<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html lang="de" xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title></title><style type="text/css">html,body{background-color:#fff;color:#333;line-height:1.4;font-family:sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,Trebuchet MS;}</style></head><body><p>An interesting topic! One way to progress in tackling the (hidden) assumption of validity of the machine metaphor might be if science progresses fast in exploring sensitivity. The capacity of systems to measure their state (changes to their state) and to process the gained "information" in various ways is appearing both early and late in evolution history and seems to be developing in complexity. It can be found in simple cells which adapt metabolism following receptor signals as well as in multi cellular organisms with complex evolution history, where a centralized nervous system and brain analyses signals incoming from many different cells and sub-cellular systems and integrates them into a global feeling which aids as evaluation capacity in decision making. Descartes had to deliberately exclude this topic from the sciences for reasons quite understandable at his times, but today?<br>Is the evaluation capacity and evaluation depth of machines in any way comparable to the one of biological systems or is it a complete new path in the history of prioritizing?</p>
<p>Kind regards,</p>
<p>Annette</p>
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<p>Terrence W. DEACON wrote on 03.11.2019 18:04 (GMT +01:00):</p>
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<div dir="ltr">An excellent paper discussing the limitations of the use of the machine metaphor in biology can be found here:
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<div><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259159128_Organisms_Machines" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259159128_Organisms_Machines</a></div>
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<div>The entire issue of the journal in which this article appears includes some useful discussions of this issue.</div>
<div>I agree that the concept of a machine is a high level abstraction, an idealization that ignores the deeply tychistic nature of things.</div>
<div>Indeed, like mathematics and the concept of number, the remarkable power of these symbolic representations to help us predict the way natural phenomena change and influence one another, can make them seem even more real than what they refer to. But remember, the image in the mirror is only a reflection.</div>
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<div>— Terry</div>
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<div class="gmail_attr" dir="ltr">On Sun, Nov 3, 2019 at 7:02 AM Stanley N Salthe <<a href="mailto:ssalthe@binghamton.edu" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">ssalthe@binghamton.edu</a>> wrote:</div>
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<div dir="ltr">Thanks, Bruno. Here is a related text:
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<p><a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/wired-that-way-genes-do-shape-behaviours-but-its-complicated" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">https://aeon.co/ideas/wired-that-way-genes-do-shape-behaviours-but-its-complicated</a></p>
<p>STAN</p>
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<div class="gmail_attr" dir="ltr">On Sun, Nov 3, 2019 at 5:24 AM Bruno Marchal <<a href="mailto:marchal@ulb.ac.be" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">marchal@ulb.ac.be</a>> wrote:</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: #cccccc; border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>> On 25 Oct 2019, at 21:02, Stanley N Salthe <<a href="mailto:ssalthe@binghamton.edu" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">ssalthe@binghamton.edu</a>> wrote:<br>><br>>><br>>> Bruno, Joseph -- Somewhat delayed: I can contribute my 1993 definition of 'machine' as: "the most highly specified object there can be" No natural system qualifies under this definition.<br><br>That is a quite astonishing definition, which makes sense for the digital machine (which can be seen as relative natural numbers, which I agree might not make sense in Nature. This is a quasi theorem in the Digital Mechanist Theory, as nature is “only” an appearance emerging from a relative statistics on all computations. Nature, in that frame is how the numbers see the numbers, and they cannot observe them, just a not entirely computable emerging pattern. In that setting, physics is no more a science studying an ontological reality, but a relative appearance brought by a statistics on all machine’s experience (and this is confirmed by quantum mechanics without wave packet reduction, like in Everett theory. This makes physics into a branch of digital information theory/computer science.<br><br>Bruno<br><br><br><br><br><br>>><br>>> STAN<br>> _______________________________________________<br>> Fis mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Fis@listas.unizar.es</a><br>> <a href="http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis</a><br>> ----------<br>> INFORMACI�N SOBRE PROTECCI�N DE DATOS DE CAR�CTER PERSONAL<br>><br>> Ud. recibe este correo por pertenecer a una lista de correo gestionada por la Universidad de Zaragoza.<br>> Puede encontrar toda la informaci�n sobre como tratamos sus datos en el siguiente enlace: <a href="https://sicuz.unizar.es/informacion-sobre-proteccion-de-datos-de-caracter-personal-en-listas" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">https://sicuz.unizar.es/informacion-sobre-proteccion-de-datos-de-caracter-personal-en-listas</a><br>> Recuerde que si est� suscrito a una lista voluntaria Ud. puede darse de baja desde la propia aplicaci�n en el momento en que lo desee.<br>> <a href="http://listas.unizar.es" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">http://listas.unizar.es</a><br>> ----------<br><br></blockquote>
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_______________________________________________<br>Fis mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Fis@listas.unizar.es</a><br><a href="http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis</a><br>----------<br>INFORMACIÓN SOBRE PROTECCIÓN DE DATOS DE CARÁCTER PERSONAL<br><br>Ud. recibe este correo por pertenecer a una lista de correo gestionada por la Universidad de Zaragoza.<br>Puede encontrar toda la información sobre como tratamos sus datos en el siguiente enlace: <a href="https://sicuz.unizar.es/informacion-sobre-proteccion-de-datos-de-caracter-personal-en-listas" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">https://sicuz.unizar.es/informacion-sobre-proteccion-de-datos-de-caracter-personal-en-listas</a><br>Recuerde que si está suscrito a una lista voluntaria Ud. puede darse de baja desde la propia aplicación en el momento en que lo desee.<br><a href="http://listas.unizar.es" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">http://listas.unizar.es</a><br>----------</blockquote>
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<div class="gmail_signature" dir="ltr">Professor Terrence W. Deacon<br>University of California, Berkeley</div>
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