[Fis] Comments on Questions from Katherine Peil

[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Mark,
At this point, I use up this week’s quota.
It is certainly possible to design a system,  e.g. a cellular automaton,  that has a condition of homeostasis and will react to perturbations by restoring its structure up to a point.
The original Maturana, Uribe,Varela model has this property. And here is a more complex example.
I am using Golly.
Golly runs Conway Life and variants of it.
Programming it at the simplest level is just entering a code like I write below that specifies a rule.
You can download it for free from the site
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://golly.sourceforge.io__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RixRO7_2ovnEvpuN3QzG6PaKCn2efieAHoiA3qQH_HMz3GjjX5ETx7cdpTYBUHxk3Fk-wSbZEW8ODXYd$ 

My design is called “stasis” and has the rule
B37/S4567
This means that a box is born if it has 3 or 7 neighbors and survives if it has 4,5,6 or 7 neighbors.
This is on a rectangular grid.
The resulting configurations can grow quite large but they usually reach an “eigenstate” that is just oscillating and not growing.
If you perturb this state, the “animal” will react to go back to homeostasis.
Try it!

Of course such models are very simple, but they do “breathe” and if we had a big system that was alive in this sense it could “experience” its own
Wanderings toward and away from the eigenform.
Best,
Lou


> On May 12, 2024, at 4:07 AM, Mark Johnson <johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Alex and Lou,
> 
> This seems to be much closer to the point - thank you. 
> 
> Lou - I wonder if your question is a way of asking "is it possible to design a system that 'breathes'?"
> 
> Current AI systems clearly do not. Our emotions do (As does music). 
> 
> I'm intrigued by the possibility that there might be a quantum logic of breathing - something which is homologous to the function of the autonomic nervous system?
> 
> One aspect to this which I think is important and which gets lost in discussion about emotions is that we breathe (and feel) together, and not alone. 
> 
> Best wishes
> 
> Mark
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, 12 May 2024, 08:43 Louis Kauffman, <loukau at gmail.com <mailto:loukau at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Dear Alex,
> I agree with you. It is possible to design structures supported by digital systems that have their structure maintained by response to perturbations.
> There are very elementary cellular automata that are like that.
> Then we might have things like large language models that simulate biological systems with instability correction that verges on “experience” and “emotions”.
> Such systems could report on their own internal states, as we do. But present systems are not founded in this way.
> Best,
> Lou
> 
>> On May 12, 2024, at 2:03 AM, Alex Hankey <alexhankey at gmail.com <mailto:alexhankey at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> RE: 
>> 1. My take on the self-regulatory function emotion suggests that the dual  “purposes” of self-preservation and adaptive self-development (both mediated by Negative ~ Positive categories of emotions) are rooted in ancient information signaling and memory systems.
>> 2. Is any subjectivity involved in information processing? At what point is it purely mechanical?
>> 3. And once again, where does the semantic value enter the picture? Not-self pathogens? Too hot, too cold? 
>> 
>> None of these questions are dealt with in terms of digital information in organisms of any kind. Organisms treat them in terms of 'Experience Information', which is entirely different, being based on naturally occurring Instabilities in organism response systems, which cannot support Digital Information (for obvious reasons), and which are present to enable the organism to satisfy the requirements of Fractal Physiology. 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Alex Hankey M.A. (Cantab.) PhD (M.I.T.) DSc. (Hon Causa) Professor Emeritus of Biology,
>> MIT World Peace University, 
>> 124 Paud Road, Pune, MA 411038 
>> Mobile (Intn'l): +44 7710 534195 
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