[Fis] Bill Miller's contribution: the "It" of a machine, Scylla and Charybdis.
Pedro C. Marijuán
pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com
Mon May 19 22:34:24 CEST 2025
Dear List,
Quite often, the most productive explanations in many disciplines have
to run a difficult way in between the empty over-generalization and the
accumulation of technical detail. Both aspects need each other, but
rarely are well complemented. For instance, talking about cellular
selfproduction, or autopoiesis, or the like, we forget having a glance
on the concrete way it is done. Myriads of specific "molecular
recognition events" are taking place, the most important ones around the
wondrous "machine" (?) in charge of protein synthesis, of producing the
own components--the ribosome. When protein synthesis takes place
according of the information gathered from the environment (rather than
haphazardly--presumably in prebiotic stages) and all the signaling
apparatuses are in place, we have a truly informational way of life.
Etc, etc. the evolutionary process flies.
So, selfproduction based on constructed polymers, on information
gathered from the environment, on an energy flow detected and
introjected, on everything well arranged around the life cycle...
that's a condensed draft of cellular life. It is important to keep this
in mind while navigating in between Scylla and Charybdis, as could be
symbolized in the next IAIS dialogue, between a creative generalizer and
a gifted ribosome expert.
Insightful sparks will be produced.
All the best,
--Pedro
El 18/05/2025 a las 17:10, Jason Hu escribió:
> Dear Joe,
>
> Geniuses consider very simple questions, such as Einstein's "What is
> time" or McCulloch's "What is a number." I'm not sure if FIS members
> are geniuses but we can monkey-see-monkey-do. So, for the question
> "what is a machine", let's consider its easier form "Is a clock a
> machine?" or "Is a clock larger than the sum of its parts? Yes or no?
>
> What would be a typical FIS member's answer? I'm curious.
>
> My own answer is "Yes AND No." Without any human involved, a clock
> equals the sum of its parts minus the original clock-maker's efforts
> to build it in that particular structure. But "without any human
> involved" is a false condition, because at least two human roles need
> to be involved to define the concept "clock." The first one is the guy
> who winds the spring in the clock to provide "energy" for it to
> tick-tock. The second role is the guy who reads the clock face to tell
> time; therefore, the clock is realized to be a clock. These two roles,
> plus the original designer/builder, enable the clock to be a clock.
> Without any of them, the clock is not larger than the sum of its
> parts. With human (creator/energizer/observer/user), it IS larger than
> the sum of its parts! That "largeness" is simply "clockness."
> So if you replace the word "clock" with "machine, " or with "LLM," or
> with "AI"... you get "cybernetic perspective, second-order."
> Best - Jason
>
> On Sun, May 18, 2025 at 12:59 AM <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch> wrote:
>
> Dear FIS'ers,
> My recent emphasis on ontology should not be taken to mean that I
> am eliminativist with respect to epistemology. I am simply
> concerned with restoring the proper balance between them. Mark’s
> note overall is thus very /à propos. /I just would point out that
> his use of paraconsistency (PC) is not complete, since PC, while
> allowing real contradictions, remains a logic of propositions.
> Also, while I welcome his reference to “a AND b”, he omitted
> pointing out, as I have tried to, that this is the /4^th /Lemma in
> the lemmic logic of Nagarjuna and his modern interpreters. For a
> more complete story, one should refer to the 3^rd Lemma, the
> NEITHER a NOR b.
> Having said that, two recent postings call, nay, cry out for an
> epistemic critique - those of Jason Hu and Paul Suni. I was
> surprised to learn that the last 200 years of thought have
> produced concepts of vitalism and mechanism that are not fraught
> with errors and omissions and are desperately in need of new
> approaches. Systemics, cybernetics and informatics still reflect
> predominantly Western concepts and their standard bivalent logics.
> Uncertainty is safely quarantined in the quantum domain.
> I am, also, perfectly aware that the FIS Group is not a venue for
> debate on political issues. However, to ignore completely the
> recent socio-political regressions would in my opinion trivialize
> our discussion. Note that I did not use the common fig leaf of
> "risk" trivializing.
> I used the word Trump, as I hoped and still hope that most of you
> will understand, as shorthand for the almost unbearable attacks
> being made on the democratic system in the United States based on
> perversions, to begin with, of ordinary capitalism. We then are
> confronted by the attempts at thought control by a so-called
> "extreme right-wing" using totalitarian techniques, augmented by
> AI. "Trump" means a society whose power-structure is white, male
> and, again, Western despite the inevitable "fellow-travelers" in
> all categories.
> Apart from my role in it, I think the discussion, a couple of
> years ago, of disinformation was a good one. In the interim, it
> has become so prevalent as to be unremarkable. Note also the cases
> of pseudo-information as in the recent discussion of Trump’s rule
> as an “hypnocracy”.
> I am generally sympathetic to Thomas' analysis: "In humans, this
> change means that there are no mental processes without a more or
> less clearly recognizable emotional involvement. The inextricable
> link between information processing—and, in more highly developed
> organisms, the psyche—and the body is what distinguishes living
> beings." However, his sentence: "In living beings, the main task
> of information processing is to optimize options for action.",
> while correct, falls back into a kind of moral neutrality when
> applied to humans.
> I thus conclude that a discussion of "minds" and machines should
> take into account the existence, as in the work of the biologist
> E. O. Wilson, of two kinds of minds, with tendencies to
> selfishness and altruism respectively. Are information processes
> the same in both? Perhaps there are some differences in the way
> information and context (background) are processed by "Trump" and
> by us that deserve attention?
> Although it conflicts somewhat with what I have written,
> I think that John Torday's interpretation in terms of energy
> is valid and very worthwhile. Further analysis might show that an
> interpretation of information_as_energy and the reverse are both
> valid.
> Thank you,
> Joseph
>> Le 17.05.2025 23:25 CEST, Mark Johnson <johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com> a
>> écrit :
>> Dear Bill, Mike and John
>> First of all thank you to Bill and Mike for continuing the very
>> stimulating discussion that began in the video call a few weeks ago.
>> There are, as is often the case on FIS, a number of ontological
>> assertions flying around which make navigating this space rather
>> difficult. Mike does his best to address this head-on in his
>> identification of two fundamental problems: "First, the belief
>> that we can objectively and uniquely nail down what something is.
>> And second, that our formal models of life, computers or
>> materials tell the entire story of their capabilities and
>> limitations."
>> Channelling Warren McCulloch, and perhaps in response to those
>> who ask "what is a machine?", I would like to ask "What is a
>> machine that we might know it, and what are we that we might know
>> a machine?"
>> What follows from the formulation such a question (whether you
>> ask about number, distinction, etc), is that any determination of
>> "what a machine is" - the "it" of a machine - is both contingent
>> and necessary. It is contingent because it must depend on the
>> determination by the observer (Maturana). It is necessary because
>> without any determination of what a machine is, we would have no
>> machines, no science, no institutions, no coordination - the
>> world would not be like the world we experience.
>> Our arguments about ontology are an expression of the contingency
>> of definition. The fact that we keep on going at it is indicative
>> of the necessity of definition. We perhaps should be mindful that
>> alongside contingency, is paraconsistency in definition: it is
>> not x OR y, information OR energy. It is probably x AND y.
>> This gives rise to something that doesn't often come up on this
>> list, which I have been reflecting on, which is dialectic. If you
>> take necessity and contingency together, you get a dialectical
>> process. This is political. I know (I'm sure he won't mind me
>> saying this) that behind John's passionate emphasis on energy is
>> a personal story about the pathology of humankind, and a fear
>> that misapprehending the underlying mechanism of evolutionary
>> development will lead to the kind of terrible consequences we saw
>> in the middle of the last century. Personally, I very swayed by
>> his arguments - they run very deep.
>> Indeed, behind much of the anxiety of AI are political feelings,
>> which are not properly inspected. As scientists, we are often
>> rather too buttoned-up, pretending this is all completely
>> rational. Well, we know it isn't. There are feasible dystopias
>> and infeasible dystopias, and equally infeasible utopias.
>> The politics comes from the dialectics which comes from the
>> contingency and necessity of definition of what a machine is.
>> This is not to say that there cannot be coordinated stability
>> through science. But it fundamentally requires trust and
>> humility, and acceptance of contingency and paraconsistency. As
>> Von Foerster pointed out many years ago, the word "truth" has the
>> same root as the word "trust" (see
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://youtu.be/Mc6YFUoPWSI?feature=shared__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TsfR7lEJUFSkEJdSNCxuRLaW4UpXTwI1vL8FE31t4uuoS1q-0FREBOrjEHxhd3sUSkL0szNmLcKe9fz0Sgs9xA5wbhWS$
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://youtu.be/Mc6YFUoPWSI?feature=shared__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!SOPq9poc-3vl-7SlVOj3yLI-dqYIjO9xvO16b4Q48lrtaRtB6K2fa2Uhx7dQtpM-i1tLaT5hg8TRQv5nhrKJK3Q$>)
>>
>> Trust appears to be some kind of physiological process. Do
>> machines help us to trust each other? Well, what do you think?
>> You're in a machine right now. Do you trust me? If this wasn't
>> email, what might we do to engender trust between us better?
>> Could a machine help? How?
>> Best wishes,
>> Mark
>>
>> On Wed, 14 May 2025 at 22:02, 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 discussion*
>> *William B. Miller, Jr.*
>> *
>> *
>> John S. Torday
>> Professor of Pediatrics
>> Obstetrics and Gynecology
>> Evolutionary Medicine
>> UCLA
>> /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. Torday
>> Professor of Pediatrics
>> Obstetrics and Gynecology
>> Evolutionary Medicine
>> UCLA
>> /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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>>
>> --
>> Dr. Mark William Johnson
>> Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health
>> University of Manchester
>> Department of Science Education
>> University of Copenhagen
>> Department of Eye and Vision Science (honorary)
>> University of Liverpool
>> Phone: 07786 064505
>> Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
>> Blog: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TsfR7lEJUFSkEJdSNCxuRLaW4UpXTwI1vL8FE31t4uuoS1q-0FREBOrjEHxhd3sUSkL0szNmLcKe9fz0Sgs9xILLyF76$
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!SOPq9poc-3vl-7SlVOj3yLI-dqYIjO9xvO16b4Q48lrtaRtB6K2fa2Uhx7dQtpM-i1tLaT5hg8TRQv5ngd1tt6A$>
>>
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