Re: The Real Reason Facebook Is Changing Its Name

[Stuart Umpleby]

In his presentation of his new book, Cybernetics for the Social Sciences, yesterday, Bernard Scott suggested that whereas physics provides a theory of matter and energy, cybernetics provides a theory of control and communication, a theory underlying the social and design sciences.  This idea has been slow to catch on, but current discussions of the "metaverse"  (see below), may increase interest in cybernetics.  Stuart

On Thu, Oct 21, 2021 at 5:33 AM Teeka Tiwari's Palm Beach Daily <serv...@exct.palmbeachgroup.com> wrote:

The Real Reason Facebook Is Changing Its Name By Chaka Ferguson, editorial director, Palm Beach Daily The past month has been brutal for Facebook… The tech giant is down 11% since September 7. That translates to a loss of $116 billion – a huge one-month move for a company of its market size. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq is only down 1%. The company was already in the crosshairs of lawmakers who wanted to dismantle what they consider a monopoly… but the mainstream media attributed the pullback to Congressional testimony from a company whistleblower. She said Facebook became the 5th-largest U.S company by routinely putting “profit over people” and allowing hate and misinformation to spread among the 2.8 billion users on its platforms… including WhatsApp and Instagram. With its corporate reputation tarnished, it’s no surprise Facebook is making changes. But one change it’s about to make is particularly significant… According to a report in the Verge, Facebook plans to “rebrand” itself and announce a new name next week. Now, this isn’t the first time a major corporation rebranded itself in the wake of controversy… In 2003, cigarette maker Philip Morris changed its name to Altria to distance its association with tobacco and focus on its consumer brands like Kraft. Recommended Link Are you ready for Congress’ “Wealth Transfer Act”? The mainstream media will NOT cover this story… But luckily Teeka Tiwari is revealing all the details of this terrifying new bill that’s working its way through Congress. He’ll even give away the name and ticker of his #1 investment for this new trend. Click here to see it. -- And ValuJet changed its name to AirTran after one of its planes crashed in 1996… So, you may believe Facebook is changing its name because it’s becoming a national scourge… Much like Big Tobacco in the 1990s. But the real reason is to position itself as the leader in an emerging megatrend… One that will make early investors life-changing gains. Goodbye, Social Media – Hello, Metaverse According to reports, Facebook is changing its name to reflect its focus on building the “metaverse.” The metaverse encompasses all types of virtual worlds many of us already use… things like video games… eSports… social media… digital collectibles… cryptocurrencies… blockchain… and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Updated Crypto “Buy Up To” Recommendation And at PBRG, we believe the metaverse will become the next multitrillion-dollar trend in technology. So, while the Verge is just now reporting that Facebook is ready to make its official splash into the metaverse… this is old news for us. Nearly three months ago, PBRG analyst Grant Wasylik wrote that Facebook was already positioning itself to be the leader in the metaverse. Here’s an excerpt from Grant’s essay… Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is preparing for the metaverse: You can think about the metaverse as an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content – you are in it… It’s going to be accessible across all our different computing platforms; VR and AR, but also PC, and also mobile devices and game consoles. And my hope, if we do this well, I think over the next five years or so, in this next chapter of our company, I think we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company. Did you catch that? One of the world’s most well-known companies – and the fifth-largest U.S. company by market cap – plans on becoming a “metaverse” company in five years. Not only did Grant report on Facebook’s strategic plans to enter the metaverse… but he also said Facebook and “Big Tech” players like Amazon, Google, and Roblox would give you exposure to this emerging trend. But while these companies will give you a great entry point into the metaverse… if you really want to make life-changing gains from this tech trend, you need to consider asymmetric plays outside of the stock market. Recommended Link Why Are Thousands of Brand-New Ford Trucks Parked Here? Click Here to Find Out. -- Asymmetric Gains Ahead From the Metaverse Before I get to this idea, let me show you how asymmetric investing works… Symmetric risk is when you invest $100 for a chance to make $100. That’s a 100% return. But triple-digit returns are rare in the stock market… So, when you make a bet like this, you’re risking way more than what you’re potentially getting in return. In contrast, positive asymmetric risk means you invest $100 for a chance to make $1,000, $10,000, or even $100,000 in value… Positive asymmetric risk is how our paid-up subscribers have turned $1,000 into $151,550 on bitcoin… and $1,000 into $1.5 million on a crypto called NEO. Musk, Cuban, Branson and 7 of the World’s Biggest Banks ALL Piling Into THIS New Tech But bitcoin and cryptos aren’t the only asymmetric bets you can make… In December 2020, Daily editor Teeka Tiwari began recommending what we believe could be the biggest asymmetric play in the metaverse: NFTs. In the future, it’s my belief every asset will be tokenized. That means stocks, bonds, titles of ownership, music rights – everything of value – will have its ownership rights secured by a blockchain. And you’ll be able to exchange that value with a click of a mouse – just like you do when you send an email. Remember, NFTs are digital tokens that allow you to trade all types of assets… and many have been exploding in value. Recommended Link 5,561% Gain? Most people think Big Tech stocks like Apple, Google, and Amazon are the only way to gain wealth… Yet there are a select few companies that could soon blow them out of the water. Take a look: 1,087%... 1,670%... 4,114%... 5,183%... 5,561%... Of course, nobody has a crystal ball… So gains this high aren’t guaranteed… But all of these companies had one thing in common: They made a critical component required for a breakthrough technology. And now? Dave Forest has just identified one company that makes THE component essential to a new $3.1 trillion technology. [Click here to see the full details.] -- One example is the CryptoPunk craze. They’re a series of 10,000 NFTs, each depicting a unique, randomly generated character. Essentially, they’re digital collectibles similar to real-world trading cards. Crypto Punk #2338 In August, this digital image, called “CryptoPunk, #2338,” sold for 1,500 ether (ETH) worth $4,379,924.93 at the time. And the last time CryptoPunk #2338 changed hands, back in November 2018, it sold for just 3.5 ETH worth $443. That means this digital caricature handed its previous owner a 988,596% return in less than three years. To put that figure into context, consider that over its first 39 years as a public company – from its IPO in 1982 through 2021 – Apple’s shares rose a little more than 98,000%. That’s what we mean by asymmetric gains. And that’s why Teeka is so bullish on the NFT trend. They’ll be key to owning a stake in the metaverse. Now, we don’t suggest you just run out and buy any NFT. Each is entirely unique and could easily plunge in value… or experience a meteoric jump. And you shouldn’t invest any amount of money you can’t afford to lose. But we do recommend buying the crypto projects that allow you to create, trade, and exchange NFTs… As they’ll play a major role in building the architecture of the metaverse. Look, I understand if you’re skeptical and think that NFTs are pointless or “crazy.” That’s exactly what people said about bitcoin in 2016 when Teeka began recommending it at $428. But just yesterday, bitcoin hit a record high of over $66,000 – a gain of more than 15,320% from that first recommendation. That’s the power of using asymmetric plays to position yourself early in a megatrend. Facebook is about to put a spotlight on the metaverse. But we’re still early in this trend. That’s why Teeka is positioning his readers in asymmetric plays now. Earlier this month, he put together his first set of recommendations to play this trend, including a crypto project connecting the real world to the metaverse. Paid-up Palm Beach Letter subscribers can access them here. And if you’re not a PBL subscriber, you can still learn which cryptocurrency Teeka believes will be the next trillion-dollar coin… And how it’ll be the backbone of the entire metaverse movement. Regards, Chaka Ferguson Editorial Director, Palm Beach Daily Like what you’re reading? Send us your thoughts by clicking here. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… Former Wall Street VP May Have Just Solved America’s Retirement Crisis Millions of Americans don’t have enough money saved for retirement. But former Wall Street VP, Teeka Tiwari, says he’s found a solution. It’s a totally new way of collecting income on a new tech investment… and 99% of people have never heard of it. He calls them… “Tech Royalties.” And right now, “Tech Royalties” can hand you as much as 8%... 12%… and even 17% or more of income yield. That’s 296X more than a regular bank account. And 13X more than the average dividend on the S&P 500. And here’s the best part… Certain “Tech Royalties” can also hand you capital gains as high as 3,639%... 4,646%... and even 15,911%. It sounds impossible, but it’s true. Find out why “Tech Royalties” may be the best asset for the 2020s. Get Instant Access Click to read these free reports and automatically sign up for daily research. 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Stuart A. Umpleby, Professor Emeritus of Management, George Washington University, Washington, DC; Home: P.O. Box 373, Nellysford, VA 22958, 571-305-0085, http://blogs.gwu.edu/umpleby  

[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Stu,

Since cybernetics has been a theory of control and communication from its very beginnings, it is certainly the case that this has been an idea slow to catch on!

Maybe we are looking at this askew. The idea has caught on long ago, but the public discussions have almost always been linked with technology. They still are so linked, but the technology of

communication, media and the internet is so directly influential to all of us, that no one can ignore cybernetic implications any more.

Here is a slightly abstracted discussion (I will keep it brief) that I believe is related. It is often said that the philosophical content of Goedel’s Theorem is that he showed that Truth and Provability were not

identical. This has to be seen in context. In the past it was assumed that axioms for mathematics expressed a priori truths about the world (consider Kant). Then mathematicians discovered that the axioms of geometry could not be held as truths about the world but rather as assumptions that could be changed. With that and with positivistic attitudes it became a belief that only relative truths could be had, and that these were the same as logical deductions from some assumptions. Goedel blew this to pieces. How did he do it? He had to produce a truth that would emerge outside of a given deductive system.

He accomplished this by examining the relationship between the deductive system and the persons who reasoned with it. The Goedelian “truth that is not a deduction in the system” is a truth about the relationship of the system and its users. It is logical/sociological. It is syntatic/semantic. This fact about the distinction between truth and deduction is what we are now beginning to see all around us.

Truths and “realities” arise in the relationship of our communications and our social structures with themselves. There is no absolute basis for truth and the relative worlds of what is so are dependent on

our participations that create them.

Best,

Lou

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[Stuart Umpleby]

Dear Lou,  I always appreciate your perspective.  You live in a second world, mathematics.  Thanks for connecting us to it from time to time.  

Stuart

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[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Stu,

I would put what I said in the following general framework.

It goes beyond just a mathematical comment. I intend it as a philosophical and cybernetic comment.

It used to be said that there were absolute truths. This may still be so, but it has become harder to understand just where one might stand to know them.

It then became a commonplace to assert that only relative truth was valid.

Some matters of relative truth are matters of law and convention.

And much of social structure is founded on the use of the courts and the system of laws and legalities to determine relative truth.

For example, the strongest arguments in support of the thesis that Biden was elected president are in the form of judicial decisions that indicate the absence of any evidence to the contrary.

In the course of creating social structures, other forms of truth/actuality arise in the relationships among persons and the social structures where there is evidence of this legal kind.

We can forget this, but it is in fact part of the legal structure as well. For example, abortion rulings at this time depend on the precedence set by Roe and Wade. Such precedence occurs 

in the interaction of specific laws, litigations and interpretations. It is not deductive in relation to some original set of laws. All of this points to the very important and intricate arising of truth/actuality

in the social and meaningful interactions in social systems. The notion in some aspects of science that we can establish fundamental laws and then act only deductively with respect to them to obtain 

the truth is not valid in the human and cybernetic domains. This is not a new insight. For example, in Judaism one has fundamental commandments of a moral nature and one has the Talmud, a 

long and complex commentary on commentaries that constitutes the substance of moral and religious judgment for persons in this culture. What is cybernetic is the natural human inclination to 

work with commentary on commentary to obtain understanding and judgement.

Best,

Lou

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[Jason the Goodman]

Dear Lou, then who would you or Goedel address "the opposite" of "truth" and "reality", i.e., lies and/or illusions? 

From here, what can we see about "stories" and "conspiracy theories" from a cybernetic or Goedelian point of view? 

Best - Jason

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[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Jason,

I am not interested here in dealing with paradox or lies.

I am staying in a channel with a conversation with Stu, who has requested (implicitly) that I discuss outside of mathematical formalisms, eigenforms and other such structures.

Thus I am pointing directly to the fact that we have a fragile and I believe very necessary web of relationships that allows us in society via

law and the creation of law, its enforcement, legal decisions, commentary on these, public discussion and the creation of commentary on commentary.

This is how we can create order and maintain order. It is very fragile, and we need to be very careful about how we think about this.  I have mentioned Judaism because it is an exemplar of this

kind of thinking and it is also an exemplar of how tough and how fragile are human populations who can engage in this endeavor.

Very best,

Lou

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[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Jason,

Alternate realities generated by stories have always been with us.

By scientific behaviour  I mean not in the sense that one assumes that there is one reality “out there” but that one takes as modus operandi

to continually be skeptical about sources of information and to continually check and recheck the situation. This, at the social level, is identical with a committment to always have the recursion

of conversation about conversation and intent to understand ones understanding at all times. There is no guarantee that this process will converge. I happen to believe that there are laws about these processes and that those who try to manipulate participatory realities for their own ends, will eventually meet with forms of personal disaster. It is not eventually convergent at the personal level to be 

the master of a manipulated reality. On the other hand, we see entrenched groups in animosity for a thousand years. The human condition is very difficult.

Best,

Lou

On Oct 21, 2021, at 6:28 PM, Jason the Goodman <jasonth...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Jon Awbrey]

Looking back through history I have often wondered at the power of a sick and destructive excuse for a leader, like Hitler or Trump, to lead so many to abandon their humanity and plunge headlong, even gleefully into perdition, dragging their whole society down with them.  I can only guess at the source of that power.  Does the sickness itself attune the demagogue to the sickness in the hearts of others, which can be exploited to gain power over them?  Maybe it’s that.

Regards,

Jon

http://inquiryintoinquiry.com

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[Jason the Goodman]

Dear Lou,

My wonder has been that constructivism, all its merit acknowledged and appreciated, has led to confusion of the solidness of "truth" and "reality."  Trump-haters vs. Trump-lovers (each side considers the other side silly asses) is an emotionally charged extreme case. Let me show you a more amusing one:

Yesterday the biggest news in China was something happened with a famous pianist Y.D. Li, who was then arrested. But in Chinese language (and tradition and philosophy) this same thing has different narratives/names:

If it is done by an emperor, it is named "swimming dragon play with phoenix";

if it is done by a high-rank official, it is named "stealing fragrant and stealing jade";

if it is done by a Confucian scholar, (such as you or Stu), it is named "picking up flowers and disturbing grasses";

if it is done by normal people, it is name "stealing chicken and grabbing dogs";

Guessed what it is? Yes, translated into Western scientific language, the pianist slept with a prostitute - a mutually agreed deal between two adults. It's that simple.  

Interestingly, Chinese netizens have been chanting praise on him, saying he is morally much better than many corrupted officials. Fair trade of sex is fair.

But it is both a true news (that the two slept indeed) and a false news (it is a no-news (because many people do that) but made into a news to attract people's attention, from a more serious case happened a few days ago - a guy committed homicide because he and his family were oppressed into homeless and tried for 5 years seeking justice with no result.  He had a notebook full of phone numbers of various government agencies which were supposed to exist to help such a situation. He was then in hide and run for a few days, and the government "man-hunt notice" said that finding him alive has a reward of 20k RMB and finding his dead body has a reward of 50k RMB. Needless to say, he was found dead.  The villagers gave him a huge funeral, some video clips were leaked on social media. 

So you see, there are many layers or versions of "reality" here, perhaps far from what Stuart calls your "mathematical world". My previous question to you was simply trying to make some connections between these so different worlds. 

Very best - Jason

 

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[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear Lou, 

"The ship has to be repaired, while a storm is raging on the open sea." In other words, not in terms of anchoring or in the harbor.  The mechanism at the interpersonal level is  codification.  Codification is  a selective process, whereas conversation is needed for generating the variation.  

Both the personal and interpersonal levels are needed for the  generation of truth; the update mechanisms are different in both  cycles, but the one is needing the other. The evolving unit is the complexity of the communication which develops both in terms of variation and in terms of interacting codes. New interactions  among codes may lead to discipline formation. What is true  from one perspective does not have to be true from another perspective. Kuhn  (1962) elaborates the issue of the definition of "atomic weight:

"An investigator who hoped to learn something about what scientists took the atomic theory to be asked a distinguished physicist and an eminent chemist whether a single atom of helium was or was not a molecule. Both answered without hesitation, but their answers were not the same. For the chemist the atom of helium was a molecule because it behaved like one with respect to the kinetic theory of gases. For the physicist, on the other hand, the helium atom was not a molecule because it displayed no molecular spectrum."

The  couplings in such processes of codification between personal and interpersonal  are discipline-specific, in my opinion.  Thus, the program is empirical. 

Let me note that with reference to  communications other than scholarly ones,, "truth" may be defined very differently; such as , in court. 

Best, Loet

Loet Leydesdorff

________________________________

Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam 
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)

lo...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/

"The Evolutionary Dynamics of Discursive Knowledge" at

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-030-59951-5 (Open Access)

https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030599508 (Hardcopy)

http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7835-3098;    

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[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Jason,

Thank you for this story.

I will tell you a story. The physicist David Finkelstein wrote “Mathematics is a form of literary endeavor with a very particular kind of criticism.”. Finkelstein was, as a theoretical physicist, a very acute

observer of mathematics. I agree with him. 

One more story. Huston Smith, the philosopher of world religions at MIT, was in conversation with a scientist about the difference between quantitative methods and the humanities. 

Suddenly he exclaimed:  

“Aha! Now I see it! You count and we don’t.”

…………….

I also have to tell you that all the apparently mathematical things that I write in the name of cybernetics are certainly a literary endeavor, and of course they do not count.

To imagine that there are no objects, no things, no world, just a population of eigenforms in autopoesis. 

This obviously a story. It is a story about stories to show how the little Escher dragon might imagine that he is off the page, when he was never on the page.

So I have to tell you that these are not such different worlds. 

We make up stories with multiple interpretations in all the worlds that we know. 

And those stories are alive in the actions of the living.

And maybe in the course of the stories, and the cruelty, something shocking enough occurs to wake us up.

https://youtu.be/O1DgWYdukZU

Best,

Lou

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[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Loet,

Indeed the ship has to be repaired while the storm rages on the open sea.

And without reliable codification there can be no repair, no development.

Codification comes before truth and before lies. It is our conceit that by having come to the position of being able to comment on the code and so produce ever more code, that

we are something special. The possibility of code operating on code was there from the beginning. Our problem is that we think we invented it and that we can do whatever we want

with this wonderful invention. The law remains that same, what can produce itself through itself in an environment can be alive in that environment. What cannot, will not be for long.

Best,

Lou

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[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear Lou: 

I agree with  almost everything that you say here.  But I don't follow when you state as follows: 

The law remains that same, what can produce itself through itself in an environment can be alive in that environment. What cannot, will not be for long.

It seems to me that "alive" is here a metaphor.  The code in the communication is not alive.  Biology is  the special case; it carries the genesis.. 

Furthermore, it seems to me  that  this position is very close to the tradition: "In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God." Instead of the Word, we consider the code(s) to do the job.  Max Weber noted that the plural  "codes"  bring the Greek gods back on stage in a polytheism. For Weber, these were the (fully incompatible) values. However, the values are not given, but constructed as codes in the communication.

Best, Loet

[Benjamin P. Taylor]

Lou - I watched the video you linked to, and one quote took me by surprise 'one thing#s for sure, there were no excess deaths in the Amish community' despite no actions against Coronavirus. This is a surprising statement. So I took thirty seconds to google, and, though I'm afraid it's presented in numbers, I think this counts: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10943-021-01307-5#Tab1

(coverage https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2021/06/22/death-and-religion-excess-deaths-sweep-through-amish-and-mennonite-communities-during-covid-19-pandemic)

I guess I prefer the Goethe version (via Wittgenstein and James): im anfang war die tat (in the beginning was the act).

cheers

Benjamin

Benjamin P. Taylor
www.bentaylor.com

In a personal capacity

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[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Loet,

I will reply in-text.

Best,

Lou

On Oct 26, 2021, at 2:06 AM, Loet Leydesdorff <lo...@LEYDESDORFF.NET> wrote:

Dear Lou: 

I agree with  almost everything that you say here.  But I don't follow when you state as follows: 

The law remains that same, what can produce itself through itself in an environment can be alive in that environment. What cannot, will not be for long.

Certainly. Alive is a metaphor. But, in the view of some observer, a structure is seen to persist as the system continues to create and re-create that pattern of structure through excange with the environment. 

This is the autopoesis of that system in the eyes of the given observer. I used “alive” as a shorthand for that condition of continuing structure.

It seems to me that "alive" is here a metaphor.  The code in the communication is not alive.  Biology is  the special case; it carries the genesis.. 

Furthermore, it seems to me  that  this position is very close to the tradition: "In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God." Instead of the Word, we consider the code(s) to do the job.  Max Weber noted that the plural  "codes"  bring the Greek gods back on stage in a polytheism. For Weber, these were the (fully incompatible) values. However, the values are not given, but constructed as codes in the communication.

If we say that the code is first, then we need to see how that happens. We can make models where a certain code is first. For example, we can base everything on some rules for a chemical substrate. Then from that substrate certain self-sustaining structures may arise and then we see them as maintaining structure through observed rules and codes that go beyond the rules and codes of the chemical substrate. These observed rules and codes are emergent from the chemical substrate and it may be very complex and interesting to explain how they did or do emerge. (e.g. DNA from “real” chemistry, or the Glider in Conway Life

from the substrate defined by Conway Rules). For this reason, I do not regard specific codes and rules as “the beginning”. I think that anytime we posit a beginning

it is not going to last as a fundamental, but may be of use in the exploration.

Best, Loet

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[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear Lou and colleagues:

The beauty of this exchange, in my opinion, is the implicated, but secular theology (cf. Max Weber's Religionssoziologie or, in English , the discussion of a sociology of value change. The theology is polytheistic.

A persistent structure would operate as a Greek God, wouldn't it?

If we say that the code is first, then we need to see how that happens. We can make models where a certain code is first. For example, we can base everything on some rules for a chemical substrate. Then from that substrate certain self-sustaining structures may arise and then we see them as maintaining structure through observed rules and codes that go beyond the rules and codes of the chemical substrate. 

You state: 

These rules and codes are emergent from the chemical substrate and it may be very complex and interesting to explain how they did or do emerge. (e.g. DNA from “real” chemistry, or the Glider in Conway Life

from the substrate defined by Conway Rules). 

In my opinion, the codes are only observable insofar as they are instantiated or, in other words, made historical. They otherwise develop beyond history with an evolutionary dynamic. that leaves a trace behind in history.  The historical subdynamic ("genese") can, for example, trajectories by processes of mutual shaping. With one more degree of freedom., one expects regimes--that is, orders of expectations.  See: bout  the difference between historical and evolutionary dynamics, for example:

Loet Leydesdorff  & Helen Lawton Smith, Triple, Quadruple, and Higher-Order Helices: Historical Phenomena and (Neo-)Evolutionary Models. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3817410 ; Triple Helix Journal (in press).

For this reason, I do not regard specific codes and rules as “the beginning”. I think that anytime we posit a beginning

it is not going to last as a fundamental, but may be of use in the exploration.

Yes. Loet

Best, Loet

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[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Loet,

Thank you for the reference to your excellent paper. More comment in that direction next email.

I want to remark on your

 "In my opinion, the codes are only observable insofar as they are instantiated or, in other words, made historical. They otherwise develop beyond history with an evolutionary dynamic. that leaves a trace behind in history.  The historical subdynamic ("genese") can, for example, trajectories by processes of mutual shaping. With one more degree of freedom., one expects regimes--that is, orders of expectations. “.

It would be useful to understand just how we are using the term “codes”. I have used it in the sense of “DNA code” with the understanding that this code can be viewed in a

multiplicity of ways. It can be seen as pattern that WE read and decipher via experiments in molecular biology. At that level we read into that DNA code many concepts that 

are only available (apparently) to us and not to the actions that go on in the cell. On the other hand, our reading shows that the code behaves according to certain patterns

autonomously in the cell and that it is through these patterns that the operations in the cell happen. This sort of duality with respect to code is part and parcel of our use of the term

when we speak of DNA code and when we speak of computer code. In computer code I use a conceptual framework to design the code and that code corresponds to specific

actions of a machine (system) that does its work independent of me and independent of the concepts (it does not need to have those concepts) by which I designed the code.

In the case of DNA I did not design the code, but my investigation of its properties (if I were a molecular biologist) is at a conceptual and design level similar to that of the computer code.

I have not been using code in the sense of cryptography, but one can go in this direction. I shall not go there now.

In studying a mathematical system, we sometimes find that it is governed by something like a “genetic code”. An example that many are familiar with is the fact that every natural number has a unique factorization into a product of prime numbers. Thus the prime numbers can be viewed as a code that underlies the structure of the natural numbers. Since in a certain sense numbers are our linguistic invention, we have found the code from our construction of number (or you may regard number as a priori in a Kantian sense, and then the matter of the primes as a code is something like the discovery of DNA). Considering mathematical structures like this, it is very interesting to try to see how the historicity of our working with them is related to their apparent intrinsic structure. Since these structures seem to have important time independent properties, the question of historicity in the evolution or discovery of codes is very interesting. One may imagine that the unlocking of presently unsolvable problems in number theory would be related to the discovery of new codes. This is surely the case, and those of us 

who attempt to unlock mathematical problems are constantly on the lookout for new ways to construct or reconstruct the apparent objects of our study.

All of the above applies full well to situations not pure mathematical nor purely scientific. Social situations have their codes and these codes are related to the maintenance and existence of social structures. Some are so involved in complex recursions of contract and distinction that one may despair of finding a simple analysis. What must be understood in this realm is that the very theories that are created by us in the social domain are themselves part of the domain that these theories purport to study. There is no separation of conceptual distance and molecular action in the social domain. Since theories are themselves their own objects, the fundamental coding is quite different from any standard objective science. We need to begin to learn how to 

handle our own recursion, to come to terms with our human worlds.

Best,

Lou

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[Loet Leydesdorff]

------ Original Message ------

From: "Louis Kauffman" <lou...@gmail.com>

To: cyb...@googlegroups.com

Sent: 10/29/2021 7:18:40 AM

Subject: Re: [CYBCOM] The Real Reason Facebook Is Changing Its Name

Social situations have their codes and these codes are related to the maintenance and existence of social structures. Some are so involved in complex recursions of contract and distinction that one may despair of finding a simple analysis. What must be understood in this realm is that the very theories that are created by us in the social domain are themselves part of the domain that these theories purport to study. There is no separation of conceptual distance and molecular action in the social domain. 

[...]

there is necessarily a dual hermeneutics, isn't it?  This has been reflected in the philosophy of the social sciences at different places; for example, in terms of epic/emic, observer/participant-observer, etc. 

Since theories are themselves their own objects, the fundamental coding is quite different from any standard objective science. We need to begin to learn how to 

handle our own recursion, to come to terms with our human worlds.

Yes; I agree.  The fundamental difference is, in my opinion, whether the  codes are "out there" as "things" to be studied

(as in the empirical sciences) or properties/attributes of mindful constructions, refinements of expectations, intentions,etc. 

In other contexts, I have argued that these dynamics are not only recursive, but also incursive and hyper-incursive. Consequently, they may operate against the arrow of time and thus generate redundancies. The calculus of redundancy is different from that of information.  This  may have deep consequences for the measurement, the statistics,  and design. 

Best,

Lou

Best, Loet