[Fis] Current remarks/Info Synthesis?

[Pedro C. Marijuán]

Dear FIS Colleagues,

It is my impression that there is a vast swath of biological (& social) 
phenomena the conceptualization of which demands a new approach to 
information --tentatively, a new synthesis. Let me show a few potential 
guidelines.

-- When the best known cellular signaling system is approached, i.e., 
the E. coli set of component-systems (1 CS, 2CS, 3CS) plus transporters, 
channels, receptor-channels, sigma factors, etc., what we contemplate is 
a vast exploratory system of the environment, so that an "information 
flow" based on specific molecular recognition events grants the 
advancement of a life cycle continuously adapted to the changing 
environment.

-- When we do a similar exercise with the cells of a multicellular, we 
find several dozen of signaling pathways, each one of a much larger 
complexity, that have been acting during the different phases of the 
life cycle of that cell, and particularly along its developmental & 
tissular differentiation trajectory. Now, the "information flow" 
intercepted by the single cell is caught within what was called a 
"bauplan", further participating in a microscopic problem-solving of the 
whole functions & niche adaptations of the multicell organism.

-- When advanced nervous systems appear, a quasi-instantaneous 
information flow and a coupled locomotion & action system provide a new 
way to stay in the world, which culminates (in some important aspects) 
in the human adaptation to a social niche. Now the information flow 
contains language, emotional contents, facial & bodily expressions, plus 
all the previous ecological demands. The human life cycle takes place 
amidst a "sociotype" of acquaintances to which most of the information 
flow belongs or is addressed to. It is in this framework that new ways 
of communication may propel social complexity, though stifling at the 
same time the adaptive propensities inherent in human life cycles.  Just 
a glance on the Anthropogenesis special issue to appear quite soon can 
be revealing.

What McLuhan predicated on the media of his time (and the history of) 
was based on a thin and pretty abstracted conception of the media impact 
on our individual nervous systems (not his fault, but the state of 
science in his time). Without diminishing his legate, we need to 
encounter him from the other side of the "breach" (reminding C.P. 
Snow's gap between literary intellectuals -humanities- and natural 
scientists), now equipped with a far richer understanding on the 
information phenomena in the biological & the social. Rather then 
looking for elegant, ambitious all-comprehensive names we would need... 
what?

All the best,
--Pedro

El 19/12/2025 a las 17:14, Mark Johnson escribió:
> Dear Gordana, all,
>
> The comparison of autopoiesis with Darwin is very interesting. Like 
> Maturana, Darwin provided a scientific narrative which had explanatory 
> power but whose predictive power is largely untestable. There's a 
> whole contorted series of scientific developments which have ensued 
> since, with genomics and neo-Darwinism leading the charge. The likes 
> of Denis Noble (and Torday) have been challenging all of this, of course.
>
> In the light of this, wouldn't it be equally possible to say 
> "Darwinism was never meant to explain cell communication, or 
> epigenetic inheritance, or to predict the effect of microgravity on 
> PTHrP - it was an explanation at a higher level. It is not a causal 
> explanation, but a constraint on the unity of any particular 
> organism." But are we not just playing with words here? What isn't a 
> constraint on the unity of an organism?!
>
> If we were to look at something slightly different, why not examine 
> Friston Free Energy? I'm not an advocate of FEP, but it at least does 
> seem to be furnished with empirical examples that correlate with 
> simulated models (I made a simulation the other day - chat is really 
> good at this these days - Free Energy Principle: Evolution & 
> Organismic Agency 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://markwilliamjohnson.github.io/epicoh/FEP.html__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Qb2Aia8dIGosrRcBARsQjQF_8zptefw-6jT5Vzg963ZqA5aSiuvQcGwBAwuJr3HRn92qWfCAa_Givk9pC32sQqE$>). 
> But on deeper inspection of those models, new questions emerge about 
> all those Bayesian calculations, the abstractness of it all - but at 
> least there's something empirical there (The free-energy principle: a 
> unified brain theory? | Nature Reviews Neuroscience 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn2787__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Qb2Aia8dIGosrRcBARsQjQF_8zptefw-6jT5Vzg963ZqA5aSiuvQcGwBAwuJr3HRn92qWfCAa_Givk9pllVzxis$>)
>
> I think the real point is that we have a choice as to whether we 
> attach ourselves to explanatory principles and conduct our scientific 
> discourse on the basis of that attachment (which, to be frank, is what 
> cults do), or we insist on the turn to nature and question to what 
> extent our explanatory narratives are unsound.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Mark
>
> On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 at 10:37, Gordana Dodig Crnkovic 
> <dodig at chalmers.se> wrote:
>
>     Dear Mark, dear all,
>
>     I think the comparison with the periodic table sets rather
>     different expectations than autopoiesis was ever meant to address.
>
>     Autopoiesis is not comparable to the periodic table.
>
>     If anything, it is closer in spirit to Darwin’s theory of evolution.
>
>     Darwin’s framework was extraordinarily powerful, yet radically
>     incomplete at the time it was proposed.
>
>     Much of what we now take to be central to evolutionary theory,
>     such as genetics, population dynamics, molecular mechanisms,
>
>     basal cognition, etc. was unavailable to him.
>
>     Over time, evolutionary theory was extended, revised, and enriched,
>
>     and its continued capacity to generate new developments is a sign
>     of its strength.
>
>     This developmentis clearly visible in the Extended Evolutionary
>     Synthesisthat expands
>     the gene-centric Modern Synthesis by integrating development
>     (evo-devo),
>     phenotypic plasticity, epigenetic inheritance, and niche construction.
>
>     It treats organisms as active participants in evolution, shaping
>     their environments and affectingevolution
>     through developmental and organizational processes, rather than
>     viewing genes as the onlydrivers.
>
>     This did not replace Darwinian evolution.It deepened and
>     operationalized it.
>
>     I see autopoiesis in a similar way. It is not a finished theory,
>     and many of its aspects require further development.
>
>     For example, Maturana was famously opposedtoassigning an essential
>     role to information,
>     whereas today it seems obvious that informational processes are
>     central.
>
>     Likewise, classical formulations of autopoiesis focus primarily on
>     the autopoietic system itself, the living agent,
>     giving comparatively little attention to the environment and the
>     interactive processes that couple the two.
>
>     We are gradually learning how importantthose interactions are.
>
>     But this reflects the character of an open-ended, generative
>     theory, one that continues to inspirerefinements,
>     improvements, and integration with other approaches.
>
>     To my mind, what ultimately counts is whether the ongoing
>     development of autopoietic thinking
>     leads to genuinely new and deep biological insights.
>
>     Best regards,
>
>     Gordana
>
>     -
>
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