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

[Pedro C. Marijuán]

Dear All,

This quest, about "the roots of the roots" of art, becomes cellular, 
quite cogently. To the cell properties exposed by Bill and Francesco, I 
would add the extraordinary capability of cells & multicells to discover 
endless math patterns. We see fractals, Fibonacci sequences, spirals, 
symmetries, and all kind of math niceties.
Does it relate to the creation of beauty' -- to remind not only 
Wigner's  “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural 
Sciences” but also how mathematical beauty lies in the harmony, 
patterns, and structures of numbers, and symmetries that explain the 
universe.
Seemingly, we would close a circle, with transcendence of art & 
aesthetics linked both to the bottom and to the top of existence. Not to 
forget the fundamental role of sexual selection in the evolutionary 
quest for beauty as the best way to stay in the world.
Makes sense??

Best --Pedro

  El 03/02/2026 a las 18:27, William Miller escribió:
>
> Dear Francesco,
>
> Thank you for your eloquent response. I agree with your assessment of 
> cellular circumstances. Reductionism as a research tool is necessary, 
> but a cell can only be understood as a Kantian whole, as Stu Kauffman 
> and my colleagues and I have argued. Further, we are in complete 
> agreement that each organism is unique. I believe you have hit upon an 
> essential difference between my view and others. In my terms (and my 
> colleagues'), each cell is a unique, competent, and exclusive 
> individual entity (agent). Of course, I don't mean in the same manner 
> as with our human sensibilities, but within their scope and at their 
> scale, and importantly, in their contextual responses to stress. 
> Consequently, information sharing is the cognitive glue that enables 
> seamless multicellularity among the tens of trillions of highly 
> differentiated 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 one respect, which I have previously 
> indicated. My colleagues and I regard all cells as sense-aware 
> individual agents imbued with retrievable and deployable memory 
> systems that engage as a Kantian whole in decision-making and 
> problem-solving. Since all cells must measure their information 
> internally to assess value and valence, they have subjective 
> interiors, and the information that they self-create through that 
> process (infoautopoiesis) is used to sustain each cell in its 
> individual preferential state. Accordingly, for us, each cell is 
> conscious/cognitive/sentient.
>
> Lastly, I think biology has historically viewed complexity in a highly 
> simplistic and hubristic manner. We do have tools that have enabled us 
> to elucidate many multicellular biomolecular pathways, and we have 
> even learned to adjust some of these for our benefit as 'fine-tuning'. 
> However, the complexities of the crowded, active environment within 
> every cell are so great that we have no idea where to begin 
> understanding how they operate. We can utilize their products and are 
> beginning to learn how to steer them to our aims (e.g., Mike Levin’s 
> work). How much different would biology be if we regarded the basic 
> cell as the epitome of complexity and its information-processing 
> capabilities as primary 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__
>
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://translate.google.it/?hl=it__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!U2dn5Vzo_KZGIpzlfsRxchA5NITvfziJXilO9m0sjiRQDH8KtaAp8J4-7rk6a35kPvIuC5MjoRJRLrhTxRcMavHWH4iI$>
>
> ⌠Since 1979, I have been working on a city model based on a (not hard 
> or deterministic, but gentle and flexible) interactive 
> multi-temporal-dimensional-media-linguistic-criteria matrix. I have 
> written about this several times in this book. Naturally and 
> culturally, I have employed and calibrated the same model-algorithm 
> for the company analysis. Here – also to pay homage to Pedro C. 
> Marijuán, an exquisite and sensitive person (not only in a human 
> sense) whom I met at an international conference of physicists, 
> biologists, chemists, etc., which took place in Acireale from 17 to 22 
> September on the topic of Energy and information transfer in 
> biological systems, so dear to me as if I had chosen it (too) – I 
> would like to launch the hypothesis that it could also be useful to 
> better understand and “measure” (in the sense of evaluating) the 
> functional-structural nature-culture or de-cipher-ationof a cell, 
> indeed of every cell that in a given spatio-temporal situation 
> resembles and/or dissimilars (differs from) all the others.
>
> Every cell is a uni-duality or a uni-multiplicity, an I-in-oi or an 
> I-in-I, that is, from a functional-structural perspective, a cell in 
> itself and an element in the whole of O that is a tissue, an organ, a 
> living being, just as a man is at the same time a man in itself and an 
> element in the sense of the unitary-unicative comm(-n-io)ne or in the 
> anagrammatic communitarian-communicative I. Everything that is, in 
> some way, unrepeatable, unique, and absolutely individual and 
> "individualizing" is ap-perceived through unique and unrepeatable 
> moments or living beings. Individuality, apparently hidden and veiled 
> by the fundamental elements of atoms and cells, “emerges” as the 
> universe and its actors (men and women, animals and plants) evolve, 
> strengthening and improving their capacity for trans-inform-ation or 
> ad-aptation and ex-aptation.
>
> The uniqueness or unrepeatability of individuals and their 
> personalities (of humans, animals, and plants) permeates and is 
> permeated by that complex, intertwined, convulsive, and chaotic set of 
> similar and dissimilar phenomena, of similar and different things, 
> that are natural and social systems. Every being is unique, specific, 
> and atypical, regardless of whether they are humans, animals, or 
> plants. Besides having in common the fact that they are made up of the 
> same-different cells and equal-unequal atoms, and being different 
> because humans have consciousness and other living beings do not (?), 
> they all have their own unique, mysterious, phylo-onto-genetic history⌡.
>
>
> Dear William,
>
> in /Etica dei valori economici o economia dei valori etici/ 
> (FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2004) ho scritto in 115-122 pagine alcune cose 
> che potrebbero interessarti, ne stralcio una piccola seguente parte:
>
> **
>
> ⌠Dal 1979 lavoro ad un modello di città basato su una (non dura o 
> deterministica, ma dolce e flessibile) matrice inter-attiva 
> multi-temporale-dimensionale-mediale-linguistica-criteriale. Di questo 
> ho scritto più volte nel presente libro. Naturalmente e culturalmente 
> lo stesso modello-algoritmo ho impiegato e tarato per l’analisi 
> dell’azienda. Qui – anche per fare un omaggio a Pedro C. Marijuán, 
> persona squisita e sensibile (non solo in 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 sul 
> tema Energy and information transfer in biological systems, a me tanto 
> caro come se l’avessi scelto (anch’) io – desidero lanciare l’ipotesi 
> che esso possa essere utile anche a comprendere e “misurare”(nel senso 
> di valutare) meglio la natura-cultura funzional-strutturale o 
> de-cifr-azione di una cellula, anzi di ogni cellula che in una data 
> situazione spazio-temporale somiglia e/o dissomiglia (differisce d)a 
> tutte le altre.
>
> Ogni cellula è un’uni-dualità o un’uni-molteplicità, un io-n-oi o un 
> io-n-io, cioè è in una prospettiva funzional-strutturale una cellula a 
> sé e un elemento nell’insieme di o che è un tessuto, un organo, un 
> essere vivente, come un uomo è allo stesso tempo un uomo a sé e un 
> elemento nel senso del(la) comu(-n-io)ne unitario(a)-unicativo(a) o 
> nell’anagrammatico io comunitario-comunicativo. Tutto ciò che è, in un 
> certo qual modo, ir-ripetibile, unico e assolutamente individuale e 
> “individualizzante” si fa ap-percepire attraverso momenti o viventi 
> unici e ir-ripetibili. L’individualità, apparentemente nascosta e 
> velata 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) si evolvono, rafforzando e migliorando la loro 
> capacità di tras-inform-azione o ad-attamento e ex-attamento.
>
> L’unicità o ir-ripetibilità individual-personale (di uomini, animali, 
> piante) attraversa ed è attraversata da quell’insieme, complesso, 
> intrecciato, convulso e caotico di fenomeni simili e dissimili e di 
> cose somiglianti e differenti che sono i sistemi naturali e sociali. 
> Ogni essere è una o ha la sua univoca, specifica e atipica impronta 
> ecologica a prescindere che si tratti di uomini, animali o piante, che 
> oltre ad avere in comune il fatto che sono costituiti dalle 
> stesse-differenti cellule e dagli uguali-disuguali atomi e ad essere 
> differenti perché gli uomini hanno la coscienza e gli altri esseri 
> viventi no (?), hanno tutti 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 this fascinating thread with great interest.
>     Pedro's comment on getting to the 'root' of the reason for art and
>     the appreciation of beauty has motivated me to comment now, rather
>     than previously, since the prior thrust of the discussion has
>     focused on our human sensibilities, and my work is about cells.
>     However, any discernment of a 'root' of an aesthetic impulse must
>     eventually include consideration of how cells operate, since we
>     are all cellular constructs. I hope you will find this alternative
>     take on the matter interesting and not off-topic.
>
>     I have published about the empirically verified behaviors of all
>     cells. Those observations and experiments confirm that cells
>     operate within a compact narrative of consistent behaviors since
>     their origin as their means of dealing with their obligatory
>     context of the ambiguity of biological information (previously
>     presented with Mike Levin).
>
>     All cells are intelligent and engaged in measuring ambiguous
>     environmental cues as infocomputation for (value) and valence
>     (subjective experiences at scale ). I defend that cells have
>     experiences at scale because all cells have defined homeorhetic
>     preferences that they maintain but also adjust in context as
>     differential rates of dynamic flux. Kant had intuited that all
>     learning derives from experiences and cells are certainly learning
>     systems.
>
>     Cells consistently display six behavioral attributes:
>     collaboration, cooperation, co-dependence, generally mutualizing
>     competition, respect for the self-integrity of other cells, and
>     they consistently abide by the principle that each is served best
>     by serving others. The proof is seamless multicellularity,
>     enabling you to read this now. None of this is conjectural and is
>     easily observable. Indeed, cancer is destructive since it does not
>     follow those rules with normative cells, only with like-kind
>     cancer cells (as a different form of selfhood).
>
>     Notably, cells act in these patterns because this is how they form
>     their sense of the world, i.e., glean at their scale some
>     understanding of the status of their interior versus the external
>     environment, essential to maintaining their preferential states
>     and naturally implicit to their survival. This is how they form
>     their grasp of reality, from which all problem-solving must issue.
>     After all, cells are not programmed robots: they are
>     decision-making and problem-solving agents.
>
>     I would offer that the deepest root of art is an expression of our
>     cellular selves as a search to find answers to our yearning
>     questions and doubts about reality, on the one hand, and as an
>     explicit expression of a state of preference in context on the
>     other. These two cellular imperatives merge as our expression of
>     art and govern our need to create it. This also explains why some
>     art is beautiful to some and execrable to others, and some art is
>     seen as illuminating to one individual and ridiculous to another.
>     It is always an individual, subjective assessment that reflects an
>     exclusive interior state.
>
>     Our consciousness consists of doubts and preferences. As I often
>     say, 'being is doubt', and I now offer that 'life is preferences'.
>     Art is each individual's idiosyncratic attempt to resolve personal
>     doubts, expressively illustrate its effect on the artist, and
>     satisfy a preferential state. Furthermore, since art is shared
>     with others almost without exception, it is a communal activity,
>     conforming with the innate cellular root behavior of 'you serve
>     yourself best by serving others'.
>
>     We are cellular beings, and all of evolution is a narrative of the
>     continuous exaptation of unicellular traits channeled and
>     repurposed at successive scales . In each instance, it serves to
>     enhance the deployment of information to problem-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 through alternative paths.
>     Art is one means by which this deeply rooted impulse, so essential
>     to life, is satisfied.
>
>     After all, isn't this exactly what we are currently engaged in
>     within this forum and is it not its own form of Art?
>
>     Best,
>
>     Bill
>
>
>
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