[Fis] The genesis of art, love and wellbeing--three roots

Tue Feb 3 18:27:14 CET 2026

Dear Francesco, 

Thank you for your eloquentresponse. I agree with your assessment of cellular circumstances.Reductionism as a research tool is necessary, but a cell can only beunderstood as a Kantian whole, as Stu Kauffman and my colleagues andI have argued. Further, we are in complete agreement that eachorganism is unique. I believe you have hit upon an essentialdifference between my view and others. In my terms (and mycolleagues'), each cell is a unique, competent, and exclusiveindividual entity (agent). Of course, I don't mean in the same manneras with our human sensibilities, but within their scope and at theirscale, and importantly, in their contextual responses to stress.Consequently, information sharing is the cognitive glue that enablesseamless multicellularity among the tens of trillions of highlydifferentiated cells and microbial partners that sustain our lives.And further, as you note, they have unique phylogenetic histories,both collectively and individually.

I do differ with you in onerespect, which I have previously indicated. My colleagues and Iregard all cells as sense-aware individual agents imbued withretrievable and deployable memory systems that engage as a Kantianwhole in decision-making and problem-solving. Since all cells mustmeasure their information internally to assess value and valence,they have subjective interiors, and the information that theyself-create through that process (infoautopoiesis) is used to sustaineach cell in its individual preferential state. Accordingly, for us,each cell is conscious/cognitive/sentient.

Lastly, I think biology hashistorically viewed complexity in a highly simplistic and hubristicmanner. We do have tools that have enabled us to elucidate manymulticellular biomolecular pathways, and we have even learned toadjust some of these for our benefit as 'fine-tuning'. However, thecomplexities of the crowded, active environment within every cell areso great that we have no idea where to begin understanding how theyoperate. We can utilize their products and are beginning to learn howto steer them to our aims (e.g., Mike Levin’s work). How muchdifferent would biology be if we regarded the basic cell as theepitome of complexity and its information-processing capabilities asprimary and the rest of multicellular life as its elaboration?

Warm regards, 

Bill 

    On Tuesday, February 3, 2026 at 12:31:56 AM MST, Francesco Rizzo <13francesco.rizzo at gmail.com> wrote:  

Dear William,
in Ethics of Economic Values or Economics of Ethical Values (FrancoAngeli, Milan, 2004) I wrote in 115-122 pages some things that might interest you, I will excerpt a small part of it below

⌠Since 1979, I have been working on a city model basedon a (not hard or deterministic, but gentle and flexible) interactive multi-temporal-dimensional-media-linguistic-criteriamatrix. I have written about this several times in this book. Naturally andculturally, I have employed and calibrated the same model-algorithm for thecompany analysis. Here – also to pay homage to Pedro C. Marijuán, an exquisiteand sensitive person (not only in a human sense) whom I met at an internationalconference of physicists, biologists, chemists, etc., which took place inAcireale from 17 to 22 September on the topic of Energy and information transferin biological systems, so dear to me as if I had chosen it (too) – I would liketo launch the hypothesis that it could also be useful to better understand and“measure” (in the sense of evaluating) the functional-structural nature-cultureor de-cipher-ation of a cell, indeed of every cell that in a givenspatio-temporal situation resembles and/or dissimilars (differs from) all theothers.

Every cell is a uni-duality or a uni-multiplicity, anI-in-oi or an I-in-I, that is, from a functional-structural perspective, a cellin itself and an element in the whole of O that is a tissue, an organ, a livingbeing, just as a man is at the same time a man in itself and an element in thesense of the unitary-unicative comm(-n-io)ne or in the anagrammaticcommunitarian-communicative I. Everything that is, in some way, unrepeatable,unique, and absolutely individual and "individualizing" isap-perceived through unique and unrepeatable moments or living beings.Individuality, apparently hidden and veiled by the fundamental elements ofatoms and cells, “emerges” as the universe and its actors (men and women,animals and plants) evolve, strengthening and improving their capacity fortrans-inform-ation or ad-aptation and ex-aptation.

The uniqueness or unrepeatability of individuals andtheir personalities (of humans, animals, and plants) permeates and is permeatedby that complex, intertwined, convulsive, and chaotic set of similar anddissimilar phenomena, of similar and different things, that are natural andsocial systems. Every being is unique, specific, and atypical, regardless ofwhether they are humans, animals, or plants. Besides having in common the factthat they are made up of the same-different cells and equal-unequal atoms, andbeing different because humans have consciousness and other living beings donot (?), they all have their own unique, mysterious, phylo-onto-genetic history⌡.

Dear William,

in Etica dei valori economici o economia dei valorietici (FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2004) ho scritto in 115-122 pagine alcune coseche potrebbero interessarti, ne stralcio una piccola seguente parte:

⌠Dal1979 lavoro ad un modello di città basato su una (non dura o deterministica, madolce e flessibile) matrice inter-attivamulti-temporale-dimensionale-mediale-linguistica-criteriale. Di questo hoscritto più volte nel presente libro. Naturalmente e culturalmente lo stessomodello-algoritmo ho impiegato e tarato per l’analisi dell’azienda. Qui – ancheper fare un omaggio a Pedro C. Marijuán, persona squisita e sensibile (non soloin senso umano) che ho conosciuto in un convegno internazionale di fisici,biologici, chimici, etc., che s’è svolto ad Acireale dal 17 al 22 settembre sultema Energy and information transfer in biological systems, a me tanto carocome se l’avessi scelto (anch’) io – desidero lanciare l’ipotesi che esso possaessere utile anche a comprendere e “misurare”(nel senso di valutare) meglio lanatura-cultura funzional-strutturale o de-cifr-azione di una cellula, anzi diogni cellula che in una data situazione spazio-temporale somiglia e/odissomiglia (differisce d)a tutte le altre. 

Ognicellula è un’uni-dualità o un’uni-molteplicità, un io-n-oi o un io-n-io, cioè èin una prospettiva funzional-strutturale una cellula a sé e un elementonell’insieme di o che è un tessuto, un organo, un essere vivente, come un uomoè allo stesso tempo un uomo a sé e un elemento nel senso del(la) comu(-n-io)neunitario(a)-unicativo(a) o nell’anagrammatico io comunitario-comunicativo.Tutto ciò che è, in un certo qual modo, ir-ripetibile, unico e assolutamenteindividuale e “individualizzante” si fa ap-percepire attraverso momenti oviventi unici e ir-ripetibili. L’individualità, apparentemente nascosta evelata dagli elementi fondamentali degli atomi e delle cellule, va “emergendo”man mano che l’universo ed i suoi attori (uomini e donne, animali e piante) sievolvono, rafforzando e migliorando la loro capacità di tras-inform-azione oad-attamento e ex-attamento. 

L’unicitào ir-ripetibilità individual-personale (di uomini, animali, piante) attraversaed è attraversata da quell’insieme, complesso, intrecciato, convulso e caoticodi fenomeni simili e dissimili e di cose somiglianti e differenti che sono isistemi naturali e sociali. Ogni essere è una o ha la sua univoca, specifica eatipica impronta ecologica a prescindere che si tratti di uomini, animali opiante, che oltre ad avere in comune il fatto che sono costituiti dallestesse-differenti cellule e dagli uguali-disuguali atomi e ad essere differentiperché gli uomini hanno la coscienza e gli altri esseri viventi no (?), hannotutti una loro e unica, misteriosa, storia filo-onto-genetica⌡.

Francesco

Il giorno lun 2 feb 2026 alle ore 17:21 William Miller <wbmiller1 at cox.net> ha scritto:

Dear All, 

I have followed thisfascinating thread with great interest. Pedro's comment on getting tothe 'root' of the reason for art and the appreciation of beauty hasmotivated me to comment now, rather than previously, since the priorthrust of the discussion has focused on our human sensibilities, andmy work is about cells. However, any discernment of a 'root' of anaesthetic impulse must eventually include consideration of how cellsoperate, since we are all cellular constructs. I hope you will findthis alternative take on the matter interesting and not off-topic.

I have published about theempirically verified behaviors of all cells. Those observations andexperiments confirm that cells operate within a compact narrative ofconsistent behaviors since their origin as their means of dealingwith their obligatory context of the ambiguity of biologicalinformation (previously presented with Mike Levin).

All cells are intelligentand engaged in measuring ambiguous environmental cues asinfocomputation for (value) and valence (subjective experiences atscale ). I defend that cells have experiences at scale because allcells have defined homeorhetic preferences that they maintain butalso adjust in context as differential rates of dynamic flux. Kanthad intuited that all learning derives from experiences and cells arecertainly learning systems.

Cells consistently displaysix behavioral attributes: collaboration, cooperation, co-dependence, generally mutualizing competition, respect for the self-integrity ofother cells, and they consistently abide by the principle that eachis served best by serving others. The proof is seamlessmulticellularity, enabling you to read this now. None of this isconjectural and is easily observable. Indeed, cancer is destructivesince it does not follow those rules with normative cells, only withlike-kind cancer cells (as a different form of selfhood).

Notably, cells act in thesepatterns because this is how they form their sense of the world,i.e., glean at their scale some understanding of the status of theirinterior versus the external environment, essential to maintainingtheir preferential states and naturally implicit to their survival.This is how they form their grasp of reality, from which allproblem-solving must issue. After all, cells are not programmedrobots: they are decision-making and problem-solving agents.

I would offer that thedeepest root of art is an expression of our cellular selves as asearch to find answers to our yearning questions and doubts aboutreality, on the one hand, and as an explicit expression of a state ofpreference in context on the other. These two cellular imperativesmerge as our expression of art and govern our need to create it. Thisalso explains why some art is beautiful to some and execrable toothers, and some art is seen as illuminating to one individual andridiculous to another. It is always an individual, subjectiveassessment that reflects an exclusive interior state.

Our consciousness consistsof doubts and preferences. As I often say, 'being is doubt', and Inow offer that 'life is preferences'. Art is each individual'sidiosyncratic attempt to resolve personal doubts, expressivelyillustrate its effect on the artist, and satisfy a preferentialstate. Furthermore, since art is shared with others almost withoutexception, it is a communal activity, conforming with the innatecellular root behavior of 'you serve yourself best by servingothers'.

We are cellular beings, andall of evolution is a narrative of the continuous exaptation ofunicellular traits channeled and repurposed at successive scales . Ineach instance, it serves to enhance the deployment of information toproblem-solve in our unending struggle to grasp external reality.These exaptations are tools of continuous cellular natural learning,which requires an unending exploration the environment throughalternative paths. Art is one means by which this deeply rootedimpulse, so essential to life, is satisfied.

After all, isn't thisexactly what we are currently engaged in within this forum and is itnot its own form of Art?

Best, 

Bill 

    On Friday, January 30, 2026 at 01:18:08 PM MST, Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> wrote:  

  Dear Laszlo, Paul, Francesco... --and FIS Colleagues, 
  For the sake of bringing some coherence to the 'underground' ideas on art that have been produced lately, let me try sort of a scheme that may parallel what Laszlo has presented on the "externalized" art. He has brought order and clarity on a phenomenon full of complexities and pseudo-complications. The fact that Krassimir has successfully connected it with his own approach to Info Theory is revealing. Could we now draft an accompanying something on the interiors? If we follow the metaphor of a tree, the three proposed vectors of creativity (originality), communication, and experience seem to capture the main 'branches' of the observable art experience, of the art phenomenon. What about the 'roots'? Some of us have argued on the biological factors,  three of them could be: 
  --Sense of play. Plenty of behavioral/evolutionary studies... "Animal play remains a complex and variable behavioral phenomenon across a wide range of mammals, and their mechanisms and functions are not yet ... an enigmatic phenomena" It extends to multiple species of birds, reptiles, etc. Human neoteny has potentiated and enlarged this sense in adults and at the whole social level. The artist plays, listen to Picasso, or to any modest practitioner. 
  --Emotional engagement. As discussed, my take is that the intense emotions related to human pair bonding, essentially love, are conflated with the above playing with forms, sounds, words, narratives, etc. Let us remember Clynes' sentics (thanks, Jerry). It is a gradation, from the superficial to the extreme.  
  -- Aesthetic impulse. I completely agree that Nature is full of Beauty, that in plenty of species we can appreciate elegance, majesty, gracefulness... Why so much beauty in nature?? No response. In science we have to look for plausible explanations, or accepting we don't have them, and not parroting the selectionist dogma. Well, the aesthetic impulse, in our species, looks again conflated with the pair bonding complex. In our societies, beauty and elegance --or their surrogates-- are looked for, and played with, so intensely in all the relational world...   
  Far more should be worked out, but these three initial pills at the 'root' may help a little to cohere with the 'branches'. 
  Best --Pedro 
  ---Helas! Laszlo and colleagues, one of the conditions of the New Year Lecture is the January term... Better if concluding comments appear during next days.   

  Antonyms of ELEGANCE: flamboyance, El 29/01/2026 a las 18:00, Paul Suni escribió:

Dear Pedro, 
  You opened a wonderfully complex topic connecting art, love and wellbeing and challenged us to think about it in the context of biological capabilities. Whereas László's mathematical approach to art no doubt has value, the messy good stuff of interiors including love and individual wellbeing, also remains under-explored, in courageous ways.  
  The Satin Bower Bird is an amazing artist, whose creations of bowers exceeds the aesthetic creative capacities of most individual humans, in my personal opinion. Science says that the Bower Bird creates its elaborate and aesthetically complex formations because of evolutionary sexual selection, but I strongly disagree with Science.  
  I assert that the male Bower Bird engages in its sustained and extremely focused artistic activity, because it provides a rich and fulfilling interior experience for the individual bird, which could be partly substantiated through chemical analyses of its neurotransmitter metabolism. It  is a meticulous labor of love that has absolutely nothing to do with reproduction.  
  After all, the birds do not participate in scientific discourse concerning reproduction or evolutionary theory, at all.  Furthermore, I hypothesize that the bird enjoys the specific degree of difficulty of his creation, which is a biochemically testable hypothesis, I claim. This raises the question of the bird's " human potential." The bird spends 9 months of the year toiling with its creation, and it sticks to his aesthetic project for as long as 30 years, like a true artist - a veritable Leonardo. There are easier ways to get laid, but toiling away is far more deeply meaningful for the bird. 
  The artistic activity of the Bower Bird nourishes its little bird soul with expansive, love-like feelings ostensibly not entirely unlike Zohran Mamdani experiences when he engages with his idea of the " warmth of collectivism." In its creative love state, the bird is surely as oblivious to the genetic implications of its artistic activity as Mamdani is to the demonstrably potential genocidal implications of his love for collectivism. This state of ignorance is extremely relevant to our discourse on art. I do not mean to offer the analogy as a joke. 
  Young male Bower Birds have the biopsychological capacity to develop their personal aesthetic sensibilities through sustained independent study of the works of senior Bower Birds. This can be seen from the countless sketchy assemblages that must be produced during their artistic development, before the first satisfactory bower is produced, and female birds care to take a discerning  look, which requires an aesthetic sensitivity, no doubt! 
  That brings me to the delight that the male Satin Bower Birds bring to the female Satin Bower Birds, who spend considerable time enjoying and carefully assessing the aesthetic merits of beautiful bowers as well as admiring the cognitive and practical prowess of their sensitive male suitors. I emphasize to scientists that most of what I say could be scientifically substantiated, if science adopted a mature attitude towards sentience, and regarded the rich and fulfilling experiences of Bower Birds as important. 
  Thank you Pedro and FIS colleagues for tolerating some of my surely annoying repetitions. I have received encouragement for them in private communications, and hope that the academic trance in which we are supposed to be held may begin to lift slightly, in my lifetime. Unfortunately, it is the way of academia to protect its psychopathic hold on its intellectual hegemony by shifting content in and out of the same old frames only to change the race, gender, politics and sex organs of its victims, while disseminating its toxicities into society at large. 
  Cheers, Paul 

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