Subject: Re: [permaculture] Energy, Semiosis and Emergence - The place of biosemiotics in an evolutionary conception of nature
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 13:27:55 -0500
A few interesting comments at Google+, futuristic things happening in
science, society and human evolution - good food for thought - no idea how
this
relates to Permaculture (other than the reference to Odum and energy flow
[Emergy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergy], "information is an ordered
energy flow",
but I feel that it does in many ways, particularly techno-socio-economic
and ecological dynamics in a changing world. Also, could the following
apply to Permaculture itself?
"this kind of pseudo scientific philosophy relevant as a practical addition
to the scientific vernacular" Gaia has to weather humans experimenting with
their nurturing nest and remain in one piece.
I wonder what Toby thinks about biosemiotics. - LL
<>
G+ Comments on the article, without attribution:
"We are molecular curiosity machines that want to be stroked. We are
molecular and then in perception we are rock stars .... we are paradoxes in
smoking boxes.
And having tea just across from some interesting ppl just like us but
different"
"Great lines of inquiry - our conversing, languaging, IS the UX.
Biosemiotics helps here by providing scientific rigour."
"Interesting reading and comments. I'm struck by the notion that this
interplay of these core dynamics; autonomy, segregation and then the
presumed outcome of a seperate(ing) distinction beginning its own
evolutionary track... might describe a forthcoming evolutionary break in
humans with a subset more and more developing, adapting and understanding
technology and science for its/their benefit to a point at some point where
they separate and form their own eventual species (or at least worlds)...
through both accelerated biological evolution (e.g. DNA modification) and
rapid technological augmentation. Fancy way of simply saying this may be an
empirical way of thinking about and describing the growing differences
between the 'halves and have nots'... this theory being a means of not only
explaining it but predicting its eventual outcome - a new (super)
class/race/species of humans you embrace(d) and evolved with technological
apart from those who didn't/don't.
I'm struck by the difference in thought process and direction of these
types of conversations (rational, logical, scientific, reasoned) as
diametrically opposed to another conversation as illustrated by the Pew
Study this week where there is a growing disbelief (non-understanding, its
not really a belief) in evolution, a concept so basic and foundational for
any form of conversation or progress along the lines discussed here. One
group is moving forward, another staying stuck in place (even moving
backwards) - perhaps with Biosemiotics concepts producing a new unique
branch.
www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/ "
"The author needs to invoke wider information theory and could benefit from
the concept that information is an ordered energy flow ... (Shannon, Hebb,
Odum, Bertalanffy, Miller, Swenson, Varela, Maturana etc...) Getting stuck
on abstracted semiotics in this endeavor is imho a dead-end..."
"It's a collective concern already, as eg outlined in the movie Elysium.
>From where I sit, we need to extend Kevin Kelly's question:
*What does technology want?*
And ask ourselves what we want to draw forth."
"From everything I've read about biosemiotics and everything in the
article.. Quiet honestly I think the entire 'field' if it could be called
that is questionable at best.
We do not have even a shadow of enough knowledge about biology or physical
aspects of mind in general to make this kind of pseudo scientific
philosophy relevant as a practical addition to the scientific vernacular."
On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 12:53 PM, Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>wrote: