[Fis] Contingency signals: AI Information, Decision and Learning

Sun Nov 23 14:18:25 CET 2025

To Pedro and FIS, I agree with Pedro that Gordon Tomkins' "Metabolic Code"
correlates with what I have been saying about how and why cells evolve due
to alterations in their homeostatic state in order to adapt to
ever-changing conditions within the environment. Tomkins hints at
homeostasis but doesn't use the term* per se, *even though it is the core
principle for physiology (Bernard, Cannon)....

Survival would therefore have required the evolution of regulatory
mechanisms that could maintain a relatively constant intracellular environment
in the face of changes in external conditions.

My own work on cellular evolution and consciousness ties what Tomkins is
> alluding to through the effect of the force of gravity as an 'organizing
> principle' (Maturana and Varela's 'Autopoiesis') that accounts for how/why
> we feel there is something greater than ourselves, *ennobling ourselves
> to adapt to the ever-changing conditions in our environment as a
> consequence of the expanding Cosmos*, but allow me to explain. The
> aggregate of that process is what we refer to as consciousness, mediatedd
> by Lynn Margulis Sagan's Symbiogenesis, assimilating factors in the
> environment to maintain homeostasis, along with their associated
> mathematics (Plato, Tegmark, Livio)....integrating such factors to form our
> physiology, replete with math (see Weibel's 'Symmorphosis'). In turn, the
> composite of our physiology constitutes synchronic local consciousness, and
> when challenged, the latter references the Cosmos diachronically as
> non-local consciousness. All of the above takes on a 'holism' when seen in
> the guise of Stellar Nucleosynthesis (Hoyle, 1946), the stars being formed
> from hydrogen and helium iteratively, the elements as byproducts in their
> exact order of their atomic masses as the 'logic of the Cosmos'. We living
> beings assimilate that logic through Margulis-Sagan's Symbiogenesis, the
> lighter (less than or equal to the atomic mass of iron) elements within the
> cell, the heavier elements (greater than iron) embedded in the
> extracellular matrix. As 'proof of principle', homeostatic communication
> between the cell and its matrix is mediated by nitric oxide (NO); the
> highest concentration of NO in the skin resides in the Acupuncture sites,
> alluding to the communication between the skin and visceral organs, NO
> being secreted into the circulation, and ultimately the exhaled breath. The
> consensus is that there's not enough NO in the breath to affect the
> behavior of other 'conversants', as in Gordon Pask's "Conversation
> Theory".....that as a conversation progresses it will lead to a higher
> level of consciousness. However, if oxytocin, the neuroendocrine hormone,
> is produced as a consequence of 'progressive' conversation, the oxytocin
> will amplify the NO signaling within and between the conversants. This is
> not unlike Suzanne Simard's ("The Mother Tree") observation that the leaves
> of trees use ethhylene to converse with one another. Much of the above is
> mediated by cAMP, so we're back to Tomkin's 'Metabolic Code'.

Please feel free to comment/criticize.....John

On Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 3:22 PM Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> the messages below remind me Tomkins' "metabolic code " hypothesis. In a
> nutshell it says that most (?)  signaling evolves from the detection of
> anomalous inner states, accumulating unwanted metabolic dead ends, and
> later on these very substances become signals that circulate inside and
> outside to trigger functional responses (the case of cAMP is highlighted).
> So, the individual contingent becomes later on the social determinant, and
> also the vice versa.
> My memory is weak, my time short. Anyone interested may go to journal
> Science. GM Tomkins · 1975 — The *Metabolic Code*: Biological symbolism
> and the origin of intercellular communication is discussed.
> I think John's works are not far from these premises...
>
> Greetings to all,
> --Pedro
>
> El 20/11/2025 a las 12:54, JOHN TORDAY escribió:
>
> Any way to test whether the AI 'parts' are representative of a 'whole'? or
> just space-filling stuff....
>
> John Torday
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 4:29 AM Mark Johnson <johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> A group of colleagues and I have been working on diagnostic AI for some
>> years  using a comparison technique. A few of us just published this paper
>> on the inter-relationship between management decision making, the learning
>> of decision-making and technology: Developing judgement for business: an
>> AI-based model of independent management learning - ScienceDirect
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296325006654__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WPhKwNIaSyPehSx-1rv1IXkLmAKWvfhjcSoF8ycbMGpQLKjNmUeRHbMR7LBpcGoUSKLBgkQAwLAnZMgvKms0B4w$>
>>
>> The role of information in this is obviously crucial - as is the
>> criticism of AI that it is an unreliable assistant. How might AI tell us
>> when it's not sure about things? While Shannon's H is a kind of contingency
>> signal, it is curious how with AI this aspect of mathematical information
>> theory is easily forgotten! However, there does seem to be an intersection
>> between the way information is conceived and effective social
>> decision-making where:
>>
>> a. information is framed in terms of varying degrees of contingency
>> b. good decision concerns the effective allocation of scarce human
>> expertise to maximise organisational effectiveness
>>
>> In essence, the greater the contingency in a judgement, the greater the
>> need to allocate human resource to debate choices; the less the
>> contingency, the less the need for humans in decision processes.
>>
>> The fundamental message is a management cybernetic one (i.e. Stafford
>> Beer) - it is not what the technology itself does, it is how we organise
>> ourselves with it that matters.
>>
>> The technique in the paper illustrates a way in which degrees of
>> contingency in decision-making can be identified by the technology. It is,
>> we would suggest, this signal which we need from our technology, not an
>> "answer" to questions. So the pursuit of "answer engines" (as Google and
>> others are discussing) is barking up the wrong tree.
>>
>> A deeper question is whether some kind of "contingency signal" lies at
>> the heart of biological information itself. This would have resonance with
>> deeper cybernetic ideas about contingency (Luhmann, Leydesdorff, Shannon,
>> etc) and cellular organisation (Torday and colleagues, Levin, etc) -
>> whether a biological "contingency signal" is produced in the gap between
>> the internal biological selection process of a cell (referencing its
>> evolutionary history acquired through symbiogenesis, for example) and
>> external selection pressure.
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Mark
>> --
>> Dr. Mark William Johnson
>> Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health
>> University of Manchester
>>
>> 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!U9aWJmlwVuObXJdQQxtfoGkW5IdEXYl1jPMmmLydsw6hRNyR5d25Z824xR8ljiwupUi0MoL111Tr7bowP_4$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WPhKwNIaSyPehSx-1rv1IXkLmAKWvfhjcSoF8ycbMGpQLKjNmUeRHbMR7LBpcGoUSKLBgkQAwLAnZMgv378sKxM$>
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