Table Of ContentInformation and the World Stage
Engineering, Energy and Architecture Set
coordinated by
Lazaros E. Mavromatidis
Volume 1
Information and
the World Stage
From Philosophy to Science, the
World of Forms and Communications
Bernard Dugué
First published 2017 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as
permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced,
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ISTE Ltd John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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© ISTE Ltd 2017
The rights of Bernard Dugué to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017942276
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-138-3
Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Chapter 1. A Presentation of the Paradigm
of Information in the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1. After technology, the philosophy
of information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1. Information, issues and paradigms of
the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.2. Philosophizing means being concerned . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1.3. Technology affects us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.4. Information affects us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1.5. Where can we situate a philosophy
of information? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.1.6. The two philosophies, technology
and information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.1.7. What is information? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.1.8. Universal thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.2. CRISPR-Cas9: from mechanism to
information in biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.2.1. Brief review of a significant
scientific discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.2.2. From Monod’s biology to
information biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
vi Information and the World Stage
1.3. Toward a theory of the information act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.3.1. Image act, the power of images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.3.2. Thoughts about Horst Bredekamp’s
study, the theory of the image act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.3.3. Language and image resonances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Chapter 2. Communication Influences the
“Mechanisms” of the Living World and Society . . . . . . . . . 31
2.1. Philosophical approach to cancer through
information and immunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.1.1. A note on a potential dead end in
the research on cancer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.1.2. An alternative hypothesis:
Darwinian carcinogenesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.1.3. Leaving the current paradigm behind . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.2. Fanaticism and fantasies, a “pathology”
of information and its interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.3. Scientific communication and modernism
in contemporary societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.3.1. Distinguishing between technological and
mediated activity through social norms and subjects . . . . . . . . 40
2.3.2. Destructuring the subject and
semantic mediations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.3.3. Scientific contamination of ideology
and depoliticization of society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Chapter 3. Form, Information and Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.1. Form and content, an old story that still
affects our existences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2. Ontology of form and content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.3. Brief remarks about a type of philosophical
and scientific research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.3.1. Structure and order of Content: logic
and/or structure of form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.4. Ontology of form and Content, ending
the issue of machines before machines end us . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.5. The ontological difference and the path toward Being . . . . . . 55
3.6. The three colors of Being and modernist perdition . . . . . . . . 59
3.7. Brief notes on the oblivion of Content
as ontological difference revealed by decline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Contents vii
Chapter 4. Mass, Charge, Gravity and
Rays: Distinguishing Between the Two
Kinds of Universal Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.1. Masses, arrangement and mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.2. Electric charge, spin and dynamics of information . . . . . . . . 71
4.3. Light-like and time-like geodesics in
relativistic cosmology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.4. Overview of the dynamics of arrangement
and information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.5. Einstein and the question of the field in physics . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.6. The cosmological alternative in the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . 82
4.6.1. Provisional conclusion: what kind of
physics for the 21st Century? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Chapter 5. From Objects to Fields, Reinterpreted
Contemporary Physics and the Path
Toward Quantum Gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.1. Fields, arrangements, communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.1.1. Cosmology of communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.1.2. Cosmology of arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.2. Einstein’s treatment of the hole argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.3. Quantum gravity, the greatest scientific
challenge of the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.3.1. From gravitation to entanglement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.3.2. Quantum gravity elaborated as
physics of information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.3.3. A digression about the Microscope mission
and the notion of gravity-quantum geodesic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.3.4. Quantum gravity, a way of conceiving
matter, and the Logos of the universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.4. Do gauges reveal the secrets of the universe? . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.5. The universe as stage and theater
of animated objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.5.1. Overview, the actors and the stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.6. Rethinking matter: a summary first glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.7. A second summary view of a universal
type of physics: mass, charge, spin, photon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
viii Information and the World Stage
Chapter 6. Physics in the 21st Century in
Relation to Information and Arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.1. Action and information, digressions
about philosophy and contemporary physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.2. Seeing, perceiving, receiving: Leibniz and Newton . . . . . . . 125
6.3. Postmodern philosophy of nature and
the meaning of existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
6.4. A universal outline, from quanta to
the cosmos, information and arrangement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.4.1. The origin of the two kinds of physics . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.4.2. The two cornerstones of physics in
relation to communication and arrangement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.5. Time and stage: from quanta to the universe . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.5.1. Aristotle, Newton and Einstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.5.2. Relativity, of course, but so many mysteries! . . . . . . . . 137
6.5.3. Time and stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.6. Information, memory and order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.6.1. Dialectical relationships between
information and arrangement in the
universe and the living world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.6.2. Two kinds of memory, action and perception . . . . . . . . 142
6.6.3. Arrangement, perception and
information in nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
6.7. Some connections between science
and the metaphysics of philosophers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
6.8. A new paradigm, information in communication,
arrangement and transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
6.8.1. To enter the age of information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
6.9. Overview: from quanta to the gravity-quantum
apparatus and the universal stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Postface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Foreword
The institutional introduction of the concept of “climate change”
has underlined the complex relationship between architecture, energy
and engineering. On the pretext of remarkable energetic performances,
the externalization of scientific calculations through architecture has
transformed buildings into mass culture objects delivered to the
market, while consumption is leading them to lose their relationship
with the environment and, consequently, their human calling, namely
the transformation of a finite volume into space. Nonetheless,
architecture must represent more than an envelope. Thus, within the
frame of this new global context, we should inventory the means and
pieces of knowledge that will help us reinvent its esthetic and social
functions, as architecture is above all a simultaneously scientific and
human discipline that synchronously constitutes a plastic visual
language and a conveyor of scientific information.
In the “Engineering, Energy and Architecture” set, we present
works that attempt to reverse the approach established when numerous
concepts and methodologies referring to the explicit relationship
between architecture, energy and engineering are regarded as
“undeniable” due to disciplinary compartmentalization. On the
other hand, by trying to develop, through this collection, a range of
x Information and the World Stage
research directions in several fields, we attempt to encourage readers to
discover on their own whether the sterile contemporary relationship
between “sustainable” architecture and engineering is nothing more
than a consequence of theories or beliefs that we naturally regard as
true.
The present project, which involves a collection of works about a
subject as broad as the complex relationship between architecture,
energy and engineering, does not aim to present in an exhaustive
manner the established approaches concerning the complexity of the
society-space-building-neighborhood-city-environment system. This
series of works intends to be particularly original and transdisciplinary,
as a set of fields (architecture, philosophy, biotechnology, climatology,
engineering, sociology, anthropology, geography, esthetics) are
concretely mobilized in order to outline an implicitly cross-disciplinary
framework. The inclusion of informed (even inventive) notions into the
teaching of architecture through an interdisciplinary approach is the first
factor that can enhance the creativity of architects and the inventiveness
of engineers in the global context of “climate change”.
Bernard Dugué’s essay, Information and the World Stage: From
Philosophy to Science, the World of Forms and Communications,
which you are holding in your hands, opens this collection. Dr
Bernard Dugué is a scientist, philosopher, engineer and researcher-
writer who supports scientific excellence and whose pluri-disciplinary
profile is very rare. Interested in philosophy, biotechnology and
engineering sciences, as well as issues of a sociological, technological
and ethical order, he carries out research in several scientific fields:
physics, theoretical biology, ontology, neurosciences, systems theory,
epistemology, philosophy and sociology. This book, which is the
result of his long interdisciplinary research, is based on the principle
that “postmodernity, which has just imposed itself, has led to
the emergence of a new scientific way of conceiving things”. The
common thread of his philosophical writings is developed on the
notion of information. Therefore, he develops a new and original
Foreword xi
concept: by emphasizing communication and natural “information”,
from quanta to the cosmos, he explicitly distinguishes between two
types of physics, one concerned with the arrangements of “Matter”
and the other focused on the kinds of communication of this “Matter”
itself, which can, according to him, lead to the creation of natural
forms. His goal is to “reconcile current physics with its dazzling
successes as well as its stalemates”.
As Bernard Dugué claims in his postface, “after technology,
information has become an issue in our century […] as time +
information + communication = emergence or morphogenesis”. From
this perspective, the concepts explicitly presented in this work may
fuel the radical imagination of architects, according to Castoriadis’
definition, with the aim of preserving their creativity during the phase
in which forms are conceived. In the end, I think that this approach
and this new concept may in turn similarly lead us to reinterpret
architecture, which is now more than ever a field linked to the
dazzling successes of engineering sciences as well as to its stalemates.
Don’t you agree?
Dr Lazaros E. MAVROMATIDIS
Associate Professor
INSA Strasbourg
ICube Laboratory
Strasbourg
