J.M. Díaz Nafría: Science of Information: Emergence and evolution of meaning

4. März 2011

Informationsphilosophie. Information und urbanes Systeme 1

Research Methods in Natural Science and EngineeringMälardalen University, September 2013

José María Díaz Nafría (Universidad de León; HM)

SCIENCE OF INFORMATION: Emergence and Evolution of Meaning

2

Science of Information:Emergence and Evolution of Meaning

Contents

1. What all these terms means? An outlook on the informational perspective (basic ideas)

2. How to understand emergence: the autonomous agency; computational models; generalised concept of information

3. The progressive perspective: from spin networks to social networks

4. The regressive perspective: acknowledging the world (a world of meanings)

Sep.2013 Information Science: Emergence and Evolution of Meaning

Outlook on the informational perspective

Progressive Perspective (Emergence)“The force, through which the development of the individual occurs, is the same force, through which different organizations at the earth come into existence.” (Kielmayer, c. 1790)

Regressive Perspective (computing the origins)

“What we call nature is a poetry enclosed within a secrete enigmatic writing. If the enigma were unveiled, we would recognize the spirit’s Odyssey.”(Schelling, STI, 1800)

3Sep.2013 Information Science: Emergence and Evolution of Meaning

Purpose:1. Understanding the emergence of new beings within the

world2. Understanding cosmological and epistemological evolution

as computation

2. Understanding emergenceDoes Emergence exists as something new in

nature?

4

• Emergence can be understood as the “real” consequence of agents’ actions on its own level (Zimmermann & Díaz 2012; Díaz & Zimmermann 2012, 2013)

• Agents can be generalized by extending S. Kauffman’s idea of autonomous agency as systems capable to perform thermodynamic cycles (from pre-geometry, to physics, to chemistry, to biology, to conscious life, to sociality)

• Ontological irreducibility with respect to the parts constituting the agency: formation of new classicity, which in turn is related to the rules of interaction/organization (“new order of existence with its spatial laws of behavior”, Alexander 1920)


5

• It properly requires rephrasing the philosophical concepts of choice (from an (un)determined set of possibilities), meaning (related to the sense of beings, ontological disposition of a real being) and normalization (as combined effect of a critical mass of interacting parts) throughout the ladder of complexity.

• The fundamental attributes of Energy, Matter and Information, Structure need also be reviewed as fundamental elements for the constitution and evolution of systems.

Potentiality

Energy

Information

Actuality

Matter

Structure


2. Understanding emergenceDoes Emergence exists as something new in

nature?

2. Understanding emergence Does Emergence transcend classical models of

computation?

6

• Classical computation model is restricted by Turing’s halting theorem bzw. Gödel incompleteness (Chaitin), thus it represents a case of systemic closure, which is indeed needed for the constitution of an effective agency (for instance, Kuhn’s normal science). Hence it properly models closure.

• Emergence can be visualized as the need to overcome the limitations of an algorithmic closure referred to the relations governing the system, which in turn can be mapped into Turing machines as long as they are in normal operation.


7

• What computation model can better represent real emergence?i. Quantum computation (Zizzi 2005)ii. Cellular automata (Wolfram 2002)iii. Computational ecologies (Mainzer 2004), etc.

• In the human: perception, scientific discovery, etc. requires creative abductions which represent a most distant case to classical computing: epistemological emergences.

• How can we rephrase the relation between physics-aesthetics-ethics?

Physics

Aesthetics

Ethics


2. Understanding emergence Does Emergence transcend classical models of

computation?

2. Understanding emergenceAutonomous and fundamental agents

8

We have rephrase the problem in terms of proper agency

1) Generalized Autonomous Agent (S. Kauffman 2000, 2006): system able to achieve a new closure in a given space of catalytic and work tasks propagating work out of non-equilibrium states and playing natural games according to constraints of its environment.

2) For enabling a systematic view of the universe: the fragmented vision of quantum- and relativistic physics has to be overcome. Thus we set off from the level of pre-geometry described in terms of spin networks (R. Penrose) and the related developments of quantum gravity.

• Good candidate: L. Kauffman’s knot theory visualize spin networks as knots acting on knots to create knots in rich coupled cycles (metabolisms)

• Braunstein-Gosh-Severi (SVR) entropy allows to put forward generalized conditions of autonomous agency in the sense of S. Kauffman.


2. Understanding emergenceAgent’s dynamics

9

3) Agency dynamics: mapped through game theoretical applications (Szabó & Fáth 2007); Evolutionary system dynamics: mapped through category theory (Zimmermann 2011). Utilizing the “skeleton-of-the-universe-view” (Zimmermann 2004), we can set off from the fundamental level of quantum gravity: inserting steps of a hierarchy of complexity into the functor diagram from topological quantum field theory:

4) Fundamental attributes of the universe

Potentiality

ENERGY: to perform work

INFORMATION: to select/utilize work in the benefit

of the organization of the system

Actuality

MATTER: actualized (stabilized) energy

STRUCTURE: actualization of the organization potential


10

2. Understanding emergenceGeneralizing the concept of information

Generalized 2nd principle of thermodynamics:

entropy/information of a closed system increases

(Potential) information: what the observer ignores about a situation(Boltzmann) Entropy: what the observer ignores about the

microscopic constitution of a system

Example: steam engine this is a non-self-organizing systems working for itself,but for another system


INFORMATION as potentiality for building constraints and affordances that enable propagating work.

11

3. The Progressive Perspective:From Spin Networks to Social Networks


12

3. The Progressive Perspective: The Odyssey of Autonomous Agency

Step 0: spin networks


13

Step 1: Elementary particles (proton: stable combination of quarks…)Step 2: Atoms and Molecules



14

Step 3: Starts and Planetary Systems



15

Step 4: Complex molecular structures and living beings (proton channels)



16

INFORMATION as potentiality for building constraints and affordances that enable propagating work

Step 5: The emergence of seeing (Euglenoid cell)



4. The Regressive Perspective: Acknowledging the World

17

In Cognitive and social contexts, we deal with agents who have self-reflection and try to reconstruct objective situations from essentially limited information (Díaz 2011). Basic level: animal perception.

• We introduce: hermeneutical agency (HA), defined in terms of observation-interpretation cycles (“sensing reality” – Zubiri).

• The HA can be visualized in thermodynamic terms: abductions as reduction of (apparent) representation complexity (neg-entropy) or increase in the probability of interpretation with respect to given constraints (maximal likelihood). Semantics as interpretation tools, which evolves from the very sense of the being (means to reproducing itself, and to evolving); from objective- to reflective- response.

• Semantics are only relatively closed. Openness becomes clear when an epistemic emergence is needed, rooted on ontological constraints (Levy-Strauss).


4. The Regressive Perspective:The problem of seeing

18Sep.2013 Information Science: Emergence and Evolution of Meaning

19

4. The Regressive Perspective:Animal vision

Additional constraints of vertebrate vision:


20

Light

Pho

tore

cept

ors

Neu

rona

l ne

twor

k

b) Retina structure of octopus


Pho

tore

cept

ors

Neu

rona

l net

wor

k

Light

a) Retina structure of vertebrates b) Retina structure of octopus a) b)

4. The Regressive Perspective:Animal vision

4. The Regressive Perspective:Physical limits of seeing

21

Hence, seeing is necessarily Hermeneutical• We need sensing reality (information/data)• We need organising sensing (theories/computing)


22

4. The Regressive Perspective:Hermeneutical agency (computational mapping)

s N

, Ψ1N

... ΨNN

Initial hypothesis

G2-1 G1

-1

G2 G1

Ob{ k1Ψ }

},{ 1kkd ss

K{ ks }

Ob{ k2Ψ } Ob{ k

3Ψ } Ob{ kNΨ }

G3-1

G 3

GN-1

G N

● ● ●

Application of observations (corresponding to manifestation of modality 1, 2,.. )

Gi : allows to derive the manifestation of modality i from an interpretation of the object, s.

Gi -1: allows to make an interpretation of the object s consistent with observation i

Truthfulness criterion

Iteration Interpretation output


23

Conclusive remark

• By using the given conceptualization of the fundamental attributes (E, M, I, S) emergence can be mapped from the pre-geometrical level to the social one;

• It requires at the fundamental level an unified perspective (quantum gravity)

• The emergence is visualized as consequence of agent’s action at its own level causing new classicities (space-time, forces, particles, molecules, organisms, humans, societies), related to the rules of interaction/organization.

• Hermeneutical agency requires rephrasing the relation between physics, ethics and aesthetics (normalization, meaning, choice).


Is information a sufficient basis for cognition?24

INFORMATION SCIENCE: Emergence and Evolution of

Meaning

J.M. Díaz Nafría: Science of Information: Emergence and evolution of meaning

Education

Transcript of J.M. Díaz Nafría: Science of Information: Emergence and evolution of meaning