[Fis] Fwd: Bill Miller's contribution

Thu May 15 04:53:43 CEST 2025

biology might productively
 inform physics and mathematics, 

 I agree.
with warmth and oomph--howard bloom

    On Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 05:01:49 PM EDT, JOHN TORDAY <jtorday at ucla.edu> wrote:   

 Dear Pedro, Bill and fis,with all due respect,  I have attached my replies to Bill's Information in a cellular framework – abstract for discussionWilliam B. Miller, Jr.
John S. TordayProfessor of PediatricsObstetrics and GynecologyEvolutionary MedicineUCLA
Fellow, The European Academy of Science and Arts

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: JOHN TORDAY <jtorday at ucla.edu>
Date: Wed, May 14, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] Bill Miller's contribution
To: Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>

Dear Pedro and Bill and fis, I have attached my responses to Bill's "Information in a Cellular Framework"..... 
John S. TordayProfessor of PediatricsObstetrics and GynecologyEvolutionary MedicineUCLA
Fellow, The European Academy of Science and Arts

On Wed, May 14, 2025 at 3:45 PM Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> wrote:

  Given the archive difficulties with attached files, systematically scrubbed by the server, I am posting Bill's text as a regular message (today I finally could do that!).
 It is an angle pretty different from the mechanism/non mechanism one...      Regards --Pedro
 ------------------------------------------------- 
Information in a cellular framework – abstract for discussion
 William B. Miller, Jr.

A long-standing presumption among many physicists and mathematicians is
 that biology is a descriptive endeavor and any deep understanding of the
 living frame must issue from their more rigorous disciplines. Nonetheless,
 neither physics nor mathematics has explained the non-equilibrium living
 state in which intelligent self-referential cells deploy problem-solving
 competencies to sustain themselves across living scales. Consequently, some
 scientists argue that the reverse may be correct: biology might productively
 inform physics and mathematics, offering insights into how natural laws
 might extend beyond known physical and mathematical principles.
 In the same spirit, examining the specific attributes of biological
 information processing and living information management as specifically
 exemplified by cells might provide a productive further thrust to the
 fundamental action-logic of those theoretical information systems formulated
 by visionary information theorists.

To stimulate that initiative, it is proposed that information theorists might
 direct their attention to the specific informational characteristics of intelligent,
 measuring cells, which represent the basal strata of our living planetary
 system.

Several specific attributes of biological information have been
 empirically verified at the cellular level, thereby defining the informational
 conditions of our living system:

--All cells are cognitive, problem-solving agents.

--Their living context is the ambiguity of information.

--The uncertain validity of environmental stimuli governs the cellular
 reception, analysis, and deployment of all cellular resources.

--Imperfect information requires cells to internally measure their
 received information.

--Accordingly, all cellular information is a product of infoautopoiesis,
 entailing that all the information that any cell has about its external
 environment is exclusive, self-referential, and self-produced.

--Cellular infoautopiesis drives an obligatory and little appreciated
 derivative: each cell, and then we as cellular beings, create our
 exclusive self-referential representations of reality and act upon that
 self-generated purview.

--Obliged informational uncertainties stimulate the collective cellular
 analysis of self-generated cellular information, driving ubiquitous
 planetary multicellularity as a cellular expression of the familiar
 'wisdom of crowds'.

--Cellular information processing directs toward narrowing distinctions
 on the adjacents to diminish their obligatory uncertainty gap, yielding
 the effective minimization of surprisal in conformity with the Free
 Energy Principle.

--Every cell does work to sustain its self-directed state of homeorhetic
 preferential flux.

--Narrowing the distinctions on the adjacents as the effective
 minimization of surprisal enables cellular predictions and
 anticipations.

--Self-referential cellular states of homeorhetic preference drive
 multicellular eukaryotic macroorganic behaviors and emotions.

SOME BASIC QUESTIONS (for the discussion)

Information in the living frame has been commonly defined according to
 Bateson’s familiar definition as a 'difference that makes a difference over
 time.' How might that definition explain internal self reference that governs
 our lives, enabling living information management? Might other definitions
 serve better?

How can previously formulated information theories illuminate the cellular
 living process within its obligatory context of informational ambiguity?
 How do current information theories explain the presence of inference,
 prediction, and anticipation.

Why do these informational cues, which must first manifest at the level of
 cells as exclusive states of self-referential homeorhetic preference, exert in
 multicellularity as nuanced multicellular behaviors and emotions?
 Recent research confirms the remarkable competencies of diverse
 intelligences across living scales. How might applying information systems
 theory contribute to our debate about any categorical distinctions between the
 living frame and the abiotic realm? If a fluid continuum is asserted, how
 might that be rationalized?

Is our understanding of biological systems improved by asserting an
 immaterial Platonic informational platform permitting cells to interrogate a
 constrained portion of universal informational space-time (? phase space
 partition) as part of a universal informational fabric?

Given the extraordinary competencies of current AI systems and projected
 future abilities, how might information theory inform constructive responses
 to inevitable social, economic, and cultural pressures?
 What should govern our ethical responses to the still-developing organic constructs
  which will include synthetic combinations of digital competencies and living cells?
 If 'consciousness' is determined to be a litmus of our ethical stance toward
 other living entities, what practical informational threshold exists, if any?

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__________________________Howard BloomThe Howard Bloom Institutehttps://howardbloom.instituteAuthor of: The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong, coming March, 2025 ("A massive achievement, WOW!"  Richard Foreman, MacArthur Genius Award Winner, Officer of the Order of Arts & Letters, France)Previous books: The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"-The New Yorker),The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("A tremendously enjoyable book." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic),  The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),How I Accidentally Started the Sixties (“Wow! Whew! Wild! Wonderful!” Timothy Leary),The Mohammed Code (“A terrifying book…the best book I’ve read on Islam.” David Swindle, PJ Media),Einstein, Michael Jackson & Me: a Search  for Soul in the Power Pits of Rock & Roll ("Amazing. The writing is revelatory." Freddy DeMann, manager of Michael Jackson and Madonna), Best Book of 2020, New York Weekly Times 
A Quartz Magazine ProProfessor of Practice, Kepler Space University Co-founder, The Asian Space Technology SummitFormer Visiting Scholar, Graduate Psychology Department, New York University, Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Founder: International Paleopsychology Project. Founder, Space Development Steering Committee.  Member Of Board Of Governors, National Space Society. Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution Society. Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project.
BRIC-TV's 66-minute film, The Grand Unified Theory of Howard Bloom,  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atYmiEZ6YDUBest__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QU2hvSWMl_nnLTIrNpZp6n6dHOLE92SNmSEj-ZKLi7zcfKTQrBljHcriAZv8aHQZG3nPv11wwk6c_DoHsA$  Picture, Science Design Film Festival. Best Documentary Feature, Not Film Festival, Italy. Available  on Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, Microsoft, Vimeo, Vudu, and Fandango.

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