Re: nature as analogy

[John M <***>]

Ordered so by my boss, the devil, I speak as his
advocate. Not necessarily that I disagree with the
sense of your posts (they make a lot and most of them
really well crafted) but the abode of my boss has to
be addressed: the DETAILS in which the devil lives. 

Jack, John, 
Judith  wrote it beautifully, I believe: "too"
beautifully. This is why my 'boss' ordered me to play
his rustic advocate and be devilish.
Well, sorry to say: I agree with most of your text.
Start with John. - Information as Communication.
Absolutely my vocabulary ("Info is acknowledged -
absorbed DIFFERENCE") if some 'news' (=difference) is
not 'caught' it is NOT an info. 
On Jack (efficiency): info does not necessitate
action. There is a factor of response, which I call
consciousness (in whatever can absorb a difference) 
e.g the pressure on the snow to start an avalanche, 
the immune reactivity, to transform platelets into
white cells, (or whatever) - which, if missing, you
just die by a virus in an unprepared defense system.  
It is not a model-order: "if A, then B". It is much
more complex. More interactions, wider domains of
interference  than the recognized boundaries , 
do we discover them or not.

And here come the analogies.
Analogies of what? Well, of the model we DO observe,
even then just the 'essential' features, to secure a
'good' analogy. Our reasoning upon this will result a
skimpy result. Maybe not so skimpy as a quantized
reasoning, which is 'perfect' within the narrow
quantity-based circumstances of the one-plane
quantitative -vue model. Good for the engineering,
insufficient for understanding. 
To think in simulacron. Mimic the feature in terms we
find important to emphasize. 

It may be the most we can do, both in the econo-social
and the eco-system management, because 1. - something
Has to be done and 2. - we have precious little to go
on with. It may be "the best we can do" under given
circumstances. Is it good enough? No. Not always
efficient enough.
Jack and John are right to cut out the e-word . 
However: there is competition in efficiency of the
various 'plane' interfering input communication and
some go easier into fulfillment than others. Such
impredicative outcome may be my hesitation about the
universal reliability of anticipation. An off-boundary
(unobserved) input reducing the 'main' effect expected
in the model for 'efficiency'.

If organisms (bio that is) use calculations, that must
be very inaccurate. Millions and millions of sperm 
plus thousands of eggs for 1-2 offspring? "Many" for
efficiency is a better slogan. Redundancy and select
(not too much, not to low) survival as the ambience
can take. If excess or deficiency, other factors CAN
step in to USE the situation. There is no count: if an
organism falls apart, others utilize the potential in
the ambience and the fallout parts.
All in the pressure/opportunity of a wider than
model-boundaries interconnection unlimited. 

Vague? fuzzy? you bet. IMO whenever we try to be
precise we plunge into more and more model
restrictions where our flimsy (quanti mostly)
constructs are not disturbed by farther parts os the
natural (maximum) model's potential input. 
Cut it out! be precise. Cut out the non-quanti qualia
and you can be precision-happy. 
Use analogies/simulacron and you will be right. 
Sorry, I think I did what my boss wanted from his
advocate. 

John M

PS Jack and John: I am happy to see you both again on
the list. Your posts are always informative and worth
reading - even if I argue certain minor points. JM


--- Judith Rosen <***> wrote:

> John K. wrote:
> > Its the comparison between reasoning quantiatively
> and acting on the 
> > result, vs. reasoning by analogy and acting on the
> result.
> 
> "Reasoning by analogy" is the perfect, concise way
> of phrasing what the 
> use of models allows us to do. It's a summation of
> the whole; "If 
> this... then maybe also that...." kind of process--
> which pretty much 
> describes human thought and interaction with the
> world as well as the 
> way science is done (quantitation or no
> quantitation; what are 
> mathematical models of natural systems supposed to
> do? They predict, 
> via analogy.). I think the problem is that science
> doesn't recognize 
> the fact that every single assertion made throughout
> the history of 
> science is based entirely on "reasoning by
> analogy"-- extrapolating a 
> pattern from a small example, extrapolating a
> conclusion from a limited 
> sample, using predictions based on some model's
> entailment to decide 
> what humanity should do in any given situation, etc,
> etc, etc! The 
> "mind's eye" sees only analogies. Models aren't fool
> proof.
> 
> Both Anticipatory Systems and Life, Itself have
> extensive discussions 
> about modeling; what it is, what it can be used to
> do, what the dangers 
> are, and how the concept of a model is multi-faceted
> enough to defy 
> easy definition in a single sentence or using a
> single modality. 
> Recently, a visitor to the list accused Robert Rosen
> of getting too 
> creative with his approach to modeling. The more I
> think about that, 
> the angrier it makes me. I think it's likely that
> only someone who 
> hasn't read the work with enough attention would
> make such a claim. 
> Because if that statement were expressed after
> giving the work due 
> scrutiny, my only conclusion can be [Warning:
> honest, politically 
> incorrect, personal opinion ahead...] that such an
> accusation betrays a 
> woeful lack of both creativity and visual acuity
> about science (as well 
> as about mathematics in science). The arguments RR
> made regarding these 
> various subjects in his published work are extremely
> thorough, 
> precisely because so much of science and human
> thought are based on 
> "reasoning by analogy".
> 
> Brilliant, John.
> 
> Judith
> 

> On Dec 28, 2005, at 1:30 AM, JohnK wrote:
> 
> > Thanks Jack,
> >
> > You make a good point. Perhaps the word
> 'efficient' should not be used 
> > because of these implications.
> >
> > What I really mean is that it works better than it
> would if there were 
> > in fact some internal accounting of actual numbers
> - i.e., a process 
> > facilitated by calculation. I think what is going
> on is processes 
> > facilitated by analogy. Its the comparison between
> reasoning 
> > quantiatively and acting on the result, vs.
> reasoning by analogy and 
> > acting on the result. There is a really great
> environmental/social 
> > scientist I know, Mickey Glantz, who has proposed
> "reasoning by 
> > analogy" for environmental and ecosystem
> management. It has a lot of 
> > merit and points out the shortcomings of our
> propensity to reason 
> > analytically and quantitatively. I think he's
> right about management, 
> > and it got me thinking that pehaps this is exactly
> what nature does 
> > too. I'd love to find some references saying so. I
> get these ideas 
> > that seem so right to me, and I want to include it
> in a paper, but now 
> > I'm trying ot be rigorous and I have to ask what
> support the idea 
> > really has. On the other hand, I can't think of
> any evidence 
> > supporting the idea that organisms use some kind
> of internal 
> > calculation in their processes - is there any?
> >
> > John
> >
> > Jack Park wrote:
> >
> >> John,
> >>
> >> My 0.0012 EUROs: I like the closing sentence, but
> it's not at all
> >> clear to me that a much more accurate mechanism
> is at work when a
> >> runner jumps a ravine, or that nature is
> necessarily efficent in
> >> transfering information. I say that while
> carrying the same
> >> assumptions many have that evolutionary pressure
> would drive
> >> biological systems to be as efficient as
> possible; indeed who would
> >> have thunk to place a sewage disposal system in
> the same location as a
> >> playground? Right? But, what about the spread of
> cytokines when under,
> >> say, viral attack? Is that necessarily efficient?
> Accidentally
> >> efficient? Efficient at all? What means
> efficient? On the surface, it
> >> seems efficient given that it works, but consider
> this (numbers I
> >> learnt when chasing a Leukemia germ): when you
> come under attack,
> >> there is a process whereby your lymphatic system
> responds by dumping a
> >> massive dose of white cells into the blood
> stream. A CBC done on
> >> someone who just discovered an infection might
> show 20 to 30 thousand
> >> whites per dl; way more than the usual 4 to 5
> thousand. Is that
> >> efficient? It would seem to be so to the extent
> that it often works.
> >> What means efficient?
> >>
> >> I'm out of EUROs now.
> >> Cheers and happy new year!
> >> Jack
> >>
> >> On 12/27/05, JohnK <***> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> I'm drafting a paper for a conference and I want
> to say something 
> >>> about
> >>> the way information is used in nature without
> getting too into it, 
> >>> since
> >>> the paper is ultimately about information system
> design.
> >>>
> >>> Here's a paragraph I wrote. What I would like to
> know from my 
> >>> esteemed
> >>> colleagues, is if the statements here are
> supported well enough in 
> >>> the
> >>> literature for me to just say this and move on,
> or am I being wierd
> >>> again by suggesting that nature operates on
> mimicry and analogy??? If
> >>> someone would like to contribute a seminal
> reference I would 
> >>> appreciate
> >>> it. I'm not sure RR addresses this directly in
> his mimicry paper - 
> >>> its
> >>> been a while since I read that, but I'm betting
> it should be 
> >>> referenced.
> >>>
> >>> Title: Information as Communication
> >>>
> >>> The human body functions on the transfer of
> information between 
> >>> critical
> 
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