[Fis] New Discussion Session--Complexity & feedback

Sun Oct 27 00:14:46 CEST 2024

Dear Alex and Peter

Perrenialism is very close to the biological theory articulated here:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5037349/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VRaaGNSlxzDRrTPUtuuKOkqO1VXTADuOkLlnCHAe_BlMp31SYD4bjliyaS7qv2tcDDnA1hQJnly7UMAH_2onucE$ 
Alex, this connection leapt out at me after reading your comment!

It makes me wonder whether Darwinism haunts cybernetics. The view in the
Torday/Miller paper suggests that the Darwinian paradigm of selection among
phenotypes is incorrect, where instead phenotypes are agents of epigenetic
inheritance in service to cellular internal selection, with the "perennial"
zygote as the focus, not the phenotype.

While there is an increasing body of empirical evidence to support a
cell-based view of evolution (currently argued by Denis Noble, Philip Ball,
as well as Torday and colleagues), maybe the important question is to ask
what this might mean for the cybernetic thinking that Peter is discussing.

A few points strike me as interesting:

1. Circularity is a much better term than feedback, because it captures a
deeper process of homeorhesis. But two questions concerning this are "what
is stabilised?" and "who says?"

2. Transduction is a more precise name for the process implicated in
"circularity". Behind that is conservation of energy on the one hand, and
conversion of energy on the other. Cells and organisms are transducers, but
the transduction process happens within them. It may operate with reference
to the endogenised history of the cell in its own constitution.

3. Transduction must involve both selection and niche construction. The
selection is both internal, referencing the evolutionary history of the
cell, and external in maintaining equipoise with the environment. This
selection process is multidimensional, featuring stochasticity (see Denis
Noble), signals, constraints and coordination.

4. The transduction process relies on cells being observers of other cells
and of themselves. It cannot work without self-reference. This is probably
to restate the Conant-Ashby good regulator theorem, or Rosen's anticipatory
systems, or Stafford Beer's "System 4" in the Viable System Model.

5. Systems people get tied up in knots when failing to apprehend the
dimensional difference between stochasticity (noise), signals, constraints
and coordination. We need better conceptual tools for dealing with this.

Best wishes

Mark

On Mon, 21 Oct 2024, 09:39 Alex Hankey, <alexhankey at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Peter, and Fis Members,
> About 1970, the Futurology Research Group under Dr. Willis Harman
> at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) showed that the only system of
> thought apparently able to save mankind from extinction was the Perennial
> Philosophy.
> Developments and events over the past half century, such as the Enron
> crisis, Bankruptcies of banks such as London's Barings Bank, caused by
> unauthorised investments by senior employees, or the climate crisis and
> deforestation of the Amazon, driven by corporate greed etc, suggest that
> this is true.
> I live in India, the only country that subscribes to the Perennial
> Philosophy as the foundation of its 5 main religions, Hinduism, Buddhism,
> Jainism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism, where I conduct research on the
> relationship between Science and Spirituality. I therefore feel that I can
> state with some authority that, by and large, India sets an example in a
> number of areas, which are consistent with the conclusions of Harman's
> futurology work at SRI.
> Looking at the violence being generated on different levels in North
> America, in the Middle East, in Russia, and by the Chinese Communist Party
> and its minions, we can see many threats to our future, some of which are
> ongoing, and others that promise to emerge before the end of the present
> decade.
> The Perennial Philosophy, as described in Aldous Huxley's book of that
> name, is embodied in the word's of Swami Vivekananda, one of India's
> greatest spiritual leaders in the late 19th century. Vivekananda stated,
> 'Man is born to become Divine'. He did not mean in the present life-time,
> but rather by gaining greater and greater experience of Life through the
> cycles of death and rebirth, each human soul holds the potential to make
> the transition from being bound by his/her thoughts, words and actions, to
> a level where by serving Divine levels, and acting in accordance with
> instructions received from the Divine, he / she rises to be on a level on a
> par with the Divine.
> Several of India's greatest spiritual teachers today exemplify that
> transition.
> By bringing their work to humanity as a whole, it may be possible to
> prevent our destruction, and enter a time of endless prosperity.
> But only by subscribing to the universal values of Truth, Goodness and
> Beauty (violently rejected by the CCP) can we hope for this to happen.
> All best wishes,
> Sincerely,
> Alex Hankey
>
>
>
> On Mon, 21 Oct 2024 at 05:01, Peter Erdi <Peter.Erdi at kzoo.edu> wrote:
>
>>
>> Dear FISer:
>>
>> *Personal Intro:*
>> I am happily back in this community: I attended the 1994, 1996, and 2005
>> conferences. In the last twenty years, I have been active in the neural
>> network community (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.inns.org/fellows-senior-members/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VRaaGNSlxzDRrTPUtuuKOkqO1VXTADuOkLlnCHAe_BlMp31SYD4bjliyaS7qv2tcDDnA1hQJnly7UMAHyaZjXW8$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.inns.org/fellows-senior-members/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Riy2Qkh0PimXlC7qOO0L0WhMXLRyScHp5jEvb9tSlHYDn5aLZUp0aA2WOHhM9mRN-R0qECHF-ReNWlzIFFCEJQy6$>).
>> In the previous five years, I published three books,
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.amazon.com/Ranking-Unwritten-Rules-Social-Game/dp/0190935464/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VRaaGNSlxzDRrTPUtuuKOkqO1VXTADuOkLlnCHAe_BlMp31SYD4bjliyaS7qv2tcDDnA1hQJnly7UMAHULDTSrw$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.amazon.com/Ranking-Unwritten-Rules-Social-Game/dp/0190935464/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Riy2Qkh0PimXlC7qOO0L0WhMXLRyScHp5jEvb9tSlHYDn5aLZUp0aA2WOHhM9mRN-R0qECHF-ReNWlzIFP9sLo6U$>
>>  ,
>>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.amazon.com/Repair-Improve-Objects-Ourselves-Society/dp/3030989070/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VRaaGNSlxzDRrTPUtuuKOkqO1VXTADuOkLlnCHAe_BlMp31SYD4bjliyaS7qv2tcDDnA1hQJnly7UMAHMdM2e7U$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.amazon.com/Repair-Improve-Objects-Ourselves-Society/dp/3030989070/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Riy2Qkh0PimXlC7qOO0L0WhMXLRyScHp5jEvb9tSlHYDn5aLZUp0aA2WOHhM9mRN-R0qECHF-ReNWlzIFKuHtajO$>
>>
>> The third is in press:
>> *Feedback: How to Destroy or Save the World *
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://link.springer.com/book/9783031624384__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VRaaGNSlxzDRrTPUtuuKOkqO1VXTADuOkLlnCHAe_BlMp31SYD4bjliyaS7qv2tcDDnA1hQJnly7UMAHtL-qD6c$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.amazon.com/Repair-Improve-Objects-Ourselves-Society/dp/3030989070/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Riy2Qkh0PimXlC7qOO0L0WhMXLRyScHp5jEvb9tSlHYDn5aLZUp0aA2WOHhM9mRN-R0qECHF-ReNWlzIFKuHtajO$>
>>
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.amazon.com/Repair-Improve-Objects-Ourselves-Society/dp/3030989070/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Riy2Qkh0PimXlC7qOO0L0WhMXLRyScHp5jEvb9tSlHYDn5aLZUp0aA2WOHhM9mRN-R0qECHF-ReNWlzIFKuHtajO$>
>> (There is a 20% discount code at checkout on link.springer.com
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://link.springer.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Szk4lYPkGi5BDvo8We0ODRu28kt6a19QJOVQUBkdaJRV_hLqwotelvKUE_hfvBDuedR8kcjhT7NR1WBbv80w-Q$>
>> :
>> *I9rXjXjXbr7UGE* / Valid Oct 10, 2024 – Nov 7, 2024). The Foreword was
>> written by Michael Arbib.
>>
>> I hope you don't mind if I hope to have a lively discussion about both
>> feedback control and its potential role in answering the question:
>>
>> *Will humanity survive, and will our grandchildren live in prosperity? Or
>> should we worry about the possibility of humanity's extinction? *
>>
>> *Hypothesis: *There is a narrow border between destruction and
>> prosperity: to ensure reasonable growth but avoid existential risk, we must
>> find a fine-tuned balance between positive and negative feedback. My
>> attempt is not to deal with the impossible task, to prove (certainly not in
>> the spirit of formal feedback control theory), but to support the belief.
>> Chapters 1 - 5 are about the historical roles of feedback control in
>> nature, technology, and society. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the dichotomy of
>> destroying or saving the world and the role of feedback control in avoiding
>> huge catastrophes.
>>
>> I suggest starting the discussion with a specific topic, but I am open to
>> any comments, initial remarks, etc.
>>
>> *Chapter 1: Norbert Wiener's Dream: Technology, Life, and Society*
>>
>> This chapter overviews the birth of Cybernetics as a general theory of
>> goal-seeking systems. It introduces the notion of positive and negative
>> feedback and gives credit to the General Systems Theory, which gave a
>> framework for integrating the natural sciences with the social sciences.
>> Modern computers made possible the simulation of social systems based on
>> causal relationships among state variables, leading to various predicted
>> scenarios about the world's future, some pessimistic.
>> One clear insight is that uncontrolled technological progress may
>> negatively affect the environment, and we need to maintain a balance
>> between economic growth and sustainability.
>>
>> *Chapter 2: Feedback Control in the History of Technology*
>>
>> This chapter gives an overview of the application of feedback control
>> throughout technological development. In technological systems, the goal
>> is to ensure that some physical quantities, such as temperature, pressure,
>> velocity, or altitude (and many others), show some desirable, prescribed
>> behavior over time. Negative feedback stabilizes, while positive feedback
>> amplifies even the initially minor differences.
>> Outriggers, mechanical clocks, steam engines, aviation technologies, and
>> electronics are the main stages of progress toward the Space Travel Age.
>> Feedback control systems played a crucial role in space exploration.
>>
>> *Chapter 3: Feedback Control in Biological Systems*
>>
>> Feedback control is a fundamental tool at every level of the biological
>> hierarchy, from cellular to socio-ecological systems. It ensures
>> homeostasis by adopting a general mechanism for restoring certain states
>> after a small perturbation. Dynamical diseases occur due to the impairment
>> of control systems. The theory of nonlinear dynamics offers a mathematical
>> framework to analyze pathological temporal patterns. It aims to find
>> control strategies to shift the physiological parameters back into normal
>> ranges.
>>
>> *Chapter 4: Climate Changes, Wildfires, Tsunamis*
>>
>> This chapter starts with analyzing the role of positive and negative
>> feedback loops in climate systems. Self-reinforcing positive feedback loops
>> could result in an irreversible tipping point when climate spins out of
>> control, with catastrophic results. Reducing the chance of climate
>> catastrophe must become a central focus for civilization today, and
>> appropriate feedback control strategies should be implemented.
>>
>> *Chapter 5: From Laissez-Faire to Greenspan: Feedback Control in Economic
>> Systems*
>>
>> This chapter analyzes a fundamental question: Should economics be
>> controlled or not? Is the “invisible hand” and the self-regulation of free
>> market capitalism the best possible mechanism, or does the economy need
>> governmental intervention? Minsky’s hypothesis suggests that stability
>> implies instability. It is an observational fact that the economy shows a
>> cyclic pattern: business cycles with different frequencies
>> are very general. Uncompensated positive feedback is found to be a
>> general mechanism leading to extreme events, among other hyperinflation.
>>
>> *Chapter 6: From Natural Disasters to Social Riots*
>>
>> This chapter starts with analyzing whether we should worry about the
>> possibility of existential risk. In the subsection about the complex
>> system *approach to political instability, several issues, namely
>> terrorism, social unrest, and migration, are discussed. Finally, a short
>> system-theoretical analysis implies that democracies do better than
>> autocracies.*
>>
>> *Chapter 7: Epilogue: The Narrow Border Between Prosperity and
>> Destruction*
>>
>> Do we live in the best possible world or the shadow of existential risk?
>> The answer is BOTH! To avoid disasters, we need to apply the spirit of
>> feedback control.
>>
>> The ball is in your court,
>> Péter Érdi, October 20, 2024
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Friday, October 18, 2024 12:08 PM
>> *To:* Peter Erdi <Peter.Erdi at kzoo.edu>; 'fis' <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] New Discussion Session--Complexity & feedback
>>
>> Dear Peter,
>>
>> Many thanks for your "pre-discussion" message.
>> My suggestion to channel such a broad approach is to divide it into two
>> parts.
>>
>> In the first one, the more scientific-technical part (what you mention
>> about "the historical role of the concept of feedback".)
>> No doubt there are many points of interest there.
>> And later on, you could publish a second part about the related vision of
>> the "big themes" and risks of our times.
>>
>> I think in this way the discussion may flow with some easiness.
>> Otherwise we would be happy with whatever scheme you prefer.
>> All the best,
>> --Pedro
>>
>> El 17/10/2024 a las 22:25, Peter Erdi escribió:
>>
>> Dear Pedro and Dear FIS Colleagues:
>>
>> Thank you for your introduction (I will make some slight corrections).
>>
>> I will need several days to publish my formal introductory text.  I would
>> like to discuss with you my thesis:
>>
>> *There is a narrow border between destruction and prosperity: to ensure
>> reasonable growth but avoid existential risk, we must find the fine-tuned
>> balance between positive and negative feedback.*
>>
>> I hope to discuss with you both the historical role of the concept of
>> feedback and its possible contribution to destroying or saving the world.
>> Apologies for the self-propaganda, I have a book in press
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://link.springer.com/book/978303162438__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VRaaGNSlxzDRrTPUtuuKOkqO1VXTADuOkLlnCHAe_BlMp31SYD4bjliyaS7qv2tcDDnA1hQJnly7UMAHAPB8bB0$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://link.springer.com/book/978303162438__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Riy2Qkh0PimXlC7qOO0L0WhMXLRyScHp5jEvb9tSlHYDn5aLZUp0aA2WOHhM9mRN-R0qECHF-ReNWlzIFN2pCEni$>4
>> will write a discount code, (apologies again).
>>
>> Stay tuned,
>>
>> Péter Érdi
>> Henry R. Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies
>>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blogs.kzoo.edu/perdi/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VRaaGNSlxzDRrTPUtuuKOkqO1VXTADuOkLlnCHAe_BlMp31SYD4bjliyaS7qv2tcDDnA1hQJnly7UMAHSv91PtU$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blogs.kzoo.edu/perdi/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Riy2Qkh0PimXlC7qOO0L0WhMXLRyScHp5jEvb9tSlHYDn5aLZUp0aA2WOHhM9mRN-R0qECHF-ReNWlzIFIGWr1C6$>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI5wPgp7iWiUPwbXdRA-9VQ__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VRaaGNSlxzDRrTPUtuuKOkqO1VXTADuOkLlnCHAe_BlMp31SYD4bjliyaS7qv2tcDDnA1hQJnly7UMAH42DFxwI$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI5wPgp7iWiUPwbXdRA-9VQ__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Riy2Qkh0PimXlC7qOO0L0WhMXLRyScHp5jEvb9tSlHYDn5aLZUp0aA2WOHhM9mRN-R0qECHF-ReNWlzIFKttEg2g$>
>>  Kalamazoo College
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.kzoo.edu/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Riy2Qkh0PimXlC7qOO0L0WhMXLRyScHp5jEvb9tSlHYDn5aLZUp0aA2WOHhM9mRN-R0qECHF-ReNWlzIFLJkHx4Q$>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Fis <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> on
>> behalf of Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
>> <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, October 17, 2024 9:58 AM
>> *To:* 'fis' <fis at listas.unizar.es> <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> *Subject:* [Fis] New Discussion Session--Complexity & feedback
>>
>>
>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>
>> We may start a new discussion session during next days.
>>
>> Title:
>>
>> *Complexity and feedback: in nature, technology, and society*
>>
>> Presenter:
>> *Peter Érdi*
>> Henry R. Luce Professor
>> University of Kalamazoo (MI)
>>
>> Greetings to all,
>> --Pedro
>> --------------------------------------------------------------
>> Pedro C. Marijuán
>> FIS Coordination
>> *FIS Archives last 10 years:*
>> http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/
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>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TM06qZ3D-mizico54YZw0l02tThdpy8xhdwd-35rmpmp5LM3hVvhPm6QcyJkzk8-r75hzcUI7pAEoVj7FK3iHm9j0FfC$>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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>> Libre de virus.https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.avast.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VRaaGNSlxzDRrTPUtuuKOkqO1VXTADuOkLlnCHAe_BlMp31SYD4bjliyaS7qv2tcDDnA1hQJnly7UMAHBvEm3O0$ 
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>>
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>
>
> --
> 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
> Mobile (India) +91 900 800 8789
> WhatsApp: as for Mobile, India
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