For living beings, information is as fundamental as matter or energy. In this paper we show: a) inadequacies of quantitative theories of information, b) how a qualitative analysis leads to a classification of information systems and to a modelling of intercellular communication.From a quantitative point of view, the application in biology of information theories borrowed from communication techniques proved to be disappointing. These theories ignore deliberately the significance of messages, and do not give any definition of information. They refer to (...) quantities, based upon arbitrarily defined probabilistic events. Probability is subjective. The receiver of the message needs to have meta-knowledge of the events. The quantity of information depends on language, coding, and arbitrary definition of disorder. The suggested objectivity is fallacious. (shrink)

A new approach to information is proposed with the intention of providing a conceptual tool adapted to biology, including a semantic value.Information involves a material support as well as a significance, adapted to the cognitive domain of the receiver and/or the transmitter. A message does not carry any information, only data. The receiver makes an identification by a procedure of recognition of the forms, which activate previously learned significance. This treatment leads to a new significance (or new knowledge).

Il s’avère nécessaire d’élaborer une théologie fondamentale de la sacramentalité qui implique une réévaluation de notre rapport à la théologie sacramentaire scolastique et invite à la fois à en mesurer les limites et à s’alimenter de ce qu’elle a de meilleur . Parmi les points qui requièrent une vigilance particulière, l’auteur aborde les sacrements en tant qu’actions de l’Église , le lien intime entre Parole et Sacrement . Il évoque également l’anamnèse eucharistique , l’épiclèse sacramentelle et la dimension eschatologique des (...) sacrements.It would appear necessary to set out a fundamental theology of sacramentality that entails re-evaluating our relationship to scholastic sacramentary theology and incites us both to measure its limits and to take nourishment in the best it has to offer . Among the points that require particular attention, the author examines the sacraments as actions of the Church , the intimate relationship between Word and Sacrament . He also takes up the question of Eucharistic anamnesis , sacramental epiclesis and the eschatological dimension of the sacraments. (shrink)

Le sacramentalisme qu’on s’accorde, depuis longtemps déjà, à reconnaître comme excessif à la fin du Moyen Âge devait conduire Luther puis les autres Réformateurs à dénoncer la « captivité babylonienne » de l’Eglise, notamment sous l’espèce d’une sorte d’emprisonnement de la « Parole de Dieu » dans l’institution sacramentelle, emprisonnement qui fut analogiquement dénoncé, à l’époque moderne, dans l’institution magistérielle de l’Eglise. Cette opposition entre Parole et Sacrement a en outre connu au XXe siècle une sorte de redoublement avec la (...) dichotomie entre la « foi » et la « religion », dichotomie qui a d’ailleurs traversé aussi bien le camp « catholique » que le camp « protestant », la foi étant mise du côté de la Parole, censée être nécessairement plus « pure » que les sacrements, lesquels relèveraient plutôt de la « religion » avec toutes les ambiguïtés que prend alors le terme devenu proche de la « magie ». La donne ayant aujourd’hui considérablement changé, il semble clair que l’on peut, dans la fidélité à la régulation dogmatique de la foi catholique, penser théologiquement les sacrements dans le sillage direct de la Parole.For a long time an agreement to recognize sacramentalism as excessive at the end of the Middle Ages would lead Luther and the other Reformers to denounce the “Babylonian captivity” of the Church, notably as a kind of imprisonment of the “Word of God” in the sacramental institution, imprisonment that was denounced analogically, in modern times, in the magisterial institution of the Church. This opposition between Word and Sacrament has moreover resurfaced in the 20th century, as a dichotomy between “faith” and “religion.” This dichotomy passed through both the “Catholic” and the “Protestant” camps. Faith was allied with the Word, because it was deemed to be necessarily “purer” than the sacraments, which were more a product of “religion” with all its ambiguities, which then takes on a connotation close to “magic.” Perspectives have considerably changed today, so it seems clear that it is possible to remain faithful to the dogmas of the Catholic faith and theologically view the sacraments as flowing directly from the Word. (shrink)

To test if dreams contain remote or never-experienced motor skills, we collected during 6 weeks dream reports from 15 paraplegics and 15 healthy subjects. In 9/10 subjects with spinal cord injury and in 5/5 with congenital paraplegia, voluntary leg movements were reported during dream, including feelings of walking , running , dancing , standing up , bicycling , and practicing sports . Paraplegia patients experienced walking dreams just as often as controls . There was no correlation between the frequency of (...) walking dreams and the duration of paraplegia. In contrast, patients were rarely paraplegic in dreams. Subjects who had never walked or stopped walking 4–64 years prior to this study still experience walking in their dreams, suggesting that a cerebral walking program, either genetic or more probably developed via mirror neurons is reactivated during sleep. (shrink)

We give a general method for producing various effective Null and Positivstellensätze, and getting new Positivstellensätze in algebraically closed valued fields and ordered groups. These various effective Nullstellensätze produce algebraic identities certifying that some geometric conditions cannot be simultaneously satisfied. We produce also constructive versions of abstract classical results of algebra based on Zorn's lemma in several cases where such constructive version did not exist. For example, the fact that a real field can be totally ordered, or the fact that (...) a field can be embedded in an algebraically closed field. Our results are based on the concepts we develop of dynamical proofs and simultaneous collapse. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the composition of an optimal portfolio made of two dependent risky assets. The investor is first assumed to be a risk-averse expected utility maximizer, and we recover the existing conditions under which all these investors hold at least some percentage of their portfolio in one of the assets. Then, we assume that the decision maker is not only risk-averse, but also prudent and we obtain new minimum demand conditions as well as intuitively appealing interpretations for (...) them. Finally, we consider the general case of investor’s preferences exhibiting risk apportionment of any order and we derive the corresponding minimum demand conditions. As a byproduct, we obtain conditions such that an investor holds either a positive quantity of one of the assets or a proportion greater than 50 %. (shrink)

To test whether mental activities collected from non-REM sleep are influenced by REM sleep, we suppressed REM sleep using clomipramine 50 mg or placebo in the evening, in a double blind cross-over design, in 11 healthy young men. Subjects were awakened every hour and asked about their mental activity. The marked REM-sleep suppression induced by clomipramine did not substantially affect any aspects of dream recall . Since long, complex and bizarre dreams persist even after suppressing REM sleep either partially or (...) totally, it suggests that the generation of mental activity during sleep is independent of sleep stage. (shrink)

Marie Curie, une intellectuelle engagée ? Comment Marie Curie qui est connue pour avoir été une personnalité publique marquante de son temps avant de passer au rang de mythe, considéra-t-elle les questions de la responsabilité sociale des intellectuels ? D’un côté, elle renonce - après examen - à toutes les formes d’engagement collectif et partisan y compris pour des causes qui lui sont chères - le progrès social, la paix, les droits des femmes, l’abolition de la peine de (...) mort -, de l’autre elle se révèle une militante déterminée en faveur des recherches scientifiques et de la coopération intellectuelle internationale. Alors qu’elle refuse de descendre dans l’arène, de s’exprimer dans la presse, ses « positions » politiques ou éthiques sont suffisamment connues pour qu’on finisse par l’identifier, au moins en partie, avec ces combats pour lesquels elle ne se mobilise pas, au point que sa vie elle-même devient l’enjeu de batailles qui la dépassent. Il s’agit bien, en fait, d’une vie politique, largement construite et maîtrisée par son actrice, recomposant et modelant pour longtemps la figure du savant contemporain aussi bien que celle de la femme moderne. Faut-il alors encore parler de mythe ? (shrink)

The present paper offers a sympathetic yet critical examination of Michel Foucault's discussion of the contradictions inherent in the self-consciousness of the modern or post-Kantian mind. Foucault's account of the “empirico-transcendental doublet” of modern thought is shown to provide a useful mapping of humanist, anti-humanist, and postmodern responses to the reflexivity of the modern “ episteme”. Foucault is criticized for his insufficiently critical treatment of structuralism . Foucault is also defended against the charge that he undermines his own position (...) through a form of performative self-contradiction. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)