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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear FIS Colleagues,<br>
<p>There is no problem with heretics in this list. They are very
welcome as they make us think on our favorite ideas in a
different way or even from an opposed angle. We must always
maintain the scholarly tone, that's the only condition! (well,
apart from the "two messages per week" sacred rule)... From the
many --exciting-- recent exchanges, let me pick from Lars: <i>"assuming
that Information is a property, an entity is not necessary. We
can proceed with scientific research, using any information
concept we think useful, without assuming it refers to
anything."</i> Something similar but perhaps less clearly
formulated was in my proposal of the indefinability of
information and the reference to notions such as "propagating
influence" and "distinction on the adjacent."</p>
<p>Therefore I friendly disagree with Yixin below: <i>"</i><i>the
definition of information is the real foundation of
information science</i><i>"</i>, although I acknowledge the
value and interest of his whole approach from the background of
formal/computational approaches to our problem/field. Somehow,
defining information universally is like looking for the "red
herring", but it doesn't mean that we must condemn the term to
obscurity. We can develop the foundations of information science
without that definition, and indeed the advancement during last
ten years has been promising. <br>
</p>
<p>My personal strategy, beyond the 10 public points I formulated,
consists on theoretical/empirical work about "informational
entities". Those entities, the existence of which depends on a
special relationship with the environment, are able to
continuously distinguish - say - energy flows from information
flows, intertwining both kinds of flows with their own survival
and maintenance processes. An excellent parallel can be made
with Harold Morowitz on the energy flow and Geoffrey West on
scaling entities. The former for the micro-perspective (&
ecological perspective) and the latter for the macro-perspective
on the organizational dynamics of cells, organisms, enterprises,
cities... </p>
<p>The closest realm we can consider, and acknowledge almost
completely at the molecular scale, is the living cell. That's
the most strategic theater where we can define a series of
essential concepts: first the information flow, then the
signaling system, the life cycle, the cell-cell communication,
the complexity growth, etc. etc. This was the origins of the
genuine existential openness to tiny informational signals from
the environment. I bet that there is something fundamental to
learn about this bio-informational way of existence that can be
usefully carried on to physical quarters and also to the social.
There is a common informational philosophy of organization, e.g.
reminding Joseph Brenner's LIR, that at the time being we don't
recognize basically for two reasons: first the dogmas around the
reductionist physical approach (the imperialism of physics), and
second the relative poverty of theoretical biology (the
Darwinian organizational blindness)... Anyhow , in a few weeks I
will publish a rather complete description of the prokaryotic
information flow. I hope it will stimulate reflections from
other FIS parties. As I have often cited Michael Conrad in this
list: <i>"when we look at a biological system, we are looking
at the face of the underlying physics of the universe".</i><br>
</p>
Best--Pedro<br>
<font size="+2"><br>
</font><br>
El 05/10/2017 a las 12:03, 钟义信 escribió:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:20171005100309.86D4F19F3A4@mx1.bupt.edu.cn"
type="cite">Dear friends,<br>
<br>
The debate on the definition of information is of significance
because the definition of information is the real foundation of
information science. It is noticed that many contravercies in
information science either in the past or at present time are more
or less related to the different understandings of the concept of
information.<br>
<br>
It is not difficult to accept that there are two concepts of
information, related and also different to each other. The first
one is the information presented by the objects existed in
environment<u><font color="#0000FF"><font color="#000000"> before
the subject's perceiving</font></font></u> and the second
one is the information <u>perceived and understood by the
subject.</u> The first one can be termed the object information
and the second one the perceived information. The latter is
perceived by the subject from the former.<br>
<br>
The object information is just the object's "state of the object
and the pattern with which the state varyies". <u>No meaning and
no utility at the stage</u>.<br>
<br>
The perceived information is the information, perceive by the
subject from the object information. So, it should have the form
component of the object (syntactic information), the meaning
component of the object (semantic information), and the utility
component of the object with respect to the subject's goal
(pragmatic information). <u>Only at this stage, the "meaning"
comes out</u>.<br>
<br>
What is new, we discovered that <font color="#FF0000">the meaning
(semantic information) is the 'function' of the union of the
syntactic information and the pragmatic information.</font> This
can be understood as the definition of the meaning/semantic
information and the relation among them. In othr words, <font
color="#FF0000">"meaning (semantic information)" cannot be
understood arbitrarily.<br>
</font><br>
Comments are welcome.<br>
<br>
<div id="signEditor">--<br>
<p>Prof. Y. X. Zhong （钟义信）</p>
<p>Center for Intelligence Science Research</p>
<p>University of Posts & Telecommunications</p>
<p>Beijing 100876, China</p>
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<div style="disallowed character">----- 回复邮件 -----
<div style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><b>发信人:</b>Lars-Göran
Johansson<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:Lars-Goran.Johansson@filosofi.uu.se"><Lars-Goran.Johansson@filosofi.uu.se></a></div>
<div><b>收信人:</b>foundationsofinformationscienceinformationscience
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es"><fis@listas.unizar.es></a></div>
<div><b>时间:</b>2017年10月05日 16时45分39秒</div>
<div><b>主题:</b>Re: [Fis] Fwd: Re[2]: Heretic</div>
</div>
<br>
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<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space;
-webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Dear all
<div class="">It seems to me that the heat in the debate
about the definition of the concept of Information is
fuelled by deep metaphysical feelings: different people
have different views about what is REALLY Information.
Metaphysical debates can never be resolved. May I suggest
that we agree on this: there are several different
concepts, such as Shannon Information, Semantic
Information, etc.. Each Information concept has its own
distinct definition and each one may use whichever he/she
finds useful.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Whether any of these concepts refers to any
real thing, INFORMATION, cannot be determined by any
empirical research. The reason is that empirical research
can sometimes decide the truth of a sentence, but never
whether the predicate in that sentence refers to anything.
<div class="">Suppose we have found, empirically, that a
sentence of the form ’ X is information’ where
’information’ has a clear definition. (Chose anyone you
like.) The truth of this sentence entails that the
object referred to by ’X’ must exist; this is a truth
condition for any declarative sentence. But it does not
follow that the predicate ’Information' refers to
something. It suffice that the object X belongs to the
extension of the predicate. This is the nominalist
position.</div>
<div class="">Since 1000 years the core debate in
metaphysics has been whether there are universals, i.e.,
properties and relations. The debate about<i class="">Information</i>
is a debate about the existence of a property.</div>
<div class="">I am an empiricist and nominalist, accepting
Occam’s razor: one should not assume more entities than
necessary. And assuming that Information is a property,
an entithy, is not necessary. We can proceed with
scientific research, using any information concept we
think useful, without assuming it refers to anything.
Metaphysical issues can safely be put to rest.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Lars-Göran Johansson</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
</div>
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<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 0
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>
------------------------------------------------- </pre>
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