[Fis] Tao and information processing (for a human): Fwd: Re: Emotional Sentience #2 The Metaphor of The Tao -The evolution of the emotional brain

Tue Apr 30 12:30:27 CEST 2024

Dear Aaron,

Fascinating topics that you have introduced: Metamorphosis and Synapse 
complexity.

Looking at the redistribution of neurons during metamorphosis seems to 
me to be explainable by cell signaling and genome control. It is well 
known that cell signaling and gradients are utilized to given direction 
and positioning of neuronal connections. It seems not a big step to have 
some neurons de-differentiate and then grow to assume new connections 
with other neurons in the adult flying insect.  While wonderfully 
complex orchestration of the symphony of life it does seem to be 
explainable without the requirement of a new physics.

As for the role of synapse logic in brain function, I agree there is 
definitely something very interesting going on there. Grant has 
illuminated a new resource enabling a more sophisticated form of 
mental-physical information processing.

I also like your reference to Ganti and the minimal form of life. How do 
you see Ganti's work in relationship to von Neumann's self reproducing 
automata?

The fact Ganti could be considered a minimalist or essentialist in 
trying to give the minimal properties that any life form must have, 
appears to go counter to the what appears to be your argument that life 
is highly complex, so complex that it requires a new theory of physics.

And how does this all fit with Kate's views on the evolution of the 
emotional brain?

With kind regards,

Eric Werner

On 4/27/24 12:18 AM, a.sloman at bham.ac.uk wrote:
> Dear Gordana (and Fis),
>
> I apologise for the format of this message if anyone finds it difficult. I find
> it very difficult to cope with the format of the Fis messages, which I have to
> transform radically in order to be able to reply quoting parts, in the ancient
> programmable text editor (part of Poplog) which I use on Linux for reading and
> writing messages and other work, e.g. developing web sites.
>
> I apologise for any errors or obscurities introduced by my re-formatting of
> Gordana's text.
>
> I am responding to the message in which she wrote:
>
>> Dear Joseph
>>
>> Let me comment on the following statement in your mail:
>>
>>> You also introduce computability in an area where non-computability - the
>>> absence of an algorithm - perhaps predominates.
>> Allow me to disagree.
>> Algorithm is not what it used to be -- the Turing Machine. Our late colleague,
>> mathematician Mark Burgin has written extensively on that topic.
>>
>> I suppose you refer to this passage in Kate's mail:
>> "wherein the ongoing cyclic transitions between them form the computational
>> engine of The Tao. This dance delivers the algorithmic logic of Turing machines,
>> and the opponent processes, metastability and regulatory switching, evident in
>> metabolism, morphogenesis, genetic and the autonomic neural networks embody
>> behavioral control."
>>
>> There is a way to represent all natural processes as computation -- natural
>> computation, natural information processing.
>>
>> If we look at the physiological (bio-chemical) processes underlying emotions,
>> feelings, and other sub-symbolic processes in the human body, all of them can be
>> represented as information processes.
> I have very recently taken that last idea much further and argued that the
> oldest and most important forms of information processing in animals on this
> planet are located in synapses, which are descendants of the most most ancient
> ancestors of animals, including humans: single celled organisms, which later
> evolved to the sexually reproducing single-celled organisms discussed by Tibor
> Ganti in his book The Principles of Life, referenced in the huge, unfinished,
> online document in which I am developing these ideas, referring to a vast, and
> steadily increasing number of other sources:
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/metamorphosis.html__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!W9gRYRrieeHk1y3RNgVHAZrWsk0M_Zii_NwPkNwh0nzzleU7DIlpri6-rcD9Ad6rWw9XM6QSmhjuiznqvuMG5UA$  
>
> (search in it for "Ganti" for references to his work and to commentaries on it.)
>
> My claim (strongly influenced by the work of Seth Grant and colleagues in
> Edinburgh University -- also referenced in that document, whose ideas I have
> extended) is that the most powerful forms of information processing used in
> cognition in animals, including humans, occur in synapses, with neurons having
> important but subsidiary roles, including transferring information between
> synapses and other, more recently evolved, parts of animal bodies. There are
> also other forms of communication and control, e.g. using hormones transmitted
> via blood vessels.
>
> Gordana wrote:
>
>> Michael Levin and collaborators have practical applications in their work in
>> biology and medicine.https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://drmichaellevin.org/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!W9gRYRrieeHk1y3RNgVHAZrWsk0M_Zii_NwPkNwh0nzzleU7DIlpri6-rcD9Ad6rWw9XM6QSmhjuiznqJ6BmNk8$  
> That is important and impressive work, but seriously incomplete, in my view,
> e.g. ignoring processes that have evolved in branching trajectories in species
> that reproduce by laying eggs enclosed in shells, and emerge with very complex
> physiological structures and significant unlearnt cognitive competences, e.g.
> many species of newly hatched birds and reptiles, including sea-turtles emerging
> from eggs buried in sand and abandoned by their mothers.
>
> As far as I know Levin has not mentioned or offered explanations for the
> phenomena I've mentioned (and there's much more that I haven't mentioned). I've
> written to him about this. He has also heard me give presentations on some of
> the ideas, but not the most recent ones mentioned below.
>
> I have not been using the word "algorithm" in connection with the biological
> information processing mechanisms. Instead I talk about varieties of information
> processing, especially processing of information during control of complex
> biochemical processes of reproduction and development, and most recently in my
> discussions of metamorphosis, involving very complex chemical decomposition and
> recombination processes -- arguably more sophisticated than anything prodced by
> human engineers, all happening in very small spaces with small temperature
> changes and using small amounts of energy.
>
> No human designed assembly mechanisms that I know of come close to matching
> those features.
>
> I am grateful for pointers to relevant published work (preferably freely
> available online) that sould be referenced in the metamorphosis.html document
> The name of the document is misleading though I think any other short name would
> also be misleading. In a sense, the name of the document is partly justified by
> the non-biological metamorphosis constantly occurring in the document as I
> work on it!
>
> More from Gordana:
> (Replying to Joe Brenner)
>
>> More about natural computing:
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_computing__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!W9gRYRrieeHk1y3RNgVHAZrWsk0M_Zii_NwPkNwh0nzzleU7DIlpri6-rcD9Ad6rWw9XM6QSmhjuiznqR5mljTs$  
>>
>> A basic book: G.Rozenberg, T.Back, J.Kok, Ed., Handbook of Natural Computing,
>> Springer Verlag, 2012
>>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-540-92910-9__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!W9gRYRrieeHk1y3RNgVHAZrWsk0M_Zii_NwPkNwh0nzzleU7DIlpri6-rcD9Ad6rWw9XM6QSmhjuiznqDvbUgn8$  
>>
>> The question if The Tao can be *completely*  captured computationally is
>> outside the scope of this discussion.
>>
>> A photograph cannot completely represent every aspect of its object but is still
>> representative enough for a human observer.
> Our current ideas about computation now seem to me to form a subset of a larger
> collection of ideas about forms of control using huge amounts of information
> produced over millions of years, also using surprisingly little energy and very
> small but very complex forms of matter.
>
>
> I hope my departure from the Fis format has not caused any problems.
>
> Aaron
>
> Aaron Sloman,
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/*axs__;fg!!D9dNQwwGXtA!W9gRYRrieeHk1y3RNgVHAZrWsk0M_Zii_NwPkNwh0nzzleU7DIlpri6-rcD9Ad6rWw9XM6QSmhjuiznq2Et8dy0$  
> Emeritus Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science
> (Retired, but still working full time, on the Meta-Morphogenesis project,
> while brain slides downhill)
>
> School of Computer Science,
> The University of Birmingham
> Edgbaston
> Birmingham B15 2TT UK
>
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
/Dr. Eric Werner
Oxford Advanced Research Foundation
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://oarf.org__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Sz9k6j7JHhMVgybBFi4etlOhbem_CJ0GJkad9DQk9AYpXAMUz1JV1JejP7G9fdruy95hEOJpFyIzSQ-F7pK5GF4$ 

/
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