[Fis] Mind, Life & Machines

Fri May 23 04:18:30 CEST 2025

Mark, hi.
could you explain what the topology of a mechanism is?
with warmth and oomph--howard

    On Thursday, May 22, 2025 at 05:46:30 PM EDT, Mark Johnson <johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com> wrote:   

 Dear Mike, Bill, all,
I must confess to have slightly lost the plot with the present discussion. It could be just me, but FIS feels like a broken record sometimes. It certainly isn't caused by Bill or Mike - personally I blame the technology... (for reasons of trust and truth which I mentioned earlier - incidentally, on that topic, Ian McGilchrist here is great - https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_KNgKQVkcFI__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TtitjjOw-yh75vJB7Jj3FEssQaqTuPIgzj11TZm5mkeFB8iRQgQzHaCtNCD4aUAPpYaAKFkSSEWAlYKHWA$  )
I want to suggest a few propositions, relating particularly to Mike's concern for the distinction between machines and living things, and I'm interested if Bill, Mike or others agree. 
1. Although we humans are living things, in the context of a mechanised world, we (and perhaps only we) can behave like machines. The irony of this is that if we knew how machine-like the organic substrate of our consciousness is, we would behave more humanely, organically and less mechanically. This is the essential message of cybernetics. 
2. Our apprehension of what it is to be mechanical is a charicature of mechanism. Essentially human perception of "mechanical" is low-variety, unadaptive and by definition, inorganic - Von Foerster's trivial machine. It is from this charicature that our apprehension of "binary" systems comes. 
3. Our mechanistic charicature comes from an inability to perceive the topology of mechanism. I think this is more than Von Foerster's non-trivial machine, although it may be the case that to build a non-trivial machine a spatial dimension in its behaviour is necessary (see Tom Fischer's work on the Ashby's box: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337959136_Learning_the_Ashby_Box_an_experiment_in_second_order_cybernetic_modeling__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TtitjjOw-yh75vJB7Jj3FEssQaqTuPIgzj11TZm5mkeFB8iRQgQzHaCtNCD4aUAPpYaAKFkSSEUh2dp-hg$  ). We miss the full dimensional picture, and so attenuate it, and things like the Ashby box make no sense to us.
4. If we could perceive the full topology of mechanism we would revise our understanding of logic, binary, distinction, evolution and organisation. I wonder if such a new logic may resemble Joe's work, or Lou's topological work. 
5. Our present rapidly advancing AI technologies are scientific instruments that may yet extend our perception to apprehend the topology of mechanism. Alongside this, empirical biological work (particularly Mike's bioelectricity work) may well complement the technology and help establish a coordinated scientific understanding. 
What do you think? 
Best wishes
Mark 
Dr. Mark William Johnson
Faculty of Biology, Medicine and HealthUniversity of Manchester
Department of Science EducationUniversity of Copenhagen
Department of Eye and Vision Science (honorary)University of LiverpoolPhone: 07786 064505
Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
Blog: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TtitjjOw-yh75vJB7Jj3FEssQaqTuPIgzj11TZm5mkeFB8iRQgQzHaCtNCD4aUAPpYaAKFkSSEXvnnmf6g$ 
On Tue, 13 May 2025, 14:31 Pedro C. Marijuán, <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> wrote:

Mind, Life & Machines

>From Mike Levin: Living Things Are Not Machines (Also, They
 Totally Are)

To start with, different contexts require us to adopt diverse perspectives as to
 how much mind, or mechanism, is before us. The continuing battle over whether
 living beings are or are not machines is based on two mistaken but pervasive
 beliefs. 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.

Despite the continued expansion and mainstream prominence of molecular
 biology, and its reductionist machine metaphors, or likely because of it, there has
 been an increasing upsurge of papers and science social media posts arguing that
 “living things are not machines” (LTNM). There are thoughtful, informative,
 nuanced pieces exploring this direction, such as this exploration of “new post-
 genomic biology” and others, masterfully reviewed and analyzed by cognitive
 scientist and historian Ann-Sophie Barwich and historian Matthew James
 Rodriguez at Indiana University Bloomington. (A non-exhaustive list includes
 engineer Perry Marshall’s look at how biology transcends the limits of
 computation, computer scientist Alexander Ororbia’s discussion of “mortal
 computation,” biologist Stuart Kauffman and computer scientist Andrea Roli’s
 look at the evolution of the biosphere, and the works of philosophers like Daniel
 Nicholson, George Kampis and Günther Witzani.)

Many others, however, use the siren song of biological exceptionalism and
 outdated or poorly defined notions of “machines” to push a view that misleads lay
 readers and stalls progress in fields such as evolution, cell biology, biomedicine,
 cognitive science (and basal cognition), computer science, bioengineering,
 philosophy and more. All of these fields are held back by hidden assumptions
 within the LTNM-lens that are better shed in favor of a more fundamental framework.
 In arguing against LTNM, I use cognitive science-based 
 approaches to understand and manipulate biological substrates.
 I have claimed that cognition goes all the way down to the molecular level; after all,
 we find memory and learning in small networks of mutually interacting
 chemicals, and studies show that molecular circuits can act as agential materials.
 I take the existence of goals, preferences, problem-solving skills, attention,
 memories, etc., in biological substrates such as cells and tissues so seriously that
 I’ve staked my entire laboratory career on this approach.

 Some molecular biology colleagues consider my views — that bottom-up
 molecular approaches simply won’t suffice, and must be augmented with the tools
 and concepts of cognitive science — to be an extreme form of animism. Thus, my
 quarrel with LTNM is not coming from a place of sympathy with molecular
 reductionism; I consider myself squarely within the organicist tradition of
 theoretical biologists like Denis Noble, Brian Goodwin, Robert Rosen, Francisco
 Varela and Humberto Maturana, whose works all focus on the irreducible,
 creative, agential quality of life; however, I want to push this view further than
 many of its adherents might.

 LTNM must go, but we should not replace this concept with its opposite, 
 the dreaded presumption that living things are machines;
 that is equally wrong and also holds back progress.
 Still, it is easy to see why the LTNM-lens persists. The LTNM framing gives the
 feeling that one has said something powerful — cut nature at its joints with
 respect to the most important thing there is, life and mind, by establishing a
 fundamental category that separates life from the rest of the cold, inanimate
 universe. It feels as if it forestalls the constant, pernicious efforts to reduce the
 majesty of life to predictable mechanisms with no ability to drive consideration or
 the first-person experiences that make life worth living.
 “Many use the siren song of biological exceptionalism and outdated
 or poorly defined notions of ‘machines’ to push a view that misleads
 lay readers and stalls progress.”

 But this is all smoke and mirrors, from an idea that took hold as a bulwark against
 reductionism and mechanism; it refuses to go away even though we have
 outgrown it. The approach I am advocating for is anchored by the principles of
 pluralism and pragmatism: no system definitively is our formal model of it, but if
 we move beyond expecting everything to be a nail for one particular favorite
 hammer, we are freed up to do the important work of actually characterizing the
 sets of tools that may open new frontiers.

 As scientists and philosophers, we owe everyone realistic stories of scaling and
 gradual metamorphosis along a continuum — not of magical and sharp
 transitions — and a description of the tools we propose to use to interact with a
 wide range of systems, along with a commitment to empirical evaluation of those
 tools. We must battle our innate mind-blindness with new theories in the field of
 Diverse Intelligence and the facilitating technology it enables, much as a theory
 and apparatus for electromagnetism enabled access to an enormous, unifying
 spectrum of phenomena of which we had previously had only narrow, disparate-
 seeming glimpses. We must resist the urge to see the limits of reality in the limits
 of our formal models. Everything, even things that look simple to us, are a lot
 more than we think they are because we, too, are finite observers — wondrous
 embodied minds with limited perspectives but massive potential and the moral
 responsibility to get this (at least somewhat) right.

 See an enlarged version of this text at: 

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.noemamag.com/living-things-are-not-machines-also-they-totally-are/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TtitjjOw-yh75vJB7Jj3FEssQaqTuPIgzj11TZm5mkeFB8iRQgQzHaCtNCD4aUAPpYaAKFkSSEW-1ebEYA$ 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 From William B. Miller, Jr. : Information in a cellular framework – abstract for discussion

See in the accompanying attached file (for technical reasons)

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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 ("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!TtitjjOw-yh75vJB7Jj3FEssQaqTuPIgzj11TZm5mkeFB8iRQgQzHaCtNCD4aUAPpYaAKFkSSEWrZT2fQw$  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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