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<DIV>Joel--All thanks. You're absolutely right. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The thought, brief as it was, was inspired by Eshel, who asked me roughly
four years ago to ponder the nature of information. If I interpreted him
correctly, he felt that understanding the nature of information would
provide the key to understanding the evolution of the cosmos and
of the cosmos' creativity.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>That led to the following bit of musing: </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>hb: "<SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Abadi MT Condensed Light'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial>I’m pondering what value we can derive from regarding time as
an information translation and stimulus-and-response process. One
instant of time reads the instant that came before it, presumably in the
tiny dividing line between Planck units of time. The
present translates the previous instant into a new pattern. What are
the rules of this grand translation, of this grand interpretation of a previous
instant's implications?"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Abadi MT Condensed Light'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Abadi MT Condensed Light'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial>Then add this: hb: "<SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">evolution
is a process in which nature admires herself in a mirror and compresses what she
sees, then uses that condensation of herself to produce new
realities."</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Abadi MT Condensed Light'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Abadi MT Condensed Light'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">And
toss in yet another quote from an old posting: "hb: <SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial>Patterns repeat on many levels because the repetition of
old things on new levels is how this cosmos grows new patterns, processes,
and things--from singularity to a sheet of time-space expansion, from that sheet
of hurried departure from less than a single point to many points, to quarks,
then to nucleons, and onward 300,000 years later to atoms and
straight-line-traveling photons, then, 700,000 years down the road to galaxies,
the ignition of stars, and light.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Now we take nearly infinitesimal streams of that light and shift if from
one frame of reference to another--from the tiny light-twitches the human eye
can't see to the twitching of electrons in a CCD sensor to the image made by
luminescent particles on a computer monitor, to the pixels of an image, to the
ink of wood pulp of a picture, to the mathematics of an astrophysicist and from
there to the technical language of a journal article and the colloquial language
of a press release.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But that's not
the end of the condensations and translations from one from of reference to
another, not be any means.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If the
information officer in charge of the press release makes just the right a bursts
of electrons and photons move on the telephone lines and rearranges the
neurotransmissions in a New York Times reporter's mind, the numerous
translations of the twitch of light can be reconstructed in the minds of
millions as a vision of a process that once occurred on the very edges (or at
the very center) of this spreading universe.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then prophets, preachers, and
politicians can use the resulting genesis tale to change the course of human
history.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Compression and expansion
all over the place.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Representation
and translation.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Why does it all
work?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Because the original
ancestors of stars, of atoms, of photons, and of you and me were a handful of
rules that can be expanded and compressed iteratively--folded over and under and
upon themselves endlessly."</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Does a bigger picture begin to emerge, one that comes from an
eight-year-long colloquy with Eshel? Or is the bigger picture one I need
to be more explicit about, one I need to take the time to write?
Onward--Howard</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>ps for more on this line of thought see Eshel's <SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Mincho'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">“</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt">Seeking
the Foundations of Cognition:From Thermodynamics to Contextual Information and
Back” and his paper on linguistics among bacteria.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 4/24/2005 9:01:14 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
isaacsonj@hotmail.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2>Howard,<BR><BR>You
echo below certain aspects of Eshel's 3rd principle. Increased
<BR>complexification in<BR>living systems allows for detection of (latent)
higher-level complexity both <BR>within and without.<BR>And this is an
ongoing, recursive/dialectical process. -- Joel<BR><BR>PS For
reference, here is Eshel's 3rd principle.<BR><BR>"3. The principle of matched
complexity. The system needs an internal level <BR>of complexity which is
sufficiently high in order to extract latent <BR>information from the external
complexity.<BR><BR>I view this matched complexity principle the driving force
of evolution that <BR>explain the ever increasing level of complexity. In a
nutshell the idea is: <BR>A single bacterium needs some level of complexity to
detect the complexity <BR>of the surrounding environment and over the time
window between replication. <BR>To glean more information the bacteria form
cooperative behaviour and <BR>generate complex colonies. However for that each
individual bacterium needs <BR>a higher level of internal complexity for
communication and to cope with its <BR>external environment which is now has
higher level of complexity - the <BR>environment becomes both the outside and
the rest of the colony. To solve <BR>the paradox self-organization leads to
the formation of functional modules <BR>and spatio-temporal patterns. And than
.. (for next time)."<BR><BR><BR>>From: HowlBloom@aol.com<BR>>Reply-To:
The new improved paleopsych list <paleopsych@paleopsych.org><BR>>To:
paleopsych@paleopsych.org<BR>>Subject: [Paleopsych] information
inflation<BR>>Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 09:47:09
EDT<BR>><BR>><BR>>New ways of interpreting information increase
the amount of <BR>>information—and<BR>>of information’s
consequences—in the cosmos. When photons from a
<BR>>distant<BR>>star hit the face of an empty planet, they mean
just about nothing. Give <BR>>that<BR>>planet 3.85 billion years
or so to evolve star-gazers, mythmakes, and<BR>>astrology, and the
information gleaned from the same photons goes up
<BR>>exponentially.<BR>> So do the number of decisions based
on the distant star’s trickle of<BR>>photons.<BR>>Give the
life-forms on that previously empty planet another few
hundred<BR>>thousand years to evolve astronomy, astrophysics, and
cosmology, and the<BR>>information gleaned from the star’s photon
trickle goes up by a factor <BR>>of ten or<BR>>more. So do the
decisions based on that photon drip.<BR>>Which means that the cosmos
is not just inflating in physical space and<BR>>time. It’s
not just expanding in the intricacy of its structures and
<BR>>its<BR>>processes. It’s also expanding in its
information-content…and in its <BR>>richness of<BR>>causes and
effects.<BR>>New ways of seeing lead to new ways of being. And
new ways of being lead <BR>>to<BR>>new ways of seeing. Information
chews on what information spews. And the<BR>>cosmos fattens as
it grows.<BR>>Howard<BR>><BR>>----------<BR>>Howard
Bloom<BR>>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition
Into the Forces <BR>>of<BR>>History and Global Brain: The
Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to <BR>>the<BR>>21st
Century<BR>>Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
University; Core<BR>>Faculty Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>>www.howardbloom.net<BR>>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>>Founder:
International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member:
<BR>>Epic<BR>>of Evolution Society; founding board member, The
Darwin Project; founder: <BR>>The<BR>>Big Bang Tango Media Lab;
member: New York Academy of Sciences, American<BR>>Association for
the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
<BR>>Society,<BR>>Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and
Evolution Society, <BR>>International<BR>>Society for Human
Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org;<BR>>executive editor --
New Paradigm book series.<BR>>For information on The International
Paleopsychology Project, see:<BR>>www.paleopsych.org<BR>>for two
chapters from<BR>>The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into
the Forces of History,<BR>>see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>>For
information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the
Big<BR>>Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR>><BR>>_______________________________________________<BR>>paleopsych
mailing
list<BR>>paleopsych@paleopsych.org<BR>>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych<BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>paleopsych
mailing
list<BR>paleopsych@paleopsych.org<BR>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard
Bloom<BR>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the
Forces of History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang
to the 21st Century<BR>Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
University; Core Faculty Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>Founder:
International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic of Evolution
Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The Big Bang Tango
Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of Political
Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International Society for Human
Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org; executive editor -- New
Paradigm book series.<BR>For information on The International Paleopsychology
Project, see: www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from <BR>The Lucifer
Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, see
www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of
Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>