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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body bgcolor=white lang=ZH-CN link=blue vlink=black><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:4.65pt'><span lang=EN-US>Dear Colleagues,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:12.0pt;text-indent:21.0pt'><span lang=EN-US>Thanks Pedro for introducing the important topic of narrative, many views of Loet, Joseph, Karl, of course Pedro, etc. are very profound.</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.5pt;color:windowtext'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:4.65pt;text-indent:21.0pt'><span lang=EN-US>After accomplished my first book to investigate various information and informational disciplines, my second book, <i>Infordomics</i>, will concentrate on discussing information issues in the Humanities and Social Sciences, narrative will be its main concern. I have collected a dozen of books about these aspects. Infordomics is a new discipline which I named. As far as the current information concerned, technological information, biological information, and social information are the three dominating types we have seen. Technological information has been exclusively studied by technological informatics (computer science, telecommunications science), biological information has been exclusively studied by biology, and only social information is a scattered topic in history, journalism, literature, art, religion, anthropology, sociology, and others, we haven</span>’<span lang=EN-US>t a special discipline to deal with it so far. Therefore, I think that achievements on information for us are most likely in this field.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:4.65pt;text-indent:21.0pt'><span lang=EN-US>As far as the information issues we are concerning, Psychology discusses the processing of information, communication (Communicology) discusses the transmission of information, Semiotics (Linguistics) discusses the form of information, and Infordomics will discuss the remaining issues of information. At the beginning, I may concentrate on its structure problems. Psychology, Communicology, Semiotics (Linguistics), and Infordomics (other new disciplines on information may emerge in the future certainly.) constitute a systematic study about social/human information.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:4.65pt;text-indent:21.0pt'><span lang=EN-US>However, our FIS (including our IS4SI) is at a hard time now, and we need a firm and promising guideline and protocol.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:18.0pt'><span lang=EN-US>Best wishes,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:4.65pt'><span lang=EN-US>Xueshan<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:等线;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'> fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es <fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Pedro C. Marijuan<br><b>Sent:</b> Friday, November 30, 2018 4:10 AM<br><b>To:</b> fis@listas.unizar.es<br><b>Subject:</b> [Fis] Focusing on Narratives<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Dear FIS Colleagues,<br><br>Some brief responses to Loet's and Jerry's comments.<br><br>To Loet, unfortunately real life does not allow such neat scheme of expectations, observations, and modifications/decisions--except in the abstract. Daily life is surrounded by multitude of behavioral cycles and happenstances from the subject himself and from the surrounding parties impinging on the subject. It is difficult to isolate mainstreams there, and it is difficult to know how to orient oneself for the troubled future. Besides, important decisions are often irreversible, they mark the course of life and there is no way to return to the initial conditions. How easily a promising young life can be wasted... And this is the role of traditional great stories/narratives: lecturing on how to realize the "potential" of one's life, orienting on the big unknowns that particularly the young party starting his/her social life has to confront. They orient, amuse, and "entertain"--all in one. In our parlance, they are highly efficient <u>social information tools</u> that contain important adaptive knowledge for flourishing in some concrete culture. I do not see much interest in what physicalist perspectives can say on that. Maybe I did not succeed with the terms, trying to connect the social potential with the general biological potentiality, but this was the gist.<br><br>In any case, there was a statement in my previous message <i>"I do not consider unscientific the Jungian stance, but not quite scientific either"</i> that in a second thought consider inappropriate. Rather, Jung's work in this realm should be taken as belonging to the Humanities. Just that. And to be fair he has provided a strong way to analyze stories/narratives which has been adopted by some of the most relevant commentators today (Booker, Bonnet). The further point, after acknowledging that scholarly fact, is whether that perspective can be improved... Probably. I already mentioned about the unconscious: that it could be more accurate considering the brain-rest activation of contemporary neuroscience (Default Mode Network) as taking charge of that involuntary emergence of impressions and deep memories. There are now ambitious theoretical schemes of neural information processing that could provide light on other points of the conscious, the emotional, the sensorimotor, the excitation/inhibition coupling, the optimization of neural entropy, etc. But they have to connect with natural behavior, and also finally with narratives. <br><br>To Jerry's, after his four pages on perplex number system, I can only say that great, terrific. It could have been an interesting presentation for an ad hoc discussion session. I am tempted to twist a few sentences of his text and to intercalate four pages or so on signaling systems, or on the "sociotype", which is closer to the current session. But that is not the scholarly way of discussion.<br><br>To finalize, there is a provocative sentence in Bonnet's closing of his book: <b>"The one who tells the stories rules the world."</b><br><br>Best wishes<br>--Pedro <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><br>El 25/11/2018 a las 5:10, Loet Leydesdorff escribi</span>ó<span lang=EN-US>:<o:p></o:p></span></p><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Dear Pedro, Joseph, and colleagues, <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Let me side with Joseph in this instance.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 8.0pt;margin-left:3.75pt;margin-top:2.25pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>memories? And, similarly, does not "potential" refer to cognitive/anticipatory capabilities that somehow detect higher fitness possibilities along some behavioral paths than others, and then conduce to the long term realization and flourishing of a life cycle? The potential belongs, say, to the "processual" not to the physical. In my view, the general challenge is to re-explain narratives, the fundamental commodity of social communication, in a more advanced conceptualization, beyond the Jungian, the Shannonian, or the corrosive fake-correctedness of our times... It can be done. The neuroscientific approach would be badly needed to recreate the terminology and the fundamental ideas.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></blockquote><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Perhaps, I miss the meaning of some of the wordings in this narrative :-), but it seems to me that there is something terribly wrong here. "The potential belongs ... to the "processual." We can consider this as "nom de gueux."<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>One always begins with the specification of expectations. I assume that these are then "processual"? Expectations (possible states) are tested against observations and can then sometimes be rejected.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>For example: One can hypothesize that there are gender differences on this list. Then, one can cross-table those of us who on average publish 0, 1, or 2 postings with the gender differences (M/F). This generates a 3 times 2 table. <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Using the margin totals one can compute the expected values of each cell and test the observed values against the expectations. The expectations are "processual"? Indeed, they are possibilities which do not have to be realized. That is an empirical question.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Unfortunately, Logic-in-Reality works as a logic with only two values (T/F). This may lead to a poor design when one needs more grey shades.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Loet.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id=x24986aaac8ed49c><div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="signature_old"><div id=x128ab7c5cf174b0><div style='margin-right:6.0pt' id=x775eaf3ae7f6460082dcdda3faf877c6><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="signature_old"><div id=x920d19d74fc84b0><div id=x337b22579712426abf55c20f258d0a74><div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;background:white'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><hr size=3 width="100%" align=center></span></div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Loet Leydesdorff <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam<br>Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#44546A'><a href="mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net" title="mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>loet@leydesdorff.net </span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>; </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#44546A'><a href="http://www.leydesdorff.net/" title="http://www.leydesdorff.net/"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>http://www.leydesdorff.net/</span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'> <br></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Associate Faculty, </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#44546A'><a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/"><span style='font-size:9.0pt'>SPRU, </span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>University of Sussex; <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Guest Professor </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#44546A'><a href="http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/"><span style='font-size:9.0pt'>Zhejiang Univ.</span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>, Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#44546A'><a href="http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html"><span style='font-size:9.0pt'>ISTIC, </span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Beijing;<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Visiting Fellow, </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#44546A'><a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk/"><span style='font-size:9.0pt'>Birkbeck</span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>, University of London; <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#44546A;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en">http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en</a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id=x337b22579712426abf55c20f258d0a74><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#44546A;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><br><br></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 8.0pt;margin-left:3.75pt;margin-top:2.25pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><br><br>Best regards<br>--Pedro <br><br> El 21/11/2018 a las 9:31, Joseph Brenner escribi</span>ó<span lang=EN-US>:<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 8.0pt;margin-left:3.75pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'>Dear Colleagues,</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'> </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'>Pedro’s approach, solidly anchored in biology, allows for progress in understanding. Two comments on his ‘logic’: 1) I would not call the ‘concoction’ within which we live imaginary. It is rather a set of real, dynamic mental processes, with actual and potential, effectively causal components. 2) ‘Complex life’ instantiates potential (and kinetic) energy not only in a ‘book keeping role’. Complex life is constituted by actual and potential energy evolving in cycles and stages. Some myths (Epimetheus and Prometheus) correctly express this duality and its evolution.</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'> </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'>Unfortunately, there is another myth that I believe correctly models part of Jerry’s proposals. It is that of Procrustes, an innkeeper who stretched or cut the legs of his guests to make them fit the only available beds, until taken care of by Heracles. You write: </span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>A lot more needs to be said about the intimate nature of relations among scientific narratives before one can bind the logic of the perplex number system to the grammars associated with mathematically structured anticipatory systems.</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'> </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'>This sentence needs to be parsed, given the concatenation of terms: in my opinion, the purpose of understanding the relations among scientific narratives is to understand real anticipatory systems, whether or not mathematically structured. Perplex numbers are artificial numerological constructions with a corresponding logic that may or may not apply to other artificial constructions, such as abstract anticipatory systems, without dynamics. Narratives about real science could be applied in principle to such questions, but the implication must be avoided that such application would tell us anything about reality. </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'> </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'>I cannot accept any manipulation of numbers as being more than <i>a posteriori. </i>This applies also to Karl’s approach. Also, the concept of an ‘in-<i>formed</i>’ number is an oxymoron, although I understand the attempt to ascribe ‘value-by-association’, so to speak. Numbers cannot accept ‘form’, or its meaning; they exist, eternally, outside the world of form and change. </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'> </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'>I thus stress the importance of Pedro’s statement: processes do not go </span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>smoothly upwards from the quantum level.</span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'> As one proceeds to higher levels of reality, there are discontinuities and different laws apply. One only notes the presence of some isomorphisms, such as the failure of some macroscopic process equations to commute or distribute. Finally, I, at least, will resist any attempts to let in, through the back door, anti-scientific concepts of quantum processes in mind and cognition.</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'> </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'>Best wishes,</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'> </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:navy'>Joseph</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><div><div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:windowtext'><hr size=3 width="100%" align=center></span></div><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif;color:windowtext'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif;color:windowtext'> Fis [<a href="mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es">mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Pedro C. Marijuan<br><b>Sent:</b> mardi, 20 novembre 2018 21:15<br><b>To:</b> fis<br><b>Cc:</b> Jerry LR Chandler<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Fis] Anticipatory Systems--"Potential"</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Dear Jerry and FIS colleagues,<br><br>I wonder how big or how clever your Chemostat apparatus should be. There are thousands of metabolic intermediates in an organism, and there are another thousands of diversified signals. And we have in the order of 30 billion cells (trillions in the US system). Plus around 100 trillion of bacterial cells in the microbiome. "We" are the emergence all of that molecular diversity. It does not mean that life exactly "controls" all the details of the mega-information of this whole system... How that control is organized, the principles of biological information, so to speak, become another great question, but probably very different from the idea of mass control in a chemostat. </span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>In any case, the way you have argued it, seemingly smoothly going upwards from the quantum level, is beyond of what I consider feasible. </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Scientific overstretching of a reasonable paradigm perhaps.<br><br>Socially, indeed, we do not try to communicate around by following a colossal strategy of reducing happenstances to their quantum description; neither to the kind of meta-languages you mention. In general, social communication revolves around narratives. They are not free-wheeling constructions (at least referring to the "great stories" of all epochs) but optimized tools to guide individuals in the advancement of their lives, in the achievement of their "potential". Looking at the historical evolution of those great stories, they are teaching us about which were the cardinal aspects of common life to be specifically grasped by the child, by the adolescent, by the maiden, the artisan, the warrior, the priest... And in this social communication endeavors, life cycles do not appear as homogeneous linearly "timed". Human lives are continuously looking ahead, anticipating ("Prometheus" style) but simultaneously looking at the past and pondering on it ("Epimetheus" style). Although "presentists", we live within an imaginary concoction built of mosaic pasts and futures, "multi-timed" so to speak. The way to harmonize past, present, and future (vital information) is one of the leit motifs of those great stories.<br><br>And about cycles, so many of them can be found. At the scale of the organism: cellular & tissular cycles, metabolic cycles, behavioral cycles, ultradian cycles, circadian cycles, seasonal cycles, yearly cycles, secular cycles, and many others related to social mores. Some of them can be arranged in a sort of hierarchy or inclusivity, but there is a fundamental diversity. That most of this orchestration of cycles does not require a conscious effort does not mean that we should ignore them concerning the roots of social communication. The cycles and stages (and "passages") within a life cycle have an ominous presence. As i was saying, the "potential" of each young life in ascend requires the reception of wisdom (via social communication narratives) to integrate the own individual path within the social matrix of the time.<br><br>Thinking twice about the "potential" of life, it might be something important to consider regarding any form or manifestation of life. Perhaps better than the Principle of Conatus from Spinoza I was referring days ago (the effort to self-maintain and flourish). Complex life has "potential" to advance along some multi-time, multi-cycle developmental path in the most complex of all environments: the social matrix. Is there some deep similarity of this potential with the role that "potential" energy plays in our book-keeping of energy conservation?<br><br>Thanking the comments,<br>Best--Pedro<br> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>_______________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Fis mailing list<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><a href="mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es">Fis@listas.unizar.es</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><a href="http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis">http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis</a><o:p></o:p></span></p></blockquote><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>-- <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>-------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Pedro C. Marijuán<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><a href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><a href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>------------------------------------------------- <o:p></o:p></span></p><div id=DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><table class=MsoNormalTable border=1 cellspacing=4 cellpadding=0 style='border:none;border-top:solid #D3D4DE 1.0pt'><tr><td width=55 style='width:41.25pt;border:none;padding:13.5pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Segoe UI",sans-serif'><a href="https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient"><span style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=46 height=29 style='width:.4821in;height:.3035in' id="_x0000_i1027" src="https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/icons/icon-envelope-tick-round-orange-animated-no-repeat-v1.gif"></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td width=337 style='width:352.5pt;border:none;padding:12.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:13.5pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#41424E'>Libre de virus. <a href="https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient"><span style='color:#4453EA'>www.avast.com</span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr></table></div></blockquote></div></blockquote><p><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><pre><span lang=EN-US>-- <o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span lang=EN-US>-------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span lang=EN-US>Pedro C. Mariju</span>á<span lang=EN-US>n<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span lang=EN-US>Grupo de Bioinformaci</span>ó<span lang=EN-US>n / Bioinformation Group<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span lang=EN-US><a href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a><o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span lang=EN-US><a href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a><o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span lang=EN-US>------------------------------------------------- <o:p></o:p></span></pre></div></body></html>