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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=JA link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>On 16 Oct 2017 at 8:35 AM, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Most of information processing devices consist of a design of some sort of feedback loop. I don`t know if we could translate this idea to all the kinds of systems we all deal with.</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'> Right. We know a lot of cycles or loops in our profession including autocatalytic cycles of various types, semiotic closure (Howard Pattee), circular causality (Gregory Bateson) and closure to efficient cause (Robert Rosen) just to name only a few. What concerns us at this point is that when we call something a loop without referring directly to the material object supporting the loop, the chance of being accused of assuming an anthropocentrism would be pretty high. How could we avoid this?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'> One lesson we have learned from physics is that if one can associate the name tag of anything with the state attribute of a given system at any moment, the name-calling of anthropocentrism could be waived. For instance, something called entropy could survive insofar as it is associated with the state attribute of the system of interest. Despite that, no state assignment of a loop could be likely because the state has been static by itself unless it is acted upon by something else. Most of us must be familiar with how clumsy it would be to describe the operation of a loop in terms of ad hoc state transitions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'> One likelihood of approaching a loop descriptively might be to admit any elements of interest on the table at any moment without stipulating the congruent state assignment globally. That is to say, the environment to any element could differ from that to any other. One advantage of this picture might be that the environments of each element could be agential in their internal coordination if we can luckily escape from the entrapment by “anything goes”. Whether such an internal coordination could be likely must be totally an empirical matter. This issue may be most crucial for the origins of life anywhere. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'> Koichiro Matsuno<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> Fis [mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Jose Javier Blanco Rivero<br><b>Sent:</b> Monday, October 16, 2017 8:35 AM<br><b>To:</b> Krassimir Markov <markov@foibg.com>; Fis, <fis@listas.unizar.es><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN-US>Dear Krassimir, dear all,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN-US>I have noticed that some descriptions of information make use of anthropocentric metaphors and that might be misguiding (for instance, subjective and objective information (Sung)). Agent is a concept that retains some sort of action-theoretic background but at the same time assumes the existence of nonhuman agents. Agency would be then a causal relation wherein the agent "causes" some sort of effects. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN-US>I don`t feel confortable with this concept. I prefer the the concept of observer. But this one is problematic too, for the same reason: it is supposed that a human is there watching, feeling, measuring, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN-US>I think we have to get rid of these humanistic assumptions in order to gain insight into the issues we want to explore. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN-US>Definitely I don`t think I have the answer, but following D. Hofstadter, H. von Foerster, N. Luhmann and others we could think of a agent/observer as a self-referential loop. Most of information processing devices consist of a design of some sort of feedback loop. I don`t know if we could translate this idea to all the kinds of systems we all deal with. But it would be worth finding out. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN-US>An operative loop enables the differentiation of system and environment. The system acquires the capacity to control its own behavior. At some point its internal states are so many that it biffucartes and grow complex. Subsystems can differentiate by the same mechanism. So, that`s my point: one have to look for self-referential loops in order to find the observer/agent. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN-US>An intelligent agent would be some kind of loop (strange loop, maybe). It`s just a hypothesis anyway...<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN-US>Best regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>