Re: Philosophy specifies: organisms process information

r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Yes, John W., I am trying to catch your attention.

I was recently engaged in a study of that eminent French philosopher
of science, Michel Serres. (OK, I was browsing through my son-in-laws
bookshelves). And what he has to say is this:

" [living organisms] can be described as apparatuses which produce
language from noise and information"

and

"... the living organism... Most often conceived of according to the
models we have already considered, the organism has been seen as a
machine ... It is evidently a thermodynamic system... It is a
hypercomplex system, reducible only with difficulty to known models
that we have now mastered. What can we precisely say about this
system? First, that it is an information and thermodynamic system.
Indeed, it receives, stores, exchanges, and gives off both energy and
information -- in all forms, from the light of the sun to the flow of
matter which passes through it (food, oxygen, heat, signals)..."

and

"Formerly, when a given system was analyzed it was a standard -- and
justifiable -- practice to write two distinct accounts of it: the
energy account and the information account.... The two accounts had no
proportion in common; they were not even on the same scale... The same
thing is not true for the organism: its extreme complication, the
great miniaturization of its elements, and their number bring these
two accounts closer and make them comparable. Hence the difference
between a machine and a living organism is that, for the former, the
information account is negligible in relationship to the energy
account, whereas, for the latter, both accounts are on the same
scale."

This from chapter 7, The Origin of Languge: Biology, Information
Theory, & Thermodynamics in "Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy",
Ed. Josue Harari & David Bell, Johns Hopkins U Press 1982. The
Serres original is "Hermes Vol IV: La Distribution: 1977 - Origine du
Langage.

Certainly you must agree that Serres is the very model of lucidity,
clarity, and well reasoned argument epitomizing post-modern French
philosophy of science. How can you argue with someone who
demonstrates the clear and close affinities between science, painting,
and religion?

So you MUST accept the informational nature of the organism! And if
you don't like that example, I can get started on Deleuze and the
notion of emergence!!

You're not helping yourself, you know. I think you are trying to sokal
me.
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Philosophy specifies: organisms process information
    ... of science, Michel Serres. ... the living organism... ... justifiable -- practice to write two distinct accounts of it: ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Philosophy specifies: organisms process information
    ... of science, Michel Serres. ... the living organism... ... justifiable -- practice to write two distinct accounts of it: ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Philosophy specifies: organisms process information
    ... of science, Michel Serres. ... the living organism... ... justifiable -- practice to write two distinct accounts of it: ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Philosophy specifies: organisms process information
    ... of science, Michel Serres. ... the living organism... ... justifiable -- practice to write two distinct accounts of it: ... negligible in relationship to the energy account even though some of the Intel Pentium IV processors dissipate the same amount of heat as an iron on the "cotton" setting. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Time is a concept
    ... proliferation of published theories and hypotheses that ostensibly fit ... because of course you *chose* it because it accounts ... This *presupposes* that the redshifting is being caused ... and that is the same in science. ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)