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<p>Loet, I have no disagreement with this. at least in the detailed
summary you give. In fact I would argue that the notion of
information as used in physics is empirically based just as it is
in the cognitive sciences. Our problem is to find what underlies
both.</p>
<p>My mention of the Scholastics was to Pierce's version, not the
common interpretation due to a dep misunderstanding about what
they were up to. I recommend a serous study of Peirce on te issues
of meaning and metaphysics. He wa deeply indebted to their work
iin logic.</p>
<p>Of course there may be no common ground, but the our project is
hopeless. Other things you have said on this group lead me to
think it is not a dead end of confused notions. In that case we
are wasting our time.<br>
</p>
<p>John<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2017/11/05 7:58 PM, Loet Leydesdorff
wrote:<br>
</div>
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<div>Dear Krassimir and colleagues, </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century was precisely
about the differentiation between scholarly discourse and
scholastic disputatio. A belief system is an attribute of agents
and/or of a community. The sciences, however, develop also as
systems of rationalized expectations. These are based on
communications as units of analysis and not agents
(communicators). This is Luhmann's point, isn't it?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Of course, individual scientists can be religious and groups
like Jesuits can do science. At the level of (institutional)
agency or organizations, one has both options. However, the
communication dynamics is very different. In religious
communication, there is an original (e.g., the Bible) which is
copied. Textbooks are updated; error is removed, while error was
added by transcriptions by monks. The origins of the invention
of the printing press are relevant here: Galilei could not
publish the Discorsi in Italy, but it could be published by
Louis Elsevier in Leiden!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In science studies, we have learned to distinguish between
social and intellectual organization. While at the level of
social organization, scientific and religious structures are
comparable, the intellectual organization is very different. For
example, the notion of "truth" is preliminary in science, while
it is sacrosanct in religious philosophy. Thus, we can elaborate
the functional differentiation between these two codes of
communication. Scientific discourse is validated using criteria
that are coded in communication; religious disputatio is about a
given truth.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best, </div>
<div>Loet</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D">Loet
Leydesdorff <o:p
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<p class="MsoNormal" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D">Professor
emeritus,
University of Amsterdam<br>
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)<o:p
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title="mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">loet@leydesdorff.net
</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D">; </span><span
style="color:#44546A"><a
href="http://www.leydesdorff.net/"
title="http://www.leydesdorff.net/"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">http://www.leydesdorff.net/</span></a></span><span
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</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Associate Faculty, </span><span
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href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:9.0pt">SPRU,
</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">University
of Sussex; <o:p
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<p class="MsoNormal" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span
style="font-size: 9pt;">Guest Professor </span><span
style="color:#44546A"><a
href="http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:9.0pt">Zhejiang
Univ.</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">,
Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, </span><span
style="color:#44546A"><a
href="http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html"
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</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Beijing;<o:p
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style="font-size: 9pt;">Visiting Fellow, </span><span
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moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:
9.0pt">Birkbeck</span></a></span><span
style="font-size: 9pt;">,
University of London; <o:p
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<div><br>
</div>
<div>------ Original Message ------</div>
<div>From: "John Collier" <<a href="mailto:ag659@ncf.ca"
moz-do-not-send="true">ag659@ncf.ca</a>></div>
<div>To: <a href="mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es"
moz-do-not-send="true">fis@listas.unizar.es</a></div>
<div>Sent: 11/5/2017 4:28:31 PM</div>
<div>Subject: Re: [Fis] Idealism and Materialism</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div id="x70d62430e2c54d6" style="color: #000000">
<blockquote cite="db35fc83-79f4-069a-98d2-3dadc7009203@ncf.ca"
type="cite" class="cite2">
<p>Krassimir,</p>
<p>What, if like me, you see materialism and idealism as both
incorrect, and adopt something like Russell's neutral
monism. I mention this because I believe information to be
neutral between material and ideal. It is a false dichotomy
on my view<br>
</p>
<p>I disagree that information cannot be given by concrete
examples. There are examples in both physics and of course
in cognition that are used in both consistent and I think
compatible ways.</p>
<p>I would go so far as to say that the division has been a
sad one for sound philosophy, and that in some respects we
should start over again from Aristotle (to whom the division
did not seem to even occur, in line with general Greek
thinking) and the later Scholasticism.</p>
<p>Regards,</p>
<p>John<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2017/11/05 3:07 PM, Krassimir
Markov wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:85804f7161d740d057e59a50d43aaa1e.squirrel@www.foibg.com"
class="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear Bruno and FIS Colleagues,
Thank you very much for your useful remarks!
This week I was ill and couldn’t work.
Hope, the next week will be better for work.
Now I want only to paraphrase my post about Idealism and Materialism:
The first is founded on believing that the Intelligent Creation exists.
The second is founded on believing that the Intelligent Creation does not
exist.
Both are kinds of religions because they could not prove their foundations
by experiments and real examples.
The scientific approach does not believe in anything in advance. The
primary concepts have to be illustrated by series of real examples. After
that the secondary concepts have to be defined and all propositions have
to be proved.
Are the mathematicians materialists or idealists?
Of course neither the first nor the second!
Mathematics is an example of the scientific approach.
Informatics lacks of well established primary concepts.
The concept of information couldn’t be primary because it couldn’t be
illustrated directly by real examples.
We need other primary concepts which will permit us to define information
and to prove all consequences.
Friendly greetings
Krassimir
-----Original Message-----
From: Bruno Marchal
Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2017 12:30 PM
To: Foundation of Information Science
Subject: Re: [Fis] About 10 Principles
Dear Krassimir,
On 31 Oct 2017, at 15:07, Krassimir Markov wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear FIS Colleagues,
Many years ago, in 2011, I had written a special remark about
scientific
and non-scientific approaches to try to understand the world around.
The
letter of Logan Streondj returns this theme as actual today.
The interrelations between scientific and non-scientific creating and
perceiving the data and models as well the proper attitude to the
world
cultural heritage is one of the main problems to be investigated. The
world common data bases make possible to exchange data of any kind.
Some
data could not be proved easy, some are assumed as "clear". What is
the
proper attitude to the ocean of the data we create and perceive? In
addition, now we have a new phenomenon – artificially created data.
The Modern Societies
--------------------
Every group of Infoses, people in particular, forms a society if
there is
an agreement for communication interactions. An important element of
this
agreement is the availability of a common data base.
We should not picture the data base like a number of drives with a
certain
data recorded, although it is the way it has been since the
beginning – it
was recorded on clay plates, papyrus, paper, etc. The ability for
digital
storage of the data lays the beginnings of the genesis of the “modern
societies”. It is obvious that, there are as many societies as many
different data bases exist, and a single Infos could belong to more
than
one society.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">OK.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite">
<pre wrap="">The difference between the beliefs and the science
---------------------------------------------------
Every belief is a totality of models, which are assumed and followed.
Where is the difference between the belief and the science, which is
also
a combination of models to be followed?
The answer is in the way we perceive these models and the attitude
to them.
There are two approaches – a hard and an easy one.
The easy one is wonderfully described by the motto of the medieval
theologian Anselm of Canterbury, lately canonized as St. Anselm
(1033-1109): "Credo, ut intelligam!" (I believe in order to understand
[St.Anselm]). One has to believe in the model, to understand and
follow
it. This is the religious approach – every subjective notion can
turn into
a commonly accepted model or dogma, as long as there is someone to
believe
in it and follow it implicitly.
The “difficult” approach is described with the phrase "Intelligo, ut
credam !" (I understand in order to believe), used by the German
reformer
Thomas Muentzer (~1490-1525) [Muentzer]. You have to understand the
model
and only after then to trust it if possible. This is the scientific
approach – every science builds models – hypothesizes, which are
repeatedly tested before assumed to be true. The scientific approach
includes a permanent revaluation and improvement of the existing
models
according to the permanently changing environment.
In every society, building and exchanging of models are basic
activities.
Whether they are perceived with the “easy” or the “difficult”
approach is
a question only of the circumstances, executors and users.
Keeping in mind the limited abilities of the human brain, we can
presume
that the “easy” approach would probably dominate. Just a small part
of the
humanity would be able to build and understand the “difficult”
scientific
models. The users will not have the strength to test the models for
themselves so the only option left would be to “believe in order to
understand”.
The role and the importance of particular beliefs in a certain
society are
determined by the influence of the people ready to doubt the religious
models, on the others who easily and “blindly” follow the dogmas. Let
remark that in the scientific world the “easy approach” is everyday
practice. We all believe that the scientific works represent proved
facts
(maybe by authors). However, who knows? We trust in authorities.
Sometimes we have to doubt!
That is why the background to modern science is in the wisdom of St.
Augustin (354-430): "Intelligo ut credam, credo ut intelligam!" [St.
Agustin], i.e. it is in the harmony and dialectical unity of the
scientific and beliefs’ approaches [K.Markov, 2008].
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Very nice, although in my approach, I identify "science" and belief,
in a first axiomatic approximation. later, new axioms can be added to
introduce the nuances, when needed (and such nuances does exist, and
eventually are imposed by the working hypothesis (mechanism).
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite">
<pre wrap="">Materialism or Idealism
-----------------------
Very important theme, raised from letter of Logan Streondj, is about
Idealism and Materialism.
Let note that both are religious approaches but not scientific.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">I agree. But if we decide to do metaphysics or theology with the
scientific method, we can put the metaphysics in the hypothesis, and
search for criteria of verification.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite">
<pre wrap="">The first,
Idealism, is based on belief about existence of God, Free Information
without material base, Intelligent Creation of the World,
Information Cube
which is transferred from one body to another, and etc. The second,
Materialism, is based on the opposite belief - all phenomena pointed
above
do not exist. But both interconnect their reasoning to these
phenomena.
The scientific approach is absolutely different. Scientists do not
assume
anything in advance and try to make reasoning based only on
repeatable and
controlled experiments.
I hope, the FIS List is a scientific forum and all posts nave to be
based
on repeatable and controlled experiments!
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">I agree with this partially. Metaphysics/theology *can* be done with
the scientific method. When we do that, the evidence are for Mechanism
and against Materialism.
Is it idealism? Well, all there is are numbers, and it is not a
problem to consider them as idea or programs, as this happens by
itself through the additive and multiplicative relations between the
numbers. This explains also where the information comes from, in the
form of first person histories-selection. There are no evidence for
Aristotle primary matter, which seems to have been a fertile
simplifying assumption only. But there are evidences for the many
histories in arithmetic (indeed those evidences are theorems), and for
the predicted statistics on those histories (the many-world aspect of
quantum mechanics without reduction).
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite">
<pre wrap="">About 10 principles of Informatics
----------------------------------
Dear Pedro,
I highly appreciate your proposition of principles!
I have no remarks about principles 6-10.
But the principles 1-5 are not clear for me.
My interpretation is given below marked by letter M (M1, M2, etc.).
These of Pedro are marked by letter P (P1, P2, etc.).
In my practice these principles had been used many times to solve and
explain practical problems.
The primary concept I used is the concept of “entity” – there are many
examples of real entities.
Entities interact permanently and after each interaction some internal
changes in the entities may appear.
Such changes are called “reflections”. In Computer science the
corresponded concept is “Data”.
Further reasoning is given below:
P1. Information is information, neither matter nor energy.
M1. Information is a class of reflections in material entities. Not
every
reflection is information. Only subjectively comprehended
reflections are
information.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">But here you seem to assume primary material entities? I agree that
human's information relies heavily on material entities. Just to
communicate with you, I am using a physical computer. But physicalness
is an internal phenomelogical view, relying on the statistics on all
computations already emulated in the "block-mindscape" constituted by
arithmetic. Matter exists in the digital machine or number's
phenomenology (as a consequence of the Mechanist theory, which is my
field of expertise: I do not claim it to be true, I claim it to be
testable, and plausible given what we know today).
The universal numbers (the universal machine run in arithmetic)
reflect each others already.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite">
<pre wrap="">P2. Information is comprehended into structures, patterns, messages,
or
flows.
M2. Reflections may be comprehended as structures, patterns, messages,
flows, etc.
P3. Information can be recognized, can be measured, and can be
processed
(either computationally or non-computationally).
M3. Reflections can be recognized, can be measured, and can be
processed
(either computationally or non-computationally).
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Yes. OK. In fact machine's reflection is only very partially capable
of being measured, and machines' reflexion is only partially
justfiable. For example, we recover consciousness by the proposition
of the type "true, not doubtable, not rationally justifiable, not
expressible, yet individually knowable". That gives an equation with a
non empty set of solutions for a large class of universal machine
(those with enough rich introspection abilities).
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite">
<pre wrap="">P4. Information flows are essential organizers of life's self-
production
processes--anticipating, shaping, and mixing up with the accompanying
energy flows.
M4. Reflection flows are essential organizers of life's self-
production
processes--anticipating, shaping, and mixing up with the accompanying
energy flows.
P5. Communication/information exchanges among adaptive life-cycles
underlie the complexity of biological organizations at all scales.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Same in arithmetic, when you plunge "meta-arithmetic" in arithmetic,
following the method of Gödel.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite">
<pre wrap="">M5. Communication is based on special kind of reflections created by
one
entity and reflected by a second one. This way, the reflections
comprehended as information by the first entity may be secondary
(transitively) reflected by the second one. Such exchanges among
adaptive
life-cycles underlie the complexity of biological organizations at all
scales.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">OK. I think we agree on many things, except your curious invocation of
matter which is slightly ambiguous on its primary-or-not character.
I would not equate information with reflection though, but there are
important relationship between meaningful (true or possibly true)
information and reflection.
Material or physical information exists, but is of a very different
nature than mental and number-theoretical, or logical information. The
first one arises from limits defined from the machine's perspective,
when emulated by infinitely many computations in arithmetic. It is
that material aspect of machines handling of information which makes
the Digital Mechanist (alias computationalism) testable in the
empirical domain.
Of course we get closer to Plato and Neoplatonism (the monist Plato of
the Parmenides; not so much the one of the Timeaeus) than to
Aristotle's materialism. Eventually the physical science are reduced
to elementary arithmetic, but here I mean "intensional arithmetic",
where a number can be a code for a digital machine. Note that
intensional arithmetic is isomorphic to a part of extensional
arithmetic. Each universal number can be used to construct the
isomorphism, like Gödel already did in 1931.
Kind regards,
Bruno
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite">
<pre wrap="">Krassimir
Bibliography
[St.Anselm] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/middleages.html" moz-do-not-send="true">http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/middleages.html</a> ,
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/hop30.htm" moz-do-not-send="true">http://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/hop30.htm</a>
[Muentzer] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.thomas-muentzer.de/" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.thomas-muentzer.de/</a>,
[St.Agustín] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.conoze.com/doc.php?doc=157" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.conoze.com/doc.php?doc=157</a>
[K.Markov, 2008] K. Markov, S. Poryazov, K. Ivanova, I. Mitov, V.
Markova. Culture Aspects of Inforaction. International Journal
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGIES & KNOWLEDGE, Volume 2, 2008, Number 4, pp. 335-342.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.foibg.com/ijitk/ijitk-vol02/ijitk02-4-p06.pdf" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.foibg.com/ijitk/ijitk-vol02/ijitk02-4-p06.pdf</a>
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<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
John Collier<br>
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate<br>
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban<br>
<a href="http://web.ncf.ca/collier" moz-do-not-send="true">Collier
web page </a><br>
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<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
John Collier<br>
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate<br>
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban<br>
<a href="http://web.ncf.ca/collier">Collier web page </a><br>
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