[Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 116, Issue 8

[Peter Erdi]

Hi Katherine,

I managed to find your mail in my junk folder. I should think about your statements. Thank you!   I hope others will make comments soon.

All the best!

Peter
________________________________
From: Fis <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Katherine Peil <ktpeil at outlook.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 7, 2024 5:02 PM
To: fis at listas.unizar.es <fis at listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 116, Issue 8


Hi Peter,

I’ve only been able to pop in occasionally, but I find your thoughts on feedback to be highly relevant to many of the big open questions. Not only “information” but agency, cognition, creativity and the structure of “identity” itself (something that our best hard science theory does not address.)

At the beginning of the year, I led a discussion herein where I suggested that the emotional system was central to our “self-regulatory” hardware (genetic, epigenetic and immune regulation). In this view, binary feelings (pleasurable or painful, eustress or distress) serve as cybernetic feedback signals – informative software -  that originate in the non-equilibrium dynamics of complex adaptive systems (those that must constantly exchange energy and resources with their local environment in order to exist). I cited a four step cybernetic control loop instantiated by a coupling between bottom up positive (amplifying) feedback and top-down negative (homeostatic) feedback that works like this: 1) An ongoing comparison is made between internal and external environments; 2) A signal is sent when self-relevant mismatches occur; which 3) triggers a coupled self-correcting response, which is then 4)  fed back as a memory into the next cycle “comparison”. (AI uses a similar arrangement for deep neural learning networks, by comparing two probability distributions that compare internal requirements and external circumstances, modelling mismatches as free energy – “surprises” to the system - wherein learning occurs the via the goal of reducing free energy.)



But as living systems, we have direct experience of a binary feedback signal as emotional sensory qualia – self-regulatory surprises that come in feel-good or feel-bad categories and are coupled to approach or avoidant self-correcting behavioral responses. I call these binary qualia the fundamental semantic information bit, for their binary categories drive each step in the loop and set the stage for all Pavlovian learning.

This loop, and its subjective binary hedonic driver, is central to the operational, organizational and informational closure of complex self-organizing and autopoietic systems, and it is central to the ongoing construction of the enactive “mind”. It enables an identity structure that behaves as a dance of both parts and wholes, an autonomous yet collective agent, both determined yet with minor participation, in ways that mediate both being and becoming. And so much more…


Sorry for the quick core dump, but I thought I’d pop in to applaud Peter’s inquiry and say hi to you all!

Katherine Kauffman

(Kung Fu Kate)





From: Fis <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> on behalf of fis-request at listas.unizar.es <fis-request at listas.unizar.es>
Date: Wednesday, November 6, 2024 at 7:40 PM
To: fis at listas.unizar.es <fis at listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Fis Digest, Vol 116, Issue 8

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Fwd: Re: New Discussion Session--Complexity & feedback
      (Peter Erdi)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2024 02:39:45 +0000
From: Peter Erdi <Peter.Erdi at kzoo.edu>
To: Pedro C. Mariju?n <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>,
        "fis at listas.unizar.es" <fis at listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] Fwd: Re: New Discussion Session--Complexity &
        feedback
Message-ID:
        <BY5PR12MB39852EDD96A4B026324DCA5EF35C2 at BY5PR12MB3985.namprd12.prod.outlook.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

Thank you, Pedro, for your thoughtful post. I hope some people will react, and we will kick the ball towards some goal.  Alternatively, the discussion might evolve by random mutations.

By the way, Gordana and Sheri: more thoughts about the relationship between cybernetics and complex systems theory with evolution?

Peter
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