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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear All, <br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">This is my third of the week, trying to
respond to the recent messages. Thanks to all the discussants. <br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I think Joseph has already responded
well to the correct objection raised by Krassimir. I like his
reformulation of the first Info Principle. My own response as I
was ruminating would have been that there is a "zeroth" principle
needed. Something like:<i> It corresponds to entities advancing a
life cycle the capability to make distinctions</i>.
Incorporating the life-cycle kooks fundamental for me. It could be
like the "0" in arithmetics--and there is a famous quotation from
Whitehead about that. And
let us note that perhaps the “cycle” itself could be meaningfully
incorporated
in fundamental physical explanation [Josephson, 2017] as we talked
time ago in this list. Not to forget that there is an important
connection to make regarding these two or three initial points:
information physics. Several authors are nowadays advancing in
informational terms the new "quantum information science". Among
others, Chiribella and D'Ariano (2010, 2015) have crafted six
information principles (five axioms and one postulate) from which
quantum theory can be derived. In next months I would like to say
something else about that (particularly the relationship between
entanglement and locality/"adjacency")... <br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">And I continue with Loet's detailed
"interrogatory" (<i>in italics his questions</i>).<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<o:p xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:emc25c37af-1f34-47cd-8eab-fb8f0e30780e@pc2014">
<div>
<div id="xca2c22c2beb146f0940cb13fdc5ac4a1">So here there are
those two points:<o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p> <br>
<b>1. Information is distinction on an <i>adjacent </i>difference.</b><o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p><br>
<b>2. Information processes consist in organized action upon
differences collected onto structures, patterns, sequences,
messages, or flows.</b><o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p><br>
<span lang="EN-GB">Here, the <b>distinction</b> term refers
to the capabilities of the subject or informational entity
that is engaged in the exploration of events or signals in
its immediate environment. <o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span><br>
<br>
<i><span lang="EN-GB">Does this imply that the definition of
information is subjective? Or at least intentional?</span></i></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
--Not exactly. It requires (zeroth principle) a life-cycle capable
of making some distinctions out from the arriving difference(s) in
the environment. The life-cycle "experiential" contents and
structures will determine, first whether any distinctions can be
made, and second, whether the obtained distinctions should be
propagated onto itself in order to elaborate a "meaning" and produce
a response, or just be discarded as meaningless. <br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:emc25c37af-1f34-47cd-8eab-fb8f0e30780e@pc2014">
<div>
<div id="xca2c22c2beb146f0940cb13fdc5ac4a1">
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-left:0.5in;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">
<o:p xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-left:0.5in;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB"><i>“The
distinction refers to ….” Is this distinction only a
reference. Is information always local since based on a
distinction of an </i><i>adjacent</i><i> difference?
Why would a distinction from a non-adjacent difference
not provide information? </i><o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
--There not exist non-adjacent differences. They always need a
physical channel or carrier to impinge on the eyes, ears, skin, etc.
of the subject. You always need photons for your eyes to make
distinctions (plus a lot of previous learning ) out of the letters
you are reading in a book, in a screen, etc. (impossible for an
illiterate person). The same for extracting linguistic distinctions
out from the phonon excitation in your timpanic membrane... Finally
it is sheer adjacency of the carrier upon the subject. There has
been a biological and social social "struggle" to increase the
adjacency of subjects, to be able to achieve the plenum of
environmental information out from the forces, fields, atoms,
photons, phonons, physically impinging on the subjects. The
Shannonian term channel is quite significant about that:
streams of differences conduced to your ears, to your eyes, to your
apparatuses. And "Media" is the collective term for such social
communication "channels".
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:emc25c37af-1f34-47cd-8eab-fb8f0e30780e@pc2014">
<div>
<div id="xca2c22c2beb146f0940cb13fdc5ac4a1">
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">The
subject extracts logical distinctions out from the
differences in the materiality of those events. <o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-left:0.5in;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">Can
you, please, provide an example?<o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
--Take cellular receptors of Ecoli, for instance. According to the
level of excitation, they are phosphorylated in one-two-three-four
positions. Not more usually. Then they change the response to the
cell interior accordingly to that phosp. level. So, there will be an
elementary "distinction" propagated through the system and perhaps
combined with a few similar ones. In some cases it means nothing and
disappears, in others it determines a change in flagellum motion
status. While in others, the really "meaningful" ones, that very
robust distinction, also propagated (& amplified) with other
pathways of the signaling system, will produce a robust
gene-expression response--even dramatically altering the cell-cycle
trajectory. Or considering our visual case, the photons that are
distinguished in the cones and rods of the retina, suffer a
hyper-complex conjunction of propagated "distinctions" (eg, edges,
borders, colors...) and other complex processes among the local
neuronal tissue, and are further processed along
several relays, visiting the cortex and language centers, and back,
so that in less than 300 milliseconds you may say: "I disagree"!
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:emc25c37af-1f34-47cd-8eab-fb8f0e30780e@pc2014">
<div>
<div id="xca2c22c2beb146f0940cb13fdc5ac4a1">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB"> <i>
The subject works and therefore generates
entropy/information? </i><br>
</span></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
--Yes... but, cellularly, it looks very complex to make a serious
entropy analysis of that. And even more after so many incredible
steps in the human sensorimotor pathways... Well, you may forget all
the surrounding complexity and take a simplified population of
"data" and say, this is the entropy/info change. It is done for
instance in EEG recordings (remember Jose Luis Perez Velazquez's
presentation here in the list), or in a context of linguistic
analysis. Karl Friston has elaborated a sophisticate approach to
brain "free energy" and minimization of entropy via action
perception cycles in a "Bayesian inference machine". (??)<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:emc25c37af-1f34-47cd-8eab-fb8f0e30780e@pc2014">
<div>
<div id="xca2c22c2beb146f0940cb13fdc5ac4a1">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">
<o:p xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">The
guiding idea is that, by following that logic (in itself
based on a few principles), one can apply
“multidimensional partitions” as formal descriptors of the
discrete messages or the signalling flows. And that
skeleton of partitions is what “receiving the information”
preliminarily implies along this restricted communication
logics. It is about how the informational entity may
create streams of relationships associated to the material
differences in the impinging signalling flows or discrete
messages. <o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:0.5in;line-height:normal;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><i><span
lang="EN-GB">The informational entity (potentially a
subject) may create streams of relationship. <o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></i></p>
<i> </i>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:0.5in;line-height:normal;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><i><span
lang="EN-GB">Do the relations contain information? Are
non-relations (zeros) included? Are these flows a
dynamic extension of the static distinctions?</span></i><o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
--I think so. In the dynamic propagation of distinctions, the "flow"
might contain snapshots at the millisecond level (the usual
time-processing limit of enzymes and proteins), carrying
distinctions related to both presences and absences. I think it was
partially responded above. In general, the informational analysis is
not necessarily similar to the (physical) entropy analysis. You
determine the steps, the boundaries, the variables, etc. and
prudently discard all the surroundings.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:emc25c37af-1f34-47cd-8eab-fb8f0e30780e@pc2014">
<div>
<div id="xca2c22c2beb146f0940cb13fdc5ac4a1">
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">The
<b>adjacent</b> term refers to the physical contact to be
achieved between the signalling event and the subject, and
the need by the latter of counting with sensory elements
or with excitatory surfaces to be physically impinged upon
by the incoming signals. <o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-left:0.5in;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB"><i>Why
is this exclusively local? Information can be defined
objective and non-local. Is this a subjective choice of
you? Is the focus on local and observable biologistic? </i><o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">In
living cells, information arrives via particles,
molecules, atoms, photons, or phonons that impinge on
specialized receptors. It is the same in all sensory
surfaces of nervous systems. Increasing the adjacency,
extending the territory covered by the communication
processes with the environment is a formidable drive of
biological evolution: cellular pili, flagella, cilia,
arborisation of axons and dendrites, the neuronal
multiplicity of sensors and receptors, specialized maps,
sensing modalities, etc. By all means, adjacency is
increased to the maximum supported by the biological
system. <o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-left:0.5in;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB"><i>This
may be the case for biological evolution, but
communication technologies enable us to include
non-adjacent distinctions. </i><o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
--Nope. As said above, we may only imply that those media or techno
info are non-local only AFTER THEIR CARRIERS HAVE "TOUCHED" OUR
RECEPTORS and we have built thousands and thousands of
micro-distinctions flowing bottom-up and top-down that produce a
meaning and finally they make us say, "oh, yes, this is non-local
info about the US politics". It may take barely an instant, and all
of those processes are transparent for us.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:emc25c37af-1f34-47cd-8eab-fb8f0e30780e@pc2014">
<div>
<div id="xca2c22c2beb146f0940cb13fdc5ac4a1">
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">We
may notice something similar in human societies about the
artifacts, means of communication, and
scientific-technological apparatuses that transcend the
immediate adjacency of subjects in the complex information
flows of contemporary societies. By transcending the
limits of immediate space-time adjacency, and creating <b>channels</b>
that carry differences to build ad hoc distinctions,
subjects may perform a myriad of further distinction
extractions and cognitive operations (think of telescopes,
microscopes, telegraph, etc.). By the way, curiously
"channel" in the Shanonian scheme represents also that
which brings information to the adjacency of the receiver.
<o:p xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-left:0.5in;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">The
commonality exhibits, in my opinion, the mathematical
character. Once one abstracts from materiality, a
mathematical definition becomes unavoidable. Only math
(and logic) can be used across domains. Do you have such a
definition, equivalent to the Shannon H?</span><o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
--Interesting, but do you think the Shannonian metrics is the only
thing in common? Do you think it is the only-one info metrics in
town? There are quite many physical and informational entropies
around. See for instance (van Heel and Schatz 2020) about "the
harvesting of new information". But my point revolves about a better
understanding of sharing a life-cycle (& its experiential
load--a culture for instance) as a powerful level-playing field in
social and biological communication. It dissolves eons of
complexity.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:emc25c37af-1f34-47cd-8eab-fb8f0e30780e@pc2014">
<div>
<div id="xca2c22c2beb146f0940cb13fdc5ac4a1">
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">By
the way: addenda to pont two for Krassimir: <b>data
result from the measurement of an action</b> (or of an
aggregate of multiple actions, or surrogates of actions).<o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-left:0.5in;line-height:14pt;"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span lang="EN-GB">Difficult
to follow in my opinion. Best, Loet<o:p
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">--Now would look better?<b> </b>Data result
from
measurement actions (</span><span lang="EN-GB">or
from surrogates of actions</span><span lang="EN-GB">, or from
aggregates of multiple actions). </span><span lang="EN-GB">To
Krassimir comment: a picture is not data, but a potential source
of data... </span><span lang="EN-GB">Will keep thinking. </span><br>
</p>
<p>Many thanks for the comments and questions. Sorry if it has
become too long.<br>
</p>
<p>Greetings to all--Pedro</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a>
------------------------------------------------- </pre>
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