Information theory vs. cybernetics

[From Chris Cherpas (2001.02.09.1340 PT)]

I just read "Who Wrote the Book of Life: A History
of the Genetic Code" by Lily E. Kay (2000). Her
analysis shows how a scriptual/textual metaphor has
become a major part of post-WWII work in genetics.

Repeatedly, I see cybernetics and information theory
being lumped together. I don't see that in PCT nor
in the little I have read of Ashby. I don't see
information as necessarily being a part of cybernetics:
plain old physical forces combine to form negative feedback
control without any "information."

What happened?

Best regards,
cc

[From Rick Marken (01.02.09.1500)]

Chris Cherpas (2001.02.09.1340 PT)--

Repeatedly, I see cybernetics and information theory
being lumped together. I don't see that in PCT nor
in the little I have read of Ashby.

What happened?

My impression (and that's all it is) is that cybernetics got
conflated with digital computer/information theory developments
that were occurring at the time (c. 1948). Norbert Weiner
(inappropriately seen as a pioneer in control theory simply
because he coined the term "cybernetics") and John von Neuman
(inappropriately seen as a pioneer in the development of the
digital computer) were friends, I believe. So I suspect that the
conflation of control theory and information theory grew out of
this "confederacy of dilettantes". It's probably a very complex
story that involves far more than just these two players. But
regardless of how it happened, I think that the conflation of
cybernetics (control theory) and information theory, which seems
to have occurred mainly in the life sciences, threw a red herring
into the path of progress (towards a control theory approach to
life) that has still not been removed.

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
MindReadings.com mailto: marken@mindreadings.com
www.mindreadings.com

[From Dan Palmer (2001.02.10.12:07 Melbourne Time)]

Hello PCTers!

I thought I'd drop by and see what was happening.

In light of Bruce's comments, I thought the following extract from a
1976 interview by Stewart Brand with Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
(present at the Macy conferences) might be of interest:

"Gregory Bateson: The link-up between the behavioral sciences spread
very slowly and hasn't really spread yet. The cyberneticians in the
narrow sense of the word went off into input-output.

Stewart Brand: They went off into computer science.

Gregory Bateson: Computer science is input-output. You've got a box, and
you've got this line enclosing the box, and the science is the science
of these boxes. Now, the essence of Wiener's cybernetics was that the
science is the science of the whole circuit. You see, the diagram ...

Margaret Mead: You'd better verbalize this diagram if it's going to be
on the tape.

Gregory Bateson: Well, you can carry a piece of paper all the way home
with you. The electric boys have a circuit like that, and an event here
is reported by a sense organ of some kind, and affects something that
puts in here. Then you now cut off there and there, then you say there's
an input and an output. Then you work on the box. What Wiener says is
that you work on the whole picture and its properties. Now, there may be
boxes inside here, like this of all sorts, but essentially your
ecosystem, your organism-plus-environment, is to be considered as a
single circuit.

Stewart Brand: The bigger circle there ...

Gregory Bateson: And you're not really concerned with an input-output,
but with the events within the bigger circuit, and you are part of the
bigger circuit. It's these lines around the box (which are just
conceptual lines after all) which mark the difference between the
engineers and ...

Margaret Mead: ... and between the systems people and general systems
theory, too"

Quarterly, 10, 32-44.

Cheers,
Dan Palmer

Bruce Nevin wrote:

···

From: Brand, S. (1976). For God's sake, Margaret. CoEvolutionary

[From Bruce Nevin (2001.02.09.1836 EST)]

Chris Cherpas (2001.02.09.1340 PT)
At 01:41 PM 02/09/2001 -0800, Chris Cherpas wrote:
>I don't see
> information as necessarily being a part of cybernetics:
> plain old physical forces combine to form negative feedback
> control without any "information."
>
> What happened?

One legitimate basis for the connection is that the simplest element of
information is a difference that is transformed into another difference.
This is to say (among other things) that the identification of information
with text or language or digital computation is also incorrect, and for the
same reasons. The words are a bit misleading in this, since "a difference"
seems discrete; perhaps rather a change that is transformed into a
different change. A change in room temperature is transformed into a change
in position of an ampoule, is transformed into a (now discrete) change in
position of a blob of mercury, and so on around the loop of a
thermostatically controlled temperature-control system to a (now analog)
change in ambient temperature. This conception of information is of course
Bateson's, as is the associated conception of mind immanent in nature.

Not to say that all of cybernetics-talk has this legimacy.

         Bruce Nevin

[From Bruce Nevin (2001.02.09.1836 EST)]

Chris Cherpas (2001.02.09.1340 PT)

I don't see
information as necessarily being a part of cybernetics:
plain old physical forces combine to form negative feedback
control without any "information."

What happened?

One legitimate basis for the connection is that the simplest element of information is a difference that is transformed into another difference. This is to say (among other things) that the identification of information with text or language or digital computation is also incorrect, and for the same reasons. The words are a bit misleading in this, since "a difference" seems discrete; perhaps rather a change that is transformed into a different change. A change in room temperature is transformed into a change in position of an ampoule, is transformed into a (now discrete) change in position of a blob of mercury, and so on around the loop of a thermostatically controlled temperature-control system to a (now analog) change in ambient temperature. This conception of information is of course Bateson's, as is the associated conception of mind immanent in nature.

Not to say that all of cybernetics-talk has this legimacy.

         Bruce Nevin

···

At 01:41 PM 02/09/2001 -0800, Chris Cherpas wrote:

from Mary Powers [010212]

[From Chris Cherpas (2001.02.09.1340 PT)]

I just read "Who Wrote the Book of Life: A History
of the Genetic Code" by Lily E. Kay (2000). Her
analysis shows how a scriptual/textual metaphor has
become a major part of post-WWII work in genetics.

Repeatedly, I see cybernetics and information theory
being lumped together. I don't see that in PCT nor
in the little I have read of Ashby. I don't see
information as necessarily being a part of cybernetics:
plain old physical forces combine to form negative feedback
control without any "information."

What happened?

Best regards,
cc

The reason cybernetics and information theory are linked goes back to the
'40's, when neither of them actually existed (I think it is very hard for
people now to imagine science circa 1940 or so). What did exist were people
who knew each other and were full of a lot of hot ideas: Wiener, von
Neuman, Shannon. Each in their own way distilled and made sense to
themselves of what was in the air at the time. Wiener went the cybernetic
route because he was influenced by Arturo Rosenblueth, who had been an
associate of Walter B. Cannon, who developed the concept of homeostasis.
Actually, I think that he and later people in cybernetics were more
interested in information theory than control theory - both are covered in
his book title, "Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal
and the machine", and I think he may have been more drawn to communication
in the machine than to control in the animal. Most of his later concerns
with cybernetics were the social effects of automation, etc., not the
workings of living control systems.

The first chapter in a book about information theory, "Grammatical Man,
information, entropy, language, and life", by Jeremy Campbell (Simon and
Schuster, 1982) covers Wiener's role in info theory. Of course the book
also deals with Shannon and von Neumann.

What on earth is a scriptual/textual metaphor, and what is the particular
one used by Lily Kay?

Mary P.

···

At 01:41 PM 2/9/2001 -0800, you wrote:

[From Chris Cherpas (2001.02.20.1100 PT)]

Mary Powers [010212]--

What on earth is a scriptual/textual metaphor, and what is
the particular one used by Lily Kay?

Kay (2000) provides a history of the genetic code and
shows how the terminology and methods have been influenced
by linguistics and information theory.

There was/is supposedly a "code" to be cracked to understand
genetics. The genes are likened to words, the base pairs
as letters, the whole genome as a "text." These are all
then "translated" into proteins that build bodies. These
textual metaphors have apparently served to advance our
understanding of genetics, but may lose their value as
we dig deeper. People routinely talk and write about the
biological "information" (e.g., in genes), but they might
better focus on (physical) control -- without codes,
information, etc. They even say that "information" is
what is fundamental to life. So, which do you think is
a better gamble on which to guide one's research: the
search for "information" or for control?

Best regards,
cc