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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Dear colleagues<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Just a short comment on the current discussion, regarding
<i>physics of information</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Here is an interview that might be of interest:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfQ2r0zvyoA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfQ2r0zvyoA</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">and special issue of
</span><span style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><a href="http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Information</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book""> (2012) on "<i>Information
and Energy/Matter</i>". </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">3(4), 751-755. doi:10.3390/info3040751<br>
</span><span style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><a href="http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/matter" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/matter</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Measurement is only one part of physics, and it is essential that fundamental units are few and commonly shared<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_base_unit">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_base_unit</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">But meaning of it all comes from the interaction of a human (agent) and the physical world outside, thus bringing into picture much more than mapping of observations
into suitable units.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Agency can be as simple thing as ability to act, and I believe Christophe talks about cognitive agency which is the property of living. Beings and cognitive
artifacts, and it can be expressed in terms of agency of inanimate physical-chemical objects that those cognitive agents are made of.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Information can be as simple or as complex notion as you can imagine, but this comes with a cost – either we see no detail, or we don’t see a big picture. Or
we don’t see the dynamics of it etc. What we might want, is not so much to vote for the best definition of information but instead to understand how those different definitions relate to each other, and what makes people call them information. The same goes
for energy, life, cognition or any other fundamental idea that we discuss.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">All the best,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Gordana<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Book";mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">From: </span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">Fis <fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Lars-Göran Johansson <Lars-Goran.Johansson@filosofi.uu.se><br>
<b>Date: </b>Friday, 6 March 2020 at 11:57<br>
<b>To: </b>Christophe Menant <christophe.menant@hotmail.fr><br>
<b>Cc: </b>fis <fis@listas.unizar.es><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Fis] [External Email] Re: defining information<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Lars-Göran Johansson</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:lars-goran.johansson@filosofi.uu.se">lars-goran.johansson@filosofi.uu.se</a></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">6 mars 2020 kl. 11:37 skrev Christophe Menant <<a href="mailto:christophe.menant@hotmail.fr">christophe.menant@hotmail.fr</a>>:</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">It is indeed difficult to define information as it applies to many different things. But these different things have in common to be agents, and agency may
be a “key feature” of information. Take away the agent, information does not exist, has no reason of being.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
And the reason of being of information is its meaning for the agent. Information exists only by its meaning for the agent which uses it to satisfy its constraints.<br>
The agent can then be looked at as “an identifiable entity submitted to internal constraints and capable of actions for the satisfaction of the constraints” (see para 3.2.3 in<a href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Frec%2FMENCSA-2&data=02%7C01%7Cgordana.dodig-crnkovic%40mdh.se%7C699a6ca2af11425cc40f08d7c1bd33e2%7Ca1795b64dabd4758b988b309292316cf%7C0%7C0%7C637190890696259897&sdata=XV6weB%2BOKHnbdI%2BwgrDIyxheIWL4ubMU2qnof4loRig%3D&reserved=0">https://philpapers.org/rec/MENCSA-2</a>).<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
This would bring to a definition of information like “energy variation which leads an agent to generate meanings to satisfy its constraints” (looks like a rewording of “a difference that makes a difference"….)<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
Best<br>
Christophe</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Using the term ’agent’ in the definition of information just highlights Wittgenstein’s point. What is the common characteristics for all things called ’agents’? And ’generate meanings’? What is that?</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Lars-Göran</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>De :</b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Fis <<a href="mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es">fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es</a>> de la part de Loet Leydesdorff <<a href="mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net">loet@leydesdorff.net</a>><br>
<b>Envoyé :</b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>vendredi 6 mars 2020 07:47<br>
<b>À :</b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>João Alvaro Carvalho <<a href="mailto:jac@dsi.uminho.pt">jac@dsi.uminho.pt</a>>; fis <<a href="mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es">fis@listas.unizar.es</a>><br>
<b>Objet :</b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Re: [Fis] [External Email] Re: defining information<span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica">I gave up looking for an unifying definition of information.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica">As soon I switch to another context (for example, moving from the context of organisational work to the human mind or to the cell) the key features are different.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica">This problem is precisely a reason to stick to a content-free, i.e., mathematical definition of information. Information can then further be made relevant in any special theory. The application
is not dimension-free. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica">Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica">Loet<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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