[Fis] Fwd: Fwd: Re: An Unbeatable Tradition? Brenner 24.1.24

Wed Jan 24 11:50:12 CET 2024

Dear Pedro and All,

  I have found the collegial tone of the current exchanges very agreeable and am encouraged to comment on two aspects of them, namely, free will and it-from-bit. 

  1. Free Will.

  I believe that completely free will does not exist for any situations more complex than simple choice without moral consequences. Stu got it exactly right with the term "responsible free will". Such a free will is ipso facto not completely free, but this begs the question of a non-transcendental origin of responsibility. To say that it is innate in human beings is a tautology. 

  I suggest that we have mentally internalized part of the "other", in opposition to the fiction of the completely whole, integral individual. We are both self and partly other, to differing degrees at different times. In this view, the individual is no more free morally than he/she is economically., and we have a self-interest in moral behavior. A 
  Donald Trump enjoys completely free will, but it is not responsible.Trump, as readers of Mary Trump know, is a badly damaged human being.

  To repeat, it is because our will is not free that we try to behave responsibly to others and to the environment.

  I recall here the theorem of Conway and Kochen which states that if we have a free will in the sense that our choices are not a function of the past, then so must some elementary particles. I suggest the theorem is only partly applicable, and that choice is not completely reducible to the same process.

  At the social level of reality, we may extend the above to "free enterprise", which few of us, I think would like to see totally free.

  2. Bit-from-It

Terrence Deacon's recent note establishes what I think is a sound basis for questioning the position that bit is more fundamental. I will comment here on the references of Malcolm and Marcus to "information quality" as an answer to my position about the absence of an algorithm for quality. The problem is that two meanings of quality have been confused. I believe M & M have in mind something like the quality of a signal as it has accompanied the discussion from communications theory. My "quality" refers to qualities in and of human interactions, non-computable, fuzzy, and value-laden. The units for such processes is not clear in the literature; I have coined the term "ontolon" to refer to chunks (again) of systems and systems of systems of relations, actual and potential, changing and non-changing. 
This is the point at which "oriental", lemmic logic starts to offer addtional dimensions for the discussion. I claim without further "proof" here that the "Bio-logics" to which Pedro refers require some such principles. In any case, they are logics of "its".
It is within the "space" offered by lemmic logic that Plamen's vision can be partly accomodated. The members of the two duals he mentions do share something and that is existence. As realities and abstractions from reality, they do not have equal value as a basis for ethical decisions.
Thank you and best wishes,
Joseph

   ----Message d'origine----

De : plamen.l.simeonov at gmail.com

Date : 23/01/2024 - 16:15 (E)

À : stukauffman at gmail.com

Cc : pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com, fis at listas.unizar.es, andrea.roli at unibo.it, kalevi.kull at ut.ee, favareau at gmail.com

Objet : Re: [Fis] An Unbeatable Tradition?

      Dear Stu and Pedro, 

      Thank you for this reinforcement on the essence of life focus. I also include Kalevi and Don in my response while trying to better structure my thoughts, which is easier for me offline than at the video conference we had some days ago. I am not a skilled stage artist to tell what's on my mind within a limited time, which is a stressful experience for me, even if I know most of you. In short, the truth we search for is bigger than we can ever suppose through our senses, thoughts and devices, and it will always remain so. This is not news, but I will address some of the contradictions that Stu identified from my perspective.  

      I will begin with the critics of Newton. To me, his third law always appeared to have psychological foundations rather than physical ones. (At that time psychology was unknown however, so people spoke of soul and spirit which were known to them at least since Pythagoras, Plato.) How did he come to it? Empirically like Galileo, or through Gedankenexperiments like Einstein? I say - the second way, which was possibly a "spiritual enlightenment" - a flash of light/insight that came from above (or the gut below - never mind). So was his law of gravitation too. Are we afraid to tell this? There was no deduction using formulas in both laws, and many others perhaps. They were first "felt", and then logically derived. Deduction, induction and abduction came later, when the pre-selection was already done. The Newtonian laws were either experienced by him (and many others perhaps, but they did not pay attention to them) or "given" to him like Moses got his stone tables from the Lord. I'll stop here to not provoke further speculations in the wrong direction. I am simply providing the argument that physics was not born mathematical. It became mathematical a posteriori, and in parallel with developing mathematics, e.g. differential and integral calculus. By the way, until the mid XIX century there was no difference between physics and mathematics. It was just one and the same field.  So, there are many illusions/assumptions we still deal with today. How can we get rid of them or do we need to (Kalevi, Arran and Don)? Whether we like it or not, the roots of all science and math are mystic. They are in magic and alchemy. Can you deny your parents? What has led to this schizophrenia of mid-body split? Splitting things must make sense. R for instance, as this happened to Osiris, Orpheus and Jesus.  Sooner or later we find what we search for. This is a law. 
      Hunter - bow - arrow - pray - food. Focus first. That's what all science and engineering are about. All the time. We are reductionists by definition - whether we like it or not - in order to be effective. To some extent at least. Boundary condition. We are also opportunistic - in order to survive. So are all living things, even the brainless ones. Mind and consciousness came later. Or maybe they came first, but they were not ours. So, my point here is about shared foci and conventions which lead to food, tribes-empires and theorems. But this is only one sort of reality, which is not physical, biological or social. It is just the same ordered and explainable world (of how we like it), in which gods and goddesses were replaced by impersonal and genderless natural forces, laws and formulas, but all this remains a manifestation of the same (experienced) One and All without division, computers and bifurcation, Kalevi's paradox of simultaneous presence and non-presence that is supposed to move life, but I say - also non-live (e.g. galaxies and stars), so familiar to sages and adepts from all over the world for thousands of years - note, without the need of organized religions, ideologis and broadcast networks. Why do we self-censure and deny all this as if it did not exist and still continues to exist? What are we afraid of? Therefore I am not so happy with the simplified distinction based on mathematization between living and nonliving matter. The problems are just the same. Can we deduce or predict the evolution of the universe? No, in the long run - not. This is what the latest images of the James Webb telescope tell us. It is just a question of scale. Time scale and space scale. We can determine and predict things only within our small epistemological focus, the circle or sphere of Plato with the floating boundary of knowledge where the signs emerge. But signs and meaning need to always have a purpose. Energy, food, reproduction, recycling. A continuation of self-maintaining processes, autocatalytic sets on multiple planes, where we always miss something. And here is where Chaos, Chance/Possibility and Free Will come into play.  

      But recently, particularly with the advance of the multiple inducted, deducted and abducted crises, resets and transitions (COVID-19, climate change, scarcity of resources, etc.), and especially with the AI revolution which almost attained a religious dimension, I read a number of empirical research papers suggesting that there is indeed no free will, s. references elsewhere on the internet since 2020. We have to surrender to the idea, -- recall just an IDEA, like the one of ZERO and ONE, -- that we have limited options and chances to evolve and progress and need someone to redesign and command us to not get lost in this big universe. Sounds familiar?  So, let's throw all the philosophers and all the history through the window and start anew. Do a reset, to make a better Humanity.  Wow!  What if all that is really true? Could it be true? Yes, it could be. And also, it could not! Kaleve - here is your presence and non-presence of the paradox of life. It can be both, because it is The One. Depending on the focus you put that can be free, but also directed, if you allow this. Does not a magician wish to mesmerize our minds to focus on just this one IDEA of being an obsolete and replaceable being? The Internet of Things?  

      It is the idea of distinction that could become true, 
     a distinction, if there could be a distinction (Lou Kauffman) and indeed 
     makes the distinction (Gregory Bateson), i.e. if we all focus on and vibrate/resonate on it as such. Here is the domain where 
     science (social psychology) meets 
     religion. But I understand 
      and 
     use the latter term in its original Latin meaning  
      (re-ligere), reconnect and bind together (to (re)make the One). And here comes the third Thing and mystic law I wish to point to in this discussion about science and life, because there are not many who dare to tell it, but I'll take the risk to sound incredible. What if everything that we imagine and put enough force/energy on it can become true? A recipe for magic, or maybe science and mathematics too? Before speaking of consciousness and mind, how about rethinking (the mystic power of) thoughts, words, spells and prayers, much older than science itself?  

     "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John, 1:1)  

     Stu, before this NY session I sent you two papers:

1. "Contingency, repeatability, and predictability in the evolution of a prokaryotic pangenome" by Alan Beavan et al., 2023 in PNAS, stating that evolution is not that arbitrary as we think of it, 

2. "Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic?" by Ed Steele et al, .in PBMB, 2018, stating that evolution may have been induced and accelerated from space.

     I made the link to Genesis and the entire human idea heritage, long before mathematics and science emerged, and asked you what you think about all this from your perspective with your recent papers with Andrea. And here is where Kalevi's simultaneous paradoxical being and nonbeing comes again. Recursions, Lou?

     We have not spoken of vibrations, thoughts and forms yet, recall the paper of Ralph Abraham I have distributed in the biosemiotics circle:

     https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.academia.edu/17229104/Vibrations_and_Forms__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Wc6kVDg1BL9XCUxBsu4dzQyVDaEuNsHVN5vKReGrBF4UselqveWwm4MEa7mO6wseOfGLVXdEoXVU3ROwFu8jTVqUyi8$ . 

     What if both science and nonscience, logic and legend, can share the same phasespace and acquire isolated or superpositioned manifestations?

     Let's move on and use our Free Will ;-)

      Best, 

      Plamen 

      On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 4:07 AM Stuart Kauffman < 
     stukauffman at gmail.com> wrote: 

       Bless you Pedro. 

        Some not quite random comments: 

        1) Descartes got us started thinking about a “mind in a vat” wondering if it were being deceived. This mind never acts in the world, it only observes. Science is knowledge, not action, 

        2) living organisms are open non-equilibrium systems so we all must interact with the rest of the world, e.g. to eat, to sense food, avoid poison That is all life must ACT or Do. My wife, Katherine Kauffman, rightly adds life must sense the world, then FIND and CARE, or Orient and Evaluate Good or Bad for me, then choose and act. Value enters here, she rightly says.  

        3) Essentially all British empiricism is about knowing the world, not acting in it.  

        4) The understanding of “mind” as “representing the world", also  all of AI, is latter day Descartes. There is no doing in the world. There is mere synthetics, no semantics. Again, Andrea and I have struggled as have others, Kalevi Kull and biosemiotics.  

        5) “Doing" in the world includes finding novel affordances that cannot be deduced. This is Orienting or FINDING. This is jury rigging,. How does that arise?  

        ……………. 

        Please turn to Kauffman Roli "The Third Transition", and Kauffman Roli, “Is the emergence of life’…..” 

        1) It really is true that living entities are Kantian Wholes that achieve Catalytic Closure, Constraint Closure, and spatial Closure. 

        2) Therefore cells really do construct themselves. Cells to not deduce themselves. 

        3) It is really true that the reproduction of a cell has nothing to do with a 
       separable set of Instructions that are carried out. See Aristotles 4 causes below where the s 
       eparate instructions can be followed or carried out by 
       indefinitely many sufficient but not necessary  means.  

        4) In evolution, leave MIND out of this for now, it is really true that evolving organisms create ever novel adaptions  by creating their ever- novel adjacent Possibles and seize SOME of these by heritable variation and genetic drift. 

        5) It is really true that these do constitute newly POSSIBLE ways to co-exist. 

        6) This IS, in one sense, 
       the creation of new possibilities in the universe. ii. The new possibilities are 
       NEW information.  iii This new information did 
       not require MIND or consciousness. Think of the evolution of the heart or loop of Henle in the kidneys. 

        7) The Newtonian Paradigm requires a fixed phase space where no new possibilities can come to exist. So does Boltzmann and so does Shannon. This is profoundly inadequate - Andrea Roli and I wrote “The world is not a theorem.” There is no 
       creation of information in all of physics.  

        1) What about MIND, Free Will, Consciousness? Well…. 

        2) Think about Aristotle’s Four Causes: Formal, Efficient, Material, Final. 

        3) E.g., the blueprint is the 
       formal cause. The 
       indefinite diversity of different materials, bricks, wood, stones, iron, that are used to construct the house are the 
       material cause. But no one of this set of 
       sufficient material causes is also NECESSARY. (Given a function, it can be realized in idenfintely many ways. The house is build via 
       Efficient cause, again indefinite in variety, electric tools, sharp sticks. Each suffienct but not necessary. 
       Final cause, “I sure want a house. We seem to be talking about a science of 
        propagating sufficient but not necessary conditions. This is neither Classical nor Quantum Physics. (So also the evolution of morphologies without mind above.). 

        4) Given MIND,  Free Will, Consciousness and Responsible Choice Aristotle’s four cases make sense. They do NOT make sense for the Cell constructing itself. So what is going on?  

        5) Mind, Responblible Free Will and Choice among more than one ontologically real possibilities makes sense and seems to be one clear sense of information that is different from the cell constructing itself. In both cases there is something about 
       alternative sufficient but not necessary conditions. Both can be new in the universe information, ie a new plurality of possibles and information guides choice among them. We do Jury rig. Inventions are novel over the prior art. Jury rigging is not deductive, nor is invention.  

        So somehow there seem to be more than one way new in the universe possibilities can come to exist and unleash, or better, enable the next actuals and possibles.  

        Pedro, there is a lot once beyond the Newtonian Paradigm and strong reductionism. The world really is not (only) a theorem.  

        But sometimes it is a theorem eg Classical and Quantum Physics.  Odd. 

        Thanks, 

        Stu 

           On Jan 22, 2024, at 9:32 AM, Pedro C. Marijuán < 
          pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> wrote: 

Dear All,

While watching the evolution of our discussions in this NY Lecture focused on the "Third Transition" I have the impression that physics becomes an inexorable attractor, the necessary end of any civilized discussion on information. Precisely, the initial arguments were about living organisms creating ever new ways of "getting to exist", adaptively constructing new-in-the-universe possibilities--with their exploration of the adjacent-possible going outside of the Newtonian paradigm... Fine, very fine.

 My contention is that in the last decades we have heard many times that rejection of the Newtonian but seemingly we cannot advance in the development of truly independent views, post-Newtonian and non-physicalist anchored (about information). Not aspiring to any universality about the conceptions of this independent informational exploration of life--at least shouldn't it be attempted?? Once some basics could be cohered and decently developed, it might provide some interesting complementarity with the endless conundrums on its and bits by physicist and computerist colleagues. Michael Conrad (who in the 70s and 80s was already arguing about the unpicturability of enzyme function) put an interesting comment: "When we look at a biological system we are looking at the face of the underlying physics of the universe" (in BioSystems, 38, 1996, p.108). Quite enigmatic. So, an unexpected convergence might be found finally--but not mandating it at the very beginning.

As I briefly argued days ago, the adjacent possible may be considered in a variety of time-scales. The infamous "What is it to be done?" (in Spanish, the concise "Qué hacer?" ) may be repeated for cells, for organisms, for humans, for societies... Or in other more frivolous words, "Qué será, será... the future's not ours to see". No wonder that all these kinds of informational creatures are endlessly looking for "signals", to march towards truly adaptive adjacent possibles. Our new knowledge on Prokaryotic signaling systems, on how they are intertwined with the advancement of the life cycle, points exactly in that direction: exploring the external/internal environment so to self-orient towards adaptive outcomes. They were the First Ones. Our own nervous system continuously scans the external and the internal, and mixes up with an elaborate arrangement of emotional resources and socialization cues so to do more or less the same, achieving viable life courses, etc.etc. Our own societies are involved in dire prospects and strange policy navigation towards the adjacent--what? Possible? Impossible? Disastrous? Inevitable?

The lack of an informational cosmovision is patent. It was already evident for Ortega y Gasset in the 1930s: "The confusion on the terrible public conflicts of the present stems in good part from the incongruence between the perfection of our ideas on physical phenomena and the painful back-warded state of the 'moral sciences'--about that, both the politician and the physicist are at the very height of the barber" (in Revolt of the Masses, 1930s).

Before putting an end, I have found pretty interesting (maybe converging) recent comments on logics by Joseph, Eric, Plamen... Unfortunately the "reality" of the life cycle is always maintained perfectly invisible (or partially entered via some sanitized surrogates).

Thanking your attention,

Best --Pedro

               Libre de virus.https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.avast.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Wc6kVDg1BL9XCUxBsu4dzQyVDaEuNsHVN5vKReGrBF4UselqveWwm4MEa7mO6wseOfGLVXdEoXVU3ROwFu8jOHtp6cU$ 

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