<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Christophe -</div><div><br></div><div dir="ltr">Thank you for your thoughts agreeing with my proposal concerning the relation of 'machine' with the natural world. I would<div>like to point out to you a book that is much involved with this question:</div><div> <span style="line-height:1.5"> ‘Biological Autonomy: A Philosophical and Theoretical
Enquiry’ by Alvaro Moreno and Matteo Mossio, Springer, 2015</span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5">You can find my review of this work at: </span><span class="gmail-s1" style="line-height:1.5">Biological Theory </span><span class="gmail-s2" style="line-height:1.5">DOI 10.1007/s13752-015-0230-2</span></div><div><span class="gmail-s2" style="line-height:1.5">I have, however, considered the boundary conditions bearing upon abiotic dissipative structures (like tornadoes) to be 'proto information'</span></div><div><span class="gmail-s2" style="line-height:1.5">That is, any system, including the living, will be informed (sometimes in 'rough' manner) by historically assembled boundary conditions.</span></div><div><span class="gmail-s2" style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></div><div><span class="gmail-s2" style="line-height:1.5">STAN</span></div>
<p class="gmail-Body"><span></span></p>
</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Nov 2, 2019 at 5:14 PM Christophe Menant <<a href="mailto:christophe.menant@hotmail.fr">christophe.menant@hotmail.fr</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif;background-image:initial;background-color:rgb(250,249,248);background-size:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">Dear Stan, <br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">I agree with your answer to Q4 positioning meaning and information as paving the path from inanimate to animate.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">Let me propose to complement your wording by saying that physical and chemical laws exist everywhere (to characterize the inanimate). And that “harnessing physical and chemical processes
for the production of complex wholes” (for the animate) can be understood as submitting physical and chemical processes to the local constraints of the animate entity.
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">An important aspect is that physico-chemical laws apply everywhere, but local constraints apply only at the location of the animate entity (like a “stay alive” constraint). The difference
is mostly in the locality of the constraint associated to information and meaning for the animate entity.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">And focusing on local constraints allows to introduce agency and autonomy quite naturally:</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">We can define an agent as an entity submitted to an internal constraint and capable of action to satisfy the constraint.
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">Then, an autonomous agent is an agent that can satisfy its constraints by its own.
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">For Q5, I also agree with your answer and would just propose a rewording:
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">animate objects use inanimate objects to satisfy their constraints (animate objects can be animals, humans or artificial agents).
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">More can be said in an evolutionary background about information, meaning and constraint, starting at a pre-biotic level and looking at a possible post-human one. You may remember an
IS4SI 2017 presentation on that subject (</span><span style="font-size:14pt;color:black"><a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/MENICA-2" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:rgb(0,0,153);font-size:12pt;background-image:initial;background-color:white;background-size:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial">https://philpapers.org/rec/MENICA-2</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)">)
<br>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><br>
<span style="font-family:'Times New Roman',serif;font-size:16px;display:inline;background-color:rgb(250,249,248)">All the best<br>
</span></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif;background-image:initial;background-color:rgb(250,249,248);background-size:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(50,49,48)"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman',serif;font-size:16px;display:inline;background-color:rgb(250,249,248)">Christophe</span></span></p>
<div>
<hr style="display:inline-block;width:98%">
<div id="gmail-m_3497515096704570884divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000" style="font-size:11pt"><b>De :</b> Fis <<a href="mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es" target="_blank">fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es</a>> de la part de Stanley N Salthe <<a href="mailto:ssalthe@binghamton.edu" target="_blank">ssalthe@binghamton.edu</a>><br>
<b>Envoyé :</b> jeudi 31 octobre 2019 20:47<br>
<b>À :</b> fis <<a href="mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es" target="_blank">fis@listas.unizar.es</a>><br>
<b>Objet :</b> Re: [Fis] FIS discussions. Units</font>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">Pedro -- my answers to your two questions:
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<p><span>Q4: Does an informed path exist which logically organizes the inanimate into the animate?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5"> Physics and chemistry are concerned with events that are ‘spontaneous’, requiring no ‘information’.</span><br>
<span></span></p>
<p><span>Biology, however, is based in information, which harnesses physical and chemical processes to the</span></p>
<p><span>production of complex wholes. Biological systems and entities have, and are involved with, meanings.</span></p>
<p><span>Thus, the ‘path’ from the inanimate to the animate is ‘paved’ with information. Meaning and information </span></p>
<p><span>entail each other. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5">Q5: What </span>are relationships<span style="line-height:1.5"> between the inanimate objects
</span>and the animate<span style="line-height:1.5"> objects?</span><br>
<span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5"> Animate objects(systems) manipulate inanimate objects(resources).</span><br>
<span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5">STAN</span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">On Thu, Oct 31, 2019 at 9:06 AM Pedro C. Marijuan <<a href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" target="_blank">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>Dear List,</p>
<p>Some brief responses to Jerry and Karl.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
<div><font size="3">Q4: Does an informed path exist which logically organizes the inanimate into the animate?</font></div>
<div><font size="3">Q5: What are relationships between the inanimate objects and the animate objects?</font></div>
<div><font size="3"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font size="3">Hypothesis: If two independent forms (parts) are copulated (linked, conjoined, connected, bound) together, a novel interdependent informed whole is formed. </font></div>
<div><font size="3">Hypothesis: A set of atomic numbers can be composed into an animate object by copulating the set of parts into a natural sort or kind (an organized whole). </font></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><font size="3">Pedro: Do these assertions add any light </font><span style="font-size:medium"> </span><span style="font-size:medium">to you critical quation </span><span style="font-size:medium">about possible relationships between units, the animate
and the inanimate? Is any simpler scientific </span><font size="3">mathematics possible?</font></div>
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>Thanks for the abstraction effort, Jerry. Your whole questions set is a very good discussion guide although enormously difficult to be answered, at least in the biological realm. Even for a very simple cell, eg the prokaryote (bacteria), the way its components
are coupled and the relationship they keep with their environment has not been properly put in informational terms yet, as far as I know. A couple of years ago I made a pretty complete catalogue of the "signaling parts" of E. coli, and the result was surprising
for me (see Marijuan et al., BioSystems, 2017). In a few words, "nothing was eaten that had not been previously recognized by some signaling apparatus". It is literal, for in the order of 200 'receptors' of all sort could check for 300 or more different types
of 'food' molecules. Putting in another way, the "energy flow" and the "information flow" of the living cell are completely interrelated. And the result of their 'logical' coupling is the systematic emergence of a life cycle that includes reproduction --Spinoza's
principle of conatus. What kind of elegant informational/logical synthesis could be made (beyond the ensuing Darwinian Dogma)?
<br>
</p>
<p>Responding to Karl, I was surprised to find, some posts ago, a critique of the equality sign. His idea, well argued from his multidimensional partitions argument (equality hides from view the many possible variable distributions of qualities inside the number's
sumands), has been coincidentally developed by other mathematicians in a different field: "infinite categories". See the abstract below, (courtesy of Malcolm Dean).
<br>
</p>
<div><b>With Category Theory, Mathematics Escapes From Equality<br>
</b><i>Two monumental works have led many mathematicians to avoid the equal sign. Their goal: Rebuild the foundations of the discipline upon the looser relationship of “equivalence.” The process has not always gone smoothly.<br>
</i></div>
<div>Kevin Hartnett, Senior Writer<br>
<div><font><a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.quantamagazine.org%2Fwith-category-theory-mathematics-escapes-from-equality-20191010%2F%3Futm_source%3DQuanta%2BMagazine%26utm_campaign%3D388bce3947-RSS_Daily_Mathematics%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_f0cb61321c-388bce3947-389912677%26mc_cid%3D388bce3947%26mc_eid%3D9dd29ead65&data=02%7C01%7C%7C1d3a8c6458334f21a76108d75e3b544b%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637081481216163667&sdata=DUerhREZ%2B6XeE0jAz4gGhfhnAKezmR3myml6HgaswtQ%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">https://www.quantamagazine.org/with-category-theory-mathematics-escapes-from-equality-20191010/</a><br>
</font></div>
<div>Quanta Magazine, 10 October 2019</div>
</div>
<div><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">The equal sign is the bedrock of mathematics. It seems to make an entirely fundamental and uncontroversial statement: These things are exactly the same.</span></i></div>
<div><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">But <b>there is a growing community of mathematicians who regard the equal sign as math’s original error</b>. They see it as a veneer that hides important complexities in the way quantities are
related — complexities that could unlock solutions to an enormous number of problems. They want to reformulate mathematics in the looser language of equivalence. “We came up with this notion of equality,” said</span></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)"> </span></i><i><a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jonathanacampbell.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C1d3a8c6458334f21a76108d75e3b544b%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637081481216183683&sdata=5FOOUwFI2G6gdePBHzJnrwyGgjX1kvDrGnQVfhHb5DQ%3D&reserved=0" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:inherit;background-color:transparent" target="_blank">Jonathan
Campbell</a></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)"> </span></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">of Duke University. “It should have been equivalence all along.” The most prominent figure in this community is</span></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)"> </span></i><i><a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ias.edu%2Fscholars%2Flurie&data=02%7C01%7C%7C1d3a8c6458334f21a76108d75e3b544b%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637081481216193706&sdata=6E3n8A9PiN3WlbCXMlUqZdtQah0zaZ6wkqUuVm6WCKc%3D&reserved=0" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:inherit;background-color:transparent" target="_blank">Jacob
Lurie</a></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">. In July, Lurie, 41, left his tenured post at Harvard University for a faculty position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, home to many of the most revered mathematicians in the
world. Lurie’s ideas are sweeping on a scale rarely seen in any field. Through his books, which span thousands of dense, technical pages, he has constructed a strikingly different way to understand some of the most essential concepts in math by moving beyond
the equal sign. “I just think he felt this was the correct way to think about mathematics,” said</span></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)"> </span></i><i><a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http:%2F%2Fwww.math.harvard.edu%2F~mjh%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C1d3a8c6458334f21a76108d75e3b544b%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637081481216203717&sdata=hS4PFJhW%2BmhbPHedrjEW36WpAHcMxximwggdGVgS80U%3D&reserved=0" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:inherit;background-color:transparent" target="_blank">Michael
Hopkins</a></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">, a mathematician at Harvard and Lurie’s graduate school adviser. Lurie published his first book,</span></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)"> </span></i><i><a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpress.princeton.edu%2Fbooks%2Fpaperback%2F9780691140490%2Fhigher-topos-theory-am-170&data=02%7C01%7C%7C1d3a8c6458334f21a76108d75e3b544b%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637081481216223721&sdata=Yq5%2Fb1ph%2BjWx%2Fc1evVvqcAk045dLS3%2BJ7Mp3VlApGdM%3D&reserved=0" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:inherit;background-color:transparent" target="_blank"><em style="box-sizing:border-box">Higher
Topos Theory</em></a></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">, in 2009. The 944-page volume serves as a manual for how to interpret established areas of mathematics in the
<b>new language of “infinity categories.”</b> In the years since, Lurie’s ideas have moved into an increasingly wide range of mathematical disciplines. Many mathematicians view them as indispensable to the future of the field. “No one goes back once they’ve
learned infinity categories,” said</span></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)"> </span></i><i><a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https:%2F%2Fsites.math.northwestern.edu%2F~jnkf%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C1d3a8c6458334f21a76108d75e3b544b%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637081481216233732&sdata=Ylo6jQ2Jl0kjfZ8enhUH%2Fjg%2FLP908SffeJ3zkGFH4Ng%3D&reserved=0" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:inherit;background-color:transparent" target="_blank">John
Francis</a></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)"> </span></i><i><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">of Northwestern University.</span></i></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">So... v</span><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">ery good point by Karl! Could new mathematical ideas provide the bio-mathematical (informational) synthesis needed?<br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">Best wishes to all,</span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(26,26,26)">--Pedro<br>
</span></div>
<pre cols="72">--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
<a href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" target="_blank">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
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