[Fis] "Percepts" and self-reference
Stuart Kauffman
stukauffman at gmail.com
Tue Jan 14 22:02:49 CET 2025
ps, the emergence of a new Function in evolution is also the creation of new Information that has semantics. Stu
> On Jan 14, 2025, at 2:01 PM, Stuart Kauffman <stukauffman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Lou and All, if I may:
>
> Omega is based on formal systems, that is, the halting problem that is not solvable. So Chaitin’s Omega is some random bit sequence that arises due to the formal halting problem
> .
>
> In the evolving biosphere, novelties typically arises by Darwinian Preadatiions, or Vrba and Gould’s exhalations. An organism is a Kantian Whole where the Parts exist for and by means of the Whole. Thus we can define the “function” of a Part as that subset of its causal properties that sustain the Whole. The function of the heart is to pump blood, not make heart sounds.
>
> But the very definition of a Kantian Whole, its Parts and their function implies that any Part, that has myriad causal consequences, can be co-opted for one of those myriad causal consequences to carry out a new function. This is a Darwinian Preadaptation. In general it is not possible to deduce one use of a Part from its other uses. So this process is not open to deduction. This is NOT the formal Halting problem at all.
>
> Stu
>
>> On Jan 14, 2025, at 12:49 PM, Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> About Chaitin’s Omega.
>> The n-th digit of Omega is 1 if the n-th algorithm in a given language halts. It is 0 if the algorithm does not halt.
>> We can list all the algorithms, but we do not know in general (there is no algorithm for it) whether they always stop.
>> Omega is an example of a “random binary sequence” in the sense of Chaitin and Kolmogorov.
>> There is no algorithm (in the given language) that can do any better in producing Omega than Omega itself.
>> And Omega is kinda maximally unknowable to boot.
>> What does this manifestation of Turing undecidability have to do with life forms?
>> Well it certainly speaks to Stu Kauffman’s position that in biology we see the emergence of solutions by jury rigging that have no chance at all of being
>> deduced formally in some Turing machine. Natural invention occurs from opportunity and variety and lack of formalization. So this is in the complement to our
>> studies (a la Goedel, Church, Turing, Chaitin, Kolmogorov) of the limitations of formal systems. I should add that mathematics also progresses, like biology, by
>> Opportunity, the Alternate Possible and Jury Rigging. That’s how we got all our interesting structures, primes, manifolds, projective geometry the Möbius band, the number zero, the Calculus,
>> Imaginary numbers, quaternions, Exotic differentiable structures, Knots, Cantor’s Infinities,Fractals, …. All cooked up by people who just did not abide with the status quo.
>> We then tell the tale as formally as we can for the sake of our reputations and (ahem) the preservation of knowledge.
>> Best,
>> Lou
>>
>>
>>> On Jan 14, 2025, at 9:06 AM, Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com <mailto:loukau at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I deny perception other than conscious perception.
>>> Of course we often react unconsciously.
>>>
>>> If I say that the die will fall heads with a frequency of 1/6, this is correct.
>>> In quantum theory this is ALL we can say since these systems do not have frequencies that come from counting and so are not probabilities.
>>> Vibration is not a quantitative term.
>>>
>>> More about this in next email!
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Jan 14, 2025, at 5:57 AM, Plamen <plamen.l.simeonov at gmail.com <mailto:plamen.l.simeonov at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear Lou,
>>>>
>>>> A private questions and some feedback for you only: under „unconscious perception“ do you understand „intuition“ or more, perhaps clairvoyance ?
>>>>
>>>> I think that „vibration“ is a better term for „frequencies“ in this phenomenological context.
>>>>
>>>> I like your other answers to Kathrine. When speaking of „O“ and C.S. Pearce’s concept of sign, could you also comment on how do you comprehend Greg Chaitin‘s „Omega“ halting probability, https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0404335*__;Iw!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WNA2k2fqHtSaBW-4326UnwO2ECEyLHbXDTvoFNZALVQQS2BS8c5jXknrwLVBPlo7aNE2yUpR1uUGd2w4aO55u3U$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0404335*__;Iw!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WSM7LhCpjdE2hXNU3cJ-QDdvq9-AOP-2-LI1d5m1bvKOLgEvoC_btu2JaKz5AY7cuLTKv763cGpu-vlG$>, in a computational context, please? Do you think that this could have some implication on the definition of (synthetic) life (forms) ?
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Plamen
>>>>
>>>>> On Jan 14, 2025, at 3:58 AM, Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com <mailto:loukau at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear Kate,
>>>>> I have questions and comments.
>>>>> 1. While the notions of right and left hemispheres are useful to summarize certain aspects, I actually do not know what is really meant when people use those words.
>>>>> So it would be better in communicating with me, a mathematician who needs definitions whenever possible, to rewrite statements without those metaphors.
>>>>> 2. I do not want the word probability unless you can tell me what you are counting. If you cannot tell, then please speak of frequencies. Same for so called probability in QM.
>>>>> 3. Perception does not include unconscious processing, but unconcious processing can affect perception. Perception is accompanied by awareness, often by consciousness.
>>>>> This is how I use the word perception. My camera does not perceive the sunset. I perceive the photo produced by the camera and I am involved in the taking of photos by the camera.
>>>>> Of course, I can set the camera to taking photos automatically. No perception occurs until I see them or you see them. But registration does occur. These issues are related to QM as well.
>>>>> The cat registers and is dead or alive at the end of the hour. I find out. But the potentia have come to rest before I find out because the cat is corporeal.
>>>>> 4. Do you feel that all awareness is related to emotions? GSB says every distinction is associated with motive. So maybe. Feeling is more general then emotion in my ways of speaking.
>>>>> Feeling has to do with going outside given language and meaning to a wider and not defined domain from which we return with possibly new ways of speaking. This is for me what Wittgenstein is speaking
>>>>> about when he says “Whereof one cannot speak one must be silent.”, and then new speaking can emerge, but NOT from a “hierarchy of languages” as Russell said in his introduction to W’s Tractatus, but by going beneath language to
>>>>> Its source.
>>>>> 5. In relation to 4. C.S.Peirce had the idea of a “sign for itself” that emerged from the ever expanding hierarchy of a person’s language. There is a truth in that. One can also see an icon, such as O, as a sign for itself when seen as both a distinction and a sign for a distinction. But then the sign O is enveloped in the interpretant that would see it that way. And we only understand the interpretant in terms of the ever expanding hierarchy of our language. The O is like a “quantum particle”. It takes the whole universe of
>>>>> discourse to disclose its meaning. All of language collapses into the meaning of a single word or sign.
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> Lou
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jan 13, 2025, at 3:57 PM, Katherine Peil <ktpeil at outlook.com <mailto:ktpeil at outlook.com>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you so much Lou.
>>>>>> Self-reference is something very deep indeed, perhaps fundamentally located at the nexus of subject~object itself (in terms of geometry and association with quantum physics). The step from the Peircian triangle to George Spencer-Brown’s observer intervention and wavefunction collapse seems to be in this territory. Self-reference as being the perfect circle, representing the emergence from a sea of possibilities the probabilistic manifestation of percept and concept in one lovely unit.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> From a psychological perspective, however, perception is a different can of worms, distinct from (but related to physical sensory stimulus) and the embodied response. Behaviorism noted the stimulus-response coupling (and its essential role in learning), but remained intentionally blind to any internal cognitive processing inside the proverbial Black Box. Perception can be defined as everything happening inside that Black Box, everything between that stimulus and response, and the more neurally endowed the creature, the more the perceptual processing involved. Unlike the perfect zero, it can be reasonably accurate or riddled with error. This is why some self-referential feedback is required in the stimulus itself.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This marks the distinction between affective computations and cognitive computations. Affective computations specifically concern the self, they feel either good or bad, offering evaluative feedback about the self within its local physical environment and they trigger direct stimulus-response behavior. The stream of emotional information came first and still provides primary behavioral motivation. No observation no qualia? I agree but add no sensory stimulus, no percept!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ian McGlichest’s work in the dual yet interacting functions of the left and right brain hemispheres is instructive here as well. Music, maths, non-verbal wholism, creative “unconscious”, intuitive capacities and all imaginable possibilities…… and emotion…collectively dwell in the right hemisphere – the Master to the left-brain emissary where complex linguistic perceptual processing occurs.
>>>>>> Kate Kauffman
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 1/12/25, 9:39 PM, "Stuart Kauffman" <stukauffman at gmail.com <mailto:stukauffman at gmail.com>> wrote: Katherine Peil Kauffman
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you both,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Stu
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jan 12, 2025, at 8:52 PM, Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com <mailto:loukau at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear Katherine
>>>>>> I do not yet take the step to “explain” how to go from percept to concept.
>>>>>> The point I inhabit is prior to that.
>>>>>> In every situation where you have percept you also have concept.
>>>>>> They arise together for you.
>>>>>> Possibly not with the good concept you are searching for.
>>>>>> For example, consider the way the perception of Saturn’s rings first appeared as lune-like patterns on the orb of the planet.
>>>>>> The better concept of rings took some time.
>>>>>> But every time there is a perception there is at the very least some concept, some description and it is from this place of percept/concept together that we proceed.
>>>>>> From there you may or may not conclude that there is no way to reduce percept to concept and there is no way to reduce concept to percept.
>>>>>> That is my position as a working position.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Experience provides evidence that there is much more to the concurrence. In typing I can accomplish the task without looking at the keys.
>>>>>> I have no training in this. I found that eventually I did it. I do not know how it works or why it is reliable. If you asked me which fingers make which letters, I could not answer.
>>>>>> The same goes for improvisation on my clarinet, but there I do keep conscious track of the key and some other contextual information. Then my “fingers” do the rest in feedback with ear and brain.
>>>>>> LeDoux has an important point and I would like to know how he links the Cognitive Computations with the Affective Computations. In music practice we do this very deliberately, but in performance
>>>>>> (also part of practice) we let it happen. Music seems to begin with the affective. Doing mathematics seems to often begin in the cognitive, but achieves new creation at the nexus of cognitive and affective levels.
>>>>>> This is why many people gravitate to geometry. And the Pythagoreans knew that music and geometry were one.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Steiner in his early work focused on the self-reference of "thought thinking thought” which I take to be at the nexus of concept and percept.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In logical and pre logical work it helps to use signs iconically.
>>>>>> Thus a circle such as O can stand for a distinction and we can “see” that the circle itself makes a distinction in the plane.
>>>>>> Thus the circle O is seen to refer to itself.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In this self-reference the Peircian Triangle
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Interpretant
>>>>>> Signifier Signified
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Collapses to.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Interpretant
>>>>>> O
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The O does not have a separate meaning from its interpretant.
>>>>>> This leads George Spencer-Brown to declaim:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> <GSBMarkObserverQuote.png>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I suggest that this situation is imaged in the orthodox form of quantum measurement where the smooth and determinate evolution of the wave function is
>>>>>> Interrupted by the mark of observation. Without an observer there is no distinction and the world unseen evolves in potentia. With an observer comes
>>>>>> percept and concept and all the rest. When I was 16 I called the potentia the “guarded source of the discrete”. Can’t do any better yet.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>> Lou
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jan 12, 2025, at 5:21 PM, Katherine Peil <ktpeil at outlook.com <mailto:ktpeil at outlook.com>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks Pedro – great to hear from you. A quick comment on:
>>>>>> …. I see a problem going from "percepts to concepts" as Lou claims
>>>>>> below. Neuroscience has nowadays a rare consensus on not dissociating
>>>>>> PERCEPTION and ACTION. The "Action Perception Cycle"…
>>>>>> From the view of emotion science, this reflects a neurocentric problem wherein “cognition” (perceptual processing) confounds sensations that lead to actions – embodied emotional sensations that came on the evolutionary stage well before nerve nets or brains. It is emotion that is central to action, behavior and motivation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Neuroscientist Jospeh LeDoux made this key distinction:
>>>>>> Cognitive computations: Reflective, conscious, goal-directed thought, often linked to areas of the brain involved in higher cognitive functions.
>>>>>> Affective computations: Automatic, unconscious, emotional processing, often linked to areas of the brain involved in emotional regulation and survival mechanisms. They always concern “the self” and the lead to actions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I can paraphrase his example…” there is a huge experiential difference between the thought that a snake is a reptile, that its skin can be made into belts and shoes, and the thought that a snake is likely to be dangerous.”
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Recall my claim that emotion in its simplest binary form – akin to pleasure or pain - carries the foundational semantic information bit that undergirds all learning systems, but emerges from the dynamics and logic of genetic, epigenetic and immune regulation. The Perception-Action-Cycle relies on the emotional component, so IMHO Lou is still on safe and important new ground.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Kate Kauffman
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 1/12/25, 2:59 PM, "Fis" <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>> wrote: Katherine Peil Kauffman
>>>>>>
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>>>>>> Today's Topics:
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>>>>>> 1. Re: LOF Friday (Pedro C. Mariju?n)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Message: 1
>>>>>> Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2025 22:58:21 +0100
>>>>>> From: Pedro C. Mariju?n <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com <mailto:pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>>
>>>>>> To: fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Fis] LOF Friday
>>>>>> Message-ID: <d93cbae2-038d-4733-8071-4f7b93a4f6d6 at gmail.com <mailto:d93cbae2-038d-4733-8071-4f7b93a4f6d6 at gmail.com>>
>>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear List,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Please, take care to post properly (as the server automatically
>>>>>> demands), as otherwise I become rather overwhelmed wit all the different
>>>>>> warning messages. Thanks Lou for the tip about that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well, I see a problem going from "percepts to concepts" as Lou claims
>>>>>> below. Neuroscience has nowadays a rare consensus on not dissociating
>>>>>> PERCEPTION and ACTION. The "Action Perception Cycle" is the most common
>>>>>> acceptation. The "concept" gets? not too far from either side, and
>>>>>> usually it is incorporating elements of each kind, with different
>>>>>> predominance. Joaqu?n Fuster (2008 and 2014 I think) coined the term
>>>>>> "cognit" to refer to the intermediate stage, having both percept ears
>>>>>> and action legs (so to speak). The union of cognits legs and ears (or
>>>>>> legs and legs, ears and ears, etc.) would give birth to different kinds
>>>>>> of concepts, and the union of concepts via shared cognits would give
>>>>>> rise to conceptualizations, sentences, etc. Having entered action in the
>>>>>> world scheme is not trivial at all. Our litmus test for reality is not
>>>>>> that the percept agrees with the concept, but with the action. It is, as
>>>>>> we consider in the world of science, the whole experimental part... the
>>>>>> "fact". As Goethe's Faust aptly says: "In the beginning was the deed"!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My other brief pill refers again to autopoiesis. A few cellular
>>>>>> arguments not well tolerated (or only partially some of them) by
>>>>>> autopoiesis:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --The enormous cellular importance of protein degradation. The world of
>>>>>> proteasomes (the cell "industry of destruction") is fascinating, even in
>>>>>> the simplest cells.
>>>>>> --The different classes of programmed cell death, essentially apoptosis,
>>>>>> is also of enormous multicell--and even bacterial-- importance.
>>>>>> --The absorption of external DNA is quite frequent, and even customary
>>>>>> in some bacteria.
>>>>>> --The horizontal gene transmission is of great evolutionary importance
>>>>>> too (the world of phages, plasmids, transposons...)
>>>>>> --A number of genes in E. coli are never expressed in a regular life
>>>>>> cycle (close to 30 or 40%, depending on the happenstances)
>>>>>> --The revolutionary role of 'external' viruses in the greatest evo
>>>>>> transitions (Villarroel, Witzany).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, even if you consider these caveats fulfilled in larger and larger
>>>>>> definitions of autopoiesis, there is another point that may be quite
>>>>>> troubling: information flow and signaling disappear, and are substituted
>>>>>> by the structural coupling with the environment and the observer
>>>>>> conceptualization involvement. The big concern is that advancement of
>>>>>> the life cycle, as the central hub to which signaling or external flows
>>>>>> cohere, and to which biological meaning relates, does not occupy its
>>>>>> explanatory essential role... while adaptively advancing the life cycle
>>>>>> is the silver thread that connects all biological world, including our
>>>>>> own societies.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I understand that for a mathematician the AP idea is quite handy, and
>>>>>> fruitful, but for those interested in the evolution of signals,
>>>>>> sensibility, action, emotions, social emotions, etc. is perhaps a
>>>>>> stumbling block to overcome. By the way, your previous post to Krassimir
>>>>>> on information was quite valuable, a firm standpoint which I share. I
>>>>>> was trying to comment on it, but my daily schedule is bizarre.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best--Pedro
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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