{"id":821,"date":"2012-06-09T04:11:32","date_gmt":"2012-06-09T04:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/?page_id=821"},"modified":"2012-06-09T04:12:18","modified_gmt":"2012-06-09T04:12:18","slug":"the-difference-that-makes-a-difference-that-deacon-makes-double-description-on-deacon-and-batesons-contributions-to-understanding-mind-and-nature-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/?page_id=821","title":{"rendered":"The Difference that Makes a Difference that Deacon Makes: Double Description on Deacon and Bateson\u2019s Contributions to Understanding Mind and Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Participant: <a href=\"http:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/?page_id=116#sherman\">Jeremy Sherman<\/a><br \/>\nAffiliation: University of San Francisco<br \/>\nFormat: Plenary Speech<\/p>\n<p>Bateson took pains to distinguish energy from information, which he defined as a \u201cdifference that makes a difference.\u201d Odum countered that energy also fits that definition since all energetic behavior involves a difference in system X\u2019s state causing a difference in system Y\u2019s state. Are information and energy the same? Dominant approaches today suggest that they are.<\/p>\n<p>Bateson\u2019s &#8220;makes a difference&#8221; was a double entendre combining both the meaning applicable to energy and the colloquial meaning:  conferring practical or adaptive advantage.  Fleshing out Bateson\u2019s second meaning, Deacon notes that unlike energy, information is always functional for a self about or representative with respect to something absent.  Simplifying, if energetic work is reducible to a synchronic \u201cchange in system X makes change in system Y,\u201d information is always a diachronically evolvable multiply realizable and ambiguous \u201cX for Y is about Z.\u201d  For example the text, \u201cMakes a difference\u201d for us evolving English-speaking selves, is ambiguously about the double entendre\u2019s two ideas. Sherman provides an intuitive overview to Deacon&#8217;s approach to information, both how it is different from energy and how information relationships could spontaneously emerge from physics and chemistry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Participant: Jeremy Sherman Affiliation: University of San Francisco Format: Plenary Speech Bateson took pains to distinguish energy from information, which he defined as a \u201cdifference that makes a difference.\u201d Odum countered that energy also fits that definition since all energetic &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/?page_id=821\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":26,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-821","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":824,"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/821\/revisions\/824"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asc-cybernetics.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}