) ne sono una testimonianza.</div>
<div>Grazie e buone vacanze a Te e a Tutti.</div>
<div>Francesco </div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">2016-07-07 13:53 GMT+02:00 Pedro C.
Marijuan <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" target="_blank">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>></span>:<br>
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<p>Dear FISers,</p>
<p>[NOTE: I have just seen the new post from Marcus right
now: I should modify parts of the discussion below, but
it is too much work! Better left for a future
exchange...]<br>
</p>
<p>About the a priori modeling of information --and
meaning-- which was the focus of Marcus' presentation,
putting together Shannon, Bateson, and Darwin, I am not
sure how that scheme would translate into the "real"
living stuff. Mostly thinking on the work my team has
done on bacterial communication for years, I mentioned
days ago three basic points about that: universals,
species-specificity, and essential cores. <br>
</p>
<p>How a plurality of those information universals could
be wrapped or articulated around an essential core?
That's the toughest point in my opinion. It becomes a
matter for freewheeling speculation, badly needed of
Schrodinger's disclaimer. Well, let us consider that
communication and self-production are but the two
inseparable sides of the bio "coin" --in order to
self-produce the living has to communicate with the
environment, and in order to communicate the living
needs its flexible self-production processes... (just to
fabricate the meaning!)<br>
</p>
<p>In bacteria, the side of communication might be seen as
implying:</p>
<p>--<b>Communication for self-production</b>: detection
and introjection/ejection of environmental substances
(water, anions, cations, minerals, nutrients,
metabolites, waste, and toxics). In bacteria this is
crucial. Most of it, apart from the spontaneous membrane
permeability, is done by around one hundred different
ONE-COMPONENT SYSTEMS (1CS) and a variety of channels
and transporters. <br>
</p>
<p>--<b>Communication </b><b>with</b><b> </b><b>con-specifics</b>:
in reproduction (sex exchanges, plasmid exchanges); in
social structures (colonies and biofilms); in
"differentiation" (sporulation, occasional
differentiated types). Around 10-20 TWO-COMPONENT
SYSTEMS (2CS) may be in charge, although amply swapping
their functions with the previous 1CSs.<br>
</p>
<p>--<b>Ecosystem communication</b>: cooperation and
competition with other species in ecosystems; chemical
arm races with fungi, viruses, other bacteria, protists,
etc.; symbiosis, cooperation and parasitism with
multicellular hosts; pathogenic switching... We may find
tools such as 1CS, 2CS, 3CS, special protein kinases,
and very complex apparatuses for pathogenesis,
predation, and chemical arm races.</p>
<p>Not much emphasis needed in that those three items are
universals, species specific, and more or less
differentiated/entangled within the mentioned
communication side of the bio core. <br>
</p>
<p>Thereafter, thinking about the universals side of
self-production, could we terribly simplify our
informational view of self-production, as Francis
Crick's mandated with h<span>is Central Dogma of
molecular biology? Nonetheless it was the first cogent
explanation of the flow of genetic information within
a biological system. In any case, what we find is
different informational architectures --membranes and
cytoskeleton rudiments, nucleic acids, processing
enzymes-- which are respectively based on identity,
complementarity, and supplementarity principles
(Shu-Kun Lin). They are playing together the <b>replication,
</b><b>transcription,</b> <b>translation, </b><b>house-keeping</b>,
and <b>degradation</b> functions that apparently
integrate the bulk of self-production... <br>
</span></p>
<p><span>Summing up the obtained items, and just to </span><span>close
the present speculation, </span><span>we might have
found three universals of communication and another
five of self-production. Indeed they look very densely
entangled within an essential core. </span><span>At
stake is whether they are sufficiently congruent and
ontologically robust. </span><span>Perhaps the most
interesting aspect is that herein it becomes
relatively easy to upend meaning, value,
knowledge-recombination and other members of the
conceptual cluster that usually accompanies
information.</span></p>
<p><span>Thanking in advance for the patience!</span></p>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<p><span>--Pedro</span><span><br>
</span> </p>
</font></span></div>
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<br>
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<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" 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. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a>
-------------------------------------------------
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