[Fis] about the idea of “hierarchies of structures”

Sun Feb 3 15:13:47 CET 2019

Dear FIS Colleagues,

In this my post (second for this week), I want to comment the idea of “hierarchies of structures” from my previous post.

The idea is simple: the real world consists of hierarchies of structures which are built by other structures from low levels. 

This model shows that, practically, all entities of the real world are hierarchically organized. 

Very important is that there not exists a total comprehensive structure - just the opposite - the real world consists of very great variety of structures.

What is common for all structures? 

To answer, one need to look in the bases of the structures - all are organizations of very small elements. 

Greeks call them “atoms”, now we know that there exist “smaller” elements - electrons, particles, photons, waves, and other “minute portions of matter” (“tiny particles of dust”).

Further, I remembered the Ross Ashby idea of emerging of the new features at the given level of the system, which not exist in the elements of low levels. 

Just, such features are live, intelligence, and  consciousness, which emerge as new properties of the structures (systems).

Ancient wise people had noticed this!
For instance, please remember Genesis 2:7: “Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

There is no clear boundary between live structures and not live ones. In every moment first may be destroyed to the second as well as the former may be organized to the first one.
For instance, please remember Genesis 3:19: “for dust you are and to dust you will return”.

In General Information Theory (GIT), we consider the real world as a space of entities. 

The entities are built by other entities, connected with relationships. 

The entities and relationships between them form the internal structure of the entity they build. 

To create the entity of a certain structural level of the world, it is necessary to have:

− Entities of the lower structural level;

− Established forming relationship.

The entity can dialectically be considered as a relationship between its entities of all internal structural levels.

The forming relationship has a representative significance for the entity. 

The destruction of this essential relationship causes its disintegration. 

The establishment of forming relationship between already existing entities has a determine significance for the emerging of the new entity.

The forming relationship is the reason for the emergence of individual properties, which distinguish the new entity from the forming ones. 

The relationships form and present the entity. 

(http://www.foibg.com/ijita/vol14/ijita14-1-p01.pdf)

Kind regards

Krassimir

----

Krassimir Markov

Honorary professor, PhD

University of Telecommunications and Post

Sofia, Bulgaria

From: Krassimir Markov 
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2019 6:30 PM
To: jose luis perez velazquez ; fis 
Subject: [Fis] Living and not living structures

Hola, José Luis y queridos FIS colegas!

The discussion came to very important point marked by José Luis. 

Now it is seen that there exists a hierarchy of structures which are built by other structures from low levels. This model shows that, practically, all entities of the real world are hierarchically organized.

What about the live and the intelligence? 

Practically, we came to the W. Ross Ashby’s “PRINCIPLES OF THE SELF-ORGANIZING SYSTEM”  https://emergent.blob.core.windows.net/classic-articles/3aa37176-f414-4820-b5e5-b3be0cdb0395.pdf .

I kindly recommend this paper to be reread.

For our discussion, very important are the next sentences:

“Every isolated determinate dynamic system obeying unchanging laws will develop "organisms" that are adapted to their "environments" 

and 

“In any isolated system, life and intelligence inevitably develop.”

At the given level of complexity and organization, some structures became “alive” and “intelligent” in some degree. As the structure (system) is more complex, so it may be more intelligent.

As Ashby remarked, live, intelligence, and (if I may add) consciousness emerge as new property of the structure (system).

There is no need to ask if the cell has consciousness and intelligence. The answer is clear - YES!

But its consciousness and intelligence are quite different of those of the fish, bee, dog, or human.

There is no clear boundary between live structures and not live ones. In every moment first may be destroyed to the second as well as the former may be organized to the first one. 

Finally, all live structures we know at this moment have very important feature of self-reproducing using DNA structures.

Friendly greetings

Krassimir

----

Krassimir Markov

Honorary professor, PhD

University of Telecommunications and Post

Sofia, Bulgaria

From: jose luis perez velazquez 
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2019 1:21 PM
To: fis 
Subject: [Fis] Fwd: "the mother of information"--MINI-BRAINS

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: jose luis perez velazquez <jlpvjlpv at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 2:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] "the mother of information"--MINI-BRAINS
To: Alexander Fingelkurts <alexander.fingelkurts at bm-science.com>

     Hola a todos.   In what I wrote about lack of consciousness in particles or cells I should have been clearer. I admit cells, bacteria etc.  have some aspects/features of consciousness, but I would not say they display self-awareness, perhaps one of the top features. These problems are derived, once again,from the desire to define precisely something like life, consciousness, or intelligence, things that are almost impossible to define in one sentence. To wit, one definition of intelligence is the ability to adapt to change, well, then bacteria are intelligent. One aspect of life is compartmentalization and exchange of energy, tehrefore some inorganic materials have this property and could be considered "half alive". These notions we have created, life, consciousness, intelligence etc. are nothing but that: our inventions. Out there in nature there is a continuum;  evolution operates mainly as a continuum without sharp steps (although some apparently existed), as a dynamical system, a process.  Similar principles of organization apply to the living and non living (as I tried to expound in "Finding simplicity in complexity: general principles of biological and nonbiological organization", www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2710456).
     Trying to impose clear demarcations in these concepts is, to me, a mistake (or misunderstanding). Hence, I do agree that cells share some features of consciousness, but perchance everybody would agree with the fact that only humans, and perhaps other close relatives, have all the properties one can think of when enumerating the features of consciousness, and of course one can try to set up a hierarchy in which self-awareness could be at the top... but again, that hierarchy would be our invention.

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